Page 171 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

and what it was capable of. Any guess as to their true nature it seemed would be quashed by some
new discovery or other. The Kryst language structure didn’t help much either, since most references
were allegory based. Without knowing the context of the allegory, it was next to impossible to know
exactly what was being said. The odd thing was that nearly all of the Kryst research notes were
understandable.

“I wonder if the Kryst had a two tier structure to their language; like Chinese and Japanese etc.,
ancient languages from old Earth societies.” Jennifer mused out loud

“You could be onto something there. I’ll add those ideologies etc. to this matrix and the try that
passage from the Classroom tablets we found” Hubris added and inputted the cross referencing into
the portable Hive to integrate it with the matrix of the Translator device they’d built. The system had
been under test; when the Captain had walked in that time in the Lab. The device hummed; did an
unusual splutter then continued to hum for a while.

“At least it’s stabilised since we used the step sequence from that ECG trace. Are you going to the
“Home Movie” showing of Maria’s this evening Jennifer?” He asked casually

“I saw some of the raw footage, so I’m not bothering. Besides; I have enough data from the discs to
sort through, not to mention the results from the Fauna studies from near the Aqueduct. The Deer
like creature looks interesting; its DNA is all natural, must be one of the few native species the Kryst
didn’t genetically manipulate to their own end. Perhaps I’m just a workaholic.” She replied.

“I could order you to; if I have to. A break could be what’s needed to refresh our overworked brains.
Besides a certain young ensign is apparently going to be there also” Hubris added, as surreptitiously
as possible.

“What? How? Who’s been spreading gossip? Tell me; I’m going to…” she flared her nostrils and
yelled.

“Ah! I see it’s true. It was obvious Jennifer; besides I have a lot of experience in affairs of the heart;
centuries in fact. And everyone has noticed the “awkward moments” when you two are near each
other. Come now; take that break, that’s an order!” he added. She calmed down and stopped
fuming and agreed.

The Dino-clucks were moulting feathers in preparation for High Summer. The downy fluff
was clogging up the air conditioner and corridor vents. Michael Faraday and Ensign Virk were being
kept busy cleaning them out. “Just whose idea was it to bring a pair on board?” he thought. After
clearing out the main airlock to the outside and the refectory area of the dome covering the Ridge
site, he was called to the coms to see to a problem with a feed to the main burst array. Trok was
having a rough time keeping the linkages stable and the other techs were otherwise engaged. He
bagged the offending material and signalled he was on his way. Giving Virk the collection equipment
he made his excuses and headed for Engineering the two Dino-clucks following close behind. He
entered the Main Engineering workroom to find Trok trying to hold up a section of roof truss with
one hand and balancing with the other by gripping a hand rail on the ledge of a gantry. He rushed to
the gantry and took the other end of the truss section.

“This section got hit by the beam from the cylinder circuit while I was running some broad spectrum
radiation tests. The beam appears to have destabilised the micro welds. I’ve ordered a repair crew to
replicate a new section and fit it while we conduct a forensic analysis on this one. I need you to look
over the results of those spectrum tests and tell me what you notice. In the meantime I’ll get this set
up in the Scanning booth” Trok said when they had retrieved the section.