It Takes Time <To Be Properly Taken Apart> - Chapter 04
Chapter 4
Chapter Length: 5,500~ wordsSupply Issue
Punica was deep in thought. It had been a little over two hours since Raqi had left the room, and she'd spent the time so far going over what had happened during their conversation. She... was not sure what to make of it. The two of them had covered so many topics in such a short time - and in quite heavy detail, as well - that it was difficult to unpack all of the meaning from the other woman's responses. There were some things that were fairly obvious: For one, Raqi was clearly highly adverse to the idea of any outside force intentionally manipulating her. That much had become crystal clear the moment she had abruptly exited the conversation right after giving a non-answer. This seemed to suggest that she likely held a set of beliefs about the ideas of 'self' similar to those Punica had been describing. If that was true, it could also be used to connect to another odd part of the conversation: namely her apparent preoccupation with the affini's use of xenodrugs. During that portion of the discussion, she had seemed specifically concerned about the circumstances in which they might be used without an individual's consent. She had also conflated all xenodrugs with class-Os, and moved from there to brooking the topic of personal identity. This, Punica thought, was probably the source of the issue. It seemed as if Raqi was very afraid of having her 'self' tampered with, and she was aware of the fact that such things could be easily achieved through the use of xenodrugs. The extreme response that she had had to the mention of class-Os, combined with the way she had seemed to conflate their effects with other classes of drug, seemed to strongly suggest this. She raised a vine up and tapped softly on a portion of the glass wall. So that was what she meant earlier... Her first thought upon meeting me was to worry that I was going to try and drug her immediately. And in her mind, 'being drugged' equates to having her self infringed upon; the thought of which she finds terrifying. That seemed to explain why she had appeared so agitated at various points in the conversation. She's coming at this interaction as if she were a feralist afraid of forced domestication. Is that the only lens through which she has heard us spoken of, in how we interact with those who do not accept domestication willingly? The thought was deeply troubling. It suddenly occurred to her that this was the first time she had ever come face-to-face with the impact of propaganda: she had heard stories before about how the affini were portrayed at and beyond the edges of the Compact, but she'd never actually seen it in person. If this was the kind of image that yet-to-be domesticated xenosophonts were prone to developing of the Compact, then it was no surprise that incidents of feralist ideologies were so common. She had definitely made a mistake earlier, she realised that now. What was needed here was not persuasion, it was clarification. This was not about convincing Raqi of the benevolent nature of the Compact; it was about liberating her from the incorrect premises that she was operating under. If Punica could succeed in that respect, she was growing increasingly confident that Raqi would warm to the Compact without the need for any convincing. Their discussions thus far had shown her that the xeno seemed to be of a relatively reasonable disposition: she was just labouring under a series of false pretenses that were causing her to feel wary towards the Compact. Once those had been dealt with, she was sure that everything else could be cleared up relatively quickly and easily. ...And then what? It had only just occurred to Punica that, this entire time, she had been on an almost similar type of autopilot while interacting with Raqi. From the moment she had arrived on - or, been kidnapped into, technically? - the Rending Talon, a series of what were essentially automatic learned behaviours had kicked in. Once she had realised that Raqi was undomesticated, she knew immediately that that needed to be corrected. That was, after all, her primary directive as one of the affini. Initially, her plan had been to earn her trust, find a way to get close to her, and then probably drug her into compliance and have her pilot the ship to take them back to the Longbough. But now, she was starting to have reservations about using such a forceful approach. For starters, it was now eminently clear that, although most definitely undomesticated, Raqi was not the kind of feral that was a danger to anyone. Yes, she had disabled seven Affini ships - and Punica still really wasn't sure on just why she had done that - but it was becoming increasingly clear that she was not out to hurt, or harm anyone. In the case that an undomesticated sophont was not violent, and not actively resisting - which she also technically wasn't, since