Lost in Translation

Posted on 29 Apr 2019 @ 11:42pm by Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri & Ensign Callin Mastrel

2,317 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Deck 04 - Multi-purpose Lab Two
Timeline: MD -5 - 0240 hours

[ON:]

LTJG Matthew Plumeri worked at the round, center workstation inside the lab. They were still a few weeks away from the Latari system and so he occupied his time today working on a translation matrix for ancient Akkadian. Commander Warraquim's native language and he wasn't getting very far with it. He had re-read the same few characters now a dozen time and couldn't make head nor tails of them. He ran his fingers through his spikey blond hair and leaned forward onto the workstation tossing the PaDD onto the table. He let out a sigh and decided that a short nap to let the steam - or his brain - ooze out his ears would be in order. He folded his arms, put his head down on them and took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The doors whispered open soon after, but Callin wasn't very heavy-footed and the carpet muffled his approach. Not that he was trying to be sneaky. He glanced around at the screens, looking at the data streaming by about current experiments, curiosity on his face. It took a moment before he saw the sleeping form of someone in the middle of the lab and a slow smile began. Ever so quietly, Callin moved over to one of the wall panels, tapped a few keys, and then...

"Decompression warning!" the computer seemed to shout out the warning after Callin triggered the diagnostic. "All hands must evacuate!"

Matt woke up with a start and got to his feet and he looked 'round the lab. He couldn't understand why there was a decompression warning here in the lab but he was trained to move and so he did. He started for the door and then saw Mastrel and stopped long enough to grab Mastrel by the tunic and yanked him towards the door, "Don't just stand there!" he said and the doors to the lab opened and Matthew stepped into the corridor. No red alert. No decompression warning. No emergency. He slowly turned back and looked at Ensign Mastrel.

That smile had grown into a big grin by the time the sleepy lieutenant was trying to drag Callin to the door. He started laughing even as he struggled to keep his balance, and turned off the alarm sending the room into a sudden silence. "No need to go running off! I think we'll be okay."

Matt just glared at him for a moment. He didn't like getting awoken like that with a start and much less a prank. But, he had to admit, after imaging the Ensign after a year or so on the Klingon penal colony of Rura Penthe, that it was a pretty good prank. He took a step forward, he started to grin and then he laughed out loud, "Ohhh! MAN! That was a good one. Even so - don't do it again ay?" Matthew said as he flicked Mastrel's forehead with a flick of his index finger.

"Gotcha," Callin still grinned, even as he rubbed at his forehead. He was a bit relieved that his prank wasn't going to land him in trouble his first few hours on board. He was even more relieved to find out at least one of Science Department's members had a sense of humor too. "Figured I would try to make a memorable first impression. I'm Ensign Callin Mastrel, just transferred off of the convoy." He squinted black eyes slightly at the lieutenant, then deciding he was human stuck out a hand to shake.

Grasping the hand in friendship, firmly, he shook it, "Well then welcome aboard! Medical? Science? What's your racket Ensign?" Matthew said as he walked back into the lab.

"Science!" Callin could help but say the word with a bit of enthusiasm, as if he were almost making a declaration. "Though don't make me pick one, please. I guess you could say I'm a...generalist. Science communicator, maybe. I turn what you say into things the other colors can understand." He chucked a thumb back over his shoulder, as if pointing at the rest of the crew. "Though I admit, I'd have a hard time spinning this experiment." Callin grinned again. "Ah, I have it, a sleep study."

Matt reached the table and activated a PaDD, "Hey, I wasn't sleeping. I caught a gnat in my eye and I was trying to suffocate it." He spun the PaDD around to face Callin, "A generalist ay? What do you make of this then Ensign?" On the PaDD was a single line of ancient Akkadian that Matt had copied from one of the books that Commander Warraquim had lent to him.

Callin gave a chuckle at the joke, then took the device and began to scan through it eagerly. He was silent for a bit as he did so, face serious. After a time he looked up, "No clue. Well, maybe? A couple of months back I had met some of the crew, and one of them presented me with a sample of her people's language. It was like nothing I had ever encountered before." Callin struggled for a moment, trying to bring up memories of that brief visit, "Is this...Akkadian?"

"Zzzzactly! Ancient Akkadian if we're going to be precise. Which apparently we have to be if we're going to be making any headway. I'm not a linguist but I've been able to identify all of the letters. I think. It's very complex. Almost like a mix between pictographic syntax and a traditional letter based alphabet. Right now all I'm trying to do is identify all of the characters so I can see wheat we're up against. Luckily, for us, we have someone on board who speaks modern Akkadian so we can see how the language ended up. It may not help us on this ancient tongue though. That's where you come in." Matt looked up at the young officer.

"Me?" Callin looked up from the PADD, not with any kind of trepidation, but with eagerness instead. "You'd like me to help? That'd be great! From the moment I heard the doctor's language I knew it was something special, that I wanted to learn, even if as I suspect some humanoids are just lacking the correct physical structures to make the correct sounds and-." He grinned broadly at Plumeri, cut himself off before he started rambling, and hefted the data in his hand, "How much of a baseline do you have already?"

