The Princess and the Human

It wasn’t as if Falpine had ever not respected her Highness, but her respect had significantly grown. She knew her parents had a lot of work to do as well as other duties managing the county. She had seen them being busy and knew the same would eventually be expected of her as well. And she was learning all about it with her tutors. But she had never actually been directly involved in the process and just now realized the true scope of it all. She had been told that the princess was responsible for only Hohmiy’s foreign matters, but she had completely underestimated what that entailed.

It wasn’t just meeting ambassadors, negotiating, and eventually signing contracts afterward. She did so much more than that. Countless treaties needed to be audited frequently, reports from advisors needed to be reviewed and occasionally discussed, she even drafted laws that she would send to her parents, and so much more. On top of that, she currently could only use two of her arms, Falpiyne couldn’t even imagine how restrictive that had to be. And she also needed to do all of this while being bombarded with messages from the high nobles containing requests that sometimes were so entitled that Falpiyne got embarrassed just from reading them. Was it normal for ducal clans to act like that?

Reiykin isn’t going to turn out like that, right?

And apparently, those messages were already pre-sorted by the head maid. Just how could someone look at such a mountain of work to do, knowing they would only be able to do a small fraction of it before the day ended and stay calm?

And then, there was also… everything about Lady Nadine. She had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to process what the alien had told her.

“Remember, you’re supposed to ask questions if you have some.”

Falpiyne flinched as she got suddenly called out. So far, she had mainly sat next to the princess while she worked, occasionally getting handed documents she was supposed to read. The current one was something she had seemingly spent a lot of time on. Or her expressions were just that telling.

“It’s nothing important, Your Highness. Please, you have so many more important matters to think about, don’t worry about me. I’ll figure it out.” At least as soon as she knew what exactly she even needed to look up.

The princess put her datapad away and turned her head.

“Lady Falpiyne, you are here to learn and help. You won’t learn if you don’t understand something, and you can’t help if you don’t learn first. I don’t doubt that you received a fine education, but actually doing it is something else.”

“But it’s really nothing, just something stupid…”

“And you fear for your name’s reputation by revealing - I assume - what you consider embarrassing ignorance?”

“...yes,” she admitted after a short pause.

“In that case, I have a message for you. From Nadine.”

The young heiress perked up.

“Believe it or not,” Her Highness continued, “but she expected exactly this to happen. Anyway, there is a Human saying: “He who asks may be stupid, he who doesn’t ask stays stupid”. While I would choose different words were I to use this phrase in public, the point stays. You’re here to learn. You’re no fool for not knowing that what you’ve never been taught.”

“I… understand, Your Highness. See, what I don’t get: why are there always these huge gaps in the schedule? It feels like something I should know, am I overlooking something obvious or…”

The princess was quiet for a while.

“Do you know what the hyperlanes are?” she eventually asked.

“No.”

“Ah. Then we found the issue.”

Falpiyne listened in astonishment as she, for the first time, heard about the complex phenomenon that connected the different solar systems with each other and that was the only reason the alliance could even exist in the first place.

“I… I had no idea. You can get anywhere on Hohmiy within half a day… and talk to anyone anywhere…”

She picked up her datapad again.

“Then, these forty-seven days in the table for example… that’s how long it takes to just even get an answer?!”

“The messenger need to get from here to the entrance point, jump, pass the bridgeway, jump again, pass another bridgeway, jump again, send the message, wait for an answer, and then do everything again in reverse. And the example you picked is a message that can sent digitally via the relay station. If it was something that required them to personally go to the planet, it would be even more. We are lucky, but some planets are quite far away from their entrance point.”

Falpiyne was at a loss for words. She had completely underestimated what “visiting a different planet” truly meant.

“I guess I should have anticipated that you wouldn’t know. Interplanetary matters bear no relevance to someone of your standing, except maybe when you put your name on the import list.”

She wasn’t wrong. She had never really learned about this, nor had she really cared for the stars above. That had only really changed when she had seen Lady Nadine during the broadcast of the trial and for the first time realized what fascinating discoveries she maybe could make there. And now, she lamented the fact that someone of her standing could never hope to see beyond the planet’s borders.

“Anyway, I now have a meeting with the head of the Royal Research Institute. I trust you know what a priority order is?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Priority orders are a widespread organizing method commonly used for-”

She interrupted herself as the princess raised a hand, signaling her to stop.

“This was not supposed to be a quiz,” the princess clarified and sent a file to her datapad. “I want you to try and make one. You may ask the servants for anything you might need. I’ll check your work once I come back.”

And with that, she left. For a while, Falpiyne just stared blankly into the air. She hadn’t expected that Her Highness would give her such an important task and then just trust her to do it. Sure, she had said she would check it, but if what she did was unusable, wouldn’t she just create more work?

No, calm down. It’s just a priority order, you know how these work!

She looked at the case. It was about a big investigation the princess wanted to carry out on a planet called Eroas. Falpiyne had no idea what species it belonged to but then again, she barely knew the alliance species anyway. As she skimmed the list, one word stood out. Relay station. Right, the princess had mentioned those. But was that important here?

Her gaze wandered to the button on the desk. She had said she could ask the servants for anything, so this would be fine, right? She pressed it, and the door opened almost instantly.

“I need all the information you can give me about Eroas.”

The servant nodded and took out a datapad.

“We already compiled the most important information, what do you need to know, Milady.”

“Oh, you already have… okay, what’s the travel time?”

“You mean between the planet and their entrance point? At the current time of the cycle and with an average traveling speed, about sixteen to twenty days. The exact number depends on the ship.”

