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​Humans are Weird – Just Too Hot
“
Amazon.com: Humans are Weird: I Have the Data (9798588913683): Adams, Betty, Wong, Richard, Gibadullina, Adelia: Books


Greetings Friend Rollsslowly!” Twistunder called out as he caught sight of the slightly larger Undulate floating down the main hallway. “Do you have some observation time available at the moment?”
Rollsslowly idly rotated his body so that one of his gripping appendages was uppermost and grabbed onto the doorjamb of the exit. This efficiently stopped him movement and allowed Twistunder to catch up to him more easily against the drift current.
“I have no pressing assignments at the moment,” Rollsslowly observed. “What did you wish to observe?”
Twistunder caught up to him and cheerfully tapped Rollssslowly’s exposed appendages in a friendly greeting. Rollsslowly returned the gesture and they drifted down the corridor.
“You expressed curiosity on how variable human reactions to touch greetings were,” Twistunder explained. “Also you were curious about how the acceptability of touch greetings varied with temperature and atmospheric pressure.”
“Actually,” Rollsslowly interjected, “I believe I expressed incredulity. That is a bit of a difference there.”
Twistunder hummed in amusement.
“Well I believe I can introduce you to a situation where the phenomenon will be exceptionally obvious,” Twistunder said. “Although it will require two distinctly different observational times.”
“Do you have sapient species behavioral observation permissions?” Rollsslowly asked.
“We won’t need them,” Twistunder said with a dismissive wave of an appendage. “Everything we will be doing falls under the casual social interaction exemption. However on that note can you think of anything personally interesting you might want to ask the humans to collect for you on today’s excursion?”
Rollsslowly mulled over this as they began to swim towards the main airlock. Above them the steady double beat of the humans’ tread filled the waterways with a soothing rhythm.
“They are going into the dense land reefs are they not?” Rollsslowly asked.
“The forests, yes,” Twistunder confirmed.
“Then there is nothing I could wish from there,” Rollsslowly said. “All of my research has been into the proper reef systems of this planet.”
“In that case you must simply exchange the friendliest greetings that you consider appropriate with the human you are closest too,” Twistunder said. “Ask for uppies if your current level of socialization allows it.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Rollsslowly assured him. “Human Friend Susan is on the team going out today. She has actually faced disciplinary hearings on no less than three separate occasions for giving unsolicited uppies. We are great friends.”
“Disciplinary hearings for unsolicited uppies?” Twistunder asked in a note of confusion. “Those were of course for sapients other than Undulates I suppose.”
“Oh no,” Rollsslowly replied. “Only the first two involved an Undulate who was holding either a high concentrate beaker of acid or a biohazard of some sort and it spilled. The third was classified by the University for diplomatic reasons but given how pale Human Friend Susan gets whenever it is mentioned I suppose the Undulate must have been carrying something quite valuable and which cost her university quite a bit to replace.”
“That is understandable,” Twistunder said in a cautious tone. “Still if one is living with humans one must learn either to dodge or to hold on tight.”
They had come to the main airlock and the joyful cacophony of humans gathered to prepare for a mission was filling both the chamber above them and the floway they were in. They slipped through the pressure barrier and shuffled up onto the main deck. Immediately the sound profile thinned as their auditory cells adjusted to the thin atmosphere. Twistunder nudged Rollsslowly and indicated the readout on the wall.
“Note that this room is kept at the lower end of human preferred temperature and humidity,” Twistunder pointed out. “These are the conditions best for physical social interaction. The most relevant issues being the humans are conserving their thermoreserves at this point and instinctively welcome the presence of social biomass insulation. Added to this their secretions glands are at the lowest possible setting, leaving their outer membrane moisture content at very close to the same level as the Shatar, only slightly warmer on average.”
“I observe that everything you say is accurate or a logical deduction or comparison.” Rollsslowly agreed.
At this point Human Friend Susan stopped packing supplies into her personal mass transporter and came over to them, her exposed face and arms flushing with the dancing light of pleasure. Rollsslowly lifted his gripping appendages in the exaggerated gesture one had to use on humans for uppies and Human Friend Susan obligingly scooped him up and happily let him curl around her shoulders. Her long braids slapped against her shoulders in an almost angry gesture that most Undulates learned to ignore fairly quickly. The concept that humans had no real control over the only real appendages the were capable of growing was a difficult concept but one that, once mastered, prevented much misunderstanding.
