Humans are Weird – Jump

“Friend Forty-seven-clicks!” Twistunder greeted the Winged who was hunched over the communal pool. “It is good to see you!”
“Ah?” the Winged raised his amber head and blinked as he focused his attention on the undulate. “It is good to see you too Friend Twistunder.”
Twistunder swam leisurely up to the prominence where Forty-seven-clicks was staring over the surface of the pool. Twistunder felt a stirring of unease as he approached. He was not particularly good at reading the emotions of the flying mammals. However the relative increase in folds and creases in Forty-seven-clicks’s facial membrane would seem to indicate distress.
“Do you wish to talk about your emotions Friend Forty-seven-clicks?” Twistunder asked.
Forty-seven-clicks bared his teeth and squinted his eyes in a gesture that even Twistunder could see was frustration.
“I would rather talk about human madness,” Forty-seven-clicks chirped out in anger.
“What did a human do this time?” Twistunder asked, genuinely curious.
“Not a human,” Forty-seven-clicks corrected as he dipped the tip of his wing in the water. “The humans psychology as a whole.”
“How so?” Twistunder asked.
“I was out on a long range scouting run,” Forty-seven-clicks said with a sigh, slumping down onto the perch. “We had a transport but it was flat-land only so we had to get out and fly or climb to explore.”
“There was a human in your flight?” Twistunder asked.
“Yes, a healthy young one,” Forty-seven-clicks replied. “So the expedition is going just fine but we get to a steep cliff where we needed to get out of the transport. I flew up. I needed to rest at least five times and even the human needed to rest from his climbing but eventually we reached the crest. The winds were strong so I followed protocol and attached myself to the human’s neck harness. After we finished the formal survey the human walked to the edge of the cliff and just…stared.”
“What was he staring at?” Twistunder asked.
“The emptiness of space,” Forty-seven-clicks replied. “That is all we can see at that distance, even with our superior sight.”
“Then what happened?” Twistunder pressed.
“The human’s heart rate accelerated,” Forty-seven-clicks said. “His breathing increased. Something was stimulating him.”
“But all he was looking at was the emptiness of space?” Twistunder asked.
“Then he asked me, without making eye contact, if I ever got the urge to jump off of cliffs too.” Forty-seven-clicks said.
Twistunder pondered this a moment. “That phrasing would imply that the human had the urge to jump off of the cliff.”
“Yes!” Forty-seven-clicks hissed out.
“Humans cannot fly,” Twistunder continued.
“Of course not with those ridiculously giant bodies!” Forty-seven-clicks said.
“It would be fatal to leap from the height you describe,” Twistunder said with rising horror.
“So I called off the mission and reported the human to the psychologist!” Forty-seven-clicks explained.
“That seems perfectly reasonable,” Twistunder said.
Forty-seven-clicks threw himself down on the perch and hung his head over the water.
“You would think,” Forty-seven-clicks said. “But apparently it was simply my ignorance that interfered with the mission. The urge to jump from fatal heights is a psychological standard in humans that I would have known about had I read the informational packet fully.”
Silence settled over the friends and Twistunder mused over this revelation.
“Having impulses that you do not act on is one of the defining elements of sapience,” Twistunder said slowly. “But I have never heard of such an illogical example of this.”
“Well now you have,” Forty-seven-clicks said with a sigh. 

Book Suggestions - "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest"
Charlotte Mary Yonge
There was a time when feudal lords still believed that a castle could be impenetrable. When nature alone was thought to be defense enough. There was a time when there was only one Christian Church in all of Europe. There was a time when even a Lord of Europe might be stolen away to become a slave a world away. But the fifteenth century has begun. The sounds of cannons boom over mountain fortresses. Scattered city-states are becoming empires.  In the depths of Germany questions are stirring.
Two women, baronesses, stand in a mountain crag. One holds that her Eagle's Nest is invulnerable. The other has seen the power of the dawning scientific age. One stands for the world that was. One for the world that will be. 
Take a step back in time to a world in the middle of multiple revolutions. 

Well at latitude 43 and elevation 7000 at least. The willow shrubs that climb the talus slope behind my apartment are quietly shifting from green to dusty yellow. Meanwhile we are eagerly waiting for the (much lower elevation) aspen stand to change. That is full fall. The entire forest whispers and murmurs while the leaves swirl around you.  The dark green of the the conifers catch the falling leaves and hold them in bright contrast. 

While trying to think of something clever to post about on this blog my new housemates arrived in a white panel van. Time to make my living space ... less different. 

Much of yesterday and today was spent in arranging for the proper delivery of rescue animals. A chicken and a rooster. 

Humans are Weird – Enough C-4
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“And Commander Grimes agreed with  my analysis Sir,” the young human was explaining.
Commandant Twirls idly wondered, not for the first time why the human was forcing himself into that rigid death like posture while giving his report. All the humans who came before him did it. He wondered if he was curious enough about it to look up the reason in the human behavioral archives. He realized the human had ceased talking, leaving only the soft pulsing of the great central fluid and gaseous pumps of the mammal to fill the room with ambient sound.  Deciding that the human wished a response the Commandant raised his primary gripping appendages in what he hoped mimicked the human’s placating body language. He did not want to frighten the young Ranger.
“So to summarize,” Commandant Twirls began. “You observed the rapidly reproducing species that had infested the ship and determined through practical experimentation that the infestation could not be eliminated or controlled.”
The human bobbed his cranial mass once quickly to confirm the statement. His skin flushed with a rainbow of colors. The spectrum indicated sick horror and shame if the Commandant was any judge of human character. The great pumps began to work faster and then fell out of unison as the human used the gaseous pumps to maintain control over the fluid one. The Commandant would have liked to attempt to sooth the human but he was afraid to condescend to the youngster so he continued but added a reminder to his summary.
“You are not being chastised for your choices Ranger,” Commandant Twirls assured him. “The species was identified and it was a non-sentient replicant threat. The Central University confirms the field assessment you preformed. Now, you evacuated the lower section of your survey ship and detonated the entire ship’s supply of the human explosive designated C-4 in the affected section.”
“Plus the stuff we were carrying out to Gamma base.” The human added.
Twirls noted with relief that the human was displaying less stress and some colors of pleasure even played across the stripes on his face. Though the concept that remembering a giant, near fatal explosion was the cause of this pleasure was disturbing.
“Indeed. You detonated the supply and destroyed the central reproductive chamber of the infestation. This further exposed the interior of that section of the ship to open space.”
“Yes Sir,” the human replied.
“Here is the one question the council has,” Twirls began gently. “And do recall that we are not going to ultimately override the decisions of our field agents in such a situation. You did preserved all the lives of your crew and protected the local inhabited sector. However we do want to understand the logic of the next step.”
“I understand,” the human stated.
“For the record then,” Commandant Twirls said. “Your own analysis shows that you believed the threat had been eliminated by the use of the C-4. Why then did you jettison the infected portions of the ship and take the next steps recorded in the log?”
“We didn’t think the C-4 was enough sir,” the human replied. “I mean there was always a chance one of the sub-queens had laid an egg-cyst in a hard to reach place and we decided that the risk of one of those hatching halfway home wasn’t worth the reward of having the added stability of the lower superstructure and supplies that were left after the detonation.”
“So you jettisoned that segment of the ship,” the Commandant concluded, running his trained reading appendages over the report he was laying on, “sent it on a collision course with an asteroid, then voided the contents of your backup power supply, causing a nuclear detonation when the supply collided with the asteroid and the jettisoned section.”
The human’s face blanched so deeply that the pulsing blood vessel network was visible under the stripes.
“It was the only way to be sure,” he muttered.