FYS: The Visitor, Part Thirteen

Ahn blinked, looking around the new chamber. It appeared to be an office she guessed, judging from the desk. The walls were panels covered in gray cloth, pictures pinned to them, some alien landscapes, some of cities built in strange architectural styles, some of small aliens she guessed were children. A display screen directly in front of her showed what must have been an exterior camera view from the Explorer looking at the Great Hope's bulk. Her people's ship looked battered, a pair of great, gaping holes at least fifty kilometers across puncturing the port side, from some ancient collision that had damaged the ship, killing a quarter of her people. She wondered if that was a strange sort of mercy, given their current state.

She flexed the hands of the robot body that had been built for her, looked at the tall alien standing in front of her, and said the first thing that came out of her mouth.

"You're the ugliest thing I've ever seen," Ahn said.

The alien's lips curled back, displaying his incisors. She hoped it was an expression of amusement, not a prelude before he went for her throat. Flat white teeth, too many of them for comfort, in a mouth too wide and a face too square. It's... his.... nose was elongated, split into a pair of nasal slits instead of just one. There was black fur on its head and face, like an animal's, except not covering it completely, which made him also look diseased. At least he had the correct number of eyes and limbs. If she had to deal with tentacles or something she might have begged to go back into the Screaming Room.

"You're not that pretty yourself, judging from the images of your people Groupmind has sent us," he said, voice low pitched and rumbling. "Vive le difference."

"Sorry, that didn't translate," Ahn said.

"It's all right," the... human... Colonel Mitterrand.... said. "It's an expression of joy for the amount variety to be found in the world."

"That's... nice..." she said cautiously. She bit her lip anxiously. Wondered briefly how she could have lips in a mechanical body. Or was it her imagination making things up for her, to compensate for all the strangeness? "I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time dealing with this... It's been so much."

"It's all right. We have a lot to talk about, but we can take it slowly." He stepped around the desk, lowering himself into a chair, making himself less intimidating somehow. She took one on the opposite side, gripping the arms. "I'd offer you a drink, if that body we fabricated could handle it."

"That's all right," she replied.

Mitterrand steepled his hands, with the wrong number of fingers, in front of him. "Now, I know that the Groupmind, our iteration of the Groupmind, has made some tempting offers to you. But before you go through with it, I think I need to explain some things to you that it might have left out."

"Like what?" Ahn asked.

The human blew air out of his mouth slowly. "For example, did it explain to why we left our homeworld and moved onto the Ring?"

"Because of an environmental disaster, like the Rock that split our world," she replied.

"Yes," he said. "Did it explain the move wasn't exactly voluntary?"

"What...?"