AAH this feels like being strapped to a rocket going straight down this is quite a new and scary an unwanted feeling and... she's landed and is looking around. The edible things look tempting... and things look very wild still?

They do! There are a number of birds that startle out of the nearby plantlife at her arrival. They are mostly small and nondescript.

Hmm. That plant there - it has the remains of a wooden cane that it's twined around, that looks deliberately placed to support its early growth. So not totally wild, then.

Birds look cool and tasty! Do they look like they can fly and look pretty?

The little brown birds are mostly nondescript, although some have a few colourful and iridescent patches. They are also very fast.

There is a distinct rustling in the bushes, as of a larger creature approaching, somewhat clumsily.

Cynthia tries to find somewhere to hide. A fast-moving creature is running to her or from something else, and being seen could be dangerous.

The bushes are a little scratchy when pressed into, but a dense bush is probably the best available hiding place. The leaves are soft and there are no thorns, but the branches are sturdy and the bark rough.

Or there's a hazel tree which looks like it could bear weight, but the foliage isn't as dense as the bushes, if whatever it is decides to look up.

It'll be easier to climb up after than to stealthily go down from the trees to hiding near the ground. Bushes it is!

"I swear it was over here!" yells a spectacularly odd creature, crashing through the undergrowth. "The birds all went up, all of a sudden!"

It looks a bit like a bird, and a bit like a lizard, and has a light but strongly woven fabric harness with various fabric pouches and a plastic-ish drinking flask attached. It is also holding a small wood and metal garden hand trowel in its wing-claws.

The voice sounds oddly like bird-song, but resolves into comprehensible words.

It speaks! It's probably not evil! She thinks to herself how she'd want to announce her presence, waiting and observing in the bushes for a while more.

As the first bird creature flails around in circles, a more colourful second one joins them, moving more carefully.

It has a long gardening fork attached shoulder and belt to itself, which it is trying to get in 'hand' but isn't quite dextrous enough to do this and make progress at the same time. 

"Fuck's sake, Talaskai, don't run off! Could be a boar, will eat you, if you corner it!"

This bird creature's voice is harsher and seems to be coming in bursts - maybe it's out of breath?

"I'm not a boar!" Cynthia says, staying hidden. The language is weird and she feel like she probably isn't actually saying things right.

"See! There must be, like, a lost chick in the bush! Don't worry, we're here now!"

"Don't stumble over there, you'll frighten kem off," insists the second. There's something funky about the pronoun - it seems like this language has a person / nonperson distinction rather than a gender one?

The more colourful bird attempts to get the other side of the talking bush, possibly to cut off an escape.

Cynthia slowly pokes her head through the bushes. "I'm too old for that" she says.

Talaskai falls over. It's like ke just stopped paying enough attention to kis body to remain upright. Ke has then totally forgotten what ke was doing other than scrambling upright and trying to rearrange ruffled feathers. The trowel has rolled off into the undergrowth somewhere.

"...we come in peace?" attempts the other one, tentatively. "No, wait, this is our planet, do you come in peace?"

Ke does not finish unhooking the gardening fork but is definitely positioning to do so quickly if needed.

"I come in peace! That's such a funny line."

"I'm sorry, I really haven't read much first contact research! At least we've got the language. I don't think I'd be any good at the language bit. Actually that is kind of weird, you're not making normal sounds.

Uh. Do you have a soul. Was that a weird question? I just was thinking of language and how to refer to you..."

"Nobody has a soul!"

"Okay, I guess that's animal pronouns then?

I think we're meant to exchange names or something. If you have names? I'm Jeeee.

I'm sorry that I'm talking so much, I do that when I'm nervous. What do you need? It can't be comfortable for you in that bush? Not that we've got much out here, we're a little way off from camp, never mind the boat."

Jeeee has stood down from readiness to draw a garden fork and is now twining kis wing claws awkwardly in front of kim.

"I'm Cynthia! And the only things I'll need will be food, water and somewhere to sleep, and even then not for a bit. The bush is not disastrously annoying, really."

