Title: Motorcycle Proverbs
Author: Tiamat's Child
Disclaimer: All owned by JMS
Word Count: 728
Summary: Lennier finds machines to be much simpler than people.
Notes: Set during "Eyes".
Motorcycle Proverbs
It is a relief to return to a task that strikes just the right balance between complexity and simplicity. He flinches a bit at that thought. Nothing Satai – no, only Delenn (she has asked and he must obey, even in his own thoughts) – nothing Delenn asks him to do should be a burden, and he does not really think of his duties that way, but they are tiring. They require a new way of seeing and a new way of thinking that he does not have the grasp of yet.
It is as if he is learning mathematics all over again, and the complex equations were still keeping him up at night, wringing energy out of him, demanding to be solved. In those early days he had not been able to understand the concepts fully. The keys to understanding them had danced just out of reach, and he had been filled with awe every time he watched one of his teachers work the equations whose meanings had escaped him. It was perfect. Incredible. Something he could only barely believe he had the honor to witness.
So it is with Delenn. He can barely believe the way she moves through the tangled, troubled emotions of this station, navigating with calm and compassion. She has the key to it all, and he cannot even see that key. Not yet. Perhaps he will see it in time. Perhaps, in time, he will even be fit to take it.
For the moment, there is this. It is simple, but not so simple as to lull him into complacency and therefore error. Intricate, and yet, after all the pressures of understanding aliens all day, restful. The information from the manual resonates inside him – in the strange, graceful symbols of the original language, and in the comforting, well worn syllables of his own cradle tongue. He thinks in both, sliding from translation to translation, finding that the technical specifications sound oddly like poetry when mixed into two languages.
This, true or not, is not really the point. Here he has a machine. It does not work. He will make it work. The knowledge of how to do so is there in his head, bright and solid. Translating that theory into reality is really no different from translating a geometric theory into a demonstration. The reality will never be as exact as the theory, but that is part of the attraction of reality, in the end.
He has a set of wheels in his lap. They need to be gone over, cleaned up, tightened, checked for rubber worn thin or made brittle by time. The sudden, explosive destruction of a tire could be fatal on a vehicle of this nature, as could any instability in the rest of the assembly. This cannot be precise in the way theory is precise, for theory, being concerned with concepts and ideals, does not cope well with the vagaries of the changeable, mutable physical world. Yet there is a precision to it, to the ways one knows when everything is steady and well put together.
Mathematics, mechanics and language. These disciplines come easily to him, fitting as neatly into his mind as the bolts fit into the wheel wall. Strange, then, that understanding the people who make all three is so difficult. He does not know why this should be so, except perhaps that these disciplines are simpler and need less time to master than the discipline of people.
But perhaps there is a key to understanding somewhere within this motorcycle. He almost thinks that perhaps, if he can get it to run, he will gain an insight into… something. Human culture, certainly (he is absolutely certain that if he sees the thing moving, he will understand why all these meanings have been attached to it), but the motorcycle is beginning to loom larger even than that in his mind. He thinks perhaps that if he can finish this he will learn something about the universe and the station and how to be a good help to Delenn that had been well beyond his sight before.
Besides, motorcycle maintenance is an excellent sort of ritual. The machine is simple, restful, a graceful meditation. He can lose his self-consciousness in the smooth, controlled movements needed to repair it. Perfect, clean, elegant.
He turns his mind to the motorcycle's silent instruction.