After scanning beyond the scorched crash zone, Itxaro spotted her tree friend, sitting beneath a tree. [i]Fitting.[/i] As she approached Shirik, the doctor hesitated; he seemed to be resting, if the Iriad was capable of such, or perhaps meditating. Either way, Itxaro wasn't eager to disturb him. Just as she was turning to leave, Itxaro heard his rumbling voice, which was also picked up by her translation program. She couldn't help but chuckle as the translator repeated his words in English, utilizing her own voice she'd just installed. [i]Gonna have to tweak that[/i]. 

Itxaro strode over and sat down in the soft grass, still damp with morning dew, across from the Iriad. She leaned back for a moment and stretched her sore limbs, leg still aching from the graze a week ago, and let the alien sun warm her face through the tree's branches. After being cooped up in engineering for so long, Itxaro didn't particularly care if she was getting a healthy dose of radiation from the star or not.

[color=fff200]"Thanks, Shirik. And yeah, that's what they tell me anyways,"[/color] Itxaro replied, looking back to the Iriad. [color=fff200]"Think of it like a little Gar'Tan, but dumber, and not as scary-looking."[/color] Itxaro was amused, hearing the program spit her own words back out in a totally foreign language.

[color=fff200]"So, how's that? Make any sense at all or just gibberish?"[/color]

Itxaro took a moment to tweak the translation software on her datapad, removing her own voice for incoming translations. She paused for a moment and glanced at Shirik as her finger hovered over the "masculine" and "feminine" default voice options before selecting the former. She wondered if the Iriad even [i]had[/i] a gender, but figured the deeper of the two would be appropriate. Itxaro briefly toyed with the idea of uploading famous human voices for the program to use, but decided it was best to stick to the basics for now. Still, her mind tore through several humans to use that would best represent Shirik and the others.

The Iriad spoke of home, Earth, and Itxaro turned his words over in her head. [color=fff200]"Well,"[/color] she replied after a moment, [color=fff200]"it's definitely farther than I thought we'd make it. I'll be honest, I didn't have much faith in that heap of scrap over there. Guess my gut was only half-right."[/color] She looked over to the Jotunheim's wreck, contemplating her own words. It wasn't exactly the [i]ship[/i], which was a sound piece of engineering, but everything surrounding it. Alien technology, corporate oversight, untested AI, the lot of it. Too many moving parts.

[color=fff200]"And if I'm being honest, we don't even know how far we went. Hell, on the cosmic scale, our worlds could be neighbors."[/color] Even as she said it, Itxaro knew it couldn't be true. 200 years of scanning planets light years from Earth hadn't revealed anything like the garden world they crashed on, let alone a rock remotely capable of hosting complex life. No, they were far. [color=fff200]"Nah, I'm not homesick yet. We knew what we signed up for. Well, most of us, anyways,"[/color] she finished, thinking of the stowaways who had definitely [i]not[/i] volunteered for an interstellar road trip. She supposed it was better than being gunned down by shadowy mercenaries. Her leg throbbed involuntarily at the thought. 

[color=fff200]"What about you? Where's home for Shirik? I'm guessing you don't vibe with the Ascendency, and definitely not with our good friend Silbermine. Tell me about where you're from,"[/color] Itxaro asked with a gentle smile, genuinely curious.

Shirik intrigued Itxaro on multiple levels. The first, obviously, purely physical. A sentient burning torch. Who wouldn't be curious? But beyond that and the magic, he seemed less... Frantic, somehow, than the other aliens. The Iriad wasn't constantly plying her with questions, eager to get something from them, desperate to learn, for which she couldn't blame them. Perhaps Shirik was simply playing it cool, looking at the long game, or maybe this was just his disposition.
[hr]
As if to provide a counter for Shirik, Kareet approached the two, and Itxaro waved them over. [i]This one, on the other hand... Very curious.[/i] The Tekeri dove beak-first into the new technology, and Itxaro grinned. She was pleased Kareet still had the books and pen she'd gifted to her, but then remembered with a twinge of panic just how flammable the paper was in this atmosphere. [color=fff200] "Well, hello to you too, Kareet! Come on, join us,"[/color] Itxaro said in response to the Tekeri's loaded question, an attempt to buy herself some time. [i]Golems? Really? Am I in the Talmud?[/i] Itxaro decided to save her questions for later, and answer the one at hand.

[color=fff200]"Not magic, no; it just seems like it. In about 600 years or so, your people will probably figure out how to do this yourselves. Well, if you follow humanity's path anyways."[/color] Itxaro thought for a moment, considering how best to describe a computer to both an alien and someone completely unfamiliar with electricity. Teaching quantum mechanics to a first-year student would probably be easier.

[color=fff200]"Well, I guess it starts with power. Think of how lightning strikes in a storm. We're able to harness the dominant influence within lightning, which we call electricity. We generate it, make it small, and use it, like how you channel a river to turn a watermill, which uses the energy to saw wood. We send the electricity through metal and sand, and through some complicated math that even [i]I'm[/i] not sure about, we can make it do what we want. We can store information with it like a book, use it to solve math problems for us like a giant abbicus, or help us send ships flying across space and into the dirt. And it works much faster than our minds can, but it only does what we tell it to,"[/color] Itxaro said. She didn't bother bringing up the AI they had on board, which would only complicate matters even further.

[color=fff200] "But it isn't magic, and it isn't sentient, just like how rain or wind isn't intelligent. The process is more like... Smithing. I couldn't figure out how to make a nail from a lump of iron, but J'eon, who knows all about it, could make a suit of armor in his sleep. It seems impossible to me, but not to him."[/color] Itxaro searched the Tekeri's eyes for understanding. It was much to take in, perhaps too much; she'd need hours upon hours to fully explain it to her, but Itxaro hoped the simple answer would suffice for now. 
[hr]
[color=fff200]"Hey, did you say, uh, [i]golems[/i]?"[/color] Itxaro asked in disbelief before she was cut off by a voice coming over her comms system. Barberio, the quiet, work-oriented machinist Itxaro had barely spoken to over the hectic week. 

Itxaro let out a deep sigh and pushed down her annoyance before responding. [i]A machinist,[/i] she thought, [i]probably shouldn't be tinkering with nuclear reactors. I sure as hell wouldn't put my hands anywhere near his CNC machine. Would probably tear my other arm off.[/i] Then again, Itxaro considered, it was hypocritical to complain about Barberio working on a reactor when she was out here playing diplomat, something totally beyond her own skillset. [color=fff200]"Nowhere near enough juice to get the reactors fired up, so we're just taking a break, chatting with our new friends here. Why don't you join us?"[/color] Itxaro asked, in part because she wasn't sure if the machinist had stepped outside since they crashed judging from his complexion, but also to pull him away from the reactors. Recalling his dossier, Itxaro remembered the man was a polyglot with a penchant for writing code, so she figured the lure of a native language and translation program would be a sufficient draw.

[color=fff200]"Sorry about that,"[/color] Itxaro said to her two companions. [color=fff200]"Coworkers. You know how it is."[/color]