Pt 2
“What about Seventh Brother?” Grandfather cut in.
Recalling the human First Aunt tilted her head back to get a focus on him. For a moment he dipped down into the water, then he surged upwards and flung his hands onto the ice. His entire body writhed as he trunk-like legs thrashed and slowly but surely came out of the green water to lay flat on the ice.
“He is out of the water too,” First Aunt stated.
“The mass transporter is in the far storage caves and will take some time to reach you, but it is on its way,” Grandfather said, his voice smoothing with relief. “How is First Sister?”
“She isn’t breathing!” First Aunt exclaimed, resting her hand on the young one’s abdomen.
Frantic chitters overwhelmed the comm for a moment, but First Aunt was distracted by the human writhing towards her across the ice. Instead of resuming his usual bipedal stance he was scrambling like an Undulates across the surface.
“Put her on my back!” He snapped out. “Got to get her dry!”
It took a moment for First Aunt to translate the human language. It was never her strongest achievement, but when she did she obeyed instantly, rolling the uninteresting form up onto the broad flat surface of the human’s back.
“Hold her there!” The human ordered as he immediately set off for the nearest edge of the pond.
First Aunt obeyed. She was uncertain how the human planned on drying off First Sister, but the concept was sound and the whole point of letting Rangers on a new hive-world was to let them help you in strange situations. Her comm was squawking out demands for information in several different voices but she ignored it and focused on balancing First Sister against the human’s writhing movements. They reached the edge of the algae pond and the human surged up and flung himself into the burm of powdery snow. He dislodged First Sister and rolled over in the stuff a few times leaving a green algal smear behind him. Then he grabbed two great handfuls of the snow and vigorously rubbed it through his hair.
First Aunt felt a glimmer of understanding. The dry, frozen snow instantly absorbed and froze the thin layer of water on his skin. She hesitantly reached down and pressed a handful of the glittering mass against First Sister. However the human had lunged to his feet and now lumbered up to her.
“Take off the insulation!” He snapped. “It’s all wet inside and we need to get her dry. I don’t know how.”
First Aunt saw the logic in that and gave a few quick tugs at the release points. It was difficult with First Sister so stiff and unyielding but they were soon loose.
“Let me!” he snapped. “Go back. Get that orange bag and bring it here quick.”
First Aunt felt a snap of irritation, but trimmed it quickly. This was why they had Rangers after all. She moved as quickly as she could across the ice while keeping an antenna curled at the human. He quickly but carefully divested First Sister of the insulating gear she was wearing and spread it flat on the snow. He had the sense not to abrade First Sister’s membrane with the ice crystals at least. His hands flew as he snatched up masses of it and would press each new handful once, quickly to her membrane before discarding the old snow for new. First Aunt found the small orange bad and was surprised and relieved to find it light weight. She hurried back to the human, whose skin had gone from brilliant red to white and was beginning to turn blue.
“Pull the tab,” he ordered.
She did, and the thing jumped out of her hands and rolled to a flat section of snow. There it rapidly expanded into a domed enclosure with a clear band that allowed light in and out. The human heaved his body up and though the markings that indicated the entrance, pulling First Sister after him. He arranged his body so his folded legs provided a fairly large surface and he set First Sister’s body on this. He reached up and squeezed a cylinder that extended from the top of the emergency shelter and it dropped down. First Aunt recognized it as a portable heater. The human hunched his thick torso around First Sister and spread his arms. First Aunt realized he was focusing all the heat on the little body. She watched in fascination and trepidation as the human’s skin turned from blue, back to white, and then to pink once again. Finally he lifted his head and blinked at her.
“Hey,” he said. “If its safe can you go get my clothes?”
“Of course!” She stated as she turned and scampered back across the refreezing ice to retrieve them.
The the human “clothes” were heavy and cumbersome with their complex layers of moisture wicking and solar and thermal radiation needed to preserve the complex human membrane and it took her some time to drag them back to the emergency shelter.
“When hers are dry shake them out and hang em on that bush,” the human ordered next.
First Aunt had to stare at him for several long moments before she understood that he meant First Sister’s thermal insulation. Again, it was a sound idea. The dry snow had indeed removed all the moisture from the layers and First Aunt found it easy to shake the excess snow off of them.
By this time she could seen the mass transporter floating towards them over the snow with the towering form of Second Aunt perched in the main seat and several others clustered behind her.
“Hey!” The human suddenly shouted, a completely different tone in his voice. “She’s twitching!”
Sure enough First Sister’s antenna were beginning to moved and her body was uncurling from the tight, deathlike shape it had been in and First Aunt felt her lung expand for what felt like the first time in hours.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-sketchy
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-diminishing-returns
“Come now Human Friend Kia!” Writhesoften called out as she threw herself into the next body of water.The sullen mutter the massive mammal gave in response didn’t quite translate from the air to the water. Writhesoften pulsed out a good swimming pace and thrust several appendages above the surface even as her down thrusting appendages brushed the algae like plants that grew from the bottom of the marsh. Her vision of the human clarified and she watched in bemusement as Human Friend Kia lowered one of her massive appendages into the biota rich water of the marsh.Human Friend Kia had absolutely insisted that she wasn’t afraid of the alien life that the marshes teamed with.“I grew up back in the bayou,” she had insisted, angling her head in a human expression of defiance. “Not one of those artificially restored bayous either! Mamma’s people had a shack back in there since before we was keeping records! I ain’t feard of no murk!”The human had then suddenly startled and then rapidly sent gurgling noises through the mystery system of tubes that took up a large portion of her bio mass. This seemed to compose her body language and she sat is a far calmer and more formal position.“I have no concern over the local biota load,” Human Friend Kia had assured her. “I am simply used to a less extreme temperature gradient. I will adjust with time, I simply want to put of getting completely soaked as long as possible.”The human certainly had, Writhesoften mused as she watched Human Friend Kia finally ease one leg and then the other down into the marsh. Human Friend Kia’s whole body shuddered as the water sloshed over the protective lip of her boot protection and, presumably began soaking her outer membrane. Writhesoften calculated the amount of time it was going to cost them for Human Friend Kia to cross each marsh at the ginger pace she was showing and tried to dismiss the feeling of annoyance her calculations generated. Human Friend Kia was more than valuable enough to make up for any inadequacy in marsh hopping.“Come on now!” Writhesoften called out cheerfully. “We are almost to the next collection point!”Writhesoften let herself dip below the surface and struck out for the best depth for optimum speed. They reached the next mound, a truly impressive spire that reached up out of the water to tower even over the human, well behind her initial projections and Writhesoften had to fight bag the urge to groan as she noted the time. However Human Friend Kia scooped her up and held her to the observation platform (that would be almost submerged at high water) and Writhesoften again balanced her usefulness against the lost speed. Not to mention her primary function of fending off the largest of the reptilian predators. Baby-gators, Human Friend Kia called them. It had taken some convincing to get her to postpone domestication attempts on the dangerous species.Writhesoften noted the signs of decreased activity of the spire’s inhabitants and creators alike and then tapped Human Friend Kia to be let down. They set out across the remainder of the marsh surrounding the spire. On the other side there was something of a ledge to get over to get out of the marsh and Writhesoften found it somewhat tricky to climb out. She even had to provide Human Friend Kia leverage to get over the slippery bank. Human Friend Kia reciprocate by carrying her across the grassy overland. To Writhesoften’s surprise, instead of pausing at the edge and easing in one leg at a time as she had done before (it had been Writhesoften’s plan to dismount during this pause) Human Friend Kia stepped into the water without breaking her original stride until the greater viscosity of the water and grasses forcible slowed her.“Pardon me Human Friend Kia,” Writhesoften called out, prodding her to get her attention. “Isn’t this marsh the same temperature as the last?”Human Friend Kia glanced down at her with a rueful twist to her face.“Told’ja,” she said falling back into what Writhesoften presumed was her mother accent, “I ain’t feard of no swamp juice. It was just a little chilly.”“But this is the same temperature!” Writhesoften insisted, fighting the feeling that they were having two different conversations.“Yeah,” the human admitted, bobbing her head up and down in time to her steps, “but I’m all soaked already now. Doesn’t matter.”Writhesoften tried to parse that, and then gave up as they approached the next spire. She would take her invertebrate observations now, and offer these human observations to the physio-psychologist back at base. There was no way she was understanding why a human grew less reluctant to get in water the wetter they already were.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-braid
“Have you observed the new human yet?” Flipsalong demanded as she rounded the corner of the flowway.
“Nice to brush against you too,” Twistunder replied.
Flipsalong gave a full body shimmy of embarrassment and made a show of trying to droop her gripping appendages in apology.
“No,” Twistunder finally said, taking pity on the eager young University student. “I have not seen our new guest yet.”
“She has extra appendages!” Flipsalong declared.
“The ambassador is deformed?” Twistunder asked in shock.
“I don’t think so,” Flipsalong said. “It is a perfectly healthy looking appendage. Or it might be three held in a twine for transport. I am not sure.”
Some dim memory of a conversation with one of his Ranger friends bubbled up in Twistunder’s awareness.
“And where on her body is this extra appendage?” He asked.
“It comes of the back of her,” Flipsalong paused and trembled as she visibly tried to think of the term. “You know, the primary sensory end. With the organs.”
“Ah,” Twistunder nodded as it started to loosen in his thoughts. “Off the back of her head. And is the detached end constrained by a cloth band?”
“Yes!” Flipsalong declared. “Do you know what the appendage is?”
“I am not sure it is an appendage, exactly,” Twistunder said slowly.
“Oh,” Flipsalong drooped in disappointment. “Just an ornamental attachment then?”
“No, no,” Twistunder said. “You probe, you have only touched Rangers and University professors yet I assume?”
“That is correct,” Flipsalong said. “How does that connect?”
“Rangers,” Twistunder said. “Follow a strict policy of grooming. As do most researches who will have to expect to be in an environmental suit. They keep their mammalian fur at a regulation length that will not interfere with the fit of an air tight helmet.”
“That is well known,” Flipsalong agreed, “but how does it connect?”
“Human fur has no standard growth length,” Twistunder explained. “It continues to lengthen until it reaches each individuals genetic maximum. That is why humans are so strict about their length regulations.”
“Wait?” Flipsalong raised a gripping appendage in shock. “You meant that massive appendage is just a compressed mass of sensory tendrils?”
“It isn’t painful I assure you,” Twistunder said, reading the horror in the set of her appendages. “Human fur has no live nerves once past the membrane.”
“So it serves no sensory purpose?” Flipsalong asked.
“A very limited one at best,” Twistunder said.
“Does it offer greater radiation or thermal regulation than the standard Ranger length?” Flipsalong asked.
“I do not believe so,” Twistunder replied.
Flipsalong curled into what the humans called a thinking loaf and pondered this.
“Then why would a human maintain such a mass of useless tendrils?” Flipsalong demanded.
“Perhaps we should ask the ambassador,” Twistunder offered. “Though you might want to rephrase that question in the interest of diplomacy.”
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-automated-responses
Gentle red lights gleamed down from sconces in the general recreation room. The weak rays were hardly enough to read by. They provided enough light for their human partners to maneuver safely without disrupting their oversensitive vision, but really served no purpose for healthy lizard folk. They did however, cast an ambiance of slow burning chaff piles. A bit of comfort on nights like this, with the wind moaning softly over the main hab buildings and the falling external temperature causing the hab struts to tense and flex ominously, well, it was more than comforting to curl around a beanbag in the gentle light with a mug of broth at one paw and a companion against your side.
Doctor Drawing let himself indulge in a contented rumble and stretched his hind talons into the pliant yet sturdy furniture. It had been sent to them in advance of their newest human addition. One Grimes. The beanbags had actually been their first indication that a human was coming. They had requested a human agricultural consultant years ago, but their distant colony world had been far down on the priority list. Therefore it wasn’t surprising that the first human they did receive had been something of a chance happening. The doctor ground his molars over the classified notes he had received on Grimes’s mental health. No real fungus in the grain of the mammal, however he had been warned to watch for signs of lingering long term stress.
“A mutually beneficial situation,” Doctor Drawing let the words rumble out through his jaw.
Beside him Base Commander Beater gave an amused grunt and then made quite the production of rolling over onto his back on the shifting beanbag. His movements were far too stiff and awkward and his scales left not a few flakes on the rubberized material. The old grinder really should have retired long ago. Doctor Drawing mused as he compensated for his companion’s movement. However competent commanders for mixed species colonies at the edges of explored space were not plentiful.
“Snuggling usually is,” Beater finally commented, when he had recovered from his efforts.
Doctor Drawing mulled over weather he should respond. Technically Base Commander Beater had made an incorrect assumption. However his mental gears unlatched as a pleasing, low rumble echoed through the base, rattling the windows and vibrating the floor. Base Commander Beater gave a contented sigh that was have gurgling sinuses. It made Doctor Drawing fight down a wince and resist the urge for force the old grinder’s snout open for a sinus inspection. He must be more than half scar tissue to make that-
There was a distant thump from the sleeping quarters. The human’s door slammed into it’s slot as the human, previously assumed to be asleep, came flailing out of his room and staggering down the hall towards the recreation area.
“Lehaaaa!”
The human was clearly in that state of both emotional panic and trained response where a being’s sapience had little input on its actions. He appeared to be attempting to pull on his upper layer of thermal insulation as he moved but was wearing neither his lower layer of thermal insulation nor his paw armor.
Base Commander Beater sighed and opened on eye to glare at the approaching mammal.
“What does that word mean?” the Base Commander demanded as the newly arrived human’s behavior caught the attention of the rest of the room.
“I’m not sure it is a full word,” Doctor Drawing said as the human tried to repeat it, adding another sound to the mix.
“Well,” the Base Commander grunted, reclosing his eye, “tell him that-”
The Base Commander gave a disgruntled squwak as the human, now moving more fluidly, swept down on them and snatched up the hefty commander, tucking him under one arm. Doctor Drawing stared up at the human in bemused shock.
“Where’s the nearest high-ground escape route?” the human demanded frantically, his head swiveling around disconcertingly.
