Pay Me, Bug!

Chapter 07

WHEREIN Things Appear to be Going Well Until It Is Too Late To Do Anything About It

Ktkt'tkkt'kktt'tkkk'tktk'ttkt'tkkk'kktt'kktk'tk--or Ktk to the bipeds it traveled with--waited impatiently as the technician from Tylaris Industries explained how the new Artificial Tachyon Induction Drive would be installed. The technician was describing the process using a level of detail Captain Vindh would probably have called "mind-numbing," and Ktk already knew the process. It probably knew how to install the drive better than the technician did, but it waited patiently while he droned on about the T-420 induction field and how it would be attached to the fusion drive to draw the power it needed, and how it would be linked to the ship sensors so it could cut off when a gravity spike was detected, and every other aspect of the installation.

Years of traveling had taught Ktk that other races, particularly humans, were rendered nearly useless when denied the opportunity to engage in exposition. It was a polite creature, and didn't wish to offend this human... and it decided there were likely social customs surrounding this need to explain things that were already known, so it waited patiently for the human to decide he was finished speaking. It was obviously very important to the technician that Ktk be kept informed of their progress, and Ktk decided this extended explanation was tied in to the human's sense of professionalism.

For the most part it didn't mind. The human was fairly pleasant to work with. His reaction to Ktk's appearance had been mild and quickly mastered. When he learned Ktk was in fact the chief engineer of the Fool's Errand, he accepted the information immediately and made a point to deal with it directly. This more than anything else did much to increase his esteem in Ktk's compound eyes, and when Captain Vindh had asked how things were going after the first week the bug was pleased to report that everything was quite satisfactory.

Ktk had only two complaints. The first was that the technician and his crew insisted on calling it "sir." Ktk's species had a complicated reproductive cycle, and gender was essentially a superfluous distinction. They didn't think of themselves as either "male" or "female," preferring the gender-neutral "it" as a more accurate description. Many other races found this disconcerting and tended to treat Ktk's species as though they were all male, especially when they were trying to be polite. It was a minor and inconsequential error, but Ktk always found the imprecision of the title annoying.

The other annoyance was that Ktk was forced to wear a translator when dealing with the refit crew. Other than the crew of the Fool's Errand, it had met few creatures who understood its native language... and it wasn't capable of producing the sounds necessary to speak any of theirs. The translator interpreted the clacks it produced with its mandible and translated them into other languages, which was very useful. Unfortunately, what the translator didn't do was factor in the sounds created by the two plates located just behind the mandible, so there was no way to introduce subtlety or emotion into what it was trying to say. The translator converted Ktk's speech in an even, carefully modulated tone that it found very aggravating, especially since it depended on the device for most of its social interaction.

When Vod and Gurgan were around, Ktk preferred to deactivate the translator and let them do the translating instead, but at present they were working with Cutter and Hari on the weapons upgrade. Ktk needed to stay in engineering because it was most qualified to calibrate and integrate the new equipment with the rest of the ship's systems. Ktk, like all its kind, had a nearly innate understanding of complex mathematics: they were unique among the sentient races in that they developed an understanding of binary mathematics before developing a written alphabet.

The technician finished explaining what he and his crew would do next, and looked at Ktk expectantly. Ktk moved its head in a manner that approximated a human nod, and chittered its approval. The translator interpreted this as "I am pleased," which the human apparently found acceptable. He barked out orders to his underlings, who seemed a bit more nervous around Ktk than their leader, and they set about actually installing the T-420 ATID.