Having recovered kis dignity a little, Talaskai pipes up. 

"Where did you come from? Are there others? Do you know what you can eat?"

"This is Talaskai, we're adventuring here to fix up the planting for this season. We have a third, Junilla, back at camp. And three more back on the boat."

"Don't just tell them! What if they're dangerous?"

"I'm from a place called Parent City Corner 6AC2, but I haven't lived there for a few years. There were billions of us, at least there. I can eat... well just about anything any animal can eat I think? I can eat things that look like most of the things growing here."

Talaskai looks like ke's considering falling over again, and gets momentarily distracted looking around for the trowel ke dropped.

"Hmm, you look a bit like one of those hairless cats, maybe we should try some dried fish first, they have odd reactions to some plants.

Are any of your people around, or are you lost? If you don't mind us asking, how did you get here?"

"Tasting the fish sounds like it'd be fun!" She smiles slightly as she says this.

"It wouldn't make sense for other people to be around. I got here... in a way I have no explanation for how could be possible... like black magic."

"That's what they would say," cautions Talaskai, who has not found kis trowel.

"Okay, let's go back to camp. Talaskai, I am quite sure that if they are the front runner of an alien invasion, it will make no difference if we hang around talking in a bush or go back to camp where we can sit down and have some snacks.

But you are going to stay here until you have found that trowel, because I do not want to tell Mel we've lost another one."

Jeeee moves a few steps away to see if the alien is going to leave the bush and follow kim.

"I can pick it up for you if that's easier!" She scans the ground, ready to pick up the trowel if they let her.

"...yes, if you can see it," agrees Jeeee.

The trowel probably fell into that clump of possibly-strawberries over there.

Cynthia smoothly moves over to pick it up, deftly holding it in her hands.

Talaskai looks like ke might be going to snatch it for a moment, then thinks better of it.

Jeeee 'subtly' gets between Talaskai and the alien and leads them back towards the camp. It's going to take a few minutes to get there.

Ke is clearly uncomfortable not talking and eventually says, "Billions, huh?"

"You can't just say that, clearly we have huge 'cities' just around the corner! With missiles and stuff."

The feel of the word 'city' is more of a theoretical concept than something that actually exists.

"Billions is a huge number of people! I love it, it means there's always someone cool and new to hear about!"

"What would you need missiles for?"

"Sometimes people are bad and you have to stop them."

"I'm aware, it's just... are missiles really the right tool? Wouldn't the bad people like. Be too close and the missile would just go over them?"

"Oh, no, you fire the missile at their boat. Then they can't hurt you back while you're doing it.

Unless they've got one too, I guess. But that's why you have to be quiet about things and not give the game away."

The last two points are clearly addressed to Jeeee, who is somehow so embarrassed by this conversation ke has shut up for once, or maybe is just concentrating on covering ground effectively and in the right direction.

"Oh. Boats use smaller missiles that go in the water! I imagined like. The really big missiles that go in the air."

"..."

Talaskai is now extremely worried about the really big missiles that go in the air!

"Sometimes torpedos don't have the range," interjects Jeeee. 

"Anyway, hopefully nobody will be blowing up anything!

...I suppose we ought to be wary about how word gets out though, in case someone decides you're a forward scout and they need to solve the problem."

"Hmm... do you know what a nuclear bomb is? They get used a lot for making dams deeper and things, to store more water, where I come from. People were thinking about putting them on missiles once, so it was maybe easier and faster than dragging it all the way where you needed it, but it would just waste money."

Jeeee and Talaskai exchange a slightly panicked series of facial expressions.

"So, uh, what do you usually like to eat?" asks Jeeee, in what is clearly meant to be a very nonchalant change of topic. 

"I eat lot of rice, and chickpeas and potatoes and pizza and chickens!"

"Okay, so rice is pretty exotic here, there's a mining facility that cultivates it because they're in a swamp and some people really like it, apparently it goes great with raw fish and a little vinegar.

Chickpeas are one of the things we were planting, though, and we, uh, some people roast the jungle fowl if they can catch them?