“And what exactly are we escaping?” Doctor Drawing asked, fighting back the urge to sniffle in amusement as Base Commander Beater attempted to wriggle out of the human’s massive arms.
“The lahar!” Grimes burst out as if that was explanation alone.
“And what?” Doctor Drawing asked. “Is a lahar?”
The human blinked down at him in blank astonishment even as his hands absently kept the commander trapped to his side.
“The mountain,” the human finally said, and Doctor Drawing was relived to see signs of thought reappearing in his eyes, “it blows, gas escapes, mud, rocks sliding down. So fast. Gotta get to high ground.”
“Ah,” Doctor Drawing felt a vague flicker of understanding.
That had been in his notes as the source of the stress Grimes had come here to recover from. Some natural phenomenon had destroyed no small part of that colony’s food production and Grimes had been responsible for the response. The doctor wasn’t a geologist by any stretch of his tail but it had had something to do with mountains and flows of some sort. The goal now however was to calm his patient and free his commander, not expand his understanding of the natural sciences.
“We need to get to high ground you say?” he asked. “You studied the local terrain coming in. Where is the nearest high ground?”
The human’s face tensed as his attention turned towards his memory. The was the briefest flash of panic on his face and he clutched the commander tighter.
“There is no-” Grimes burst out, and this his voice trailed off as he face contorted with confusion. “Wait…” he said slowly. “If there’s no high ground around here...where’s the mountain that caused the lahar…?”
“That noise you just heard?” Base Commander Beater snapped out in human. “That was the main mill venting excess gas produce.”
The human stared down at the commander and blinked several times before nodding and carefully setting the disgruntled commander down.
“Go to sleep Grimes,” Doctor Drawing said. “We can review the local dangers in the morning.”
The human nodded and somehow leaned his way back to his room. Base Commander Beater gave a low snarl as he pulled himself laboriously back up on the beanbag.
“What are you grumbling about?” Doctor Drawing asked. “Grimes, instinctively offered to carry you out of the way of horrible danger! It was quite touching how fast he bonded with you.”
“Humans carry the old, the sick, and hatchlings,” Base Commander Beater snapped.
“A fairly common priority set for most cultures,” Doctor Drawing pointed out.
The commander grunted and shoved his rather offended snout into the beanbag.
Humans are Weird – Abrasive
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-abrasive
“It is very fortunate for Human Friend Sarah that you were able to come with us,” Rollstight commented as she shuffled into her transport tank. “I could not have acquired nearly so much of the samples she required with my speed over such surfaces.”
Seventh Sister gave an absent click of agreement as she continued picking up the broken fragments of the strange volcanic rock. The fragile specimen had been improperly secured in one of the mass transport’s overhead bins and only the membrane shield she was wearing when it fell had protected her from severe injury. She shifted her head underneath the protective hood and winced as the material rubbed over her antenna tasting of nothing but the synthetic fibers. She tossed the last of the fragments into the carry case and glanced around for any more. She didn’t see any and rose to her full height. She sealed the carry case and watched as Rollstight activated the air filters and the vacuum drone.
When the sensors declared the interior of the transport free of the dangerous fragments of volcanic rock Seventh Sister pulled the membrane shield with a flex of relief. She flared out her frill and extended her antenna several times. She shook out all four legs one at a time and was in the process of giving her abdomen a good flex when Rollstight gave a disgruntled hum. Seventh Sister focused her attention on her and smiled as she saw the many appendages struggling to find purchase on the sides of the tank.
“Do you require assistance?” Seventh Sister asked.
“Yes,” Rollstight admitted. “These old isolation tanks were built too large for the median mass Undulate. Could you go fetch Human Friend Mack?”
“I am capable of assisting you myself,” Seventh Sister assured her.
She tripped lightly up to the tank and offered her forearms as a point of leverage. The Undulate wrapped her gripping appendages around her primary joint politely but seemed hesitant to put any weight on the limb.
“Are you sure you are capable?” Rollstight asked. “I don’t usually climb anyone over Fifth.”
“The strength gradient is negligible between Fifth and Tenth.” Seventh Sister assured her. “And I am well above the mean strength for a Fifth.”
“You are sure of this?” Rollstight pressed. “You are not attempting to prove your usefulness to the collective by risking a stress injury?”
Seventh Sister laid her frill tight against her neck but managed to keep the offense out of her voice.
“I am not a human Rollstight!” she said.
Rollstight gave a hum of apology and held out her gripping appendages. Her weight was slightly painful but, as she had predicted, well within the tolerance of Seventh Sister’s joints. When Rollstight was safely on the floor they began to leave together.
“So what did Human Friend Sarah want with those volcanic rocks?” Rollstight asked.
“I am uncertain,” Seventh Sister said. “She said it could be used in a medical application for the problem she is having with her feet.”
“Oh yes,” Rollstight said. “Her outer membrane cracked and was bleeding if I recall correctly.”
Seventh Sister felt a shudder of horror go through her at the cavalier nature of the statement. How could reasonable people be so calm about membrane damage?
“Yes,” was all she said aloud.
“So dose the volcanic action generate the mineral complex she needs?” Rollstight asked.
“I do not think it is a mineral deficiency she is correcting,” Seventh Sister said. “Her instructions focused on the density of the air pockets in the rock and it’s general density.”
“Hey!” a cheerful human voice called out from the corridor ahead. “Is that my pumice?”
“It is Human Friend Sarah,” Rollstight answered. “We were just wondering what you wanted it for.”
“My feet!” Human Friend Sarah said cheerfully. “Got some nasty calluses from all the hiking we’ve been doing and when they split they took some live skin with them.”
“How will these mineral samples help with that?” Rollstight asked. “Will you need access to the mineral grinders?”
“Grinders?” Human Friend Sarah asked. “Nah, they’re small enough now. I just need one flat surface for the abrasion to work.”
“Abrasion?” Seventh Sister asked as Human Friend Sarah took the sample container.
Rollstight gave a hum of satisfaction and understanding.
“Well I can’t scrape off all that dead skin with cotton,” Human Friend Said with a shrug. “Thanks for getting these for me. Hope it was no trouble.”
Human Friend Sarah gave them a friendly wave as she turned and started back down the corridor. Beside Seventh Sister Rollstight lifted several appendages and waved them idly at the Shatar. Seventh Sister shook out her suddenly stiff frill and glanced down at the Undulate.
“Do you have a question Rollstight?” Seventh Sister managed to ask.
“I have never seen your frill quite that color,” Rollstight observed in surprised tones. “What does it indicate?”
“Emotional shock and some horror,” Seventh Sister admitted. “Possibly disbelief and hopefully lack of understanding.”
“Was it something Human Friend Sarah said?” Rollstight asked.
“She,” Seventh Sister began slowly, dabbing at her eyes rapidly with her proboscis in an attempt to calm herself, “she implied that she was going to use the jagged surface of the volcanic rock to scrape away the outer layer of her membrane.”
“Yes,” Rollstight agreed. “I should have been able to surmise. We do something similar for when our gripping appendages get too rough, but we usually use an abrasive paste. Gripping such a large rock must require gloves if their hands are not equally calloused as their feet.”
Seventh Sister stared down at Rollstight in quiet contemplation. She finally curled her antenna tight to her head and gave her frill a shake.
“I think I need to call my Mother,” she said as she turned and walked down the corridor.
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Humans are Weird – Headlines
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-headlines
Second Sister was nearly to her quarters when Twenty-Five Clicks came darting around the curve of the corridor followed by his entire flight. They were all chattering to each other in their high-pitched language that pinged off her frill and set the tips of her antenna tingling unpleasantly. She suppressed a compression and stepped to the side of the corridor, hoping that their agitation had nothing to do with her.
“Doctor!” Twenty-Five Clicks called out, barely bringing his voice down into a polite range.
Second Sister sighed and laid her frill in a neutral flatness even if she couldn’t quite control the tight curl of her antenna. The Winged were so very impolite. But she had a job to do if they were using her work title instead of her name. She cast a single longing thought towards her comfortable perch in her chambers and then turned her attention to the approaching flight.
“Base commander,” she greeted the Winged.
The thirty-odd little mammals spent a moment vying for the few surfaces on her body where they could perch and then the rest settled for clinging to the walls. They were still chattering worriedly among themselves but now their eyes were focused on their wing leader. Twenty-Five Clicks was clearly taking a moment to compose himself by grooming his sensory horns with his winghooks. Second Sister waited for him to finish with what she hoped was patience. He finally looked up into one of her eyes and took a deep breath. He pointed one wing towards the communal work space.
“Human Friend Pierce,” he finally managed to say.
Second Sister fought the urge to extend her frill and simply began walking in the indicated direction. She should have known it would take some form of human madness to set the Winged to such frantic flight.
“What precisely is the matter with Human Friend Pierce?” she asked.
The Undulate naming system that the Winged had adapted felt sticky on her mandibles, but she knew calling First Brother by his proper name would only confuse the flight of Winged further. They were currently following her by hoping along the catwalks that lined the higher levels of the walls, avoiding flight in order to stay calm and focused. Finally one, presumable the flight medic, managed to speak.
“He has taken severe outer membrane damage,” the medic said.
Second Sister tilted her head at him sharply.
“What wasn’t this called in as a medical emergency?” She asked.
“He insisted he was fine,” Twenty-Five Clicks interjected. “And he is not listed as a stupidly stubborn human in his records. We decided to get you to come analyze the damage before we set the alarms ringing.”
“Reasonable,” Second Sister agreed as she paced along. “Humans are famous for being able to take damage to their outer membranes.”
“Yes,” the flight medic agreed. “They are covered in that forest of micro-fauna that protects them.”
“And they have that massive layer of fat under it all too,” another pointed out.
“Landers,” Twenty-Five Clicks said in a grumbling tone.
“Is there something you are hiding from me?” Second Sister finally asked bluntly.
Tellingly the entire flight fell silent as they approached the door to the communal work area. They glanced back and forth at each other, using their narrow binocular vision to avoid her broad gaze. Finally the medic spoke up.
“We have speculation that we do not wish to share,” he explained, “as it is all but baseless.”
“I would appreciate it,” Second Sister said curtly.
“Well,” the medic squirmed from his perch on her primary joint. “The damage seems to be a reversed image of Undulate text. It appears random-”
“But you fear that he may have deliberately applied the damage to himself,” Second Sister concluded. “That it is some form of ritual scarification?”
An uncomfortable murmur spread through the flight and Twenty-Five Clicks fluffed himself out in indignation.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-cold-shock
Brilliant blue light seared down through the atmosphere, bounced through the leafless branches, and fell, piercing the leg-thick ice beneath them. Around the edge of the small ice field mounds of the dry, fluffy snow formed a perimeter where the clearing process had pushed what had once covered the pond.
First Aunt felt her antenna twitching against the flexible covering that protected them from the Ultraviolet rays. She was mostly certain that the symptom was psychosomatic. She angled her head to take another subtle look at First Sister. The eldest daughter of the tenuous new hive was but half grown. The sturdy green thermal insulation that swathed her from her toes to her antenna tips gave her a comical appearance and from the bulge around her neck her frill kept trying to extend against the material. Her neck tube was nearly slipping out of her lower harness and First Aunt strung a mental line to reset the insulating layers. However First Sister’s antenna were quite still as she stared down in fascination at the ice beneath their feet, suggesting that the bright and cheerful youngster was not feeling the maddening itching.
While First Aunt mulled over this First Sister rotated her body and waved her arm vigorously over her head. First Aunt examined the direction she was waving in and felt a flicker of annoyance as she spotted the local Ranger stomping across the hill just outside the perimeter of their hive. The human, a Seventh Brother, from a hive that had produced no females at all, was notoriously unsociable by not only human but Shatar standards. Neither Mother nor Father had been able to establish social relations with him despite the fact that his last fellow Ranger had departed weeks ago and the Corps had failed to send another. Even their adopted Grandfather had not been able to establish more than a practical trading relationship with the human. The elders of the tribe had tacitly decided to leave any further social interactions to Grandfather. It seemed that the line had not stretched down to the newest generation.
“First Sister!” First Aunt clicked out. “What is the reading on the resivore ice depth there?”
The young one scrambled a bit as she readjusted the probe in her hands. She quickly tapped the ice beneath her and it made an odd report. First Aunt’s antenna twitched hard though she wasn’t quite sure why. The probe made many sounds in response to its sounding. True she had never heard that particular combination of tink, crack, and hiss before, but she was uncertain why it filled her with such unease. Much later, she would explain to Grandfather that it was just a bad noise.
“Two millimeters!” First Sister chirped out.
“That can’t be correct,” First Aunt stated, feeling a surge of irritation. “Take it again-”
Her voice froze as still as the crystallized water around her as the anomalous reading and the strange sound coiled around her antennas.
“Stop!” She snapped out. “Come to me First Sister!”
However it was too late. First Sister had already raised the probe at First Aunt’s order and she could not have redirected the mass if she tried. It struck the ice between her forefeet and once again it made the same strange pattern. There was the tink of the metal tip striking the ice, then the crack came, long and spreading and now clearly from the ice below instead of the probe. However the last sound, the hiss of escaping air turned into a gurgle as the green water of the algal reservoir.
First Aunt scrambled towards her precious little niece, but the bulky thermal insulation slowed her, and the friction pads that kept her legs safe from sliding slowed her more. She watched in horror as First Sister’s fore-legs fell into the broken ice and First Sister chittered in agony. Almost slowly First Sister’s body tipped into the water and disappeared from view in the murky green of the algae and the ice. Despite the insulation something froze in First Aunt’s lungs. She staggered to a stop as it struck her like a blow. There was nothing she could do.
Her fingers picked almost absently at the comm device attached to her external harness. She had to tell First Mother, but what if First Father was there? What if he heard that First Sister was gone? Her fingers found her comm and she activated it, the speaker hummed to life.
“Fourth Cousin….I mean First Aunt!” Third Mother called out, ending with an unprofessional chitter of amusement at her mistake. “What is your status?”