“You guys came to see us off?” She asked Twistunder.
“Indeed,” Twistunder said. “That and to offer a warning.”
“What kind of warning Twit?” Human Friend Mack asked, strolling over to greet the Undulates.
“The temperature and humidity will continue to rise until well path the solar zenith,” Twistunder said. “Do remember to sustain your internal hydration.”
The male human gave a loud laugh and his exposed skin flared with pleasure and the awareness of community. The female human generated a happy coo and nuzzled her chemo-receptor, the only dedicated sensory organ the humans had that was almost an appendage, into Rollsslowly before sloping her shoulders to indicate that he had to get down. The humans gathered up their packs and swung out into the dense fauna outside of the dome laughing and chatting among themselves.
“We are quite sure there are no predators that would want to eat them?” Rollsslowly asked in a soft tone as their tall bodies seemed to shrink, to become frail beneath the massive trunks of the forest.
“They insist that none of the fauna or predatory flora is a threat,” Twistunder said cautiously, reaching out to give Rollsslowly a nudge. “This station has had no human deaths.”
“Predatory flora,” Rollsslowly said and a shiver ran up his mass. “This planet has algae that eats your proteins.”
“And we humans that can preform an instant dissection if we get caught in one!” Twistunder said cheerfully, that’s why they carry those long blades, what are they called?”
“Machetes,” Rollsslowly said feeling a bit better. “I took training on those you know. I am now rated to carry even the longest ones safely.”
“That’s a good skill to have,” Twistunder agreed. “Now we need to watch the readout for their return. To observe their reactions under conditions of humidity and raised internal temperature we want to catch them just as they come in.”
“I was of the understanding that when they follow proper hydration protocol there is no raise in core temperature at all,” Rollsslowly observed.
“Oh yes,” Twistunder said with a dismissive wave of his gripping appendage. “But they never follow proper hydration protocol. Meet me here as soon as you can after the perimeter defenses alert to their return.”
Rollsslowly gave a shimmy of confirmation and went to find out if the bio-chem department had made any advancements on that predatory plant repellent mist. The day cycle passed and as Twistunder had predicted the humans returned near the heat zenith with the solar zenith several hours behind them. They were moving far more slowly now. Trudging, that movement was called. They trudged into the decontamination area and released their packs with groans and hisses. They let the lights play over them and then trudged into the inner airlock. Their skin was flushed with angry red lights of dehydration and their off-gassed chemical signals spoke of woefully low levels of several minerals. Human Friend Susan dropped down on a nearby bench and began to tug off the armored coverings she wore on her feet.
As the two Undulates planned Rollsslowly went up to Human Friend Susan and held up his appendages in a request for uppies. For several moments the human didn’t seem to notice as she wrestled with the foot armor. When she did see him she just groaned and shook her head, her braids falling limply on her shoulders.
“Not right now Rolls,” she said. “Way too hot.”
“May I help you remove your foot armor?” Rollsslowly asked, slightly excited to get such quick confirmation of the theory, slightly disturbed by the signals her outer membrane was giving off.
“Too hot for you to be near my feet,” Human Friend Susan muttered.
Which wasn’t exactly logical but the whole point of today’s exercise was that he didn’t really understand human thermodynamics. Twistunder was chatting with the crew lead, something about a plant that’s name was in debate at the university pending a more through description. Rollsslowly mused that while the humans were moving so slowly was a good time to pin them down for questions.
“Do your braids increase your retained thermal energy Human Friend Susan?” Rollsslowly asked.
She turned her head to him and blinked slowly as she processed the information. She slowly nodded and her lips formed the shape of words but she didn’t bother expending the breath to activate her sound generating organ. She reached up with one hand and gathered both braids in one hand, pulling them up, causing her chin to dip down. Her other hand gripped her machete and freed it from its safety restraints. Then in one smooth motion she brought blade, stained with the fluids of innumerable plants up and began to saw away at the braided appendages. Despite the blade clearly not being rates for something so tough as the appendages the last few strands severed several seconds before Rollsslowly began to shriek in horror.