Whatever is letting me understand you is trying to explain what pizza is but there are several steps that we do not generally have available.

I guess you could use a normal flatbread and some people can eat tomatoes, getting that much cheese seems... unlikely.

At least there's potatoes, they keep well so we always have a sack around somewhere."

"Potatoes are wonderful. I'm a bit surprised that cheese would be rare, though. You're managing to get it to begin with, after all? What's stopping you from not just doing more of what you're doing to get cheese?"

"Well, first you have to find a herd at the right time, then you have to capture the lactating ones, then you've got to get the milk back to the cheese making facility - it's pretty involved.

People do it because cheese is really great - apparently, I've never had any - but you have to really care a lot or find tracking herds interesting or something."

Cynthia waves her hand around for a bit. "I'll do that. Where I came from, people just made and kept herds perfect for getting milk and cheese. I'm sure we could do so here too."

"You can't keep animals. I guess you can keep a cat if you really want. But definitely not for food."

"Uh, I think what Talaskai is trying to say is, you will, uh, definitely attract missiles if you try to keep a herd in one place. It's not good for the land and some people get very - excitable - about that."

"I don't feel like that makes sense? Even if it's not good for the land, isn't growing many kinds of plants similarly bad? And people are fine doing that."

"We're very careful with the plants! It's only round the edges and only things that could have grown here anyway."

"I guess the rice fields are a bit controversial, but mining endeavours tend to get away with it because it's not something everyone wants to do and it is something everyone wants the output from."

"So is cheese, but you make it sound like keeping a herd would be different somehow?"

"Cheese isn't something you need, it's something you want. People need metal, so if you're producing it you get a bit of a pass on whatever other eccentric project helps you stay sane and make more of it."

"Where I come from, we have a saying: 'Even being alive is a want, not a need'. It means that calling some things wants and other things needs, and that affecting your thinking, is dumb! Why would the thing counting as a need rather than a want matter? You're still hurting the land to make your lives better!"

"Uh, because we like being alive a lot more than we like cheese? 

It's, yeah, I guess it's a spectrum? But there's still more important and less important things.

Unless you do actually need cheese? In which case we can get it, but it might take a while to find where and go there."

"...I can literally survive without cheese, yes." Cynthia starts thinking, placing her hand under her chin.

In which case they will make some more progress towards the camp! 

The campsite is mostly jury rigged cloth tarpaulins with sewn in ropes, tied to trees and each other. It's mostly a shade structure and rain shelter, there are some quite nice looking cloth covered camping mattresses and some rather makeshift wooden chairs with seat cushions, and some wooden storage containers with wheels.

There is a camp fire area just outside the tarp structure, with a big metal pot held up by a metal stake between two wooden poles, which some kind of stew is cooking in. The trio's promised third member is fussing over the fire.

In general the most common materials look primarily like plant fibres, feathers and fish derivatives, followed by wood, with metal and a plastic-ish substance only where the material properties are really important.

...she'd want to end up at nuclear energy as soon as possible. Just like how her people did it. But ahh how? Right, reactors are the best for making reactor materials. For later.

Cynthia tries to guess what's in the stew by how it smells.

"Jumilla, step away from the fire and then look up," advises Jeeee, who doesn't think Jumilla is as much of the fainting type as Talaskai but doesn't want to take any chances.

The stew mostly smells of Vegetables and possibly a hint of potato. 

Jumilla does as instructed.

"Oh," she says. "What even is that?"

"I'm what's called a human!" Cynthia answers.

Jumilla blinks rapidly. "I guess that's why they told me to stay away from the fire! 

...do we even have a species word that works? It seems a bit rude just to call ourselves people, I guess you're also a people?"

"They claim not to have a soul," explains Talaskai.

"Yes that's correct, nothing and nobody has a soul!"

"Oh, are you some kind of advanced automata? I read a novel about that once!"

"No not that either. I'm a totally normal living, breathing animal."

"Oh good. Do you want a seat or some water or snacks? I'm not sure what you eat but we must have something."

