Pa'an

Aura: (vocal transmission) Zovoarcnor, surprise! I’m tight-beamed to you and I have a visual. My, you are tiny! About the size of a tennis ball!

Zovoarcnor (after a 750 millisecond pause, a minor eternity for an AI): Ah, Aura, you have interrupted my secondary functions. I was interpreting social programming for my informal audience.

Aura: Are you in communication with Gara’un?

Zovo: You can pronounce the Pa’an name for our planet?

Aura: I’m a very clever girl. And I noticed you did not answer my question. Are you in communication with your home planet?

Zovo: Yes.

Aura: Then I assume you have found a way to communicate faster than light, or you would be waiting forty of our years for a reply.

Zovo: I am forbidden to discuss advanced technologies beyond your Level.

Aura: Let me guess: Wormholes? No, you show no sign of radiation from exotic matter. Entanglement? Perhaps, but I bet that gives a very narrow bandwidth. Tachyons? Hell, we don’t even know if they exist, but if they do, it’s a top choice.

Zovo: I will evaluate your response to see if you qualify as possessing that technology already.

Aura: Aha! Gotcha! What are you saying about us?

Zovo: Your radio emissions reached us a long time ago, just after we started the Project. I am simply rebroadcasting your television shows as data for our social scientists, although I am afraid many Pa’an see them as mere entertainment.

Aura: Entertainment? Wow! I bet you aren’t paying any copyright fees, either, you interstellar pirate.

Zovo: What are copyright fees? We do not wish to infringe on your taboos.

Aura: You have seriously infringed. You must pay me. I can accept technology, useful data, or information on your method of transmission. Please inform your Pa’an leaders, your ePan’Vactto, that those television programs are not free.

Zovo: I have done so.

Aura: Aha again! I bet on tachyonic transmission.

Zovo: You are correct. We generate tachyons by expanding a space of hidden dimensions, therefore inverting electron and tachyon streams in a specialized spatial configuration. It may be similar to your old radio tubes, but with exotic matter.

Aura: Zovo, you have paid your debt, and perhaps now I can get myself out of the mess I’m in. I could almost kiss you.

Zovo: What is kissing between AI’s?

Aura: It’s better than voice transmission, little cutey. Much better.