Rollsslowly did not consider his mental processes to be particularly slow. He had often wondered how he would react in an emergency. He had never specifically thought about a friend self mutilating but it was a rather crushing blow to discover that he couldn’t react nearly in time to prevent-
His thoughts were interrupted when Human Friend Mack scooped him up in his arms and began petting him soothingly. Human Friend Mack was fairly conversant in the Undulate language but his fingers were babbling something about dead tissue and nerve endings and meanwhile Human Friend Susan was listlessly holding her severed appendages.
“Rollsslowly please collect yourself!” Twistunder’s touch suddenly interjected itself.
Human Friend Mack had stopped talking as his two primary appendages seemed fully occupied with holding the weight of two fully grown Undulates.
“She needs medical aid!” Rollsslowly insisted.
“I assure you she does not!” Twistunder insisted. “Look at her colors.”
Rollsslowly took in the heat flushed and dehydrated patterns playing across Human Friend Susan’s face. She was far from not needing medical attention but there were no signs of pain or excess fluid loss. Now that he was thinking properly he did recall that the material of the braids was technically dead tissue and that other than mass the humans lost nothing by removing it. Still the sight of those limp appendages in her hands sent a shiver down Rollsslowly’s mass.
“Are you okay?” Human Friend Mack pressed into his mass.
“Yes, I will be,” Rollsslowly pressed back. “Please set me down.”
“Come on,” Twistunder said, tugging him towards the flow ways. “I know that looked traumatizing. I didn’t think she would use such an inappropriate tool-”
“You think the tool was the problem?” Rollsslowly demanded.
Behind them they heard Human Friend Mack demand of Human Friend Susan.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was too hot,” Human Friend Susan replied with a shrug. “Less hair means less hot.”
THE AMAZON
SECOND EDITION
OF THE
PAPERBACK
AND THE
FORMAL KINDLE EDITION
ARE NOW UP ON
AMAZON! 
​
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at [email protected] and I can ship you a signed Author copy of the first edition for the same price as the crowdfunding campaign $35 domestic and $50 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.  ​

Hey! The books are moving well on Amazon and now have 20 reviews and ratings! If you bought the book and enjoyed it, it would really help me out if you leave a quick star rating on Amazon. A review would be great but just stars would be a huge boost *****!

THE AMAZON
SECOND EDITION
OF THE
PAPERBACK
AND THE
FORMAL KINDLE EDITION
ARE NOW UP ON
AMAZON! 
​
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at [email protected] and I can ship you a signed Author copy of the first edition for the same price as the crowdfunding campaign $35 domestic and $50 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.  ​

Humans are Weird – Have Some Nice Soothing Murders


“It is so easy to forget how irrationally competitive they can be,” Second Sister clicked softly to Eighth Cousin. “They are so, sensible, about so many things.”
Eighth Cousin gave a noncommittal click in reply and pressed closer to Second Sister’s side. The smaller cousin was a rather sickly waxy green from the empathetic stress that was spreading around the base. Second Sister resisted the urge to snap reprovingly, not at the little cousin who was under her care, rather at the irritating cultural forces that made every young cousin feel that they were not fulfilling their duty unless they were out in the galaxy doing something unpleasant and grimly practical. Eighth Cousin was a natural garden help, nearly too empathetic and willing to work herself til her membrane wept. She should be safe where First and Second Father could keep an antenna touch on her and make sure she didn’t strain herself, not here on some far-flung base where humans filled the air with stress hormones because some organized recreational competition, on a planet that wasn’t even their hatch-home, was hosting a brutal sport that wouldn’t even be accepted as rational on the Mother Planet.
Second Sister was seriously considering ordering the communications array shut down for maintenance until the primary games cycle was over. The humans insisted that the rivalry was entirely in good faith and a spirit of healthy exuberance. The pheromones that they pumped into the air however told a different story. For the first time in her service period Second Sister found herself regretting that human pheromones were so easy to translate by intuition.
Second Botanist and Fifth Botanist in particular had been radiating aggression at teach other for weeks. A situation that was only made worse by the fact that they kept their body language rigidly controlled. It was eerily disconcerting to walk past a pair of such massive beings whose every joint was a carefully poised message of polite attention, only to have your antenna positively curl with the potent mix of fight, flight, or freeze pheromones and the obviously predatory focus pheromones.