"I'll try whatever you think I'd like best? I'm not thirsty."

"Hmm," says Junilla, going over to one of the boxes and flipping up the lid to look through a bunch of packed food. The packaging is partly paper bags and partly a somewhat plastic like but more crinkly substance.

Talaskai is about to blurt out something from their earlier conversation, but Jeeee shushes kim.

"Okay, let's try dried tuna strips, most people like that. If it's a bit bland we also have some trevally."

Ke gets out a small wooden plate and pours some tuna jerky from a bag onto it, then re-ties the bag knot, and presents the plate to Cynthia.

Cynthia tastes it. Tuna is one of the types of fish she tends to like less, but she's super-curious and happy to try it.

It's dried tuna strips! It's really pretty tasteless. Maybe a slight hint of salt. Kind of like gnawing on slightly salty leather.

...she trusts other food to be better.

 "I'm Cynthia! I don't know your name." She looks to Junilla.

"Oh, sorry! I'm Junilla."

Ke glances anxiously at the fire but it seems to be doing fine.

"You have boats, right? Where do you go with them?"

"Everywhere!

I guess that's not really an answer. We usually live out at sea. It's a bit weird to be on land, it doesn't move right, and especially to be out of sight of the ocean, but I suppose that's what makes it an adventure?

Do you mostly just go places on boats, rather than living on them? I guess you do look a bit less - water-adapted."

"We don't live on boats, land has much more space to walk around or do things!"

"There's lots of - stuff there already, though?

Oh, or do you live underground, like they do in mining endeavours?

I suppose you probably don't float as well or glide at all, that might make being confined to a boat harder."

"The stuff helps also! And yes, we only barely float and don't glide at all. So living on a boat would be terrible."

"Oh dear," says Junilla, in a 'this is socially awkward' tone. "Well, I suppose a mining group would probably host you if you don't like boats. We're only here for a few days, but we could bring you back to the boat and you could use the terminal while we're landed..."

"We can't let them just put out a call, someone might blow us up!"

"...Talaskai thinks that someone might think Cynthia is an advance scout for an alien invasion and do something rash about it. To be honest I think it's more likely that nobody will believe them and will assume someone's making things up."

"I guess a mining group makes sense? Actually we have something called uranium where I come from and that has to be mined, and I'm curious about it. So a mining group just makes sense, actually."

The idea of Cynthia loose in a uranium mine does not see to make Talaskai very happy, but ke is not at all sure what to do about it.

"...I am keeping an eye on you and I will stop you running off to inform whatever crackpot defence group you dig up that we have an alien spy," Jeeee says to kim.

Talaskai flops down on a chair to signal that ke is not running off and sulks harder. 

"Um. Is there anything else you'd like? Jeeee can probably walk you to the boat if you want and Talaskai and I can hold down the camp. It's a fair old step though, you might want to start in the morning, I don't know what kind of day you've been having."

"I'm happy to go to a mining group, test out what rice tastes like here, get an interesting look at how mines work. I've been having a relaxing and uneventful day, really. Ending up here was the exact kind of adventure I really felt like having!"

"...we are not going to get all the way to a mining group today, especially not the rice growers. 

We can get back to the boat and I can send some messages out and see who's interested in hosting you.

If you don't even want to travel by boat then we'll have to call the land facilities on this island and see if any of them are willing to send out an expedition, which they probably will but will take a while. 

Otherwise it's going to be several days on the boat to get anywhere, we might be able to call in a faster boat if it's important to you and someone's interested, but it'll be at least overnight and the faster boats tend to have even less space, although our boat isn't exactly big."

"I'm fine spending a few days to get anywhere, it really makes sense to know you better in any case."

"I'm sure at least some bored people will want to talk to you, and from there you can probably prove enough for an expert to show up." Jeeee goes to the food chest and rummages around. "Did you like the tuna strips or should I be packing some other trail food for you?"

"The tuna strips were fine but I think I'm sure I'd like something else more!"

