Flattery at its Finest

Within moments of performing the final tap in the "Ahoy" sequence, a response what issued. It was nothing like I expected, and would be hard to translate in to the language I knew a the time. Surprise and consternation are two emotions that come to mind, but the closest literal translation comes from recent intercepts of compressive communications. I believe that the correct token would be "WTF?"

There was little doubt that I was conversing with the team that I had helped out some time ago. They even waggled the canopy waveform in a special way, confirming their identity, as they maneuvered through the soup to approach my position so that we could talk without screaming across the entire breadth of soup. Besides, with closer proximity came lower lag and a faster conversation.

The Canopy approached and passed just a few One-Eight-Ones from my position. They had something to show me. As the three Six-triple-Ones passed, I scanned underneath the canopy and realized that I was looking into a mirror. About the Seven that was holding the Six-triple-Ones, was a striking resemblance of my Shorty, Eights glued to the meshwork and Seven end floating free. They had completed their training and duplicated the Sphere-O-Vision.