This is set in the same ficton as spyro.txt: the first three Spyro
games, but none of the later ones, are canon.  But it takes place well
before any of the games, much less the events of spyro.txt.  Also,
unusually in view of the company it's keeping here, it is not primarily
sexual (at this writing, not sexual at all).

Translation Convention is in full effect here.

----------------

"How goes it, Kikkar?"

"Oh, hi, Rahhik.  Goes well.  It looks as though the prelimary
indications were right: there is something there."

"So it really does describe reality?"

"At least approximately.  Something much like it appears correct."

"What have you found?"

"We sent a chunk of quartz somewhere and managed to get it back."

"Where?"

"We don't really know.  Shissk's theories don't give us any `where'
that's useful.  We just know that we pushed it over and pulled it
back."

"And it returned intact?"

"Indeed."  She waved at a shelf, on which were two chunks of quartz.
"One of those has been here the whole time.  The other one went on a
little trip.  Nobody's been able to tell which is which without being
told."

Rahhik ambled over to the shelf, picking up the chunks and examining
them.  "I assume you've done more than just look at them?"

"Oh, certainly.  We've used all the instruments we have, and as far as
we can tell it's still just plain old ordinary quartz."

"So what's next?"

"We're going to send a small mechanical clock.  See what the time-flow
ratio is."

"Time-flow ratio?  I don't recall seeing that in Shissk's work."

"It's not.  Tkriss noticed that Shissk's theories left it open whether
the time dimension were identical across all angles.  Quartz is pretty
close to timeless, so all we know is that the time-flow is within a
handful of orders of magnitude of ours."

"There's that much room for variation?"

"Certainly.  Tkriss says the ratio has to be positive - no reversed
time-flow - but there's no a priori basis for more than wild guesses at
what the ratio is.  It's a matter for experiment, not theory, he says."

"I'd like to be on hand, if that's OK."

"Of course.  Don't go anywhere."

"You're that close?"

Kikkar picked up a small clock.  "Yes.  If you'd waited another
day-8, you'd've been too late.  This is the clock."

"Cool!  So what do you do with it?"

She opened a small metal box surrounded by some cryptic apparatus.
"Put it in here..."  She did so, and closed the box.  "Now align
this..."  She adjusted a lever, watching a dial.  "There.  Once it
finishes charging, away it goes.  A little later, after it's charged
again, we pull it back, and we'll get to see how much time the clock
thinks has passed."

Rahhik sat down, watching.  "Exciting."

"It is.  Even if this particular moment is perhaps a little boring."
She watched a different dial.  It was a few long moments before she
said, "There."

"There?"

"Now we can send it off.  Just let me make sure everything is in
order..."  She inspected various pieces of the apparatus.  "Looks good.
So..."  She pushed a button.  There was a loud snapping sound, but the
only other obvious effect was that one dial dropped down, almost all
the way to zero.  Rahhik jumped, but calmed upon seeing Kikkar ignore
the sound.

"So it's gone?"

"It is."  She opened the metal box.  "See?  Nothing there."

Rahhik peered in.  "Cool!  So now we just wait?"

"Yes."  She tapped a dial - the one that dropped back.  It was creeping
upwards again.  "Once it's up past *here*, we can pull it back."

They sat there, watching.  It took about a day-9.

"Okay."  Kikkar pushed the button again.  There was another loud
snapping sound and the dial dropped back down.  "Now we see."  She
opened the box and took out the clock.

"Looks the same."

"It does.  And it's still running, so it didn't experience enough time
for it to run down."

"Unless someone rewound it."

Kikkar looked at Rahhik in astonishment.  "I never thought of that.
Yes, if there's anything there capable of it, it could have been
rewound.  So all we really _know_ is that it didn't experience enough
time to break down."

"How much time does it _say_ it experienced?"

Kikkar peered at the clock, then at looked at the clock on the wall.
"If nobody fiddled with it, it's close enough to one-to-one."

"So otherworld time matches ours?  Unless it went once around the clock?"

"Exactly.  No, this clock would run down first; if nobody fiddled with
it, it's still close to the same.  Matches?  ...hm.  Maybe not."

"Maybe not?"

She drummed her fingers on the table.  "I think Tkriss speculated that
something undergoing translation could experience time during the
translation, too.  All we know is that translation there and back, plus
however long it spent there, took about as long as we experienced
here."

"How could we tell?"

"Well...it seems nothing in the process was damaging enough to break
the clock.  I think we might hazard sending a camera."

"Set to take pictures every so often?"

"I did mean a movie camera.  But, yes, you could think of it so, just
with a really small interval."

Rahhik chuckled.  "Amounts to the same thing, it's true."

Kikkar crossed the room and opened a chest.  "Fortunately, we planned
ahead."  She took something out and showed it to Rahhik.  "A small
self-contained movie camera.  Two of them, actually, one mechanical and
one electronic.  Some people interpret Tkriss's work as saying that
electronics will be affected differently from clockwork."

"How would that work?"

"Well, the more extreme versions have already been ruled out.  Some
interpretations would have had the quartz disintegrate.  Less extreme,
and the mechanical clock would have been destroyed, or at least
rendered inoperable.  But some versions expect no changes whatever."
She opened a small door on the camera, inserted something, and closed
it, then fitted a crank handle and cranked it.  "Okay.  Once it's
charged up again, I just need to start this and send it off and back."

They waited.  Finally Kikkar flipped a small switch on the camera,
listened to it click-click-click for a moment, and put it the box.
"Here goes."  She pushed the button and there was that snapping sound
again.  "Now we wait for it to charge."

"Why not just have two accumulators?"

"We could.  But building another one would have delayed us more than
just waiting for this one to charge.  We may want to do it eventually,
though."

They waited.  Finally she pushed the button and opened the metal box.
"Well.  Isn't _that_ interesting."

"What?"

She pulled out the camera, flipped a switch on it, and set it aside,
then reached in and pulled out something else.  "This showed up."

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure.  It _looks_ like marble."  She turned it over in her
hands for a moment, then handed it to Rahhik.  "Now I really want to
see what the camera shows."

Rahhik examined the object.  "It does look like marble."

"The real question is, how did it get there."

"Indeed.  Someone put it there?"

"A plausible theory.  But I'm not going to more than speculate yet."

"So, how long until we can see what the camera saw?"

"The mechanical camera..."  She fiddled with it and it popped open.
"We'll have to have this film developed."  She set a small canister
aside.  "But the electronic one..."  She fiddled with it more and
connected it to some other electronics.  "We should be able to see now.
If it got good pictures."  She flipped some switches and a screen lit
up.  It showed the lab.  She poked a button and it was obvious it was
showing the first few pictures it took, as she put it in the metal box.
"Okay, so the storage survived."  She kept poking the button.  The
screen suddenly went white.  "Whoa!  Back...."  She poked a different
button a few times and got the last picture of the inside of the box.

"Wait a moment.  The box was closed, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it has to be, or we can't transpose it."

"How was there light for the camera to get pictures?"

"Oh, it has a small light on it."

"Okay.  Carry on..."

Kikkar advanced more slowly.  After the last picture of the inside of
the box, the next frame was solid white.  "Curious."  She stepped
forward.  After three more frames of white, it went black for one
frame, then had surreal colours, reminiscent of some abstract art.
They changed each frame, looking random.

"What's the time between frames?  Oh, no, wait, it took about ten
frames from the when you turned it on to your putting it in the box,
so..."

"Right."  She flipped a switch and it started stepping forward on its
own.  After a few dozen frames, the picture stabilized.  It looked like
a field of plants, but their colours were weird.

"That looks like plant life."

"It does."

They watched.  After a little, Rahhik said, "Is this real time?"

"No, it's accelerated about two to one.  It can extract and display a
frame in about half the time it takes the camera to store one."

Rahhik nodded.

Something streaked across the frame.

"Whoa!"  Kikkar fiddled with the controls, backing up, then advancing a
frame at a time.  The first interesting frame had a motion-blurred
picture of something that looked like a quadripedal animal of some
sort.

"Animal life!"  Rahhik souded excited.

"Sure looks like!"  Kikkar started single-stepping forward.  Eventually
the creature returned and advanced towards the camera, giving the
viewers a good close-up.  It was mostly blue and looked somewhat like a
zirrit, but with a tail and much shorter legs.  The creature reached
out an appendage towards the camera, but somewhat to the side,
withdrawing it a moment later, and then backed off.

"May I?"  Rahhik reached for the controls.

"Certainly."  Kikkar pointed to buttons.  "Forward, backward, and that
switch makes it continue stepping on its own in whichever direction you
last told it to."

Rahhik found the last frame before the end of the appendage went out of
frame.  He pointed.  "See that?"

Kikkar blinked.  "It looks as though it's holding..."  She got up and
got the chunk of marble.  She turned it around, holding it next to the
screen.  "Yup.  See, the patterns match."

"Let me see if it's still holding it later..."  Rahhik single-stepped
forward until the appendage came back into frame.  "Yup, empty.  Well,
now we know where that piece of rock came from."

"This is huge.  Life, and, what's more, apparently intelligent enough
to notice our experiments and perform some experimenting of their own."

"Indeed!  I guess we need to call in the Contact Committee."

"We do indeed."

"If we push something, do we have to pull it back?"

"No.  In fact, even calling it `push' and `pull' is misleading.  We
exchange whatever is in the box with whatever is in the corresponding
otherworld space."

"I'd like to send back a different chunk of rock and leave it."

"As a sort of `we hear you' sign?"

"Yes.  I was talking with the Contact Committee recently, and they
agreed that that would be a first step.  I'm sure enough that doing
something that mild will be safe that I'm willing to risk it without
talking with them more."

"I think I have a piece of obsidian around..."  She poked around on a
different shelf.  "Here we are."  She held it up.

"Good.  Obviously different from what that creature gave us."

"Exactly."  She flipped a switch and the charging dial started to creep
upwards again, then put the obsidian in the box.  "I'll send this as
soon as it's charged enough.  Then we need to talk with the Committee."

"I'll go alert them."

"Sounds good.  It'll take a while; I'll get that video edited down in
the meantime."

----------------

Ds. Fkssir sighed.  "I had really hoped we would not be needed.  I feel
_so_ unqualified to be ambassador extraordinary to a lifeform we didn't
even know existed until two days ago."

Kikkar smiled sadly.  "I can sympathize.  But you know you are the best
we have."

"Rationally, I know that.  But I find that, if anything, scarier."

"The whole Committee will be here soon."  Kikkar tried to sound
soothing, but she was tense enough herself she suspected she wasn't
doing a good job of it.

