Humans are Weird - Snitches
Seventh Sister clicked loudly as she adjusted her hood to once more comfortably settle her frill. Fourth Cousin turned to look at her curiously through her solar radiation goggles.
“To be a mammal with all that internally generated warmth,” Seventh Sister said with a broad gesture towards the three human’s lounging around their recreational transport.
Fourth Cousin gave an amused click in return but quickly bent back over the controls that monitored the trap. As fourth Cousin was the elder, and the better trained lead on this project there was no need for Seventh Sister to make a pretense of assisting her in the analysis of the contents of the trap. Either enough sediment and lung-eels had drifted in to make it worth collecting and then Seventh Sister would begin the pumping process to fill the tank on the back of their walker transport, or not, and they would load up into nice warm cab of the six-legged machine and head back to their hive, where First Father would have a lovely pot of warming broth simmering for them.
Seventh Sister turned her attention back to the humans. They too were collecting nutrients from the lightly frozen river. However instead of gathering the silt rich sediment and the calcium rich lung-eels they were capturing the larger predators that came to feast on the lung-eels. Apparently the Shatar sediment traps attracted, and frustrated the glitter-salmon as the humans called them and made the large, still pool just below the trap excellent fishing. The human community had been very polite about asking permission to ‘fish’ near the trap and Second Grandmother and Second Grandfather had readily agreed. Therefore it was hardly odd to see three young unattended brothers gracefully flinging out fishing lines into the water, reeling in the struggling predator fish, and tossing them into the carrying tank on their transport.
Seventh Sister had even gotten over the fact that their mothers and sister let them wander out on their own. With their combined mass three humans males were more than a match for any threat on the planet, and these looked well grown, though not quite of a mass that indicated being of breeding age. The fact that she didn’t recognize them suggested that they might even be visiting Survey Corps Rangers. Though they were not wearing any official Ranger clothing.
That was what really drew her attention. All three of the humans wore roughly the same attire. A mid-weight, woven fiber covering with a built in hood that could be cinched down around their oval faces, thin flexible gloves, thick socks of insulation fibers, thick bottomed sandels, and the loose fitting double kilt that human’s called ‘shorts’ that came down to just over their massive, bony ‘knee’ joints. The skin below their knee joints was fully exposed to both the local sunlight and the air that was barely above the freezing point of the river water.
“Can you even calculate how many thermal units their mass must be producing to make them comfortable with that level of insulation?” Seventh Sister asked.
Fourth Cousin glanced up from reading the chemical results through the glare of the sunlight on her goggles.
“It must be quite impressive,” she agreed. “It is easy to see why the reptilian species enjoys their presence.”
A flash from down the road heralded the approach of another human transport and a familiar blue vehicle pulled up and parked near their own walker. Seventh Sister lifted a hand to wave cheerfully at their neighbors.
“All nutrient levels are sufficient for harvest,” Fourth Cousin stated. “I am flash searing the mass now.”
Seventh Sister shuffled her feet around in the cracked, half-frozen mud, feeling awkward in her six insulated booties as she readied the hose and the pump. Even through the muffling of her body sock and hood she heard the snap as the waved of electric force stunned, then killed the captured lung-eels before they might be injured by the pumping. She inserted the hose to the bottom of the tank and it began sucking up the mass into the transport tank, straining out excess water back into the river. Behind the translucent hood, well out of her cone of main vision Seventh Sister noted deliberate movement. The hose and pump were flowing smoothing so she turned to greet the looming form she assumed to be her neighbor. As she expected Human First Sister Desiree was standing there holding a fishing rod.
“Seventh Sister,” Desiree greeted her with a smile. “Getting plenty of lung-eels?”
“The nutrient capture levels are all good today,” Seventh Sister said. “It should keep the vineyards healthy this spring. I take it you are here for fresh fish?”
“Yup,” Desiree agreed, lifting the rod in demonstration. “This cold weather is a little annoying to go out in but the glitter-salmon get real bitey during it. And Ma likes nothing better than a bit of glitter-salmon for dinner.”