neither Punica nor anyone else had, to her knowledge, actually asked her to submit to domestication yet - the use of force was not normally indicated to bring them into compliance. Perhaps it might be better to just wait and see where things went, for now? The situation certainly didn't seem likely to deteriorate in the immediate future. And this way, there was a high likelihood that Raqi could eventually be convinced to reveal more about herself and her reasons for being here. Her refusal to expand in any real way about her desire to find a 'partner' had Punica's interest in a chokehold, and she was very eager to see if more information on the subject could be teased out of her conversational partner. Just then, the door leading to the corridor from which Raqi had exited opened, and the landamaeri re-entered the room. Punica noticed small traces of moisture on parts of her skin; particularly within and around the feathers on her head. Had she just been cleaning herself, the plant wondered? "Uh, hi," Raqi said, raising a hand towards Punica and waving slightly at her. "I'm back now. I came back to get some stuff that I... think I left here? Oh and also, I promised I'd give you food. Uh- If you actually need food, that is. Do you need food?" Punica was unable to stop herself from smiling. This xenosophont had a particularly adorable way of talking whenever she was somewhat flustered, which seemed to be an awful lot of the time. "Not in any immediate rush, no. It would be quite a substantial length of time before I was in any danger of growing malnourished. However, if you were willing, I would appreciate some mineral water. Nutrient-enriched water is what most commonly passes for 'sustenance' among those of my kind who are not entirely self-sufficient." "Huh." Raqi nodded. "Just water, then? That does make sense, given that you're, well, a plant." She paused, making an expression as if she was contemplating asking something. "Is something the matter?" Punica inquired. The corners of Raqi's lips twitched. "...Do you photosynthesize?" "I'm certainly capable of it," she replied easily. "However, it is a relatively inefficient method of energy generation for creatures which require as much energy as we. Photosynthesis is generally only viable as a method of producing sustenance in sedentary species of flora; which we, as you can see, are rather far from being." "Ohh, that makes sense... I think." She nodded several times. "I literally do not know anything about biology, so. I always just thought photosynthesis was basically free energy, and there wasn't really any reason for things not to do it. Mostly though, I just think being able to get energy from sunlight is cool." The affini's leaves rustled in amusement. "There certainly is something satisfying about so-called 'lossless' methods of energy generation, yes." As she finished speaking, something occurred to her. "I am curious, though: Should a spaceship captain not have at least a passing familiarity with the subject of biology?" "Uh, probably, yes," Raqi replied, a somewhat nervous laugh seeping into her voice as she did. "I'm not exactly qualified for this position. Also how much water do you want? Also I have no idea what 'nutrient enriched water' is, and I also don't know anything about chemistry, so I'm just going to have the ship fabricate mineral water and assume that's probably what you're looking for." Her eyes flicked to a spot on the wall, and then back to Punica. "Also I will definitely not put salt in it. I assume that would probably be bad." Punica's leaves fell still. "It would certainly not be enjoyable. As for how much: Around five standard units should be sufficient." There was another pause. Punica stared expectantly at Raqi, tilting her head slightly. "...How much is a standard unit?" "Oh, of course. You have no reason to know what that is. My apologies. Could you tell me what units of measurement the Landamaeri use? I might be familiar with one or more of them." Once again, Raqi's gaze unfocused. "I actually have no idea. I've, uh, always been really bad with units of measurement. I think one was... it started with 'P'? Phlagons? ...no that's definitely not it." She was starting to look seriously embarrassed. "Can you just make a square, or a bucket or whatever with your vines, and I'll fill that up?" "I can do that, yes." Punica quickly brought up a series of vines to the edge of the glass. She wrapped one into a lasso shape at the bottom, then connected an additional four vines to the base, each pointed upwards and outwards at a small angle, before winding a sixth and final vine around the top in a circle. "Does this work?" "Yeah, that should do!" Raqi turned her attention away from the plant for a moment. "Straessa, wakey wakey." A digital voice suddenly echoed throughout the room. "How may I be of assistance, captain?" "Turn on the Chimera module. Fabricate a bucket in that corner of the room that's the