Science

§ 2025-09-14 01:58:00

[02:01] Edaaj's wandering had not had any destination in particular, nor had it yielded anything else for her to focus her attention on. Therefore, when 'sha caught up with her, he found her apparently trying, and abjectly failing, to be engrossed in the examination of an unremarkable section of wall.

[02:04] She did not turn her gaze away, but mumbled as he approached, "<Well, there are always things to learn in the world.>"

[02:10] 'sha sat down beside her, for a while simply quiet, subduing his frustration. He had certainly expected the humans to be stupid about this exchange, but he hadn't expected them to cut things off that abruptly after agreeing to wait until the morning. While he couldn't feel Edaaj's pain empathetically, he was immersed in the situation enough to feel agitation on her behalf. "<I'm sorry that didn't work out,>" he said, gently.

[02:24] "<No doubt they are not comfortable here,>" Edaaj replied woodenly. "<I cannot expect them to overcome that for the sake of satisfying my curiosity – other reasons for convincing them to stay notwithstanding.>" She paused, then added, "<But thank you.>"

[02:35] Pulling her gaze away from its contemplation of the wall, she turned to him and said, "<Do you think it likely that I would ever learn enough to be useful here to you? Not that curiosity is likely to cease being a motivation... but I am a Builder – or was. Being able to carry on something of that purpose would be... satisfying.>" Despite the show of understanding regarding the situation with the humans, the hint of forlornness in her expression suggested that her question was as much a grasping for hope as a request for information.

[02:48] "<I don't know,>" Valcen-sha answered honestly. "<But whenever I have the time, I'll try to set you up for it,>" he promised. He brought his muzzle over to her and gave her shoulder an encouraging nudge. "<And you definitely don't need the humans to learn.>" He glanced over to where they had left, lingering on the empty space. "<Though I admit I'm worried about them.>" In more ways than one.

§ 2025-10-25 23:08:24

[23:21] "<Yes,>" Edaaj murmured, though she still found it hard to hold in her mind all the ramifications of... well, of whatever the humans were going to do, now. It seemed that the best-case scenario was, short of an unlikely change of heart, that they left Katal in a scheduled fashion, but whether they would...

[23:28] Another line of thought occurred to her. "<Do you know anything of what the... the Karesejat thinks of the humans?>"

[23:33] Valcen-sha flicked his muzzle. "<Not meaningfully,>" he said. "<We did speak about them – from that I know we're in agreement it would be good if they could be friends. I don't think she'll be pleased that they're evidently not interested in that arrangement. But what would there be to gain in antagonising them? So I expect she'll leave them alone once they leave.>" He tilted his head to look at her. "<Was that your concern?>"

[23:45] "<Partly, I suppose,>" she replied uncertainly. She had not yet met the Karesejat and desperately preferred that this remain the case, though she had no clear idea how likely that was in her current situation; but it had occurred to her that a being that had once been to her a figure of rumor, nearly of legend, was likely to be a major factor in however things turned out. "<I suppose I am more concerned about what she would do if they did something precipitous.>"

[23:50] "<That would be unfortunate,>" Valcen-sha said, without further elaboration, but the tone he said it in made it clear that it was the misfortune of the humans. "<Though I think you could be equally concerned – perhaps more so – what the Nayabaru would do if the humans did something precipitous. They're less likely to comprehend that some behaviour ought to be forgiven, for starters.>"

[23:54] There was a faint rustle as a tremor shook Edaaj's thick plumage.

[23:57] "<Yes,>" she replied, the worry audible in her voice. "<That I believe.>"

[00:11] Maybe suggesting that their gracious hosts were bad at forgiveness was not the most reassuring thing Valcen could have said, even in a world where Edaaj did not care for their human guests. But he had stressed, multiple times, that Edaaj's choices had been perilous, and that he would do only so much to protect her if it went pear-shaped. It was all very consistent.

"<So,>" 'sha said, changing the subject. "<Since I guess we won't be studying human technology, what would you like to start with?>" It was a hard question, like asking someone to choose one piece out of a chocolate truffle buffet – and its difficulty was welcome, as it would hopefully occupy Edaaj's anxieties.