“Ah, right, makes sense. Then priority number one must be… ah, that must be why Her Highness is talking with the Royal Research Institute. Okay, yes, that means the first step is the assembly- wait, the list mentions a report from… Mirtan? What is that about?”

“Admiral Mirtan is the one currently in charge of the home fleet.”

The servant then explained how the fleet was currently making a first assessment of the planet’s state but was ill-equipped and would return soon.

“Errm… that would make all these steps dependent on his report, we can’t do any of these yet. Is there maybe… um… what’s a message jumper?”

“That simply refers to a ship being sent through the hyperlane to transmit a message.”

The servant barely needed time to look things up. Was everything compiled so perfectly?

“Oh, so that’s how they would communicate with the expedition. Wait, but then the relay station needs to work. Then that has to be priority number one, so first we need to gather engineers and mechanics.”

“Do you need to know anything else, Milady?”

“No that should be… wait, if it’s alien… who builds these relay stations?”

“The Tystrie purchased theirs from the Krsnelv assuming it is still the same one.”

“Oh, then we need people who know that tech!”

Slowly but steadily, Falpiyne got things into order. Eventually, Her Highness returned, and the young heiress nervously watched as she went over the list without saying a word. Eventually, she put the datapad down and looked at her.

“Good.”

Reiykin heard a door close behind him. Slowly, he was led into the room and eventually to a chair where he sat down. Carefully raising his arms, he felt a table in front of him and adjusted his position accordingly.

After an initial introduction on how everything would proceed from here on out, he and Falpiyne had been separated. She was to stay with the princess, while he would be looked after by someone else.

That someone else being Lady Nadine.

“Do you want anything?”

“I-I am fine, thank you, Lady Nadine.”

“There is no need for you to call me “Lady” anymore. You know what’s really going on.”

Right, there was also that. He still hadn’t fully processed all the insane things he and his adoptive sister had learned from her retelling. Not only was she not an ambassador, the Vanaery hadn’t even made contact with her kind. Instead somewhere out there as a sole human ship, its inhabitants hopefully alive but potentially spread out throughout alliance space. Messages had been sent in all directions to see if maybe other alliance members knew anything, and the few answers that had come back so far were all negative.

“But… even if you are no ambassador, the rest we heard is still true, right? You are still part of the Humans’ nobility, you deserve this much respect.”

Well, that was hardly the main reason why it was a strange thought to get so personal with her. Every single evening since the trial, the two of them had rewatched the broadcast, he had listened to the alien’s voice, and Falpiyne had described how she looked, getting better and more detailed about it each time. And now, here he was.

“And if I were a commoner? Would I not deserve respect then?”

Reiykin paused. Her voice sounded differently all of a sudden.

“But… aren’t you…”

“I said if.”

The room fell quiet as Reiykin didn’t respond. She was clearly expecting some kind of answer from him, but he didn’t know what to say. What was she trying to get at?

“Forget it,” she eventually said with a sigh. Was she disappointed in him? “I guess I need to get more gradual about this. Anyway, before we start, is there anything you want to know? I imagine you have loads of questions.”

He had, the one that popped up in his head first didn’t reach his mouth. It felt like something he shouldn’t ask.

“It’s fine if it’s a personal question. If I don’t want to answer, I’ll tell you.”

“Well, you… from the way my sister described you, I thought you would… feel different.”

“...how old are you again?” she asked after a short pause.

“Seven cycles. Next cycle, I will be old enough to inherit the title.”

He wasn’t sure how exactly that connected to his question, but he answered anyway. Lady Nadine once more took a moment before responding.

“Well, I don’t know what you were expecting, but you weren’t touching me directly. I’m wearing… for the sake of simplicity, let’s call it gloves. You shouldn’t touch my skin.”

“D-did I offend you?” he asked in panic, now feeling bad that she had to guide him here. Should he have asked if that was culturally acceptable for her?

“No, don’t worry. But… well… if you would touch me directly, your shell might dissolve.”

It got quiet again. Reiykin felt as if the room had just gotten colder.

“S-surely you jest-”

“I wish. It wouldn’t immediately, but… it’s a bad idea. Please just leave it at that.”

Her voice sounded different once more. This new tone made all the other questions he had left feel irrelevant.

“But speaking of feeling: how much exactly do you feel? Like, the table for example: can you feel the object itself of just the resistance? Or when I let you here, did you feel the material of my suit or did you just feel the friction?”

“I… I apologize, I don’t understand the question.”

“I see. Well, with all the screens, braille would’ve probably been a fool’s endeavor anyway since you only use screens. What I really don’t get is why there is no text-to-speech, we've had that stuff for centuries. Well, we’ll see. Back on topic. You were educated in organization and leadership, right?”

“I-I was, but…”

“That’s good. There is a lot to do. We’re about to launch a large-scale investigation on a different planet, and we need to be meticulous. Sil- ahem. Her Highness is doing all the organizing, while I make sure everyone knows what they need to. And I want you to use your knowledge to provide insight and make sure everything is worked up properly.”

Reiykin was frozen in his seat. Be it question or protest, neither of the two would leave his mouth. And the quietness that followed Lady Nadine’s words somehow was almost worse. But then she spoke once more, and her tone was once again different. It was… soft.

“Um… sorry, I got a bit too enthusiastic there. I didn’t want to overwhelm you with this, again, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to stay calm right now. I might finally make some actual progress, but… truth be told, my part in this isn’t all great, so don’t understand this as if I’m dumping some huge responsibility on you.”

She paused for a moment.

“I heard about it. How everyone thinks your clan is done for. I won’t force you into anything. But if you allow me, I would like to show you why I think that’s bullshit.”