The Flying House, Part 3

What did Rei and Rome do during their year-long voyage from Tabit to Deucado? In the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, this was addressed in some detail in the beginning of Book 2: Tau Ceti which is now known as Part 2.

     Every day, after breakfast, Rei and Rome exercised furiously, practiced the Vuduri language and Rei learned as much of the Vuduri’s science, culture and history as was possible. For Rome, who had been connected to the Overmind her whole life, it was all second nature. For Rei, learning about gravitic modulation, molecular sequencing, transmutation and all the other arcane parts of Vuduri technology challenged every bit of the engineer in him. Rome was a strict teacher but Rei did not mind. He enjoyed it.
     In turn, after lunch, they reversed roles. Rome extracted background information from Rei about his world and times and the times before that. (Note: this was before Rome learned about the Essessoni data slabs featured in The Ark Lords) During the interview process, Rome’s probing of Rei’s recollections made him embarrassed that he had not paid more attention in history class. But what was done was done. Rei did his best to dig out what he could from his memory. Sometimes, he cheated. Sometimes he described movies he had seen about particular events whether they were dramatized or not.
     Rome painstakingly recorded his reminiscences and musings and catalogued them, collating them into a database to be reconciled with the sparse records retained by her people when they arrived at Deucado. She maintained a meticulous timeline which was enhanced each time Rei produced a fact or date. Whenever there was a discrepancy, they did their best to reconcile it so that the information they transmitted would be internally consistent when the time came.

Tomorrow, their afternoons and evenings.