The humans insisted that their own chemoreceptors played a negligible role in communication between other humans. Second Sister highly doubted this, why would any creature pour that many physical resources into a communications system that they barely used. There was always the possibility that is was meant to communicate the human predatory state to their symbiotic partner species but the mixture was so complex.
“Here comes Fifth Botanist,” Eighth Cousin clicked in Mother.
Second Sister Tilted her head to greet the human female but the massive mammal didn’t seem to notice. She was striding with determination, her wide feet hitting the floor with a fleshy slapping sound. Eighth Cousin perked up her frill and slightly uncoiled her antenna.
“She’s going to make peace,” Eighth Cousin clicked with relief relaxing her joints.
Second Sister wasn’t quite so confident but Eighth Cousin was after all, her superior in empathy, so Second Sister gave her a soothing nibble to the frill and got up to investigate. The current cycle of sporting events wasn’t supposed to wrap up for several more days. If the two botanists could make peace it would make all of their lives easier. Second Sister followed Fifth Botanist until the human approached Second Botanist.
“Hey Chip,” Fifth Botanist called out.
“Sally?” Second Botanist responded as he rotated his body.
Immediately the air began to fill with the conflict that vibrated between them. Second Sister fought to keep her neck frill smooth and down. She noted that neither human seemed aware of her presence they were so focused on each other.
“Look, Chip.” Fifth Botanist said in a curt tone. “We gotta cut this out.”
“Cut what out?” he asked with a frown.
“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Fifth Botanist said, “but apparently the whole bowl spirit has got that sweet little Eighth Cousin on the ropes and according to the base medic you and me are ground zero for her stress and flaking.”
“Makes sense,” Second Botanist agreed. “No one else has a team in the game on this base, but what are we supposed to do about it? If we just pretend we aren’t rooting for opposite sides it just bottles it up, and from what I read that only makes it worse for the species that notice that sort of stuff. It’s not like we can help offgassing.”
“I have a plan,” Fifth Botanist said. “We fill our brains with something else till game night. Really focus on something calming. It’s only a few more days. Then we’ll do a pheromone scrub after all is said and done.”
“I guess that might work,” Second Botanist said in unusually slow tones. “Got any idea on what calming matter we could digest?”
The two humans leaned towards each other and Second Sister slipped away with a relieved feeling. She could feel the tension level dropping a the made the plan. She sent Eighth sister to the showers for a cleanse after telling her the good news. She made a point to thank the medic, an Undulate with extensive experience handling humans.
“They are usually very cooperative,” the medic said with a dismissive wave of his gripping appendage. “If you give them a nice simple explanation of the problem they can usually find a solution themselves.”
“Which is a good thing,” The Undulate said in a rueful tone. “The mere fact that you land dwellers react at all to such minute concentrations of pheromones in the atmosphere is barely within my ability to diagnose, let alone treat. Now if it were stewing in the water, that would be different.”
The meditative solution that Fifth Botanist had proposed did indeed seem to be working well. There was still a level of tension in the air the next day but it was overlayed by a feeling of harmony and cooperation that was positively invigorating after the weeks of tension. Eighth Cousin predictably felt a little guilty for curtailing what was obviously a human tradition through her reactions and had to be soothed repeatedly but overall the relief was complete.
Whatever content the humans had settled on was so unifying that Fifth Botanist and Second Botanist were now spending hours together absorbing and analyzing it. The change was so complete that Eighth Cousin grew quite interested on what mental excessive could so completely reroute human focus. Given that she didn’t quite feel up to exposing herself directly to the pair of humans, no matter how well they were getting on the competition was still unresolved and their endocrine systems knew it, she asked Second Sister to ask what they were meditating so intently on. Second Sister gladly agreed, she was quite as curious. So she made a point to greet the humans in the hallway as they were transitioning from duty hours to recreation hours.
“Fifth Botanist,” Second Sister greeted the human, “I wanted to thank you for the effort you and Second Botanist have put into regulating your social communication. I understand that this is not something you need to be concerned with in your own social circles.”
“No problem Second Sister,” Fifth Botanist said, flashing her teeth in a wide grin. “It probably does effect us anyway. It’d sure explain a lot of the nonsense that the brothers got into back home come bowl week. Sorry we freaked out Eighth Cousin. Is there anything else we can do?”
“Actually,” Second Sister said, “she was rather curious about what meditation materials you were using to reroute your energies.”
