352 352 First Passengers
[Thank you so much. We weren’t expecting trouble so far out here, with nobody in portal range. It’s a miracle your species heard us at all.] The young Innu female who seemed to be in charge informed Max over a video link.
[You can actually thank the world ship Corvus of the Noctem Fleet for that. They were the ones who only just yesterday provided us with the new radio technology to meet interstellar standards.] Max replied and the Innu in the background cheered.
[Are you guys seriously a cruise ship though? How lucky is that? We expected to have to wait for a freighter to take time out of their route since the resource usage for an interstellar rescue portal was more than our insurance would cover.] The Innu asked with infectious enthusiasm.
[We really are, though that’s secondary to us being a Reaver trading vessel. We aren’t actively touring right now, but the amenities are staffed. We haven’t fixed the temperature control systems at the hangar bay doors though, so you will have to wait a while before you exit.] Max replied seriously.
[All good, all good. Nobody at school will believe we were on a human cruise ship, we will be the most popular kids in the class for an entire semester.] The girl brushed off his concern, and Max heard the Admiral chuckle in the back of the room.
In total, they had picked up twenty-five Innu college students on an unauthorized vacation in one of their parent’s yachts plus five staff members. They had managed to cover the provisioning for the trip, but they hadn’t brought any spare parts or other items that weren’t already aboard the ship, other than the essential crew members.
In a few minutes when it was safe to approach the vessel, Max went to greet their new arrivals with a small crew from the Cruise Ship area’s hospitality team. This would be their first time welcoming guests, and Max wanted to see how their training was going.
“Greetings and welcome to Terminus, the finest Cruise Liner in the Reaver Fleets. My name is Mindy and I will be your hostess for the morning. Feel free to ask me about anything you like, and I will do my very best to see that your every need is fulfilled.
If you would like to pass your luggage to the porters, they will bring it to your rooms for you, and we can begin our tour of the ship’s features.” The bubbly, bleached blonde hostess welcomed the Innu students without any hint of hesitation, despite never having seen the species before.
“Oh, thank you. Is that a phased matrix holographic projector on your wrist? Do your people always use them, or is it just a fashion trend?” The closest student asked, leaving the Hostess stumped.
“The Innu are big lovers of all things technology. Forgive my staff, it is their very first time welcoming actual guests. I will fetch a technician to accompany you around with the hostess.” Max informed the group.
“Oh, Commander Keres! I didn’t expect you to come here in person, it is so good to meet you, and thank you for the efforts you put into our rescue so far. The crew tells us that if you have the resources on board, they should be able to get the ship operational again within a week or so. Humans measure the time that way, right?” The Innu asked.
Their thoughts said that their week was also seven days, but their day was only twenty hours long, standardized by the Innu homeworld.
“Our days are twenty-four units long instead of twenty, as the Innu measure, and our weeks are seven days, the same as you are used to, so you might expect a bit of trouble adjusting to the extended hours, but otherwise the measurements are still accurate,” Max informed them.
Max called a Tech over from the team that was analyzing the Yacht and had him join Mindy to show the Innu around while he followed behind the main group with the self-assigned leader of the students.
“Are you in a hurry to get to your next port? I think it might be to our advantage if we waited things out here, at least until my mom isn’t so upset about borrowing the yacht and breaking down in the middle of nowhere.” The girl asked Max.
“You can stay as long as you like really. I know you have things to get back to, but even three or four weeks won’t interfere with anything. But what possessed you to be in that region of space in the first place?”
“Well, we heard that there was a fully insectoid culture you see. We had heard of but had never seen an entire planet run by insects. I mean, they’re supposed to be kind and cuddly, and in tune with nature, adapting to maintain the perfect balance in their ecosystems.
Those things might look like insectoids, but they are not. How could a genus that needs a stable ecology to thrive turn into those wretched and violent things? They strip planets bare and kill everything that they see. Even the humans seem civilized and gentle in comparison to them.
No offense, I mean, you seem quite nice, but Humans are monsters from fairytales where I come from.” She explained.
Max looked through her thoughts and found that humanoid, muscle-over-bone species were the exception in the region of space that the Innu came from, not the norm, and ones more than fifteen centimeters tall were exceedingly rare. Most species were either like Theta, highly amorphous, or more plant-based, requiring very stable environments and being vulnerable to brute force.
The mammalian species like the Innu and the humans were greatly feared for their physical prowess and capacity for violence.
That helped Max understand their welcoming committee a little better when they met the world ship. It wasn’t that there weren’t other species suited to greet visitors on the ship, it was that nobody else would willingly interact with humans. The rest of the crew were likely to have been utterly terrified of them.