***Trakken Prime***

***Ittoit, Head Researcher***

Ittoit watched doubtfully as the little girl sped through the educational program like a machine.

When his assistant had offered her the tablet, she had taken it as if she were accustomed to such devices. The girl first went through the alphabet as if on an afterthought, and not five minutes later, she was trying her best to pronounce the Trakken language correctly while watching children’s sketches depicting the meaning of several words. Embarrassingly enough, it was a basic education kit for preschoolers.

It was something his assistant had come up with on the fly when they were confronted with the strange delegation from another world.

The girl had only required a bare minimum of instruction on how to use the device from his assistant, Ittar, who was still giving her best to help and establish communication, something Ittoit didn’t expect to bear fruit any time soon, judging by how leniently the girl was treating the language lesson. He couldn’t imagine that this first session would be remembered properly at the speed she was going.

He took a glance at his wristwatch, wondering how the strangers would regard his retreat. Would it be taken as an offence or as a threatening act? He should have considered joining the first-contact group more carefully and left the boring task to his subordinates. But who could claim to have met genuine non-Trakkens?

Meanwhile, the girl didn’t seem to mind that she was right in the middle of an armed stand-off.

It was inconceivable to Ittoit how these people could keep ignoring the automated security system so nonchalantly. His eyes went to one of the armoured warriors who was looking over the girl’s shoulder like some concerned parent.

The guards looked like they sprang right out of a historical movie or some sort of misguided fantasy adventure. Except for the girl, all of them were in full body armour. Who in their right mind wore armour like that when they had access to guns? The fancily decorated gear was probably meant to be intimidating, but to Ittoit, it just looked excessive.

His eyes narrowed as he assessed their equipment.

The armour and close combat weapons looked like they were handcrafted, skillfully, he had to admit, and with the aid of sophisticated machines, but the gear didn’t look like it was standardised equipment.

On the other side, the guns and other gadgets were quite obviously factory-produced items.

If he hadn’t known for certain that they arrived with the strange teleportation device, he would have dismissed them as members of some strange cult who dressed up for some ritual. His eyes went to the orb, which was hovering in the centre of the room, before they returned to the girl who had her full attention on the tablet, swiping away after giving each lesson mere seconds to play.

Well, the girl’s face at least was proof that she wasn’t from Trakken, unless she was unfortunate enough to suffer from several disfiguring birth defects.

That was, if she was a ‘girl’ at all. Ittoit had no idea what these people represented. He was not completely sure whether these people were another related faction of his people or true outsiders. He could imagine that genetic drift and different environmental requirements might result in the girl’s unique appearance, though the two guardians with tentacles were definitely not human.

Ittoit couldn’t imagine a way for any Trakken faction to develop such traits.

If only the four-eyed ones had shown up, he would have likely decided to activate the security system and answer his questions by studying what remained. Even now, both of them gave his scik-sense the chills.

They looked like the one who appeared on the footage of the security camera which recorded the incident at the Sotteria Museum. And if they possessed the same fighting abilities, he probably shouldn’t dismiss them too readily.

They felt like some confused person from an insane asylum. One moment, it was like they would be jumping at him, intending to kill; the next, they felt utterly uninterested in him.

To test his theory, Ittoit changed the positioning of his foot, just a little, as if he was about to dodge the attack he felt might be coming. As if he had shouted at them, the little change in his footing drew the alarmed attention of both guards, who eyed him with interest. Only once he returned to a more relaxed stance did they allow their attention to stray once more.

For now, Ittoit decided to watch them carefully and wait till some form of communication was established.

The Trakken people had known for a long time that they weren’t alone in the universe. Though the first war was almost mythical among his people. Many wouldn’t believe that it had truly occurred if there weren’t undeniable proof in the form of ancient alien technology and some sparse records.

Since then, the Trakken had conquered their solar system, but the final step to another star was still a distant dream.

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Nobody would have expected for one of the old artefacts to come back to life and cause problems.

The girl cleared her throat for another attempt, and to Ittoit’s surprise, an almost understandable sentence came out from between her lips.

“We are… delegation from… ‘Tirnanog’ world. Here goal… establish relations… and barter for… trade.”

“We are a delegation from the world of Tirnanog. The goal is to establish trade relations?” Ittar suggested a slight correction to the sentence structure.

The girl nodded and parroted the corrected phrasing in perfect Trakken before raising a finger. “So, you indicate tense by placing the modal auxiliary verb either before or after the noun. Or by indicating present tense with a click of the tongue.”

She returned her attention to the tablet. “Are there any other grammatical rules which this program doesn’t mention?”

“It is just a basic dictionary for children,” Ittar defended herself. “How is it possible for you to suddenly speak fluent Trakken? We have been working on it for less than an hour.”

“Learning new languages isn’t that hard once you know the grammar and achieve a certain…” She frowned and tapped away at the tablet. “… amount of words? Vocabulary? Surely, there are plenty of phrasings I have yet to learn. Though I have to praise you for thinking ahead by bringing this tablet along. It made the process so much faster compared to having to…”

She tapped at the tablet.

