[32] - [Voice]

[failedcreator]

It is most unlikely that we will all live to such ages. A scant few do in the best of places. [In Victor's time.] I do not appreciate such unnatural acts by the Admiral. It is most impolite.

I also have a request from those who are not as human as others. I would like to hear stories of your lives, if you wish to share.

[Private - Sveta]I know we

Comments

private/written

[lifeafterhope]

My work's not done. But I did say I'd share what I found, didn't I?

[A page or so worth of a spreadsheet-like array of unexplained numbers and abbreviations follows.]

Nothing too interesting yet.

[Added a bit later:] You're asking for stories from nonhumans. Is it only curiosity?

private/written

[failedcreator]

Your work seems most interesting, if rather incomprehensible. Is it in some form of code?

It is only curiosity, yes. It has been a point of contention between my warden and myself.

private/written

[lifeafterhope]

No, it's only that I've been working at it so long that it's faster to keep measurements this way.

Are you from an Earth?

private/written

[failedcreator]

There is logic here, I imagine. My own notes were once written in a concise shorthand also.

Yes, I am indeed. From Geneva, Switzerland.

[failedcreator]

What age are you at present?

[failedcreator]

That would be most distressing indeed. [Pause.] How do you fare?

[timesbureaucrat]

I'm quite thoroughly not human, and glad of it. But I'm not much of a story-teller. What do you want to know? [Narvin's a bit paranoid and therefore suspicious.]

[failedcreator]

I would like to know of those you have met in your life. Of your family, your friends. How you felt regarding them.

[timesbureaucrat]

I am...I suppose you could call it "amiably estranged" from my family and have been since I was eight years old.

[failedcreator]

The age of eight? Surely they did not cast you off, sir?