"What if they're violently xenophobic?  What if they're..."  He broke
off as the rest of the Committee started arriving.  It was all ground
they'd been over many times already anyway.

It wasn't long before everyone was there.  Kikkar stood.  "As most of
you probably suspect, we've called you because we think we are in a
First Contact situation.  Before giving you our inferences, let us give
you the hard data."  She picked up the notes she'd written, not
trusting herself to remember everything.

"As planned, we sent a lump of quartz out and back.  It returned
apparently unchanged; none of our instruments have been able to find
any change in it.  We then sent a small wind-up mechanical clock.  It
returned, still running, and apparently indicating that the time-stream
ratio was roughly one-to-one.  Rahhik" - she nodded at him, sitting at
the table next to her seat - "pointed out that this might mean nothing
if some inquisitive life-form had rewound it or altered the time
setting.  But it did indicate that the time ratio was not so extreme
that the clock failed from sheer age, and it *probably* means the ratio
is close to 1.  So we sent the camera next."  She smiled tensely.  "We
sent a camera.  We got back not just the camera but also this."  She
picked up the fragment of marble and set it on the table.  "As far --"

One of the committee members broke in.  "How does that work?  You don't
pull back what you pushed out?"

"No; even calling it that is misleading.  What the transposer actually
does is exchange the contents of a small volume of space here with the
contents of a corresponding volume there.  The first tests had nothing
in that space but air.  In this case, we swapped air and clock here for
just air there, then, later, swapped air here for air, the clock, and
that."  She pointed at the chunk of marble.  "How it ended up in that
space was the first question, but the pictures tell a fairly clear
story.  As far as we have been able to tell, it is a perfectly normal
piece of marble, except of course for how we obtained it.  Both cameras
functioned, and the frame rates correspond well enough that we can't be
sure there's any timing difference between the mechanical clock of one
and the electronic clock of the other.  They show some intriguing
differences between them during translation, but the relevant part now
is what we found when we looked at the sequence recorded in the
otherworld."  She turned on the screen and picked up the controls.
"We've edited this down to just the relevant portions."

The screen showed the field of plants.  "Plants, albeit looking nothing
like plants here.  Interesting enough, but what's led us to call you
is..."  She stepped forward, stopping with the blue creature showing.
"As yet we know nothing about this creature not contained in these
pictures.  But, if we skip forward..."  She stopped at the frame
showing the creature holding the fragment of marble.  "That object it's
holding is that chunk of marble, or a very good fake; the patterns
match far too well.  And if we skip forward a few more frames..."  She
stopped on the frame showing the creature's appendange empty.  "...note
it's no longer carrying it, after reaching to just beside the camera.
Very strong circumstantial evidence that it's the same chunk of rock."

Rahhik spoke up.  "Based on my discussions with you, we then transposed
a piece of obsidian to the otherworld and left it there."

One of the committee members spoke up.  "Any further transpositions?"

Kikkar said, "No.  We did not want to go further without involving the
Committee."

Ds. Fkssir nodded.  "Quite proper.  I suspect everyone here has made
the same deductions I have, but, just in case not: are we agreed that
this is a life form at least as intelligent as a srattk, quite possibly
as intelligent as us, maybe more?"

There was a sussurus of agreement all around the table.  Kikkar said,
"We made similar inferences, from its apparently noticing our
experiments and experimenting in return with that piece of marble."

"Exactly.  Kikkar, could you give us your best guess at that creature's
face, or whatever it uses for one?"

Kikkar fiddled with the controls, settling on one frame.  "I assume
this is its head, including its major sense organs.  Those, for
example" - she pointed - "look to me like eyes."

"I agree.  My opinion is that our best approach is Protocol Four.  What
say you?"  She looked around the table.

"Four."  "Yes."  "Four, no question."  "Yes."  "Quite."  The agreement
was immediate.

"Very well.  Kikkar, Rahhik, please proceed with Protocol Four - and,
of course, keep us apprised of developments.  This is important enough
news I believe we will now be able to get the resources to build a
larger transposer.  I will get that underway."

Much thought had been put into designing protocols for first contact
with another life form.  Protocol Four had been prepared against the
possibility of comunicating with a life-form smart enough to understand
the concepts of arithmetic and writing, and equipped with senses
suitable for visual communication (though there were of course
fallbacks if the other party failed to respond as expected).  A tablet
had been prepared, a simple slab of rock with eight lines of dots, with
the number of dots in the lines being the first eight primes.

Kikkar sent that tablet.  To nobody's real surprise, the piece of
obsidian did not return in exchange.  About a day-2 later, they
transposed back.  Kikkar opened the transposer box and pulled the
tablet out.

Rahhik looked disappointed.  "I had hoped they'd send us something else
in exchange."

Kikkar said, "Yeah...wait.  Hey!  Look!!"  She held the tablet out to
him.

"Look?  At...oh!"

The tablet looked the same, but it now had rectangular arrays of dots,
showing factorizations of the first seven composite numbers.  "And
look!  They've shown both factorizations of 12!"

Sure enough, the list included both a 2x6 rectangle and a 3x4
rectangle, next to one another, between the 2x5 rectangle and the 2x7
rectangle.

"But it _looks_ like the original slab.  Did they make one like it
somehow?"  Rahhik sounded puzzled.

"I don't...oh.  Heh.  I bet..."  Kikkar turned the slab of stone over.  On the
other side was the original pattern of dots.  "Yup."

Rahhik chuckled ruefully.  "Now I feel stupid.  So obvious."

"So, what does Four call for next..."

It was slow work, because they continued waiting a day-2 after each
transpose before transposing back.  But, before the large transposer
was ready, they had established a common mathematical framework.  It
was the otherworld creatures that initiated the next step: a new
mathematics tablet was accompanied by a second tablet with some new
symbols on it, each group of symbols next to a small object sitting on
the tablet.  "I do believe they're trying to go beyond mathematics."

"Seems like!  They've definitely got smarts."

"We already knew that."

"True."

"But they seem to have a written language.  I think we'll need to get
Aissioii on this."  Aissioii was the Committee's choice of linguist for
cases where one was called for.

It proved easy to figure out the language the otherworlders were using.
This surprised nobody, since both parties were trying hard to
communicate.  Once the large transposer was ready, they could send
larger tablets and things progressed correspondingly faster.  It wasn't
more than another ten or twenty days before they had reliable enough
communication to agree on a faster schedule for transposing things.
That sped things up more.

Finally it came time to try sending something living.  They agreed
with the otherworld creatures that they would first send a plant seed
and see if it returned intact.  It did; it germinated and grew,
apparently normally.

So they sent a small seedling, enclosed in a sealed container.  It
survived the trip fine.

Next was another seedling, not enclosed this time.  It too survived the
trip and throve on return.

"Not surprising," Rahhik said thoughtfully.  "We've been exchanging air
all this time and nobody's noticed."

"True enough.  Oh, and that also means that the air pressure here and
there match fairly closely.  I don't think I've heard of anyone who
noticed that before."

They sent small animals.  Then larger animals.  They behaved a bit
oddly on return, but only briefly, soon settling back down.

Finally they decided it was safe enough to send a person.  Kikkar asked
to be that person.

Ds. Fkssir looked surprised.  "Why you?"

Kikkar considered that.  "It's an adventure.  I got involved to do new
things.  And, while I'm a competent technician, I am really nothing
more; I can't hold a candle to the likes of Shissk or Tkriss when it
comes to the theory.  So I'm not really needed.  And I'm a risk-taker;
I took many of the initial risks, for example."

"True.  Well, nobody else has expressed a desire to go, so I think the
role's yours.  I was afraid we'd have to dice for it."

So it was Kikkar that entered the big transposer cage.  They had built
enough accumulators to transpose twice in very close succession, so the
plan called for transposing Kikkar out and then back again after no
more than a few day-16s.

Kikkar closed the door after herself and her voice called from the box.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

So Rahhik pushed the button, paused about three day-16s, and pushed it
again.

Nobody emerged.  Rahhik looked around at the assembled spectators and
cautiously opened the transposition cage.

Kikkar was inside, curled up tight.  "Kikkar?  You OK?"

Kikkar waved both arms vaguely.  "So I'm back?"

"You are.  Do you need help?"

"I...don't know.  Let me try standing up.  Are people ready in case I
lose my balance?"

"Hang on."  Rahhik called over two of the other spectators.  Once they
arrived, he said, "Now we are.  Is something wrong with your balance?"

"My sight is not working.  I think maybe I know why the srattk we sent
was acting so odd for the first day-8 or so."  She felt along the cage
walls until she reached the door, stepping carefully through it.  She
extended a hand, which Rahhik took.  "If that srattk hadn't recovered
I'd be worried for my sight."

"Come over here and sit down, and tell us what it was like
subjectively."  Rahhik led her to a seat.

She sat down heavily.  "I think maybe my sight is beginning to recover
already.  Is that" - she pointed - "a light?"

"It is."

"Okay.  Good."  She seemed to collect herself a bit.  "That snapping
sound the transposer makes?  I didn't hear it.  At all.  I heard
nothing during the trip.  But I did get some very odd visual effects."

"Like what the camera saw?"

"Yes, only worse.  You recall the film camera just saw blackness during
transposition but the electronic camera saw weird colours?"

"Yes...?"

"Well, I saw really *really* intense colours.  For at least a full
day-8, felt like.  I tried to close my eyes moments in, but I somehow
couldn't move.  I was beginning to get worried that something had gone
wrong."

"Something neurological, maybe?"

"Maybe.  But I meant something wrong with the equipment; we don't know
if it's possible to get stuck in transit, though we've never seen
reason to think it's happened.  I also felt my whole body tingling as
if...well, kinda like what I'd imagine it'd be like if I were in a
sandstorm and getting sand blown at me from every side at once.  But
that sensation stopped - I now think it stopped as soon as I arrived in
the otherworld.  The visual colours did not stop immediately, though
they did start to fade."

"Then, when you brought me back, it was almost the same.  Another day-8
of tingling and over-the-top vivid colours."  She blinked
experimentally.  "Yes, my sight is returning.  At least..."  She peered
around.  "How many people are here?  I think I'm seeing at least four
or five."

Rahhik glanced around.  "...six, seven, eight.  Eight of us.  Counting
me but not counting you.  Same as just before you left."

"Doh, of course.  Okay, so those aren't multiple images."

"Well, probably not, at least."

Kikkar chuckled.  "Probably.  At least my hearing didn't freak out.
The major puzzle to me is why the trip felt like a day-8 each way to me
when that camera said it was no more than maybe a day-17 or day-16."

"Maybe one of the effects was playing with your time-sense?"

