A lesson in maths

Posted on 26 May 2017 @ 4:15pm by Ensign Mimi & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim
Edited on on 29 May 2017 @ 8:27pm

2,362 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: USS Atlirith - Sickbay
Timeline: MD: -27 1500hrs

ON

Mimi sat in her quarters on the Atlirith cleaning her fur with a soft brush. The Galileo crew had only been on the ship for a few days and with no work to do she was already bored. Laying back slightly she thought about the events of the past months, about how interesting the inevitable investigation into everything that had happened was going to be.

She thought of a promise she'd made, something she had been neglecting over the last couple of weeks. =/\= Ensign Mimi to Commander Warraquim. =/\=

=^=Allyndra here what can I help you with Mimi?=^= Came the reply.

=/\= I was thinking, we are on this ship for quite a while, it gives us plenty of time for some more lessons in speaking Nekomi. =/\=

=^= Oh I would love that. Since this ship is a bit crowded want to come to sickbay? At least I get the office for a few hours to myself. =^=

=/\= When I am done here I could come down and we can get started? I will not be much longer, just brushing my fur. =/\= Mimi suggested.

=^= Oh do please come on down now. I will brush it for you. You might be pretty flexible Nekomi but I know that there are even places to cannot quite get to. You can teach while I do that. =^= Allyndra offered.

=/\= I will be right down. =/\= Mimi said laughing before closing the channel. She pocketed her brush and a blank Padd and headed for the door.

=== Few minutes later ===

"Lumela Allyndra" Mimi called out a greeting as she stepped through the doors into the sickbay

Allyndra waved to Mimi. "Ah Lumela......and I have forgotten what is how are you?"

"Miten son anda?" Mimi answered. She stepped fully into sickbay and stood in the doorway of the office.

"Ah, let me see..... Li an keelays bauk" Allyndra replied and waved Mimi in. "I am feeling well?

Mimi smiled and chuckled a little. "Very close. Well is Kusla" She said correcting Allyndra. "Bauk is a Nekomi word that means..... the closest in english would be, fine. An answer that is not either good or bad."

"Ah!, ...with my memory." Allyndra laughed and waved Mimi over to take the brush and then indicated she turn around. She then began to stroke the fur gently. There were knots and tangles in spots so she went slow.

"Well have a bit basic I think shall we go on...what is teacher?"

"Macallin" Mimi said, she sat on the edge of the desk as Allyndra brushed her fur. She normally wouldn't let anyone but family do it
but sheconsidered Allyndra a close enough friend to let her. "So for these Razredai. Li an andar macallin."

Allyndra had to think on the last part. It was a sort of cumbersome process as she sort of translated the Nekomi to Federation and then into Akkadian. "You are my teacher correct?"

Anda son sayan macallin? Allyndra replied. Unlike Akkadian with its sort of trills and sing song, it was more back of the throat with a good bit more of that sort of purr. Smooth and beautiful in its own way and certainly much more pleasant than standard.

Mimi smiled. "Well done Allyndra." It looked like she was getting the hang of the basics "So what would you like to learn about today?"

"Well let us concentrate on simple things. Say like colours, numbers like one to ten. Nothing too complicated. Does that sound like a plan macallin?"

"Daai We can do numbers." Mimi replied. She used her fingers to count off the numbers as she spoke them. "baya... biyu... uku... hudu... biyar... shida... bakwai... takwas... tara... goma"

Allyndra shook her head. "A bit slower. Let me see if I can get one to three.bay, biyu?, oku?"

"Sorry, Nekomi can be a fast language at times." Now Mimi had been speaking her native tongue a little more than usual her pace had gone up even though she was trying to go slow. "Baya... biyu... uku."

Baya, biyu, uku Allyndra repeated as though she was back in a classroom. She repeated them twice more speeding up each time until she was almost but not quite as fast as Mimi had.

"Kaayo baik Allyndra." Mimi said with a big smile.

"Alright let's get the rest to ten."

"hudu... biyar... shida... bakwai... takwas... tara... goma." Mimi reeled off the remaining numbers much more slowly this time.

Allyndra did as before and repeated slowly, then tried to get up to speed. She then added the first three to make all of the one through tens.

"Before we go on, should I do you tail as well?"

Mimi thought about it for a few seconds, a Nekomi's tail was a very personal spot but having someone else brush her fur felt good and reminded her of life back when she was young. "Sure, go ahead."

"Alright let's move on, past ten."

"Right, to go from 10 to 20 and so on. We use the word for the ten then add the word for 'and' then the second number we need." Mimi explained.

"Ah, that is similar to many languages including my own. An economy of words I think the linguists would say. E'wakulia k'ahi, twenty and one. However unlike Federation standard, we just do ten and one instead of a separate word for eleven. Sorry, I am rambling. Let us go on." Allyndra shifted the brush and very gently began to brush the tail.

Mimi's tail twitched several times as Allyndra started to brush it "So, if I were to ask you what is. Shida hada tara you would say?"

Allyndra thought for a moment pausing in the brushing. They had just gone over number shida was six and tara was nine. The hada, she knew that one from before. She concentrated and the memory surfaced, that was like to put something together, or in this case add. The problem was that was higher then ten and they had not covered that part. However, Mimi had said ten plus the next number. " Ummm.....Goma sa biyar?, ten plus five since it is six plus nine."

"Correct. How about...takwas hada bakwai hada biyu?" Mimi asked a slightly harder question.

