The glass panel Grandmother gave Betty chimed. Betty was packing for her trip back to OpenSky for the free day. She didn’t teach any classes on the fifth day. Betty suspected Grandmother set it up that way so she would have two days free to visit Joe. Joe was the owner of the crystal in OpenSky. Betty moved to OpenSky so she could be close to him. Joe accepted the ownership of the square because he thought OpenSky, with its access to the surface, would make Betty happy. She paused in her actions to pick the panel up from its charging station. Muriel spent a lot more time in the Speedwell than Betty did. Muriel often used the ship’s system to contact Betty.

  A glance at the panel showed that the message wasn’t from Muriel, but from Chief Engineer Whitman. It took Betty a moment to remember that was Grandmother. Betty activated the panel and opened the message.

  Betty:

  Unkell, who I believe is your ‘Uncle’, has decided to come visit us. I’ve set her up in the educational lab to work on putting together a translator for her. I think she will find that very boring. I would appreciate it if you could come out to the Speedwell and show her around. She will need a break.

  Irene.

  Betty changed her plans. She set aside her packing for OpenSky and picked up the gear she needed for a day in the field. She hiked out of the hunter’s camp to the road. A small maintenance cart was parked there on a siding for her use. She disconnected the charging lines before getting inside. It took her some time to learn how to drive the cart, but she was pretty good at it now. She turned the cart around and drove east to the Wizard's Tower.

  She parked at the base of the western terrace, out of the way of the student shuttles. She stepped out and slung her quiver and bow. Taking a deep breath she approached the airlock door to the Speedwell. The other side of the door was a tiny room and another set of doors. This was the worst part of going inside.

  She triggered the outer door and stepped inside. The door closed behind her and the ones in front opened automatically. Betty hurried through the second door. The ceilings in the halls beyond were lower than in the halls of the structure. She could feel that ceiling. At the same time the different materials, colors and scents from what was found in the structure were not triggering. She went to the nearest wall console and looked up where the educational lab was. There were half a dozen of them spread throughout the ship.

  She decided to try the ship’s location service and asked it where Uncle was. At the last moment she remembered Irene’s note and changed the spelling to Unkell. The wall console told her the floor and showed a sketch of the floor’s layout with the exact room highlighted. Betty took the stairs. She may be able to handle the pressure of the ship better than the halls in wildspace, but she wasn’t going into the tiny room that was the elevator.

  She climbed to the correct floor. Several of the glass fronted rooms she passed were filled with students. At the front of one of them she spotted Grandmother. Grandmother nodded to Betty as she passed. The next room past Grandmother’s was empty except for one occupant.

  The occupant wasn’t human. Her long orange hair merged into an equally orange beard and surrounded her face. A light fuzz of gray fur coated her cheeks. It was thin enough to reveal the dark skin underneath. Her large dark eyes were set over her large nose-snout. As she spoke to the machine, her sharp canine teeth flashed white. Her hair and beard cascaded down over her body completely hiding it. The arms and legs that emerged from that orange mass were covered in a short dense fur the same color gray as the hair on her face. Her hands and feet were bare, both of clothing and of fur. Her fingers and toes ended in thick, sharp nails that were an even darker brown than her skin.

  “Uncle!” Betty cried with real joy, as she stepped into the room. She crossed the space to the non-human and threw her arms around her. Unkell patted the grown woman on the back as she accepted the hug. Unkell grunted approval to Betty.

  “I don’t know if you remember me,” Betty said after she finally let Unkell go. “You returned me to my family in a ruined green when I was very young. I’ve always remembered your kindness. It kept me going through some hard times.”

  Uncle growled something long back. The low rumble conveyed no meaning to Betty, but made her feel safe.

  “Grandmother told me she set you up to make a translator,” Betty commented.

  “Uh huh,” Unkell responded. She turned back to the terminal and touched the surface of the desk.

  “Where can I find food?” the terminal asked Unkell. Unkell growled something back.

  “How much does it cost?” the terminal responded after a slight delay. Unkell growled again, before touching the surface of the desk again, stopping the machine.

  “Now I know why Grandmother thought you’d find it boring,” Betty commented. “I can show you around and you can stretch your legs,” Betty offered.

  Uncle stood and swung a large club up onto her shoulder. The club was a flat gray, marking it as an integrated weapon no matter how primitive it appeared.

  Betty led Uncle down to the workshops built inside the ship first. They were built inside the old single housing unit. Single housing was the newest part of the ship. The large dormitory style housing was built during the crossing into the empty fuel tanks left behind from the Speedwell’s acceleration burn. When Grandmother converted the housing to workshops, she stripped out some of the floor components, lifting the ceilings to two stories. The large airy rooms were the most comfortable to Betty inside the ship.

  Not all the workshops were in use. There were workshops set up for classes they weren’t teaching this session, like pottery and glassmaking. In addition they didn’t have enough students to fill all the workshops everyday. Right now just the woodworking workshop of those inside the Speedwell was in use. Chase and Companion were sharing the teaching duties.

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  With growls and gestures, Uncle asked Betty about the ring on Companion’s head.

  “That’s his translator,” Betty responded. “If you take it into the structure it falls apart. Grandmother explained it to me, but I didn’t really understand,” Betty confided. “It uses something like sound magic to change what you hear.” When the students scattered to their individual stations to work on the day’s projects, Betty introduced Uncle to the instructors.

  After the inside workshops, Betty took Uncle to the outside workshops. Uncle watched a group of students working in the glass houses under the careful supervision of Ava and Robert. Betty taught archery in the last glass house, so she was friends with both of them. She introduced Uncle.