Aissioii put in, "Or maybe it was just that time feels longer when
you're stuck with confounded senses and no real idea what's going on?"

"Possibly both, but I think the former more likely; a factor of
eight-twos distortion sounds to me like more than just sensory
isolation can account for.  Anyhow, now that I'm back and have some
reference for perceived time, I think the tingling sensation was
present while I was actually in transit, but the vision scrambling was
a more lingering effect."

"Sounds likely.  I was a little worried for you when you came back.  I
know you went into it knowing full well it might kill you or drive you
insane, but I still wanted my friend back."

She grinned.  "Thank--"

Two of the spectators interjected, "We all did."  "_Everyone_ wanted
you back."

She looked around.  "Thank you.  All of you.  Though we had done enough
experiments to be reasonably confident serious damage was unlikely."

"`Unlikely' is not `impossible'."

"True enough.  Anyhow, it appears that a person can indeed take the
trip and survive."

"We'll have to tell the otherworlders."

Kikkar looked over towards the speaker.  "Of course.  We did tell them
we would give them a report.  I'm going to write out a brief summary of
my experience; Aissioii, can you look over what I write and make sure
my language isn't too out to lunch?  I still feel only minimally
competent in that language of theirs."

"Certainly.  And I can report on it from the perspective of a spectator
at this end."

----------------

A day-6 or so later, Kikkar reported that her vision was back to normal
as far as she could tell.  She wrote out a brief report for the
otherworlders, outlining her experience much as she had told it to the
Committee upon returning.  Aissioii made a few corrections to the
language, added some text of his own, and they sent it off; they were
only mildly surprised that a missive from the otherworlders replaced it
when they transposed.

Aissioii picked it up and glanced over it.  "Ah.  The traveler, that's
you, wished-hope is with them...eh.  I shouldn't be so literal.  They
express hope that you made the journey intact, and wish you well.  They
write that they saw you arrive and, knowing the plan, did their best to
stay a good distance away, until you left again."

"Well, you know what we sent; I think it answers all their questions,
implicit though they be."

"I agree."

The next traveler to take the trip was one of the otherworlders.  They
arranged much the same thing: they would transpose twice with no more
than a few day-16s between them, so the traveler would not need to do
more than just hold still.  They would then not transpose anything for
at least a day-2 afterward, in case anything was needed in situ at the
transposition site.

The otherworlder arrived and was shaking visibly in the transposer box
when they opened it briefly before sending it back.

Kikkar and Rahhik were talking during the delay after sending the
traveler back.

Rahhik said, "We really should teach them to build a transposer."

Kikker replied, "We should indeed.  And as I understand it, once our
tech communication is good enough, if their technology is up to it, we
will."

"I'm wondering about that last."

"How so?"

"I was talking with Aissioii about some of what they've written.  He
thinks there's some fundamental failure to understand, some mindset
that we differ from them on, and it's basic enough neither of us really
realizes it."

"What's that got to do with their building a transposer?"

"He sees this difference most in discussions of technology."

"How...peculiar!"

"It is."

They did finally transpose letters between the worlds.  Aissioii picked
up the otherworlders' letter and read it over, muttering comments.
"Oh!  Fascinating."
"Explains that."
"That's harsh!"
"Sounds reasonable."

He finally looked up.  "Well.  The otherworlder in question - I don't
know what their language sounds like, if this language even _has_ a
spoken form; I've seen some indications that the language they're using
with us was created for the purpose.  Sorry, getting distracted.  The
otherworlder has a name in this document, but I can't speak it because
I have no idea what sounds might correspond to these symbols; I'm not
sure whether their writing is supposed to be phonetic or not.  The
traveler apparently had a very hard time dealing with the trip.  Rather
like what you felt, Kikkar, only much worse.  They have a sense I
suspect we don't and the trip was extremely harsh on it.  No mention of
the tactile effects you noticed, but this other sense, apparently the
only thing that kept the traveler from a complete breakdown was having
read your description of the journey.  Even then, it - this language
has no he/she distinction - isn't going to be doing any more such
traveling.  Apparently there are some of them in whom that sense, the
one I suspect we don't have, is weak or absent.  Further travelers of
theirs are all but certain to be them."

"Oh dear.  I hope the poor creature is okay."

"They specifically did reassure us that the traveler is recovering and
they have no reason to expect anything but full recovery."

"Good."

"Unless we can exchange sound recordings, we'll have to take writing
materials with us when we finally meet in person."

"True.  I've been thinking about that, and I think exchanging sound
recordings would be a very good idea.  If they even use sound."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that."

"I'll be asking them, next letter I write them."

It developed that the otherworlders did use sound for routine
communication.  They found a common way of representing recorded sound
and started exchanging sound recordings.  Aissioii started listening to
them, studying them intensively in conjunction with the written
communication, which by this point he was almost as comfortable with as
skistikk writing.  (Not that that surprised anyone.  Language was his
talent.)

It rapidly developed that the otherworlders had a vocal range that was,
from the skistikk point of view, ridiculously wide.  Aissioii declared
that there was almost no sound the otherworlders couldn't make, and few
that were difficult for them.  It was going to be the skistikk vocal
range that would limit what sounds they used.

"I am now certain," he told the others, "that the language they've been
teaching us was invented for communcating with us.  They've been
changing the sounds involved all along, as they learn how limited we
are compared to them in the sounds we can make.  I feel sure they have
at least one linguist who is much better than I."

Eventually Aissioii and his opposite number among the otherworlders -
Oshwin, Aissioii pronounced it - were exchanging sound recordings
routinely, and, Aissioii declared, were comfortable enough to attempt a
live voice conversation.

Rahhik said, "In view of how that first traveler of theirs reacted, I
am guessing you will be going there, rather than one of them coming
here?"

"Oh yes, we decided long ago that, in the near term, most travelers
would be skistikks rather than sherikans.  At least unless some of them
are...lacking that sense."

"Sherikans?"

"The term for their kind, in this language we've been building up
between us."

So they arranged it.  Aissioii would go to visit the otherworlders.
They would wait a day-7 and transpose back, but would not expect
anything beyond a letter when they did; unless Aissioii were to be
returning then, he would send back a brief note, possibly exchanging
further notes as necessary to figure out when he would be returning
home.  And, to help with timing, they would send a clock out with each
transposition, set to count down to return time.

----------------

The big day finally came.

Kikkar said, for at least the fifth time, "Got everything?"

Aissioii said, once again, "I do.  Writing materials in plenty.  Water
to drink.  I'm not going to be gone anything like long enough to need
food.  We know from Kikkar's visit that we don't have to worry about
the environment being too harsh for a skistikk to survive; I can't
imagine having trouble at least tolerating it for a day-7.  And I've
got three of the most likely notes already written out."

Finally Aissioii, carrying all the equipment, entered the big
transposer and shut the door.  His voice said clearly, "Ready."

Kikkar punched the button.  The transposer made the now-familiar
snapping sound, and upon opening the cage it was empty.

Kikkar set three alarms to alert her in a day-7 and sat down to read
some fiction.

Aissioii was prepared for the hallucinatory visuals and the prickling,
tingling sensation.  What he wasn't prepared for was how _long_ it
seemed to last.  But the tingling finally stopped.  He called out in
the otherworlder's tongue, «Hello?»

A voice he recognized from many of the sound recordings he'd listened
to recently said, «Hello!  I'm guessing you're Aissioii?»

«I am.  And you are...?  Oshwin?»

«I am.  Are you OK after the trip?»

«If you can help guide me away from the transpose spot, that would
help.  I can't see yet, and I need to leave a note.»

«Yes, I recall the plan.  You need to have a note there no more than a
day-7 after you get here.»

«Right.  Unless I'm returning immediately, but I'm comfortable enough
there's no need for that.»  He extended a hand and someone took hold
of it with an appendage that felt like a cross between a claw and a
hand, leading him away.

«There, that should be far enough.  We're about five times your own
height from where you arrived.»

«That should be good.»  He blinked.  «My vision is starting to return.»
He extracted the pre-written note he wanted from the pouch he'd put it
in.  «Could you please put this to be transposed back?»

Oshwin said, «Certainly!» and took it out of his hand.  He heard it
moving away, then returning.  «There, that should do it.  Now, is there
anything I could do to assist you in the immediate term?»

«Find somewhere I can sit down, on the floor or ground if necessary.»

«Right where you are is fine.  We are not in a building, and there's
nothing important close enough to be damaged.»

Aissioii sat down.  «I'm just waiting for my vision to return.»

«I remember reading about that.»

«I'm pleased at how well we are communicating.»

«So am I.  You learnt this language well.»

«So have you.»

«Perhaps, but we designed it.»

«To a point; you did it in collaboration with us.  Though I suspect the
best of your linguists are better than the best of ours.  I still find
it a tiny bit disorienting to have only one set of pronouns; none of
our languages do that.»

«Your tongue has more, then?»

«Yes; we have four in our principal tongue.  One for...this is a
concept I don't recall any words for in this tongue.  There is...»  He
pondered briefly, trying to construct a sentence from the vocabulary he
had that would convey his meaning.  «Most creatures in our world, to
make more of themselves, there are two kinds, and it takes one of each
kind.  Our language has one pronoun for the one kind, a different one
for the other kind, a third one for living creatures (including
skistikks) for which the speaker doesn't know or doesn't want to say
which kind, or for living creatures which aren't divided up into two
kinds like that, and a fourth one for nonliving objects.  Oh, and I
guess we actually have eight, since each one of them has one form
that's used when there's only one creature or object and a different
form when there's more than one.»

«Our tongue is similar, but we have many more; it would be fairer to
say we have only one, but it changes depend on various things.»

«What sorts of things?»

«How many creatures or objects, whether they are close, distant, or,
hm, we didn't add a word for this.  Not actually being real, being
something that exists only as a thought rather than as a physical
thing.  And whether they are familiar to the speaker or not.
And...there are others.»

«So, you can't speak of someone else without specifying all those
properties?»

«No, each of those properties has a way to say `not given'.  So, for
example, I can speak of zero sherikans, one sherikan, two sherikans,
three sherikans, four or five sherikans, a small number more than five,
or a large number.  But I can also use a form that does not say
anything about number.»

«I see what you mean.  When we speak of one or more-than-one, we have
no way to avoid choosing one or the other, but we have conventions for
cases where the number is unknown.  Actually, I should have said
other-than-one, not more-than-one; for zero we use the same form as for
more than one.»

They sat there waiting for Aissioii's vision to return.  Eventually
Aissioii said, «I notice something.  You appear to be a different
colour from the sherikan who appears in our first pictures.»  Indeed,
Oshwin was mostly red, shading to orange feet and tail, to a real
yellow at the very tip of the tail.

