Betty Adams's Blog

Humans are Weird – Touch Down

​ Humans are Weird – Touch Down  “That is the seventh,” Third Sister said with a satisfied click as she marked the video feed on her screen with a timestamp.
“Show it to me! Show it to me!” First Brother cried out, all four feet dancing with eager delight.
Third Sister clicked with amusement and squatted down so he could see how she was marking the time and occurrence.
“He twitched and frowned and brushed it off!” First Brother stated eagerly.
“Quite, and as proof I am now saving it to upload to the hive network here,” she explained as she demonstrated.
“So all the Sisters who wanted to can do their bets?” First Brother asked.
“No,” Third Sister corrected him, “the Sisters and Aunts placed all their bets before I started this recording. That makes it fair.”
“Oh! Because it’s already been seven times!” First Brother exclaimed. “Everyone would want to change their bets to bigger numbers.”
He paused, rocking back and forth on his legs, before titling his pale green head to the side.
“What did you bet?” He asked.
“As an official I cannot ethically participate in the betting,” Third Sister stated.
“Second Sister made you do this so she could bet?” First Brother asked.
Third Sister’s antenna coiled in annoyance.
“Be still,” she said, “the detritavore is approaching Human Brother Unicus again.”
First Brother made a valiant effort to be still as they both turned their attention, and Second Sister turned her recording tablet on the massive male human who was sprawled out across a rock, basking in the weak solar radiation available in this hemisphere at this time of the year. He had shed over half of his usual clothing to more efficiently catch the radiation he needed for critical nutrient formation displaying the fact that the majority of his body was covered in thick, black sensory hairs. While most humans had such hairs in Third Sister’s experience she had never seen such density.
Fortunately for her purposes Human Brother Unicus had felt the time pass heavily and was reading to
amuse himself. His focus on the reading material left him not only unaware of their presence but particularly susceptible to the events they were here to record.
A local flying insect, as large as Third Sister’s thumb and sporting a brilliant iridescent sheen was slowly circling its way through the air towards Human Brother Unicus. The “winter flies” a the humans called them, were carnivorous detritavores, waking in the cold portions of the hemisphere feed and breed.
“When do you think he is going to scream though?” First Brother asked.
“I do not think he will,” Third Sister stated. “He is much to large a human to emit a scream in a non-life threatening situation. He will grunt loudly. It is all a human with such a massive chest cavity can manage.”
“Why are humans so freaked out about the winter flies anyway?” First Brother asked as Third Sister timestamped the creature’s final approach.
“It is an instinctive avoidance of disease transmission,” Third Sister explained. “One of us responds much the same way if the coating on our outer membrane starts to fail.”
First Brother paused his near constant movement and tilted his head at her in perplexity.
“They are afraid they will get sick if the winter flies touch them,” Third Sister tried again, “and it is a smart thing to be afraid of.”
At that moment the insect touched down on the particularity dense hairs on the human’s thick arm and every visible muscle on the human seemed to undergo a spasm. He leap up from his perch, slapped the patch of skin the insect had touched, and gave a loud, high-pitched distress sound.
“Looks like it was good you didn’t bet!” First Brother said, dancing sideways in his amusement.
Third Sister didn’t dignify that with a response as she dutifully logged the response.
“He is getting the portable insect repellent field generator out of his bag,” she said. “We can gather no more data here.”
“Why didn’t he get out the generator when he first got to the rock?” First Brother asked as they trekked back to the main hive.
“I do not know,” Third Sister replied.
“Why didn’t he get the generator out after the first time the winter fly landed on him?” First Brother pressed.
“I do not know,” she said again.
“Why didn’t he slap at the fly any of the previous times it touched-”
“First Brother,” Third Sister interjected abruptly. “Are you genuinely asking me these questions or do you just want to ponder into the canopy?”
First Brother paused and pondered over that a moment.
“Ponder into the canopy!” he finally decided before skipping along the trail again. “The hive knows that humans don’t make sense so I know you can’t answer.”
Third Sister watched him trot down the trail with amusement before following.
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird – After

