Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Five

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Starr shrugged and looked out the window again. "I don't know. I just want things to be normal."

Helen returned quickly enough, passing out the snacks to everyone then taking her seat.

~~
Sawna smiled again then nodded "Yes, we can go and ask around, there are fewer of us around now. Vestia, can you let me know if anyone comes to the cafe while I am out, please?"

"Robot medic?" Scott asked. Yay, another guy confused by Mourn's terminology.

Daniel nodded. "Well I suppose it's worth a try. But he did something to your brain?" Whoa.

~~
"Thanks, Helen! You're a real bro," Ellie said cheerfully.

~~
"Of course," Vestia said.

Ethan nodded to Sawna. He kinda liked having backup when hunting for books. "All right, let's have a look around."

Mourn nodded. "New processor, make boot up faster. " He tapped the metal plate in his head. "Sixty percent robot" He cackled and looked back to Scott. "Medic who is robot." He looked at him like he was stupid for not being able to work that out.

--

"Thanks Helen." Matt smiled and tried to get comfortable.

Armin bowed his head to Helen.

Daniel smiled his fake-looking smile at Scott. "Obviously, Sir, what else would a robot medic be, than a medic who is a robot?"

"I was wondering their name, or what type of robot they are," Scott said, rolling his eyes. He looked amused though.

Daniel laughed. "You could have said so, SIr."

Scott sighed.

Daniel looked at Mourn curiously. "Your brain is more than half robotic? How can that even be possible?" The guy was weird, sure, but he was functioning relatively normally. Daniel thought modifications like that should probably have left the guy completely unable to function.

Mourn nodded and shrugged. "Most die, I strong. " He made a face, he didn't want to talk about this. "Robot... robot. Seven! Yes, seven robot. " Yeah he didn't bother learning people's actual names. "You ask him name, he tell. Come come come, we find, he help. Good at holding things, good following instructions."

Scott looked confused. He was kind of wondering if he was going to regret putting his android in the hands of a felid who might be... a tiny bit off mentally. Still, his desire to keep Daniel from dying was stronger than his concerns, and he followed Mourn, indicating Daniel should come along.
Daniel followed, not looking especially concerned. Either he was old enough to not fear for his life, or his face just didn't do concern well. Who could tell?

Mourn ran ahead to go find the medics.

Scott and Daniel followed, not running, but trying to not lose sight of the felid in this great big ship.

~~
Asher was still with Kay in the med bay, and the movie was probably nearing its end. He looked around at the sound of someone heading for the med bay, and smiled when Mourn came in. "Oh hello. Are you all right?"

Kay pulled away from Asher, putting the tablet down and acting like they were totally not cuddling up watching a film on duty, nope, not at all. Ahem.

Mourn was thankfully oblivious to how awkward Kay felt and just grinned. "Need robot, shop man want help."

Asher did his best to look professional. Like he'd just been looking at something job-related on a tablet with Kay, not watching a dumb action movie on duty. "Shop man?" He asked Mourn. Always a new name to learn, hmm.

At that point Scott and Daniel arrived and looked into the med bay.

Scott looked interested when he saw the medics. "I remember you from the shop," he said to Kay, "is this one Asher? The one I saw yesterday definitely wasn't."

Asher looked shifty. Uh oh.

Kay stared at Scott, oh crap... He tried to hide the worried look on his face and stood up, exiting out the of the movie so he could write on the tablet. He nodded slowly. [Yes, this is Asher. I'm Kay. Hello again.] He tried to look friendly but his heart was racing. Why the hell was Scott here!?? He looked to Mourn for some sort of explanation.

Mourn climbed onto Kay's desk, knocking a few papers off and earning himself a glare from the medic. He grinned. "Shop Man wants help with robot, more memory, extend life."

Kay looked bewildered.

"Robot nearly fifty, memory get clogged soon, he need reset, basically he die yes? Unless find way to extend memory. Have ideas, need robot medic help though." He wriggled his fingers. "He got good hands."

