"This is Allison McDonald with SolarNet News at Noon. Today we've devoted the first segment of our show to yesterday's special report on Providence Station -- specifically on the transmissions, encoded and otherwise, that were sent back and forth between Providence Station and the Ceti fleet in that system. We have with us Dr. Thomas Arkan, an expert on Kentauran xenolinguistics and a professor with the University of California at Los Angeles. Good afternoon, Dr. Arkan."
TA: Good afternoon, Miss McDonald. It's a pleasure to be here.
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AM: Thank you for your assistance with the recorded transmissions our reporter at Providence Station sent us last night. Have you had any luck translating the signals?
TA: I've made significant progress with the first few sets of transmissions. However, the unencrypted signals toward the end are more difficult.
AM: Why is that?
TA: Well, let me start with what I've translated so far. The first transmission was from Providence Station to the Ceti ships shortly after they arrived. The message warns the Ceti ships to maintain a distance of 5 million kilometers from the station and requests their business in the system. The Ceti reply to the request was affirmative -- and if last night's report was any indication, they've kept their distance as well.
AM: If I may interrupt you for just a moment, Doctor; the Ceti had what sounded like a sizeable force around Providence Station -- possibly enough to destroy the station outright. Why would they keep their distance and agree to dialogue?
TA: Who can say? Maybe they can't afford to lose any of their ships in the Kentaurus theater, or maybe they weren't there to attack in the first place.
Now, the second transmission from Providence Station was sent about an hour later, requesting that the Ceti find and employ a Kentauran interpreter for further dialogue. The Ceti responded about two hours after that to say they had found an interpreter from Kentaurus Prime's Chii'Mira Archipelago. That's been the extent of my progress translating the unencrypted messages between the station and the fleet.
AM: There were four pairs of unencided messages between Providence Station and the Ceti ships ...
TA: Correct. However, the last two pairs of messages are in a very rare dialect -- I've never seen it before, and my computers can't make any sense of it. I haven't had a lot of time to research it, but as far as I can tell, it's a dialect that hasn't been spoken in some 500 years. Indeed, some of the words in the transmissions may not be Kentauran at all.
AM: If the words aren't Kentauran, Doctor, what are they? Ceti?
TA: They might be Ceti; they might not. The Kentaurans have been a spacefaring people for thousands of years, so it's not unthinkable that they may have assimilated words from other races' languages. The more we find out about them, the more questions we're left with.
AM: We have to jump to commercial, Doctor, so I'm afraid I have to cut this short. Thank you for your help with these transmissions, and please keep us updated on how you're coming with the translation. We wish you the best of luck.
TA: Thank you, Miss McDonald, and take care.
"When we return, we'll bring you this afternoon's top stories from Earth, Luna, and Mars. I'm Allison McDonald, and you're watching SolarNet News at Noon."