First Aunt opened her mandible to answer but something she had been vaguely aware of suddenly forced itself into her cone of focus. The human ranger had suddenly cut his trail at nearly ninety degrees and had begun sprinting down towards them with long loping strides that lifted his feet cleanly over the snow. He had cleared the perimeter hedge by simply vaulting over it and had begun running over the pond towards the spreading green cracks, speeding up with every stried. He now began to shed the massive insulating layers he wore, dropping them on the ice in a colorful trail. By the time he reached the hole where First Sister had disappeared he was wearing nothing but the thinnest of wicking layers. He never paused as he reached the hole, instead he leapt in feat first.
“First Aunt!” Third Mother was demanding in frantic clicks. “What is going on? Why did you-”
“First Sister fell through the ice!” First Aunt was suddenly able to move and speak again.
A hissing chitter of horror came over the comm. First Aunt was scrambling towards the hole in the ice now as a faint sprout of hope bloomed in her frill.
“Human Seventh Brother has gone after her!” First Aunt explained quickly.
A chatter of frantic voices came over the line.
“I can’t understand you!” First Aunt snapped out. “Please have Fifth Cousin, I mean Second Aunt come out with the heavy mass transporter and all able bodied Cousins, Aunts, who can fully insulate themselves!”
There was an abrupt silence from the other end of the comms and then Grandfather’s soothing old voice came on.
“The orders have been given,” he stated. “Now can you tell me-”
But First Aunt cut him off with a frantic chitter. First Sister, at least her body, suddenly burst out of the water, held aloft in the massive hand of the human. With a mighty heave he tossed her out of the greenish water and onto the hard surface of the ice where she lay curled as tightly as if she had been hours dead instead of moving freely and joyously only moments before. First Aunt ran up to her and gently rotated the small body.
“First Sister is out of the water,” she said into the comms. “She is cold and stiff-”
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Humans are Weird – Headlines
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-headlines
Second Sister was nearly to her quarters when Twenty-Five Clicks came darting around the curve of the corridor followed by his entire flight. They were all chattering to each other in their high-pitched language that pinged off her frill and set the tips of her antenna tingling unpleasantly. She suppressed a compression and stepped to the side of the corridor, hoping that their agitation had nothing to do with her.
“Doctor!” Twenty-Five Clicks called out, barely bringing his voice down into a polite range.
Second Sister sighed and laid her frill in a neutral flatness even if she couldn’t quite control the tight curl of her antenna. The Winged were so very impolite. But she had a job to do if they were using her work title instead of her name. She cast a single longing thought towards her comfortable perch in her chambers and then turned her attention to the approaching flight.
“Base commander,” she greeted the Winged.
The thirty-odd little mammals spent a moment vying for the few surfaces on her body where they could perch and then the rest settled for clinging to the walls. They were still chattering worriedly among themselves but now their eyes were focused on their wing leader. Twenty-Five Clicks was clearly taking a moment to compose himself by grooming his sensory horns with his winghooks. Second Sister waited for him to finish with what she hoped was patience. He finally looked up into one of her eyes and took a deep breath. He pointed one wing towards the communal work space.
“Human Friend Pierce,” he finally managed to say.
Second Sister fought the urge to extend her frill and simply began walking in the indicated direction. She should have known it would take some form of human madness to set the Winged to such frantic flight.
“What precisely is the matter with Human Friend Pierce?” she asked.
The Undulate naming system that the Winged had adapted felt sticky on her mandibles, but she knew calling First Brother by his proper name would only confuse the flight of Winged further. They were currently following her by hoping along the catwalks that lined the higher levels of the walls, avoiding flight in order to stay calm and focused. Finally one, presumable the flight medic, managed to speak.
“He has taken severe outer membrane damage,” the medic said.
Second Sister tilted her head at him sharply.
“What wasn’t this called in as a medical emergency?” She asked.
“He insisted he was fine,” Twenty-Five Clicks interjected. “And he is not listed as a stupidly stubborn human in his records. We decided to get you to come analyze the damage before we set the alarms ringing.”
“Reasonable,” Second Sister agreed as she paced along. “Humans are famous for being able to take damage to their outer membranes.”
“Yes,” the flight medic agreed. “They are covered in that forest of micro-fauna that protects them.”
“And they have that massive layer of fat under it all too,” another pointed out.
“Landers,” Twenty-Five Clicks said in a grumbling tone.
“Is there something you are hiding from me?” Second Sister finally asked bluntly.
Tellingly the entire flight fell silent as they approached the door to the communal work area. They glanced back and forth at each other, using their narrow binocular vision to avoid her broad gaze. Finally the medic spoke up.
“We have speculation that we do not wish to share,” he explained, “as it is all but baseless.”
“I would appreciate it,” Second Sister said curtly.
“Well,” the medic squirmed from his perch on her primary joint. “The damage seems to be a reversed image of Undulate text. It appears random-”
“But you fear that he may have deliberately applied the damage to himself,” Second Sister concluded. “That it is some form of ritual scarification?”
An uncomfortable murmur spread through the flight and Twenty-Five Clicks fluffed himself out in indignation.
“Human Friend Pierce is an exemplary Ranger,” he snapped. “He would not waste time on personal decoration of any sort while on duty.”
“And this occurred while he was on duty?” Second Sister asked.
“Yes,” the medic hurriedly interjected. “He went into the tactile isolation console to work on his Undulate translation and had the damage when he came out.”
“I thought he was doing field work today?” Second Sister asked.
“He had a bad night,” Twenty-Five clicks explained. “Something to do with digestion and that new plant protein he tried yesterday, and he didn’t feel that he was competent to maneuver the transport safely. So he decided to work on his training.”
Second Sister clicked thoughtfully to herself as she opened the door. First Brother was at the far side of the large open space sipping a cup of the common human stimulant. He was slumping against the counter in that nearly Undulate way humans had when they were extremely tired. She eyed him critically.
- continued in next comment-
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Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-nap-time
The afternoon sun gleamed pink on the various species using the recreation area by the gently flowing creek. One human lay sprawled in the silty sand and a pair of Undulates were shuffeling busily around in the water a few meters from her.
“Is it really wise to interfere in this matter?” Rollslowly asked.
“Human Friend Sally specifically requested this,” Shiftsleft replied as he adjusted the throwing stick in his appendages.
“Regardless,” Rollslowly said, “this seems unsafe.”
“I told you,” Shiftsleft replied. “That is why I am using globules of filtered clay. The density is so low that it could impact her in an open eye and not cause permanent damage. In fact it is the temperature differential caused by the water that will cause the useful discomfort.”
“I was not referring to her safety,” Rollslowly interjected, “have you read the profile for a human coming unexpectedly out of sleep state?”
“Yes, yes,” Shiftsleft said with a dismissive wave of one of his few appendages not involved in the aiming process. “Five seconds is the absolute maximum danger time. At this distance we are so far out of her strike range that she would be fully awake and aware long before she could get her hands on us. And I don’t need to mention again that this service was a specific request on her part as one friend to another.”
“No you don’t need to mention that yet again,” Rollslowly admitted with a little groan as he saw that the throwing stick was finally aligned to Shiftsleft’s liking. “I still maintain that she was simply making a humorous and rhetorical comment.”
“Sound this,” Shiftsleft said. “We both know that a nap this late in the circadian cycle will throw off Human Friend Susan’s sleep cycle for days.”
He spasmed around the throwing stick, launching the blob of wet clay on an arc into the air. Rollslowly shuddered at the unnatural movement both of his friend and the clay. It splatted down on the other side of the human earning only a slight twitch on her part.
“Less power,” Shiftsleft observed. “As I was saying. When a human’s sleep cycle is disturbed they become not only less of an asset but nearly a liability.”
“That can be true,” Rollslowly admitted as the second glob of clay fell on the near side of the human.
“Human Friend Sally knows this,” Shiftsleft went on, “and thus requested that we wake her very specifically from ‘outside of her strike range’ if she fell asleep in the afternoon again.”
“This still seems wrong somehow,” Rollslowly said as Human Friend Sally began to shift and turned to stare at the place the last glop had fallen.
The final glop arced into the air and fell with a plop onto her nose. Her reaction was fascinating. She spasmed once, her hands came up to claw at her face in an attempt to removed the glop, and she emitted one of those predatory sounds that were so universally feared. Rollslowly believed it was called a snarl. He noted that Shiftsleft was slowly easing back into the deeper water of the stream.
“Are you not going to wait for Human Friend Sally to acknowledge her gratitude?” Rollslowly asked as he followed his friend.
“I think it would be best to accept that gratitude from out of strike range as well,” Shiftsleft replied.
“It has been far longer than five seconds,” Rollslowly observed. “In fact I think she does not even know we were the source of the action.”
“I have been told humans like mystery,” Shiftsleft said.
“Then by all means,” Rollslowly said watching as Human Friend Sally was vigorously cleaning her nose in the water of the shallows, “let’s leave her with the mystery.”
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Humans are Weird Book Series
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-tomorrow
Exploratory Ranger Chch’ch paused as he removed the final layer of his body armor and slowly rotated his head to stare at the glowing polygon that rose in a squat tower over their housing spires in the deep darkness of the surrounding forest. He centered it in his primary focus angled his body curiously as he took in the shadows that played over the wall. A table. The angular lines were clearly the shadow cast by one of the massive tables the human used. The lesser lines of shadow wold be the chair the human perched on. The rounded shapes bent between them would be the human.
“Sterilization bay is ready for cephal-plates,” Ranger Tstk’tk clicked, holding his paws out for the carapace.
Chch’ch handed it over to be put in the sterilization pod but didn’t turn his main attention away from the human. The massive mammal was occasionally moving. Subtle shifting of his gripping appendages suggested he was manipulating something with his spindly, hairless paws, but the shadows didn’t hold enough form data to make it clear what he was doing exactly.
“Ranger Tstk’tk,” Chch’ch said slowly. “I was under the impression that Ranger Boitumelo would be leading our efforts to breach the northern wall tomorrow.”
“That’s what the assignment web’s said for the past week,” the older ranger agreed as he began stacking leg plates into the scrubbers.
He carefully placed the curved plates on the separators and closed the lid with a satisfied set to his chelicerae. The scrubbers hummed to life as the stripped the clinging biomatter of the armor. The older ranger rotated to look at Chch’ch and his balding chelicerae twitched in irritation.
“Got another question?” the older Ranger asked, almost respectfully.
“I was also under the impression that humans required eight hours of sleep to function safely,” Chch’ch observed, feeling his hairs bristle in irritation.
The older ranger’s chelicerae rotated in a distinctly irritated gesture and he turned to putting the paw booties on their radiation racks.
“Ranger Tstk’tk?” Chch’ch pressed, turning his primary eyes on him.
“That,” the older ranger said as he expertly stretched the booty over the mount, “was not a question.”
“Shouldn’t the human be asleep?” Chch’ch asked, making sure to emphasize the intonation.
The old ranger shrugged several shoulders and waved a paw dismissively before returning to his work. With a huff from his main lung Chch’ch shook out his legs and trotted to the edge of the sanitation platform. To be fair it wasn’t Ranger Tstk’tk’s business to tend to the sleep habits of the newer rangers. No, that duty fell to the ranking Ranger regardless of age or experience, and a seasoned exploratory ranger had rank over pretty much everyone.
Chch’ch took the ladder to the skybridge that attached to the peak of the glowing human habitat. The cool night wind, scented with every trace of an alien forest brushed lazily over his legs and abdomen. After spending the majority of the evening in the armor it felt heavenly if a bit chilly this far above the ground. He reached the door set into the peak of the human’s structure and entered the warm still air by the central light with a sigh. He pulled his legs up in his best, officer of rank position and prepared to click out a greeting. Only to deflate as Ranger Boitumelo leapt up from his table and bolted out the human sized door the the structure, leaving them flapping in the breeze.
“Of course,” Chch’ch clicked, rubbing his face in annoyance.
He decided to enter the habitat rather than attempt chasing after the human. Experience told him the human was either rushing to the facilities to excrete waste, or would be tearing around the inside of the perimeter fence to burn excess energy. Chch’ch stared down at there the human had been sitting at the table and saw the Ranger’s personal tablet open and lit with lines of rigid human text. Curious, Chch’ch descended from the entrance down the wall and came to rest on the table. The metadata visible at the margin of the tablet suggested this was a fictional story. Chch’ch had just parsed out the words for ‘tree’ and ‘planet’ when the air in the structure whirled like a cyclone as the human burst in, face alight with some wild delight and eyes roving the room, unfocused but seeming to search.
“Ranger Boitumelo!” Chch’ch snapped out.
The human gave a start, and his gaze snapped to focus on Chch’ch.
“Hey’ya!” the human burst out,, took a deep breath, visibly centered himself, and flashed his internal mandible protuberance in a gesture of delight.
“Ranger Chch’ch,” Boitumelo managed the more formal greeting. “What can I do for you?”
“Assure me that you will be functional when you escort Beta Squad into unexplored territory when the suns rise,” Chch’ch stated, deciding to get to the point.
The human blinked at him for much longer than the merely polite six second pause demanded before glancing down at his data pad with a rueful grin.
“That late is it?” the human asked. “Yeah, I’ll be fine tomorrow boss. I’m young and my body can take it.”
“Why must your body, ‘take it’”? Chch’ch demanded still feeling a bit testy.
The human’s grin widened and he pointed at the data pad.
“New book from home,” he explained. “Came in the last data transmission. My kid sister sent it . I was just going to read one chapter before bed, but you know-”
The human waved one of his massive appendages as if he really did expect Chch’ch to ‘know’.
“I expect you to be honest about your status tomorrow morning Ranger,” Chch’ch finally said.
“Will do boss!” the human stated as he turned off the datapad and started shucking his thermal armor. “And don’t worry! I’ll be bright eyed and bushy tailed!”
Chch’ch turned to climb back up the wall and leave the way he came. This humans was supposed to be fully neurologically developed. He idly wondered if disrupting your sleep cycle for a new book was culturally acceptable in this human’s swarm, or if he had been sent a trouble maker. However the dawn would tell and he had a hammock to sink into.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-gnawing
Above the canopy of the deep summer-gourd orchard the air grew hotter as the rays of sunlight fell nearly directly down the planet’s gravity well. With each layer of emerald green leave the light diffused and the temperature dropped until the open forest floor where even the impressively endothermic humans found the temperature cool, if the light dim.
