[snip]

As soon as permission was given, she wandered towards what she hoped was more of the engineering and control section of the Center. As she went left, the conversation between the Captain and Dol drifted away behind her. Stopping at one of the larger consoles, she started a conversation with one of the folks that seemed to be in control of most of the main panel. She asked about energy drops over time, renewable resources for power and how they managed to handle emergencies. Were there cores to eject or systems to seal of?

The engineer that Tia had rushed up too with a barrage of questions seemed at first at a loss how to respond to her rain of queries. Glancing to someone nearby Tia for help another person came over and took over Tia’s attention, she was a shorter female of Dol’s species but like everyone dressed in a silver-grey jumpsuit with a aluminum foil like tin pointed hat. “..Easy there visitor. You will scare off poor Roth, he is a smart technician but he does not do too well in social situations, especially with strangers..” the woman said, “..I am Lead Command Technician Qith, I must admit going off the images of your arrival you all seemed so much larger then you actually are. Come over here I will do my best to answer your flurry of questions. Roth is currently deep in running a diagnostics on one of our solar collector arrays..” she said leading Tia over to another similar control console which while not as large did seem more focused in general management of everything in general.

“Impressive,” Glen said. “We don’t have cryogenic tech, planet-reforming tech, or space station tech of this kind. I see now that your people put their energy and inventiveness into these areas rather than into space travel.”

Dol smiled to Glen, “..You are too gracious Captain Glen. I am sure your own Federation and vessel has much we could learn as well from in time. If I recall you mentioned you were going to bring scans of the Seed Pod you found. This would let us reference it in our database to the candidate we sent it with. While I can assume it is a particular candidate given you got it from the Alstarians I would wish for our record keeping to confirm this if you do not mind?” Dol asked.

As it had been Tia who said she would complete those scans, Glen asked her, “Tia, do you have those?”

Dol turned to await Tia’s answer.

The Security Officer, who had also remained behind with Tia and John Glen, suddenly said, “Oh! Sorry! I was given those to carry. I wasn’t listening. I was in another world there.” He came forward, and handed over several data discs to Dol.

“Thank you,” Glen told Guy.

Meanwhile Qith, once reasked Tia’s questions, began to answer them. “..Now then to answer your flurry of questions..” she said.

”..The habitat rarely has energy drop offs over time. Between our solar collection arrays, water and steam generators, and several fusion reactions, a loss of all but the fusion generators would do little to drop our ability to survive until parts or repairs could be made. As for renewable resources, as I hinted at we use solar collection arrays, we use an advanced form of moving water to power turbines which then are super heated to steam to help filter our life support systems and regulate temperatures of the fusion power plants. In emergencies it depends on the type so I would ask you to clarify that point please. As for ‘cores’ to eject or contain, the 10 fusion reactors are built along the outer edge central axis’s of the habitat. Each can be ejected were it to be considered a loss due to damage or overload..” [He] said

“Do your fusion reactors use the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium to become self-sustaining with less extreme conditions?” Glen asked Dol.

• Glen, CO

Tia was thankful to the Security Officer for remembering the data stick. She murmured an apology as he handed it over.

As the Captain got into deeper specifics, a feeling of awe washed over her. These folks had gotten ridiculously superior in technology and space exploration. But they had chosen to think less on traveling and delve more into being. To become gatherers rather than explorers. It seriously impressed her more than she’s expected. She was glad he had asked the next question, because an idea was forming in her mind and she wasn’t sure how to broach it with Captain, yet.

Tia CE

Once Dol had been given the data chip, he looked it over then nodded. Handing it to another crew member with pointy hat, the female gave it also a once more and slotted it into a link up on her console. “..Parsing data now, Dol..” she said more as a form of title rather then his name. A beep and hum showed the crew member was scrolling by a up/down toggle switch through the data print out on the blue-silver screen nearby. Then a picture of what seemed a direct match for Franz came up on a side panel. “..Here we are, Dol. Seed Pod Graduate #318. Applicant name: Go’can, no living family or relatives due to industrial mining accident #323 when they were 4 years of age. Placed in social orphanage services soon after and within a year showed signs of greater intellect and understanding then most of his peers. When offered chance for the Seed Pod program accepted after proper interview detailing, graduated 9th out of his class of 11. Was in cryo holding pattern until 4 years ago when species #37 came in their sleeper ship, known in their tongue as Alstarians. The group after resupply and cultural interactions wished to adopt Go’can, applicant was informed of the adoption but at his request wished to not meet his future family until they arrived back safely at Alstair Prime. Adoptive family pairing also agreed to this as they wished once arriving to ensure no unexpected local disease or other environmental factors we could not account for could be handled.” She said.

After this brief overview, Dol nodded a bit, “..Ah I see. I recall Go’can during his graduation with the other 10 graduates. He may not have obviously scored at the highest of his class, but he had a keen perceptive mind to analysis people that I felt once developed further would take him far with a family..” Dol nodded. Turning back to Glen, he gave a nod of thanks. “..Thank you for bringing this back to us, I would imagine though once our business here is concluded you may wish to return Go’can back to his family at Alstair Prime. They probably by now are wondering what happened to him..” he said.

Qith by this time had come over as well with Tia, “..I am afraid Captain Glen, that your question about our fusion reactions make up did not translate to our tongue properly. The words you used to imply I think what powers them came through as an unknown word..” she said to which Dol nodded confirming this. Evidently neither the UT Dol’s people had nor the UT’s Glen and Tia had fully were capable of translating words for the fusion reaction yet. Of course Tia/Glen could always request to see it on a monitor or in person. Someone like Tia probably could tell what was what in no time!

GM CockRoach