Now that Cain has a daughter, he'll need to find some family-friendly entertainment to bring her to. But where can one find that on Slawkenberg? No worries, the Magos Biologis and the various animal Research Societies are on the case! Chief Clerk Jafar, in a clear display of foresight, even diverted funding from the various astronomy Research Societies for this!
This takes place roughly four years After Liberation, two years after the first Liberator Day and still half a decade and change before Adumbria.
The slim-T, Albriech thinks, is a true hallmark of the Bringer's creed. While the Pancea is amazing and the new-style factories immensely more productive, they are all still things the Imperium could have implemented if the Forge World actually cared. The slim-T, meanwhile, is a purely civilian adaptation of the Taurox, having replaced its tracks with wheels directly under for a slimmer profile and faster speed on paved roads only, and replacing much of the plasteel with clear plastic for visibility; it has no military use and is limited to cities and roads only, but within that narrow confines is far superior to anything he'd seen before. Public slim-Ts drove on prescribed routes, moving workers to their jobs and back again, while anyone with a need for it's 23-seat capacity could get one at a good price.
The children are still small enough that they had managed to fit all 30 in the temple's private slim-T. Up front, Guardsman Booker, who isn't even a Valhallan and yet had gotten folded into the Tundra Wolves by an Act of Karamazov, is cheerfully driving the vehicle with the skill expected of a regular Taurox driver, while entertaining the three boys who had crammed themselves into the front two passenger seats. The rest of the children are kneeling or standing on their seats to peer through the windows, as the slim-T left the city proper and drove past the livestock rearing fields. Albriech himself had marvelled at the herds of Argax and Tusk Bisons when he first came to this planet, so he can't blame them.
Sister Sarah lightly touched his hand, the both of them seated at the rear of the vehicle. "Thank you for this," she says softly, a smile on her lips.
Albriech smiles back. "Not at all. Besides, most of the real work was done by Firis and Reislin; all I managed to do was get approval to use our orphanage for testing and frankly I sold it on the principle that nobody would care if Emperor worshippers had a bad experience." It is a bit frustrating that people were still being boneheaded about that, but it works in his favour this time.
"Still," Sarah continued, "thank you." Albriech's gaze is drawn into her eyes, tinged with contentment and something else, but he's abruptly pulled by Sister Amelia seated on his other side.
"Look, look! There's a big fluffy thing bouncing over there!" Sister Amelia too was perched over her seat and pointing past the window. Albriech averts his eyes from where she had gotten her skirt hiked up and rests his head on her shoulder, bracing his hands against the window on both sides of her. "Oh, that's a greater fluff beast. They're really lightweight and tend to bounce, and our clothes are made from their wool." "Oh! If it's a greater fluff beast, is there a lesser one?" "Yes, they're apparently so light they float, but that makes them difficult to handle, so this variety was bred..."
A while later, the slim-T pulls into a large, newly built facility, the rockcrete walls barely painted. Two familiar faces walk out to greet thee diembarking kids. "Greetings all," Reilsin says in her typical tone, "thank you for volunteering to be the test -"
A few subtle step on Reislin's foot and repeated gestures from the adults behind the children's back later, Firis takes over. "Hello, children! Did you love seeing the animals on the way here? Because today, you're going to see the biiiiiggest collection of animals in all of Slawkenberg! Even better, because you've been good, it's a special, early look before other people get to! All we're asking of you is to tell us what you think at the end, OK?" To the resounding cheers and affirmations of the children, Firis spins around and heads deeper into the facility.
The first thing that can be seen upon entering the building is a large map hanging from the ceiling. Just like the Slawkenberg flag, it showed a large square building split into four, each quadrant coloured appropriately. A neon green dot with "YOU ARE HERE" shows that the group has just entered from the corner of the grey section, a handy feature Albriech hopes is in all the areas.
"This zoological garden, or 'zoo' for short, is designed according to the sacred symbols of the Liberation. Here, in the section representing the Bringers, is where the logistical necessities are. Parking facilities, offices and storage all use this quadrant, as are the planned conference and lecture halls for educational and business purposes. The food court is slated to be complete by opening, though currently only the employee cafeteria is operational." Despite Reislin's relatively flat tone and face, Albriech has always found her mechanical arms to be far more expressive - excitedly waving as she spoke, and now drooping down on her realisation that none of the children were paying attention whatsoever.