“Interesting,” Seventh Sister said, craning her torso to glance around Desiree’s mass. “Those humans do not seem to mind coming out in this weather.”
Desiree twisted her entire body to glance over at the other humans and her face contorted in annoyance.
“That-” she pointed a gloved hand at the three unattended males, “is not normal human behavior.”
Seventh Sister glanced down at Desiree’s two legs and saw that they were indeed wrapped in a thick insulating layer.
“They do not seem distressed in any way,” Seventh Sister observed.
“Yeah, well humans are not meant to expose that much skin to this much cold,” Desiree declared. “It must be some weird Ranger thing. It can’t be safe or healthy, and if you see anyone from my hive doing something that stupid I want you to snitch like a sister!”
Seventh Sister glanced again over at the clearly very comfortable unattended males with their bare legs and decided that a diplomatic answer was in order.
“Surely none of your brothers would do something like that,” she said with a soothing pat to Desiree’s arm.
Desiree turned back from looking over at the males and her face twisted into a wry smile.
“You’re probably right,” she admitted, shifting the rod in her hand. “I don’t want them picking up bad habits from visiting Rangers though.”
The human’s sister, Seventh Sister couldn’t tell which one under all the layers, called her over for help moving equipment and Seventh Sister turned back to her own work.
“Will you?” Fourth Cousin asked once the pump had finished it’s work and she was resetting the trap while Seventh Sister made sure the load was secure.
“Will I what?” Seventh Sister asked.
“Snitch like a sister,” Fourth Cousin clarified with a gesture at the fishing humans.
“Inter-hive politics,” Seventh Sister said slowly as they climbed into the nice warm cab and she could finally free her frill and her antenna, “let alone inters-pecies-inter-hive politics is more a matter for Fathers and Grandfathers. If I ever see Human Brother Bobby running around with his legs exposed to the cold like that I will refer the matter of snitching to them.”
Fourth Cousin clicked her general agreement as she started up the transport and it began stepping back to their hive.
“To be a mammal with all that internally generated warmth,” Seventh Sister said with a broad gesture towards the three human’s lounging around their recreational transport.
Fourth Cousin gave an amused click in return but quickly bent back over the controls that monitored the trap. As fourth Cousin was the elder, and the better trained lead on this project there was no need for Seventh Sister to make a pretense of assisting her in the analysis of the contents of the trap. Either enough sediment and lung-eels had drifted in to make it worth collecting and then Seventh Sister would begin the pumping process to fill the tank on the back of their walker transport, or not, and they would load up into nice warm cab of the six-legged machine and head back to their hive, where First Father would have a lovely pot of warming broth simmering for them.
Seventh Sister turned her attention back to the humans. They too were collecting nutrients from the lightly frozen river. However instead of gathering the silt rich sediment and the calcium rich lung-eels they were capturing the larger predators that came to feast on the lung-eels. Apparently the Shatar sediment traps attracted, and frustrated the glitter-salmon as the humans called them and made the large, still pool just below the trap excellent fishing. The human community had been very polite about asking permission to ‘fish’ near the trap and Second Grandmother and Second Grandfather had readily agreed. Therefore it was hardly odd to see three young unattended brothers gracefully flinging out fishing lines into the water, reeling in the struggling predator fish, and tossing them into the carrying tank on their transport.
Seventh Sister had even gotten over the fact that their mothers and sister let them wander out on their own. With their combined mass three humans males were more than a match for any threat on the planet, and these looked well grown, though not quite of a mass that indicated being of breeding age. The fact that she didn’t recognize them suggested that they might even be visiting Survey Corps Rangers. Though they were not wearing any official Ranger clothing.