"Yeah I want your help. I want to understand more about the Akkadian people. The stuff we're not going to find in the written histories. No, the real interesting stuff is going to be in their language, their music, their art. In those places we'll find out what they are really like." Matthew said in his native Fontalan, "Mentre inizi a uscire per strada; la strada appare prima di te." When you step out on the path, the way appears before you. It's another way of saying 'just start'. So, all I've managed to do is identify the individual characters in this tome that was lent to me. It's a copy, so no need to treat it as a holy relic. Once we get all the characters down we can start looking for patterns. The computer may be of some use in that area?"

"Oh, it will at that," Callin agreed. "The UT is going to be invaluable on a task like this." He lowered the PADD and started to explain, and enthusiastically too. This was the young man's bailiwick, and it involved a lot more than just the words on a page. "We'll need to do more than program a linguacode. Brain scans from modern Akkadians will be really important, if we can get our hands on them, actually. We can develop a system to take into account historical events, environmental changes, cultural nuances, loanwords from alien visitors...But given the sheer scale of attempting to translate a new language from scratch, the computer is definitely going to be huge."

Matt looked at him and cocked his head a little to the left, "We have an Akkadian onboard Ensign, her name is Commander Warraquim. And I've already been using the computer to get the basics. It's not enough apparently. Her people are...how shall we say...particular about who they associate with. And they don't often have other species over for tea-time. So, we are not going to find a whole lot of loanwords or outside influences. At least that's what I've discovered so far. That's where you come in. We need a fresh approach; something different." Matthew put both hands on the table and though a moment before lookign back up at him, "I like the idea of a brain scan but...remember the Commander is different. She's accepted integration into Starfleet; her mind is wired differently from one of her people from centuries ago. How about this? I can start lookign at all of the source materials we have? Build a library of a sort? While you take a fresh look at the alphabet and iconography? Syntax and structure? I'm into stars and history. Language is not my forte?" He extended a handshake, "Interested?"

Callin glanced at the hand for just a moment, then shook it in his own, grinning almost from ear to ear, "You got yourself a deal! It may take some time but we'll make this language give up its secrets." His mind was already abuzz with ideas, from computer coding to build a basic matrix (getting ahead of himself) to running through the 'universal' basics of languages, even a little flash of maybe someday getting to present another upgrade to the UT to the Federation Linguistic Society. "Thank you, Lieutenant," he added, "I'm really looking forward to this. And to working with you, of course."

"Great! Me too, I'm excited about this project as well. I'm glad that you are enthusiastic about it too. I think, when we're further along with this, we might even impress the Commander with our work? I hope so at least. I'd like to someday present her and her people with a new translation of some of their ancient writings. Not just me or you; but from the Federation of course" he answered as he prepared a new file on the computer and granted access for Ensign Mastrel. "OK, there you are now. All set up. You now have access to the same files and images that I do." Tapping out of the LCARS terminal again he asked, "What attracts you to languages Ensign? A hobby of yours?"

As Matthew spoke, Callin was picturing that eventual someday. A delegation of the reclusive Akkadian, stately and impressive, warmly welcoming such a gift, maybe even leading to more open relations down the road and... "Hmm?" He blinked away his imaginings, a smiling Allyndra faded away. "Oh, well, not really, Lieutenant. I have the talent I guess, but some of that might be due to being Betazoid as well. Being able to sense the meaning behind the spoken word certainly doesn't hurt. I'd say communication is more my job than just translating, if that makes sense?"

He handed the PADD back, now that he could pull up everything he needed through his own system logins and took a lean against the console, "A lot of times, and no offense meant Lieutenant, I think a lot of people in the Federation - and out of it - don't often say exactly what they mean. Or maybe just don't know how to say it to an alien whose thinking works in a different way. So I figure, why not help that along a bit?"

"Ah yes, the many layered meanings of language, intonation, inflection...subterfuge. But you have more than talent, I suspect. I am a good observer of people Ensign. And you have talent. Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." Matthew leaned back on the lab chair and considered what Callin had said, "No offense? No offense you say. If people started saying exactly what they mean..." his eyes drifted off to imaging the chaos that would ensue. He looked back at Callin, "...that would be very entertaining!"

That provoked another laugh, "Oh, you need to come visit Betazed someday then. When we are out here, 'amongst our friends from the stars' as they put it in etiquette school, we obey your concepts of privacy. When you visit us though don't be surprised if people do and say exactly what they mean, and know exactly what you mean too. As judgmental as it might seem to an outsider sometimes we take honesty very seriously, and it's more offensive to lie to your girlfriend when she asks if her new dress makes her look fat than to try flattering her." Callin grinned broadly, showing a lot of teeth, "I found out the hard way not all Earth girls are like that though!"

Faking a classic Nor'Easter/Maine accent Matthew said, "Ooooohhh myyyyyy! It sounds like there is a story to that. Do I dare ask what shenanigans you got yourself into?" He smiled as he said it though enjoying the company as he worked.

Callin's grin grew ever wider than ever as he got into the story, "I still insist it was merely a cultural misunderstanding, but if I were to send Kelly a message right now her reply would probably blow out every relay on this deck. It all started when she found this thing made of lace and ribbons..."

Was it an hour? Or two or three? The time passes so quickly with good friends.

[OFF:]

Ensign Callin Mastrel
Science Office
USS Galileo-A

&

LTJG Matthew Plumeri
Science Officer/Historian
USS Galileo-A
NCC-80010

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