Title: The Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa
Fandom: Movieverse
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Beachcomber/Miles Lancaster (gen)
Characters: Beachcomber, Miles Lancaster, Perceptor
Summary:
"Maybe the rocks are alive, but get shy when people are around," Miles suggested a week later, when all of the perfect conditions had been met, including the presence of thin collars of ice around many of the rocks. Not one of the rocks had yet moved.
Content: Fluffy genfic, minor cursing
Notes: Written for the 'Strange Places on Earth' Challenge for the flesh_and_steel comm on Livejournal. You can find out more about the Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa and see some awesome photos at www dot amusingplanet dot com / 2012 / 03 / mysterious-sailing-stones-of-racetrack dot html. More notes at the end of the story.
"I don't know, dude, maybe some things are supposed to remain a mystery."
"Miles, the notion of not investigating a geological mystery would violate Beachcomber's core coding in numerous ways," Perceptor chided.
"Besides, sometimes the truth is even stranger than fiction," Beachcomber added sagely. "Don't you want to find out if aliens are really moving those rocks around?"
Miles appeared to consider that, then grinned. "Okay, so when do we go?"
Perceptor lifted all four hands to the sky in a 'Primus have mercy' gesture and gave a long-suffering vent.
"Why haven't they just set up a time-lapse camera to record the movement?" Miles asked as Beachcomber's alien suspension took them smoothly over the rough and rutted Lippincott pass road toward Death Valley's Racetrack Playa.
"Death Valley is a designated wilderness area," Beachcomber explained, his pride in such human decisions evident in his voice. Miles thought the geologist would likely make the entire planet a designated wilderness if he could, and move all the humans to orbital cities. "All investigations must be non-intrusive. No semi-permanent or permanent structures, and no one is allowed on the playa when it's wet because that would leave permanent scars."
"So no one's ever actually seen the rocks sail," Miles finished. "How do they know it's not a hoax?"
"Because it would be impossible for people to go onto the playa when it's wet without leaving evidence."
"Maybe they have jet packs."
"Ah, but the movement of the stones has been documented for over a century, Miles."
"Hot air balloons, then," Miles conceded.
"We'll find out soon enough," Beachcomber agreed warmly. "I happen to believe Dr. Messina's theory is correct. Ninety mile-an-hour winds can sweep the playa, and could certainly make boulders sail over the slippery mud that develops with a half inch of rainfall. I've observed similar phenomena before. Though there are aspects of the movement that I can't yet explain."
"So, just how are we going to avoid leaving any trace?" Miles asked.
"If I divert the majority of my shielding to my pedes, or my wheels in alt mode, I'll actually hover a few inches off the ground," Beachcomber said. "You, however, will have to ride on or in me and avoid walking on the playa."
Miles certainly didn't mind being Beachcomber's shoulder parrot. Nor his lap kitten in other situations. But... what about when he needed to take a piss? Or more?
"Um... so..."
"Got you covered, little dude. I added a shoulder toilet to my root mode."
Miles gaped.
"You have got to be shitting me," he finally said. He was probably one of the most open-minded of the humans who regularly spent time working with the Cybertronians. And Beachcomber was considered the same for his own kind. But this was... even for Beachcomber...
"Yep, totally shitting you," Beachcomber said, Miles' seat vibrating with laughter. "Gotcha good, though. I got permission to set up a camp just off the south end of the playa. Have enough food for you to last a month, and a plasma micro-incinerator so we won't leave behind any waste."
"You're such a dork," Miles said, shaking his head.
"But I'm your dork, and you love me," Beachcomber said confidently.
Miles shrugged, then gave Beachcomber's armrest a squeeze. It was true. Just like he was Beachcomber's lap kitten.
"Dude, we so have to do this on the water sometime," Miles observed as Beachcomber 'walked' just inches off the ground over the completely flat, windswept plain, surrounded by the rugged hills and mountains of Death Valley National Park. "You'd make one sweet robo-Jesus."
"Little harder to levitate over liquid," Beachcomber noted. "That Jesus must have had awesome shields."
Beachcomber's own shields, in addition to keeping him from actually touching the ground, also protected Miles from the bitterly cold winds that swept down from the mountains across the playa. The ground was currently covered with uniform hexagonal cracks and small mounds of dry silt. The 'sailing stones' were vivid features on the unrelenting flatness. The flat and angular boulders left defined, straight tracks, some of which suddenly veered ninety degrees or more to go in a completely different direction from the similar rocks that had previously been traveling in parallel. The rounder stones and boulders left meandering, serpentine paths.