 Humans are Weird – After  The alarms always would go off just as one’s scutes molded nicely to the sleeping rock. Commander Pulp heaved a sigh and began the laborious process of peeling his eyes open. He had been reasonably sure he had washed all the grain dust out of his scales before settling down for the short night, but as he began twitching his limbs in preparation for sliding to the floor he could swear he felt grit in his seams. He wished the alarms could be a less annoying sound, but that thought was cut short by a distant twang and following thump that had him instantly awake and on the cold floor, blinking wide open eyes rapidly as he scrambled for the comm unit. He hovered his forepaw over it hesitatingly as a massive series of thumps vibrated the floor.
“The night watch will have this,” Commander Pulp grumbled to himself as he turned and darted for the door.
Answering an unnecessary comm call in the middle of an emergency would not help whoever was dealing with this, a moving body might. Commander Pulp made it to the largest storage annex before he located the source of the sound. The massive storage bags of blood grain, the ones being prepared for shipment to the more distant colonies and space stations in this solar system were currently being dried. They were suspended in a vast, climate controlled barn, on thick cords. It was a primitive method, with obvious hazards, but the more explosive dangers of using repulsor tech in enclosed environments with dedicated grain dust were deemed the grater risk. All this ran through Commander Pulp’s mind as he took in the scene of the tumbled bags of grain, the tangled rigging cables, and the human with his back pressed against one bag, a long leg trapped under another, and his hands holding a taught cable off of his exposed neck.
Commnader Pulp bit his tongue as the urge to bellow out orders bubbled though his gut. The night watch was doing a wonderful job, had already responded just as Commander Pulp would have. His interference as commander would only confuse things. It came as a palpable wave of relief when the night watch officer roared out that it was safe and whoever was closest should go help the trapped human escape.
Commander Pulp dashed forward across the floor, the grain dust catching in his claws. He had never really realized, never thought about how utterly fragile a human neck was. They didn’t even have scutes to protect that thin tube of cartilage that served as both oxygen exchange and feeding tube. He reached Grimes and the human rolled his eyes to give him a grim smile. Commander Pulp quickly shoved his snout under the straining cable and wriggled forward until it rested on his shoulders.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Grimes whispered as his hands relaxed and he slumped back against the grain bag with a grimace.
Commander Pulp gave a confused snort as two more lizard folk arrived and began shifting the other bag off of Grimes leg. The statement was clearly a humorous attempt to ignore the discomfort of the situation but it was also simply factual.
“I don’t think I want to do this again either,” Commander Pulp agreed.
Grimes gave a gasp of laughter as his leg was freed and he slid down the larger bag to land on the floor. The human began the always delicate process of determining if his leg was too injured to walk as Commander Pulp eased back from his position, keeping tension on the cable so it didn’t snap down until he was out from under it. Grimes was on his feet now, clearly putting experimental pressure on his injured leg. While the human grimaced, he didn’t ask for assistance to return to his sleeping quarters when the night watch declared the situation under control and ordered all off-shift personnel out of the way. Commander Pulp gave a look around and satisfied himself that it was in fact under control before following Grimes out of the room.
“Is this what humans call limping?” he asked.
Grimes blinked down at him and grinned ruefully.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “My ankle hurt when I stood up, but it can take all of my weight without much pain now. I think it just got a little twist, but I’ll make sure to check in with the base doctor tomorrow morning.” The human added hurriedly when Commander Pulp began to squint at him.
Satisfied. Commander Pulp trotted back to bed. It seemed that he had barely gotten comfortable when his comm unit buzzed. He slapped it with his tail and grunted.
“Commander Pulp Can you come assist me…in my quarters?” Grimes’s voice was tense with pain, but the mere fact that the human had asked for help was enough to, once again, wake up Commander Pulp instantly.
He scrambled out of his room and tore down the corridor to Grimes’s room. He burst through the door and saw Grimes sprawled over his sleeping surface, various long limbs still under his blankets and one leg dangling over the edge.
“Please lift my injured leg back up on the bed,” Grimes gasped out. “Push up from the bottom.”
Commander Pulp digested that a moment, then eased forward and carefully braced his forehead against the soft arch of Grimes’s foot.
“Like that.” Grimes confirmed with a pained grunt.
It was fairly east to get Grimes’s limbs back on his soft sleeping surface, and slightly harder to get him into the supine position that humans favored when injured. The soft, spongy material of the sleeping surface did not help but eventually they got all the long limbs arranged and Grimes heaved a sigh of relief.
“It was my understanding that your limb was not injured in any significant way,” Commander Pulp said cautiously.
Grimes gave a harsh bark of laughter but his body was visibly relaxed.
“That was my understanding too,” he said. “My ankle barely hurt last night, but when I tried to get up this morning, well-” He waved a hand at his leg.
“It does not appear to be swolen,” Commander Pulp observed in confusion.
Grimes squinted at his ankle and nodded in agreement.
“What kind of injury is this?” Commander Pulp asked.
“Search me if I know,” Grimes said with a sigh. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore if I don’t move. It doesn’t hurt that bad if I put weight on it. It only hurts when I lift my leg.”
“Shall I call the base doctor for you?” Commander Pulp asked.
“I don’t know,” Grimes said thoughtfully, twisting his torso to look at his personal bathroom. “I think I can just wrap it and -”
Commander Pulp heaved himself up and dropped across the human’s chest pinning him down.
“Shall I call Doctor Drawing for you?” Commander Pulp asked again, making aggressive eye contact with the human.
Grimes stared at him defiantly for a long moment before heaving a sigh.
“Yes, please send Doctor drawing,” he muttered.
“Wonderful,” Commander Pulp said cheerfully, dropping down to the floor. “He will be here shortly. And who can ferment it, maybe he will know how and why your weird, lanky body decided to hide an injury from you.”
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Giggles

Humans are Weird - Giggles ​The spider walks in this part of the colony were doubled tiered and massively reinforced. Spacestation grade carbosteel beams wrapped around the lower levels of the massive human rooms at about a third the height of an average adult human. The dark carbosteel beams of the upper tier were replace by clear tubes with communication windows. The humans had formally named it sub-adult interaction access, but everyone called it the ‘petting zoo’.
Fff’sss trotted happily along the tube and gave an idle thought thread to wondering if she wanted to know the source of the faint, oddly unpleasant smell that lingered in some places. Human Friend Susie and Human Friend Bobby were leaning their heads together examining the dark surface of the ‘sandwich board’ the human young used for writing practice. They were alternately reading out something they had written on the board and then making that high-pitched sound that was something like an amused chitter.
Fff’sss reached the point where they could reasonably be expected to hear her and called out to the two small humans.
“Hello children!” she called out.
Both humans gasped as if frightened and gave startled jumps. Then, instead of turning to greet Fff’sss Human Friend Susie spread her arms as if to hide the surface of the sandwich board and hissed at Human Friend Bobby.
“’Rase it! ‘Rase it!”
Human Friend Bobby obediently snatched up the rag that was attached to the sandwich board and scrubbed frantically as something written in the soft powder markings. Presumably when they thought the marks had been well enough effaced they spun and ‘grinned’ widely at Fff’sss, both of them still chittering.
“Hello Friend Fizzy!” they said together.
Then they glanced at each other and chittered more intensely.
“Greetings small human friends,” Fff’sss said, “what is that sound you are making.”
They increased the sound for a moment and then grinned at her.
“Gigglin’,” Human Friend Bobby finally said.
“With a g,” Human Friend Susie corrected him.
“I said the g,” Human Friend Bobby protested, only to get ‘thumped’ by Susie.
“At the end,” Human Friend Susie explained. “There’s gotta be a g sound at the end.”
“Giggling?” Fff’sss asked, striving to enunciate the depth of the g sound that human language required.
The two small humans burst into intense laughter at this.
“And what was making you giggle?” Fff’sss asked.
She wasn’t sure if they little humans simply weren’t aware of how Trisk eyes worked, or if they were simply bad at ‘erasing’ things written on the sandwich board, but she could clearly see the short series of numbers they had written.
However instead of answering her they both turned to look at the sandwich board, burst out giggling louder, and sprinted to the far side of the room to burrow into the pile of pillows there. Fff’sss patted her paws on her forelimbs in amusement. Clearly these young sapients were being ‘naughty’. Though how writing a few numbers could be considered naughty she didn’t know. Nevertheless they were clearly done interacting with her so she trotted along the spider walk until she reached the exit and moved up to the adult level so she could speak with the parents of the little ones who were currently sitting around a table drinking mild stimulants heated to almost dangerous levels.
“Hey Fff’sss!” Human Friend Megan called out, waving the drink at her.
“Greetings Human Friend Megan,” Fff’sss replied. “Might I ask a question about your children's behavior?”
Human Friend Megan emitted a groan and began the precarious operation of unfolding her full length to stand.
“What’d they do now?” she asked.
“Nothing harmful,” Fff’sss assured her. “They were simply ‘giggling’ at some apparently random numbers they had written on the board, and they apparently made some attempt to hide the numbers from me. As if the numbers, or the act of writing them, was transgressive in some way.”
Both adult human laughed and Human Friend Robert nodded his head.
“Yeah, the cousins visited and one of the older ones brought word of the latest funny numbers from the main colony,” he explained.
“What are the funny numbers?” Fff’sss asked, interest ruffling her hairs.
“Oh, they change every few generations,” Human Friend Robert explained, leaning back as if he expected the explanation to take some time. “It’s always a cultural connection of some sort that associates the numbers with something , mostly something vulgar or forbidden.”
“Sometimes it is a code used by law enforcement,” Human Friend Megan offered. “Sometimes its a bodily function.”
“Yeah, good old number two has really fallen out of favor as a funny number the past few generations,” Human Friend Robert said with a mournfully sigh and a thoughtful silence fell over the humans.
Fff’sss waited the polite six seconds and asked.
“What do these new funny numbers represent?”
“No clue,” Human Friend Robert replied cheerfully.
Human Friend Megan shrugged her shoulders in confirmation of their ignorance and then their conversation and attention drifted back to the topic they had been discussing before. Whatever the imagined transgression the little ones thought they were preforming the adults of the species clearly found it of little consequence other than amusement.  
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - On Again Off Again