«I am.  Our people vary widely in the colour of...we have no word for
it in this language.  The outer surface of our bodies.»

«Is it impolite to mention it?  If so, I apologize.»

«No.  It is a variation of no social importance, except to...we do not
have a word for them in this language.  Except to those who produce
things which exist just to be looked at.  Anyway, even if it were
impolite among sherikans, I would not expect you to either understand
or follow our social conventions, certainly not at this point.»

Aissioii chuckled.  «Thank you.»

They waited more.  Then there was the familiar snapping sound.
Aissioii heard, and mostly saw, Oshwin walk - quadripedally - over and
back.  He noticed the appendages used as front feet looked likely to be
what Oshwin had taken his hand with when leading him away from the
transposition spot.

Oshwin said, «I guess it's been a day-7.  Your note is gone, and the
clock is there.  If I'm reading it right, it shows about a day-5.»

«Okay.»  Aissioii stood up.  «I think my vision is in good enough shape
for me to walk around.  Let me have a look at that clock, and then, is
there anywhere you'd like us to go?»

While Aissioii had a look at the clock, Oshwin said, «I could give you
a tour of the local village, but there's not much to see, unless some
of the Centre people are there.  Your city in your world doesn't
correspond to much here.  We've got a small group of sherikans here,
now that we have contacted your kind, but before that this was a small
village dedicated to...no word for that either.  Dedicated to making
plants for food.»

Aissioii finished peering at the clock and appeared to be satisfied.
«Oh, that reminds me.  The person of yours who visited us, is it going
to be okay?»

«Yes.  It already is, mostly; the only lingering effect we have found
is mental.  A..dislike for?..new experiences.»

«I regret that; I had hoped it would have no permanent effects.»

«So did we.  But...it has not chosen a name in this tongue.  Our
traveler, like...what was the name of your first traveler?»

«Kikkar?»  The phonetics were similar enough Aissioii pronounced
Kikkar's name in the skistikk tongue.

«Like Kikkar, then, it went into it knowing the level of risk was
unknown.»

«I remember, when we were talking after Kikkar returned, Rahhik told it
something like `You went into this knowing you might be killed or
damaged, but I wanted my friend back'.»

«Similar remarks were made here after our traveler returned.»

«In any case, the plan is still what we arranged: transpose every day-5
or so.»

«I'm the one responsible for watching the transposition spot now; I'll
be careful.  We don't know what would happen if, for example, your
people were to transpose while something is partly inside and partly
outside the transposition space.  We have been careful to move fast
when placing things to be transposed.»

«We have been concerned about that too.»

«I recall you mentioned it in one of your letters.  Though we did think
of it before reading that.»

«Good, on both points.»

«We do have some thoughts.»

«Thoughts?  On?»

«Transposition.  We don't really understand the...the thing you built
to transpose.  Transposer?»

«I have long thought that your way of doing things and ours have some
basic difference we don't really understand.»

«I have thought so too.  But we have our own way of doing things and
have been looking at the process of transposition in our own way, and
we think there are more than just two possible worlds.»

«One of our...um.  People who just think, working with mathematical
models, rather than with real objects.»

«We have those too, but we never added a word to this language for
them.»

«Shall we add one now?  Could we use the one from your language?»

«No, you couldn't even come close to pronouncing it.  We would say--»
Oshwin made a sound like two musical notes at the same time, the lower
pitch rising and the higher dropping; when the two reached the same
pitch, they stopped and there was a very rapid sequence of maybe a
dozen sharp ticking sounds.  «Let's call them `theoreticians'.»

«No, I couldn't say that.  `Theoreticians'?  Derived from `theory'?
Sounds reasonable.  One of our theoreticians, then, has spoken of
similar ideas.  Apparently there is in some sense an angle that our
device rotates by - I can't imagine how that makes any sense, but I'm
not a...theoretician.»

«We have a few sherikans who would very much like to speak with
your...the persons who understand your transposer.»

«I expect that could be arranged.  I don't know if everyone would be
willing to be transposed, but it seems to be harmless for skistikks
aside from the vision effects, and those appear to be temporary.  I
might need to translate, but that's the most we'd need on our side; is
this...do the relevant sherikans speak this tongue, or would you need
someone to translate on your side?»

«Some of them are learning it; some will need either a translator or
time to learn it themselves.  We have at least some small number of
sherikans who already can translate as needed.»  It made a vague
gesture.  «And a few who totally refuse to even try, saying that it is
a bad thing to cross worlds like this.»

«I am possibly the only skistikk who can actually converse in this
tongue, but there are others who are close, especially if everyone
speaks slowly and distinctly.  And we have several who can read and
write it.  And, yes, our kind too includes some...some of those who
have a fixed and unreasonable bad opinion of all non-skistikks.  None
who are working on this project, of course, but there are those who
would like us to fail.»

«Of course there would be.»

«Is there anyone here who would like to meet a skistikk?»

«Possibly.  Shall we go find out?»  Oshwin gestured vaguely in one
direction.  «The closest thing we have to a village, here, is not far
away by our standards.  Maybe, hm, two or three 128s times your
height...»

«Two or...that should be an easy and short walk.»

«Good.  I was hoping you would find it so.»  Oshwin started off.  «This
way.»

Aissioii started following.  They found a pace that was comfortable for
both of them.  Aissioii said, «I hope I'm not slowing you down too
much.»

«I could move faster, certainly, but this is a comfortable stroll.»

«Good.  Though I suspect I'm going to be less inclined to hurry than
you, as everything here is new to me.»

«True enough.  Good point.  If you see anything you're curious about,
feel free to ask.  I'm hardly a...someone who studies plants, but I
suspect there are things any sherikan knows that you don't, many of
which I probably don't even realize.»

«Likely.»

But Aissioii didn't comment on anything before they reached a building.
Oshwin said, «Let's see if...hm, we haven't picked a name for it in
this language.  One of the people who'd be interested.»  It raised its
voice and let out some sounds the variety of which astonished Aissioii
despite all the sound recordings they'd exchanged.  A similar creature
emerged from the building and started making similar noises back.  This
one was blue, but a much lighter blue than the one in the first
pictures.

After a few exchanges, Oshwin turned to Aissioii and said, slowly and
with careful enunciation, «Aissioii?  We're in luck.  This is one of
the people who would like to learn more about the transposer.  It has a
basic grasp of this language - which is why I'm speaking slowly.»  It
turned to the newcomer.  «This is Aissioii, the skistikk traveler.»

Aissioii turned to the newcomer and said, trying to mimic the slow
careful enunciation, «Have you chosen a name you would like to use in
this language?»

«Not..now.  No, not..yet?»  It looked at Oshwin and said something in
their own tongue.

Oshwin said, «Yes.  Not yet.»

Aissioii said, «Would you like to choose one now?»

The newcomer looked uncertain.  «Perhaps...Joran?»

«Joran, then.  I am pleased to meet you.»

«And I you am pleased to be met.  No, to meet.  I would like to learn
more about the transposition thing.»

«Unfortunately I do not know much about it.  I am here because I am
good at languages, not because I worked on the device.»

«Ah.  I that understand.  Is there...is it could be we could speak with
one of your people who of it does know?»

«Yes.  My people have been trying to learn this tongue, and some of
them have made good progress, including two of the ones who have worked
on the device.»

«That is good news.»  It turned to Oshwin and spoke in their tongue.

The two of them conversed for a few moments.  Then Oshwin turned back
to Aissioii and said, «Joran would like me to apologize on its behalf
for its lack of command of this language, and for any failure of
politeness it may have exhibited.»

Aissioii chuckled.  «No need.  Skistikks have a minor ceremony that
would take place at a meeting like this, but I was not expecting
sherikans to either be aware of or to adopt skistikk ceremony, much
like what you said earlier in the other direction.  I hold no...I am
not unhappy or angry.  Indeed, quite the opposite, by its thinking to
say what it did.»

Oshwin spoke with Joran in their own tongue a little longer.  Then
Joran spread what looked like wings and turned in a full circle on the
spot, then folded its `wings' and continued turning, disappearing into
the building.

Oshwin said, «That was a relatively formal `thanks and temporary
farewell' gesture for our kind.»

«My thanks to it, then, when next you speak with it, if that is
appropriate.»

«It is.  I shall pass that along.»

Aissioii looked around.  «Is there anyone else who would like to meet
me, or anything else you would like me to see?»

«Joran said there is no-one else here at the moment.  And there isn't
much to see here.  As you can see» - it waved at the buildings - «we
have housing for several of us, but we have chosen only a few of the
people for this work so far.  The...people who make plants for food,
they have moved their plants over there» - it waved vaguely past the
buildings - «since interacting with skistikks takes priority for this
place.»

«Then I think, maybe, I should be returning?  Or is there more I could
usefully do this visit?»

«Probably something, but I can't think what, offhand.  I think this has
been a successful first visit.  Well, first conversational visit.»

«I think similarly.  I'll probably be along as translator for at least
the next few visits.»

«I will be looking forward to that.»

«Thank you.»  Aissioii looked around.  «This way, I think?»

«Yes.»

They headed back towards the transposition spot.  As they neared it, it
became apparent it still held the expected clock.  He peered at it.  «I
see I have about a day-7 to wait.  What are the boundaries of the
space?»

«Approximately that flat square.»

«It is about the same as the...the space covered by our transposer.  As
I would expect.»  He stepped into the transposition space.  «To avoid
missing the time, I'll just wait here, if that's OK with you.»

«Certainly.»  Oshwin lay down a few of its own body-lengths outside the
area.  «My thanks for your visit.  It has been a pleasure to speak with
you.»

«I agree; it has been.  My thanks in return.»

They waited.  Eventually Aissioii said, «If we're going to be
transposing people, we really should experiment to find out what
happens to something only partly inside the volume.  We haven't had to
worry about that on our end, because of the...container.»

«Container?»

«Our transposition device has a metal part that encloses the volume to
be transposed.»

«Ah, so there's a well-defined and obvious...»

The transposition began, cutting off the rest of Oshwin's sentence.

----------------

This time Aissioii had some idea how much subjective time the
transposition took, but it still seemed like a small eternity.  But it
stopped eventually and he heard the cage open.  "Aissioii!  You're
there!"  It was Kikkar's voice.

"I am.  But I can't see yet."

"Of course not.  Here."  She took Aissioii's hand and led him out of
the transposer cage, then turned him.  "There.  Sit and tell us how it
went."

Aissioii felt carefully behind him and, upon feeling a chair, sat down.
"Us?"