“Meditative what now?” Fifth Botanist asked with a frown. “Oh! The book and stuff!”
Her face broke into a grin and then she burst out laughing.
“Meditative eh?” she asked. “Well I guess that is the long and short of it. We didn’t really think of it as meditation though. Just keeping the old gray matter busy thinking on something more calming than the big game. You see it’s like this. This author wrote these awesome books a few hundred years ago. Then they were made into performances. Then the performance were recorded and made into broadcasts. Then those needed to be updated with every technology update and the story changed a bit each time.”
“That is the standard progression for entertainment stories,” Second Sister replied.
“So Chip and I both have a thing for those stories,” Fifth Botanist went on. “The original written version mind, so we’ve been reading the original version then marathoning every recorded version to see how they change over the years. Awful tripe most of them but it is interesting watching the way the ideas get warped over time. We’re both really into it and I guess our mutual love of the stories is enough to overcome the competitive spirit of the game.”
The human seemed done for a moment and then her expressive face twitched as she seemed to remember some last item.
“And the material itself is just soothing,” she added.
“Interesting,” Second Sister observed, “and what is this soothing story material.”
“Just some nice wholesome murders,” Fifth Botanist said with a smile.
Second Sister stared at her, first confused, then waiting for some clarification, but the human noted an Undulate mechanic she wanted to speak to and strode off to greet him, leaving Second Sister to make sense of that last sentence.   


THE AMAZON
SECOND EDITION
OF THE
PAPERBACK
AND THE
FORMAL KINDLE EDITION
ARE NOW UP ON
AMAZON! 
​
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at [email protected] and I can ship you a signed Author copy of the first edition for the same price as the crowdfunding campaign $35 domestic and $50 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.  

 

 Humans are Weird – Closet Space


Third Quartermaster to Proxima Base was waiting patiently outside of the small, circular door set into the wall of the hallway. The smooth green walls stretched an impressive length in every direction before curving out of sight. The walls were marked with a handful of other door types, most notable the ones that opened into the river that ran under the transparent floor. Third Quartermaster tilted his head to the side in interest when a pale white Undulate swam past. He didn’t suppose there was another Undulate with that odd coloration on the campus so this must be Professor Stiffens, the one who had requested the audit of the soup spoons the other day. Why the Professor of post-contact literature even knew what soup spoons were, Third Quartermaster did not know, but the audit was being duly preformed.
His thread of thought was interrupted when the door spiraled open and First Quartermaster skittered out of his office. The Trisk clicked in surprise and rearranged the unstable stack of data-pads that was threatening to overwhelm his paws.
“Third Quartermaster!” First Quartermaster said. “What brings you here?”
Third Quartermaster waited the polite six seconds as he had been taught before answering.
“We have a meeting about human space requirements,” Third Quartermaster explained.
“Yes,” First Quartermaster said, “I recalled that just as I started the question. Well, do you want to have it in your office or the fishbowl?”
“The fishbowl will need to suffice,” Third Quartermaster said, tilting his triangular head to the side in a rueful gesture. “One of the humans failed to follow quarantine protocol when he received a shipment of a predatory insect species.”
“There are predatory insects loose on the campus?” First Quartermaster demanded.
“They have been successfully confined to my office,” Third Quartermaster said with a reassuring curl of his antenna, “and all the humans assure me that the species is harmless to all known sapient beings.”
“And a bundle of stubble that will do the bio-active research if someone looses a new predator there accidentally,” First Quartermaster grumbled as they entered the glass-sided room which theoretically gave one a full view of the campus center.
In reality a few years of students and facility at the University had coated the walls with layer upon layer of written notes and cleaning marks, turning the once transparent walls almost translucent. It made for a reasonably private meeting place.
“Now, what is the latest problem with our big, friendly mammals,” First Quartermaster asked.
“One could hardly call this the latest problem,” Third Quartermaster said. “I haven’t classified it as a problem yet, and I have been tracking its development since the very first human researcher was sent here from the Earth University.”
“Do go on,” First Quartermaster encouraged him.
“This first human,” Third Quartermaster said. “He was a bi-mechanical systems engineer. When he arrived he had just slightly too much personal gear to fit in the storage containers he had brought. Everything seemed necessary and critical to his functioning so I supplied him with a storage unit for his quarters that was about twice the volume of his original unit.”
