Tih/Nek-Mo-tih

"Please familiarize yourself with the brochure, honoured Ambassador."   "I am no mere Ambassador, I am Undersecretary of State. Ambassador was several promotions ago."   "I'm sorry, I will endeavour to name you correctly, but if you wish to stay on Tih, you still need to read and understand the brochure."  

The Tih, also known as Nek-Mo-Tih, are originating from the planet Nek, orbiting the star Tih, hence their name. Tih also means to bring or draw forth, to attract, or pull out. Nek, means thought, or thinking, as in place of thinking, or place of thinking beings. Nek-Mo-Tih adds a pronoun, but basically means "Planet of the Thought-Leaders". It is sparsely populated, only twenty million individuals dwell on the planet and twenty thousand on the orbiting starbase, it has no moons.   Nek has double standard gravity, due to the unusual density at its core, lead, Iridium, Osmium are known to be present in unusually large amounts. It is not however, more than 20% larger than Arnd, and its atmosphere is tolerable for Arndans, if oxygen-rich. Precautionary injections of haemoglobin stabilizers must be taken for longer stays than 48 cycles, Arndan, which is just less than two full Nek orbits, which orbits in 50 cycles of our measure.

  "So I need preventative medicine if I stay on the planet, is the station as rich in oxygen?"   "No, the decision was taken when the station was used as to house the Coalition Parliament to lower by two percent the oxygen content, other species had much stronger reactions, but even the Massimo and Antoo did not find it comfortable."   "Oh, and those?"   "Have comparitively oxygen-rich environments in their native forms. Actually, you are Massimo, I need to be careful about that."   "No, Massimo are Arndans, they are an offshoot of my people. I... think that means I represent them now too."   Blurg-whooop!   "You have a communicator..."   "Excuse me while I take this." She withdrew further in an alcove. "Yes, Lusitania Van Pelt, Lanungmei of Trusimon, Countess of Alaszt-Lorren, Baroness of Ryalfi, Baroness of Relogna, Electoral Princess of Saer-Natthingham, Undersecretary of State for Kagomei and Emissary of Arnd to the Coalition, how may I help you?"   "I am Toffanil Rissmarand, I represent the Dancers of Massimoand the joint stations of Massimo to the Coalition and to the Tih."   "I am pleased to receive your communication, returned after my many attempts."   The other blushed. "I... wished to reply, but I was not yet authorized by my government to do so. It was felt it would give you too much influence."   "Which I have, nonetheless, or did I misread the results of the vote?"   "No, you are speaking for us, I would transfer my knowledge, and return to my people."   "Are you in the station?"   "Yes, I am in the Massimo area of the station. Would you join me, I would have you sample some of our synthetized foods for dinner."   "I, and my Grib will join you."   "What is a Grib?"   "My partner, my companion."   "Charming, I shall bring company, and we shall dine together, here are the directions..." Lusitania wrote them down.   "So do I need to take any special precautions while on station? The brochure does not specify."   "Avoid any large viewports when the coronal mass ejections alert are ringing, that's about it..."   "Oh, this is a common occurrence?"   "Five times a revoltion of Nek around the Sun."   "Oh, we call those Arnds, I see how it would make translation difficult."   "You call the revolution of your planet around the sun by the name of the planet? Your astronomers must hate you..."   "You know, I imagine the linguists and astronomers don't talk to each other much."