[00:27] It was indeed a welcome distraction; her thoughts jumped neatly onto the new track. "<I don't know how helpful it would be to your work,>" she replied diffidently, "<but I would quite like to know more about, er... the->" She struggled to recall the word. "<Machines that move and act. Like the Imito->" No, no no no, not like those. She expelled a brath through her nostrils. "<-like how they move, anyway. ...Robots? Robots. I would like to be able to make robots someday.>"

[00:42] "<You, individually, won't be able to make robots,>" 'sha advised. "<I can't make them by myself, either. There are too many steps involved. But I can certainly tell you enough about them that you can design them,>" he offered. As he spoke, he started to comb through Edaaj's feathers with his fingers. She did have a lot of them, and it was only polite. "<On that note, what do you presently know about mechanical joints?>"

[00:52] The idea of not being able to make robots herself was a little deflating. How was one supposed to make sure what one designed was what was made, except after the fact? Or could the process be aided by other machines under one's own supervision? ...would that be allowed here? She supposed she would have to learn more about the process as the Valcens used it...

[01:08] She was a little surprised when 'sha began combing through her feathers, though it felt quite pleasant. It prompted her to settle down a bit. "<Er, thank you. ...I suppose I had more experience with the concept than others of my group,>" she continued, proceeding to the question he'd asked. "<We once found... something, some piece of a Nayabaru device that seemed to have broken off and fallen where it lay. It was some kind of articulable boom or arm designed to support soemthing heavy. I studied it for a while, but it was too large and unwieldy to take with us when we moved on.>" She shrugged helplessly. "<I used some of what I learned to try to make a kind of portable arm that might be useful for disarming traps at some distance, but with the materials we had available it was not possible to make it both durable enough to last and deft enough for accurate aiming. And controlling it was difficult. It proved not worth the effort.>"

[01:24] "<That sounds quite advanced given the constraints you had to labour with,>" 'sha mused. "<Robotics has only a few components to master, but mechanical joints are the first thing you need to understand – really understand. So tell me a bit about how your contraption failed; were you able to identify why controlling it was difficult, for example?>"

[01:36] Edaaj, warming to the subject, spared only a moment for how much detail Valcen-sha might be interested in before she launched into a litany of issues. Many of them had to do with the limits of both the materials and the manufacturing techniques available to Edaaj, but it was also clear that, since the arm was only useful if it could be controlled from the end being held, she had had trouble devising a way of mechanically transmitting that control past one joint to independently affect the next one, and the solutions she'd come up with had been (by her own judgment) quite clumsy.

[01:39] "<And besides,>" she added, "<the more degrees of freedom were occasioned by the joints, the more controls had to be added, since I could not find a way to combine control of multiple joints into one lever. It made the thing too bulky to use comfortably.>"

[01:57] 'sha took the opportunity to talk about the theory of it all. Gently, he manipulated one of her arms, then some of her fingers, and explained the traits of the biological joints and what allowed them to work. Some of this she recognised easily – kavkema, after all, were reasonably good at understanding how skeletons looked and where bones were in relation to muscle and organ tissue – but he was explaining some subtleties she hadn't had an opportunity to explore.

Not long afterwards, he was showing her a basic joint made from what was little more than two pens and a rubber band. She understood the design easily, having had thoughts of her own quite similar in the past, though rubber was not generally something the kavkema readily had.

About an hour had passed with them talking about the topic when he gestured for her to stay put. When he came back from his brief excursion, he was holding an Imitorunyema, with its intricate, prehensile arms. "<Let's look at one of these,>" he announced, tapping one of the joints.

[02:14] Edaaj found herself cringing away from it for a moment, the blurred memory of the thing in rapid motion flashing through her head; but then curiosity overcame her nervousness. Although she did not immediately understand everything she was looking at – though some of what 'sha had already told her helped – clearly it was all more compact and delicately made than anything she'd ever done. "<I think I can see how it achieves its range of motion,>" she said. "<But what provide the movement – what is the muscle?>"