Ixion has company tricycles for getting around the recycling plant facility because it's so huge. The avians are especially fond of them because they have short legs and flying inside the plant isn't always a great idea (plus, ugh, that's like running everywhere)
Transcript
Talita: (grimacing) Is that an attempt at flattery?
Bip: Is it working?
Cheevwut suddenly appears, riding into the vehicle workshop on a squeaky company tricycle.
Cheevwut: Ey, Tal! Are you on overtime again?
Talita glances nervously at the wall clock, which no longer shows any evidence of Bip.
Talita: Oh–uh– I... Hadn’t seen the time!
Cheevwut: Don't do that too much, or Ohwitiil's gonna yell at me.
They look down at their phone.
Cheevwut: Oh, also, message from Idrisah. She says to clear the rails, since we have new junkers coming down the loop tonight. And… uh… “No funny business". Whatever that idiom means.
69 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 97”
Viashino_wizard
“Hello Talita. I want to play a game.”
ImJustaTourist
“Clear the rails…”
meaning it’s now or never to get the Runaway off this Dirtball.
Hosp
Love flat Talita face on the first panel
creetur
I love Cheev’s chain piercings.. fashion goals
Pathfinder42
Bicycles IN SPACE!!!!!!
Liza
Cheev, you say that like Owitiil needs an excuse to yell at you
evileeyore
Cheev looks forward to it. Bullying Ohwitiil is fun…
arf
Now I want to see Talita on a ‘cycle.
Seriously! I’m thinking the elliptical walker design might be suitable?
Guest
Jay Eaton drew a centaur bicycle
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/652863238845956096/i-was-looking-through-your-centaurs-tag-and-i-saw
Liza
Best part of that pic is tiny Idrisah for scale looking terrified
JoB
Being faced with a tire large enough to forcefully push into your field of vision tends to have that effect. :-3
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fqvxifhx108t71.jpg
prob grobble
How do the Avians use tablets with (what looks like) only two fingers? That kind of seems like the minimum for just holding them
Zidane
you can see more on page 41 that cheevwuts phone looks like it has a sort of bar on the side that seems like its for wedging a digit into so the other finger on the same hand is free to use it, at least thats how it looked to me
JoB
You can actually see that watchamacallit on this page, too, if you know where to look. And it looks like Cheevwut is *actually doing* the claw-in-hole thing in panel 5, to get Idrisahs message on the screen. Not in the last two panels, though. Of course, avians *do* have *two* hands as well …
the apersoninoursociety
Cheevwut says “ey” which makes me headcanon them as having a New Yorker accent.
“Ey, I’m trikin’ ‘ere!”
Greenjoe
Well, the rails needing to be cleared is a problem… that sounds like it is the start of the process for the Runaway to be torn up.
Ruby
Cheevwut on a tricycle! Cheevwut in a tricycle!
JoB
“Ixion has company tricycles for getting around […] The avians are especially fond of them”
… wait.
1. Does that mean that the *same* trike can be used not only by avians, but also other sophonts? (Now *that’s* something I’d like to see a blueprint of!)
2. If they instead are species specific, wouldn’t the avian ones have been simply bought from the original mining co., along with the entire site?
( 3. Also if avian specific, instead of the blueprint, could we please get a picture of a non-avian trying to pretzel themself onto one? 😛 )
0xabad1dea
In the comments on page 82 it’s mentioned by the author that there are two different sizes of bike, and that the spaced tailer coworker is too small to use the human-sized bikes and the avian ones are awkward and uncomfortable (but therefore presumably workable)
0xabad1dea
… tailed spacer.
Joey Shears
Lol I make that mistake all the time too.
Peter Jensen
Yeah, spaced tailer sounds like a horrible workplace accident … or some extremely harsh disciplinary action …
JoB
Ah, thanks … the centaurndem shown in the link posted above looks quite similar to ours, too … so, no major sci-fi-esque evolution beyond our RL bicycles of today (where, if you take a step above the supermarket tier, one gets their body measured, and then a matching frame ordered for optimal fit/performance).
JoB
Next page: Cheevwut still trying to get an explanation for that idiom out of Talita while the clock now shows “14:10” … with the second “1” being a grinning, rotated Biphead. :-3
endless screaming despair
F L A T T A L I T A F R I D A Y
Verc
While she’s talking about…flattery 😉
Spinland
😀
Rad Internet Stranger
EEEEEEEEEEEEE CHEEV’S HAT
Tyrone the Miner
Soooooo….KAWAIII !!!
=)
evileeyore
Cheevwut-wut! Bip disappearing right before Cheev could spot them and Talita saying “I hadn’t seen the time” while staring right at the clock.
Also Cheev’s “air quotes”, excellent. (Cheev, Gillie, and Sirawut are my favs – Sirawut isn’t in comic yet.)
the Inmara
That third panel is a whole mood.
EveryZig314
Bird bike bird bike
Clemmy
Cheev is looking pretty “fly” today, teehee. Flight joke.
Martin
Cheevwut’s little HAT!!!
Gheesfellow
Peak. Fashion.
JoB
It’s somehow sending me some “dashin’ Sherwood Forest style” vibes … 😉
(First one to call Ohwitiil “sheriff” gets a free beer. And a major chewing-out, of course.)
HughJass
Not allowed overtime, but also getting a work-related message after the shift has ended that says that more work needs to be done that can’t wait until tomorrow? I guess management is still management even in the 24th century.
