Chapter 353: Advancing the technology beyond anything made on Earth
The “Princess” cha was built to resemble a bee in its shape with four hands, two legs, and a tail that held the large combustion engine that would propel the entire thing. There were no wings, though.
The hands didn’t have palms—instead, various tools were attached to the chas limbs: two pincers for grabbing, a drill and a large circular saw.
The “face” was missing, instead replaced with an open cabin under a roof of the “head”.
The cha’s body was built from gleaming steel and rough “living” stone, which was tougher than wood but still much lighter than regular stone or tal.
But then sobody did their best to color the entire giant construction! Not with paints—the Bee Empire didn’t yet invent paint that would stick to steel and rock—but with other materials.
Countless giant scales and feathers, mostly black and yellow, were adorning the body of the cha, imitating a suit of scale armor with a pair of very Queen-like breasts. Pieces of dyed fabric were tied over the cha’s joints—although this looked actually practical.
A pair of wooden antennae, which could serve only as decoration, were sticking out of cha’s head. Next to it was short “hair” made from entire thin tree trunks, like the ones humans would sotis cover their roofs with. On top of the hair was a crown made of a massive piece of bone with several more scales adorning it.
I squinted at this crown so more.
‘This kind of looks… like sothing Amby wears for celebrations… Huh.’
My shock gradually abated. I shook my head, then turned to Engine-See.
“I didn’t expect you to decorate the prototype already… What if it doesn’t work?”
She perked up a little.
“Then it will be a great sha to all of us after all the tests we’ve run, Father. But also, we can fix the cha without interfering with the designs.” Engine-See frowned a little. “Do you dislike the embellishnts, Father? This is a project so grand, it felt like a cri against all the knowledge that went into its creation to not make it look beautiful. The local Artists were eager to help.”
I smiled.
“No, that’s alright. Just show what it can do!”
Engine-See’s eyes shone.
“Of course, Father! Now, excuse —I must run pre-start checks.”
She flew toward the cha, where other bees were swarming already. One by one they entered it through the open face or one of the hatches hidden under scales attached to hands, feet and tail of the cha.
Inside the control cabin in the head, two dozen bees sat at their seats and put on leather safety belts. Near so seats were various levers and buttons, while others were entirely empty.
I knew that at this mont, hundreds of bees were taking positions near each separate joint and moving part of the cha.
It was a very complex thing to control, after all. Even on Earth, moving robots were all clumsy prototypes. Even remotely controlled robots were clumsy, because with a human range of movent, there was too much of it to program and control at once. And even simply copying human movents and transferring them to a cha’s was incredibly complicated!
Of course, the Bee Empire, which barely moved past Iron Age, couldn’t create sothing as complex as a cha that was piloted by just one person.
But yet again, throwing more workers at a problem proved to be a solution.
“Checks complete! Everything is in order!” Engine-See shouted from the cabin. “Ignition in three! Two! One! Start!”
The cabin imdiately beca a bubble of activity—but a silent one. Communicating with their 10-ter-range telepathy of baseline bees, the Researchers began eagerly pulling levers and pushing buttons.
It all looked completely incomprehensible to , but I knew there was purpose to every movent.
First, there was a loud whir of the engine. Then, exhaust gas began coming out of the end of the cha’s tail, and the entire construction began vibrating slightly.
For another couple seconds, nothing was happening…
Then, with a loud clanging sound, the cha slowly lifted an arm! Its movents were jerky, but sure enough that it waved with a drill.
I noticed that I was gaping like a fool and closed my mouth. In the distance (so far that I could barely make them out), so bees from Hive One-Of-The-Best paused in their work. They were probably gaping, too.
“Oh my god, this is incredible!” I shouted. “Can you walk around?!”
Then I realized the cha was too loud for the bees inside to hear and doubled the ssage with telepathy.
Engine-See smiled a little and waved to other bees in the command cabin.
There was more activity and lever-pulling; then the cha lowered the hand and made a slow step to the side. The heavy footsteps made the ground shake and made feel like sothing in the cha would break at any instant…
But the Princess made a small circle around the clearing with the sa jerky movents, crushing small trees under its tal feet, and nothing fell apart!
I couldn’t contain my applause.
Not only did these Researchers and Craftsn make this thing, they also were piloting it—manually!
Every smallest movent of the cha required manually pulling parts of it this way or the other. Each hydraulic motor of the cha had a person next to it who turned it on and off by hand!
Only with telepathy coordinating all these people was possible. I knew from blueprints that the cha had a wiring with *so* electrical signals and machinery here and there, but it also had several dozen Beehounds to transmit information *besides* all the other pilots.
Each movent of this thing resulted from a mind-boggling amount of calculations and coordination! Especially when you considered that they not only had to manually do every movent but also calculate the balance of the cha to prevent it from toppling over itself with any movent!
And Engine-See still didn’t finish her demonstration.
Following the Researcher’s commands, the cha walked toward a nearby pillar mountain (not the one with my observation platform) and raised its drill.
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