Sketches

§ 2025-12-07 00:00:00

[00:31] In the room set aside for sleeping, there was a bit of a scene – one might, in fact, call it something of a tableau.

[00:35] In the midst of a cluster of pillows she had claimed lay a kavkem with thick, mostly white coat of feathers. She lay not in peaceful repose, but sprawled across the pillows in the way of one who had tried to ignore the urgings of sleep until, at last, it had stopped urging, rolled up its sleeves, and decked her in the head.

[00:39] She had, at some point, gotten her hands on a pen. This was evident from where it lay near her hand, having finally fallen loose from her unconscious fingers. But more obviously, she had also gotten her hands on a sheaf of paper, because aside from the blank paper that still sat in front of her in a pile, many looser sheets lay about her; some haphazard attempt had been made to organize them partway through their use, but either she had given up or she had fallen asleep partway through, and it lay about her like snow in a half-circle around her front end.

[00:44] Every one of these was covered markings from the pen. Sketches. Drawings. Above all, notes; these last were written in the hand of someone who quite clearly knew how to write, and how to spell, but who was nonetheless not used to writing and whose penmanship suffered. What writing she had done had mostly been drawn in dirt or sand with a claw, and the letter-forms she had produced with the pen, though increasingly dense as the speed of her writing had improved, had a characteristic exaggeration of shape.

[00:53] Many of the sheets featured sketches of the body of parts thereof, of a number of species. Beside most of these were sketches of mechanical analogues in similar positions. To the trained eye, these were still based on half-formed understanding of the technologies involved, but structurally not entirely inappropriate. Here, a kavkem hand next to a duplicate with the artificial equivalents of bones, tendons, and ligaments. There, what appeared to be an attempt at designing a legged vehicle in the shape of a rheshjere.

[00:58] On yet another, a study of a Nayabaru face and head, quite clearly Tanak's, next to various rough sketches of another artificial duplicate. This featured what appeared to be removable exterior pieces with different symbols on them, reminiscent of the tattoos of living Nayabaru, though not recognizable as any of them. Next to this sketch was the brief note: I don't know what they would think about this idea.

[01:02] On yet another, inspired by an apparent sidetrack in her newly-acquired knowledge, was a piece of homemade graph paper. In the center was a small circle; around it were various other circles, apparently describing the paths of objects. Next to them were a series of mathematical formulae involving masses, velocities, distances, and gravitational constants. Next to this was the note: The speeds involved are immense.

[01:04] At one point, the kavkem opened one eye a crack. Even the very dim light of the room hurt her head; she glanced at the product of her labors in front of her, whined faintly, and fell back asleep for several hours.

[01:31] Valcen, too, eventually had to sleep. He had an erratic sleep schedule, spliced across two people, but it was a schedule. He tended to it rigorously, mindful that he would get nowhere if he didn't get adequate rest, but Edaaj's own messed up circadian rhythm had somehow dodged his schedule, and so it was hours into her fitful sleeping that he came into the Den.

When he did, it was as Valcen-za. The scattered papers presented a bit of an obstacle – there were still some spots in the landscape of pillows that could be used without disturbing the dusting by paperwork, but they weren't ideal, and so it was quite natural that he began to collect some of the papers quietly to stack them, all the while experiencing an undecided emotion suspended between annoyance and affection.

He paused to look at the sketch with the Nayabaru designs, and, deferring sleep a while longer, sat beside her, contemplating the image. Silently, he set the stack of remaining papers at a bit of a distance, then carefully settled beside Edaaj, loosely flank to flank, guided by a modicum of cultural instinct Sanathi had left him with.

Of course, to Edaaj, 'za was still mostly a stranger, but it was still only polite.

[01:35] Edaaj's eye twitched open again at the contact. Her head hurt somewhat less than her previous moment of wakefuleness, but not enough to make wakefulness an entirely pleasant prospect.

[01:37] Turning her head to see 'za there, she managed to pry the other eye open. Her brain and her mouth were not yet entirely in sync, but the slightly garbled syllables that resulted from her attempt to make them work together sounded mostly like "I apologize for the mess."

[01:40] "As you should," he said, mirth in his voice. "You're very enthusiastic," he observed the obvious, once more proving that he was very much not a real kavkem. A real kavkem would never waste syllables quite so blatantly.

As if to make up for it, he brought the paper with the Nayabaru sketch around for her to see, asking nothing of her, but expressing obvious interest with his body language – requesting an elaboration, perhaps? Edaaj stared at it blankly. What had she been – oh yes.

[01:47] "I was... I was considering robots in the form of Nayabaru. Since they use markings to indicate occupation, it occurred to me that having some analogue to that practice might be advantageous for an artificial one in terms of, er, integration. But since one of the strengths of an automaton would be repurposing for different tasks as needed, the, er, function indicators should be swappable plates, perhaps held in place by magnets.

[01:50] "But then I thought: the Nayabaru use tattoos for permanence. Would they trust a Nayabaru-like being that could change its markings so easily? Would they even be interested in a Nayabaru robot in the first place?..." She trailed off, looking slightly embarrassed, and mumbled, "It was a diverting intellectual exercise, anyway."

[02:01] While the pause was noticeable, it didn't take long to resolve. "It's not a wide-spread practice, but some Nayabaru don't have titles at all," 'za revealed. "How this is perceived varies from subculture to subculture. I would expect having an easily interchangeable title would fall into a similar niche," he reasoned. He stretched forward to place the paper with the others he had sorted aside, then tucked his limbs under his body in anticipation of getting some sleep of his own in the near future.

First, though, he gave her shoulder a friendly nuzzle, and continued for a little while longer, clearly just as prone to the patient tutor role as the younger Valcen she had been travelling with thus far: "A whole Nayabaru as a robot would be a very ambitious project, indeed. I don't think the Nayabaru will allow it – it would be hard to justify using the necessary resources, to begin with, especially given that in their eyes, Nayabaru-shaped things clearly already exist."

[02:18] Edaaj's only visible reaction was one of resignation. "I cannot say I would be surprised," she replied soberly, "given what little experience I have of their mindset." She looked at the sketch again, then rummaged through the scattered papers around her until she located another one. "It is a moot point for the moment, in any case. I still have much to learn."

[02:23] She held up the paper. It, too, depicted the head of a robotic Nayabaru, but from several angles, each cut away to reveal the interior. There were a number of surprising details there – some sketches of the magnets designed to hold the interchangeable plates in place, what appeared to be small actuators to allow for facial movements – but there were large blanks with labels for things Edaaj knew should be there but had not known how to design. Eye. Voicebox. Brain.

[02:38] 'Eye', of course, had already been solved. 'Voicebox' was another topic that was easy to do. 'Brain', on the other hand... "Brains are quite difficult," Valcen-za commented on the document. "You can't just do it with mechanical parts, at least not on the level of detail that you or I can achieve, nor even the Nayabaru. But I can teach you about the electronic device that sits inside 'sha's skull and does all of his thinking for him."

[02:58] The qidravem.

[03:04] Knowing intellectually that it was a device, a made thing, did not entirely banish the mythological aura around the concept. Having been able to see one had been strange enough; the idea that she, or a version of herself, might one day inhabit one was even stranger. But the idea of understanding one, of being able to design something that used one...

[03:12] "...yes," she said, unable to keep all of the wonder out of her voice, "I would... quite like that. I have many-" She winced, feeling her headache return. "Well, I will have many questions. Not now. I imagine you came in here to sleep, anyway."