Kay tried desperately not to look amused by that statement, covering his mouth with his hand.

Mourn had no idea why that was funny, he looked to Asher. "You help? If work, we have way to make robot live longer. "

"Your welcome" Helen said with a smile then looked at the screen

~~~
Helen chuckled and followed him out to start looking for the books. "Where should we look first?"

"Good to see you both again. I'd wondered if I was going to see you this time," Scott said. "You still have that badge I gave you, I hope?"

Daniel stayed a bit behind Scott, watching.

"Of course I still have the badge. I've been trying to not lose any more," Asher said, making a valiant effort to sound steady an composed. There was something about his expression that suggested nervousness though.

"Good," Scott smiled.

Asher forced a smile onto his face in response. He didn't totally trust this guy, even if Scott hadn't done anything wrong yet. He turned to focus on Mourn, the climbing on the desk thing certainly did grab one's attention well. "That sounds like a good idea. If we could extend an android's life, well, it would make a lot of people very happy. You approve of this idea, Daniel?"

Scott gave Asher a sharp look.

Asher did his very best harmless and obedient robot look.

"I approve this idea fully," Daniel said unflappably, ignoring the nonverbal exchange going on here, or pretending to at least.

"All right then, I suppose it's certainly worth a try. Mourn, can you get off the desk please? That's not very sanitary," he asked politely.

Starrnico wrote:"Your welcome" Helen said with a smile then looked at the screen

~~~
Sawna chuckled and followed him out to start looking for the books. "Where should we look first?"

Ellie settled down to watch the movie. "It's so weird, I didn't remember the talking parts in this movie. Do you think they have subtitles for this old Terran language they're using?" She asked.

~~
"How about the rec rooms? People love hanging out there," Ethan suggested.