Humans are Weird - On Again Off Again  Taps-a-lot hummed happily to himself as he set the large flat rock carefully back in its place and gently released the little amphibian that tasted of confidence and irritation back to squirm under it. Above him the sound of Human Friend Ryan singing an accompaniment drifted down through the water of the straight. Tabps-a-lot took a final image of the amphibian’s micro-habitat, with the dense algae poking out of every nook and cranny, then pushed off the rock he was resting on and swam out over the deep crevice that formed the center of the narrow strip of water between the hard granite walls.
“...would you rather swing on a star? Carry moonbeams home in a jar?”
“And be better off than you are?” Taps-a-lot called back.
Ryan tried to keep a straight face but after several long moments of the colors on his face flashing with his internal struggle he burst out laughing and the stripes on his face glowed with delight.
“You are doing great Taps!” Human Friend Ryan assured him. “Your rhythm is perfect!”
“And my articulation and emotional tone?” Taps-a-lot pressed as he swam up and came to rest on the transport that floated conveniently a third of an und below the surface of the water.
Human Friend Ryan paused with his lips peeled back to reveal his only protruding bone structure for a long moment before laughing.
“Your rhythm is perfect!” Human Friend Ryan said again. “Now it is break time and it turns out that these so called waterproof boots weren’t after all.”
“That is odd,” Taps-a-lot said, nudging the flexible shields the human wore to protect the soft flesh of his feet. “They are very much praised by other humans for prolonged times of work in the narrows. All said their tootsies were toasties.”
“You probably don’t want to use that phrase in casual conversation with adults,” Human Friend Ryan pointed out as he shifted his mass to guide the transport down the narrows towards where they had left the excess of their tools. “Tootsies were toasties. That is considered baby-talk.”
“It was in official documentation,” Taps-a-lot pointed out.
“Product reviews have very different grammar standards than academic sources,” Human Friend Ryan replied as they glided up to their pile of tools. “There is even an incentive to be funny so folks are entertained by your reviews. Because outright lying would be counterproductive, using humorously inappropriate language is a frequent occurrence.”
Human Friend Ryan guided the transport right up against the edge of the narrows, then let it sink down just far enough that he could sit comfortably on the bank. Taps-a-lot checked that their samples from the day were secure in their isolation cages and then scrambled up the humans legs and back out into the grip of gravity, unalloyed by the welcoming embrace of the water. Human Friend Ryan then rotated the rest of his body up and out of the water and walked over to the rock he used as a sitting surface. Taps-a-lot saw that the shielding, the ‘boots’ were releasing water with every step.
“I hope your tootsies were not abraded due to water exposure,” Taps-a-lot said, feeling a wriggle of delight when Human Friend Ryan gave him the ‘side-eye’ humans were so famous for.
“My tootsies are not,” Human Friend Ryan confirmed as he peeled off the boots and gave them each a vigorous shake to get the water off of them. “I was wearing socks, just in case.”
“I sound that perhaps you aligned the straps incorrectly,” Taps-a-lot pointed out helpfully. “The instructions said that the thinner straps must wrap-”
“Over tab B and into slot A, yes, yes,” Human Friend Ryan muttered as he peeled off his socks, a soft, protective layer to prevent abrasion and retain warmth, and wrung the water out of them. “Now, snacks for me and rest for you.”
Taps-a-lot felt no need to argue the point and happily scrambled up beside Human Friend Ryan to rest in the sunlight and maybe absorb a few dropped crumbs. Of course if he asked Human Friend Ryan would give him a whole snack of his own, but the dry travel snacks the humans seemed to prefer were best absorbed in small quantities when on the land. Once Human Friend Ryan was thoroughly rested and snacked he stood up and gave a long stretch. Taps-a-lot mimicked the gesture. Human Friend Ryan’s face lit with a smile, and then darkened with genuine distress as the human looked at his socks on the rock beside him.
“What wrong?” Taps-a-lot asked in concern, shuffling over to examine the socks.
“I forgot to bring a spare pair of socks,” Human Friend Ryan said, a deep groaning sound in his voice and colors of stress washing over his stripes.
“Why that a concern?” Taps-a-lot asked, nudging the socks with his gripping appendage. “These dry.”
“Remember your helping verbs Taps,” Human Friend Ryan said with a sigh as he bent to pick up the socks. “They might be dry, but they’re crusty now.”
“Crusty is?” Taps-a-lot asked.
“If you don’t mind touching my crusty socks feel for yourself,” Human Friend Ryan said, holding out a sock.
“I feel,” Taps-a-lot agreed as he turned the sock over in his appendages. “It does have a different feel than in the before time when I felt it.”
Human Friend Ryan took the sock and as he slid it over his bare foot his skin flushed with disgust.
“This is more unpleasant than when you were standing in water for several hours?” Taps-a-lot asked.
“No?” Human Friend Ryan said as he put both socked feet into his boots, this time being careful to attach the straps carefully.
“You are not confident, that was a state of being verb, not a helping verb,” Taps-a-lot pointed out.
Human Friend Ryan snorted with laughter and his colors started to even out.
“It’s not worse than before,” Human Friend Ryan said, “but before I was used to it. Once you aren’t used to crusty socks, or wet socks, it’s way worse putting them on than keeping them on.”
Taps-a-lot sounded those thoughts out as they moved back towards the water.


Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Sneaky

Humans are Weird - Sneaky   “This is a vine you can grab,” First Father was saying to the human female beside him while gently patting her hand.
Gathers in the Gloaming rustled a nearby communication heap to let the pair of sapients know another awareness was active in this area and blearily tried to figure out what had called attention here. It was unusual for the local First Father to come this far from his hive, but there had been a deep friendship maturing between the human settlement and the Shatar hive for several generations. The two spaces were connected by a network of tall vineyards that gave Gathers in the Gloaming a rich source of sugars as well as deep shade where sensory appendages could lift out of the soil without fear of solar radiation damage. The vineyard corridors also allowed the small male Shatar to visit with confidence of safety, so First Father’s general presence was hardly surprising enough to draw attention.
Gathers in the Gloaming tasted the air and the tang of human stress pheromones manifested. Now rather interested Gathers in the Gloaming turned attention to visual information, debating a moment between exposing photosensitive fibers or simply using the local leaves. Deciding that precision was important Gathers in the Gloaming extended enough photosensitive fibers to bring the mobile sapients into focus.
The human, a younger but breeding age female was standing with her muscles tense staring with grim determination towards the arrival area for the settlement. The Shatar male, who barely came up past the human’s knees was continuing to speak and touching the human with soft, reassuring gestures. Gathers in the Gloaming noted that most of the phrases were reassurances that the human had high status associated with successful reproduction, and that she had a duty to protect her offspring. Gathers in the Gloaming was about to ask to join the conversation with a transport pulled up to the arrival area and the human female flexed her limbs and pulled away from the Shatar.
“You got this! As you mammals say,” the Shatar male said with a final pat of the human’s hand.
She grimaced down at the bright green Shatar and strode towards the transport, which was releasing several elderly humans, with determination.
“Did you wish to speak to me Gathers in the Gloaming?” First Father asked, angling his triangular head at the communication heap.
Gathers in the Gloaming hummed in confirmation as the tendrils of thought coiled around the question building.
“Who is Human Liea going to confront?” Gathers in the Gloaming asked.
First Father gave a wordless click and reached up to stroke an antenna in a thoughtful preening gesture before replying.
“Can’t you identify the arrivals on your own?” the Shatar asked, his pheromones tasting of mild amusement and perplexity.
“The arrivals are Human Liea’s First Father and Second Mother as well as several of her more distant relatives,” Gathers in the Gloaming confirmed. “I wished to know which of them Human Leia has a conflict with.”
First Father gave a click of amusement and turned to begin trotting towards the vineyard corridor where a small cluster of his mate’s sisters were waiting for him. As he moved he spoke.
“Before I tell you you must promise not to interfere. This is not something one can understand without the benefit of having both hatchlings of your own and present Grandmothers and Grandfathers.”
“I assume I can be trusted not to interfere having been given such a warning,” Gathers in the Gloaming assured him.
“Very well then,” First Father said. “Human First Mother Leia is preparing to restrict the amount of treats Human First Grandfather can give First Sister.”
First Father seemed to think this an ample explanation and continued towards his mate’s Sisters. Gathers in the Gloaming framed another question.
“Human Leia was releasing many stress pheromones, does she expect her...Human First Grandfather to defy her wishes and continue supplying Human First Sister with these treats?”
“I suppose,” First Father said, pausing to angle an eye back towards where the humans were greeting each other, “that depends on how well this confrontation goes, and how ‘sneaky’ was the word she used, Human First Godfather turns out to be.”
“I understand that you are suggesting that Human First Grandfather is going to attempt to subvert Human First Mother Leia’s attempts to maintain her child’s diet. However I do not understand the stress she is experiencing,” Gathers in the Gloaming admitted as First Father resumed his walk. “Is it likely that a Grandfather would do something that would cause harm to his own genetic branching?”
First Father gave a click of amusement.
“It is not about harm,” he said with a dismissive flick of his antenna. “It is, what is the word Second Aunt used? Social authority! When a Grandfather or Grandmother isn’t pulling the same vine as the Father, or I suppose the Mother in this case, it can make the hive unnecessarily tangled, but don’t worry about Human First Mother Leia, she might be small for a human but she has a stance to her hind legs that would surprise you for all that. This is just a natural grove in the garden of life.”
First Father reached the Sisters and they began chattering with him about his visit.
Gathers in the Gloaming followed their conversation with mild interest. If understanding was growing correctly First Father was suggesting that not only was there some sort of social competition between human generation for social control of developing offspring, but the concept was similar enough for the Shatar to not only sympathize but to offer useful advice and support.
That still left the question, what possible underlying harm could there be in a Grandfather, covertly or not, gifting too many treats?  
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Flats

Humans are Weird - Flats ​Sift gently held the ‘tart’, a tangy thing with lots of citrus, between her teeth and nudged it with her tongue. On the floor in front of her the small human was ‘chasing’ the family pet around the human dwelling. Most human snacks were distressingly soft, lasing only moments if you gave them any kind of bite at all and this one was no exception. So Sift divided her attention between not crushing the pastry and grunting out encouragements to the small human who had only just managed to get all four limbs to work together enough to crawl.
Mary, the human’s mother was busy rearranging the seasonal decorations that represented the current state of the majority of the domestic plants in the colony. The general trend Sift had seen so far was a change from bright yellows and greens to a more subdued soil and orange color pattern. At the moment Mary was crooning a song all about the ‘harvest moon’ while arranging some flowers in a vase.
The human had prepared a confined space for her child that was essentially a hyper clean scoop. The floor was flat and smooth and Mary was constantly examining it for any small thing the child might put in its mouth. Just now the little one ‘caught’ the animal began squeezing its face. The animal wrinkled in annoyance. Sift was about to warn Mary of the behavior but the animal took the situation into its own paws and leapt over the short fence Mary used to isolate the space. The little human sat up and watched the animal retreat with a wide, toothless grin. Mary laughed softly letting Sift know she had been watching.
The last of the tart dissolved and Sift smacked her teeth appreciatively.
“Would you like another lemon tart Sift?” Mary asked, already stepping towards the refrigeration unit.
“If you insist,” Sift demure. The human expression really was exactly right for accepting more treats.
“I do!” Mary replied opening the refrigeration unit.
However before she could isolate one of the tarts a horrific shriek of pain came from the isolation area. Sift snapped her head around but knew that she could never make it over the fence in time to offer aid. Mary however, had already set the container of tarts down beside her with a thump, and had stepped over the fence as if it wasn’t there. Those long legs did come in useful now and then. Sift mused and the human snatched up her child.
Oddly Sift could see nothing wrong. The child was in exactly the same position he had been the moment before. On it’s knees staring after the retreated pet. Even Mary seemed perplexed by her offspring's sudden distress. She was turning the baby this way and that,thitched mammalian cries were difficult to interpret. Finally the little one gave a sad little coo, and dropped his round, round head against Mary’s shoulder. Mary gave the flat, open surface of the floor a perplexed look and set the child back down. Seeing that the human was now mentally out of the fermentation vat Sift waved her tail for attention.
“Any theories on what caused your little soft-scale’s distress?” Sift asked.
“I was hoping you saw something,” Mary admitted, pushing her hair back from her face with a rueful smile.
“I did not,” Sift admitted. “I am sorry. I am being a bad hatchling guest.”
“No. no.” Mary said with a laugh. “Kiddo was on a soft, flat, clean surface. It should have been fine to look away a moment.”
“And yet you feel guilty,” Sift pointed out, more of an educated guess than an observation. “Why shouldn’t I?”
Mary’s skin flushed red and she laughed before letting her body suddenly fold down into a chair with a gusty sigh.
“How do fresh humans manage to hurt themselves on, on nothing?” Mary demanded.
“I have no answer,” Sift replied, as the last pit of tart dissolved on her tongue. “My littlest brother would never have hurt himself on such a surface, however give him a nice smooth gravel scoop?”
She clacked her teeth in exasperation at recalling how the supposedly ‘safe’ scoop she had prepared had failed the soft little hatchling.
“He still has that mysterious scar.”
Mary gave her a grateful smile and Sift watched the now happy infant scrambling across the floor.
“A universal mystery,” Sift declared, “may I have another tart?”

Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Tops

Humans are Weird - Tops ​Twenty-Trills cinched her carry pack a little tighter to her ribcage as her foot-claws dug around in her bag and her wingmates jostled and bumped around her in their excitement to get started. One, two, three, four, five regulation sized packs of saline solution; each containing enough individual doses to clean out the eyes of every deployed member of her wing. This was in addition to the ones stored in the massive transport the humans were allowing them to travel in, but those were under the wings of the quartermaster and she wouldn’t be able to get access to them until they reached the site of their destroyed camp. The weight they added to her carry pack was substantial, but she would be able to rest in the transport much of the way.
Her final survey done, she spread her wings and darted up, and up, past the highest scouts, until she could see past the first barrier of mountains that had shielded the main Survey Ranger Corps base from what she had learned was a volcanic eruption. The massive clouds of ash, smoke, and just straight down rocks had cleared, all the material falling back to the ground where it belonged, but a thin wisp of steam, no doubt super heated by the pulsing, almost living rock of the planet, still drifted up into the blue sky. Twenty-Trills hissed at it as her flight bulged up under her, about half of the flight starting to follow her up, before getting distracted and drifting back down. Eventually only the wing-commander made it to her elevation in the cold, morning air.
“Anything to report medic?” He asked briskly, his thinning fur puffed against the temperature.
“Nothing new,” she replied, “just that.”
He stared grimly at the evidence of the planet misbehaving and then shook himself.
“The geologists say the dangerous portion of the eruption is over,” he commented.
What he might have said further was interrupted by a resounding metallic gong. Below them the three humans who would be escorting them back to their camp were tossing their massive carry packs into the now empty cargo compartment of the transport. The gong had been the male setting his personal water container, which not only could have held all of Twenty-Trills’s saline solution but herself as well, on top of the transport.
The wing-commander trilled out the order to board and the flight rushed down and poured through the door the human male had just opened, causing him to jump away from the cab of the transport with a deep, booming yelp. The two human females who had already loaded in joined in the amused chittering at his reaction as they all secured the restraints necessary for a transport with an internal combustion engine, no real momentum absorption technology, and velocity capacity that made the base safety officer loose his fur at an accelerated rate. The human male was the last to load after doing a final check of the outer latch points for the small amount of cargo they were carrying out, mostly water and digging tools. He slung himself into an outer seat and the elder female started the engine and set the vehicle moving . Twenty-Trills heard the metal water container shift on the roof above them through the insulation on the inside of the transport.
“Is it a magnetic lock?” She asked.
However, the human didn’t notice the question and she gave an irritated chitter at her mistake. She dug a roll of white tape out of her bag and attached it to one wing hook and began waving it vigorously. The younger human female noticed first, tracked her line of sight, and nudged the male with her elbow. The male turned and smiled at Twenty-Trills.
“’Sup Doc?” he asked.
“Oh, I have nothing associated with my professional position to ask,” she assured him. “It’s purely a matter of curiosity. Was it magnetic attachments? Because the weight of the water doesn’t seem enough to warp the roof but-”
“Is what magnetic?” he asked.
“The attachment point for your personal water container-”
At that point the human male’s hand reached for the round slot in the door and finding nothing there his face flushed with horror.
“Carrie,” he said, turning an urgent look on the elder female, “slow-”
The transport reached a corner and the cab resounded with a massive gong sound as the water container tumbled onto its cylindrical side and the shot past the window, impacting on the ground and breaking into three parts, releasing its water into the soil of the road. The human male yelped and the transport surged to a stop. He leapt out and gathered up the pieces while the flight chattered around Twenty-Trills, waiting to see if this was harmless enough to be counted amusement. From the wide grins on the females faces it was and though the male did not look happy when he resumed his seat, his pheromone profile was not scenting of stress.
“No,” he said addressing Twenty-Trills as the transport resumed moving. “It wasn’t attached magnetically.”
“Then why did you leave it up there?” demanded a voice from behind Twenty-Trills.
“For your entertainment!” Called out the clearly amused elder female. The flight chittered in amusement at the clear joke as the male strained to reassemble the container and Twenty-Trills settled down to ponder. Why had the human left his water container on top of the transport.




Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird – Kraut

 Humans are Weird – Kraut  “And what exactly do you expect to pull out of this exercise?” Base Director Tapsself asked, his appendages slumping with fatigue and irritation.
“A league deep overview of the situation,” Probesalong said quickly, hoping he wasn’t presenting his idea too quickly, that it wasn’t too obvious that this was a desperate last clutch. “It is an idea I got from human friend Zhang Wei-”
“Of course this drifted down from a human,” Tapsself said in subdued gestures.
Probesalong chose to ignore the inturption.
“The idea is that you arrange all of the data in a visual format by creating a visual map,” Probesalong stated.
“And you want to use the primary base entertainment pool for this,” Tapsself said, shifting his appendages into a more professional shape. “You want to take up half a day while the pool could be being used by pods wanting to educate their young, entertain hard working rangers with limited recreation time, or even, perhaps, bring in resources for the base as it was originally intended to do?”
His speech done,Tapsself arranged his appendages in the loose arches that indicated that the questions were far more rhetorical than anything else. Probesalong considered his answer options. He had already laid out the importance of solving the mystery. A base wide infection of particularly virulent bacteria that seemed to spawn and re-spawn out of some mysterious deeps no matter how many times the eradicated it was more than justification for taking up an entertainment pool for however long was needed, but Probesalong had already made that case. So he kept his response to one simple gesture.
“Yes?”
Tapsself let a ripple of exasperation flow down his body and reached into a storage compartment beside his working pool. Probesalong could not contain a wriggle of delighted relief as Tapsself pulled out the pool-stone key and tossed it down in-between them.
“I hope to see results from this unorthodox methodology,” he said with a stern set to his appendages.
Then he slumped down against the floor of his working pool.
“The documentation for this is going to take days to format either way,” he said, presumably to himself as Probesalong snatched up the pool-stone key and scrambled out of the room.
He met Dragsafter in the waiting pool outside and waved the pool-stone key triumphantly. His assistant didn’t respond with words but his appendages danced over the bed of the stream with delight. Using the large entertainment pool to create a visible map of the mysterious pathogen’s spread had been mostly the assistant’s idea.
It was a fairly long swim to the entertainment pool and when they reached it a small pod of families was bouncing out with their little ones. The small ones were gesturing wildly about some apparently terrifying animal they had been learning about. Some creature with a ‘mouth’ like humans, but a mouth big enough that it carried its own small ones in it. Probesalong and Dragsafter swam up and clung to an overhead arch while the happy, chaotic little mob passed below them. Giving friendly gestures to the small ones who noted them there. It took several minutes to convince the clerk in charge of the entertainment pool’s schedule that they did in fact have official orders to use the pool for what they needed but soon they were passing through the membrane into the carefully controlled density of the inner fluid. The familiar taste of the salts and sugars used to maintain the density necessary to allow an Undulate’s mass to float in the center of the space, with the screens playing out all around them touched their appendages and the wriggled through the mix to the optimum viewing spot.
“Human Friend Zhang Wei say that human entertainment spaces are much larger,” Dragsafter commented as he touched his data-stone to the pool-stone key. “Their eyes are most comfortable with the story images at a significant distance from them.”
“They also prefer far less fluid in their environments,” Probesalong agreed in the spirit of friendly conversation as the surfaces around them rippled, and changed to a dim coral color representation a highly stylized interior map of the base with transparent walls just barely visible.
Dragsafter set the playback of their collected data to begin from several weeks ago and a brilliant splash of contrasting color spawned in a stream on the north end of the base.
“That was the first recorded contamination,” Dragsafter observed.
The initial color faded, representing the healthy micorfauna of their base fighting off the intruding bacteria. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, the colors began appearing in different places, growing denser and more frequent as they had actually started actively looking for contamination. Quickly, there was only a few weeks of data after all the playback reached the current time and ended. They both knew that there was little chance of noting anything of importance on the first attempt but Probesalong couldn’t help but notice the disappointed set to Dragsafter’s appendages as he set it to replay.
“We have half a day,” Probesalong pointed out. “We didn’t expect this to go quickly.”
They watched the patterns play out several times when the pool membrane shivered and the pool clerk swam in carrying his meal, a nice, thready green algae, with him. He swam up to a polite distance that neither invited, nor discouraged conversation and spread the appendages he wasn’t using to eat to curiously observe the display. Dragsafter angled his appendages facing away from the clerk to ask if he should send the clerk away but Probesalong responded with a negative. There was no reason to keep this secret and if the clerk was entertained why not let him watch? They were on the fourth replay the clerk had seen, and the algae he had eaten was clearly drained of any taste when the clerk gave himself a shake and commented with amusement in his appendages.
“The human did it,” with that cryptic reply the clerk began to swim back towards the exit membrane.
“I am sorry, what?” Probesalong demanded, after his surprise had passed.
“The human did it,” the clerk repeated. “Whatever this game is-”
“It’s not a game!” Dragsafter snapped out. “This is serious forensic-”
Probesalong gestures for him to hold his appendages still.
“How do you conclude that from this data?”
“Well,” the clerk said, swimming back to the center of the pool. “I watch a lot of visual representations, so I have gotten good at spotting visual patterns. I think you will see it better if...do you think you could only show the contaminate marks on solid, above water surfaces?”
Dragsafter seemed a little affronted but Prodsalong gestured for him to do it.
“Now show, the part where, well, any part in the middle of the timelapse would work,” the clerk said.
Dragsafter set the display to such a time and they absorbed the lights around them.
“Do you see?” the clerk asked.
Prodsalong gave a slow gesture of conditional understanding. The majority of the contamination marks above water were in the distinctive shape of human appendage ends, with the wide, flat center and five sub-appendages. Both the longer ‘feet’ and the rounder ‘hands’ were distinctly discernible.
“But that doesn’t mean anything!” Dragsafter protested. “Or, it only just means that Human Friend Zhang Wei touched the contaminate at some point!”
“Yes,” agreed the clerk, “but look at the intensity patterns. Not only are his handprints the greatest concentration of growth, the most intense concentrations are closest to his personal pool. Or am I reading the color gradients and their meanings wrong?”
Dragsafter hesitated, but gestured agreement. Prodsalong could also see the truth in the statement. With the water-born contaminants removed the source of the contamination was clear.
“Now you can swim off and consult Human Friend Zhang Wie and leave my entertainment pool to the next pod who originally had it reserved!” the clerk said cheerfully, before swimming out through the membrane.
Dragsafter grumbled a bit but removed his data-stone from the control-stone and the surfaces rippled back to the standby state. It was a fairly long swim up to the human level where Human Friend Zhang Wei rested, but fortunately the human was in. They ‘knocked’ on his door, an auditory way of asking to enter a human’s personal pool that was particularly suited to Undulate appendage strengths and were greeted with delight by their friend.
“Welcome! Welcome!” the human called out, bending down to scoop them both up in his arms. “I just finished lunch but-”
“Things in the Deeps!” Dragsafter yelped out, stiffening every appendage so fast that he nearly dropped the sensor he had prepared.
“Language Friend Dragon,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said with mild amusement in his appendages as he wrestled with the stiff Undulate to prevent dropping them both. “What distresses you so much?”
“You are covered in bacteria!” Dragsafter declared waving the sensor.
“Uh-huh…” Human Friend Zhang Wei angled his eyes at Prodsalong and the older Undulate couldn’t help a small wriggle of amusement.
“Perhaps you should indicated to our friend how this situation differs from his usual ambient microbial microfauna situation,” he pointed out as Human Friend Zhang Wei set them down on a large piece of furniture.
“It’s bad bacteria!” Dragsafter exclaimed, grabbing onto the human’s hand and repeatedly prodding it with the sensor. “From this planet! Not your pet Earth microbes. This is localized contamination to your hands, and … and sweet starlight! It’s in your mouth!”
“Slow down Friend Dragon,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said in gentle tones, “are you talking about that pathogen you’ve been chasing for weeks. We already knew the humans on base were contaminated. It’s not been anything our T-cells couldn’t take. So what’s-”
“I think the concentration is the issue,” Prodsalong explained before Dragsafter could interject again.
Dragsafter held up his data-stone which displayed the readings he was getting and Human Friend Zhang Wei gave a long ‘whistle’, a high-pitched wordless sound humans seemed to use for emotional emphasis.
“Would you look at that!” he said. “I am contaminated. How’d that happen I wonder?”
Dragsafter was waving the sensor around and suddenly scrambled towards what appeared to be an ornamental stone jar just about large enough to hold an Undulate in a compressed mood. Dragsafter waved the sensor over it and recoiled in horror.
“It is in your food supply!” Dragsafter exclaimed! “We’ll have to incinerate the lot!”
“Yu! Yu!” Human Friend Zhang Wie exclaimed, snatching Dragsafter up and pulling him away from the jar. “Is your sensor working? I have been eating out of that for weeks and I am fine!”
“For how long have you been eating the contents of that container?” Prodsalong asked.
“Since…” Human Friend Zhang Wei frowned and gave an uneasy glance at the jar even as he wrested with Dragsafter. “Since right around the time you started reporting finding the contaminant.” He admitted.
“Where did you get this food?” Prodsalong asked, scrambling up to the stone container.
“I didn’t get it,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said. “I made it. It is an old recipe, suan cai, or I think the more common term is sauerkraut? My ancestors have made this for hundreds of generations. It was never a problem….”
“And how is it made?” Prodsalong asked as Dragsafter escaped Human Friend Zhang Wei’s grip and began coating the container in a sealing foam.
“It’s fermented mustard greens,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said looking sadly at his stone container. “I had the hardest time getting it to start fermenting too. The cultures just wouldn’t seem to take on the base.”
“How did you finally get the fermentation process to start?” Prodsalong asked as he begin entering the hazardous materials data.
Human Friend Zhang Wei did not respond with human words but writhed in a way that communicated regret, guilt, and deep embarrassment.
“How did you get the fermentation process to start? Prodsalong asked with growing exasperation.
“I took the jar outside during the inoculation phase,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said quietly.
There was a moment of quiet in the room as the two Undulates absorbed that.
“So you deliberately took a food item out of the base’s known safe micro-ecosystem and courted an unknown alien bacteria, so you could have a food source,” Prodsalong said slowly.
Human Friend Zhang Wei reached a hand up to rub the back of his neck.
“It sounds kind of mad when you put it like that,” he admitted.
“Are your nutrient needs not being met?” Dragsafter demanded, concerned for his friend now that the source of the contaminant was contained. “Do we need to talk to the synthesizer for more nutrients?”
“No, no!” Human Friend Zhang Wei insisted, raising his hands defensively. “I wasn’t craving suan cai or anything like that. I don’t even like it that much.”
“Then why did you even start the fermenting process?” Dragsafter demanded. “Let alone risk your life to continue it?”
Human Friend Zhang Wei shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that indicated a personal lack of understanding.
“It was fun,” he said. “I like growing things.”
“I too like growing things,” Dragsafter said as he attached a flotation pod to the stone container, now thoroughly covered in containment foam. “And if eating the result is not the end goal I can gift you a cutting of my golden colony?”
“You would do that?” Human Friend Zhang Wei asked, his face wrinkling with delight.
“I would be delighted to,” Dragsafter replied. “You can even grow it in this same jar if you like after it is decontaminated. Help me get it to the nearest transport stream on your way to the medical pool?”
“Sure I’ll help you,” Human Friend Zhang Wei said, lifting the jar easily in one hand, “but I’m not going to the-”
“Yes you are,” interject Prodsalong grimly. “You may go now, or you may wait for the base director to order it, but you and your gut full of alien bacteria are going to the medical pool.”
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Circulation