same size as the one Punica is making, put it on the floor. Fill it to capacity with mineral water. Make sure it's not salty." "Understood. Beginning fabrication..." Punica watched the entire interaction with great attention, absorbing every detail she could. The moment the captain had finished speaking, the floor in the farthest portion of her glass cell from her began to split apart just like the walls of the airlock had done. This time the process took only a second, and in the blink of an eye, there was now a bucket filled with perfectly ordinary looking water sitting there. "Is the water good?" Raqi asked. She made her way over to the bucket and experimentally dipped a vine into it. The substance inside was indeed mineral water: not quite of the variety she would have preferred, but sufficiently nutritious nonetheless. "Yes, it's almost perfect," she replied, a hint of awe seeping into her voice. "Is that the same method you used to form the airlock around me while I was on the outside of the ship?" "Yup. It's a thing called the Chimera module. It's one of the Mobile Fleet's greatest inventions; along with the ship AI that powers it. That's who I was speaking to just a second ago, in case it wasn't obvious." Her tone grew abruptly self-deprecating. "It's also why someone with an education like mine can fly this ship. I don't really 'pilot' it, per se: I just tell it to do stuff, and it does it. I more or less don't know how any of the systems work, but I don't really need to, because the ship just operates based on my intent. So even someone who doesn't actually know anything about, uh, more or less anything to do with science or engineering can pilot and maintain it." "I see," Punica spoke approvingly. "It reminds me of the way our bioships are engineered to respond to the will of their pilots. In our case, they are designed such a way that we affini can physically interface with them; at which time they become essentially an extension of our bodies. The fact that your people have found a way to replicate such an effect without the need for a direct physical connection is markedly impressive." Raqi seemed to begin glowing at the praise. "I know, right? It's really damn cool. The only downside is that it's not super precise, and you also can't get it to make something if you don't... Uhh... If you can't visualise it properly? It's not quite like that, but- the system can also take templates, basically. For some stuff - like, for example, critical ship parts - you just call up the blueprint and tell it to fabricate one of those. It's that way so that whoever's controlling the module doesn't like, have to actually understand how to build an engine or a life support module, for example." "That's a very clever system, indeed." For a moment, Punica felt a distinct tinge of frustration about the presence of the glass panel separating her from Raqi. She looked just so adorable, all lit up with excitement the way she was right now. It was most irksome not being able to reach out and pet her on the cheek. "I can't imagine you can control something that precise verbally, though. You must have another way of communicating information more directly to it." At this, some of the enthusiasm faded from Raqi's face; replaced instead with a momentary look of anxiety. After a moment, though, it seemed to disappear. "I wasn't exactly going to mention this, but... Yeah, it's implant-controlled." She reached up and tapped the back of her neck. "I don't actually have to say anything to operate it. The thing in my neck just transmits my thoughts directly to the ship's AI, and they get interpreted from there." So she could control the system with her mind? That was interesting, Punica thought to herself. Depending on how quickly it could move - which seemed to be quite quickly, from what she had seen so far - that meant it was possible that Raqi might be able to harness the Chimera module in a physical confrontation. It also meant that there was no easy way of stopping her from using it: just gagging her wouldn't do the trick. If the time ever came that she needed to prevent her from utilising it, she would need to stop her from thinking all together. "I figured it would be something like that. We affini use similar devices - called a Haustoric implant - to allow our florets to interface with our technology." "Oh, I think I'd heard about that. Yeah, actually: I'd been meaning to ask about those. Hold on just one second, though- Before we get sucked into another discussion, I need to actually get the thing I came here for." Her attention seemed to flip like a switch off from Punica, and her eyes began scanning around the room for something unknown. "Seriously, where the fuck did I leave it?" Hands moved swiftly over cupboard surfaces, pulling open and then closing draw after draw. Objects were moved, shuffled about, either replaced or just tossed somewhere else, and eventually, Raqi emerged