Notes the Passing Changes had been tremendously busy for weeks in the spring, setting up monitoring nodes, distributing nutrients as he saw fit, and trying to integrate the other species’ needs into the overall plans as well. Of course the great orchard needed very little attention by this point. The Gathering had been nurturing it for tree generations and it now was mature enough to make it’s own decisions most of the time. However the younger orchards the humans had planted, the Shatar gardens, and the ever disturbed pathways and road needed constant attention as the seasons changed, but now even those had slowed down. The summer crop plants were progressing with only minor losses to predators. The autumn crop plants were singing out their pheromones to summon pollinators and the flitting creatures responded eagerly. All the fibers led to the conclusions that Notes the Passing Changes could ease down a bit and rest, perhaps only tending to lower priority issues, such as making sure the summer-gourd orchard was producing enough fruits.
Nearly three days ago Notes the Passing Changes had begun sending more mass into the thin duff that covered the bed of the deep orchard, being sure to focus any tender tendrils in the fallen logs and branches and the soil just under them. Before all of the companion species had arrived Notes the Passing Changes would have simply evenly distributed awareness throughout the bed of rich detritus, but the reptilian folk dug long shallow trenches with their dragging tails and the pounding feet of the humans somehow never managed to say on the paths. In the end there had been no point in trying to contain them. Mindfully arranging tendrils in safe little micro climates was a far easier process and the summer-gourd orchard came into focus.
It was a popular place when the sunbeams angled straight down. The tripping sound of little feet announced the presence of a rather large cluster of Shatar cousins scampering about from tree to tree, pausing at one, and then hurrying on to another. Notes the Passing Changes vaguely recalled that a local First Father had requested permission to send an educational group out to collect immature specimens for some learning project or another. Near the center of the orchard, where the progenitor tree had once stood and which was now a soft and level surface a group of humans seemed to be actively disturbing as much of the duff as they could. Two clusters of humans would suddenly charge each other, colliding like cloud masses, struggling for a bit, and then falling back apart. Occasionally an odd oblong shape they collectively held would thump to the ground. Occasionally a human would run into a tree.
Notes the Passing Changes focused attention on the signals from the trees. They felt not distress at the collisions and were quite stimulated by the excess carbon dioxide and the incidental surprise nitrogen deposits. There were a few older trees that would soon cull themselves, but they would probably last a few more seasons. About half of the trees were actively producing fruit while the other half rested this season. All told it was well within expectations and Notes the Passing Changes let attention diffuse and began looking for a change to interact with one of the neighbors. The Shatar young ones were entirely focused on what their elder sister was saying. The scrimmaging group of humans did consist of several the Gathering knew, including Notes the Passing Changes’s particular friend Pat, but they were quite focused on whatever they were doing. There were many individual humans scattered throughout the orchard but most of them were dormant with the temperature this high and the sunlight at this angle. However there was one human who was quite active, though she was sitting on one of the logs Notes the Passing Changes was diffused into.
The human female was within sight of the scrimmaging group as far as Notes the Passing Changes could tell but she wasn’t looking at them. She had a physical data storage device laying on the surface her bent legs made as she sat. Her eyes were running over the inscriptions on the surface and her lips moved slowly though she was not producing any vocal sounds. As Notes the Passing Changes observed one of her hands drifted down and began groping around the log. She then turned her attention to the surface and frowned as she began prodding at the log in a more purposeful way. Notes the Passing Changes assumed she was looking for the writing stylus that was sitting beside her on the log. She most likely couldn’t see it because of the dim level of light so far beneath the canopy. The Gathering extended a thickened tendril and lifted the stylus up.
“Sandy-” Notes the Passing Changes began.
Sandy started and gave a small gasp.
“I am quite sorry,” Notes the Passing Changes said to the woman who was breathing heavily now. “I did not mean to startle you.”
“Ye didnae,” she said, with a grin. “Nae pure anyhow.”
“Then why is your language reverting to your native dialect?” Notes the Passing Changes asked, rotating the stylus in a tendril, feeling the pitted surface.
Sandy blinked down at the tendril for several moments and then burst into laughter.
“Go dook yourself!” she said.
Sandy then drew in a great lungful of air and smiled down at the bed of the forest. When she spoke her voice had reverted to the usual tones of a trained Survey Core Ranger.
“Maybe you did startle me a little,” she confessed, “but the occasional startle is good for the soul. Thanks for finding my scribbler. It’s dark down here.”
She held out her hand and Notes the Passing Changes placed the stylus in her palm.
“What do the markings on your, scribbler, indicate?” the Gathering asked.
She glanced at it and frowned.
“What markings?” she asked.
“The deep groves near the end,” Notes the Passing Changes said.
Sandy ran her thumb over the groves and her face broke out in a grin.
“That’s just where I chew on it while I’m editing,” she explained.
“What nutrients do you extract from the stylus?” Notes the Passing Changes asked, growing more interested.
“Nae a bit,” the human replied with a laugh. “It’s just something I do, helps me focus.”
“How does chewing on the stylus do that?” Notes the Passing Changes asked.
Sandy stared down at the forest bed for a long moment and then heaved a massive sigh.
“A dinnae ken,” she finally said. “A jus dinnae ken.”
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Humans are Weird – Cravings
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-cravings
“Human Friend O’Leary,” Trs’kts called out. “It is our designated break time. Would you like to accompany me to the beverage dispenser in order to stretch our motile appendages?”
Human Friend O’Leary twitched sudden at Trs’kts’s voice but glanced down at him with a strained smile.
“Sure Trs’kts,” he said as his hands flew over the control panel, closing out his program and shutting down his computer.
Trs’kts wondered at that. So far every human he had seen in a professional situation took the time to completely lock down the terminal they were on before they left it even for a short time. The behavior seemed rather unnecessary and wasteful of time, but it was not what had the Trisk concerned today.
The human finished the task and leaned back in his chair. He indulged in a period of prolonged, slow movement where he extended and contracted symmetrical muscle groups to their full extent before standing. The humans called it stretching and it seemed necessary to their muscle function. Then the human extended his hand for Trs’kts to walk out on.
“So how are you feeling this work cycle?” Trs’kts asked as he settled himself down on the human’s broad shoulder.
“Eh, so-so,” the human said, dipping his shoulders in a sudden shrug.
Trs’kts was very experienced in riding humans and he compensated for the movement easily enough. It was not the shrug that disturbed him but the humans response. Humans, and Human Friend O’Leary in particular, were notorious for exaggerating their sense of well being. If he were admitting that some part of his experience was unpleasant then he was probably experiencing some severe discomfort.
“May I ask what the positive element of the so-so is?” Trs’kts asked as the approached the water dispenser.
“The usual, I guess,” Human Friend O’Leary said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
“I like all you little guys. I get plenty of human interaction in the other departments. Got an actual physical letter from my buddy Jim back on Terra.”
Trs’kts clicked in sudden delight.
“Do you plan on sharing it with the rest of us during the sharing time tonight?” Trs’kts asked.
Human Friend O’Leary’s facial muscles gave the tiniest twitch of unease at the question.
“Of course the sharing sessions are not mandatory,” Trs’kts quickly assured him. “If the letter is too intimate-”
“Nah,” Human Friend O’Leary said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Nothing like that. It’s a perfectly un-intimate letter. Mostly reminiscing over old times you know. We were in a little garage band together as kids. He was on drums.”
“What was the purpose of the band?” Trs’kts asked curiously.
“We played music together,” Human Friend O’Leary said. “We weren’t all that good but we had a fun time.”
“That sounds enchanting,” Trs’kts said with a delighted skitter as Human Friend O’Leary sipped his water.
The human smiled and then his eyes drifted to the middle distance and he sighed. Trs’kts decided that the subtle approach hadn’t worked and prepared to jump right in.
“If the letter contained no disturbing information then why are you so disturbed Human Friend O’Leary?” Trs’kts asked as they headed back to the desk.
“Say what?” Human Friend O’Leary asked.
“You have been distracted and twitchy all day,” Trs’kts observed.
“Yeesh,” the human ducked his head and rubbed the back of it uneasily. “That obvious huh?”
“Indeed,” Trs’kts said.
“Well no problem,” Human Friend O’Leary said. “The reason why I’m staying home tonight from the sharing session is to get it out of my system.”
“Get what exactly out of your system?” Trs’kts asked.
“The hunger,” Human Friend O’Leary said, his voice deep with earnestness.
Trs’kts mulled over this while they went back to their work station.
“I was under the impression that it was unwise for humans to eat just before going dormant,” he observed.
Human Friend O’Leary laughed and shook his head as he deposited Trs’kts down at his work station.
“Different kind of hunger lil’bud,” he said. “We were in a band. Jim was on the drums and I was guitar. Some days I just need to play.”
Human Friend O’Leary’s fingers suddenly began the strange twitching pattern they had been attempting to complete all day and the human hummed out a few notes.
“The music gets in you,” the human with on with a far off look in his eyes. “It wants to get out.”
Trs’kts stared at him uneasily but the human shook himself and grinned down at the Trisk.
“Not to worry little bud,” he said with a dismissive wave. “I just let myself go too long without breaking out the old six string and giving her a spin. I’ll tune her up and be back to normal by tomorrow.”
Trs’kts idly wondered if ‘normal’ for a human meant something less confusing than the concepts that Human Friend O’Leary had just expressed.
Humans are Weird – Fluffel Bums
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-fluffel-bums“
“The last shipment of feed was contaminated,” Human Friend Ellen announced as she joined them at the table.
The gathering of Trisk turned towards her in varying degrees of annoyance and perturbation. One the one leg that was a very concerning state of events for the complication plagued research station. On every other leg, Human Friend Ellen had worked with the Trisk for more than long enough to know and respect their taboos on interrupting. However as she slung her leg over the bench her bi-focal gaze was fixed grimly on the tablet she had dropped on the surface. Grs’tkr mimicked a sigh to the best of his ability and took the situation in his gripping appendages.
“We would appreciate the details of that statement,” Grs’tkr said.
“It’s the grains for the fluffel bums,” Human Friend Ellen said. “A silicate fungus got past the quarantine somehow. Seventh Sister discovered it while it was still in quarantine so it hasn’t affected our existing stores but we don’t dare use any of the shipment now. It’s jumped three bulkheads that we’ve seen so we have to assume that the whole shipment is contaminated.”
The table fell into silence as the gathered agricultural experts considered this. Half of them were clearly bristling at Human Friend Ellen’s rudeness. Finally Grs’tkr spoke.
“Human Friend Ellen,” he said in careful tones, “I have a question.”
“No, we can’t feed it to the fluffel bums anyway,” she interjected. “The fungus won’t kill them but the build up over time will cause impaction in their guts.”
“But Human Friend Ellen,” Grs’tkr tried again.
“And we could try sprouting the so-far-untouched grains but we think that will only increase the growth rate for the fungus,” Human Friend Ellen went on.
The gathered Trisk waited for her to gather her thoughts, watching her will all of their forward facing eyes. Humans really were a force of nature. Nothing stopped them. Finally Grs’tkr spoke, firmly and quickly.
“Human Friend Ellen! What is a fluffel bum?” he demanded.
“Huh?” Human Friend Ellen stared at him and blinked a few times.
“What is a fluffel bum?” Grs’tkr asked.
“You know,” Human Friend Ellen said with a vague wave in the direction of the coops. “The chickens.”
“If you meant the chickens,” Grs’tkr said carefully, “why did you call them fluffel bums?”
“Just look at ‘em,” Human Friend Ellen said, her face spreading into a grin. “Their bums are like seventy percent fluff!”
The Trisk continued to stare at her waiting for explanation, but her eyes had dropped down to the tablet and she began muttering to herself about desiccants and grain yield.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-pop-ups
The bright noonday sun shown down on the recreation area. Travel streams wandered lazily around the various surfaces before gathering in a central pool. The water sparkled with artificial cleanliness as it moved and Seventh Flap wrinkled his nose-flaps in irritation at the near blinding light it reflected. He supposed the health regulations required sterile waterways but it was so clearly unnatural that it set his sensory horns tingling. He gave the horns an idle rub with one wing hook as he used the other to position the meal orb better in his teeth.
The orb was a positive delight compared to the usual half formed buds they got at their home station. It tasted tree-grown. No matter what the nutritionists said about chemical content he could always taste the difference between tree and vat grown batches. He idly rotated the orb, licking up the outer layer as the fluid beaded on the side.
His attention was drawn to a pair of humans who appeared to be sneaking across the recreations yard. The sight of a sneaking human was always entertaining to watch. The behemoths shouldn’t have any chance of stealth, and yet a well trained human could move below the ambient sound threshold with surprising ease. He grinned as he listened to their whispered conversation. These were clearly not well trained.
The humans were crouched down below the ridge of one of the artificial hills. They were clearly not bothering to hide themselves from anyone at elevation so the object of their focus must be fairly low. There were no Shatar on the grounds at the moment and the Gathering were so oblivious in this kind of sunlight that there would be no reason to sneak around them. Seventh Flap followed their trajactory for a moment and then followed it out.
As he had expected there was a pair of Undulates ambling along the edge of a stream on the other side of the ridge from the humans. Adding the vectors made it clear that the humans intended to intercept them where the long hill ended.
Seventh Flap gave his meal orb another lick and the taste came up empty. He grunted and tucked the empty orb into his carry pouch. He took to wing and caught a thermal that allowed him to perch with a much better view of the vector meet.
The humans had paused and pulled something out of a sack. They looked like helmets of some sort. They had clearly been modified to resemble the gaping maw of some predatory species. The humans dawned the helmets and dropped down resting their hands on the ground.
Seventh Flap started up in astonishment. The literature on humans, and everything he had personally seen. Indicated that they were strictly bipedal. But these two were scrambling along as easily as any Gathering. They had altered their vectors several times by this point and he was beginning to suspect he was wrong about their intended destination but they increased their horizontal speed and reached the end of the hill several body lengths ahead of the Undulated. There the humans stopped and crouched in a predatory manner.
