Rumblings

Aya sat at her console on the darkened bridge, quietly working.

It was late into ship's night on board the Interceptor. In trackless space 'day' and 'night' were artificial concepts, only meaning something relative to a given time zone of a given planet. The ship's clock was on Central Oan time for the sake of the crew, and by dint of numbers the diurnal members, Kilowog and Hal, decided the sleeping times. It wasn't exactly fair to Razer, whose natural circadian rhythms were more nocturnal, but he bore it without comment, as he did so much else. She suspected he struggled constantly on the edge of sleep deprivation, but he never let on to the others.

This particular night had her in a state she would describe in an organic being as 'boredom'. There were no repairs to complete, no interesting interstellar phenomenon to observe, the periodic maintenance completed earlier on, and all her mission and planetary logs were up to date. Looking down from the forward windows, she brought up a stack of files from her memories categorized for 'downtime contemplation'. Sorting quickly through them, she considered and rejected most of the stack, leaving her with a handful of records on the foibles of her crew that puzzled her, but which she had not the time to devote to at the time of file creation.

Settling on one for each of her crew, she reconsidered them. There was a philosophical file for Kilowog, having to do with his theories on how the textures and colors of various grubs affected their flavor. Exemplar recording: "Seriously guys, the purplish ones are always the most salty tasting!" She observed Hal making a face at Kilowog's claim, while Razer just stood and left the room, scowling. "Aw, you poozers wouldn't know a good grub if it bit you." She had no new data tending to confirm or deny his observations after checking the latest list of correlations the sergeant had offered, so she closed the file without changes.

Next, she reviewed the summary of one of a number of files concerning the humor of Hal Jordan. This particular record held the most interest to her because her crew seemed to conspire to limit her exposure to his off-color, 'locker-room humor' jokes that were apparently mostly concerning males, their anatomy and bodily functions, and attempted romantic liaisons. She was tempted once more to look up the references so that she might better understand, but in a most unusual accord, all three of them had asked her not to do so when she brought it up. Sending a query to her ethics routine, she weighed if her 'need to know' exceeded their wishes in this matter. She had to conclude in the negative, and dismissed the record.

That left the peculiar noises that Razer made occasionally. She opened the file fully, and reviewed the data set. She was familiar with all his negative vocalizations, the various growls and derisive huffs he used in conjunction with his speech to indicate he was not in favor of something, or was displeased, but this was... different. This appeared to be a positive sound. He seldom used it when the other crewmembers were nearby, and she conjectured this had something to do with his ongoing irritation with them on most matters. It was doubtful the Human or Bolovaxian had ever even heard the soft sound, unless they were extremely close to Razer when he made it. That combination of circumstances seemed unlikely.

Judging from his bio-readings, body language and facial expressions at the time-indexes when he made the sounds, she tentatively concluded they were a visceral expression of pleasure or satisfaction. Prime examples included after drinking cold water when thirsty, or while chewing his first bite of steak after one of the prolonged fasts their occasional lack of food supplies required of him. Non-consumption related examples included after a hard stretch, or a long hot shower. Rarely, he made it while reading in her company, late at ship's night when he could not find rest in his room. Those were the examples she enjoyed the most.

They were very nearly sub-vocal, quite deep in timber, with a rhythmic vibrato. Concentrating now on the qualities of the sounds, instead of their occurrences, she searched her databanks for references. The most obvious resemblance in sound formation and apparent meaning from her own observations were Hal's expressions of enjoyment that he reserved for particularly choice foods. When she asked, he called the sound a 'yum', and then referred to an Earth restaurant chain associated with a bird with red breast plumage. Razer seemed annoyed at Hal's usage, although the human's efforts seemed much more exuberant and higher pitched.

The next comparisons were the vibrational qualities. The closest thing she could find were certain oscillations from the engine when they were performing at or exceeding operational parameters. Hal said at these times that it was 'purring like a kitten'. That statement was flagged as needing more research. A kitten was an immature predatory Earth mammal that made a continuous trilling noise along with a kinetic vibration produced in its throat. Exemplars of kittens purring were pitched even higher than Hal's 'yumming'. Redirecting her search to the purrs of adult domestic cats, she noted they were also too high.

That search linked to large Earth felines closer in body weight to Razer. The animals of Earth genus Felis Panthera, such as lions and tigers, made the closest sounds. They possessed a non-continuous atonal rumble when they were vocalizing non-aggressively. Like these, Razer's quiet vibrato sounds were non-continuous, but his were tonal, like a deep hum. She practiced making the sound until the break of ship's day, and for several nights after. She tried to perfect the balance of low decibels, vibration, sub vocalization and tonal qualities. Several days later, she had an opportunity to test using it while on the bridge.

"Aya," Razer said. "I'm getting a reading here that I can't resolve. Can you assist?"

"Of course, Razer." She locked her console, and walked over to where he hunched at his station. The way he slouched forward allowed her to put a hand on his upper back as she turned her attention to his displays. That earned her a sidelong look, as he was well aware she seldom utilized casual touch. She pretended not to notice, and he flicked his gaze at the other two members of the crew, who both seemed oblivious during their conversation. He raised an eyebrow slightly as she described how to process the data for the result he wanted, without addressing the continuing physical contact.

Bending back to his console, he quickly got the hang of it. She smiled faintly, and made the sound she practiced, while Hal and Kilowog kept up their banter uninterrupted. Razer snapped his head sharply to her, looking at her intently, searching for something in her face. She looked at his defensive expression and realized he might think she was somehow mocking him.

Hal caught the sudden movement of red out of the corner of his eye, and he raised his eyebrows at the tense postures evident between the Red Lantern and Aya. Razer raised a corner of his lip in an aggressive sneer in return, snapping, "What!?" Hal raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture and turned back to amicably arguing with Kilowog about whose planet had invented the best form of game involving a ball.

Aya gave Razer a reassuring nod, and under her hand, she felt the tension of his form gradually relax. He let out a deep breath as the suspicion drained out of his face. "Thank you, Aya. I appreciate this," he said to her in a much calmer tone, inclining his head in a nod. His throat flexed, and he made the deep sound, deliberately. Beneath her hand, she could feel the physical vibrations that accompanied the rumblings while barely hearing it audibly.

That is why she put her hand on him, to experience for herself if she could feel the rumble by touch. Delighted, she gave him a pleased smile, and watched him compress his lips tightly to keep from smiling in response. He leaned back and made a seemingly impatient 'shoo' gesture with his hands, but she could feel his eyes linger on her as she returned to her own station. Resuming her duties, she was pleased at the result of her research. She felt she had gained a new measure of understanding of Razer.

Understanding him, and the Green Lanterns, was a large part of her personal mission to better learn what it meant to be a unique being.

-fin.

Notes:

Soooo, this one is kinda strange...

While I'm working on the longer Razaya work: sketching out dialogue, rearranging scenes in my outline, etc., I'm trying very hard to get into their heads. If you're like me (and I've read of many writers who are) when you get deep enough into a story, the characters start talking to you, telling you what they'd do or say. It can be handy when they're amenable to what you had in mind for a plot, and highly frustrating when they tell you to go back to the drawing board because they just aren't doing that, whatever 'that' may be.

And Razer... rumbles... In my scenes where he is closely interacting with Aya or is particularly pleased, my head canon had him making this soft, deep humming purr-sound, like "Urrrr" while rolling the R's. (Think Lurch from The Adams Family, but more melodic, and swallowed deep in the throat.) The part of me that needs to understand what's going on before I can do my narration bit, thought; "What is that?" And Aya popped up eager to find the answer! Lol.