"That was the impression I got from the others I spoke with."

"Yes. Anyone has guessed we might ever build things like that - but we don't know how soon it would be."

"I don't personally understand all of how it works, it requires very precise manufacturing capabilities though."

"It's the same basic principle as the electric lights you already use just with a lot more precision and different materials. An electric current is sent through a material that converts some of the electric energy into light of a particular wavelength."

"Surely there must have been advances in data storage, too - but I digress."

"I was just referring to the screen. Data storage and processing are both based on the same basic manufacturing methodology though."

"This is a bit off topic."

She smiles. "Unfortunately so. Perhaps they'll let me be in the room during the scientific conferences, though."

"Perhaps, ideally they'll be broadcast and recorded so that everyone can see them."

"We should be able to set that up even on our end, yes, though the technology isn't quite as good as we'd like - still, for this, I suspect they'll be releasing transcripts of the important parts onto the teletype networks."

"In the short term, do you have a sense of how we should proceed? Depending on how long negotiations are going to take we'll either need to coordinate teleporting to and from one of our worlds or setting up our tents."

"I expect this will be momentous enough the national government will want to start from an international standpoint - we're at peace, right now, and we'd like to avoid appearing to compete with each other too much. Calling such an international meeting would take time - even just picking a venue might take an entire day - and the various nations would want their own verification of what you say."

"Of course, these things are practically guaranteed to take time. If transportation is an issue we can bring in aircraft."

"Oh, we have aircraft, and communications that're fast enough for our tastes. The main delay would be just the compromise parts, I think, unless they decide on day one to co-opt one of the existing international committees."

"That makes sense. Is there anything else you need from my team before you talk to others in your government?"

She pauses to consider this. "I don't think so, not at the moment."

"Alright, we'll wait while you do that. Do you need to consult with them about whether we should setup camp or commute?"

"If camping's more convenient for you, I can find a place for you to stay on city land while everything else is resolved."

"That would be appreciated."

She nods. "I should have that arranged within the hour."

"Thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

Sapphire turns her attention back to her team. "How are we doing on digitization?"

"I think we have the important books from what's available here. Our translation matrix is reasonably complete and we're working on reviewing for cultural context. They seems a lot less inclined towards violence and war than humans. Either that or their history is heavily sanitized in the books we were able to read."

"There's some weak evidence for the former, none of the people we've spoken to move like they have combat training and the representative came without guards."