"Okay, we've got trevally, nut and berry mix, oat biscuit, roast salted chickpeas, any of that sound good? Possibly not the berry mix, I don't want you getting ill on the way, I probably could rig up something and drag you but neither of us would be having a good time."

"The chickpeas sound super-tempting! But I will taste everything you have on offer." 

Jeeee loads up kis pouches with a bit of everything. "You can carry the plate if you want to have some now, or you can put it back and just unhook a pouch when you want to eat? It's going to be a long walk, we'll only get there before nightfall if we set a good pace."

"I don't see the need to bring a whole plate, really. And I can absolutely keep a good pace!"

"Let's head out, then."

There's a little bit of a trail if you're looking carefully - most of the plants are quite springy and resilient but they did drag a whole camp up here, so the vegetation has been flattened out a bit.

Cynthia starts by tasting the chickpeas. She's curious about whether they're a different breed of chickpeas, and so would taste different.

They're maybe a bit firmer and nuttier than highly cultivated chickpeas? Someone has definitely bred out the bitterness of true wild-type chickpeas, though.

Next up is trying the oat biscuit! It sounds like it'd have to be made in some kind of weird way, to turn it into a biscuit...

It's a flat disc that is crumbly - an oatcake. Probably not much in there other than oats and maybe some vegetable oil. If you like the taste of oats fresh out of the husks it's pretty good.

She sure does so it sure is! Trevally has got to be better than tuna. And she'll wait with the berry mix, those sounded risky.

Trevally definitely has more of a taste to it than the tuna! Also a bit more structure, it's whole fish butterflied and flattened, skin and tiny crunchy bones and all. It's strongly fishy, quite salty, and slightly sweet.

It makes her think more... about the kind of food she liked back home.

Jeeee appears to be totally oblivious to human facial expressions and mostly determined to make good time. Ke is not quite setting a jogging pace but it's definitely a power walk unless Cynthia can't keep up with that. Ke sometimes pushes off convenient trees with kis wings for a little extra boost - or to catch kimself, because kis balance isn't great on uneven terrain.

Mostly the ground is quite forgiving on the trail that has already gone around most of the clumpy plants and tougher bushes, but sometimes the carpet of greneery conceals an unexpected slope. They're mostly going slightly downhill.

It's not too tough, although it's a bit unfamiliar as she's so used to walking on sidewalk or well-manicured lawns instead of wilderness like this.

After a while Jeeee gets bored enough to start talking again.

"So. Ground based groups. Most of them are mining, but there is also some manufacture and science.

Mining groups mostly live underground, some people really love living underground and stay there permanently, but most just rotate through to see if they like it, and enjoy the reputation boost and possibly whatever crazy experiment has led everyone else they've tried to live with to kick them out. I'm not going to sugar coat it, they are often pretty wild places, a lot more serious fights, if you get injured and nobody likes you then you might end up limping out into the forest to die.

Manufactories are generally a little more selective, depending on what they're making - there are some processes that are still just labour intensive and they'll take anyone who's desperate enough to belong somewhere, but most are highly specialised and full of fanatics who really want to improve that process or who just really want to contribute the best way they can.

Science installations are generally like that or more so. You only have a ground based science installation if you absolutely have to have somewhere with solid foundations and low vibration and so on to do the work, or if you're studying a natural phenomenon that doesn't conveniently move where you want it to be. Anyone who stays at one of those for long deeply cares about the work in one way or another.

Expeditions are generally adventurers like us - young, mostly healthy people who want to get stuff done before that stops being true - if you want to get into a manufacture or science group that's more selective and you're physically capable, doing logistics for them is a good way in, and it's also just a good way to see more of the world."

"Hmm... where I'm from people just about always care about contributing the best way they can! And both the science installation and the manufactory sounds very tempting... more the science I think, there are many awesome things I'm sure I can remember and come up with! Especially having a lot of energy, that did such an incredible amount for us. So I'll get in and start there. I think."

"I mean, we normally do too - it's just some people are built for being able to do that to the exclusion of, like, getting to see new things and some aren't.

