Sweat
by Betty Adams

"Excuse me Friend Dodge," the voice came from behind him, startling the Ranger from his brown study of the remaining miles of moon like terrain they faced.
"Yes Fif-Friend Fifty-seven Clicks?" He replied, just remembering to add in the honorific. Not that he minded. Once you had shared a malfunctioning ship, a landing that was not a crash by a margin of a few meters per second, and the news that you were going to have to hoof (or wing in his friend's case) it forty miles across a featureless desert to the nearest supply cache there was no reason not to call each other friends.  A ginger blur came around and focused into a fluttering bat-like creature. 
"I suspect that your water supply is leaking." Fifty-seven Clicks informed him with his horrifyingly adorable face scrunched up in what Mack Dodge had learned was a sign of distress. 
Mack grunted, stood immediately, and began to shrug off his backpack. The partial shade that the rock outcropping had offered only covered him if he was sitting but this needed attention now.
"Well let's see," Mack muttered, carefully examining the mouthpiece, the tube that led to the main reservoir in his pack and then the reservoir itself. 
"I can't see or feel anything wrong with it and it doesn't look like I've lost any water," Mack finally said. "What makes you think it's leaking?" 
"You are covered in water Friend Dodge!" Fifty-seven Clicks insisted. Mack heard the fluttering of leathery wings and felt a velvet brush against his back before the Itsy-Bitsy Hellbat flew around to his face and held up a dripping wet manipulating claw. "Look at this!" 
"That's just sweat," Mack said with a sigh, slinging his pack back on and securing the buckles. "Come on I've rested enough. Let's get going. I want to make another ten miles before we make camp."
"What is sweat and where is it coming from if not your water reservoir?" Fifty-seven Clicks demanded, fluttering around in front of Mack, his dusky ginger fur catching the dim light of the three suns. 
"Did you read the section in our briefing about how humans achieve thermoregulation?" Mack asked ruefully, already knowing the answer.
"No," Fifty-seven Clicks replied without any seeming embarrassment.  
Mack sighed and shook his head as he started out. "I have a set of glands that pump water out from my internal reserves and then my skin uses the resulting temperature drop due to evaporation to pull the heat away from my internals and radiate it out into the surrounding atmosphere." Maybe not the most accurate summation but internal biology wasn't really his specialty. 
He hoped he was mostly accurate because Fifty-seven Clicks was so stunned by this revelation that he waited what must have been a full five seconds before replying. 
"The amount of water you must have to store would be enormous!" He chattered out excitedly. 
"I'm ninety percent water," Mack commented though his training suggested this might not be strictly relevant. 
"That is a lot of weight!" Fifty-seven Clicks still seemed shocked. "Just to carry around and expend like that."
"Legs," Mack indicated the limbs in question. "They are really good for carrying extra weight." 
"It just seems inefficient," Fifty-seven Clicks commented. 
"Well we can't all have sensory horn that double as thermoregulators," Mack said philosophically. 
"They are very useful," Fifty-seven Clicks agreed, hovering to preen the organs in question. His four, rightly two and a half sets, marked him as rather young but they were quiet a source of pride to him. 
Mack grinned and gave a chuckle. It was going to be a long walk and he was glad Fifty-seven Clicks was in a good mood. 

Today is an inside day for sure!  Snow Cats and books, reading and writing. 

Something to remember when writing. Different animals see the world at different speeds. When writing different alien species interacting it might behoove an author to remember this. Having a 'slow' species interacting with a 'fast' species can make for interesting dynamics. 

Here is a common insect that makes wonderful inspiration for alien species. Known as the 'Parasites' Parasite' This hardcore bug uses her long tails to bore holes in wood and lays her eggs in the dens of insects that lay their eggs in the dens of other insects so their babies can eat the occupants. 

Humans are Weird - Boredom 

"Master Linguist?" 
The hesitant voice pulled the linguist's attention away from his work on the data pad beneath him and up to the young one who crouched at the door. The master linguist let his vision slide over the youth, taking in the tightly held legs and the thorax pressed tightly to the floor. The apprentice linguist  was nervous, excited, and probably shocked. 
"Please come and loosen," the master linguist urged him. 
The apprentice came forward with jerky movements and made a brave show of attempting to relax. The master linguist tucked his data pad away and moved over to run a soothing leg over the top of the apprentice's thorax. When the young one had sufficiently calmed he began to loosen and rose to a more comfortable stance.
"You taught me that some of the greatest cultural discoveries happen when you find the words that match but the words that have no direct translation. The ones we have to write whole paragraphs to describe."
"Yes," the Master Linguist agreed. "And why is this?"
"Strange words describe strange ideas," the apprentice quoted. "If they gave it a word it is very important to them. If we did not it is elementally alien to us."
"And you think you found one of these critical words," The Master Linguist urged him gently on.
The apprentice waved on foreleg in distracted agreement and the Master Linguist stiffened a bit. If it was not the trepidation of bearing an astounding claim to a skeptical superior what was causing his distress?
"The humans-" the apprentice began.
The Master twitched. Oh, of course, the humans.
"They have a word that means they are suffering because there are not enough  threats in their immediate environment. The soldiers in the base...they say they are bored."

