Borne On Wings of Steel by Tony Chandler Page B

smiled, merriment in her eyes.
    Elise laughed for a moment, then put her arms around her friend. “That may well be, Krinia."
    They laughed at their shared joke. But Elise looked away again, a serious expression on her face.
    "But you still want to meet new aliens,” Krinia said, guessing her thoughts.
    "Why can't I?” Elise looked at her with urgency. “You could keep an eye on me, keep me out of trouble. I know, I know,” she said quickly as Krinia opened her mouth to speak. “I may not have learned the basic skills of protocol or know how this race greets each other or how that race says good-bye, but how does anybody else learn those things if they don't go out into the universe?” Elise's eyes burned with her need to take the next step in her life. “I need to meet new life-forms, if I'm going to develop social skills. I can't learn that from lessons and holovids."
    "But Elise, there is so much you don't know—cultural and social protocols—or how to beware of aliens with evil intentions. You could be taken advantage of so easily,” Mother reasoned, breaking into their conversation.
    " Mother ,” Elise groaned. “I know enough not to get mugged or raped or something like that!"
    "But what about other subtle ways you could be taken in?” Mother asked.
    "MotherShip,” Krinia said confidently. “I think I could watch out for her long enough to mingle and perhaps take in a part of this city. We could go out for a couple of hours and come straight back. And she would see others up close and personal for the first time, and somewhat safely, in these constant crowds of RahajMr."
    "Oh please, Mother,” Elise pleaded. “We'll be safe, I promise. I won't even talk to anybody, I'll just watch them as they pass by!"
    Mother observed the earnestness in Elise's eyes and heard it in her voice. She realized that maybe she had been wrong earlier.
    "Krinia,” Mother said.
    "Yes."
    Both women looked up at the optic.
    "I am contacting Jysar. He has not left yet. Perhaps if you and he escorted Elise, and especially if you both aided her in any personal encounters with other beings she might run into, then it would be safe enough for her to investigate the city."
    Elise laughed with glee as Krinia hugged her.
    "Where shall we go?” Elise suddenly asked.
    Krinia smiled. “You want to help them search, you said earlier. Let's go to the Search-Terminals first, maybe you'll be able to help them. After that, we'll go to one of the main shopping levels, do some window shopping and observe the other shoppers too."
    "Great!” Elise gasped. “And I've thought of something the boys have never tried, something obvious if an alien race receives only an audio transmission from any human survivors."
    "Cool.” Krinia smiled. “And what is your brain-storm, my young detective?"
    Elise brushed her blonde tresses back from where they had fallen across her face. She smiled cunningly, her blue eyes twinkling with conspiracy. “Well, with audio-only contact, especially a remote automated beacon, any alien ship picking it up but never making contact would file the transmission and upload it to their master system to be analyzed at a later time. Any transcription would be translated into their native language ... well, how would they know how to spell some of the proper names!"
    Krinia's eyes lit up with excitement. “You're right, their translation computers would only be able to approximate some of the proper names without a human dictionary to compare with."
    Elise nodded. “And so, I will not simply search for ‘human’ or ‘Earth’ or whatever. I will input some common misspellings an alien race might use like...” Elise leaned closer, as if somebody might be eavesdropping on her fantastic idea. She sounded each letter in a low whisper. “The word human might be found as h-u-m-u-n. Or misspelled as h-o-o-m-u-n or something like that."
    "Or they might list Earth as U-r-t-h, or something even more bizarre, depending on the