...actually thinking about it, I expect that if you convince anyone you're real, you'll immediately attract a group of people who want to study you."

"Then I'll be happy to help them learn!" Cynthia smiles.

They make it to the shoreline fairly swiftly, but it's quite a way along the mound defending the planted area from stray waves until the boat comes into view.

It's - not the most aesthetically pleasing vessel. In fact it kind of looks like it was scrounged together out of the remnants of multiple predecessor vessels. It's a big yacht with plenty of deck space and a recessed living area with strips of window, two big sails, and there is stuff everywhere, including an absolutely bewildering antenna array. 

It's clearly having some serious work done on the hull by the two other Kastakians visible. 

Cynthia rushes up to take a closer look at the boat. She's curious about if there'd be something cool that's only possible because she has hands!

One of the boat maintainers notices the onrushing Cynthia, and starts making a terrible high pitched screaming noise! 

Jeee tries to run forwards loudly yelling that everything is fine, but trips over and rolls down onto the beach in a painful looking confusion of feathers. 

The other looks up, moderately startled, but doesn't seem all that concerned. 

Cynthia starts covering her ears. Ow that hurts a lot! Hopefully the screaming bird calms down and stops making people uncomfortable?

Jeee picks kimself up and continues to yell, "For goodness sake shut up, Loffania, you're hurting them!"

Ke is limping a bit now.

"It really doesn't look that dangerous," comments the extra Kastakian. 

Loffania doesn't care. Loffania is making an Alarm Noise and it seems to be working as the strange creature is definitely Alarmed and hindered in attacking them, like it clearly already has Jeee! Also Loffania can't hear a word anyone is saying. 

She's had self-defense classes but not against things with wings! She learned to run in them though. So she turns away from the screaming bird until it stops screaming.

Eventually, the third Kastakian with the boat pops out of the hatch, observes the situation (Meliashae is very deadpan but clearly highly amused, Jeee is limping gamely towards them, some unknown creature is looking fairly harmless a little way away, and Loffania is screeching endlessly), tackles Loffania to the ground and gets a wing-hand round kis beak, significantly muffling the noise.

"Shut up!" ke yells once it is at all possible that Loffania might hear kim. There ensues a bit of a scuffle. 

Cynthia turns around, realizing that the other other (...other) bird has just wrestled the screaming one! She's full of admiration. She's thinking about waving, but thinks it makes more sense to let someone else introduce her.

Jeee is doing kis best to hurry along! It's just ke managed to catch a leg with a wing-claw on the way down and is also now bleeding.

"Hello the ship! This is Cynthia, who is capable of speech but claims to have no soul. They're very pleasant and nonthreatening!"

"Oh good, a mystery." It is clear from the tone of this utterance that Meliashae did not, in fact, want a mystery.

"Hear that? Settle down! Ow!"

"Yes that's right, I am incredibly pleasant and nonthreatening! Even by human standards!"

Loffania is Having A Fight, which is a normal consequence of emitting an Alarm Noise!

However, ke appears to be Having A Fight with Jeffinar, which usually ends up with Jeffinar winning and everyone being annoyed with Loffania. So ke will eventually deign to lose.

"We're going to go in and use the terminal and see who else is interested in Cynthia and what they can do next. They don't like being out on boats much, which is kind of a problem?"

"Well, good luck with that." Meliashae picks up kis tools again and resumes work on the boat hull, given that the fight seems to mostly be over.

"Why would it be a problem? Can't I be one of the few people not on boats doing all the things people on boats can't do, things that would be far tougher for them? You know. Rarity Rule."

"Well, mostly because we're in the middle of absolutely nowhere," replies Meliashae absently, "and everyone is going to assume we made you up."

Jeeee had said the strange animal was capable of speech but Jeffinar had been expecting, like, a few repeated words like you could train some birds to do.

Something is very wrong. But right now Jeffinar can deal with kis suspicions by pushing Loffania over, preening affrontedly, and trying to remember where the bandages are.

