"Why is he inside the bath again? Haven't I told him to spend every breathing moment trying to find a solution?"
"Ehm, yes sir. He said he would find some solutions inside, sir." Among them the thicker their grey hide, the higher their status. And his superior had a very thick hide indeed. Probably weighed over a ton in total as well. Not someone you wanted to have asking aggressive questions at you.
"Inside the bath?"
"Yes?" He answered, not sure what the answer was supposed to be.
The superiors voice reached higher and higher as he continued on. "Does he keep secret recordings inside of there or something? Does the water droplet form a secret message informing him of how to do it?" Towards the end his voice had reached almost a scream, the poor subordinate tried to, without moving his feat, lean backwards and shrink into himself. Away from the horror in front of him.
"N-No?"
Taking a deep breath, the superior steadied himself. No use screaming at useless people, he reminded himself.
Sigh, these fools. You told them to watch a man until he got the job done, and make sure he focused on the job and nothing else. Then they let them get away with hour long showers. He would grab that impudent little human and drag him out of there himself!
A plan started to formulate in his head, as he brushed aside his all too happy to be out of the way subordinate to make room. First he would smash in the door, all that good thunder and awe, then forcefully drag the human out of that damned shower and back to his papers. Yes, that would teach him!
Standing next to the door he prepared the thunder, as well as some well chosen words, but just as he was about to rush the door, it opened, the wrong way, smashing straight into his face!
"Ouch! What in the ever living hell?" It hurt, god dammit. His face felt like it had been stamped on by a rhinoceros.
"Eureka!" The running human was screaming, as he rushed towards his papers. Stark raving nude, with water dripping all over the place. As soon as he got a hold of one of the papers, and a pen, he started to fervently write.
"Glad that someone finally got their senses together." He said to no one in particular, as his subordinate was busy trying his hardest not to be there, and the human was scribbling on his papers at a rapid pace.
"Yea, yea. Just-, yea. Could work." Could be heard streaming from the humans mouth as his pen whooshed by over the papers. Striking out old calculations and filling in new ones in their place.
Not being used to be ignored, even if the human was now doing what he was supposed to be doing, his blood pressure started to rise.
"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST IGNORE ME?" At this outcry the human finally looked up.
"Oh, you are here? Good, can you get some stuff for me?" It wasn't really a question as he pushed a paper, with some text scribbled on it, into his face. Before quickly going back to his papers.
This was potentially worse than being ignored. He was not some simple errant boy to be subject to the humans whims!
"Now you listen here little human, I will not-"
"I got the answer." He didn't even look up from his papers, or stop writing, but the words had a power all of their own as they filled the room.
"R-Really?" He wasn't a errant boy, per say. But an accomplice of the greatest invention, in, in forever? That, that was something else. "Right then, lets go." Gesturing at his subordinate that looked somewhat puzzled about what precisely had transpired. But did know that he was just given an order from a man that had just a moment ago been exploding with rage. As soon as his mind had registered this the subordinate flew out of the room, his feat barely touching the ground.
Walking outside, he handed the list too his subordinate.
"Now, how fast can we get everything on this list?"
"Ehm, well, at the moment, with the current supplies-" The man said as he scanned the list as fast as his eyes allowed.
"OUT WITH IT MAN!"
"Five minutes sir."
"Really?" His surprise over the quick turn around time of his, previously held to be incompetent, subordinate quickly turned to suspicion. "Let me see that list." As he very firmly ripped the list out of the subordinates hand.
"Shampoo, shower gel, those thing you put in your ears but aren't really supposed to... what is this? WHAT IS THIS?" The human was playing games with him, oh he would get him for this, he would-
"Now, sir. Calm down."
"CALM DOWN? I AM PERFECTLY CALM!" He said as the steam coming from his ears started to condense into miniature clouds.
Storming back towards the human room. "Calm down, calm down? I will have you know I haven never been this calm before in my life!" He muttered to the half walking, half running subordinate trying to keep up.
"But he might really have done it." Came the tiny weak voice from behind, ignored by the storm in front of him as he rushed the last distance to the humans quarter and with his full body tackled the door.
Parts of the door came flying into the room, with the man being the cause of them flying in among them. The human sat quiet, the pen having fallen from his hand, in total serenity reading his work.
"I WILL NOT BE AN ERRAND BOY TO- what are you doing?" The non effect of his shock and thunder had shocked him deeply. He was used to it having some effect, adverse effect perhaps if used on a superior, but some effect at least.
"It will work, yes. It all makes sense." Looking up for a moment his eyes saw the captain, and the door splinter around him. "Gosh, what happened to you?" After a quick scan of the captain and the subordinate trying his best not to be in the same room, but still somehow following the captain. "And were is my stuff, didn't you find any shower stuff? Need it for the research you now, clean mind clean thoughts!" He poked at his head as to indicate the importance of his head being spotless clean.
The sheer audacity of the human set aside, did he really have the answer? The antigravity device they had worked so hard for?
"Are you sure?" If this was true... the sky was no longer the limit. They would be, limit less.
"Sure as I'm clean." Ah, one of those human sayings, clearly.
"When can we build one."
"Build?"
"The antigravity drive?" Did he need to pronunciate every tiny little thing to this human
"Oh that, now I haven't solved that one yet." From the human it sounded as if that was a minor problem, something reserved for straight after a hefty lunch. When the food coma made other, more difficult problems, unsolvable.
"But, then, why... what have you solved?"
"The perfect ratio of shower to head, isn't it great?"