Humans are Weird – Illicit Substances
“This is a very serious matter,” First Mother said, her frill drooping with exhaustion.
First Father clicked softly to her as he gently rubbed the salve into the soft tissue of her frill.
“I am just glad that it is a question of gross physical harm and not involuntary slaughter,” she went on. “If I had to deal with that I would just run right back to my Second Father and hide under his arbor.”
“I don’t think you are allowed to do that once you are a Mother yourself,” her mate pointed out gently.
“I’m bigger than you, you can’t stop me,” First Mother pointed out with a dispassionate click.
First Father clicked in amusement as he worked the salve into her.
“Why the humans insist on poisoning themselves into higher energy levels in the first place is beyond what I can weave,” First Mother went on. “However the insist that their access to the toxin not be infringed.”
“Strange,” First Father muttered as he put the lid back on the slave and set it to the side.
“It is regulated at the concentrations the human was using at the time the accident happened,” she said.
“Then how did it do so much damage to First Taxonomist?” First Father asked.
“Apparently the human had been experiencing sever diminishing returns with the over the counter concentrations,” First Mother said. “He is First Mechanic to his unit and has been working may hours past his sunset on the latest systems upgrade. Therefore he found a way to concentrate his toxin intake by brewing the dehydrated bean from directly in the sealed liquid form.”
She stretched her long arms, flexing her membranes as she did. The flashed red in the afternoon light and First Father found his mind wandering from what she was saying and pulled himself up abruptly.
“-are going to have trouble with the gathering,” she was saying.
“Is the central hive of the Gathering that unreasonable?” First Father asked.
First Mother clicked in annoyance as she settled down onto their couch.
“As far as I can gather,” she said. “The central hive of this Gathering doesn’t exist. You know they have no proper hives. They just deal with each other as they encounter each other. They only formed their pseudo-hives to deal with outsiders.”
“I think I remember the First Instructor saying something about that in Second Cousin’s civics lesson,” First Father admitted with a sheepish tilt to his antenna as he snuggled into his mate’s side. “I really don’t have much of a line on interplanetary politics.”
“Well imagine that Touches the Bedrock is both an orphan, and doesn’t care that he is,” she explained with an exasperated flare of her neck frill.
“So he has no one to argue for him now that his intelligence is threatened?” First Father demanded.
“That about ties it together,” First Mother said. “So we have a mammal so determined to complete a goal that he illegally concentrated a toxin to the point that it gave him cardiac arrhythmia, which caused him to spill said toxin on a micro-rhyzal based lifeform accidentally who is now experiencing severe mental incapacitation from the spill.”
“Did we know before hand that the toxin was dangerous to the Gathering?” First Father asked.
“Not exactly,” First Mother said. “This substance, caffeine, is produced in various cultivated plants specifically to kill fungal based lifeforms, but as far as I can research no Gathering has ever been exposed to it before.”
“The judgment will be difficult,” First Father murmured as they began to enter torpor together.
“At least the human was repentant,” First Mother said as she cuddled against him, “he promised to never brew coffee with energy drinks again.”
Please go and leave a new rating and review on my 2nd book!
Amazon!
Barnes & Noble
Walmart
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten
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
Hey! The books are moving well on Amazon and now have 165 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 $60 overseas. I'll do that until I run out of extra books.
AMAZON
\
RSS Feed