That was what really drew her attention. All three of the humans wore roughly the same attire. A mid-weight, woven fiber covering with a built in hood that could be cinched down around their oval faces, thin flexible gloves, thick socks of insulation fibers, thick bottomed sandels, and the loose fitting double kilt that human’s called ‘shorts’ that came down to just over their massive, bony ‘knee’ joints. The skin below their knee joints was fully exposed to both the local sunlight and the air that was barely above the freezing point of the river water.
“Can you even calculate how many thermal units their mass must be producing to make them comfortable with that level of insulation?” Seventh Sister asked.
Fourth Cousin glanced up from reading the chemical results through the glare of the sunlight on her goggles.
“It must be quite impressive,” she agreed. “It is easy to see why the reptilian species enjoys their presence.”
A flash from down the road heralded the approach of another human transport and a familiar blue vehicle pulled up and parked near their own walker. Seventh Sister lifted a hand to wave cheerfully at their neighbors.
“All nutrient levels are sufficient for harvest,” Fourth Cousin stated. “I am flash searing the mass now.”
Seventh Sister shuffled her feet around in the cracked, half-frozen mud, feeling awkward in her six insulated booties as she readied the hose and the pump. Even through the muffling of her body sock and hood she heard the snap as the waved of electric force stunned, then killed the captured lung-eels before they might be injured by the pumping. She inserted the hose to the bottom of the tank and it began sucking up the mass into the transport tank, straining out excess water back into the river. Behind the translucent hood, well out of her cone of main vision Seventh Sister noted deliberate movement. The hose and pump were flowing smoothing so she turned to greet the looming form she assumed to be her neighbor. As she expected Human First Sister Desiree was standing there holding a fishing rod.
“Seventh Sister,” Desiree greeted her with a smile. “Getting plenty of lung-eels?”
“The nutrient capture levels are all good today,” Seventh Sister said. “It should keep the vineyards healthy this spring. I take it you are here for fresh fish?”
“Yup,” Desiree agreed, lifting the rod in demonstration. “This cold weather is a little annoying to go out in but the glitter-salmon get real bitey during it. And Ma likes nothing better than a bit of glitter-salmon for dinner.”
“Interesting,” Seventh Sister said, craning her torso to glance around Desiree’s mass. “Those humans do not seem to mind coming out in this weather.”
Desiree twisted her entire body to glance over at the other humans and her face contorted in annoyance.
“That-” she pointed a gloved hand at the three unattended males, “is not normal human behavior.”
Seventh Sister glanced down at Desiree’s two legs and saw that they were indeed wrapped in a thick insulating layer.
“They do not seem distressed in any way,” Seventh Sister observed.
“Yeah, well humans are not meant to expose that much skin to this much cold,” Desiree declared. “It must be some weird Ranger thing. It can’t be safe or healthy, and if you see anyone from my hive doing something that stupid I want you to snitch like a sister!”
Seventh Sister glanced again over at the clearly very comfortable unattended males with their bare legs and decided that a diplomatic answer was in order.
“Surely none of your brothers would do something like that,” she said with a soothing pat to Desiree’s arm.
Desiree turned back from looking over at the males and her face twisted into a wry smile.
“You’re probably right,” she admitted, shifting the rod in her hand. “I don’t want them picking up bad habits from visiting Rangers though.”
The human’s sister, Seventh Sister couldn’t tell which one under all the layers, called her over for help moving equipment and Seventh Sister turned back to her own work.
“Will you?” Fourth Cousin asked once the pump had finished it’s work and she was resetting the trap while Seventh Sister made sure the load was secure.
“Will I what?” Seventh Sister asked.
“Snitch like a sister,” Fourth Cousin clarified with a gesture at the fishing humans.
“Inter-hive politics,” Seventh Sister said slowly as they climbed into the nice warm cab and she could finally free her frill and her antenna, “let alone inters-pecies-inter-hive politics is more a matter for Fathers and Grandfathers. If I ever see Human Brother Bobby running around with his legs exposed to the cold like that I will refer the matter of snitching to them.”
Fourth Cousin clicked her general agreement as she started up the transport and it began stepping back to their hive.
RSS Feed
