The shiny black beetle waves his antennae in a manner that maybe seems friendly if you're a beetle-person.

(oops)

The shiny black beetle stops waving his antennae and keeps them folded down behind him.

The birds keep a watchful perimeter and look over the room.

Foomp Whump Woomf Three of them vanish.

(Reviewing the footage frame by frame will show that they implode into balls of black feathers in a fraction of a second, with the pressure change you'd expect.)

The black-and-white person glances around, especially at the humanoid with feathered wings, and steps forward. "Hello. We are very happy to talk to you, Exodus - naivihs. We are people on this planet. Welcome to this planet.

We learned English from one human. He is safe. He is in safe place.

We have many things to trade. We say, human think very funny, but we say we have magic. We want to trade magic for many things.

I speak English. Not well. He" Siamek "doesn't speak English but he hear and write English. They" he points at both tengu bodies "doesn't speak English but can say words slowly to human in far away safe place."

The room is metal. The walls are some sort of weird plaster, and also metal. The floor is metal. The ceiling is metal. There's a stack of crates in the back, as if they were setting this up quickly and didn't get them all. There's a big plastic-and-metal table, and a dozen aluminum folding chairs, and warm air coming in from vents along the floor, and a large screen at the head of the table that's currently showing an abstract flowy-color screensaver. There's a wifi access point, a small box on the ceiling that's poet-ing away.

(And cameras. Yep. Some of those.)

At the table are - most of the upper officers, Lucy, Shen, Mary, and Dr. Montero, and an aide each. Eight humans, to all appearance, three women and five men.

Lucy nods slowly. "I am Lucy Carver, Navigator. Person who finds where to go. I am the most senior officer of Exodus who did not die, so the rules of Exodus say I am in charge for now. We call this place Nivis now, not Exodus. First, you talked to a human from Exodus? Shen, pull up the casualty list. I'm very glad to hear that, even if it is just one. What is their name?"

"Mm."

Tap tap tap. Shen's PDA poets to the roof-poet, and receives some information back. 

"I have it."

This is so cool!

"Pleased-to-meet-you, Lucy Carver."

Saying the name might cause drama, but he doesn't have a choice.

"Their name is Miguel Hernandez." Do any of them look suddenly afraid?

Nope. No major reaction at all from any of them.

"Miguel Hernandez, Hydroponics. Noted as missing, presumed dead. I'm sure people will be relieved to know he's alright. Thank you."

She relaxes a tiny bit. 1106/1500 --> 1107/1500.

"Thank you for rescuing him. I'll make sure to announce it. You must have been flying for hours in that thing. Do you need to rest? Do you need to eat? Magic... I saw the - bird - are the birds one person? It is hard to say 'I don't believe it' to something you see clearly."

He didn't quite catch all of that... "Eat, thank you!" They have food, but it's important to start building an interdependent relationship. "We are six people. One, twoowoo, three, four, five, six.

Miguel say that one person here hurt him. Reason Miguel was far away from Exodus and walk on ice for a long time. He doesn't say name, say he want to talk to you and say name, but I say this now because I think to know this is important to you." And so, now that Nivis is warned, the perpetrator is less able to sabotage the talks to keep the secret.

"I think we might be talking too fast, Lucy. I am Mary Hersch, I am in charge of Security. That means it is my job to make people safe. I'm very interested in investigating this. I'd like to keep this a secret until we can do that. That means not telling anyone else." And locking the audio recording. "Are you talking to Miguel with magic?"

"Can everyone here eat all food that humans can eat?"

"Yes, we eat human food. I think so. We have many species, all eat same food safe for a short time. If hurt we have magic." Although it would be unfortunate if they all got poisoned and the expedition had to build a whole new turbowing to rescue them or send a liefling. And, long-term, they would have dietary needs: Siamek needs specific raw vegetables, vampires need occasional bugs, and catfolk need a little meat even with the best bloodsquash and catbeans.

"Miguel, we talk to Exodus!"

"It is very surprising that people on a different planet look the same and eat the same things. Maybe we both came from the same place. It is almost as surprising as 'magic'. I am a doctor, a person who looks at people who feel bad or hurt or sick and tries to make them okay."

They prepared for this. Sort of. He can just pull six trays of whatever-was-on-in-the-cafeteria from the foil warmer bag, utensils included.

"This is what everyone here is eating today. We have already eaten." He'll pass the trays out. 

He drops his current conversation like a hot rock with a quick apologetic look.

"-Oh! You found them! Is everyone alright? What's going on there?"

The food is rice, beans with cloves and cinnamon, vegetables sauteed in garlic, and fried strips of oddly-uniform meat.

"Maybe we and you are from same place, yes!"

He speaks with the tengu in a foreign language... "Yes, we talk to Miguel now."

"Auh ya fauhnged them! Is every'un alright? What's guhing on there?"

She gets it first. Living radio. "Miguel, I'm Mary Hersch, head of Security. Please tell me everything you can, in as much detail as you can. Your pod number was number twenty one, correct?"

      Miguel recognizes Mary's name, and tells the story, growing rather angry and upset now that he's thinking about it again. Ahmat Singh, the motive of - some kind of jealousy or protectiveness over Marisa Singh, his sister. He admits he can't remember the words or much detail, the whole situation was very stressful, but he thinks his PDA and the suit computers were sabotaged by Ahmat. He reads out the error messages, it sounds like some kind of diagnostic mode.

"Please be assured we're going to do our best to get you justice, Miguel. I'm going to have people inspect the pod to verify your story, and we'll hold and question Ahmat. We'll get to the bottom of this. It's a bit difficult to talk like this so we can talk more later, but if you want to return to Exodus- Now named Nivis- With the help of our new neighbors, we'll be very glad to have you back. We might be able to send a vehicle for you too, we'll figure it out. And thank you for letting us speak to each other." A polite nod.

Lucy has been watching everyone's expressions, trying to get a read on how they're taking the things being said, their surroundings, the food... She feels lost and confused, but only almost lost, which is an uncomfortable experience. Like she should be doing better.

...That was an ersatz radio, powered by magic. Could magic intercept their communications? Spy on them? Maybe it's advanced technology, 'magic' in only name... She refreshes a page on her PDA and watches to see if there's any reaction.

He's... He's too emotional to keep doing English lessons right now. He needs a break. Hopefully everyone will understand. He'll go walk on the roof garden.

Siamek has already figured out that PDAs are a kind of poet - Miguel's PDA just wasn't doing it for some reason - but this tells him something new: the name of Lucy Carver's PDA.

(He doesn't react much, and not legibly to humans, but his mandibles open slightly.)

Now if only he could get a look at what it's displaying. Later. He'll be sneaky about it!

For now he just focuses his attention on it in particular.