Humans are Weird – Boop


“To be fair to the beast,” Grinds said as he settled down into the conference couch, “I would have been sorely tempted to bite the human under the circumstances.”
Grandmother felt her antenna twitch in stern disapproval and was grateful, not for the first time that their lizard like allies were so poor at reading Shatar body language. This child was barely out of his father’s gardens according to his notes and a little inappropriate language was to be expected. She clicked her mandibles in what she hoped he took as a sympathetic manner.
“And what were the circumstances?” she asked as she turned on her recording device.
The reptile heaved a long drawn out sigh that turned into a discontented grumble.
“There’d been canisters of damage to the north fields,” Grinds began, rubbing behind his eyes with one hand. “We’d already lost hectares of new growth to the creatures and we really couldn’t afford it you know?”
“I do not know,” Grandmother corrected him with a gently rebuking tilt of her triangular head.
“Those’re the experimental fields,” Grinds explained. “We’re trying to breed up a mostly native domestic crop. Tweaked a lil’ for nutrient yield you know, added an off-world symbiote to the roots to up the iron production and the like. Well, it worked.”
The reptile gave a rueful grimace and his tongue flicked over his teeth.
“We got the grain to yield plenty of iron,” he said.
“That is what attracted the humans to the project?” Grandmother asked, glancing at the notes.
The lizard waved his tail in confirmation.
“Iron’s a huge problem for ‘em,” he said, “All that blood you know, and they just burn through it with all that bleeding and the like.”
Grandmother flicked an antenna in understanding.
“So the humans got involved with protecting the crop because we couldn’t really handle it ourselves without just killing a lot of the local fauna,” Grinds said. “Turns out it was these local amphibians that were doing the damage. They start out small and keep growing. We didn’t notice them at first because the pre-reprodcutive stage don’t bother the grain-fields, and then for years and years the reproductive stages aren’t big enough to do much damage, and in the standard fields a little loss doesn’t matter, but this was an important seed increase field.”
The lizard heaved a sigh and shifted his position.
“Scent this,” he went on, “these amphibians have a lot more bones than usual. They have a whole set that stick out from the lower ribs. They use ‘em to tear up the banks of the streams to make places to lay their eggs, then they have these big, round bony protuberances on either side of their snouts that they use to punch a hole in the torn up ground. That’s where they put their eggs. Always took a tole on the grain-fields by the banks of the river but it was never enough to be worth dealing with them.”
“I see that the individual in question was significantly larger than usual,” Grandmother observed.
“Yeah, they keep growing,” Grinds repeated. “This one, the humans call her Thumper, she’s probably several centuries old, maybe a millennia or more, not much that can predate ‘em when they get past a certain size.”
“We tried to relocate her ourselves,” Grinds said and his face contorted into a grimace at the memories. “That was a time of madness alright.”
“I read the reports,” Grandmother said. “It was very fortunate that there were no injuries of note.”
“We are pretty tough when it comes right down to it,” Grinds said with and amused glint in his eye, “but the fact that she couldn’t hurt us didn’t change the fact that we couldn’t move her.”
“So you called the humans,” Grandmother observed.
“So we called the humans,” Grinds admitted. “We were a little worried. She had those external bones and humans are pretty soft, but they didn’t have any trouble at all with the capture. They just made use of that massive thermal energy they have and went out in the cold of the morning when she was still torpid from the night. The have a ranged restraint device that shoots nets. So they netted her from a distance and loaded her up into the transport tank before the first sun was even up.”
“It sounds like a perfectly safe operation,” Grandmother said with confusion wrinkling her frill as she looked down at her data pad.
The torn and bloody limbs it displayed contradicted the story so far.
“It up until the humans got bored,” Grinds said with another sigh. “When humans transport anything with a snout and teeth like that they usually bind the maw with reversed adhesive strips, but the shape of her jaw wouldn’t allow for that so they just trusted to the compression container to keep her still and calm.”
“But it didn’t?” Grandmother asked.
“It did up to a point,” Grinds corrected her. “She couldn’t move her legs or tail, or even her neck really, but she was big, bigger than the compression container allowed for and her head stuck out into the cargo hold. It sill would have been fine-”
Grinds paused and shook his head.
“There weren’t enough seats in the personnel transport section for all of us,” he went on. “So one of the humans, the youngest, sat in the cargo space with her.”
“Wasn’t there room for him to maintain a safe distance?” Grandmother asked.
“Ample room,” Grinds said. “In fact he had to unsecure the harness to move into her space.”
“So this human,” Grandmother said. “A trained professional in the field of hazardous fauna removal. Broke protocol to remove his safety harness in a moving vehicle, reached out and deliberately put his hand in the strike range of a creature known to have dangerous teeth?”
“I wouldn’t even call it a strike range,” Grinds said. “She could really only open and close her mouth.”
“Then what happened?” Grandmother asked after a pause.
“The human self applied first aid and tried to hide the event from the commander,” Grinds said. “If he hadn’t mentioned that he’d accidentally let her ingest some of his blood out of concern for her safety we might not have noticed at all.”
“Typical human behavior,” Grandmother observed, letting her frill lay flat on her neck in irritation. “Did he give any explanation as to why he put his hand in that situation in the first place?”
“He said that he was just sitting there staring at her for an hour,” Grinds said, “and she just had that big, round, boopable nose. So he booped it.”
“Booped it?” Grandmother asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.
“Haven’t you seen the boop reflex before?” Grinds asked in surprise.
“Not that I am aware of,” Grandmother said.
“It gets stimulated in humans a lot around the infants of our species but even adults seem to trigger it,” Grinds said.
He tilted his head to the side and examined her face, then slowly shook his head.
“Yes,” he said in a speculative tone. “I suppose you Shatar don’t have any nose-like protuberances to tempt them, but humans seem to have the urge to lightly tap round things, especially if they are part of a face that demonstrates neonatal proportions.”
“The boop reflex,” Grandmother said with a tired sigh. “I will make a note of it.”  

"Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"



What does it mean when your human friend says “Watch This?”? Why does this simple phrase seem to terrify any alien that has first appendage experience with humans? #HFY #HumansAreWeird #HumansAreSpaceOrcs #EarthIsADeathWorld #EarthIsSpaceAustralia



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Hey! The books are moving well on Amazon and now have 136 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 *****!
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QUICK NOTE: RE: everyone who asked. The book is avaliable in Amazon regions US-UK-DE-FR-ES-IT-NL-JP-BR-CA-MX-AU-IN. HOWEVER The above link only takes you to the US Amazon site. The one indicated by the .com ending. If it says "not avaliable in your country" that just means that you need to click over to your Amazon region.


Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at the email on my website 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.
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 Humans are Weird – Fluffy Blanket Season


“As you can see we are thriving despite the advancing inclement conditions,” Second Sister said, indicating the wide common room with a flick of her antenna.
Inspector Flicksoddly made a gesture of assent as he absorbed the vibrations of the room. “He was drifting forward slowly on his hovering transport and the Shatar paced along easily beside him. The weak yellow sunlight from the three suns glared in through the windows that formed the north and east walls providing at least a portion of the ultraviolet needs of the various flora and fauna that inhabited the shared space. Vines from the Shatar homeworld, according to rumor gifts from the House of the Eldest itself, climbed up the walls and down trellises that formed corridor’s around the edges of the space. Small trees, gifted from Terra stretched up towards the ceiling and the artificial sunscapes that provided what the local stars couldn’t.
“Will Expounds Inevitably on All Subjects be going dormant this year?” Flicksoddly asked.
Second Sister brushed at an eye with her proboscis and glanced at some note on her data pad.
“An interesting question,” she finally stated. “The axis tilt on this planet is more than intense enough to trigger dormancy in a Gathering, however Expounds Inevitably on All Subjects has been making plans for myth exchange with every other member of the base and I cannot imagine how that can be accomplished in the time frame if Expounds Inevitably on All Subjects goes dormant.”
Flicksoddly spread his appendages and examined the Gathering who inhabited the central portion of the common area. With the approaching cold cycle Expounds Inevitably on All Subjects had recalled the vast majority of tendril mass into this sheltered building and was now visible as a mound of apparent organic detritus that filled the better part of the center of the shared area. There were paths through the mound for the walking species and various seats had been placed under the trees and vine clusters in an obvious attempt to invite conversation. Several of the chairs has been carved, or perhaps formed out of wood, into human comfortable seats and something distinctly non-organic was draped over them. It was an interesting set up all things told, but as it all seemed perfectly conductive to long term mental stability and interspecies harmony there was nothing in it for the inspector to note.
“All does appear to be in readiness for the storms,” he observed.
Flicksoddly felt his attention diverted as the energy in the room changed palpably. From where his transport now hovered he had a good range of perspective. The flights of Winged began rustling as if preparing for flight but none of them abdicated their perches. A cluster of Undulates began to poke there appendages out of their pool and some hauled themselves out onto drying ledges. Flicksoddly gestured to the movement around them, setting his body at an inquisitive angle. Second Sister noted his question and indicated the main doorway with her antennas.
“The humans will be coming off of their main research shift soon,” she explained.
“And they are that popular?” Flicksoddly asked in an amused tone as he noted the excitement filling the communal area.
“They are when the planet is at this angle,” Second Sister confirmed.
“How are those two items connected?” Flicksoddly asked.
“Through these,” Second Sister said.
She reached over and selected one of the non-organic items that had been draped over a nearby wooden seat. Flicksoddly accepted the material, it was quite light, and ran it through his appendages with an approving hum.
“Thermal insulation,” he identified it. “Fibrous and very pleasing to the touch. These would be very useful for the coming temperature drops. Did the humans gift these to the base?”
