Why couldn’t they just get electronics like everybody else then?” Becker grumbled. He was getting a little lightheaded, trying to hold his nose so he didn’t breathe in those fumes.
“Because this piiyi is cheaper, more efficient, and entirely homegrown for the Niriians,” Aari answered, now using the keyboard to open the interface between the Anscan and ship’s computer and corn unit.
If Becker wasn’t actually astonished to see a bovine twohorned Niriian appear on the corn unit screen, he “was at least mildly flabbergasted.
“I’ll be darned. That cheese Dou work, just like you said.”
“It is a piiyl, Joh.”
“It is a pee-yew as far as I’m concerned, but-”
Acorna put her hand to her mouth and made a hushing noise and they listened again to the broadcast.
“Can we stop it and start it so you can translate for us, buddy?” Becker asked.
“Yes. The piiyl forms a permanent linear archive, but access to information can be controlled by your … Anscan.”
“Okay. Stop it then. What did he just say?”
“The same thing as before. It was a recorded broadcast, a call for help, what you call a mayday. Their ship was under attack. They identified themselves and gave their location, but the coordinates they listed were far from here and even farther from their home planet.”
“Does it say who attacked them and why?” Becker asked.
“Not here.”
“Okay, let’s see if there’s anything else on that monstrosity.”
“Undoubtedly, Joh. The pliyi is a high-density storage device.”
“Dense with stench … that I’ll agree with,” Becker muttered.
Aari went back to work. Once the static had cleared, a Niriian face appeared and began speaking. After a few seconds, Becker asked what it was saying.
“It is the ship’s log. I believe we are receiving the last entry first. It is hard to tell, exactly, Joh. This is a different speaker-probably the captain. His dialect is difficult to follow. Wait! Yes! By the Niriian calendar they were transmitting-ummm, you would say, five days ago.’
Aari had made his answer quickly, and quietly, keeping one ear focused on the Niriian voice as it droned on.
“Ah, yes.” Aari said. “He says that he and his crewmates were on a scouting expedition. You know, Niriians are always looking for greener pastures-like us, they are a grazing people, but they are a rather more numerous race than the Linyaari. He is referring to an earlier entry in the log, something about a very fertile planet and then, disappointingly, signs of previous colonization-no, present colonization. Very, very small signs. One-pod? Does he mean this one? No, he is saying something … something about Linyaari.”
He shut it down and turned to them, his eyes wide. “Joh, he was saying something about a dwelling place, and a small downed Linyaari vessel, but it was not near where they detected the mammalian life signs. His accent is too thick, Joh.”
Acorna said, excitement barely controlled in her voice, “This sounds very important. Perhaps we should forward all this information back to narhiiVhiliinyar, where some of the Starfarers who have spent time on Nirii can translate it more accurately than we can. In the meantime, we can use Aari and the LAANYE to try to understand the rest of what is being said. I wonder who attacked the ship… . And I wonder if the Niruans really found stranded Linyaari outside our normal trade routes and, if so, how our people came to be there?”
If it was an escape pod, maybe the Linyaari got to the planet in question the same way you told us you reached the human galaxy-you know, ejecting from a ship in trouble.” Becker offered.
Acorna’s expression became so intense, her mouth so set, ana Ihere was such a determined look in her eyes that Becker thought she might be hoping somehow that there had been two life-support pods after all in the space ship her parents had been on, that perhaps they had escaped. He felt obligated to point out to her that it wasn’t the most likely possibility.
“We need to get those coordinates and do a little searching ourselves,” he said. “They could be people who escaped Ganoosh’s and Ikwaskwan’s goons when the fake Federation troops were ‘arresting’ all your people.”