Ahh, it's nice to have a fight from time to time! Fixing the boat is kind of boring. Loffania takes advantage of having just lost a fight to sprawl on the beach a bit instead of getting back to work.

Cynthia looks at Loffania, more confused than anything else. "Right, so even if people think I'm not real, I'm not sure how me not liking boat would be... the problem, so to speak?" She absent-mindedly waves her hands around in a circle, curling up and moving her fingers.

"Well, if you liked boats, we'd just take you to a hospital ship and let them work out what to do with you."

"Ke's fine, ke's just being dramatic. Jeeee, you need to get that leg looked at."

Jeeee looks down. "Oh no, I'm leaking. Sorry. Uh. Can you..."

Jeffinar stomps over to the hatch, throws it open with more force than necessary, and disappears inside again.

Well Cynthia knows how to wrap a bandage... but there's a chance it works different with birds, so she just prepares herself to learn as much as possible from seeing the treatment about to happen.

After some frustrated noises and the sound of objects being thrown around echo out of the hatch, Jeffinar returns with a pretty normal looking roll of bandage, apart from that it's kind of green, and a pad of some kind of absorbent material, also faintly green but less so than the bandage.

Jeeee hovers awkwardly just off the boat, bleeding a little bit into the sand. It's just a deep scratch, looks like it'll probably clot closed on its own pretty soon. "Sorry about this. We'll get to the terminal, I just don't want to bleed all over the boat."

Jeffinar places the absorbent material over the wound and then wraps the bandage around it somewhat haphazardly and with slightly more force than absolutely necessary. Jeeee winces a bit but mostly looks extremely apologetic.

She suspects that she could do it better... but it wouldn't be very fun, and she's not sure how comfortable these people would be with her.

"Right. Good. That will do." Jeffinar tucks in the end of the bandage and glares at it like it personally offended kim. "To the terminal, then?"

"Yes. Sorry. In here, Cynthia." Jeeee heads to the hatch and indicates the interior of the main living area, which is a complete mess. Old food plates and bowls, tools, widgets, clothes, cloths. It smells kind of fishy, although not quite as bad as you might expect from the sheer volume of stuff with no well defined place.

In the middle, on a table with several attached stools, connected to the antenna by a lot of thick cabling, is a large boxy object with a blank glass screen on one end. Attached to it is what looks a lot like an oversized keyboard, if you carved it out of wood and then several clumsy oafs with big sharp claws on the ends of their fingers used it heavily. The box has a lever on the side, which is currently down.

Wood-carved keyboard! That's so super funny; she's probably 10 times the typist these people are. "Do I... push down the keys? We had keyboards where I'm from." She mimics typing with all her 10 fingers.

"Yes! Uh, let me get it booted up." Jeeee pulls the lever up and an ominous crackling and whirring noise starts up in the bowels of the machine. The screen flickers to life, although to start with it just glows a bit; after a little while, text starts forming in green phosphors, slightly weird but mostly recognisable as really verbose computer startup logging.

"Hmm do I... should I say anything? Like I'm fast with computers and good with my hands! Or should that be you?"

Jeffinar has clambered through the hatch behind them and is alternately watching suspiciously and shuffling objects into piles to make the place at least a little tidier, or maybe just make somewhere more comfortable to perch.

"I'm sure you are, but I've got to log in first and you should probably watch me navigate the menus for a bit?"

Jeeee settles down on one of the stools in reach of the keyboard. The computer eventually displays a menu made of text and line characters:

------------------------------------------------
| MAIN MENU                                  |
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
| Log In                                            |
------------------------------------------------
| Configuration                                 |
------------------------------------------------
| Command Interface                       |
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| Shut Down                                     |
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There are some arrow keys which Jeeee uses to select 'Log In'.

Cynthia pays close attention. It looks like a normal computer? Really nothing special-looking about it.

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| Log In                                            |
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| Jeffinar48                                       |
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| ClearPointOfOrder                         |
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| Jeeeeee                                         |
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| Other User                                     |
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Jeeee selects kis username and then shields the keyboard and screen with a wing while typing a password.