“In a manner of speaking yes,” Second Sister replied, “but not as you are thinking. The humans use them for their own purposes.”
“I can see how they would benefit the humans tremendously,” Flicksoddly said. “They must catch and diffuse much of their biothermal energy.”
“Put that back before Human Friend Susan gets here!” A voice so high-pitched that Flicksoddly almost missed it suddenly called out accompanied by the darting movements that indicated he was being addressed by a frustrated flight of Winged.
“This is Human Friend Susan’s blanket?” Flicksoddly asked as he passed the blanket back to Second Sister, who had the height to set the fabric on the human sized seat.
“It is the one she will most likely use today,” Second Sister explained. “Come, if we want to observe without interfering we should distance ourselves. I think you will understand better then.”
They moved over to one of the thin, triangular perches designed for Shatar anatomy and Second Sister began explaining the meal cycle of the cafeteria to him. He listened with half of his appendages while waiting for the humans to enter. He didn’t have long to wait, but the normally hasty humans certainly took their time once in the communal area. For the most part they were carrying either data pads, books, a thermal-insulated drink container or some combination of those items. They stopped to chat with individuals, flights, or to make comments at the seemingly dormant mass in the middle of the floor. Most of the wandered over to the couches in front of the windows and the ones who didn’t sit paused to take long, shallow drinks of their heated beverages before cycling back towards the more shaded seats among Expounds Inevitably on all Subjects’s piles.
One human, Human Friend Susan, Flickoddly supposed, finally detached herself from a conversation about the current temperature and wandered over the seat he had been examining. She set her drink on one “armrest” her book on the other and proceed to fold herself into the curves of the seat in a very nearly undulate manner. When she had reached some mysterious state of contentment she reached for the fibrous material and spread it over her body to trap the thermal energy she was radiating. This done she wriggled back into the seat, picked up her drink in one hand and opened her book with another.
That alone was an interesting enough spectacle but the fight of Winged who had spent this time very deliberately grooming themselves in the branches above her now seem to decide that some acceptable limit had been reached and descended on her in a flutter of membranous wings. Flickoddly assumed that they requested permission to land from the fact that Human Friend Susan waved her cup holding hand in a gesture of assent but the sound was lost to him in the rustle of wings. The Winged busied themselves finding spots to curl up against the soft fibers of the fabric that was now radiating the human’s thermal energy.
“A very tempting prospect,” Flicksoddly observed.
Second Sister gave a light trill of amusement.
“I cannot say that it is quite so attractive to me,” she admitted, “but then Shatar are less dependent on mutual touch for warmth.”
“And it is the increased cold that causes this behavior despite the interior of the base itself being climate controlled?” Flicksoddly asked for confirmation.
“That is correct,” Second Sister replied. “The psychological presence of the cold outside seems to drive this behavior in most species. The humans call it fluffy blanket season, for obvious reasons,” she finished, flicking an antenna at Human Friend Susan, now all but covered in contentedly grooming Winged.  

"Humans are Weird: I Have the Data"



What does it mean when your human friend says “Watch This?”? Why does this simple phrase seem to terrify any alien that has first appendage experience with humans? #HFY #HumansAreWeird #HumansAreSpaceOrcs #EarthIsADeathWorld #EarthIsSpaceAustralia



Amazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)


Barnes & Nobe (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)


Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)


Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)




Hey! The books are moving well on Amazon and now have 117 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 *****!
​

QUICK NOTE: RE: everyone who asked. The book is avaliable in Amazon regions US-UK-DE-FR-ES-IT-NL-JP-BR-CA-MX-AU-IN. HOWEVER The above link only takes you to the US Amazon site. The one indicated by the .com ending. If it says "not avaliable in your country" that just means that you need to click over to your Amazon region.


Of course if you want a signed first edition you can email me at the email on my website 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.
AMAZON