The coming rain, which Beachcomber was certain would bring the proper amount of moisture to trigger the rock-sailing phenomenon, would make the playa smooth as silk, save for those strange indentations left by the stones' earlier journeys, though even those were eventually smoothed away after many years of weather.
"Still hard to believe no one's ever seen them sail," Miles said softly as Beachcomber continued to catalog every square inch of the playa. "Shouldn't a satellite have captured the movement?"
"You'd think, but no. No human recording device or eye has ever seen one of the rocks actually move. Only the tracks left behind."
"Until now," Miles said confidently. "Hey, 'Comber, if I happen to be asleep when they move..."
"I'll be sure to wake you," Beachcomber promised.
"Maybe the rocks are alive, but get shy when people are around," Miles suggested a week later, when all of the perfect conditions had been met, including the presence of thin collars of ice around many of the rocks. Not one of the rocks had yet moved.
Miles had spent some of his time in the highly weatherized tent Wheeljack had designed for him, sleeping or catching up on reading and writing. But most of his nights had been spent sleeping in Beachcomber's alt as the mech continued to hover over the playa. Fortunately, as an explorer, Beachcomber was fitted with a solar converter, so running his shields day and night was not too exhausting. And while most of the mechs had adopted a recharge cycle based on earth's rotation, Beachcomber could easily go fourteen days or more without charging.
"Did I ever tell you about Rock Lords of Quartex?" Beachcomber asked, knowing full well he had not. Miles settled in to the amazingly comfortable seat for another awesome story.
Two weeks had passed.
Not one of the rocks had moved, much less sailed over the smooth surface of the playa. Not even an inch. Not even in the gust Beachcomber clocked at a hundred and twenty three miles per hour at ground level.
Miles was not bored yet, though he had opted to take several hikes on the lowest of the hills for a change of pace and scenery when the weather was calm, knowing that several sensors remained on him from the playa below.
For the most part, Miles was good at just being. And 'being' with his friend who shared such amazing stories never seemed to get old. He knew that, by Cybertronian standards, they had only been on the playa for a day or so. Beachcomber was certainly not bored.
Beachcomber did, however, need to recharge. If he waited too much longer, his shields would fail, despite his solar converter.
"Do you want me to stay awake and watch?" Miles asked. Not that there was much he would see in the dark.
"That won't be necessary," Beachcomber said, his spindly hand, perfect for digging in the dirt, coming up stroke Miles's back affectionately. "I'll keep a sensor array online that will bring me out of recharge if anything changes. If I charge for eight hours, that should give me another week before things really get critical. I can call in someone to take you back, if this is taking too long."
"You kidding? I've almost got half my book written, and I wouldn't miss just hanging with you. Besides, I want to see those baby Rock Lords sail."
Beachcomber chuckled. "Just as long as their parents don't come to collect them."
"I don't believe it," Miles said, shaking his head the next morning.
Beachcomber was stunned. During the night, while he had recharged, several of the rocks had moved ten feet or more. Two angular rocks of similar size had moved in completely opposite directions from one another, having started only a few feet apart!
It was like a giant cue stick had come down while he'd charged, and hit a cue ball into them, scattering them every which way.
Worse yet, somehow his sensors failed during night. Perhaps he'd been lower on charge than he'd detected. He certainly would need to have Ratchet do a calibration of his charge monitoring systems when he returned.
Which would need to be today.
Decepticon activity had been detected three hundred miles to the east. The alert had been what had actually brought him out of recharge. It was too risky for them to be in the open like this, with most of Beachcomber's shielding diverted to the ground. Staying here would put Miles at risk.
There were some things more important, even to Beachcomber's core coding, than a geological mystery. And the small human chatting and babbling about the various rocks that had apparently sailed over the playa during the night was most certainly one of those things.
For now, the Sailing Stones of Racetrack Playa would continue to be a mystery, just like the mystery of how an ephemeral organic creature could so thoroughly wiggle his way into Beachcomber's spark.
The Rock Lords of Quartex are from Fractalserpent and HopeofDawn's fabulous Sound and Fury Series, found in Anamnesis Chapter 5.
Perceptor's four arms are inspired by Tainry's Perceptor in the wondrous epic, Borealis.
Thank you to Birdiebot, Eerian Sadow, and FractalSerpent for reading it through before posting! I love it when the universe rains down fabulous betas!