Humans are Weird – Streak
“Engineer Fiss’stk?” came the latest interruption just as Fiss’stk almost had the tricky spring in the correct position.
He felt the spring dislodge from it’s position and shoot away on every hair as he lost concentration in his paws. Fiss’stk let the seconds drag out as he followed the track of the spring with his primary eyes until it dissapeared into his visual horizon. Fiss’stk inflated his lung with a deep breath and rotated his mass to bring his primary cone onto his fluffy, well meaning, not-at-all irritating apprentice.
“Yes Ktktk’kt?” he responded, he was pretty sure his tone wasn’t at all bristly.
“Don’t human women tend to keep their, I forget their name, but the secondary sex characteristic that is so bouncy and round, don’t they keep them covered?”
Fiss’stk fought down the bristle of irritation and tried not to mentally calculate the value of that spring as he wrestled with what-by-the-web his apprentice might have been talking about.
“I believe that human females are very mindful in general about keeping various body parts covered,” he said, “but that is very context dependent. For instance, in saunas-”
“Yes, yes,” his apprentice interrupted – actually interrupted! - him. “But I mean in open public spaces.”
“Yes,” Fiss’stk clicked out, knowing he sounded bristly this time. “Human females make it a point to keep covered with weave fabric in public, in this culture at least. Now -”
“Then why is this one uncovered?” Ktktk’kt demanded, shoving a distance viewer at him.
Fiss’stk felt the situation shift under his paws as what was clearly a very distress human came into his focal area. He had seen her around with her family, several fluffy little hatchlings and her mate, though he didn’t know her name.
“She is distressed!” Ktktk’kt pointed out. “I suspected as much from her public lack of social cover, but-”
“Please be silent while I determine if she is fleeing from or chasing something,” Fiss’stk said, and if he felt a bit of satisfaction at interrupting the fluffy little climber that was hardly relevant. He was pondering if he should call base security when the human suddenly lunged forward and down and snatched at something that was out of their line of sight behind a shrubbery line used for air purification, food growth, and ornamentation. Her displayed muscles tensed and bulged in that mammalian way that they would, and Fiss’stk say Ktktk’kt flinch in horror, but that quickly changed to relief as the human’s effort resulted in her pulling a fully naked infant human into sight and clasping it to her exposed upper half.
“I see!” Ktktk’kt said with relief. “She was merely perusing a hatchling who had escaped in a dangerous area.”
“Indeed,” Fiss’stk agreed after the polite six seconds. “I believe that it mentioned in my report that the damaged relays we are supposed to be repairing have been causing interruptions in the humans normal bathing facilities. Many have had to use share communal facilities. Which, as I was saying,” he angled his primary eyes accusingly at his apprentice, who had the grace to shuffle his hind-paws in embarrassment. “is a socially normative place for humans to leave more of their bodies uncovered. The derangement of their usual behavior probably led to the little one escaping to explore and therefore it’s mother to chase after it for safety.”
His apprentice gave a humble gesture of acknowledgment, both of the cultural information and the implied critique, and shuffled awkwardly on his hind-paws.
Fiss’stk felt a touch of sympathy for the fluff legs and drew in a long breath.
“It was right of you to interject if you thought the human was in danger or distress,” Fiss’stk said. “You preformed well.”
Ktktk’kt danced with delight at the praise and Fiss’stk felt irritated again.
“And now we have to go back to central and find a replacement because that was our last relay spring,” Fiss’stk said, gesturing in the general direction the previous one had disappeared.
“Why does this base still use springs?” Ktktk’kt asked as they began packing up their tools.
Fiss’stk didn’t bother waiting the polite six seconds. He did not need to hear yet another apprentice waxing poetic about the many, far more advanced ways they could set up the relays.
“Because springs work,” he said curtly, “and they are universally easy for sapient species to understand. Like how we all understand that chasing your hatchlings when they are in a dangerous environment overrides almost all merely social conventions. Your hatchling is in danger, you rescue them even if you end up showing the general population more of you than you rather like to, you push the spring, it pushes back. Simple concepts. Easy to understand.”
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