Strawberry Daquiri
Even in the future, the humble yard trike remains undefeated :3
Gheesfellow
The bike gets the love it deserves, but MAN I dig that hat!
Sen
Avians on tricycles are so adorbs. I wanna hug them :3
Paroxysmall
avians and their heart-shaped beak and tongue edges <3
zofifi
BIRB!! I mean… very respectful adult person I respect. But BIRB!
creetur
One can agree that Cheev can be both respectable and b i r b.
Arcstone
Ooooh my god I would so absolutely love a teeny tiny little short comic showing an early meeting between humans and avians where they are introduced to bicykles and them immediatly thinking theyre the absolute tightest shit ever.
Effyis Biblos
I feel like two spacefaring civilisations probably would’ve invented them independently.
Maia
The real star of this page is the bird bike.
-12
I love Cheevwut’s clothing. It really looks like alien clothing. I’ve sort of gotten used to seeing Talita now but seeing closeups of the avian alien is so wild. The species designs in this comic are incredible.
Hanroz
Here comes dat boid
Uh
Oughhhhh bird bike
Phlosioneer
What’s the hand motion being shown in the last panel? Nothing I can think of to match those curved lines makes any sense in the context.
Septemberdale
Perhaps a bouncing motion of the hand bringing it back? Remember, Avian hands grow on the hindlimbs, different gestures may be natural and ergonomic for that than for other sophonts.
0xabad1dea
I think they’re imitating human “air quotes” or using the closest avian equivalent
Gar G
That’s what my thoughts were
Teod
I think they’re trying to do air quotes, but there’s either cultural or physiological difference in how they do it.
Sparky Lurkdragon
Jay said in the Patreon that it was intended as ‘putting each word into the air’.
JoB
I see that Bip was attentive enough to have had the front loader’s arms returned to their resting position beforehand. Also, *right here*’s the opportunity to move the Runaway from its current location to where Talita (and accomplices) can work on it unseen: It’s still sitting on one of the slides on the launch loop’s tracks, and Talita just got officially tasked with getting stuff out of the way, *without* putting in the hours that would be needed to lift it *off* the slide.
“No funny business”? Doesn’t that essentially negate Ixion’s inofficial motto? >;-> (Well OK, not *so* funny from the employees’ perspective, I guess.)
Apollo235
I. Fucking. Called it.
Page 95, 5th comment from the bottom (not including replies).
Now where’s my 5 JVD
JoB
“Your che^H^H^Hcash remittance is in the mai^H^H^Hnetwork transfer. Please note that, since your position in spacetime is not equipped with a wormhole gate (yet), said transfer takes place at the speed of light. Please allow a delay of about fourteen years.”
(Yes, yes, I know that Jupiter is *not* 14 ly from Earth. But Shikaviil might easily be, so …)
Am I the only one to remember the time when the “Inter*planetary* Internet” research was actually about building an inter*stellar* network, sans the benefit of FTL communication devices … ? :-3
https://www.irtf.org/concluded/ipnrg.html
dokki
the cheev summoning ritual worked!
Translunary_Animus
The little facility bikes are actually such a cool idea, sort of wish my old job had those!
JoB
Could use a little lubrication, though. 😉
(… unless those were the *brakes*, but Cheevwut did not exactly give me an Eddy Merckx feeling in that panel.)
Translunary_Animus
Whatever’s causing the squeaks definitely can’t be good for all that delicate interior machinery in the computer room! We know regolith wreaks havoc on cpus, what about trike rust?
JoB
(FWIW, dust might wreak havoc on the fans and clog the heatsinks, and maybe produce shorts if it is conductive, but the *CPU* is quite well-sealed and will automatically slow down or even stop before it fries itself.)
Trike *rust* you say … that implies some additional *metal* getting thrown into the mix, with the possibility of inducing galvanic corrosion of computer parts …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion
Verc
What IS Talita’s work schedule? Also, I like Cheevwut’s slightly fancy looking getup
feesh
seems like she has weekends off, and likely starts work at 9ish and gets off at 2pm? not a bad gig!
feesh
it’s kind of funny, the darkness and perpetual emptiness of Shikavil give me such evening/nighttime vibes for this scene even though i KNOW what time it is because the clock is right there! talita i wish i was you i wish i got off work in the early afternoon
Curona
My current theory is that she has a different schedule on days when she does “outdoors” work. I imagine working more than 4 hours in a spacesuit is generally considered a bad idea due to breathable air constraints of the suits; bodily needs like food, water, and toilet; and just general claustrophobia inherent in wearing bulky, heavy equipment on your person.
That said, I’m betting that Talita is supposed to be on a lunch break, and not actually at the end of her day shift.
JoB
> My current theory is that she has a different schedule on days when she does “outdoors” work.
Talita and the temps *were* in the great outdoors the previous shift, though. From the airlock, Talita went to quickly say her goodbyes to Calcery, then arrived at Idrisah’s workplace at 17:11:
https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-21/
> I’m betting that Talita is supposed to be on a lunch break, and not actually at the end of her day shift.
Then why would Bip have popped up now? Their appointment was for “Monday, after work” …
Curona
Perhaps the work shifts/hours change according to the work that needs to be done? Maybe today was a short day because the only task on the docket was to mark the slag. Maybe the previous Friday was an extra long shift to prep as much as they could for the autonomous night crew to work on over the weekend. It could also be that they have split shifts and the schedule is all over the place. *shrug*