Seventh Flap felt a prickle of unease run across his horns. While he didn’t know any of the individuals involved he was fairly certain that the humans bore the Undulates no ill will. However that was a very predatory pose. He shook out his horns and firmly reminded himself that if a human wanted to harm an Undulate they hardly needed to sneak up on them to do it. Still he watched closer. The Undulates rounded the curve of the hill and the humans pounced.
That is to say they both pounced about three wings forward, raised their hands over their heads, and emitted a low rumbling sound. The Undulates idly turned to the humans and gave a happy sort of wriggle in greeting. The humans stood there uncertainly and finally returned the gesture with a wave. The darker Undulate lifted a few appendages curiously.
“Is this the normal greeting for your subculture Human Acquaintance Smythe?” the Undulate asked. “I have not seen one like it before.”
“Ah, no,” the human replied in a surprised tone.
“Well thank you for sharing a rare greeting with us,” the Undulate replied. “My colleague regrets that she cannot converse with you but she has not yet learned English.”
“No probs,” the human reassured them. “Have fun on your amble.”
After a few more cursory exchanges the Undulates did indeed continue on. The humans stood there a few moments longer before taking off the modified helmets and exchanging confused glances. Seventh Flap was feeling generous now that he had a full belly and decided to relieve their confusion. He took to wing and came up behind them, making sure to stay in the overlap of their blind spots. He went into a glide just outside of their hearing and dove. The humans were caught completely unaware as he latched onto the center of one’s back.
The human’s response was more than satisfactory. Seventh Flap wasn’t aware that grown human males could generate sounds that high in the register. The reaction was however short lived, and the scream quickly turned to laughter.
“Who are you?” demanded the other human.
“I am Seventh Flap,” he replied. “And I thought I’d answer your question.”
“What question was that?” the human he was clinging to asked.
“Why you failed to get a jump reaction out of the Undulates,” Seventh Flap explained as he detached and circled them until one held out a hand for him to perch on.
“Yeah?” the human who he landed on replied. “Why was that? Did they see us coming?”
“No,” Seventh Flap replied. “Your stealth was more than sufficient for an Undulate.”
“Then why?” the human asked with a wave in the direction of the still ambling Undulates.
“There are no predator species on their planet,” Seventh Flap explained, pulling his faced into a smug grin. “They have no jump scare reflex. I must say it will be nice to have people we can really play with on the base now.”
He took off to let them ponder that. As he flew out of hearing range he heard one human say to the other.
“What did we just get ourselves into?”
Humans are Weird – Blood in the Water
Short Scifi Story
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-blood-in-the-water
Quilx’tch was quite muzzy from sleep and stared down in perplexity at the water catch basin in front of him. He hiked up his comforter around him, blocking off the fuzzy view of the rest of the massive cleansing room provided for human use. The catch basin really should not be that color, he finally decided, feeling a bit proud of himself for forcing the thought up through layers of sleep deprivation. A stray thought thread suggested that he really should have petitioned the central university for this sector for that assistant when he had the chance, but the blood-berries had been blooming in the south slopes and none of the preservation techniques this base had access to would have preserved the protein structures quite right.
Quilx’tch brushed the pad of one paw over his primary eyes to dismiss the stray wisps of thought.
“I’m getting as bad as Human Friend Scotty,” he said ruefully.
Another stray thought tried to lead him down the path of wondering if human behavior contain was playing a role in his current state.
“It was not as if my University time showed much better behavior,” he clicked to himself idly.
Bloodberries. Yes, the humans called them that because their eyes showed the glittering orbs as a single color. They claimed it was the same color as their primary circulatory fluid. Now, Quilx’tch wondered why he was thinking of that as he stared down at the discolored catch basin.
The material for the catch basin had been harvested from the local rocks. Human Friend Scotty had eagerly explained the process.
“We used to have to carve things like this out of larger chunks of rock,” the human had said. “Now we just grind up the fragments til we get the size we want and then we micro-compress them into shape. Folks like it because it looks like rough granite, smooth with shiny bits inside”
Quilx’tch now stared at the shiny bits visible under the coating of fluid.
“I think,” Quilx’tch said to himself, feeling a bit uneasy. “The humans would also call that blood red.”
He pondered what the substance might be as he walked across the edge of the cold catch basin to gather up his grooming brush and chelicerae pick. He gently pushed the comforter back, letting the harsh cleansing room light sting his secondary eyes as he gently brushed out his hairs. He found his gaze repeated drawn back to the layer of bio-matter, or at least he thought it was bio-matter, in the catch basin. Usually Human Friend Scotty was quite careful about cleaning up after himself. So it might not be biomatter after all. Though Quilx’tch couldn’t imagine what Human Friend Scotty would have been doing this early in the morning in the cleansing room. His grooming finished he gathered up his comforter and trotted out to the main sleeping area, massive to his scale, but seeming quite filled by the mass of the human who was currently wriggling into his day clothes.
Quilx’tch scampered over the spider-walk along the wall and tucked his comforter back into his hammock while Human Friend Scotty arranged his protective outer layers against his hairless skin. That task seemingly complete the human reached down for his foot armor and proceed with a Trisk-check. Quilx’tch couldn’t help chuckling anew at that. Why the humans were, to a person, convinced that his kind liked to hide in there foot armor was a mystery, but one that provided far too much amusement on distant base to be probed into too abruptly. That final ceremony over Human Friend Scotty set his binocular vision sniping around the room to locate him.
Quilx’tch waved to catch the humans attention.
“Tiny spider friend on his bunk,” the human stated in the dim but satisfied tone of one fulfilling a checklist.
“Human Friend Scotty,” Quilx’tch interjected.
He knew that if he did not catch the human’s attention quickly at this time of day nothing would keep the human from bolting for the coffee that was brewing in the cafeteria once Human Friend Scotty had located him.
Now the human visible paused in his preparation to lumber out the door of their room.
“What’s up little guy?” the human asked, fighting back a yawn.
“Why is the catch basin in the cleansing room the color of bloodberries?” Quilx’tch asked.
Human Friend Scotty blinked slowly as he processed the question. Then his face flexed and his chin lifted with a grin as he clearly parsed the answer.
“I forgot to rinse out the sink after brushing my teeth this morning!” he said. “Sorry bud!”
The human turned swiftly and went into the cleansing room, which soon emitted the sounds of rushing water. The human came out still grinning.
“All clean!” He declared. “Won’t happen again!”
“Thank you,” Quilx’tch said, feeling distinctly uneasy now. “However that was not my question.”
“Thecolor?” Human Friend Scotty asked in surprise. “That was just my blood.”
The human stared at him with expectancy as he waited the polite six seconds to reply. Quilx’tch felt himself “puffing up” as the humans called it and Human Friend Scotty’s expression rapidly morphed form expectant to concerned.
“Why,” Quilx’tch asked carefully, “were you bleeding into the catch basin this morning as you cleaned your teeth.”
Human Friend Scotty’s face lit up with in the way that Quilx’tch was beginning to understand meant the human had an easy answer to a question.
“You remember I accidentally broke my sonic cleaner?” he asked.
Quilx’tch replied in the affirmative. Watching the human first fumble and drop the item on the floor. Then kick it into the far wall, only to finally step on it, damaging both the device and his foot in the process had been very educational on the value of the spider walks the humans insisted on installing in jointly occupied bases.
“And I told you that I would be switching to the old fashioned method of teeth cleaning?” Human Friend Scotty went on.
“Mechanical friction and chemical layering with a brush applicator,” Quilx’tch replied, bobbing his head in a yes gesture.
“Well, you always bleed a little when you switch back,” Human Friend Scotty said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Sorry I forgot to warn you about it, and sorry I forgot to clean my blood out of the sink after.”
Human Friend Scotty seemed to consider this revelation the end of the conversation and without waiting so much as a second for a response turned and left the room, presumably in search of coffee. Quilx’tch paused, waiting for him to come back and explain...something...anything more about the situation. But the door of their room stayed stubbornly closed.
Quilx’tch took a deep breath and ran his paws over his primary eyes.
“Right,” he said to the empty air. “First I will speak to the base medic. Then breakfast.”
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-personnel-protection
“Ah yes! Ranger Third Class Smitty,” Commander Third Trill called from the window over his door. “Could I talk to you for a moment?”
Ranger Smitty tried to hide his wince before he turned and smiled up at the base commander.
“Sure thing boss,” he said, remembering to let his grin show in a flash of white teeth against dark skin.
The Winged on this base were pretty dang stubborn about ‘integrating properly’ as they put it and took offense if the human personnel tried to restrain or otherwise hide their normal reactions. Granted when the base commander asked to ‘talk to you’ in that tone it was never a reason to grin but politeness and all that. He tried not to slouch or slink as he walked into the commander’s office.
“Please have a perch,” Commander Third Trill said with a gesture at the office furniture that looked like a chair that had been built in the dark from instructions in a language the carpenter didn’t fully understand.
Ranger Smitty eased down onto the flattest surface and gave the commander a strained smile. The Winged gave his sensory horns a quick rub with his winghooks before giving Ranger Smitty a toothy smile.
“How have you been?” the commander asked.
Ranger Smitty winced at the high pitched tone but held his smile.
“Pretty good, pretty good,” he said.
“Have you found you work satisfactory and fulfilling?” the commander asked.
“I love working with the big sensor sets,” Ranger Smitty said with full honestly.
“Is your supervisor being as helpful as she might be?” the commander pressed.
“Eighth Sister?” Ranger Smitty blinked in surprise. “Yeah, she’s great. She’s always right out there with me. Not much anyone else on the base can do for the big rigs. Those skinny little bug arms of hers are pretty strong all things considered.”
“She provides you with all the personal protective equipment that you need?” the commander went on.
Ranger Smitty gave a snort of laughter.
“More than enough,” he said. “I don’t use half the junk she packs in the rigs for the field day.”
Commander Third Trill’s black eyes narrowed meaningfully and Ranger Smitty gave a nervous twitch.
“About that,” Commander Third Trill said in what sounded like it was supposed to be a soothing tone. “I do notice that you are not using the recommended amount of work gloves.”
Ranger Smitty gave a noncommittal grunt and tried not to eye the door for an escape route. The little buggers were fast and could read human directional signals like a book.
“In fact Eighth Sister has lodged several complaints about this,” Commander Third Trill said.
“Bug folk should have figured out we can take a little damage by now,” Ranger Smitty muttered slipping into his chair and trying to hide his hands under his thighs.
The commander kept up his smile as he held out his winghooks.
“May I see your hands?” he asked.
Ranger Smitty hesitated but really couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse. So he pulled his hands out from under his thighs and put them on the top of the commander’s raised platform. He was somewhat satisfied to see the commander wince as he skipped forward to examine Ranger Smitty’s hands. They were perfectly normal hands as far as Ranger Smitty could see. He had broad fingers that squared off at the ends. Nine of his ten fingernails were perfectly healthy, and the one that wasn’t...well wasn’t there really...was showing every sign of growing back in normally. However the commander’s eyes seemed to be tracking over every scratch and scrape in his skin. There were a few of them. Working on the big sensor units were wasn’t easy on the old graspers after all.
Commander Third Trill glanced up at him meaningfully and very produced a measuring tape from one of the folds in his wing. Ranger Smitty arched an eyebrow at him and the commander very carefully laid the tape along the length of the worst healing cut. The tape stretched out to nearly a full wingspan in length and at its widest section threatened to engulf the thin tape.
“Is this normal Ranger Third Class Smitty?” Commander Third Trill asked with a glitter in his eyes.
“Normal?” Ranger Smitty hedged. “Well, that depends-”
“Ranger Smitty,” Commander Third Trill said with a sigh as he recoiled the measuring tape. “Before you answer please be aware that I have full access to the University records.”
Ranger Smitty squirmed and bit and then sighed.
“No sir,” he said. “It’s not recommended.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Commander Third Trill observed.
“Well where I come from this is normal,” Ranger Smitty said with a shrug. “You should’a seen my daddy’s hands, but it ain’t exactly recommended.”
“Very true,” Commander Third Trill accepted. “On this base we do consider it best to go with the recommended use of personnel protective equipment.”
Ranger Smitty heaved a sigh.
“Wear the gloves Ranger Third Class Smitty,” the commander said firmly.
“I’ll wear the gloves,” Ranger Smitty agreed.
“And do recall that even when Eighth Sister doesn’t accompany you your hands are visible when you get home.” Commander Third Trill said.
“Yes sir,” Ranger Smitty said as he stood and gave a brisk nod before leaving the office.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-fidget-spinning
“Wing Commander!” Forty-fifth Trills burst into the medical bay at full speed and had to circle the room three times before he could reduce his speed enough to land in a mostly dignified manner.
“And what madness are the humans flitting about this time?” The wing commander asked.
He patiently waited for the young Winged to catch his breath. The excitable lad was inflating and deflating nearly fifty percent with each breath and his fur was positively fluffed. The idle thought that the humans of the base would find it quite ‘cute’ crossed the commander’s mind as he continued tapping at his report. Forty-fifth Trills finally managed to bring his breathing under control and began hopping around the desk surface in agitation.
“You know that they warned us to not let the humans get bored?” Forty-fifth Trills demanded in the mother tongue.
The commander would have scolded him for using a language that most of the other species of the base couldn’t hear, let alone understand, but he gathered that could wait until the end of the report. Forty-fifth Trills was now quickly summarizing the various reports they had been given of how odd humans were. He seemed to be circling over the concept of boredom. He finally wound up with a summary of human viral tolerances and crouched there gasping at the commander. The wing commander let a long half second drag out before glancing at the youth.
“And what exactly,” the wing commander asked, “does this general madness have to do with you bursting into my office at the present moment?”
Forty-fifth Trills stared at him blankly for a moment before rapidly brushing his wing-hooks over his horns.
“There is a possibility that one of the humans has a virus!” Forty-fifth Trills burst out.
The wing commander instantly fluffed with concern.
“Has the human self isolated?” he demanded.
“No!” Forty-fifth Trills stated. “The human insisted he was fine.”
“What makes you conclude he had a virus?” the wing commander asked as he hurriedly began to put his desk in order.
The only thing more wing-stiff than a healthy human was an ill human but usually a direct order from a ranking officer was enough to send them to rest.