Humans are Weird - Circulation ​ The strange human music pulsed through the dense air as Survey Corps Ranger Cest’kk carefully arranged the one-thousand seven-hundredth forty-fifth aquatic invertebrate specimen on the display slide with his claw tips and set the slide cover over the still wriggling creature with a satisfying click. The electromagnetic stasis field activated perfectly this time, freezing the creature in place, and Cest’kk felt every limb relax a little and even begin tapping in time to the human music. Really, the slides had worked very well today over all, but when one was processing hundreds of specimens, even a less than one percent failure rate grew agitating.
Cest’kk took a moment to flex one paw at a time, working stuffiness out of his joints. Behind him Survey Core Ranger Robberrtss was whistling a tune while resetting the traps. Due to the local sun shining down with no clouds for the first time this trip, the human had shed most of his uniform, trusting to his own robust immune system to protect him from the microscopic inhabitants of the stream they were surveying. Cest’kk certainly had opinions about that, but Robberrtss was well past mental maturity for his species and his actions were not directly against regulations.
“Some human or the other is going to be the first to catch whatever this ecosystem can throw at us,” Robberrtss had said when Cest’kk had brought up unknown parasites in the water that was still being surveyed. “Might as well be me as anyone else!”
The courage of the sentiment was unquestionable, the sense of it...Cest’kk shrugged a few legs and resumed his work. He finished the slides well before the local sun dipped below the horizon and called Robberrtss over to help load the air-cart. In addition to the rack of slides preserving the live invertebrates Robberrts had several ‘cool rocks’ to send back to the geologists at the main base and a ‘goop thing’ that didn’t seem to have any cells but didn’t quite seem abiotic either. A quick calculation showed that there was not nearly enough weight capacity for all the specimens and Robberrtss spent no little time culling the ‘cool rock’ collection before they could send the air-cart back to base and return to their own camp. However eventually he did finish, shoving the remaining ‘cook rocks’ into the pockets of the small clothing item he had chosen to wear. He held out his hands to Cest’kk who had just finished repacking his satchel with his tools.
“Ally’oop lil’ buddy!” Robberrtss called out.
Cest’kk gratefully leapt up into the offered hand, and clicked his mandibles so hard he felt a spark of pain in their joints.
“What’s wrong Cesty?” Robberrtss asked as Cest’kk scrambled off of the human’s hand and up his arm.
Normally Cest’kk was very, very mindful of the damage his claws could do to the human’s outer membrane, and he was glad to note that no blood dripped from the places he secured his grip on the mammal on the way up.
“What is wrong with your hands?” Cest’kk demanded once he reached the marginally more comfortable shoulder, however the effect was noticeable there as well, only the skin around the head and neck seemed unaffected.
“What?” Robberrtss asked, raising his hands into his narrow field of vision. “My hands are fine.”
“They have dropped, ten maybe twenty percent in temperature!” Cest’kk exclaimed shifting his satchel to a better position to be able to gesture at the human. “I know how mammals work! That is not good!”
Robberrtss gave a huff of laughter and set his eyes roiling around in their sockets, a thing he must know disturbed Cest’kk to no end.
“I am fine Cesty,” the human said firmly, beginning to walk back towards the bank and their camp. “When a human in in the water the body just draws all the heat into the core. My body as a whole has plenty of heat, it’s just that my hands aren’t a priority at the moment.”
Cest’kk dug through his satchel and pulled out a bioreader. Robberrtss heaved a sigh of exasperation but held out the relevant body part, the joint where his hand met his arm, for Cest’kk to get the reading.
“See Cesty?” Robberrtss said in a tone humans used to patronize others. “The temp is just…”
Robberrtss voice trailed off as he looked at the display.
“Okay,” the human said slowly, “yeah, no, yeah, that is maybe,not the best number to see there.”
“How are you even vertical?” Cest’kk demanded. “According to this you should be non-responsive!”
“Eh,” the human said shrugging his shoulders before scrambling up the bank. “Different strokes for different humans.”
“Stroke?” Cest’kk exclaimed, frantically reaching for his tablet and its list of human medical terms. “I need to observe you for a...that was a bad medical word wasn’t it? Let me pull up-”
“Common word, two meanings!” Robberrtss said laughing. “I just meant I am a little tougher when it comes to changes in body temp than the, let’s call it a ‘textbook’ human. Look, I am clearly vertical and responsive as you said. Now let’s get back to camp and I promise I’ll seal myself up in my sleeping bag.”
“Is that the suggested medical intervention?” Cest’kk demanded.
He wasn’t a mammal expert but he was pretty sure he remembered from his first aid training that once their temperature dipped too low they needed intervention to bring it up again.
“No medical intervention is necessary,” Robberrtss insisted, “I’ll just eat some quick digesting food and let my metabolism and the sleeping bag do its thing, but hey, if it makes you happy I’ll hook up the water pump feature and put the bag in hot-soak mode. Yeah, that’ll feel real good and get me toasty quick.”
“That sounds acceptable,” Cest’kk agreed.
It did sound like what they had gone over in the first aid training.
“And you know what they say,” Robberrtss said, twisting his face into the shape that usually indicated an attempt at a joke was coming. “Cold hands warm heart!”
“If you collapse before we can return to our camp I do not see what temporarily preserving your internal organ temperature will do for your survival chances,” Cest’kk snapped.
Robberrtss rolled his eyes again and gave a low chuckle, as if to make up for Cest’kk’s lack of amusement as the returned to their camp. Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh

Humans are Weird - Bittersweet

​Humans are Weird - Bittersweet  Human First Mother Maria breathed a soft sigh and dipped her lips, those strangely flexible mandible covers, down to press them into the very, very round cheek’s of her First Brother. The way both humans’ outer membranes flexed and indented at the pressure still made First Father’s antenna curl with lingering shock, but at least their pheromones were natural and easy to interpret even if their more solid parts weren’t. First Father gave an approving click and reached up to carefully run his wooden tending brush down the egg pod in front of him. The precious little one within gave a responsive wriggle and Human First Mother Maria lifted her head as her face contorted into a smile that expressed delight.
“Do you know if it is a boy or girl yet?” she asked.
First Father hesitated at the odd question, and then reminded himself that human young entered their hives in nearly identical ratios, in fact he mused, he thought he’d heard from a visiting statistician they actually had a very small sway towards male offspring at birth.
“It is almost certainly a Daughter,” he said, “for whatever reason, it was explained to me when I was small, it is almost unheard of for a Brother to be the first to hatch from a line. Something about how pheromones flow during the first seasons of mating.”
The human bobbed her head up and down in that oddly jointed way humans did to show understanding.
“I bet you can’t wait to get her out of that pod so you can properly cuddle her,” the human First Mother said, her bifocal eyes directed at her own little one. “I was so very ready for Dickky by the time he made his entrance!”
First Father clicked in amusement. “It is, not quite the same,” he explained, reached up to caress the pod with his fingers. “See how the outer membrane of the pod is translucent now, nearly transparent. If I can’t quite see my Daughter yet, I can taste her pheromones, hear her clicking. This stage is probably more akin to the newborn stage you were telling me of. Recall that when she leaves the pod this little one will be able to walk.”
“Oh!” the human said, clearly pondering that even as her arms wrestled with the very, very round little male she held.
“As to how I will feel,” First Father mused, working his mandibles together thoughtfully, “I truly don’t think I will be disappointed. There is so much more to do with a walking Daughter than one who is still on the vine. That will be wonderful, but then I will have to share her with my mate’s Sisters, and her Mother and Father. There is an intimacy, perhaps a selfish one to this stage that I think I will miss.”
The human nodded more slowly this time.
“I understand,” she said in deeper, slower tones. “I was bathing with little Dickky the other day, and it occurred to me that, well, that time would steal this from me, that I wouldn’t be able to be so close to him as a child as I was as a baby. That made me sad.”
Here pheromones dipped into something bittersweet, before abruptly washing out with hot joy even as her face contorted to show her teeth, gleaming like some white metal.
“Then I remember that when he is bigger I get to give him incendiary devices! And we can make small rockets together!”
The human infant made a happy noise in response to his mother’s energy and First Father took the time she was distracted to make a note on a nearby tablet. Apparently restricting the introduction of incendiary devices as play things was something his hive would have to consider in dealing with their new neighbors. He supposed that must be one of the many strange results of leaving the care of infants to the female of the species.  
Author Betty Adams Books
Amazon! 
Barnes & Noble
Powell's Books
Google Play Books
Kobo By Rakuten Youtube
BitChute
Odysee
Rumble
Veoh