When shi asked about what he meant by a cycle he pondered it some before sending it to his subconscience. Although he had a few options, none of them were all that good. Unlike human brains a Takzii' brain is divided into quadrants with a foreground/background or conscience/subconscious levels allowing him to process more information quickly. He transferred all shi told him about hir perception of a cycle to his subconscious, hoping to find a common grounds to help in the explanation, and left it at that.
But her comment about getting lost, caused him to smile, '<Mikal> from what I have seen, I heartily agree!'
'<Etlaayz>I can see that as a good thing. Since my kind does not have a physical form, we do not have any true genders either. We reproduce by a fusion/fission process. There are donors, similar to males, receptors, similar to females, translators, they take a genetic matrix and modify in someway before sending it on and a host, they serve as an incubator as the final matrix establishes itself, without adding to the matrix. There are several variation of the four. Although I have been all four plus a few of the variations, I prefer being a host and, thus, a chii. As you can see, reproduction among our kind can be quite interesting, as I suspect, it can be with your kind. My host has the basic male and female relationship.'
Mikal was still pondering how to answer what a cycle was, but, without a reference here, at least, one that Zhar knew, it would be difficult at best. 'A cycle is the time it takes oru world to make one rotation around our star. Actually, we have tow ways of measuring time, rises and cycles. A rise is how long it takes for our star to rotate on its axis. There are 3500 rises for a cycle. I do have a map of our universe, but, without a reference you can understand, it would not help much. He sighed, I should have made a scan of what I saw out your window, but, was so awed by what I saw, I did not think of it.
Opening his computer book, he accessed the map section. To his surprize, he found a new map there. Opening it up, he recognized it as being what he saw out the window. Puzzled by where it could have came from, he access its parameters. It definitely was Takzii', so, it was not from this ship. The time stamp revealed it was sent before they were caught by this ship. The only reasonable solution was Lochasaii had installed a long range scanner and a powerful transmitter and, most likely, a mass store. Which, made sense the more he thought about it. Not only did Lochasaii wan to know if they could survive the crossing, he, also, wanted to know what was on the other side. He wondered just how many of these things had he sent out. Well, this is not one he was going to use.
'<Mikal>I would recommend destroying that canister as soon as possible. I would not want Lochasaii to get a hold of it.'
He activated the map of his universe and overlaid over the other. It was not much to look at, a small star about one half the size of the white dwarf with two rays coming out opposite sides, one white and one black. Several rings of asteroids between the star and a two AU rock Dyson's Sphere (which he left as only a ring). Finally, a ring of asteroids out to the edge of his universe.
With a shrug, '<Mikal>My universe, at least, it was until Lochasaii destroyed it.'
Etlaayz smiled internally, '<Etlaayz>I Do, although, not as often as he does.' Mikal rolled his eyes and gave a flat stare at hir remark. '<Etlaayz>From the looks of it, there should be a good source of Light here, but, Dark - um - anti-light, might be a problem. You did bring your Leridium with you?' '<Mikal>of course' '<Etlaayz>Good. All we need now is a place to contain it. Dark can be very dangerous it our world, I am not sure what it can do in yours. I, also, need to come to the surface, which, might take a while.'