"Most of the Committee is here."

"I suppose they would be."

A voice Aissioii did not recognize put in, "It's only the most
momentous event in the recorded history of our peoples.  I suspect the
only reason we don't have chiefs here up through the Atop is that most
of them haven't heard of us."

Aissioii laughed.  "Momentous event?  That was when Shissk put Drath's
and Tkriss's work together with the Kskrakk experiment."

"In theory, perhaps.  But this was the first time one of us has really
talked with one of them face to face."

"I suppose.  It didn't feel like talking with a stranger, because
Oshwin and I have exchanged so many sound recordings."  He looked
around.  "My sight is beginning to return."

"Good.  So, how'd it go?"

"Well, as planned, Oshwin was on hand when I arrived.  Once I was clear
of the transposer area, we just waited until my sight recovered.  She
was nice enough to put my note in the transposer for me, before my
sight was fully recovered."

"`She'?"

"Oh.  Yes, I don't actually know.  I don't know whether sherikans are
divided into sexes the way skistikks are, and if they are I don't know
Oshwin's sex.  The language we used doesn't have anything like gender.
Maybe I should say `it'."

"Okay."

"Okay, then.  It put my note in place.  Once my vision recovered,
turned out we were outdoors, as expected from the pictures we got back
from the camera we sent.  We passed the time talking about languages."

A fourth person chuckled.  "Aissioii talking about languages.  Will
wonders never cease."

Aissioii chuckled in return.  "And Oshwin is one of their better
linguists too, so it was a natural topic.  Anyhow, you transposed my
note back just about the time my vision was recovered enough for me to
be comfortable walking around.  So we headed off a nearby village,
which used to be a farming village, I think she...uh, it, said.
Once...oh, before I forget.  Kikkar?"

"Yes?"

"Now that we're transposing people, we really need to find out what
happens if there's an object only partially in the transposition volume
in their world.  In ours, there's the cage forming a natural boundary,
but in theirs, there isn't."

"True.  Damaging objects would be bad, but bisecting a person would be
much worse."

"Exactly.  Oshwin and I were in the middle of discussing that when I
returned."

"We'll have to negotiate details."

"We will.  Anyhow, we got to the village and Oshwin found Joran, who
has learnt the interchange tongue a little and who is interested in
talking with someone who understands how transposition works from our
point of view.  Nice person.  Anyhow, we spoke for a little, and
s...er, it, did an odd gesture, which Oshwin said was a formal thanks
and temporary farewell.  Then we returned to the transposer, checked
the timer, and so I got into the space and we waited.  Oh, and, here."
He held out the timer in Kikkar's direction.

Kikkar took it.  "Thank you."

One of the Committee members said, "So you think they've been on the
level with us?"

"Probably.  Unless they went to the trouble to build a whole fake
village, and I have trouble imagining what benefit that could bring
that would make it worth doing.  I spoke with only one other sherikan,
but I saw at least a dozen small buildings.  And, while I don't have
the full truthsense - and for that matter we don't know whether
truthsense will work on sherikans - what truthsense I have picked up no
attempt to deceive."

"Though at most that means neither of the ones you spoke with was
deliberately deceiving you."

"Oh, I know, I know."

"So you saw only two...sherikans?"

"Yes, just Oshwin and Joran.  If they're typical, sherkans are going to
be a pleasant people to deal with."

"If.  The ones doing first contact are unlikely to be typical in all
respects."

"Yes, of course.  But at least we know they're not, for example,
violently xenophobic as a people."

"True.  So, where do we go from here?"

Kikkar said, "Well, there's looking into the partly-in-the-space
question."

"There is that."

Aissioii said, "Personally, I would emphasize someone who knows the
transposer learning the interchange tongue, or someone like me learning
the tech.  They want to speak with someone about the transposer.  I can
translate, but translation always introduces distortion.  Oh, and,
before I forget, you know how the one we saw in the pictures was blue?
Their colour varies widely, and it appears to be a matter of little
import to them."

Rahhik said, "For people, I think Shkkfr would be a good choice.  She
knows the transposer well and has made good progress learning the
language."

"She has?  I didn't realize.  Yes, I agree, then.  If she's willing to
make the trip."

"She is.  Or, at least, she was last time I spoke with her; she spoke
of looking forward to it."

"Excellent."

Next day, Rahhik found Kikkar at the transposer.  "What's up?"

"We've been doing experiments with objects partially in the space."

"What results?"

"So far, it looks as though the danger is real.  The part of the object
in the space transposes; the rest remains there.  Of course, because of
the cage, there's no issue on our end.  But we haven't tried large
objects yet.  We've tried plant leaves and a piece of string.  We're
about to try a small stone."

"Mind if I stay and watch?"

"Of course not, silly."

Rahhik found a chair and sat down.

A timer went off and Kikkar said, "Okay, here goes."  She pressed a
button and there was the now-usual snapping sound.  "That's odd."

"What?"

"That drained the accumulators way more than usual.  Let's see what's
in the cage."  She opened it and pulled out a piece of rock.  It looked
chopped in half: it looked like an ordinary chunk of rock with half
missing and the surface where it was cut highly polished and almost
mirror-flat.

"It got cut."

"So it would appear."  Kikkar put it back in the cage, scribbled a
note, and put it in the cage too, before closing the door and pushing
the button.  "Hm, no extra drain that time."

"So what's next?"

"I asked them to try a large rock.  I'm also very curious about that
extra drain.  I told them I'd wait about a day-11 or so."  She eyed the
clock on the wall and eventually pushed the button again.

"That sounded different."

"It did."  She opened the cage.  "Hmm!  Nothing here."  She scribbled
another note and, put it in the cage, and pushed the button.  Nothing
happened.  She pushed it again.  Still nothing.  She opened the cage
and looked inside.  "My note is still here.  Interesting.  What's
wrong?"  She inspected some dials, got out some instruments, and probed
the machinery.  "Well, now.  That blew the fuse on power to the main
drivers."  She took something off a shelf and used it to replace a
similar thing in the circuitry.

"Won't it just blow again?"

"I hope not.  I asked them to remove the rock from the area if nothing
happened within a day-9 or so, and it's been nearly a day-8 by now.
And I am moderately sure this is linked to the rock; correlation is not
causality, but it _is_ circumstantial evidence in favour of causality."
She scribbled yet another note, added it to the cage, and pushed the
button.

"That sounded normal."

"It did."  She opened the cage and pulled out a different note.  She
glanced over it, mumbling, "They say...."

She looked up.  "They say they heard an unusual sound and nothing
obvious happened to the rock, so they got it out of the space fast.
But I took long enough they had time to write this note.  As we
arranged earlier, we'll be transposing every day-8 until we arrange
otherwise."

"Let me get Shkkfr.  She may have some ideas."

"Good thought."

Shkkfr proved to be nearby.  They described what had happened.  She
said slowly, "I suspect...I suspect that extra drain represented the
energy cost of breaking the links that formerly held the small stone
together.  And with the large stone, the energy required was higher
than our machinery could sustain, so the field collapsed back to its
original phase rather than crossing over.  Could you have them try
something large but not strong?"

"I believe we can try that."  She wrote out another note.  "Our next
transposition time is coming up."  Indeed, it was no more than a day-12
or so before a timer went off and she pushed the button.  Everything
sounded normal, and there proved to be another note in the cage from
the sherikans.

"They...ha!  They speculated basically the same thing you just did,
Shkkfr."

"I wonder if...I wonder if perhaps it would take less energy if we did
this in a vacuum.  I should work out how many gas molecules get chopped
by a transposition...."

"I never thought of that.  But then, I tend to forget that air isn't a
continuous medium."

"Me too.  And, for lots of purposes, that's a perfectly good
approximation."

"Fair enough.  Anyhow, we've got most of a day-8."

"Let me have a look at that.  I'm wondering how hard it would be to add
something so that excessive draw doesn't blow a fuse.  Hmmm..."  She
stared at the circuitry.  "A day-25 or so to build up, that's, hm,
it's spread across four drivers..."

"Six.  We added two more when building the larger model."

"Two more?  Oh, there they are.  Okay, and the driver drop...what was
the rating of that fuse?  And how much energy does a normal
transposition drain?"

"Here."  Kikkar tossed her the burnt-out one, adding "With the
accumulator banks we have now, the charge meter drops by about seven,
but of course it's then charged back up in no more than a day-15 or so."
Shkkfr looked at the fuse.  "Seven...and what do you have for
accumulators?"

"Eight, each rated 256 at 55."

"256 at...I think that's enough information.  If I can't do this, I'm
all but certain a better electronics tech can.  Give me a day or two."

"We've got plenty of fuses.  The major piece of relevance has already
been learned, though: we know it can be dangerous.  We probably should
figure a way to calibrate it so the presence of anything nontrivial
bridging the boundary causes failure rather than cutting the object."

"That'd be best, certainly, yes."

"At any rate, I know what I want to tell the sherikans."  She sat down
and started writing.  Shkkfr headed purposefully out the door.

----------------

"Apparently the sherikans want to send us another visitor."  Kikkar was
reporting to Ds. Fkssir.

"I thought they found the trip too harsh?"

"Aissioii said there was some sense they had that we don't which was
responsible, and that some of them don't have it.  Apparently they've
found such a one who's interested in visiting us."

"Alone?  With no translator?"

"Oshwin thinks this sherikan - Bittle is the name it's using in the
interchange tongue - will be fluent enough to converse soon."

"Well, I see no reason we can't welcome a sherikan visitor who's
willing to risk the trip."

So it was arranged.  Upon opening the cage, the sherikan looked around
and walked out of the cage directly, wearing a container of some sort
on its back.  «Hello?»

Aissioii, being still the most fluent in the interchange tongue,
stepped forward.  «Hello.  I am Aissioii.  You are Bittle?»

The sherikan said, «I am.  This is interesting.  The trip was very
different for me from what I had expected after speaking with Raggag
and reading the available descriptions.»

«Raggag?»

«The name our first traveler chose in this tongue.»

«Ah.»  He paused briefly.  «If you would care to share details of your
trip, we would love to hear them.»

«Well, Raggag was-- Oh, before I forget, I should send a note back.»
It produced writing materials and scribbled out something brief, then
holding it towards the transposer, saying, «I just put it in here?»

«Yes.»

Bittle placed it in there and backed away.  Kikkar closed the door and
pushed the button, sending the note on its way.

«As I was saying, Raggag was unable to perceive much of the trip.  Its
norvin was so overloaded it couldn't pay attention to much else.  But I
am completely tissar, so I had no such issues.»

One of the Committee members said, «Norvin?  Tissar?»

