Departure

I'm finally going to go somewhere! My special transport just arrived and I'm settling myself in right as we speak. Since I'm the only one of my kind around, I get a level all to myself, though they're having to furnish it on the fly since it was so unexpected. They put a little desk in first, on my own request, since I wanted to get this blog written up. Right now there's a couple of the more muscular kind of Xala slowly descending with that little bed in their talons, and another with a little refrigerator stocked with water and that nasty protein stuff (what's in my backpack is just for when I'm out exploring the various areas) and yet another has a box of my clothes they must have stolen from my house back on Earth. Don't ask me how a bunch of flying lizards got into my house without being noticed. I don't know and I don't want to know.

Oh, and they're not carrying all that heavy stuff on their own, believe me. The bed and the fridge are set on little levitating pallets, the bed on its side because the shaft in this transport is kinda small. That's how they move heavy stuff, but apparently it still takes some hefty wing muscles to haul the pallets around.

Getting onto the transport was the fun part. I'm the only one here of my kind, but the transport itself has several alien delegations in it. When the little cylindrical transport docked in the shaft, a couple of Xala had already taken me and my stuff on a few pallets up to the highest level so I could enter through the top level of the transport. (Xala always enter from the top. Their floors are even numbered going down instead of up.)

Anyway, we didn't really enter from the tippy-top -- that's reserved for the pilot and crew -- but from the first level of the transport, which had a delegation of these odd looking creatures with faces a little like a cross between a cat and a teddy bear and long limbs and tail like a monkey and wearing little loincloths and some sort of fancy cape with a high collar. They were pretty small, and kept leaping around these special branched columns that had been installed (I think they were supposed to be like trees) and talking whatever weird language they speak, which sounds like more than half of it comes through your nose. One of them that was a little bigger and not quite so hairy talked to the yela'kaja a bit in the Xala's squawking language, both with odd accents because of their strange forms. Then the yela'kaja turned to me, "It seems that the Ŋãna are interested in the new alien." -- (The yela'kaja typed the name for me. According to him they pronounce their name as NGAH-nuh; but that for some reason the Xala actually call them something like gah-zah) -- "Their yela'kaja has informed me that they invite you up to this level later for a little chat. Would you like to do so?"

I though a minute, looking around at those fake metal trees with the little plastic hand-holds. "I'll see. Let me get settled in first, then I'll see about it."

The yela'kaja relayed my message to the Ŋãna yela'kaja and then lead me to a special little elevator next to the shaft. On my way down to the third level I saw a delegation of creatures that looked kinda like the man from the black lagoon, except as they talked to each other they did really big movements with their webbed hands and would change colors and patterns really quick. I asked who they were and the yela'kaja's answer was, "Those are the xala Kesata. They are one of the first races we contacted through the gâ'akaxaoda. Very interesting people, they don't speak with sound, but instead use gestures and changes of skin color to communicate." His earpiece glowed while he paused and seemed to be searching for some information. "I believe you would call that a sign-language."

"Well, I guess that's close." We got to my level and I got off to settle in. I could smell a bit of a fishy smell coming from the artificial pools on the level above me. Hopefully those won't leak. I don't know what Kesata do in those pools. So here I am, eating a Xala powerbar and looking out a little window as my transport slowly rises out of the shaft and into the sky. Maybe I'll go upstairs later and talk to the Ŋãna once everything is in its place. Or maybe I'll go and see who's on the level below me, if anybody -- these transports have four levels. Might even go see the Kesata for a minute if I can stand the smell up there. Or maybe I'll take a nap first, The time is so off here I don't even know when to sleep.