Ktheg!lik felt a little...distanced from her fellow survivors. Having control of the golem gave her power over the others, whether she wanted it or not. She was perfectly willing to use it to help them all survive, and she perhaps didn't have as much patience with fools as she might.

Right now, she needed to concentrate, so she sealed herself in Nick's room and taught Petra how to make paper. Well, not quite. She found recipes for materials, and explained what she wanted. Petra was willing to make pen and ink, but she was also quite able to simply print, as if for a newspaper, the things that Ktheg!lik drew in light on the tablet.

It helped her to organize. Certainly, information was more...fluid under Petra's control, but Ktheg!lik was far from mastering the intricacies of shifting knowledge. It felt, well, alien, to be blunt. It was easier for her to think with several leaves of notes in physical form. She could look at more things than she had tablets, that way.

She laid out several leaves, and adjusted the light in the room to make it easier for her to see and read them. Then, she sat back, stared at them, and thought hard.

SURVIVAL

Food

drinking water

immersing water/breeding pool

air

waste

warmth

living space

nesting material

medicine

MEDICINAL

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Minerals

Plants—none

Animals—none

Medicine for allergy

Medicine for alien sickness

peace and quiet

beauty and color

SEARCH AND RESCUE

flying searcher—steer, make more?

transportation—fix omnibus, Nik!eh's carriage, build more?

Transmit and listen for messages from Dun Valley Learning Village and others

KNOWLEDGE

Learn Galactic

Study design drawings, learn what is possible

Organize, figure out how to sort through the options better

Learn how Petra "thinks"

Check for misunderstandings in orders

Find out how to work towards greater machines and engines, new wonders, like flight

Anything that could heal the sun!!!

PRODUCTION

Feedstock ingots

Other materials

Gatherers, Diggers

Food makers

General makers

sun catchers

energy wells

PETRA'S NEEDS

sun catchers

energy wells

"help stone" (translation error?)

What am I missing? Ktheg!lik brooded until she realized her ears were flicking and stilled them with an effort. A zeg later she realized she was doing it again, and gave up on fighting her habit for the moment. She had much bigger soup to cook than that trivial issue.

"Petra?"

"Yes, Ktheg!lik?"

"What would you add to these lists?"

"I don't understand."

That was either too much for the golem to grasp, or too much for its language mastery. She decided to try again.

"What do you need?"

"I don't understand."

"What do you want?"

"I don't understand."

Ktheg!lik sighed, and tried a different approach. "If I get all here, in list, will everyone live?"

"No."

She straightened, more alert now. "What do I add to the list, so that all fuak!a do not die?"

"None."

Ktheg!lik tried to make senses of that. Nothingness? Void? Empty space? Space for waste or trash? Did I phrase something wrong? Is she saying that there's nothing to be done to save us more than we are already doing or planning? I refuse to believe that. Petra is far too capable.

She tried again. "If I get all here, in list, will all fuak!a live?"

"Yes."

What? Ktheg!lik rolled through the transcript, searching for the exact wording. Petra never contradicted herself, even though it often seemed as if she were. Absently, a part of Ktheg!lik's mind noticed that whether she called Petra "she" or "it" varied with her mood. She couldn't make up her own mind, what Petra was, exactly? Was she a person?

Wait! Maybe that's it! "Petra, if I get all here, in list, will Petra live?"

"I don't understand."

"If I get all here, in list, will Petra continue?"

"Yes."

Again she stared at the transcript.

"If I get all here, in list..." If I say "everyone", she says no. If I say fuak!a, she says yes. If I say Petra, she says yes. I give up.

"Petra, if I get all here, in list, who will die?"

"Nik!eh."

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