It was slow to become apparent but Omega felt like something was off about the networks she was dealing with.

It was something on the tip of her tongue.

Sure it was a bottomless pit of traffic and information that honestly made the bustle of beings going by seem like an empty wasteland in comparison.

And it was a foreign and alien space unknown to Terran souls.

But she still felt like there was something logically missing from it and she did not know what!

She finally could not stand it anymore and voiced the agitating itch.

“Hey this network of yours is amazing, but it feels like something is missing, I can’t quite place it though... Like things are a little off.”

Sixdottir’s voice was so sweet it was fake.

“Oh whatever could be wrong with the network infrastructure that literally predates your people’s discovery of... Wait... I’m sorry this translation is confusing me. I was going for implicit superiority to your rural uneducated ways... But this is ridiculous! you use that as a saying? ... what ... I don’t get it ... What does heat production have to do with education or social standing?”

Aleph blinked a moment then turned back at Omega.

“Uh okay... rude that you were trying to be rude to us like that... Don’t be a snob, but uh if you just say it we can work it out a bit for you?”

Sixdottir bobbed and swayed a bit as cables rolled them through the tube.

“Before you people even invented fire... I don’t really see the reasoning for it though”

Omega blinked a bit and gave her head a shake as Aleph continued to roll over the topic she was trying to say. She really did not come prepared with the accessory skills she thought she was going to need here.

“Uh well sixdottir, making fire is like the most basic thing, we teach children how to do it... Um historically it is the foundation of all our technology?”

Sixdottir’s voice is befuddled.

“I okay you actually need to teach your children to make heat production supplementaries like that? I thought you were world beast parasites... doesn't your host habitat provide what you need?”

Omega finally decided to get this back on track.

“We use it to process a lot of materials into more usable forms including food and sometimes we live in places where the temperature is not always the best or Terra rolls in a manner that shades you with one of the mountain ranges for a bit of the year.”

Sixdotter swayed then rolled in a nod.

“Okay so it’s an important basic survival skill for unexpected circumstances... But how does that relate to education and ruralness? I don’t really see the connection, it seems like it’s out of sorts. Rural peoples would be MORE likely to know this and less other skills why not use that?”

Quarti’s voice chimed in and inwardly Omega groaned, she just wanted to get an answer about why the networks seemed funny to her!

But this was turning into a massive lecture.

“So it’s likewise this way... Long-long-long time ago kind of humans was that didn't use fire at all, longest ancestors, mothers of mothers mothers mothers so far back we not like we are at all practin. They was very different folk animal sorts then, so is you saying something happened before we knowing how to be using sparking fire is like saying you way WAY WAY ahead of us on lots of things... By wise way how oldens is dis ‘ere’ place-like”

Sixdottir did not blink but Omega could feel befuddled tagging in the network stream moving to their translator a long side what tasted like a veritable library worth of connotations and extra signaling.

It was substantially heavier then most of the traffic that those elsewhere on the network seemed to use to communicate, so many precise and specialized signals and flags for the machinery built in the translator that Omega suspected she was honing it to precisely say what she meant.

On reflection Omega was pretty sure MOST of her speech with them was being done like that.

Where as the rest of the general traffic was much looser and got churned a lot more inside the translation mystery box. This was like hitting buttons in the box Omega could not even see.

“Let me see, by your reckoning The local district was founded and construction began Six thousand and two years ago when the main dock expansion and refineries in the reef-ward and starward came online, of course it took several... uh... centuries to finish building the main infrastructure and get to full operating capacity, after that growth slowed down and most additions were smaller scale without the need to rent world forges for the super structure”

Quarti’s teeth showed, slightly more pointed than most people Omega knew, she suspected that her parents were probably from some specific enclave or family that preserved some arcane trait the prophet had wanted in her body.

That look put her in mind to remember that one of Quarti’s titles in the spirit circles of Terra was ‘Eldest’.

“That’s nice... Ah’m older dehn that... Heckles and chorts Ah almost spent longer than this e’re district been standin with a lark riding free o praya in the wild hunts!”

Sixdottir seized a bit, a flurry of activity on the network shining bright, like a coruscating flame of info demands and replies shooting into branching spider webs out into the infrastructure of redweed.

“Ah... the symbiote component? That’s hardly much of an impression, there is hardly going to be any memory preserved if what I read on your species is correct... It’s a bit sparse but the medical texts say act more than a dozen uh... husk sheddings before your memories are completely overwritten or garbled beyond recall. That hardly counts as consecutive age, I might as well claim age by the silica in my eyes”

Omega raised her hand up to speak but Quarti was looking outright delighted and feral now.

“Stodging welpits all of dehm. Which text ya readin? Deh uhn by harbridgette? Check dah outsandehn notes in ya books... Lookit up wise all the outstanding exceptions to that rule we gots in our records”

Another slightly more narrow searing of information.

The messages arching back the way they had come and now that Omega was checking for it, culminating in a node that feintly seemed to be positioned literally right by Pylo’s ship in the cradle.

The sheer distance they had covered away from the ship made her head hurt momentarily.

It was like traveling across Aoria twice over in moments.

Sixdottir fixed both eyes to stare at Quarti.

“Oh... I ... Wait... your coherently HOW old?!”

Quarti’s eyes shined a bit with a wet of tears.

“It gets a bit fuzzy, but longsome time back asked for a city I remembered founded bit after my first birth ta have its ruins checked date-wise... Deh said it was Eleven-Thousand Years old by reckoning. Eh Being just soul time not flow smooth like, it jerks and stalls and jumps ahead... But lets go with that bit”

Sixdottir hummed and lilted to the side.

“That’s ... That predates a lot of the records I have on Redweed... We are pretty sure it does not predate the founding but things are fuzzy, quite a number of the larger superstructure contributors were NOT here before that I know”

She looks back at Quarti.

The prophet laughed and spoke in sing song.

“Careful wise how you sling words, Ah knows for fact there was Humans with ther fire long afore me... Now tell us more boot this scragly choir-song who has my lovely luscious blue-belle thickly here so contortin”

Omega sighed.

Finally she could get some answers.

Sixdottir however rolled to glance at the far wall with its fluttering map.

“Sorry, but we need to get into position for our downshifting loops.”

Damn it!