​ Humans are Weird – Fixedness  Chief Engineer Awes adjusted the satchel on his back and took a deep steadying breath before he thumped the door in front of him. His heart was thumping with nervous energy as he geared himself up for the confrontation he knew was coming. The idle thought that humans slightly different heart structure, more compartmentalized, more efficient still gave them this same sensation when nervous made him gurgle with amusement for some reason. With a final shake of his hips to clear his mind he swung his tail against the door.
“Come in,” called the muffled voice of Director Polepost.
Awes stomped through the door and immediately started talking.
“We must polarize the ends of the physical drive shafts. I know that this goes against centuries, no, millennia of design theory. I know it will limit general usefulness, but remember that all of those millennia were developing without-”
“Awes!” Director Polepost barked out, glaring at him from over the physical display screen in front of his face.
Awes snapped his jaws shut and slumped, clutching his tablet in front of him.
“May I point out that you have sent me the full argument for this change in text and audio form no less than seven times?” Director Polepost said, running his tongue over his teeth in a clear sign of irritation.
Awes grunted in acknowledgment and scuffed his hind-paws on the floor.
Director Polepost sighed and pressed the talons of his fore-paws together, peering at Awes with a thoughtful set to his long jaws.
“On of the main principles of our design work here,” Polepost said with slow deliberateness, “is based on the fact that our equipment goes out to colonial worlds. This equipment needs to be as flexible as possible. There is no knowing how it may need to be used, to be refitted. It was my own great-great-grand-sire who set out the formal decree that it was criminal, nay reprehensible to deliberately limit the usefulness of any given tool manufactured for the colonies.”
Awes gritted his teeth and let Polepost speak, once he brought his family history into the equation there was no stopping him.
“It is our purpose to provide for those brave explorers the tools that they lack the complex infrastructure to craft for themselves.”
Awes let his attention wander to counting the grains in the mural behind Polepost’s head. When the director had finally wound down from the wind-gust of family pride driving the sails of his mental mill, Awes held up his tablet and showed the video he had qued up on it before he had entered the room. A human male, about a quarter of the way through his life-cycle, had – with his bare hands – bent a drive shaft double and attached it from one outlet to another on the same mill. He could be heard chuckling in amusement as he filmed turning the mill on. The sounds that filled the office from the outputs on the tablet were truly horrific. First the grinding of the mills as the counter force tore it apart, and then the frantic cursing of the humans as his ‘brilliant idea’ sent fragments of shrapnel flying out to strike the camera. Awes stopped the replay there and glared over at Director Polepost who was staring at him with slack-jawed shock. Awes let the silence fill the room.
“Why...why did you not send me that recording with your original arguments?” Polepost gurgled out.
“Because I only received it from colony Beta-five this morning with the daily data stream,” Awes snapped out. “My arguments were previously based only on theoretical possibilities.”
Polepost gulped and shook his head.
“Was the human, as they say, chemically inhibited?” he asked uneasily.
“He was sober as a judge, as they say,” Awes growled.
“They why…” Director Polepost asked, waving his tail in confusion.
“Who knows?” Awes barked out. “Maybe sleep deprivation, maybe the human didn’t have enough threats in his environment, maybe the human somehow knew just enough to know how to do this without knowing how bad an idea this was-”
“Did anyone die as a result of this?” Director Polepost asked in horrified tones.
“No, thank the grist,” Awes muttered. “The human at least had sense enough to try this in the off hours.”
“I think…” Director Polepost hesitated
“That we should at least consider polarizing the physical design of the drive shafts?” Awes demanded.
“How would you even-” Director Polepost muttered. “They are drive shafts?”
“I propose a chiral system of end linkages,” Awes stated, cheerful now that he sensed an opening. Despite the chaos humans seemed to be causing in the mixed colonies their over-spill of destruction frequently made for very effective illustrations.


Author Betty Adams Books
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