Fortunately, Firis was here to step in. "Of course, that doesn't mean there are no animals here! If you just follow me here, you can see that in the planned food court, we are also surrounding people with animals." She quickly walked to a large, open area with murals of many colourful animals painted everywhere, and also large glass tubes filled with water and something else. "Inside these glass tubes are are animals known as enkephalopods, which is High Gothic for brain-feet. That's because these amazing creatures have a small brain in each of their legs! We have a few varieties here, from the pink six-legged Sinuous Enkephalopod to the eighteen-legged, colour changing Rainbow Enkephalopod. It is currently theorised by the "
After the children (and Amelia) were done pressing their faces against the glass to marvel at the strange, rounded things moving on their many legs, Firis and Resilin brought the group over to a podium of sort with a square water tank. "Here, we are planning on having hourly demonstrations of how smart the creatures are... but since you're our only customers at the moment, we're going to do it right now! Now look at the thing in my hand. It's a puzzle, and you have to open it to release the food inside. Why don't you try opening it yourself?" She passed it to the first kid in front of her, who struggled to get more than two latches open, before taking it back. "And now, here we have our demonstrator, the Strong Red Enkephalopod! He knows that we hide food inside the puzzles, so if we drop it in here..." To Albriech's astonishment, the creature used it's eight limbs to swiftly open the puzzle, and gobble up a brownish cube inside, before handing the puzzle back to Firis.
While the children cheer and demand for an encore, Albriech is surprised to find Sister Amelia tugging on his sleeve. Or, perhaps not. Sister Sarah, like most of the remainders of the Ministorium on Slawkenberg, took well to the message that the Giorbas were agents of Decay and that the prohibitions on education were simply standard mismanagement. And troopers like Guardsman Cooper mostly remembered the combat-relevant parts of the preaching. But Sister Amelia had attended church in Endlich, conducted by priests who were equal to their flock and with time to get into deeper theological underpinnings. "An open mind..." she whispers, before Albriech entwines his fingers with hers and completes the quote, "... is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded. But closing our minds didn't make us safe either. Even a fortress must open it's gates for supplies. More importantly... the Emperor would not frown upon that honest joy you feel." Amelia gave him a brilliant, blinding smile, and skipped over to join the children to watch a second demonstration with an Armoured Enkephalopod.
Albriech took the opportunity to walk up to Reislin, who was looking somewhat down. "Reislin, you said you were taking feedback right? How about selling versions of the puzzles to people? You could put some hard, long lasting candies in the center, and even after it's been used the puzzle can be repacked with new stuff, right? It could be marketed as "Are you as smart as an enkaphelopod" or something." Thankfully, Reislin's arms perk up at that. "Gratitude. Simpler, smaller puzzles already exist from earlier testing, suitable for children to use. Could assign difficulty level and price accordingly..."
There isn't much left to see around - the shopfronts were all closed and tarp-covered objects were all over, including what Albriech guessed was the central display, so Firis and Reislin guides them over to the next section. Albriech appreciates the maps that dotted the area - they're very intuitive, not requiring knowledge of how to read to understand, and as such he can tell that the blue zone was a two-layered thing. Even so, he's as awed as everyone else when the slope downwards leads to a reversed half tube - while they are on the inside of the tube, the outside is clearly not just water, but an entire sea full of life. Fishes swim past in a dizzying array of shapes and colours, plants grow straight up from the sandy bottom and occasionally a shadow sweeps over everyone.
"This is adapted from the technology used to maintain the underwater generators - the underwater viewing gallery. As part of the Sky and Sea Pavallion, this attempts to educate people on parts of the world that's rarely seen." Reislin introduces the marvelous place. "Further up ahead, we have the individual tanks, which provide a close up view of the smaller fishes in an aesthetic environment, and the large open flat plane, where you can get a better look at our feature creature: the rays."
It really was beautiful. The blue tinted area had all kinds of fishes Albriech had never seen before, their tanks tucked artfully into the walls, and informational plaques in front of every exhibit. And the giant glass window with the dozens of species of rays swooping freely through was amazing. They spent probably longer than they should staring at the hypnotic movements before Firis and Reilsin had to usher them up the slope.