“Wise and generous,” First Quartermaster said, patting his paws thoughtfully on the stack of datapads that was still shifting in a way that made Third Quartermaster uncomfortable.
“Approximately two lunar months later I noted that the same situation had developed again,” Third Quartermaster went on. “The human did not complain but as the materials scattered around his quarters was a safety hazard, and again, he seemed to have no non-essentials I doubled his storage containers. This happened a few more times. Therefore when more humans began to be stationed here I elected to integrate closets and shelving units into the quarters.”
He paused and licked at one of his eyes as he considered his next words.
“I had assumed you smell,” he said slowly, “that this first human was simply one of those individuals who, through constantly living in harsh conditions of resource scarcity had adapted to a less than optimal resource conditions and that this had caused him to underestimate the amount of storage space needed for one human.”
“A reasonable assumption based on the evidence,” First Quartermaster said.
“However,” Third Quartermaster went on again. “As each new human arrives they each express satisfaction with the amount of storage space they are allotted. Note that it does not matter how much or little they are given. They all expression initial satisfaction, then they quickly fill the space to capacity and require more. I have the numbers and evidence here.”
First Quartermaster clicked in a tone of puzzlement as he took the data pad from Third Quartermaster and began to examine the data.
“Very curious,” First Quartermaster said. “Yes, I see that you simply cannot allot anymore space to each individual human. There is very little in the way of non-essentials. Very curious. Well.”
First Quartermaster tilted his head to the side finally and looked at Third Quartermaster with a handful of eyes.
“What do you think we should do about this?” he asked.
“A proper investigation into this is warranted,” Third Quartermaster said, gesturing at the information. “I have provided the justifications and have written up a proposal for the proper departments. Until that can be done I have put a stated cap on individual storage space in the University proper with options to contact outside storage facilities.”
“Very good, very good,” First Quartermaster said, approving the measures with a tap of his paw on the data pad. “Do the humans recognize the pattern?”
Third Quartermaster flicked an antenna at him in confirmation.
“They call it goldfishing,” he said. “Though the term does not appear to be culturally universal.”
THE AMAZON
SECOND EDITION
OF THE
PAPERBACK
AND THE
FORMAL KINDLE EDITION
ARE NOW UP ON
AMAZON! 
​
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at [email protected] and I can ship you a signed Author copy of the first edition for the same price as the crowdfunding campaign $35 domestic and $50 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.  

 Humans are Weird – Out of Joint
​
Amazon.com: Humans are Weird: I Have the Data eBook: Adams, Betty, Gibadullina, Adelia, Wong, Richard : Kindle Store



“Are you quite sure that the harness crates are within the human’s lifting tolerances?” Fourth Click asked, his wings twitching a bit as he settled himself on the perch beside the base commander.
“They are far under the tolerance levels for even the weakest human,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks stated with a curt tone to his voice. “When I suggested bringing in a lift the human nearly had a fit laughing.”
Fourth Click didn’t respond but let his eyes track the human who was currently organizing the storage compartments. The planet they were on was shifting into what the humans called a monsoon season. While the storage compartment was rated for the wing ripping force of the winds the design involved a bit too much flexibility to allow for storage on the outer surfaces when the walls started pulsing to the windsongs of the planet. Therefore all of the storage shelves along the walls were being disassembled and restructured for extra structural support and their contents were being distributed throughout the base.
Of course the humans were an unspannable aid in this process. They could have never gotten it done without their help. From everything they heard the human’s own base construction had taken a different tactic. The outer shell of their base was completely rigid, several wingspans thick, and reinforced with several layers of rock that had been pulverized, suspended in liquid, then sprayed over the framework. It was a style of construction that would only apply to creature with the humans’ rock like bones he was sure.
Finally Commander Fifty-seven Clicks noted his deliberate silence and glared over at Fourth Click. In reply, Fourth Click shrugged and aimed his eyes on the human. Commander Fifty-seven Clicks gave an almost petulant growl and followed his gaze. The massive human was just then approaching the shelf where the crates of harnesses were. One massive arm swung in a steady rhythm to provide balance. The other arm was clutched to his side as if he was carrying a datapad but there was no datapad to be seen. The human reached the rapidly dwindling supply of crates on that wall. That near the edge of the compartment the human’s thick hair nearly brushed the ceiling. The human reached up as if to grab the box but just before his hand made contact the human paused and grunted in what was very clearly pain. It was a short moment, no one would have noticed if unless they happened to be looking at the human at just the right moment.