“He vomited!” Forty-fifth Trills informed with with horrified resonances in his voice but fascinated ripples in his neck fur.
The wing commander immediately took to flight at that. Forty-fifth Trills took off after him.
“The humans are in the lower docking bay,” Forty-fifth Trills told him.
“What are they doing there?” the wing commander demanded. “Didn’t they notice that one of their own was evacuating his digestive tract?”
“I am reasonably sure that is what the rest were laughing at,” Forty-fifth Trills explained.
The wing commander hovered and rotated slowly to stare at him.
“The humans were not expressing concern over their comrade?” he asked carefully.
Forty-fifth Trill chirped a confused affirmative.
“Humans usually take far more care of their flight-mates than of each other…” he said musingly.
“Yes,” Forty-fifth Trills agreed as they set off down the corridor at a more sedate pace.
They reached the docking bay in question and were greeted by an encouraging chant. The humans were circled around an open space. There were two circles marked out on the floor in tape. In roughly the center of the circles was a human holding a broom, and spinning. Their head was bent over to touch the tip of the broom handles to their forehead and their feat danced around the broom and they spun their center of mass around and around.
Forty-fifth Trills noted one particular human who was a distinctly different shade of health than the rest and pointed him out with a chirp. They flew over to the human. One Junior Ranger Bryzinke, and chirped for permission to land on his shoulders. He grinned at them and held out his arm. The landed and crept close to his ear to be heard over the chanting.
“Are you well Bryzinke?” the wing commander asked.
“Pretty good,” Bryzinke said with a shrug. “I cleaned up the mess I made and drank some water. Fortunately most of them have stronger stomachs than I do.”
“What exactly happened,” the wing commander asked.
The human gave a massive snort of laughter.
“What usually happens when a human spins to fast,” he said. “The inner ear objects to the brain and the brain orders the stomach to punish the body until the spinning stops.”
The chanting suddenly reached a crescendo and the two spinning humans dropped the brooms and staggered towards a pair of towels, each holding the clutter of a disassembled personal projectile weapon. They fell to their knees and began groping at the parts.
“What are they doing?” the wing commander asked.
“It’s a timed competition,” Bryzinke explained. “I was disqualified for chucking but Reeds there had a real chance to win this. She says she was the base champion back in her cadet days.”
Reed suddenly doubled over and clutched her head with a groan.
“Course those were more than a few years ago,” Bryzinke said with a sympathetic wince.
“I would like you to report to the medical bay so I can scan the results of this game,” the wing commander finally said.
“Sure thing,” Bryzinke said with a nod. “Soon as we’re done here.”
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-something-fishy
The beginning of the human’s noonday meal was always announced with a subdued rumble as the massive bipeds walked eagerly towards the cafeteria from their respective work stations. Though the various work schedules meant that the eating area was never overly crowded nor completely empty the circadian synchronization the mammals shared meant that the first rush around the solar peak of the day was always impressive.
Twistunder swam along the flow way and popped up into the cafeteria in time for his usual browsing. The amber algae strains on this planet were sadly underdeveloped thanks to the weak sun and he had always had an irrational dislike of the green algae. He knew as well as anyone that the lower protein content was easily offset by simply browsing a little more mass but amber was his favorite. He was prodding listlessly as the limp mass of the amber algae, amber in name only it was actually a sickly yellow that one of the humans had referred to a baby-poo yellow, and wondered if the next shipment of artificial lights would have the necessary power to stimulate something approaching an attractive hue, when he heard a familiar step amid the cacophony of human steps.
Twistunder immediately perked up. That was Human Friend Mack or he was greatly mistaken. Even the limp and pale amber algae wouldn’t be so distressing when eating with a friend. It was more for Mack’s presence than any specific nutrient schedule of his own that Twistunder had chosen this chaotic hour for gathering sustenance. He was about to twist the annoying green algae around his appendages, the one benefit was that it did transport better, when an idea nudged him from the side.
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-a-decisive-stroke
“And so as each-what was the word you used?” Rollsacross asked. “Oh yes, after each pass, you simply take the meaning of the existing pattering into consideration and begin the next missive from there.”
The Undulate dipped his appendages in the tray of water under him and then shuffled forward to demonstrate. He moved across the translucent film that was already marked with spiraling tracks. He stopped and pivoted, then gave a sideways shimmy before arching up and off of the film. The new marks were rapidly darkening where he had touched the film and the gathered students of language moved forward to watch the new words form.
Three Shatar Sisters clustered together so they could touch antennas without disturbing the others. Their triangular heads tilted this way and that and their neck frills pulsed with interest. Two Gathering were sniffing at the edge of the film suspiciously. Or rather the Undulate admitted to himself, everything the stiff reptilians did looked suspicious to one of his kind. The two Trisk professors certainly found them flexible enough. The eight appendage professors were happily perched on the broad heads of the reptilians for a better view of the drying document. A flight of Winged hovered over everyone’s heads, a constant cloud of movement.
“Wasn’t Human First Brother going to be here?” one of the Shatar asked, twisting her head to the side and flicking her antenna at the door.
“He was,” another answered. “I wonder if he forgot?”
“Human Friend Obecny is not the type to forget an engagement,” one of the Trisk observed.
There was a rolling trill of assent from the flight of Winged overhead and the two gathering gave one of the wide variety of grunts that indicated they had no opinion on the matter. However the conversation was derailed by a massive thump that shook the door and the wall it was attached to. The Shatar stiffened and their frills snapped to full extension. The Winged flight swirled away from that wall before taking up a hold position facing the door with dozens of teeth gleaming in snarls. The Trisk gripped the heads of the Gathering as they heaved huge sighs and muttered something about lumbering mammals.
Rollsacross noted that the reptilians’ assessment was correct as the human in question fell through the opening doors with far more erratic velocity than was strictly usual for him. He was grasping a thermal canister in one hand which he brought up to his mouth in a mammalian hydration movement before he righted himself and reduced his swaying to a level that humans considered ‘still’.
“Ahoj,” he greeted the room in general with a swing of his hydration canister. “Not too late am I?”
“I have just finished the first applied layer Human Friend Obecny,” Rollsacross said. “I am afraid you missed the explanation and the first application.”
“Sorry,” the human said his mouth gaping in a yawn. “I over slept. My alarm was buzzing for a solid hour before it penetrated my skull?”
“Did you not achieve proper sleep last night?” the Shatar, the medic asked.
“Not a bit of it,” the human replied as he swayed closer to the three cousins.
His feet seemed to drag along behind his center of mass as he re-positioned himself in the room.
“Was that a negative or a positive response?” The cousin pressed.
“My babička called,” he explained. “One of the cousins is acting up over in the Grister sector and she wanted to let me know in case he swung though this system. We were talking for hours. You know how worried babičkas get.”
The Shatar clicked in sympathy until Rollsacross shuffled back over to the tray of water and began explaining the increased difficulty of creating meaning on the third pass over a document. The class fell silent and observed. Rollsacross finished the pass and invited them to examine it. There was the usual muttering until Human Friend Obecny suddenly failed to correct one of his forward sways and caught himself heavily on the table surface. The collected linguists stared at him curiously until the Shatar medic suddenly clicked in alarm.
“Why are your irises oscillating like that?” she demanded, skittering forward to peer up into his eyes.
“This writing,” the human said in an odd hollow tone. “It’s...it’s...I think it’s giving me a stroke!”
The medic’s frill flushed with horror and she grabbed his arm, clicking at him earnestly to follow her to the medical bay. The human obeyed after a moment but seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the drying Undulate script. When the door closed behind them one of the Gathering reached up to paw at his eye.
“The human was simply being facetious, right?” he asked.
“Of course,” the leader of the Winged flight snapped out. “A human would not have a stroke from simply looking at foreign script.”
“That is my understanding,” Rollsacross agreed.
There was a long moment of silence before Rollsacross firmly brought their attention back to the lesson.
Humans are Weird – A Surprising Omelet
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-a-surprising-omelet
“Will we be able to ingest the food like substance?” Twistunder asked.
He and Tumblesleft were hydrating in one of the hydrocarbon tubs that seemed ubiquitous in human supplies. The room around them had been decorated for a human celebration of some sort and they had asked permission to observed the decorations before the party began. They had been happily scooting around, taking notes on color schemes when Twistunder’s appendages had begun to itch. The ever helpful humans had provided them with the hydration tub. From there they could watch the bustle of the preparations.
“There should be no problems,” Tumblesleft answered him. “There is almost no nutritional value in it but it is primarily simple sugars.”
“The guest should be arriving soon,” a human holding a green canister called out. “Do ya’ll need anything before I go and get the cake thing?”
“It’s not a cake!” yelled another human across the room.
“We are fine,” Twistunder assured him.
“Hey,” the human said as his face flushed with the dancing lights of eager delight. “We were going to do the cake-“
“Not a cake!” the other human corrected again.
“On that table over there,” the human gestured towards the central table with the canister, “but since you little dudes are over here I can do it right here in front of you. So you can see the colors better. You dudlets like colors right?”
“We do,” Twistunder agreed eagerly. “Please do the cake-“
“Not a cake!” the interruption came again.
“In front of us,” Twistunder finished.
“Will do little bud!” the human assured him as he turned and strode across the room.
“What is he going to do to the not-a-cake?” Tumblesleft asked.
“You are the nutritional expert,” Twistunder said, rippling in humor. “But there will be colors, and we do like colors.”
They rubbed appendages in amusement and began to exchange greetings with the arriving humans. The pulsing of the human music started and the lights began flashing wildly. The guests were chatting and eating the small foodstuffs provided for them. After some time the first two humans reappeared, one still holding the canister and the other holding a glistening, sculpted dome of crystals. The lights normalized and the music drifted to an end.
“Those are pretty colors,” Tumblesleft said with admiration in the set of his body.
“What’s the canister for?” Twistunder suddenly asked as the humans approached.
“Why is that relevant?” Tumblesleft asked.
“It now has a trigger mechanism attached to the exhaust end,” Twistunder indicated with his gripping appendage.
“So?” Tumblesleft asked absently as he pulled himself further out of the tub as the humans set the not-a-cake on the table and the lights dimmed well below human tolerance ranges.
“I think it would be safer under water,” Twistunder stated, matching his actions to his words as the canister trigger began clicking in time to the human’s hand movements.
“Why do you-“ Tumblesleft began.
With a rushing sound a spear of flame leapt from the canister trigger and the humans made low sounds of approval. Tumblesleft stiffened and seemed stuck to the edge of the tub as the human played the fame over the not-a-cake. The crystalline structures shifted and changed at the touch. Once the entire surface had been altered the human turned off the flame and the rest of the humans applauded. Tumblesleft eased back into the water and shuffled closer to Twistunder.
“The colors,” Tumblesleft began softly.
“Very pretty,” Twistunder finished for him.
“Safer under the water,” Tumblesleft observed.
“Usually is,” Twistunder replied.
“I think the humans are inviting us out of the water,” Tumblesleft indicated.
“How long does it take those crystal structures to cool from direct flame exposure?” Twistunder asked.
“A little longer,” Tumblesleft said inching closer to Twistunder. “A little longer.”
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Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-anxiety-attack
“Where did you end up storing the hydrocarbon reserves at your last station?” Fourth Sister inquired as she shifted the layers of the display she was observing.
Her companion was soaking in one of the sinks of the medical ward. He had dipped dangerously low on a particular mineral before one of the female humans dragged him in insisting he was ‘off-color’. Fourth Sister had not noted a change in his outer membrane but had learned to trust the humans risk assessment if nothing else.
“The humans dug a giant hole, put the storage tanks in them, and then back-filled the holes with the removed dirt.” Idlesintheshallows replied.
“A fairly standard solution,” Fourth Sister replied. “Making use of the insulating properties of dry land is a most efficient process.”
“That wasn’t the strange thing,” Idlesintheshallows went on. “We had no excavation equipment at the time.”
“Was there some on requisition?” She asked.
“Yes there was,” he said. “But it was several months out and the humans were in a hurry to get the hydrocarbons underground before the monsoons moved in.”
“The electrical discharge would be a major problem,” Fourth Sister admitted. “How did they solve the problem?”
“Well we’d just got a bunch of fresh rangers so they printed out a bunch of shovels-” Idlesintheshallows stopped talking as one of the many display screens along the wall began to flicker amber.
“What’s that?” He asked, shifting curiously in the water toward the light.
“A medical alert,” Fourth Sister replied. “Low grade it is not-”
She stopped talking as the light shifted from amber to red.
“It looks like it is now,” Idlesintheshallows observed. “Who is that and why aren’t the readouts in a readable format?”
“The humans value their privacy in medical matters,” Fourth Sister said as she quickly gathered her kit. “I must leave you here. Please do not touch anything.”
Idlesintheshallows gave a hum of agreement and slipped back under the surface as she left the office at a brisk skip. It took her some time to reach the human’s location on the other side of the base. The middle aged woman was bent over the open top of one of the power generators.
“First Mechanic,” Fourth Sister called out. “I am here to tend to your medical needs.”
“My what now?” the woman asked, glancing up sharply at the medic.
Fourth Sister hesitated and considered the situation. The woman’s face was creased with stress indicators and her shoulders were hunched defensively. However she did seem genuinely perplexed, and as remote as the possibility was the equipment might be malfunctioning. She held up the display and showed the elevated hormone levels to the human.
“Why are you even monitoring those?” First Mechanic demanded.
“For the study from the Centauri University,” Fourth Sister explained, her antenna curling in surprise, she thought First Mechanic had consented to the study with the rest of the base.
The human heaved a sigh and reached her gloved hand up to rub across her face. The dirty protective surface left smears of conductive gel on the skin and Fourth Sister couldn’t quite hide a wince.
“Forgot about that scrapit,” the human cursed softly. “Guess I’d better tell you about it.”
“About what?” Fourth Sister asked with a confused flick of her frill.
The humans sighed again and bent back to her task.
“I have a little genetic oddity,” she explained. “It makes my mineral content fluctuate unexpectedly. I have the therapy for it but its too close to some pretty important gene markers to turn it off or mess with it much at all. I’m usually pretty stable but every so often some environmental thing knocks my mineral content sideways and then I get a little distracted.”