"And here is the other half of the Sky and Sea Pavallion - an aviary that preserves all kinds of birds." Now that she was talking animals instead of architecture, Reislin had managed to command the children's attention. "While the birds may wander on the path, please do not touch them - their peck might be slightly painful. First, to your left is an Iridicent Mimic Bower, which creates nests using brightly coloured objects to attract mates. They can be trained to copy certain pattern - the ones here have a preference for the Slawkenberg flag, as you can see..."
While the children run from one bird to another as Firis and Reislin point them out, Albriech looks around at the glass-enclosed dome. The large lake at the center was simply the top of the large aquarium they had viewed earlier and he spies a Spiked Ray leap out of the water. A beautiful waterfall feeds into it, and all around the aviary there's a metal sculpture looking like a twisting, turning rail, supported by many poles. The sculpture appears to transverse the entire dome, forming a complete loop at one edge, where he can see several people gathered.
"And this is the crown jewel of the Pavallion: the Screamer!" Firis announced as the approaced the strange structure, which Albriech could now see housed several disc-shaped mechanical rays linked front-and-back into chains of a dozen, painted in blues and edged with steel. Sister Sarah raised an eye at that name, prompting a Magos to add on: "This design was one retrieved from Emeli's Gift, and we have accertained that this is indeed the correct name. The wisdom of the ancients are, of course, paramount." This mollifies her, letting the cogboy continue. "As you can see, the design - not quite an STC - allows one to make a vehicle make a complicated course on a single track. Extensive testing shows it was not for transport, but rather for entertainment, and we have set it up for testing here. There is only one... minor point of contention..."
Firis was rolling her eyes and some of the bluecloaks were looking shifty, so Albriech guessed it was something like the Liberator's Fire tiff everyone quietly pretended to not know about. "As such, for testing purposes, you will be assigned to one of two random groups to see which configuration of seats the Screamer is optimised for. Please give feedback." Apparently, Firis and Reislin were also part of the group, as he and Firis ended up in the second group. As the first group got strapped in, he could see how things were contentious - the first group were lying down face up on the rays, their heads pointed the same direction as the fanged maws. Guardsman Booker's boot narrowly missed Sister Sarah's head, which didn't bode well for any USA visitors. As the Screamer accelerates up a slope, he figures he knows how the name comes about, as a meledy of noises sounds forth from the moving rays. As it twists and turns through the aviary, the bluecloaks move a second chain of rays forward, except this time the restraints were vertically upright. As he got strapped into the last ray, next to Firis, they had to adjust the height to meet his, resulting in her being suspended above the ray. And then it was their turn, as the rays shot forth on rails.
After the first hill, the rays settled to a more agreeable speed, though the children ahead were still hollering. Albriech instead took the opportunity to hold Firis's hand, causing her to turn her head around, a smile on her lips. "Are you having fun?!" she shouts as the wind rushes at them and birds scatter in flight. "Yes! And thank you!" he shouted back, as the rays twisted upside down.
As they got back to the starting point, the first group has already disembarked. Most of them are looking rather green in the face, and Sister Amelia is patting Sister Sarah on the back as she hovers over a bush. Albriech did hear Booker speculate that the Screamer was meant for drop pod training, though he noted the feet were pointing the wrong direction for that. As the techs unbuckles Albriech's group and takes feedback, it seems the consensus is swaying towards the vertical model, though the height issues are still a concern. "What about adding an adjustable seat, as well? There's enough forward leg space that you could lower the entire thing by quite a lot and still be comfortable, and if the seats are independent then you could set the backs to a single height and only adjust the seats." His suggestion is met with much discussion, and the Screamer team waves them off as they head to the red area.
Part 2 of We're Going To The Zoo coming when I have inspiration for the red and pinks
Presumably, among the many things smooshed into Emeli's Gift was a pre-Dark Age space station amusement park, and many arguments were had over the logistical and military function of a rollercoaster and ferris wheel before a Handmaiden suggested the obvious.
The Screamer Team were both wrong, incidentally, the Screamer is supposed to be a hanging coaster, with the ride vehicle above and people's legs dangling freely straight down, hence the lack of seats. Unfortunately, they installed the tracks the wrong direction so they have to live with it.