from behind a storage crate of some variety with two small cylindrical objects. "There. Okay, figures that they got knocked down. Must've been the vibrations from the module." Without waiting a moment, she popped the lid off of the first object, and then turned it roughly 120-degrees over onto her hand. When nothing happened, she flipped it another 60 degrees until it pointed directly down at her hand. Still, nothing happened. Raqi's expression suddenly grew somewhat displeased. "Hm. Must've forgotten I was nearly out." She put the container down and turned her attention to the other one, repeating the process of removing the lid and tilting it to the side. Just as before, however, nothing came out. Her brows furrowed. "Are you serious? These containers aren't even the same size. When was the last time the amount left in them ever synced up?" She let out a long sigh. Watching all of this, Punica called over from within the glass: "Is something the matter?" "No, not really," came the reply. "Just out of meds, that's all." She tilted her head upwards. "Straessa. One bottle of each type of my meds. On the drawer." "Attempting fabrication..." Came the digitized robot voice. This time, though, nothing happened. Several more seconds passed, and Punica observed no change upon the chest of drawers. Then, a moment later, the voice spoke once more: "Could not complete request." "What?" Raqi spoke, sounding confused. "Why not?" "Error found at Line #9088643: Medical & Chemical Synthesis Package. Required hardware element missing: Complex chemical synthesis suite. Please install the requisite module and then try again." Raqi's body language changed completely in an instant. "Wait, what the fuck do you mean 'missing'? It's not missing." The confusion on her face and in her voice had abruptly shifted to anxious frustration. "The ship has a chem suite. I know because I've been using it every single day until today." The ship was silent. Raqi raised both hands, and her tone grew even more agitated. "Target ship section: Module storage bay. Ping module with ID: CCSS-dash-zero-one! Hurry the fuck up and stop glitching out already!" "Ping..." The voice spoke. "Ping..." "Ping..." "Ping..." "Ping..." The call repeated, over and over again, for what must have been half a minute. "Stop." Raqi's voice, when she spoke again, was hollow. A final 'ping' emerged from the system, before the ship's AI voice fell silent. Punica had made her way over to the very edge of the glass as close as she could get to Raqi. The other woman was staring at a spot on the wall, her expression completely static. She kept blinking every few seconds, and Punica could make out that her breathing had become uneven. After a moment, her lips started to open, and she switched to breathing through her mouth. "Raqi?" Punica could sense that something was not right with the other woman. This was different from the kind of spacing out she had seen her do before. "Raqi, are you alright? Is everything all right?" The woman's blinking got faster. She seemed to start to turn her head towards Punica, then - all at once - her body seemed to unfreeze. "Y- Yeah. Uhm. Th- The chemical synthesis unit isn't... it's gone." "It's gone?" Punica frowned. "Are you certain it hasn't just malfunctioned somehow?" "Yeah." She gave a stilted nod. "The query would receive a return ping even if it was broken, so long as there was something taking up that space. The only reason it keeps pinging is because it's getting literally no response at all. I... I think I know what happened to it." "What happened?" The affini asked, making sure to keep her voice calm and steady. "When I gave the command to make the airlock yesterday, I... panicked and just told it to use any non-ship critical components. I- I didn't think I had time to designate an area of the ship to take the matter from." Punica's eyes widened. "Wait, you- Does the mechanism not have an emergency backup pool of matter to draw from in such an event?" Atomic compilers - the Compact's equivalent to the Chimera module - were standard in almost all ships and hab units. Able to manufacture matter into almost any shape at will, they all came with a backup pool of matter that would never be dipped into for ordinary operations. The purpose of this was to ensure that, in the event a compiler somehow ran out of stored matter - which in the first place was incredibly unlikely, but had been known to happen - it would always have a small amount available for use in emergencies. "No." The xenosophont shook her head. "It did, but, I already used it all up. I didn't see what the point of having unused matter laying around was, so I put it into spare rooms. I figured I could just dismantle them if I ever needed them, and so there was no reason not to. So it..." Suddenly, Raqi started to laugh. It was a low, discomforting noise; more akin to a wheezing than actual laughter. "It must have pulled from the ship at