The situation that a character finds themselves in can greatly change the way that they are perceived by the reader. A change in lighting, a change in background, it can pull up emotions that will influence the reader in various ways. 

The fall with all of its rain and cool weather is a great time to curl up with a good book. 
smile.amazon.com/Dying-Embers-Betty-Adams/dp/1623751128/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1475869280&sr=8-4&keywords=dying+embers"Dying Embers"

Backwoods Noire

• That one old owl that has hung out by that abandoned barn for more years than is really possible. Every local has seen it, No one talks about it. No one is sure exactly what species it is. Its feathers seem too tattered to fly. Its beak is cracked. It is never seen hunting and the mice run rampant in its territory. No other owls live near. There is a picture in the barn of a boy holding up a baby owl  and a headstone in the woods nearby. The names are the same. 
• That one tree in the orchard that never grows right. The fruit is sour. The branches are twisted. The bark is black and smells of something...not alive. The farmer cut it down years back and replanted. The new tree was the same. 
• That one sandy patch down at the creek where none of the river critters step. It ain't much, just a about a square yard or two of river silt with no paw prints on it. No raccoon hand-prints, no fine lines of bird tracks, no tiny musk-rat claws. Curious digging finds that the usual worms and insects that fill the surrounding soil do not seem to like the area either.  Dogs that follow their people down to the river resist crossing the patch and try to drag small children out of it. 
• That one little valley up in the hills where the mist never seems to clear. Even in deep summer drought. the temperature never rises above chilly. There is no signal there, radio, cell phone, or satellite. 
• That one path where footsteps follow walkers at night. They pause and hasten on at random. As if they are not following or reacting to the walker, but they are following and reacting to someone. 
• An old covered bridge that on bright spring mornings sometimes resonates with the sounds of dozens of footsteps slightly out of step and the cheers of a small crowd. No one is sure why the only thought they have is that there are not nearly enough footsteps. 
• That stone along the riding path where every horse stops dead and twitches for just a moment. 
• That one pasture where a sheep is found occasionally dead, torn to pieces, with no tracks around it. Not even the bravest herd dog will go near the dead bodies. A professor from some big far off university took some away for analysis once and promised to tell them what did it.  He never got back to them and word was he was found in his lab, torn to pieces. 

"So why don't more aliens come to Earth now that the space port is open?" Mack asked idly of his companion. 
The four foot long lizard blinked lazily at him with one eye and gave a snort of amusement. "Well one might speculate that all that propaganda you sent out actually worked." The lizard rasped dryly. 
"Propaganda?" Mack asked arching an eyebrow. "What propaganda?" 
The lizard kicked him reproachfully and stretched out in the warm sand. "Do not try to be obtuse friend Mack. I have seen the entire set you keep in your files."
Mack gave an interrogative flick of his foot and the lizard snorted. 
"I have watched the tales of the "Hale Hero on the Abominable World" many times. If only a fraction of the horrors he revealed were true no sane being would willing come here."
"You are here," Mack pointed out idly, meanwhile wracking his mind for which of his shows his friend was referring to. 
"Well I have never laid claim to much sanity." The lizard confessed. "And I figured as long as I stick close to you I will be safe from the horrors the Hale One faced."
Mack squinted over at him as his mind finished his mental tally. "Hey, the only files of mine that you've accessed are the David Attenborough documentaries...."
The lizard made the great effort to nod. "A Hale Hero indeed," he said seriously. "The man must be quite mad of course to face such horrors so easily but his sacrifices are appreciated by all who have been warned away."
"....Uh-huh..." Mack eyed his friend and then decided that a nap was preferable to pursuing the odd conversation any longer.

What is the defining difference between a mere reader and a true book lover? Could it be those precious few moments at breakfast when (those who can do something more than eat and wake up) the hands reach for a book and the meal is merely dressing on those blessed quiet moments.