Allyndra shook her head. She was getting the hang of at least this part. That was eight plus seven plus two which was seventeen. She noted that she was still making translations in her head which meant she was not quite to fluency. "goma sa bakwai, macallin" she replied fairly confident.

"Kaayo baik. you use the same method for the numbers above 20 and 30 and all the rest." Mimi explained.

"And those are?" Allyndra asked.

"Ashirin... talatin... arbain... hamsin... sitin... sabain... tamanin... tasain. And 100 is mutumɗar."

She repeated the Nekomi words for numbers in ten to one hundred. She could not help but note that Nekomi like her own and many others seemed to be decimal based.

"Alright, did you want to work on numbers more? By the way I think I have finished on your tail."

"There is only 1 more word you need for the basics and that is Meno." Mimi dropped off the table and swished her tail around a little. "Which means 'less' but we use it they way humans use the word.... minus."

Meno Allyndra dutifully repeated the word. She thought a moment and then said, Goma meno baya then realized she did not know what equal or is was. "Umm....well should be tara. "Sorry, I went ahead without knowing what equal or the equivalent was!" She laughed. One never realized just how much little bits there were to a language that one just picked up naturally. She was still chuckling when she said, "I just realized that outside of the Nekomi, I am probably the most fluent speaker. On my, that is sad."

"Not quite." Mimi remarked. "Just as she taught me english I taught my foster mother Maria how to speak Nekomi, she is rather good at it."

"Ah, well that makes me feel better," Allydnra nodded. "For all my other talents handling languages does not seem to be one of them but that does not mean I am not fascinated by them. Say...did you not say there was something you learned on the Klingon ship about your homeworld?"

Mimi cocked her head to the side a little. "Did I not tell you about it?"

"I do not think so, we have all been so busy. Trust me, just having the time to learn a bit more about your language and brush some fur is the most relaxing time I have had in......well I almost cannot remember."

"I was looking through the Klingon database." Mimi began to explain "They have explored space the federation has not, I found a data file that said the area of space was..... protected by a species that sounded a lot like the Bespiri."

"You will have to remind me again about the Bes pyri? I am sorry, so many things on my mind these past few months. They were someone that helped protect the Nekomi?"

Mimi nodded, it was understandable there had been a lot going on these last months. "The Bespiri were to us like the Vulcan were to earth. They showed us there was life in the galaxy around us, helped us with technology and protected the homeworld."

"Ah, I see. Then it is possible that knowing where they might be, they would know where the Nekomi home world might be. It is a very logical course. Are you going to pursue that when we have shore leave?"

"I wish I could." Mimi said. "The area of space is a very long way from federation space."

"I see......" Allyndra mused for a moment. "If there was a way to get you in the area in say......a few moments do you think you would have enough time to look?"

"What do you mean? how could we get there in a few moments?" Mimi asked, even the fastest known ship would take weeks if not months to get there.

"Oh.....just thinking. I know how important it is to you to find your people and home." Allyndra got up and got some tea, two cups and both on the desk. She waved a hand toward one of them.

"As a friend, what I am going to tell you we keep between us. Akkadians never had warp technology, still do not. However, that is not to say that at one time we did not explore other places. Imagine if you will two points on a sheet of paper. You must travel between them but the distance is a very long way, generations worth. Well you could go by generations, or go into hibernation. Now if you wrinkle the paper and sort of skip along the waves the two points now seem much much closer. That is sort of what warp does, wrinkles space. However what if you just folded the paper completely such that the two points are now touching. One simply could move from one to the other in what appears to be very little time. The Iconians, if you want to look them up, had something similar, they were called gates but they were fixed points, we got around that."

Mimi listened as Allyndra explained, she couldn't make sense of all of it as science and flying were her worst subjects at the academy. "You have ships with this technology?"

"Yes. There are still some Fold Ships as we call them. Even at home not many know of them." Allyndra cocked her head and sort of looked past Mimi. "They come from a time in our past that was.....painful. Along with many other things they were......put away." She sighed and looked again at the Nekomi. "Flick your tail from one side to the other. In that time with a Fold Ship we could be on the other side of the galaxy."

"That is incredible Allyndra." Mimi said, while she still couldn't make sense of it it seemed an idea way to deal with her distance problem. "Do you think the Akkadian government would let you use one of these fold ships?"

"Absolutely not," Allyndra replied. "In fact, I would be in trouble for mentioning them. However, I am also House Mother of Warraquim and let us say that I know where one is at. They are not guarded, most have even forgotten they ever exist anymore. I could not afford to be away long but possibly could fold with a shuttle so you can explore."

Mimi's eyes lit up. "You know where to find one. How long would it take to get to it and have it ready to fly?"

"As long as it would take to get to Akkadia and perhaps a few days after that. As to ready? They have always been ready. The A'ksu that built them planned for the long term." Allyndra chuckled. "Well we seem to have gotten away from our lesson haven't we. Think upon it. Now where where we?"

"I think we should stop there, you need time to.. remember what I have told you." Mimi paused then quickly added. "And I need time to think about what you have said."

"A wise decision. I promise to practice Macallin, until then Back Stivar"

"Baik stvar" Mimi corrected Allyndra one last time. "You will get the hang of it eventually."

"Practice makes perfect," Allyndra repeated the phrase correcting herself with the pronunciation. "Lele mai'ika, good flight."

Pocketing her brush Mimi turned towards the door. "I will send you a message about our next session." She called back as she left.


OFF:


Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second and Chief Medical Officer

RSS Feed

Comments (1)