random. And out of every single non-critical, non-insulating component, it managed to roll the chem synthesizer." Her laughter began to grow in volume, metamorphosizing into a kind of strained cackle. "That's- That's unbelievable. I can't- I can't even believe it. Can you? I mean, just, the luck involved. Out of every available piece of mass on this ship- Probably what, six thousand components to choose from? And it needed, like, fifteen at most..." "Can you not just make another one?" Punica interjected. All of her vines had fallen completely still. No part of her body was moving save for her humanoid form; all of her attention focused on maintaining it and keeping its composure completely in check. "No. It's a full-blown module, so I needed a blueprint to be able to replace it. It was one of the things that was on the list to get, but I didn't have time to pick it up before I left the Mobile Fleet..." Her voice dropped, all of the energy seeming to leave it. "So now I'm basically just fucked." Her last words cut into Punica like a blade through grass. For a moment, the affini's entire body froze. This was, in a sense, her fault. Raqi had fabricated the airlock in what she believed was an attempt to keep her safe. If she had not done so, she would still be able to manufacture her medication right now. In turn, there would have been no need for her to do so if Punica had been quicker in responding to being thrust into vacuum. If she had taken stock of her surroundings faster, instead of wasting time panicking, she could have used her vines to slow her collision with the ship- or even to redirect herself. That way, she wouldn't have gotten stuck to the hull, and would never have needed 'rescuing,' and then Raqi would never have accidentally consumed the module. But as things stood, Raqi was having a panic attack right in front of her, and it was her fault that it was happening. One of her injectors twitched. There was no affini alive who could witness a sight like this and not be compelled to fix it immediately. Once again, she cursed the glass between the two of them. This was her responsibility, and she was going to fix it. "Raqi," she said, her tone grown firm. "Look at me." The other woman did as she was told; turning her head towards her. "What medications are you on?" The woman's eyes twitched around for a moment. "I- I'm on two, but only one of them really matters. One of them I can go without mostly fine. The other one is... It's the other one that's a problem." "Tell me what it does." "It's... I don't know what you'd call it in your language. It's a pill that regulates the- the balance of certain hormones in my body. I have to take it to... stop looking like a boy. Being off it for a week or so is... mostly fine, but-" Punica's eyes widened slightly. "You're on hormone replacement therapy?" "Y-yeah, that's- that's what you'd call it." Suddenly, several things clicked into place. The idea that Raqi might be transgender hadn't even crossed Punica's mind: it wasn't the kind of thing affini were used to thinking about. In the Compact, hormone replacement treatments were both readily available, and effective enough that they were able to completely alter any characteristic of an individual's body - such as bone structure, height, and hair growth - that was normally determined by their physical sex. As such, in the Compact, there were no such things as 'tells' for a person being trans. The way a person looked was always exactly however they wanted to look; and so if they had any gender incongruous physical features, they were always intentional, rather than unwanted. "There were a few times that I was off it for a little while," Raqi spoke. "Shortages and stuff... trouble getting it from the pharmacist. I-" Punica could see her starting to dissociate again. She was not about to let this situation deteriorate any further. In a calm, but commanding tone, she spoke once again: "Raqi, dear: I want you to look at me. Please look at me." Raqi blinked several times, turning her attention back to Punica. "Hormones, regardless of what species you are, are not difficult to synthesize," she spoke, locking eyes with Raqi as she did. "I should be able to recreate your medication very easily, providing you can give me the materials to work with." Her eyes seemed to widen. "I- I don't have any clue what they're composed of." "You don't need to know." As she spoke, Punica had begun making use of a particular technique to modulate her voice. She changed around the arrangement of fibres that served as a simulated humanoid voice box in her throat, configuring it in such a way that it would cause her voice to be heard in a deeper, but also more gentle tone. She hoped that the effect would help soothe Raqi, and keep her focused in the moment. "I can work all of that out very easily. If I take a cell sample from you - for example, from one of your feathers - I can break it down and analyse it in