"That's a strange question. I can draw a diagram of the planet and the sun and the moon?"

Cornelia looks at Griffie, a bit perplexed, then says "All right."

Griffie draws an orbital diagram. The planet in it has visible continents drawn, is labeled "Planet named Suaal" and has no orbit drawn. One sphere, smaller than the planet, has an elliptical orbit around the planet, and is labeled "Moon". A larger sphere, much further away from the planet, has a circular orbit, and is labeled "Sun". Lines with arrows on both ends go between the point where the moon's orbit is closer to the planet, the point where the moon's orbit is furthest from the planet, and from the planet to the sun. The lines are labeled with lengths. The planet, moon, and sun also have notes about their diameters. (The diagram is not to scale.)

Cornelia asks Griffie to say how long a sample object is, how long a sample duration is, and how much a sample object weighs so they can translate units. The dictionary they scanned was able to tell them how to convert between different units, but they still need a starting point.

Griffie gives estimates of these, stating margin of error.

"And you were taught that… everything goes around your planet?"

Art looks tense, and is looking between Cornelia and Griffie.

Boyd is looking warningly at Arithnu.

"Yes? A few of the distant stars don't, but even some of the distant stars curve enough to make very big and very slow orbits? Uh, is there a problem?"

"And you were taught that earth, air, fire, and water are… primitive things that make up matter?"

"I wasn't just taught this, I study it! I work with the four elements! How do you think I built this bubble around me? Are you saying there's a secret fifth one and you think everyone I know who knows is hiding it?"

Arithnu stands up, looking enraged and turns on the other members on the bridge "The suggestion that this is mere mistake is absurd, and I will no longer keep this quiet from this creature who has shown such concern and kindness! The creature was quite clear that they have developed the capacity for space travel, that someone has embedded some advanced technology in them that lets them do amazing things, these could not happen without the actual inventors understanding what–"

Boyd moves towards Arithnu, and the screen goes dark.

In engineering, Pheodair, watching this, turns the screen back on. This is contrary to the controls the captain is using, but those are a mere interface for sending instructions. The machines themselves, under her control, need not listen.

The screen shows Arithnu with blade drawn and pointed at Boyd.

Boyd is holding a strange object in his hand which Arithnu just dodged the projectile of.

"Stop fighting! Even if someone is lying to me, and you don't agree about whether you should explain the truth yet or not, you don't need to fight about it! I am not in a big hurry and I don't want people to get hurt!"

"I thought—Fee! Art, the creature itself said not to fight, and are you trying to make it so the creature will be killed if it goes home?"

"If its home is controlled by people so corrupt, let them try it! We can bring a fleet, free the planet from–"

"Art! Sword down. Now. Boyd… everyone calm down and listen to the creature!"

"I want you to take no drastic actions at least until I stop talking."

Arithnu, carefully watching Boyd, sits back down.

Boyd, carefully watching Arithnu, steps back to his typical position.

"So, uh, there are definitely deities at home who would kill me because I had very interesting information. Deities are strange people who live on different planes and are more powerful than rulers-of-rulers. There are also deities who would try very hard to protect me and use the interesting information to help people."

"A while ago, the deities who want to help people and the deities who want to hurt people and the deities who wanted other things had a big war. A lot of things broke. Now almost all the deities, and all of the strongest ones, including the ones who want to help people, are trying very hard to make sure disputes get resolved through means that do not break quite so many things."

"I do not want to go home without talking to you a lot more, because the information that you exist is interesting. If you don't know what spells are, or what deities are, even if you are very very strong in some ways and can build many ships that can travel between stars, you might not be able to defend yourselves from the deities who want to hurt people."

"If you want to use your strength to help my people, that's great! They definitely need help! But we need to be very very careful to make contact with the deities who want to help people, and not let the deities who want to hurt people notice quickly. And we should understand each other and our capabilities a lot better and do a lot of work on planning."

Griffie stops talking, waiting for the humans and other-humanoids to respond.

"…Cornelia, if we are going to consider that the creature's claims are accurate, I want you to show me just what this creature's 'water' looks like on a lightning dot microscope."