With the Peasant and the Scholar - who was named Kareet if she understood correctly - occupied by basic math, Vigdis turned back to the Paladin. She checked her wristpad to see her communicator was set to speak to the command staff. Perfect. Looking the Paladin straight into the eyes - or thereabouts, it had four of them - she slowly raised her left hand to her headset to speak. She spoke slowly and clearly to make it clear that she was not trying to hide anything. “So far it looks like Venerian isn’t on the menu. I’ve got six in here, three definitely armed, all looking potentially dangerous, but so far we’re keeping the peace. Looks like three different species. And there’s… some weird shit happening here.” Maybe the anomalous activity was due to some hidden tech, even if these people looked like they came from a renaissance fair. “If someone else is coming into the shuttle bay, let me know in advance so I can warn them. And if we have any linguists on board, find them. I can’t keep them entertained with basic math forever.” If someone told her they were coming, she’d try to draw the locals’ attention to the airlock door. Even though she was looking at an alien here, she felt a bit weird about giving some of them something to do while the others just stood there awkwardly. Well, suppose if she gave the nerds a puzzle, the soldier should get something they might find interesting as well. Taking a few careful steps forward, she stopped about halfway between the Paladin and where she stood before, slowly removed one of the AP darts from a magazine and held out her hand like she’d done with the marker, offering up the tungsten, press forged 6x50 mm projectile. Despite the kind of armor and storage media on display, an arrow-shaped object was still an arrow-shaped object.
By the time Vigdis turned her attention back to Kareet and Kerchak, they were already busy writing. Understanding, exchange, beginning of communication. She had to suppress a grin as the alien beings understood what she was asking of them, as many animals on earth viewed bared teeth as a challenge or a threat. If Aussies couldn’t win a war with Emus, what chance did she stand against these birds with an unloaded weapon? Perhaps it was a sign of bad character, but Vigdis couldn’t help but think about how, assuming she lived to return home, she’d just accidentally stumbled her way into history books. On second thought, the nerds did more than she asked of them as they also wrote a second set of Arabic numerals. She’d have to compliment Kareet's handwriting later, but why… Fewer numbers… She took a closer look at Kareet's hand. Four fingers, of course.
Now that the ice had been broken, Vigdis somehow felt safer, safe enough to adjust the weapon’s sling so it hung behind her, freeing up both of her hands. She unclipped a five-meter measuring tape from her tool harness and held it up for the greeting party to see. As all the tools she had were vacuum-rated, it too had an aluminum body and belt clip, but with rubber-padded edges and a plastic loop to secure it around the wrist. She pulled an arm’s length out to show them the markings on one side, then let it snap back so they’d know it could do that and hopefully avoid startling themselves with it. Then she pointed at the marker and held out the tape in one hand and an open empty palm, trading the two items.
34(10) = 42(8)
She wrote to indicate that she understood before continuing. Fractions and the same basic four operations with them, numbers squared, numbers cubed, square roots, cube roots. She wrote everything in decimal first, then went back and added octal, writing notes ‘in the margins’ to help with the conversions and crossing them out once she was done with them. The manual conversions gave the nerds more time to examine the length measurements while she worked. Another suppressed giggle at the thought of doing God’s work by spreading the good word of metric units. This time she added a small test, drawing a circle with scratch marks at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions and marking them 360°/0°, 90°, 180° and 270° respectively. Then she drew a right triangle, marking the right angle with another ‘90°’ and its three sides C
1, C
2 and H.
H =
She tapped the unfinished equation with her finger and stepped aside to find some more drawing space, giving them some time to think about the newest set of math. Figuring out the hypotenuse with the Pythagorean Theorem - if they knew of it, whatever they called it - was still elementary school math, so it shouldn’t be too difficult unless they got stumped by the letters - to them unknown symbols. If it looked like they were stuck, she’d wipe the letters off and replace them with actual numbers. But in the meantime, she prepared something else.
h m s
0 0 : 0 0 : 0 0
(10) (8)
1 h = 60 m 1 h = 74 m
1 m = 60 s 1 m = 74 s
Then she maximized the clock app on her wristpad, handed over the marker and waited for the math to be solved or deemed unsolvable, then she’d add time to the list of human measurements they’ve been shown and look forward to learning the local ones. She’d give half of her liver to be able to know the locals’ thoughts when she’d show them the miniaturized computer.
Kuro
LadyAmber
FourtyTwo
Chronic
KawaiiOtakuGirl
Abstract Proxy
Forsythe
Tim the Yeti
Noctis