order to discern the composition of some of the most basic chemicals in your body; including signal molecules such as your hormones. I don't have the equipment that I need to do that with me right now, but I can also make it very easily. Does this ship have a garden, or anything equivalent to one?" "Y-yes," Raqi replied, blinking rapidly. "I presume you don't know exactly what plants are in it," she stated. Raqi shook her head. "Alright. I don't want to ask you to go there and bring every single one of them to me for me to check them. It would be much easier if I could just go to the garden myself." At this, Raqi flinched. "I- B-but I- I can't let you out of-" "You don't have to," she said, smiling reassuringly. "Is there any way you could alter the glass, to make it move around me? That way, you can lead me to the garden, and I can follow behind you." She blinked several more times. The question seemed to bring Raqi slightly back to life, and she regained an air of awareness as she made to answer. "I... I think I could do that? I've never tried any kind of automatic programming with the Chimera module like that... but I know it can do stuff like that. It was built partially to allow for automatic hull repair in battle, and I know it could take commands to keep auto-repairing certain sections of hull... In theory, this should be exactly the same principle." Punica's eyes lit up. "Yes, that sounds exactly right! Good girl!" Raqi's eyes widened. She took in a deep, sharp breath. "Y-y-y- Yeah! It'll work! It'll definitely work!" All of a sudden, she was almost completely aware, seeming to thaw out of the near-frozen state she had been in until that moment. "Straessa. Target the glass cage around the affi- around Punica. I want you to reconfigure it to change to follow her. Adapt the size to whatever corridor she's in; dismantle any walls that would be occupied by pre-existing pieces of ship geometry, then reconstruct them if she moves out of range of them. Aim for around six feet of space on all sides. Uh, also interpret 'follow her' as a repair command centered on her, if that doesn't make sense on its own." "Acknowledged. Implementing..." All of a sudden, the glass surrounding Punica began to wobble. It was a bizarre sight; as if the air in the ship had started to vibrate and deform, something akin to the heat mirages one experienced in a desert. For a few moments, the effect seemed to close in on Punica, only to stop when it was six feet away from her on each side. The moment it had reached that position, the visual disturbance seemed to vanish; the glass panes stabilising and becoming completely stationary once more. Seeing this, Punica took an experimental step forward. The instant she began moving, the visual distortion returned; following along ahead of her for exactly as long as she remained in motion. Then, the moment she stopped, it vanished again. "Oh, that is so weird," Raqi commented, staring wide-eyed at the phenomenon. "But also kind of... really damn cool. Uh." Her eyes moved to meet Punica's. "I expect that's probably going to make seeing while walking slightly annoying, though." Punica shook her head. When she next spoke, her voice had returned to normal. "Don't worry yourself over it. I'll manage just fine." Once again, she tilted the corners of her mouth up into a smile, intended to be a comforting gesture. "Are you up to leading the way?" Even without any direct manipulation, the effect this had was immediately visible. Raqi nodded at once, and quickly replied: "Yeah, of course! Just follow me."
Story Recommendation: Human Analgesic Guide, by RatgirlEXE Human Analgesic Guide is a short-form bit of HDG writing done in the form of a pamphlet, written in part for affini and in part for Terrans, that deals with information on methods of analgesic (pain-reducing, for those who don't know what that term means) care for Terrans. It's rather unusual in that it isn't a story, so much as a piece of material that exists in-universe; and this makes it a rather unique and enjoyable read compared to other types of narrative HDG fiction. I found this story just as I was coming down from a very bad LSD trip in which I had accidentally overdosed due to an unexpected interaction with another medication. I felt absolutely awful at the time; I'd vomited four times during the day and was in horrible sensory discomfort, and finding this little story all about people in the same kinds of discomfort I was right then was immensely soothing. It instilled within me a deep urge to have someone take care of me the way that is described in the pamphlet, and although I sadly don't have an affini with glowy hypno eyes to suggest the nausea out of me; I do have a number of very caring friends who looked after me in the second best way. Final Summary: A rather wonderful little read, and highly recommended for anyone suffering from chronic pain who could do with some reassurance or comfort.