Conics Unfortunately: 9

The specifus were not happy when Tejal and I unveiled the pinpoint fold generator at the Intergalactic Sci-Tech Summit. They were hardly loud—specifus are inherently incapable of being loud unless there are copious hardy metal objects in the near vicinity—but they did invoke much vine-waving and flashing, and their sudden outrage spurred the flashes of hundreds of cameras. It was like a reef of strobe lights all going off at once.

Tejal, I am afraid, cowered at this. He stiffened, knobbly fingers suddenly sweaty as he held up the generator, and it almost slipped from his grip. As much as I would love to lord such a mistake over him, I am glad Tejal managed to keep hold of our project. I was on the far side of the stage, fumbling with the slideshow clicker, and would never have made it to him in time to catch the generator.

Part of the specifus’s outrage, I think, came from how tiny our generator was. Some of you may remember the mess that was the RV Impending and its crew, and some covert digging by Crane and Shell turned up images of a device about as large as my hand. Tejal and I put together a fold generator the size of a triple-A battery.

Yes, I know that is large by today’s standards. We had to start somewhere.

I clicked to the next slide, hoping that if Tejal and I moved on, the specifus would calm themselves, or at least look foolish for being so rowdy. But see, the problem with silent species is that no matter how much of a ruckus they raise, they can never be as disruptive as someone with a voice. Or, you know, vibrating wing nubs or whatever. The specifus could be as nasty as they liked, and no one would care.

Thank the oceans Tejal and I had not even picked up the rudiments of any light-based languages by then. I am told the specifus were beyond rude.

Tejal picked up on my cue, and he cradled the generator in his palm, bringing the microphone in his other hand up to his mouth. He spoke some things in his trembling, monotone voice, eyes skirting the walls and ceiling and his stubs quivering under the blanket in his lap. An unfortunate excuse for an automated translator sang into my ears, and I wondered for a moment if we should present Mouthbot some time.

You, of course, would know that Tejal and I waited until the market caught up with the pinpoint generator before debuting Mouthbot.

When Tejal finished, he slouched in his chair and sent me a lopsided, nervous smile. The poor earthling never really got a hang of the smiling thing. Well, except for that one time at his wedding where he could not help himself.

I clicked to the next slide and adjusted the microphone hooked over my gills, eyes trained on the slow procession of specifus filing out of the auditorium. Most still flashed, angry and red and too bright, and a few threatened to swing at the ushers standing at the doors.

“As you can see here,” I said, looking back at the more enraptured audience members, “Tejal and I have already drawn up plans for a smaller, mass-produced version of the pinpoint fold generator. Mass producing this version will require only a few modifications to existing silicon transistor production lines, and plants made specifically for pinpoint generator production could reduce product size by fifty percent.”

A pair of siren reporters in the front row gaped at me, awe-struck, their pens flying over their notebooks. I do not think they expected me to speak.

“This smaller pinpoint generator could fit into a standard earthling cell phone easily, and it we predict that its power consumption impact will take an hour at most off of any cellular device’s battery life.” Raising my arm, I flicked on my clicker’s laser and circled a portion of the diagram behind me before delving into a few nitty-gritty technical details.

The specifus were gone by the time Tejal took over again, or at least most of them. I might have spotted Ami’s fin-like leaves somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and as we left the stage after the presentation, Tejal mentioned noticing Soph and Max. I thought at the time that the three survivors of the RV Impending were the only specifus who stayed.

Sometimes I wish they had been; then Tejal and I would not be tugging our fins loose trying to outdo Spec-Corp all the time, or at least we would have had a few years before the tech race began.

Backstage, Tejal and I ran into the next presenter: an earthling from Titan who had made some breakthrough on carbon transistors. He was as long and thin as a kelp strand, and pale as Planet Mao’s silhouette, and he covered his face with a purple masked shaped somewhat like Tejal’s sleep-mask, only with eyeholes and violet lenses and white feathers sticking out.

Tejal insisted that we stay backstage through the carbon transistor speech; we would not make it back into the audience until most of the presentation was over, after all, and this was a breakthrough just as interesting as our own. We might even strike up a kind of collaboration with the man and overhaul the entire technological system, not just the internet.

I admit to floating on dreams at that point. Revolutionizing technology universe-wide sounded exceptionally grand. Draping my tail in front of Tejal’s wheelchair, I propped myself up on my elbows and peeked out from behind the curtains, trying to keep my face out of the bright, hot stage lights.

The masked man held up a square of black plastic, and my earpiece translator kicked in, humming in stunted tones. Global Gliss confused most translators then.

“This box… the inside of,” my earpiece sang, “a transistor-from-carbon contains… thus… about to you are…”

A terrible, echoing bang broke through the auditorium. My translator continued for another word before confusing itself, as the man had paused on the word for ‘soon,’ which I am told sounds exactly like the word for ‘hairless’ in English. And then, for that brief, eternal moment that comes after all disasters, the room was silent. Tejal and I watched, wide-eyed, as the man’s chest caved in and he collapsed to the ground, and then noise exploded back into existence.

Screams tore through the air, and lights fluttered and flashed and winked. Something heavy and metal crashed to the ground, and an earthling with long, black dreads jumped up on stage. The earthling made it four long, quick strides before a dark, autotuned tenor bellowed over the speakers.

“Him… touch not,” my translator said. Then it paused to try and decode a burst of screechy feedback. “All who free Titan oppose… kill we will…”

The helpful earthling made some odd gesture with his fingers and stepped toward the masked man, but I turned away before the scene played out. Tejal had sung something to me, which he did not do often, and I had to ask him what he had said.

He jumbled up a phrase about Titan and war, and then pursed his lips, eyes watering. “I wish Ellie were here,” he sang.

I did not and still do not understand the earthling politics that would have given her the influence to change the situation, but I sang the little octave jump that Tejal knew meant ‘yes,’ because I too wished Ellie had been there with us.

-A Rough Translation of Focci's Ballad