Soleil could now bundle cords, the process of tying separate streams together along their lengths to create a new trunk.  A bound set of cords proceeded differently.  The conversations illuminated each other.  Once she could tell them apart, she learned how to put them together.  To do this, she used a viewport or a streamviewer.  Though it meant she was parked in one spot more often, this was her greatest degree of self- agency aboard their ship.

Soleil understood this to be a living network, which continually amazed her.  People felt this as they breathed and walked, like a part of their biology.  The streams were always responding.  The ways they were created, combined, and recombined blew her mind.

They were so much like humans.  How long have they been Vedani?  Where did they come from?

Sometimes, she called the race. Other times, he did. She knew the Imperial hallways better, from the four years since she learned how to walk in them. When the Princess called an unexpected snap, Draig knew it would be a good one.

Straightaways were fair, and fun, since their races weren’t necessarily clean. Almost as a rule, they included shoving, windmilling, and weird stepping. Maximum impediment without sending each other to the floor. Sometimes, his six-year advantage was no advantage at all, her light feet seeming not to touch the ground, gaining over his awkwardly growing stride. A straight hallway meant they could see when there was no traffic ahead. They were like puppies crossing a kitchen floor, puppies that got faster and faster.

First, she had to learn how to listen. Humans could do it, they insisted, and Soleil didn’t hide the fact that she found the notion daunting enough to show serious doubt. The Vedani communication networks were complex, built to be instinctual, and seemed to require long division. They brought her to a viewport, an empty frame with oddly attached peripherals. When she grasped the cords they offered, the cacophony she heard approached static saturation. The image she could now see was a terrible mess. Her first reaction was a helpless, blank look – not one she was used to wearing.

It was solid hours of listening before she learned how to color their voices, then how to judge their distance and the ring of relevance with only perhaps a symbolic coordinate. Soleil wondered how much space was really represented by this interface.

They showed her a terrain uniquely theirs. Soleil had figured after first meeting them that she must meet them fully, and now was glad she’d committed to the notion.