Humans are Weird - Five Seconds
Third Trill let his jaws open wide as he hopped away from his sleeping perch. He vigorously rubbed his winghooks over his horns and paused as he felt a tell-tale soreness behind the last pair. He idly probed at the twin tender spots, making a half-a-wing-beat’s worth of effort to count up the time since his last pair had grown in. Giving a full body shake to fluff out his fur he hopped out onto the balcony and drank in the morning air.
The smell of cargo crates, and stale chemical spills filled his nostrils and he drank it in eagerly. Already the heavy thumps of human movement were vibrating up the walls as the morning shift prepared their vehicles for the hard work of transporting the heavy structural materials building on this world required. Third Trill had spent more than a little time on newly settled worlds, where the sapient population could be counted on your spread wings and the structures were nearly all small and temporary. He found he preferred this, worlds where the population was growing, building, where spaceports and storage facilities required supports that could hold the combined weight of a mining ship and four times its weight in asteroid ore.
He leaned his chin on the safety rail and watched the humans in the far end of the massive hanger pass in and out of his focus range. One stopped well within and leaned against a wall eating chunks of something that were skewered on a stick. The human was easing each bite off the stick and popping it into his mouth. Something soft and chewy by the look of how his massive jaws worked the food. The warm scent finally reached Third Trill and he identified seasoned meat along with the sting of roast tuber vegetables. The massive mammal, the food, sourced from plants or animals so much larger than even the bulkiest Winged, and the casual way the jaws just crushed matter a Winged chef would need industrial level tools to liquefy, added to the sense of the nearly awful power of the place. Even the way the human reacted to one of the chunks of meat dropping to the floor, the casual acceptance of the loss and waste of so much prepared food matter as it rolled across the far from sterile hanger floor, fit the slowly drifting thermals of the place.
Third Trill gave another idle probe at the tender spots on his head as he wondered if he could smooth Fifteen Click’s fur enough to get him to sound out a decent poem about it. Maybe if he offered him a cutting from the fruit plant his parents grew? It was both rare and productive and the ship form their homeworld was timed so that it could be brought soon. Fifteen Click would appreciate the chance to grow, to eventually taste such a rare-
His thought thermal abruptly stilled as the human he was watching suddenly turned his head from side to side, those strange bifocal eyes flicking suspiciously around the hanger. In a moment Third Trill’s sleepy mood evaporated as the human began behaving quite suspiciously really. Clearly the giant mammal was compensating for his sonar blindness by using those sharp eyes to look for something, probably other sapients who might observe whatever he was about to do next. Third Trill felt himself ‘put on his commander face’ as the old medic who served their wing called it with amused chitters and prepared himself to intervene if the young human ranger, his morning snack complete, was about to perpetrate some mischief.
With that wide, satisfied ‘grin’ that indicated the human considered the coast clear, he bent down, and before the now very awake Commander Third Trill could even think if he should intervene, snatched up the fallen chunk of meat and popped it in his mouth. The human gave a final suspicious look around the hanger, only at human head height, seemed content his breech of sanitation and health protocols had gone unnoticed and wandered off chewing the meat contentedly.
Commander Third Trill stared after him, his fur quite fluffed now. Then he turned and hopped back to the sleeping quarters where, to his distinct relief, Doctor Eighth Flap was already up and busy at a work station. Commander Third Trill must have been broadcasting his unease because the rest of the wing eased away from him in the way that lower ranks only did when they sensed someone was in trouble but hadn’t figured out who had caught the unlucky downdraft yet. Doctor Eighth Flap looked up from his work and clicked his teeth at him questioningly. Commander Third Trill paused to get his thoughts going in a generally useful direction.
“I need to understand the severity of a breach of health and safety protocol,” he began, and sensed the rest of the slowly waking wing ease further away from him uneasily.
Doctor Eighth Flap grunted and pulled up a holo-display of his medical library.
“How dangerous is it for a human to eat food that has been dropped on the floor of a hanger?” He articulated his question carefully.
Instantly the flow of the wing’s energy changed and they crowded forward, eager to keep at least one ear on a conversation that didn’t apparently involve any of them and Commander Third Flap saw the balding old doctor’s snout make a gesture that indicated a snort of amusement too quiet to be heard.
“Let me,” the doctor said with a grunt as he arranged the holo-display, “familiarize you with an infamous human logical fallacy before I answer your question. Have you ever heard, of the five second rule?”
The smell of cargo crates, and stale chemical spills filled his nostrils and he drank it in eagerly. Already the heavy thumps of human movement were vibrating up the walls as the morning shift prepared their vehicles for the hard work of transporting the heavy structural materials building on this world required. Third Trill had spent more than a little time on newly settled worlds, where the sapient population could be counted on your spread wings and the structures were nearly all small and temporary. He found he preferred this, worlds where the population was growing, building, where spaceports and storage facilities required supports that could hold the combined weight of a mining ship and four times its weight in asteroid ore.