Aissioii said, «Words we added to this language for that sense the
sherikans have but we don't.  Norvin is the sense itself, parallel to
senses such as sight or hearing or taste.  Tissar means without norvin:
if you analogize `norvin' as `sight', `tissar' would be `blind'; if
`hearing', `deaf'.  There's also `vayss', a verb analogous to `see' for
sight or `hear' for hearing.»

The Committee member said, «I understand only twice of that.  I
apologizing.»

Aissioii repeated the explanation in the skistikk tongue.

The Committee member said, «Ah.  Thank you.»

Bittle said, «I saw colours, rather like what I think the electronic
camera saw back at the beginning, less vivid than Kikkar and you
reported.  But my vision was normal upon arriving.  And it seemed to me
the time taken by the trip was short; if I understand correctly, about
what the mechanical clock registered.»

«Curious.»

«I have no evidence for this, but I ... what is the word, to give an
idea with no real basis for it?»

«Guess?  Speculate?»

«Speculate, that's the word I wanted.  I speculate that skistikk are
not entirely tissar, but that your norvin is, in comparison to a
normally-norvent sherikan's norvin, very weak and mostly unconscious,
responsible for the time distortion and the after-travel effects on
vision.»

«That sounds plausible.  In any case, welcome.  Is there anything in
particular you would like to see here?»

«I would be interested in anything you can tell me or show me of your
transposition device.  I have studied all the writings we have from you
and I have spoken with some of our people.  It would take a fully
norvent sherikan to answer all the questions we have, but I can do what
I can.»

«Well, there is...wait, first, is there anything we can do immediately
to improve your comfort?  Is the heat here comfortable, for example?»

«I am comfortable here as I am, and I have with me everything I would
need for a visit eight times as long as we arranged for.»

«Very well, then.  Here you can see most of the transposer.  The only
part not in this room is the "accumulators"» - he used the skistikk
word - «that power it.»

«So it is mostly physical objects?»

«Of course.  What...oh my.»  Aissioii's face showed sudden
comprehension, at least to the skistikk.  «*That* is what we have been
missing.»

«Missing?»

«Since we first started exchanging written messages with your people, I
have had a growing feeling that we do things in a fundamentally
different way from you, so fundamental that neither of us was aware of
the difference because we were not aware the other way existed.»

«It is not just you.  Oshwin spoke similarly to me.»

«Now, I think maybe I understand the difference better.  Our people
build things out of physical objects.  Your people build things out
of...something else.»

«We do make physical objects.»

«Yes.  But when you build complex devices, you make them partially or
maybe even completely out of something else, things that are not
physical objects.»

«My response to that is `well, yes, of course'.  Since this is notable
to you, I infer that you do not, that you use physical objects
exclusively, or almost.  I further infer that you are right, that this
is the source of our failure to understand.  We build out of something
I have no word for in this tongue.»

«Of course not.  We have never discussed it, so we never added a word
for it.»

«You are probably a better linguist than I am; Oshwin I am not.  Would
you like to invent a word for it?»

«Sure.  Let's, hmm, let's call it...pasrae?»

«Pasrae.  That is as good a word for it as any other.»

«Do you have anything built of it with you?  I am interested in how we
perceive it.  *If* we perceive it.»

«I do not.  Norvin is the sense that lets us perceive pasrae.  Tissar
sherikans can sometimes work with pasrae, but it is difficult, because
we cannot vayss our work.  I have never developed that skill.  So I
have nothing of my own, and I think I do not bear anything made by
anyone else.»

«Still, it is a huge advance to even understand the failure to
communicate better.»

«It is.»  Bittle looked at the transposition machinery thoughtfully.
«I know a little bit about a few ways of building things out of
physical objects, but I am not trained for that.  I was trained as
a...one who prepares food.  I don't recall any word for that.  I am
here because I'm one of the few completely tissar sherikans available.
The first one to say I wanted to try this.»

«Do you know anything about...no, I cannot say this.  I do not even
have the words to describe the words I want.»

«Then perhaps I should just return?  It seems to me this visit has led
to progress already.»

«It has, it has.  But it seems poor hospitality for us to...»

Bittle interrupted, «Hospitality?  I don't know that word.»

«It means...well, suppose you visit me.  Then I am in the role of
`host' and you are in the role of `guest'.»

«I do know those words.»

«Hospitality, then, is the quality of being a good host.  This
includes things such as making the guest feel welcome.  Relevant right
now is that it seems to me like poor hospitality for us to welcome you
and then, after no more than a day-8 or a day-7 or so, send you home
because we can't explain what we most want to.»

«Am I not a bad guest, then, if I stay here when there is nothing to be
gained for either of us by it?»

«Possibly.  But is there nothing else you would like to discuss?»

«Many things.  But none, I think, as important as getting this
information back to Oshwin and...»  It paused briefly.  «And the others
of our people working on this.  Most of them do not have names in this
tongue.»

«Fair enough.  We can send you back anytime.»

«I would...what's the word, to think something and act as if it's true
without checking it...»

«Guess?  No...assume?»

«Assume, that's it.  I would assume you could.»  Bittle paused briefly.
«I can handle the grammar, but I still have trouble remembering words.»
It stepped into the transposer cage.  «I can come back whenever we
want, after all.»

«True.  So you're ready to return?»

«I am.»

So Kikkar closed the cage door and pushed the button, sending Bittle on
its way back.

The Committee members who spoke the interchange tongue had been
explaining and translating for the ones who did not.  The skistikk
stood looking at one another for a long moment before Aissioii mused,
"Pasrae."  It was a sound with no meaning in the skistikk tongue.  "I
begin to feel like a blind skistikk in a world of the sighted."

One of the members said, "I think I do not understand.  Can you
explain?"

Aissioii said, "This sense the sherikans have, norvin.  I feel as
though it gives them a richer experience of the world than we have.
Similar, I speculate, to what it would be like to be of a race of the
blind and introduced to a sighted people."

"Hm.  I think maybe I have a glimmer."

"As yet that's all I have myself."

Shkkfr put in an appearance a day and a half later, with one of the
electronics techs.  Rahhik was there.  "How goes, Rahhik?"

"Goes well, thank you.  Yourself?  What brings you by?"

"Doing well myself.  What brings me by is that Pirshea and I think we
have designed an overload cutout, to limit the damage from things
partially in the transposition space."

"Oh?  That'd be lovely.  I've been worried."

Pirshea said, "I've been looking at the diagrams and I think I know how
to handle this.  The major difficulty will be calibrating the cutout."

"Calibrating?"

"So it doesn't cut out on things like dust, but doesn't bisect people
or any such."

"We probably should arrange a downtime window with the sherikans.  But
I don't expect that to be difficult."

"I don't think there need be much downtime.  Once the limiter is built,
it should be no more than maybe six or eight connections."

"Still, we may have issues with it.  At least we still have the small
unit, so we can talk with them while the big one is out of service."

"Fair enough.  I'll be back once we have it built."

"I'll explain and arrange a downtime window."

It was no more than another day before Shkkfr had the limiter ready,
and it took only a day-2 or so to install and calibrate it.

Days passed.  Sherikans and skistikks sent notes back and forth.
Various of them learnt the interchange tongue and visited, eventually
reaching the point where each people generally had at least a few of
its members in the other world at any given time (the few sherikans in
the skistikk world being tissar), and there was talk of beginning
commercial trade between the peoples.  They had set up a small
transposer for use with written notes, transposing on a very frequent
schedule, using the larger transposer only after arranging a time via
the small one.

Theoreticians from each people studied the transposition phenomenon.
Eventually the sherikan researchers thought they knew enough to
initiate a transposition themselves.

It appeared to work, but the skistikks saw nothing at all in the volume
of space that should have been affected.

The sherikans then tried basically what the skistikks had done at the
beginning, sending out - and retrieving - test objects.  Kikkar, being
Kikkar, had wanted to be present, and the sherikans had no objection
(indeed, a few of them thought the presence of one of the original
experimenters would be a positive thing).  Tkriss had also arranged to
be present to gather first-hand obseervational data, saying that the
theory behind transposition had now been demonstrated to be woefully
incomplete, since the existing theory indicated that the transposition
should have reached the skistikk world.

The sherikans sent out, and retrieved, a camera.  The camera went out
and came back without apparent incident.  But the pictures looked
nothing like the skistikk world.

Kikkar said thoughtfully, «Are you sure your mechanism duplicates the
function of ours?»

«We had thought so.  We now doubt it.»

Tkriss had only the most basic grasp of the interchange tongue, so he
spoke in the skistikk language, "I wonder if we could bring over a
small transposer of our own style to test with."

That got the attention of two of the sherikans, presumably ones that
had learnt some of the skistikk speech.  «I understood a little of
that.  Did it just speak of bringing one of your mechanisms here?»

«Yes.»

«I should have thought of that myself, long ago.  I think it is an
excellent idea.»  The speaker wrote out a note and placed it to be sent
off.  Tkriss, Kikkar, and the sherikans involved stood around staring
puzzledly at the transposer, each trying to figure out in their own way
what could be behind this oddity.

Before long the sherikan dealing with incoming notes broke in, «They
will do that.  They have a spare small unit on hand; they will test it
and, if it works, send it.»

«Excellent.»

It was no more than a day-5 or a day-4 before Rahhik arrived through
the large transposer, bringing a small transposer with him.

Tkriss lit up.  "Excellent!  I assume you brought enough accumulators
to power several transpositions?"

"Only a few, but they're charging more and we can request charged ones
on very short notice."

"Makes sense.  Let's get this puppy set up."

Tkriss was not a technologist.  Fortunately, Kikkar and Rahhik were,
though Rahhik wasn't much use until his sight recovered.  It was no
more than a day-6 or so before they had the small transposer positioned
relative to the known transposition spots and set up.  The sherikans
watched, having the sense to not meddle in technology they didn't
understand when someone who did understand it was working with it.
Finally Kikkar said, "Okay, that should have it.  Let's arrange a test
time."

That didn't take long.  Kikkar wrote out a note, put it in the new
transposer cage, and pushed its button.  There was the usual snapping
sound, and the cage proved to be empty.  She then scribbled a note and
gave it to the sherikan handling routine communications.  "Now we find
out whether that worked."

It was no more than a day-11 or day-10 before they got an answer back.
"Nothing.  They heard no sound and got nothing at all."

Tkriss smacked himself.  "Of course!"

Everyone looked at him.  Kikkar said, "Of course?"