“Why didn’t you report this imbalance before your hormones were effected?” Fourth Sister asked.
The human shrugged.
“I have an appointment set up to get it re-balanced,” she said. “There was no reason to bother you. You have enough to do with the study.”
“Be that as it may,” Fourth Sister said. “You need to come back to the medical ward with-”
“No,” First Mechanic stated abruptly.
“Pardon me?” Fourth Sister said, curling her antenna back in affront.
“Look Fourth,” First Mechanic said. “I know my limits, I might be having a bit of a tough go of it right now but I am perfectly capable of working through it.”
“It is a series of medical conditions that every line of data I have says can lead to death,” Fourth Sister stated.
“I’m not going to snap,” First Mechanic growled. “It’s just a few days.”
Fourth Sister pulled up the list of symptoms that was attached to First Mechanics database in a minor sub-folder.
“Anxiety attacks? Panic attacks? Temporary disruption of your central fluid pump?” Fourth Sister demanded. “These are hardly-”
“Look,” the human snapped as she rose from her work and shut the lid with more force than was strictly necessary. “I can be miserable trapped in my quarters or I can be miserable and productive at work.”
Fourth Sister hesitated. The logic was fairly sound. Humans were notorious for the degradation of their mental state under periods of inactivity.
“I will be monitoring your bio-metrics closely,” Fourth Sister said.
“You do that Moon Pie,” First Mechanic replied as she shouldered her work bag and proceeded to the next junction.
Fourth Sister tilted her triangular head to look after her in confusion as she left. When the human rounded a corner the Shatar turned and walked slowly back to the medical bay. Idlesintheshallows was circling the bottom of the sink clearly deep in thought. She resumed her place and had been working for some time when he finally rose to the surface and angled his appendages at the wall of observation charts.
“It is still reading in the danger zone,” he observed.
“The human has chosen to work through the issue,” Fourth Sister informed him.
“Why?” Idlesintheshallows asked.
“Feel free to propose a theory of your own,” Fourth Sister said as she bent over her work.
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Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-sparks
“Human Friend Mercy?” Rotates With Decision asked as she lifted her leading end out of the temporary tank the human in question had provided for her.“What is it Rotates?” Human Friend Mercy replied without turning her face away from the reflective surface that was mounted on one wall.“Wouldn’t your meditative devotion be more effective if you had another mirror angled from your … well it isn’t your lagging end exactly. I think you call it your supine surface? Or perhaps a pair, or a trine of mirrors would be more effective. But perhaps humans cannot interoperate an image scattered that far. Rolls a little your binocular vision should help with that…”Human Friend Mercy’s hands had slowed in their soothing repetitive motions and the light show dimmed allowing the perhifreial sparks to dance more clearly. Her head slowly turned her face towards the Undulate in the tank revealing that she had sacrificed the bilateral symmetry of her face to get a proper visual sounding of the scene. It was, Rotates With Decision had been led to believe, a gesture of lack of understanding and mental effort to understand.“Say way lil’ gal?” Human Friend Mercy drawled out.“I will ask again once you have completed what you are doing,” Rotates With Decision said. “Do you mind if I deliberately observe with all of my appendages?“Watch as much as you want,” the human replied with a graceful, almost Undulate dip of her shoulders.A shrug, Rotates With Decision believed it was called, one of the more normal movements the massive bipeds produced from their numerous joints. Rotates With Decision gave a hum of gratitude and spread her appendages to observe the brilliant light show. She wondered idly why none of her companions with more human experience had ever mentioned this marvel.The brush, a mass printed device that resembled the algae agitators she used back home in the growth pools, was gripped firmly in the humans dominant hand while she used her non-dominant hand to direct the fall of the thread thin fibers that grew out of her caudal end. The human had begun the meditative devotion by freeing the thousands of strands from the cloth band that restrained them and now the band clung snugly one of the larger joints on her arm. Then she had started using the teeth of the brush at the lagging end of the fibers to tease out the tangles exactly as one had to loosen the more fibrous algae back home.The moment the printed material of the brush had touched the fibers a shower of brilliant sparks had erupted from the contact. As Human Friend Mercy had worked the brush up the length of her fibers the showers of sparks had grown in number and density until the flowing mass of fibers was a veritable cascade of dancing light. When all of the tangles were worked out of the fibers the human had worked up a steady rhythm that filled the room with the sparking light.The beauty, the light, the rhythm, the softly chanted tune that Rotates With Decision couldn’t quite make out, everything about the wondrous scene before her spoke of a religious devotion. Even if Rotates With Decision hadn’t had the chance to see the ancient human religious art on display she would have recognized the holiness of the moment. As it was the tradition of putting a circle representing light around the head of humans in religious devotion suddenly made so much more sense.Rotates With Decision suddenly realized that that chanting was actually the decamarked counting form the humans used. Human Friend Mercy was counting up by ones and was somewhere in the mid sixties. Rotates With Decision wondered which human prayers had that many beats. She had been somewhat under the impression that nightly prayers were usually shorter. She wondered suddenly if it had been rude to interrupt the prayer. Humans were oddly solitary creatures sometimes. True, Human Friend Mercy hadn’t appeared to be offended, but the human was probably too agreeable to express such a thing even if it was inconvenient to her.The pace of the prayer was picking up in anticipation of the end count and Human Friend Mercy was briskly dragging the brush through the full length of the strands, catching the mass in her non-dominant hand and guiding the mass through the tines of the brush. The resulting light show almost obscured the dancing fibers in its glow. Human Friend Mercy reached a count of one-hundred and finished with a powerful stroke that made the room glow. Rather than bask in the accumulated light she parted the sparkling strands down the center of her caudal end and began quickly braiding the two halves into the side braids she had explained were the most comfortable for sleep. Showers of sparks fell from her fingers and lit on her shoulders before extinguishing in the ambient vapor. The human finished the task and dropped the brush on the shelf before giving a little hop and landing on her bunk.“What was that question you asked Rotates?” Human Friend Mercy asked as she shifted in the usual human search for a comfortable position.“Primarily I wanted to know why you have not arranged for a view of your, dorsal I believe, surface during the prayer time,” Rotates With Decision said.Human Friend Mercy stopped shifting with her pillow clutched in her hands and stared at Rotates With Decision with the fluctuating gaze that indicated deep thought.“What prayer now?” Human Friend Mercy asked with confusion clear in her tones.“The counting prayer you just preformed at the mirror,” Rotates With Decision said, gesturing towards the reflective surface.“That wasn’t a religious thing,” Human Friend Mercy said slowly. “It was a hygiene thing. It distributes the oils properly though my hair so the oils produced at the base of the strands can reach all the way to the tips. It also prevents insects from nesting in the braids and dislodges any dirt. I count to make sure I give sufficient time to the task.”Rotates With Decision positively wriggled in surprise.“Such astounding beauty produced from a merely hygienic process!” she exclaimed. “How delightful, but surely even so you would want to view the full effect of the light flow?”“The what now?” Human Friend Mercy said, but was interrupted by a yawn.“I can ask you about it in the morning,” Rotates With Decision said as she slipped back into the tank.“Good idea,” Human Friend Mercy said and she shifted position to begin sleep.However after a moment her arm lifted from her side and dropped across her caudal end in a pose that usually indicated thoughtfulness rather than restfulness.“Yo’ Rotates,” Human Friend Mercy called out with another yawn. “Think I got it. My and my sister would sometimes brush our hair in the dark to see the sparks it made. I bet you can see ‘em even without it being pitch black.”The human voice had wandered off into sleep and her arm dropped to her side so Rotates With Decision did not bother perusing the matter. There was always tomorrow. She stared at the lingering glow in the braids that fell over the human’s shoulders in fascination. Was it possible a species could produce such beauty without realizing it?
Humans are Weird – A Little Punchy
Origial Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-a-little-punchy
“Yes Sir,” Human Friend Drevven said grimly into his communications unit. “Of course Sir!”
Seventh Flap paused in his flight to listen to the conversation. The human on the other peak of the wave was simply giving a series of orders in a calm voice but Human Friend Drevven seemed to be growing increasingly more agitated. His furless skin was flushing as the blood rushed to the surface and his body began to radiate heat into the chill air of the base, enough heat that Seventh Flap was tempted to forgo propriety and snuggle up against the back of the human’s neck, but he restrained himself and waited for the human to finish his call.
“Goodbye,” Human Friend Drevven finally concluded in a tight voice.
He dropped his arm to his side and spun away to march toward the door. Seventh Flap thought about calling out to get his attention but shouting in the human hearing range was difficult and if he circled around Seventh Flap could catch Human Friend Drevven’s eye just as he came into the full sunlight. Then he could get permission to land right on the human’s collar and get both the warmth from the local star and the local large mammal. He prepared to swing around between the human’s head and the door frame but stopped suddenly as the human gave a low snarl and swung his fist forward in an almost painfully slow arc.
Seventh Flap gave a pip of panic and darted forward in an attempt to stop the vector. He logically knew he could never hope to redirect even the mass of the human’s hand, let alone the applied force of the muscles but he acted on instinct. He did manage to reach the hand before it struck the wall and latched his winghooks into the soft flesh on either side of the bony framework. A moment later however the fist impacted against the wall and Human Friend Drevven gave a small grunt.
“What the-” Human Friend Drevven barked out, jerking his hand back.
Seventh Flap clung trembling to his hand, his sensory horns ringing from the force of the blow that had transferred backwards through the human’s hand. When he reoriented he realized that Human Friend Drevven was holding the hand that had struck the wall against his chest. The human’s other hand was cupped under Seventh Flap’s perch as a safety net. Human Friend Drevven was speaking to him in a soothing tone.
Seventh Flap shook out his head and instead of dropping to the offered hand quickly scrambled up and peered down at the human’s knuckles. He winced at the damage he saw but breathed easier when he noted that the blood was only seeping out from the skin and not surging as he expected from the force of the blow. Human Friend Drevven was getting more insistent in his demand for Seventh Flap’s attention.
“What was that about?” Seventh Flap demanded.
He whipped around and gave the human his best glare. It still amazed him that his comparatively tiny mass could intimidate the massive predatory species but apparently when a Winged glared they resembled some human nightmare or the other. It certainly caused Human Friend Drevven to stop talking and jerk his head back a few inches.
“What was that about?” Seventh Flap demanded again.
Human Friend Drevven glanced between his knuckles and the wall and then shrugged.
“I was frustrated,” he said.
Seventh Flap stared up at him trying to make some sense out of that.
“So you punched the wall,” he said, “you punched the plasicreet wall, with you primary gripping appendage with enough force to damage it…”
“Oh no,” Human Friend Drevven said, his face brightening up. “The wall’s fine.”
Seventh Flap seriously thought about biting the human in that moment but he settled for reinforcing his grip on the flesh of his hand.
“Medical ward,” Seventh Flap snared out.
“What?” Human Friend Drevven suddenly sounded concerned. “Are you hurt?”
Seventh Flap stared down at the seeping blood and tried to fight down a sigh.
“Take me to the medical ward,” Seventh Flap said as firmly as he could, “and on the way tell me what the connection is between frustration and punching a wall.”
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The earth tone walls of the spacious office suddenly shook with the power of three massive blows, shaking down a shower of the freshly applied texture. Grinds heaved a sigh and shifted his tail on his work couch and looked ruefully at the last third of the end of season report on the blood-grain yeilds.“Yo! Grinds!” the human voice came though the wall, muffled, but not enough to conceal the eagerness.Grinds deliberately reached over and activated the comm unit.“Yes?” he asked, trying to put stern disapproval of the behavior in his voice but he was afraid he just sounded irritated.“Oh Right! Comms!” the human responded with a laugh. “Are you coming to the Lunatic Party tonight? Trisk Friend Tstk’sk wants to know.”Grinds closed his report and turned to the door debating the social impact of demanding to know which human this was.“Please come in,” he requested.There was the sound of the human prodding at the door mechanism several times before the door lifted and the human, a dark haired male wearing loose white clothing ducked into the room. He was carrying a drink canister that was venting a not unpleasant fragrance and no little steam in one hand.“So are you coming?” the human repeated the invitation when he had reorintated his body vertically.“Human Friend Bon Jovi,”Grinds identified him. “I was not aware that there was a celebration of human madness planned for tonight.”Human Friend Bon Jovi blinked at him, his odd round irises dilating and contracting as he processed Grinds’s statement. Then the human threw back his head and laughed.“Nah, nah,” he said with a dismissive wave of the hand not holding the steaming drink. “Different word that. Lunar, moon, there’s a party on to view the moon tonight. It’s early enough, or late enough, that we’re all going to stay up and watch it together. We got a bonfire, drinks, food, all laid out.”“Did you get permission from Seeps into the Streams?” Grinds asked.“You betcha!” the human replied, bobbing his head up and down so furiously that it made the back of Grinds’s neck ache in sympathy. “Old Seeps found us this really great spot where the topsoil is really poor so it won’t sacrifice any good growing land, and there are all sorts of old fungal chunks laying around for the bonfire fuel-”“None of these fungal chunks are going to release hallucinogenic spores when burned are they?” Grinds demanded, his scales prickling at the thought.Human Friend Bon Jovi snorted and rolled his eyes.“That happened once!” He insisted.“Three times,” Grinds interjected in a rasping tone.“And it was in a completely different biome from this!” the human went on. “Besides, Seeps checked for us. There was nothing in the chunks that won’t be deactivated by the flames.”“Are you going to be providing mind altering substances to make up for this difference?” Grinds asked.The human burst out laughing again.“It’s not like that!” the human finally said.“You are proving them though?” Grinds demanded.“My dude!” the human said giving an expansive wave of both hands.Grinds flinched as the large, steaming drink canister swung wide over his head.“This is a grain producing colony!” the human enthused. “We breed new grains, we grow grains that were ancient before any of us left our own planets, we see how we can mix and merge grains of all types! It would be like, the deepest offense to all our ancestors if we didn’t have a little recreational fun at a moon themed party!”“A little recreational poisoning you mean,” Grinds grumbled.“Potato, pahtatoh,” the human said with a dismissive wave of his hand.“There will be vodka too?” Grinds demanded, raising his tail in agitation.“No! No, no,” the human quickly corrected him, “but quick catch there! I said this was a grain thing!”“There will be no fireballs,” Grinds muttered, half a question.“Well if you mean the official, ancient named brand no,” the human said with a grin. “Who can afford the transport fees when our local stuff is just as good. Better even! If you mean actual fireballs, well,” the human shrugged. “Fire breathing is a skill. I’m not going to try it that’s for sure.”“Would my presence at this event decrease the likely hood of the other humans attempting to master this skill?” Grinds demanded.“The only way to answer that question is to find out the fun way,” Human Friend Bon Jovi stated with a grin.Grinds sighed and moved towards the door and the human gave a whoop of delight, his bare feet dancing across the floor to make way for Grinds.“So what is special about the moon tonight that it is keeping the entire base up to view it?” Grinds asked.“It’s a blood moon! The very first one we’ve had a chance to witness on this planet!” Human Friend Bon Jovi enthused as the walked out into the hallway. “We have blood grain blood whiskey for the blood moon too! It’s going to be a blast!”“And what exactly is a blood moon?” Grinds asked, feeling more curiosity now.“Oh right,” Human Friend Bon Jovi paused and pondered that a moment. “A full moon with a full lunar eclipse. You know, when the planet gets between its sun and its moon just right? If its a night cycle you can see the moon turn red, like human blood.”“Thus a blood moon,” Grinds replied flicking his tail in understanding. “But why are you calling it a lunatic party instead of a lunar party? Why the implication of madness.”Human Friend Bon Jovi paused in both walking and speech to stare down at Grinds, his soft fleshy face peaking over the flowing white clothing he wore. The human finally grinned and gave a slightly odd laugh.“It’s probably a good thing you will be there to observe,” Human Friend Bon Jovi finally said. “You might want a recording device going.”With that the human scampered off to greet a fellow mammal and Grinds huffed. He still wasn’t exactly sure why but he felt he would enjoy this party far more from under the safety of something sturdy and immovable.