"They should" Helen said with a shrug as she looked up "Vestia, is there subtitles for this?"

~~~
Sawna smiled and nodded "Yeah, they do" She agreed and headed for one

"Yeah," Vestia said after a moment. "Isn't old Terran weird? All those funny sounds put together in ways nobody with a beak could pronounce." She switched on the subtitles.

"I think it's beautiful and mysterious," Ellie said.

~~
Ethan matched Sawna's pace, heading for a rec room. "So," he said in an awkward attempt at a conversational tone, "what do you think of this universe so far?" He hadn't asked her in a while, he was curious.

"This is old terran?" Matt asked. "Wierd, some of it almost sounds familiar. Creepy." He shrugged and dismissed it.

"It is, I sometimes muse, almost a pity that most species lost their native dialects in favor of Galactic common." Armin said. "I do not believe any recordings of ancient Vavare even exist, only written forms and a few words or names long since corrupted by time."

Matt looked back at Armin. "You never struck me as the sort of lament lost languages."

Armin chuckled. "I was brought up leaning how to interact and communicate with other species, to learn their ways and if necessary, their tongues. I have always had a certain... interest in xeno-anthropology I suppose as a result."

"My mother was a xeno anthropologist... well, xenobiologist officially but her main interest was cultures. Apparently." Matt looked away, his cheerful tone faltering.

"I appologise friend, I did not mean to bring to the surface unhappy thoughts." Armin spoke softly.

Matt shook his head. "Nah, it's fine man. Let's just... watch the movie."

---

Kay looked tense but he moved to usher mourn OFF the desk and picked up the papers that had dropped. Androids only lived 50 years? How had this never come up? Well, he supposed he'd never asked had he? It didn't seem nearly long enough.

Mourn huffed and hopped down.
"Yes, it be good for robot. If work, can fix all robots yes?"

[Just focus on making sure it's safe.] Kay cautioned. [No needless experimentation.]

Mourn's expression dropped, he narrowed his good eye at Kay. "I no monster." He told him coldly, turning on his heel and resuming his cheerful tone. "Come on, we find nice big room work in, yes." He looked back at Kay. "you stay here."

Kay looked confused but he nodded and looked back to Asher. [I can hold down the fort, so to speak. Good luck.] He tried very hard not to let his nervousness show. Thank goodness he was a better actor than Asher.

"The vavare language is entirely gone? That's kinda sad," Ellie said. "Maybe somebody remembers it somewhere, like a star dragon or something." She looked sad at what Matt said. Poor Matt.

~~
Asher probably should have mentioned the fifty years thing when they had started dating, whoops. Just another thing you should probably mention to your potential significant other, along with the emotional baggage and the weird obsession with the greater good. Maybe he should apologize later. Or maybe later it wouldn't be a problem, because maybe later he'd be able to extend his life longer. Hmm. He could hope.

Asher managed a soft smile at Kay. "Thank you. We'll be careful, and I'll try to come back soon."

He wheeled toward the door.

Daniel got the door and held it for everyone.

Scott smiled a bit at Kay. "It was good to see you again."

"Star dragons do have some knowledge of other languages, I could ask around to see if anyone remembers your old language" Starr said then smiled "We do study everything we can after all."

Kay nodded to Scott [good luck] yeah he deserved a warning too, Mourn was nuts but Scott had probably already realised this.
He went back to tidying up his desk, eugh, why did people insist upon messing this all up?

Mourn led the way, dropping past his room to pick up his computer and some other bits and pieces which he made everyone else carry.

---

Armin bowed his head. "That is very kind." He told Starr. "you have my thanks."

Starr looked to Armin and smiled "Anytime, my friend" She said gently

Asher followed Mourn, carrying whatever he was given. He kept noticing Scott looking at him, and it was unnerving.

Scott was completely weirded out by the sight of an android in a wheelchair, okay? Normally he just shut down an android until it could get repairs, so seeing Asher like this was strange.

Daniel quietly prodded Scott's shoulder eventually. "Sir," he said softly, "it's rude to stare."

Scott frowned, then nodded. He stopped looking at Asher.

Asher sighed and followed Mourn to whatever room he had chosen. He felt so conspicuous these days, and it sucked.

Mourn dumped the laptop, which he carried himself and booted it up. "Shop man want increase memory, mean we need compatible data cores, and find somewhere put them. Not much space inside robot." He poked Daniel in the chest. "So need to be small, but better than ones using currently yes?"

Asher nodded. "That's going to be difficult. Android storage is already about as high in volume as can be fit into that amount of space. Finding anything significantly bigger may be tricky. Transferring data would be tricky, and fitting now storage alongside what's already there might be very difficult too."

"Even just a few more years would be great," Scott said.

"other option figure out way to make storage more efficient, less remember everything. Let dump stuff that no needed. It take lots of code though, have to rewrite whole way robot store memories." Mourn pulled up what he'd been working on and shoved the computer toward Asher to look. "This some of five code, all code complicated. Can probably do, but take a while. " Mourn always thought he could do everything of course.

Asher frowned thoughtfully. "Changing the way an android processes their memories won't be easy, and if it didn't work perfectly, it could result in any number of failures and problems down the road. Still, if it worked, it would be much better than trying to add a handful of years to an android's life."

Scott looked to Daniel, then back at Mourn. "That seems like it would take a long time to perfect code like that. If you could do it without bricking the android though, it does seem like a good solution."

"The big question here is how big you think the risk to Daniel's life would be," Asher said to Mourn.

Mourn thought about that. "No sure. If get wrong, could make android unable form new memory, or could cause them dump all memory, resetting. " he shrugged. "Been working on, code complicated but think understand most of. Need to find bit for memory indexing. Robot memory no like long video, can request memory so must archive somehow, just got to figure out exactly how and find way to tell it no need to archive walk down corridor for seventeenth time or hours spent recharging and staring at walls yes?" It was an exciting concept though, changing a fundamental aspect of how android coding work really appealed to him. "Maybe robots help? If can look at code while think about something could see where that stored, could build... map. Like brain map, but for robot."