He grabbed writing materials and drew a sketch that looked like two
circles overlapping only slightly.  "We've been assuming it looks like
this.  Our world is here" - he tapped one of the sharp concavities -
"and the sherikan world is here" - he tapped the other.  "When the
transposer exerts orthogonal torque, it forces a rotation" - he drew a
line out of the one concavity around one circle - "leading to it
settling into the other stable state." - he completed the line, ending
in the other concavity.  "And, of course, from that one..." - he
continued the line, around the other circle, back to its starting
point.

Kikkar said, "I don't really understand that, but I'm not half the
thoretician you are."

"But let's posit that we've misunderstood, and the actual picture looks
more like this."  He sketched rapidly, drawing a number of bumps with
acute concavities between them, forming a rough circle.

Kikkar said, "I see!  So when we transpose from _here_, we end up
accessing a _third_ world."

"That's my current guess."

"Can we...reverse that torque you were speaking of?"

"That's...I wish Shkkfr were here.  The theory permits it but I don't
know how to translate it into practice."

"Let's go back home and talk with Shkkfr.  Oh, but first..."  She
switched languages.  «Did you people understand that?»

One of them replied, «I think so.  I am annoyed with myself for not
thinking of that explanation long ago.»

«We're going to go back home and talk with one of our people who excels
at turning theory into actual working devices, to see if we can make
this transposer» - she patted the small one Rahhik had brought -
«transpose in the other direction.»  She started writing a note.

Rahhik said, "Shouldn't we take the small transposer with us?"

"Oh, good thought.  We can't test it as well there, or at least I'd
rather not, since we could hit a world we'd rather not, and we've
probably done that enough from here already.  But we can bring it back
here easily enough once it's ready."  She scrapped the note she was
writing and wrote out another one, handing it to the note-passing
sherikan.

Rahhik had gathered up the small transposer.  He and Kikkar stood
watching until a reply came through.  They arranged their return and
entered the large transposer space, waiting until it took them home.

Once Tkriss found Shkkfr they disappeared into technical talk and
didn't come out for at least a day-2.  Finally Shkkfr said she believed
she knew what needed to be done to the small transposer.  That took
another day or so.  Shkkfr then gathered up additional parts, tools,
and instruments and declared she was coming along to deal with any
unexpected problems.

It was no more than an additional day-3 before all was arranged and the
three of them, with the transposer, took the trip to the sherikan world
(though it did take two transpositions; even the large transposer
couldn't fit three skistikks, the small transposer, and all the stuff
Shkkfr wanted to bring, at once).

This time the small transposer worked as expected.

The sherikans and skistikks spent a day or two discussing the changes,
until the sherikans were confident they could make analogous changes to
their transposer.  Shkkfr and Kikkar watched while they did so, but
they might as well not have bothered; most of the changes were in parts
made of pasrae, which it had long ago turned out skistikks could not
perceive.

The sherikans soon had their transposer working too.

----------------

It wasn't more than a few days before Ds. Fkssir received permission
for Kikkar to experiment with transposition in the other direction.

Rahhik was on hand when Kikkar started the last preparations.  So was
one of the Committee members, Farrea.

Kikker left the cage empty.  "For a first test, let's just try sending
nothing."  She pushed the button.

There was a sound like a thunderclap and the metal cage crumpled into a
twisted wreck.  Everyone jumped.

Rahhik spoke first.  "Stappak!  What was _that_?"

Kikkar inspected the crumpled cage, carefully not touching it.  "I
don't know.  _Something_ crushed the cage, but what?"  She got out an
instrument and measured something between the twisted cage and the
circuitry.  "Should be safe to touch."  She disconnected it and picked
it up.  "Looks...just crushed, but the same metal as always."

Farrea said slowly, "That looks to me like the work of vacuum."

Kikkar and Rahhik looked at one another.  He spoke.  "I wonder if we
hit a place with no atmosphere."

Kikkar replied thoughtfully, "That _would_ explain this.  I have no
better theory."

"Do we want to set up a transposer cage inside a vacuum chamber?"

"Possibly.  But do we want to bother?  What could it tell us?"

"We don't know.  At the very least this would be a cheap way to access
vacuum."

She blinked.  "Would it?  Would a transposer draw less power than a
vacuum pump?  And we'd need a much stronger transposition cage.  But,
in any case, we should find out what we're dealing with.  I think we
have the camera from our first attempts around here somewhere..."  It
took her perhaps a day-9 of rummaging to locate it.  "Ha!  Here it is.
I don't think we have any film on hand for the mechanical one, but the
electronic one should still work."

Rahhik said, "We'll need a new cage, and either a vacuum chamber or a
much stronger cage."

"If we go with the vacuum chamber, we don't need much inside it.  The
main drivers need to be very close to the cage, but most of the rest
can be outside - though none of this stuff minds vacuum; it would
probably be easier to bring the whole thing in, if we can find a
suitable chamber.  And, if we're working in vacuum, we don't need any
particular strength from the cage; another cage like the one we started
with will be fine.  And that'll be easy to get."

"Yeah, I think working in vacuum would be best.  Let me go see if I can
get us access to a big enough vacuum chamber."

It developed that could happen, but not for at least two days; the
existing vacuum chambers were too busy.  The three of them arranged to
meet at the chosen vacuum chamber when it was available.

Kikkar volunteered, "I'll get more film for the mechanical camera."

Rahhik said, "Do either of you know sign?  We won't be able to talk in
vacuum."

Kikkar blinked.  "I never thought of that.  No, I don't.  Let me see if
any of the other techs we have do."

Farrea said, "I'm hardly fluent, but I can sign a little."

Rahhik switched to sign, ~Good.  I'll feel better with a Committee
member present.~

~You think we may meet another new life form?~

~We can't ignore the--~

Kikkar said, "Oh, stop it, you two."

Farrea chuckled.  "True, we were kinda excluding you.  In any case,
Rahhik, yes, we can't ignore the possibility."

Kikkar asked, "Possibility?"

Rahhik supplied, "Of meeting another new life form."

"True enough.  Oh, do you think we should be prepared for an airless
world, or free space?"

"I...don't know.  Free space seems slightly more likely to me, for what
that's worth."

"I should...I have some ideas for the cameras."

When the time came, Farrea, Rahhik, Kikkar, and another tech,
Partikkid, who was fluent in sign language, met at the chamber.  A
sherikan also arrived, saying, «I heard you were going to possibly
reach a third world?»

Kikkar answered, «Possibly.  We tried transposing in the other
direction from our world, but the transposer container was crushed.  We
suspect we reached a place without any air, leading to our air crushing
the empty cage.  That's why we're trying from here; this is a...place
we can be with no air.»  She paused for a moment.  «Should I recognize
you?»

«Probably not.  My name in this tongue is Brithip.  I came to your
world quite...not long ago.  I am a student of everything skistikk.»

Kikkar indicated the others in turn.  «These are Rahhik, Farrea, and
Partikkid.»  She switched languages.  "People?  This is Brithip."

Farrea and Partikkid smiled.  Farrea gestured to Partikkid and said for
both of them, «We speak this language already.»

Kikkar smiled.  «My apologies.»

«No big deal.  So, Brithip, would you like to be part of the
experiment?»

«I would, but...you said this is....an airless room?  I have no
breathing device with me.  Do skistikk not need any such?»

«Not for something this short; while lack of air will kill a skistikk,
it takes at least three or four day-3s.  We don't expect to be here
longer than a day-7 or at most a day-6; lack of air won't even
inconvenience us.»

«Correction!» Partikkid interjected.  «It will mean we can't speak
normally.  We will have to use sign language.»

Brithip said, «Sherikans are far more dependent on air; lack of air
will kill a sherikan within a day-8 or so at the very most, and we
are...made non-functional...in only about a day-9.  So I shall have to
watch from here.»  It went over to one of the vacuum chamber windows
and peered into the tiny empty room.

"So,", Kikkar explained to the others, "I've added rotating
counterweights to the cameras.  The idea is that, if they end up in
free space, their orientation should tumble slowly, giving us a full
panoramic view."

Partikkid smiled.  "Clever!"

The four skistikks took the transposer and cameras into the chamber with
a small cart full of charged accumulators.  The chamber, while small as
rooms go, was quite large enough for the skistikks and equipment.
Kikkar declared she wanted to watch even if she couldn't communicate
much, so they closed the door and started the pumps.

As the sound of the pumps faded as the air was exhausted, they set up
the transposer.  They were ready before the vacuum was, but by less
than a day-8.

Rahhik pushed the button.  Nothing obvious happened.  Kikkar pointed at
the dial indicating accumulator charge.  Rahhik looked at it and
signed, ~That's interesting.  That took way less charge than we're used
to.  But it drained enough to indicate something worked.~

Partikkid signed, ~Perhaps Shkkfr was right in thinking this would cost
less energy in a vacuum?~

~Seems like.  Anyhow, that seems to have avoided the cage crush we saw,
so let's try the cameras.~

So they started the cameras, put them in the cage, sent them on their
way - and sure enough, the cage was empty when they checked.  They
waited a day-9 and transposed again.

Partikkid opened the cage.  ~At least we got the cameras back.~

~And at the same low energy cost.  Let's get out of here and see what
they show.~

Farrea went over to the wall and punched the button to release the
vacuum.  It took about a day-10 until the pressure was equalized and
they opened the door and trooped out.

Brithip said, «So, did it go well?»

«As far as we can tell.», Rahhik said.  «We need to go see what the
cameras captured.»

«May I come along?»

«I see no reason why not.»  He looked at the others.

«Me neither.»  «Sure.»  «Why not?»  The others all spoke at once.

So they put the film aside to be developed, then hooked the electronic
camera up to its display.  Kikkar started it.

It was rather boring.  Kikkar's tumbling counterweights worked, but the
video showed nothing but starfield, starfield, and more starfield,
though there was one star that was exceptionally bright.

Farrea mused, "Free space--", glanced at Brithip, and switched
languages.  «Sorry.  Free space, apparently.»

Rahhik said, «Indeed.  Well, at least we definitely reached a third
world, and it is one where the cameras work.»

Farrea said, «I wonder what's on the other side of the sherikan world.»

Brithip said, «We sherikans have been talking about investigating that.
I don't think anyone has actually done anything yet, though.  Now that
we have hard evidence that the model of a chain of worlds in each
direction is at least close to accurate, I expect that to change soon.»

Partikkid mused, «I would like to get an astronomer to look at this.
I'm curious as to whether the starfield matches what we see in our
world.»

Brithip said, «Ooh, interesting question indeed!»

The project had clout enough they were able to enlist the help of an
astronomer in short order.  He watched the video a few times and
declared himself unable to see any relation between it and the skies of
the skistikk world.  He did offer a professional opinion that the very
bright star was probably close enough that it would be the sun of a
hypothetical planet at the point the cameras were - but also cautioned
that the star in question did not appear as a disk, so, unless it were
a very hot star, any such planet would be very cold.