Humans are Weird – A Surprising Omelet
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-a-surprising-omelet
“Will we be able to ingest the food like substance?” Twistunder asked.
He and Tumblesleft were hydrating in one of the hydrocarbon tubs that seemed ubiquitous in human supplies. The room around them had been decorated for a human celebration of some sort and they had asked permission to observed the decorations before the party began. They had been happily scooting around, taking notes on color schemes when Twistunder’s appendages had begun to itch. The ever helpful humans had provided them with the hydration tub. From there they could watch the bustle of the preparations.
“There should be no problems,” Tumblesleft answered him. “There is almost no nutritional value in it but it is primarily simple sugars.”
“The guest should be arriving soon,” a human holding a green canister called out. “Do ya’ll need anything before I go and get the cake thing?”
“It’s not a cake!” yelled another human across the room.
“We are fine,” Twistunder assured him.
“Hey,” the human said as his face flushed with the dancing lights of eager delight. “We were going to do the cake-“
“Not a cake!” the other human corrected again.
“On that table over there,” the human gestured towards the central table with the canister, “but since you little dudes are over here I can do it right here in front of you. So you can see the colors better. You dudlets like colors right?”
“We do,” Twistunder agreed eagerly. “Please do the cake-“
“Not a cake!” the interruption came again.
“In front of us,” Twistunder finished.
“Will do little bud!” the human assured him as he turned and strode across the room.
“What is he going to do to the not-a-cake?” Tumblesleft asked.
“You are the nutritional expert,” Twistunder said, rippling in humor. “But there will be colors, and we do like colors.”
They rubbed appendages in amusement and began to exchange greetings with the arriving humans. The pulsing of the human music started and the lights began flashing wildly. The guests were chatting and eating the small foodstuffs provided for them. After some time the first two humans reappeared, one still holding the canister and the other holding a glistening, sculpted dome of crystals. The lights normalized and the music drifted to an end.
“Those are pretty colors,” Tumblesleft said with admiration in the set of his body.
“What’s the canister for?” Twistunder suddenly asked as the humans approached.
“Why is that relevant?” Tumblesleft asked.
“It now has a trigger mechanism attached to the exhaust end,” Twistunder indicated with his gripping appendage.
“So?” Tumblesleft asked absently as he pulled himself further out of the tub as the humans set the not-a-cake on the table and the lights dimmed well below human tolerance ranges.
“I think it would be safer under water,” Twistunder stated, matching his actions to his words as the canister trigger began clicking in time to the human’s hand movements.
“Why do you-“ Tumblesleft began.
With a rushing sound a spear of flame leapt from the canister trigger and the humans made low sounds of approval. Tumblesleft stiffened and seemed stuck to the edge of the tub as the human played the fame over the not-a-cake. The crystalline structures shifted and changed at the touch. Once the entire surface had been altered the human turned off the flame and the rest of the humans applauded. Tumblesleft eased back into the water and shuffled closer to Twistunder.
“The colors,” Tumblesleft began softly.
“Very pretty,” Twistunder finished for him.
“Safer under the water,” Tumblesleft observed.
“Usually is,” Twistunder replied.
“I think the humans are inviting us out of the water,” Tumblesleft indicated.
“How long does it take those crystal structures to cool from direct flame exposure?” Twistunder asked.
“A little longer,” Tumblesleft said inching closer to Twistunder. “A little longer.”
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#SciFi #ShortStory #HumansAreSpaceOrcs #EarthisSpaceAustralia #HFY
There beside the algae growths was a set of tongs and a cluster of carrying bags. These were hardly things you would find in an eating location back home. They were a concession to the far more advanced social-imunnity behaviors of the other species. From humans to Hellbats every other species, save the Gathering, had issues with someone bringing them food in nothing but their appendages. While one could find the occasional human who would accept a bundle of algae one had been carrying tucked up near your core, the humans in particular didn’t like the idea of body parts touching their food, even their own body parts to some degree. It was odd, but that was how it was. They did however, appreciated food brought to them in the sterile carrying containers.
Twistunder quickly calculated the mass of the green algae what would equal half of a tuna-fish sandwich. He recalled Human Friend Mack mentioning that he was going to be eating his own prepared food rather than the cafeteria provided protein. An Earth delicacy he had been willing to share with Twistunder on previous occasions. Tuna fish, removed from the indigestible carbohydrate casing, wasn’t amber algae but it was far better than green. Fortunately for Twistunder’s purposes Human Friend Mack rather liked the fibrous nature of the green algae. He called it sea-celery. The human also usually forgot to procure his own required fiber allotment. Musing happily over this Twistunder quickly swam over to the airlock and popped out onto the floor.
“Undulate underfoot!” The nearest human hollered.
There was a generally shuffling of feet as the humans located him and arranged themselves for mutual safety. Several of them muttered greetings but most were focused on their food. Twistunder easily reached the table Human Friend Mack had chosen and shimmied up the central post and scrambled onto the surface.
“Twist,” Human Friend Mack greeted him, inclining the focus of his head in Twistunder’s direction.
“Greetings Human Friend Mack!” Twistunder said, dropping the carry container of algae down on the table in a way that he hoped would draw Human Friend Mack’s attention to it.
“What’s up?” Human Friend Mack asked.
“I was wishing to exchange, rather swap, my algae for your tuna fish today!” Twistunder stated.
“Sure thing lil’ bud,” Human Friend Mack said.
He reached his hand to where the sandwich sat wrapped in a clear hydrocarbon sheath, but his fingers paused over the sandwich and his face contorted into a thoughtful frown.
“On second thought better not,” Human Friend Mack said slowly.
“Very well,” Twistunder said as he regretfully started to pull the algae out of the bag. “Do you require all the fish fats today?”
“Nah,” Human Friend Mack said shaking his head. “This sandwich has just been in the fridge too long. It’s own personal biome is getting a little too developed for me to let you eat it. Too risky.”
“How can you tell?” Twistunder asked with interest.
“Well,” Human Friend Mack said, “three days is the general limit and it does smell funny.”
In demonstration the human lifted it to his nose and grimaced.
“I sound you,” Twistunder said. “Are you going to dispose-”
Twistunder cut off as Human Friend Mack shifted the sandwich and took a large bit out of it.
“Pardon,” Twistunder asked, making sure to put confusion in his tone. “Didn’t you just say that the bacterial load on that sandwich is too high for consumption? Or did I misunderstand?”
“Too high for you” Human Friend Mack said. “I have a cast-iron stomach.”
Twistunder could have replied that given the acidic nature of human stomachs, fabricating them out of cast-iron would be a negative situation on many levels but he recognized the implication of strength and resigned himself to the green algae. He chatted easily with Human Friend Mack for the next half hour.
“Human Friend Mack,” Twistunder said as he was about halfway done with the stringy green algae. “May I ask why you are so dramatically changing emotional displays on your skin? You voice doesn’t indicate any distress.”
“Am I?” Human Friend Mack asked, glancing down at his hand.
“The display is centered on your face,” Twistunder said. “It seems to be a general distress display.”
Human Friend Mack pulled out his compass and flipped it open to look at his face. He frowned and examined it from several angles before glancing around and selecting a human female Twistunder was not familiar with to address.
“Hey Frankie,” Human Friend Mack called out. “Twist says I look funny. Do you see anything?”
The woman glanced at him and frowned.
“You are a little pale,” she said with concern. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m fine,” Human Friend Mack said with a frown. “Fit as a fiddle, but if you and Twist agree maybe-”
Suddenly his voice was interrupted by a low gurgling sound from his middle. Human Friend Mack’s entire body suddenly gave a tight convulsion and his hand flew up to clamp over his mouth as the colors on his face changed from mildly concerning to dramatically warning.
“What’s wrong?” Human Coworker Frankie demanded.
“Tuna fish!” Mack explained as he turned and rushed from the room. “Bathroom!”
Twistunder stared after his friend in concern and Frankie gave a prolonged sigh.
“Did he eat a questionable sandwich?” she asked.
“He did,” Twistunder confirmed. “In he in danger?”
“Nothing serious,” Human Coworker Frankie said with a shrug. “No human has died from bad tuna in like a century, just a little stupidity induced suffering in his immediate future.”
“He said his stomach was made of cast iron,” Twistunder offered.
“He would,” Human Coworker Frankie said with a shrug.
Humans are Weird Book Series
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Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-wheelbarrows
The light was beginning to shift down into the soft,mid range oranges of evening by the time the mound of dirt was anywhere near flat. Third Sister shook out her frill in an attempt to dislodge the dust and grime that had collected there. She resisted the urge to lick off a particularly clingy bit of dirt in public and tried to focus on how the rest of the crew was coming along. The flight of Winged was circling the dig site taking readings. They were clearly flagging however. Only half of the flight members were maintaining the suggested elevation and the rest were exposing their teeth in a way that suggested they were about to forfeit their natural herbivore natures to start biting chunks out of the humans. The humans too were beginning to lag. Despite sensibly traveling along the ground they had been moving large ammounts of dirt with nothing but the simple levers and wheels that seemed to make up the base tool set of every network of humans no matter what their stated profession was.
“Third Sister?” Seventeen Trills fluttered over to her side and hovered there, not looking directly at her.
Third Sister was well aware that their sensory horns gave them essentially full circle awareness that was more accurate than simple sight but she still couldn’t help feeling a prickle of annoyance at apparently being ignored even as he requested her attention. She clicked a response in Mother out of irritation. At least the pesky little Hellbats could hear a reasonable range of sound.
“I think it might be time to rest our wings,” Seventeen Trills observed.
“I too have noticed that the extended physical labor has effected flight efficiency,” she noted. “I agree with your judgment.”
He snapped his beady black eyes around at her.
“Oh it’s not us I’m concerned about,” he said. “It’s the humans.”
“Why do you think that?” Third Sister asked, suddenly genuinely curious.
Ever since their first interactions the Winged had integrated the humans into their mythos as paragons of physical strength. She could not count the number of problems that arose medically because some Winged commander believed his humans to be near indestructible, and the humans were oddly loath to dissuade this idea. For a commander as inexperienced as Seventeen Trills to recognize human frailty in any form was something worth noting. However he seemed reluctant to speak. Another oddity that. He finally just gestured for her to follow him with his wing hook and led her around the corner of the structure they were erecting.
She saw what he was observing immediately. One of the larger humans, a Third Brother, if she remembered correctly was stopped dead in his tracks with the single-wheel mass transporter full of dirt and detritus blocking the main path. His head was tilted to the side and he was staring down at the handles of the device with a fascinated expression on his face. More importantly his skin was flushed with the pulsing of vessels trying to expel the excess mammalian heat of his body. His skin was venting copious amounts of water in an effort to evaporate away the energy.
“Third Brother?” She asked carefully as she approached him. “Are you well?”
To her growing concern he didn’t respond.
“Ranger!” Seventeen Trills snapped out. “What are you looking at?”
The human responded to that by raising his eyes to them, however the twin points didn’t focus on either of them.
“Isn’t it amazing?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“Isn’t what amazing?” Third Sister asked.
“The material sciences have advanced,” the Third Brother said with slow words, “but the basic design of the wheelbarrow has not changed in thousand of years!”
His gaze drifted over and past her frill before focusing on what the humans called the middle distance.
“Thousands!” he whispered, using only his breath to enunciated the sounds in hushed awe. “This is the same thing that our ancestors might have used thousands of years ago.”
Her frill snapped rigid with concern and Third Sister carefully stepped forward to touch the hot skin of the humans arm. Seventeen Trills fluttered around her giving out little distressed chirps of confusion.
“Do you need a nap Third Brother?” Third Sister asked in the softest tone her voice was capable of producing.
He slowly swiveled his head to face her and blinked.
“I think…” he said carefully. “I think maybe yes?”
“Seventeen Trills,” Third Sister said. “Call an end to the work day and please have the least tired of your wing escort the humans home.”
The human in front of them lifted the wheelbarrows handles and began pushing towards the transport before stopping and looking back at them with wonder in his eyes.
“I didn’t,” he began. “I mean I never experimented much as a kid you know? Is this what it’s like to be high?”
Third Sister stared at him in bewilderment until he smiled and started back up the path.