  “This is my friend, Uncle,” Betty told Ava. “She is visiting.”

  “Welcome,” Ava said. “That is some beautiful hair,” the old woman continued. “My spouse’s hair was a shade darker than that. I do miss that man.” Uncle growled out a response.

  “Grandmother is still working on her translator,” Betty explained. Uncle said something more and knelt down to look at the plant at Ava’s feet. She reached out with her large hands and gently turned the leaves so she could inspect it.

  “It’s potatoes,” Ava responded. “We brought them with us from Earth. The tops are poisonous to us. They develop a tuber that is nutritious and stores well.” Uncle moved to the next bed of plants and started looking at the plants in it.

  “Bill,” Ava said to a student who was nearby, “tell our visitor about this plant.” As they moved through the glass house, Ava kept calling on different students to tell Uncle about the plants. The descriptions got longer and more technical as the students tried to outdo each other and Ava asked each student additional questions. They reported not only the uses of the plant, but the amount of fertilizer and water they required, the expected yields, the length of the growing season and how tolerant they were to hot and cold. Ava occasionally corrected something a student said.

  “Come back after classes and I’ll walk you through the other houses,” Ava promised. “I got to stay and keep an eye on the youngins until then.”

  The blacksmith shop was full of students pounding hot metal and not conducive to conversation. They looked in through the door and Betty waved at Blacksmith Mia, who was supervising.

  A trail of smoke was rising from one of the bakery ovens. Inside Betty found Dean Benjamin stirring a batter in a large stainless steel bowl. He was alone without students.

  “Good morning,” Ben said to Betty. He did a double take when he saw Uncle come in behind her. “Who is your friend?”

  “This is Uncle,” Betty said. “She saved my life when I was a child.” A long growling comment came from Uncle. She swung her club down and leaned it against the wall by the door. Her large nose was inhaling the scents in the room.

  “Hello Uncle,” the Dean responded. “I am Ben, Irene’s brother.”

  “Ren,” growled back, trying hard to say his name.

  “Ben is more than just Grandmother’s brother,” Betty added. “He is the head of the academy.”

  “That is more honorary than actual,” Be retorted. “Irene does all the hard work. I just make suggestions.” Ben tapped the batter off the end of his spoon, before setting it aside on the counter. Four round tins were sitting on the worktable next to him. He inspected the flour coating the interior of each of them. Uncle came near and gestured at the batter.

  “Did you want to try it?” Ben asked. “It’s not finished yet. I want to teach the students something different and fun at the end of the term. This is a cake recipe Todd gave me. I need to master it before I teach it in class.” Uncle responded with another long comment in her own language with a few arm gestures mixed in.

  “It does smell delicious,” Ben responded. “If I don’t ruin it in the oven, I’ll bring you a slice for lunch. Have you seen Irene about making you a translator?” He picked up the bowl of batter and began filling the tins with it.

  “Irene is teaching a class,” Betty replied. “She set up Uncle with a program to learn her language. I stole Uncle away to show her around.”

  “Good,” Ben said. “Irene is very good with technology.” He finished scraping out the bowl with the spoon. He set both the bowl and spoon aside. He gave the filled tins a gentle shake to level the batter. He carried them over to a table closer to the oven where more filled tins waited. He picked up a long handled baker’s peel that rested against the wall. He used the end of the handle to unlatch the hot door and swing it open. He felt the air inside checking the temperature, before picking up each of the baking tins with the peel and setting them in the oven. He swung the door closed and latched it with practiced ease.

  “Irene mentioned an Unkell who practices chemistry. Is that you?” Ben asked, when he returned to the workstation to pick up his dirty bowl.

  “Uh huh,” Unkell acknowledged.

  “You should introduce her to Asher,” Ben told Betty. “He dabbles a bit in chemistry. He’s been taking the Speedwell classes as a comparison to the magic version.”

  “Doesn’t he teach blacksmithing with Mary?” Betty countered.

  “He does,” Ben responded, “but I think chemistry is his true love, like baking is mine.” Ben turned on the faucet at the end of the workstation and began cleaning his bowl.

  They left the bakery through the inner door that brought them directly back into the Speedwell without going outside.

  “We better go back up to the education lab,” Betty admitted, “and check in with Grandmother.” They took the stairs back up.

  When they stepped out of the stairwell they found the hallway full of students changing classes. The first block of the day was over, Betty wasn’t certain where the time went. Ben’s cake wasn’t going to be ready for the first lunch. Betty thought she’d take Uncle to the second lunch, or maybe midday when most of the residence supervisors ate. It was less busy then.

  “Good morning, Hunter,” students called as they passed her and Uncle in the hall. Nearly half the students were enrolled in one of the classes she and Muriel taught. The students accepted Uncle’s presence without question because she was standing next to Betty. It struck Betty that this introduction was what Grandmother wanted when she messaged Betty.

  After the halls cleared, Betty led Uncle to the same laboratory room she found her in. They stepped inside to find Grandmother waiting for them.

  “There you are,” Grandmother said in greeting. “I hope you got to see everything.”

  “Not everything,” Betty responded. “We visited the workshops, the glass houses and the bakery.”

  “That sounds like an excellent start,” Grandmother responded. “I have laboratory supervision for the next three hours. Lizzy assures me she can handle it for a while. I want to set you up with housing and show you how to use the sanitation facilities. If you don’t like the housing in the Speedwell you are welcome to stay in the structure annex.”

  “You can stay with me in the hunter’s camp,” Betty offered. “I’d be proud to host you.”

  “An excellent choice,” Grandmother said. “First, can you show me your ears? I need to fit the translation ring so that it lies close to them.”