“… having to scrape each word from your tongue. Is that correct? I wouldn’t say that I am fluent, but we should be able to have a decent conversation if you allow me to keep this tablet. Is there a way to unlock a proper dictionary on this?”

“Eh, yes.” Ittar looked at Ittoit for help.

He sighed and gestured for his assistant to go on, aware that the tablet’s functionality had been restricted to prevent data theft.

Ittar went on to unlock the tablet’s dictionary.

“Thanks!” The girl smiled oddly at Ittar, which caused a strange feeling in Ittoit’s chest. He should have probably been disgusted by the aberrant appearance of that smile, but he wasn’t. It reminded him of the friendly monster in an old children’s show.

The Trakken people pulled the corners of their mouths sideways apart when they smiled, but this girl pulled them also upwards in a disconcerting manner, indicating the presence of musculature that was not present in Trakken biology.

Ittar went on when the girl’s attention stayed on the tablet as she scrolled through the dictionary. “Can you remember everything you read at a glance? You are scrolling a little too fast for me to keep up. My name is Ittar, now that we can talk properly. May we introduce ourselves?”

“Most of it. That’s why I am here. Call me Matriarch Vanya.” She gestured over her shoulder. “The others aren’t as smart as I, but I will help them learn your language. It shouldn’t take them too long. Maybe a day or two for most of them. Anajed might need a little bit longer.”

“Yeah…” Ittar glanced at one of the four-eyed guards. “Why are they thinking about killing us?”

Vanya looked up from the tablet and followed Ittar’s gaze. “Oh, you are ‘psychic’ too? Those two are good at sending chills down your spine, aren’t they?”

“What’s a ‘psychic’?” Ittoit asked, tasting the strange word.

“Someone who can use their mind to do things,” Vanya explained. “I haven’t found the Trakken translation, yet.”

“Well, we can’t ‘do’ things with our minds, but most of us can see the intentions of other people ahead of time. We call it the scik-sense,” Ittar explained and pointed at the two truly alien guards. “Those two are constantly imagining various ways of killing us or… doing other things like running away… activating that orb… or attacking the security system… or doing nothing at all. It’s like they can’t decide on a course of action and are constantly considering every possibility.”

Vanya shook her head and sighed. “Scik-sense. I guess we have to thank you for holding back. It is interesting to learn about other types of psychics. Please, don’t be concerned about Magnus and Astra. They will not attack without reason. Their mind works differently from those of most other people. They are ‘scik’ in their unique way.”

She tapped at her temple. “It is like there are multiple people inside their heads, and each and everyone is screaming over each other for various courses of action. It is very disturbing. Are the rest of us also ‘feeling’ troublesome to your senses?”

Ittar shook her head. “No. I don’t get anything from you, and the others are comparably quiet.”

“Good.” The girl pointed out the various members of her party. “Again, these are Magnus, Astra, and Etan from ‘Clan’ Aerie. And these are Tianna and Anajad. They are from ‘Clan’ Hochberg, as am I.”

“What is ‘Clan’?” Ittar asked.

Vanya pursed her lips and consulted the tablet. “Strange. It seems like there is no proper translation for the concept.”

“Maybe you can explain it?” Ittoit suggested.

“Well, it is a concept to order people into social groups. A Clan is like an extended family. Back on Tirnanog, we are living in clans, which can be seen as political factions.”

“Like countries?” Ittar asked.

The girl pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t quite call a clan a country, but the concept works in the absence of explaining our various social systems.”

Ittoit drew his eyebrows together. “What kind of social systems are your people using?”

He couldn’t imagine why any group would intentionally segregate itself from the rest of society. Wouldn’t it be normal to align social structures to reduce conflict potential?

Vanya shrugged. “Whatever works for the respective groups or clans. In Hochberg, we are fairly simple. Whatever the current ruler says is law, and that’s it. Comparatively, you could label Aerie’s government a caste-system, though that is simplifying it a lot. Their convoluted government is just as complex as the brain wiring of those two.”

She pointed at the two four-eyed guards who somehow managed to look offended despite their helmets hiding their faces. Had they understood her speaking Trakken?

“Wait, those two are of the same people as you?” Ittar asked. “They look so different with their eyes.”

“Oh, we all look very different from each other,” Vanya explained. “It is necessary to survive in our world. There are many different hmm, specialisations, abilities, our people develop throughout their lifetime. Similar to your scik-sense.”

The girl stopped and consulted the tablet for a moment.

“Like me, I am extremely smart. Or Tianna, she is also smart, but also very strong and durable. And as you can see, Magnus and Astra are thinking entirely differently, and they have tentacles.”

“If everyone is different, then why do those two look so similar?” Ittoit asked.

The girl seemed to deflate somewhat. “It seems like answering all of your questions might take a while. May I suggest we stop pointing weapons while doing so? Don’t you have a room where we can sit?”

She smiled at them, this time accurately mimicking the Trakken way of doing it. As if someone had told her how it would look less offensive.