A/N: Sorry for the leave of absence. I really will be updating every week from now on.

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The rest of the journey was uneventful and they arrived at Alethea in good time in spite of the delay. After they docked Amanpreet and the rest of the crew escorted Prima and Merit to where the official reception committee awaited them. The small group of councillors from the various member species were surprised and obviously flattered when the Talisians greeted them in their own languages and escorted them to their prepared apartment.

“We’ve housed you and the Coronans in the human section since your physical needs are similar,” the delegation leader, a jade green Kska said. “Your rooms are next to those we’ve assigned to Captain Amanpreet and her crew as we know you are friends.” She turned to Kaine. “And you need to report to the medical bay to check you are not effected by the phenomenon you encountered.”

“I’ll report there as soon as I have dropped my bag off,” he replied.

“Of course,” she said. “I hope the tests prove you are well.” She looked back at Prima as they reached the assigned rooms. “Here we are. Use the pad to let yourself in. It’s set to both you and your bodyguard’s genetic profiles. I believe you are interested in learning to navigate?” she said.

“Yes!” Prima waved her arms enthusiastically.

“Mark is uncertain if human teaching methods are suitable for your neurology so he’s asked for assistance from a Kska teacher as we have a similar sub-brain arrangement. I’m a qualified navigation teacher so I’ve offered to help.”

“Thank you!” Prima bounced up and down. “What’s your name?”

“I am called Krna. I believe you have chosen the name Prima?”

“Yes! Because I was the first of my people to return,” Prima said.

Inside her suit Krna fluffed her feathers in confusion.

“Prima means first in an ancient human language, Councillor Krna” Niobe explained.

“Ah!” Krna said. “You humans and your fascination with old languages. I don’t understand why you don’t just let them flow into new forms.” She made the trilling noise that was the Kska equivalent of a laugh. “Anyway Prima’s first meeting with the council is in the morning so I’ve scheduled a navigation training tank in the human section for the afternoon so you can have your first lesson.”

That news made Prima bounce even more which made Krna laugh.

“It’s good that you’re so enthusiastic,” she said. “I’ll also be collecting you in the morning to escort you to the chambers so I’ll see you then.”

“Thank you, councillor Krna,” Prima said politely.

“You are welcome, Prima,” she said before leaving with the rest of the delegation.

Prima opened the door to her chambers and peered inside before making an excited noise and running inside, Amanpreet peeked though the door and saw that place was done up like the inside of a Talisian house. Prima spun around happily. “It’s perfect! They got the details exactly right!” She ran through an archway. “They even made a shrine for us! This is wonderful.”

“They do their best,” Niobe said. “May we come in?”

“Of course!” Prima said, so they came inside as she ran from room to room making ever more exited noises.

“They have done a very good job,” Merit said. “They must have studied the archologists reports.”

“Yes, I think they did,” Prima said from where she was still poking around. “Midori told me that the council had asked for everything. I thought it was just to help with their decision.”

“It was probably for that as well,” Niobe said. “But the council do like to make members feel at home.”

“Oh! A garden!” Prima said.

They went into the room she had gone into and found a large chamber with a domed glass roof and planted with a variety of purple and blue leafed plants.

“This is lovely,” Amanpreet said.

“These are food plants we’d traditionally grow,” Prima said. “How much effort must have gone into cloning these. It’s wonderful.” She walked over to a series of pools and looked into the water before doing a little dance. “It’s an aquaculture system! We’ll have meat as well. This garden could support the core of a hive indefinately. Though that would be a little boring after a while to only eat what’s here.”

Amanpreet walked over and looked into the pool. She could see little purple torpedos superficially similar to terrestrial fish darting about amidst the weeds and crustacean like things eating decaying plant matter. The water was being pulled out and used to water the beds before draining back into the pools.

“Very nice,” she said.

“Yes! This is exactly how we used to do aquaculture. They must have really done their research.”

“It’s actually very similar to human aquaculture systems,” Amanpreet said. “So once they found it in the records they probably just adapted our methods to fill in the gaps. We use them in the early domed phase of bioforming a planet and Alethea being permanently domed has all sorts of food gardens. It allows us to grow enough food in a small space.”

“Oh!” Prima said. “That’s an excellent idea. Do you think they’ll let me see the human gardens. We can’t eat the same foods, our digestive biologies are too different,  but there might be other growing techniques that we can use.”

“I’m sure they won’t mind,” Amanpreet said. “There might be technologies we can share as well. You should talk to the Ishtari as well – their environment is wildly different from ours but they still had growing technologies we managed to adapt to our needs and environments.”

“I like the Ishtari,” Prima said. “They are even more friendly than the humans and Mez and you people are friendly so that’s saying something.”

“They have less historical baggage making them act cautious around other species,” Niobe said. “Actually given your history with the enemy I’m surprised you weren’t more cautious about us. When humanity first encountered the Mez it was a bit tense at first even though they were shocked and embarrassed to realise someone already lived in the system.”

“When the system imprinted Mei with the information about the primary egg site it also read them so it could check for hostility,” Merit explained. “Given how we accidently messed Mei up I am surprised that your peoples aren’t more prone to distrust us.”

“If it’s a setup it’s a really elaborate one,” Amanpreet said. “But all the evidence says it isn’t.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. Even using the keyboard and voice synthesizer he managed to sound teasing.

Amanpreet laughed. “I am. I know you remember.” She looked down as Prima hugged her leg again.

“Yes! You do. Thank you for reminding me of that. I’m glad we didn’t hurt you the way we did Mei.”

“You fixed it,” Amanpreet reminded her.

“We did,” she said. “But it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

“Is there anything we should know about tomorrow?” Merit asked.

“I think we’ve covered pretty much everything,” Niobe said. “It’s mostly formality.”

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