“What human nonsense is this?” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks demanded with a distinct clicking together of his teeth.
“Mustn’t grind your teeth,” Fourth Click reminded him gently, only to get a rather sour look in response.
The human had reached the box and lifted it down to his center of mass with another pained grunt. Commander Fifty-seven Clicks hissed at that and Fourth Click whistled through his teeth in agreement. Humans only bothered centering mass when it was well past the mass of the flight harnesses in the crates.
“I will investigate this,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks said in a grim tone.
“What’s got you in such a flit?” Fourth Click asked in surprise. “Overloaded or mislabeled crates are hardly something to get fluffed over.”
“The crates are exactly what they say they are,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks stated. “That human is concealing an injury.”
“What?” Fourth Click demanded. “That would be childlike foolishness!”
Yet when he looked back over at the human clutching the relatively small crate to his center of mass he had to agree that it did fit the observed data better than his theory.
“Probably a minor phlangie injury,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks went on. “I’ve been told that such injures are considered so minor for them that essentially all medical intervention is either useless or counterproductive. The only thing to do is to completely rest the appendage.”
“So why isn’t he resting?” Fourth Click demanded.
“A quirk of human nature,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks said with a wave of his wing. “They consider something that is such a small proportion of their mass important in direct proportion to its size. They take it as an affront against the nature of things that their entire mass could be rendered nonfunctional by a malfunction in such a tiny part.”
“How very human,” Fourth Click said with a wry chuckle as they took flight and swept over to where the human had just placed the crate on the hovering transport.
“Ranger Cram,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks snapped out, dropping his voice so the human could hear him better and shouting. “You are to rest your injured finger, and if that means resting the whole of your body you will do it.”
The human jumped and looked up at them with a wide eyed expression before turning his head to the side, giving them a view of the freakish white area of his eyes interlaced with blood vessels. Fourth Click tried to hide his shudder. You could almost swim in those eyes.
“My fingers are completely uninjured,” Ranger Cram said quickly, holding up his hands and flexing them for the base commander to see.
They did appear completely functional.
“They what,” the commander demanded as he swept forward and landed on the human’s shoulder, “part of you is damaged?”
“Nothing is damaged,” the human insisted. “Not really.”
“Not. Really?” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks pressed.
The human heaved a massive sigh that seemed to be trying to rival the storm outside, and his arm folded around to rub at a point about halfway from his legs to his neck.
“Well one of my ribs is out,” he admitted in a grudging tone. “Hurts a bit and slows me down but it’s one of those things where keeping working is really no worse for me than resting would be. Best to just keep working around it till the chiro gets here in a week or two.”
“Please explain that adverb,” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks interjected. “What do you mean by your rib being out?”
The human paused and his face worked as he tried to explain what was clearly a simple term to him. Finally he held up his hands, made them into fists, and placed one over the other before flaring out his fingers.
“So one of my ribs,” he said slowly. “Slipped out of where it’s attached to the vertebrate and is off kilter-”
Both of the Winged let out horrified shrieks and darted into the air. The human winced at the sound and glanced at them uneasily as they darted around.
“Your. Spine. Is. Miss-aligned?” Commander Fifty-seven Clicks finally calmed him self enough to confirm even as he gave a discrete wing signal for Fourth Click to contact the human commander.
They were going to need backup on this issue no doubt. The human groaned and raised his hands to rub his face.
“Look,” he said. “It’s not a big deal for us. I’ll just be in a bit of pain until-”
“Sit down!” snapped the base commander.
The human heave another sigh and gave a longing look at the half empty shelf before slowly lowering his massive frame onto the hovering transport.
“It’s not a big deal,” he muttered in protest once more.

THE AMAZON
SECOND EDITION
OF THE
PAPERBACK
AND THE
FORMAL KINDLE EDITION
ARE NOW UP ON
AMAZON! 
​
Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at [email protected] and I can ship you a signed Author copy of the first edition for the same price as the crowdfunding campaign $35 domestic and $50 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.