He leaned his chin on the safety rail and watched the humans in the far end of the massive hanger pass in and out of his focus range. One stopped well within and leaned against a wall eating chunks of something that were skewered on a stick. The human was easing each bite off the stick and popping it into his mouth. Something soft and chewy by the look of how his massive jaws worked the food. The warm scent finally reached Third Trill and he identified seasoned meat along with the sting of roast tuber vegetables. The massive mammal, the food, sourced from plants or animals so much larger than even the bulkiest Winged, and the casual way the jaws just crushed matter a Winged chef would need industrial level tools to liquefy, added to the sense of the nearly awful power of the place. Even the way the human reacted to one of the chunks of meat dropping to the floor, the casual acceptance of the loss and waste of so much prepared food matter as it rolled across the far from sterile hanger floor, fit the slowly drifting thermals of the place.
Third Trill gave another idle probe at the tender spots on his head as he wondered if he could smooth Fifteen Click’s fur enough to get him to sound out a decent poem about it. Maybe if he offered him a cutting from the fruit plant his parents grew? It was both rare and productive and the ship form their homeworld was timed so that it could be brought soon. Fifteen Click would appreciate the chance to grow, to eventually taste such a rare-
His thought thermal abruptly stilled as the human he was watching suddenly turned his head from side to side, those strange bifocal eyes flicking suspiciously around the hanger. In a moment Third Trill’s sleepy mood evaporated as the human began behaving quite suspiciously really. Clearly the giant mammal was compensating for his sonar blindness by using those sharp eyes to look for something, probably other sapients who might observe whatever he was about to do next. Third Trill felt himself ‘put on his commander face’ as the old medic who served their wing called it with amused chitters and prepared himself to intervene if the young human ranger, his morning snack complete, was about to perpetrate some mischief.
With that wide, satisfied ‘grin’ that indicated the human considered the coast clear, he bent down, and before the now very awake Commander Third Trill could even think if he should intervene, snatched up the fallen chunk of meat and popped it in his mouth. The human gave a final suspicious look around the hanger, only at human head height, seemed content his breech of sanitation and health protocols had gone unnoticed and wandered off chewing the meat contentedly.
Commander Third Trill stared after him, his fur quite fluffed now. Then he turned and hopped back to the sleeping quarters where, to his distinct relief, Doctor Eighth Flap was already up and busy at a work station. Commander Third Trill must have been broadcasting his unease because the rest of the wing eased away from him in the way that lower ranks only did when they sensed someone was in trouble but hadn’t figured out who had caught the unlucky downdraft yet. Doctor Eighth Flap looked up from his work and clicked his teeth at him questioningly. Commander Third Trill paused to get his thoughts going in a generally useful direction.
“I need to understand the severity of a breach of health and safety protocol,” he began, and sensed the rest of the slowly waking wing ease further away from him uneasily.
Doctor Eighth Flap grunted and pulled up a holo-display of his medical library.
“How dangerous is it for a human to eat food that has been dropped on the floor of a hanger?” He articulated his question carefully.
Instantly the flow of the wing’s energy changed and they crowded forward, eager to keep at least one ear on a conversation that didn’t apparently involve any of them and Commander Third Flap saw the balding old doctor’s snout make a gesture that indicated a snort of amusement too quiet to be heard.
“Let me,” the doctor said with a grunt as he arranged the holo-display, “familiarize you with an infamous human logical fallacy before I answer your question. Have you ever heard, of the five second rule?”
Hidden Fires - A Novel
From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go boomp in the night; Good Lord deliver us.
Traditional Scottish Prayer
A cavern bathed in fire.
A world of the cusp of change.
A threat from beyond the stars.
Bard has led his pool of outcast warriors across the stars to this strange new planet with its cold, nearly dead surface. For years they clung to each other in the magma caverns only going to the surface to humor the curiosity of their hosts,until the day a young alien wandered into Bard’s song and resonated with him, and gave his pool a hope of something more.
Now a dark threat from Bard’s homeworld threatens the fragile connection he has formed with this alien family, and the stars sing of war.
https://igg.me/at/HiddenFiresBook/x/20737048
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon!
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten
From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go boomp in the night; Good Lord deliver us.
Traditional Scottish Prayer
A cavern bathed in fire.
A world of the cusp of change.
A threat from beyond the stars.
Bard has led his pool of outcast warriors across the stars to this strange new planet with its cold, nearly dead surface. For years they clung to each other in the magma caverns only going to the surface to humor the curiosity of their hosts,until the day a young alien wandered into Bard’s song and resonated with him, and gave his pool a hope of something more.
Now a dark threat from Bard’s homeworld threatens the fragile connection he has formed with this alien family, and the stars sing of war.
https://igg.me/at/HiddenFiresBook/x/20737048
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon!
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten
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