Kikkar mused, «I suppose it was too much to hope for.  But if we're
basically picking random locations in other universes, it seems
fantastically lucky that our first experiments reached the sherikan
world.  A random probe into our space certainly is overwhelmingly
likely to hit free space, not near anything, like what we found here.»

Brithip said, «I don't know much about ours, but I _think_ the same is
true of it.»

«I wonder whether we really were just that lucky or whether there's
something else going on.»

Parikkid said, «My money would be on the latter.  After all, our
planet is constantly moving; presumably the sherikan planet is too, and
with no reason to think they are moving precisely in sync.  Yet our
transposition spots stay in sync.»

Brithip said, «You make a good point.  Our planets' rotation speeds
aren't even quite the same, at least not based on our day lengths.
And, for that matter, why didn't your transposition end up above or
below the spot it did?»

«Good question.  The day lengths aren't the same?»

«No.  Close, but not quite; as I recall, the ratio is somewhere around
4615 to 4577.»

«I wonder why those numbers.»

«It's not exact.  The first approximant is 120 to 121; 4577 to 4615 is
just the next large term.»

«Approximant?  Large term?»

«In the...what's the term...I don't recall enough mathematics
vocabulary in this tongue.  Do you have something to write on and with?
I can write it out.»

Rahhik went to a storage cupboard and produced writing materials.

«Thank you.  Well, if you have a number like, say, 2563/2061.  You can
represent that as...» and it wrote out:

	             1
	1 + -------------------
	               1
	    4 + ---------------
	                 1
	        9 + -----------
	                   1
	            2 + -------
	                     1
	                8 + ---
	                     3

«I'll take your word for it.  Wait, do you have that example
memorized?»

«Uh...no?  Why would I?»

«You mean you worked that out in your head on the spot?»

«Oh.  Yes, I sometimes forget.  I've got a knack for numbers.»

«You must!  Anyway, please continue.»

«Okay.  So, we can approximate that number successively more coarsely
by dropping trailing terms, as in...» and it wrote out

	           1
	1 + ---------------
	             1
	    4 + -----------
	               1
	        9 + -------
	                 1
	            2 + ---
	                 8

«...which  is 822/661, or...»

	         1
	1 + -----------
	           1
	    4 + -------
	             1
	        9 + ---
	             2

	       1
	1 + -------
	         1
	    4 + ---
	         9

	     1
	1 + ---
	     4

	1

«which are, successively, 97/78, 46/37, 5/4, and 1.  And I'm told
there's a rigorous sense in which those are the best approximations.»

«Okay.  And for day lengths...?»

«Well, let's compact this notation a little.  If we drop the ones and
write just the numbers before the + signs, for...to make the writing
shorter, we can write that first number as»

	[1 4 9 2 8 3]

«and the approximants as»

	[1 4 9 2 8]
	[1 4 9 2]
	[1 4 9]
	[1 4]
	[1]

«In this notation, the day length ratio is»

	[0 1 120 2 4 3 1 24 5 1 4 ...]

«where the last 4 and the terms after it are uncertain; last I heard,
we haven't measured your day length precisely enough to be sure of
those values.  Large values in this representation correspond to
particularly good approximations; in this case, for example, truncating
it at [0 1] gives 1, which is a good first approximation; this is just
before 120, a large number.  Truncating it after 120, 2, 4, etc give
successively more accurate approximations, but truncating just before
the 24 gives a particularly good approximation; that's 4577/4615.»

Farrea said slowly, «I am not much of a mathematician, but I think I
have seen this notation before. It is stirring up memories.»

Kikkar suddenly said, "Continued fractions."

Farrea said, "Yes!  That's the term I was trying to remember."

Brithip said, mimicking Kikkar's pronunciation very well, "Continued
fractions?"  «Fractions that continue?»

Kikkar said, «That's what we call them in our language.  I guess you
speak it a bit?»

Brithip said, «Yes.  Your language is one of the things I've been
studying.  I'm not quite confident enough to be speaking it, though.
In our language, this--» and it dropped into the skistikk tongue to
say, "continued fraction", «--would be called...I would translate it
literally as an `integer chain', or maybe `chained integers' would be
closer.»

«Integer chain?  Makes sense to me.  But if exact terminology matters,
I'd suggest asking a real mathematician.  As for language, I, at least,
would be happy to help you practice our language.»

Brithip closed its eyes for a long moment and switched languages.
"Okay.  I will try to not know my worrying."

"Not know?"

«Ignore.»

"Ah.  `Ignore', then."

"Thank you.  But doesn't `ignorance' mean `not knowing'?"

"Yes, but...hm."

Partikkid said, "`Ignore' and `ignorance' may be related
etymologically, but their meanings are no longer _that_ closely
related."

"`Etymologically'?"

"In the sense that they are derived from the same ancestral root.  Or
roots.  Etymology is the study of how words are derived from one
another."

"I see.  Thank you."

They reported their observations and none of them heard anything more
until Ds. Fkssir sought out Kikkar.  "Hello.  Sorry to interrupt you;
I'm here on official business."

She looked at the data analysis she'd been doing.  "Nothing that can't
wait."  She turned to give Ds. Fkssir her full attention.  "My time,
then, is yours."

"We've had a letter from the sherikans."

"With particularly interesting content, presumably, since we've been
getting letters routinely."

"Indeed.  The sherikans have experimented with transposition in the
other direction."

"Oh?  Do tell!"

"That's what brings me here officially.  They've reached another world,
with a third life-form."

"Cool!  So how does this involve us?"

"Both they and us want the first contact to include both sherikans and
skistikks."

"Sounds sensible.  And you're talking to _me_ because...?  You want me
to represent skistikks?"

"Yes and--"

"But, wait.  They only just experimented, I think you said?  Is it
First Contact time already?"

"No, but they want to pull the team together now.  The Atop's office is
sending someone and--"

Kikkar broke in, "Politicians."  Her voice was tinged with disgust.

"Yes and no.  They're sending an exopsychologist, not a professional
politician."

"An exopsychologist?  A psychologist specializing in other species?"

"Exactly."

"I didn't even know that was a thing."

"It wasn't until very recently.  Apparently they initiated a crash
program to develop some.  My impression is that they're not totally
ready, but the sherikan experiments kinda forced their hand."

"Huh.  I daresay.  So, if we've got her, where do I come in?"

"In two ways.  One is that you've expressed an interest in new
adventures.  The other is that...well, this exopsychologist, Frikisr,
is not a technologist of any sort, much less a transpositional
technologist.  Oh, possibly excepting a technologist of minds."

"Well, if it's a sherikan transposer, neither am I."

"You're closer than she is.  And everyone wants someone from the
original team involved."

"Well, I'm hardly going to refuse.  When do we need to get going?"

"Tomorrow morning is when we plan to transpose our team to the sherikan
world."

"Tomorrow morning?  But I'm supposed to be working on--"

"I know.  We've spoken with them and you're being reassigned to this
First Contact team more or less indefinitely."

"I'm being...wow.  This is, like, my dream job."

Ds. Fkssir smiled.  "That's how everyone we spoke with thought you'd
react.  It's one reason we're picking you to represent the original
team; we'd much rather have someone who _wants_ to be involved than
someone reluctant or even neutral.  You're the one who actually _likes_
new experiences."

"Thank you.  Thank everyone else involved in picking me, too, for me,
if you would.  I'd talk more now, but if I'm to be leaving tomorrow
morning for an indefinite stay among the sherikans, the rest of my day
will be busy."

"Well, we do expect the skistikks to be returning home intermittently;
it's not as if the journey home is impractical.  One of them has even
declared he'll be treating transposition as his daily commute.  Or at
least part of it."

"Fair.  I dunno, but I suspect it'll be awesome to get to actually
_live_ among the sherikans; I don't know how much I'll be wanting to
return.  I'm glad I'm not partnered."

"And it's fine if you don't feel like returning much, too; just because
the option is there doesn't mean you have to take it."

"True enough.  One thing for sure: I'll return a lot more fluent in
that shared language than I leave!"

Ds. Fkissir laughed.  "I daresay!"

As Ds. Fkissir was about to leave, Kikkar said, "Oh, what about food?
Can we eat their food?"

"I'm told that's being dealt with.  At worst we'll need to transpose
skistikk food, but as I understand it we probably won't have to."

----------------

Next morning, the team assembled before leaving.  As Kikkar entered the
room, there were four skistikks present.  Kikkar thought she recognized
two of them from the original First Contact committee.

Kikkar sat down.  It was only about a day-8 before Ds. Fkissir arrived.
"Good, everyone is here.  I think some of you are not yet acquainted,
and in any case it will help to ensure everyone knows what everyone's
job is."  She smiled.  "To start with, let me introduce everyone."
Everyone was standing in a rough circle; she turned to her left.  "This
is Frikisr.  She is our exopsychologist."

Frikisr said, "I am an exopsychologist *in training*, Daris."

Ds. Fkissir said, "Please, no titles.  Among us, I prefer to be just
Fkissir, not Daris Fkissir, if only because my degree is of only
minimal relevance here."

Frikisr bowed slightly and said, "Very well, Fkissir, then.  But I
still am only in training."

Ds. Fkissir said, "I'm assured you're the best available.  Events have
forced us into assembling a team rather sooner than we would have
liked."

"I understand.  I just don't want anyone to have any illusions about my
expertise."

"Fair enough."  She turned, pointing as she named the next two.  "These
are Foroi and Tippokrk.  They were on the original First Contact
committee and are here as representatives of the University and our
governments, respectively; their official roles are strictly observers,
but, personally, I intend to listen to them as well.  Then," - she
indicated Kikkar - "we have Kikkar, who was one of the techs on the
original experiments, perhaps the most experienced transposition tech
we have.  She also may be the most novelty-seeking skistikk I've ever
heard of.  Finally, I am Fkissir; my role is to handle logistics and
more generally to interface between the team and all the boring but
necessary things that would otherwise soak up our experts' time with
things unrelated to their expertise.  Our team can of course call on
experts in other fields when and as needed, but for boots on the
ground, it will be basically just the five of us."

Tippokrk said, "I assume we all speak the interchange tongue?"

Fkissir said, "Mostly.  None of us are Aissioii, but I think we can
each hold our own.  Speaking of which," «maybe we should get used to
speaking this language instead.»

Foroi said, «That sounds like a good idea to me.»

Tippokrk said, «We'll *have* to be using it soon enough.»

Fkissir said, «We will.»