Betty Adams's Blog, page 10

Humans are Weird - Bad Touch

Humans are Weird - Bad Touch Rollsleisurly deliberately rubbed several lagging appendages together, critically examining the textures of his outer most layer. The friction felt exactly right and he raised his appendages to get a good look at Human Friend Robert who was circling above him in the mineral rich water. The water around them rumbled with the constant influx of cooler water into the thermal vents and onto the hot magma below them making sound useless for communication with humans in this situation. Rollsleisurly pushed off the hot bed of the bay and swam against the pull of gravity with firm strokes, by the time he reached Human Friend Robert’s level the human was some distance away and Rollsleisurely kept up his steady stroking to hold level as the human returned.
Rollsleisurely waved his appendages for attention. A directionless endeavor as it turned out. Human Friend Robert’s normally limited vision was further impaired by the device he work to protect his fragile vision organs from particles in the water, and possibly the tonic differences, Rollsleisurely wasn’t entirely clear on where human organs fell in the aquatic, semi-aquatic, terrestrial dynamic. It seemed to vary for each organ. With a mildly amused hum Rollsleisurely swam towards the approaching human and successfully impacted the broad surface of his chest before the human, fascinated by the view of the vents below them was even aware of his approach.
Human Friend Robert gave a startled noise, warped by the rebreather that covered his mouth and nose, the water which he was not used to correcting for, and the sounds caused by the flailing of his arms. Rollsleisurely experienced the peculiar sensation of feeling a wash of nonsense chattering, just barely not words, as human hands grappled frantically with him for a moment before Human Friend Robert apparently remembered they were in a more natural environment than the thin atmosphere that was dominated by gravity and friction alone, and closed his arms in a loose circle allowing Rollsleisurly to snuggled up to the best exposed surface, neck and speak comfortably.
“Thermo check?”
Human Friend Robert gave a grateful sounding grunt and wriggled around in the water until he could see the read out on his wrist. Rollsleisurly held an appendage out to double check that, yes, the giant mammal’s core temperature was well within the absurdly narrow range their metabolisms required.
“I’m well!” Human Friend Robert replied in human gesture language. “This atoll is amazing!”
“It is,” Rollsleisurly agreed in fully comparable delight. “It is so rare to find a such a geologically active site that is actually stable and safe enough to-”
Something, somewhere else had caught Human Friend Robert’s attention and the long mammal began the giant, exaggerated strokes that they used when traveling any distance. Rollsleisurly changed directions to follow him, wondering what had attracted him. They were, perhaps worryingly, moving towards the one truly dangerous location. A less stable pocket of the underlying bedrock sometimes cracked here, sending up the occasional burst of lava bubbles. However the danger zone was clearly marked, not only by the fallen fragments of cooled lava, oddly shaped by their passage through the water, but by clear interspecies warning symbols placed on and sometimes carved into the rock, and, somewhat to Rollsleisurly’s surprise Human Friend Robert stopped well short of the danger zone, treading water perpendicular to gravity and his posture oddly curved opposite to how it usually was. Rollsleisurly decided he was looking at something in particular, and that required the odd position. This idea was made more likely when Human Friend Robert angled his motion to reach up and position his hand as if to catch something falling from above. Rollsleisurly marveled at the human ability to predict vectors of even the minutest object's and intercept them. The object in question, a mostly cooled cinder from the dangerous geothermal resolved to where Rollsleisurly could identify it only when it finally fell within the contrasting paleness of the human’s hand.
Rollsleisurely was actually quite proud of himself for reacting before Human Friend Robert started cursing and flinging his hand back and forth. Of course there was nothing Rollsleisurly could do to prevent the damage at that point, but by the time Human Friend Robert had worked his way through the majority of humanity’s best profanities Rollsleisurely had built up enough momentum to push hims towards the colder water outside of the geothermal active area.
“Get your flesh to the cold stream!” Rollsleisurely ordered as firmly as he could while bodily shoving Human Friend Robert in the correct direction.
It took several long second for Human Friend Robert to gather himself through the pain enough to understand but once he did he began swimming, in a clumsy, uncoordinated way towards the colder water. They rounded the reef that protected the geothermal active area and Human Friend Robert caught the rock with his damaged hand, gave a howl of pain, grabbed it with his undamaged hand, and thrust the burnt hand out into the comparatively cold water of the currents that surrounded the area. Instantly the relief was obvious in ever fiber of the human’s body as the water, roughly half of normal human internal temperatures, stole the heat away from his fingers. Rollsleisurely scrambled up from Human Friend Roberts back where he had been holding on and moved forward along his arm into the cold water to examine the damaged flesh.
“You are going to have some spectacular blisters,” Rollseleisurely said, letting a bit of delight show in his posture as he determined that the human had done no serious damage to himself.
“Yeah,” the human said, and then gasped, the rebreather complaining at the strain, “yeah.”
“I have a question Human Friend Robert,” Rollsleisurely said, leaving the damaged but stable hand in the cold current and rejoining the majority of Human Friend Robert’s mass in the warm shelter of the reef. “Did you realize what that was before you went out of your way to catch it in your bare hands?”
Human Friend Robert gave a weak laugh and flexed his damaged hand in the old water, wincing.
“Yeah, I knew it was a live cinder,” he admitted.
Rollsleisurely made sure that he was in Human Friend Robert’s line of sight and ‘let the silence eat into his soul’ as the psychologists advised. Human Friend Robert squirmed and then pulled his hand back into the warmer water to examine it, winced as the pain instantly renewed, and shoved his hand back out in the colder current.
“It was shiny,” he finally said, “and there was a texture, and I guess, I guess I forgot, or wasn’t thinking about how hot it was.”
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Humans are Weird - Hungry

Humans are Weird - Hungry  The air tasted warm as First Sister paused in the massive human doorway with its harsh, ninety-degree angles. Outside the sun was setting and sending the last orange rays over the humans’s crop pastures. The light fell against the vertical shades of the broad front porch with its last energy casting a rather pleasing lattice of shadows on the wall of the humans’ deadwood hive. First Sister gave her frill a flap in an absent attempt to cool herself and stepped out onto the porch with a little shiver. The porch itself felt safe, with its clutter of gardening tools, child’s toys, and mysterious items shaped for human hands or human eyes. However the wide empty pastures that sloped gently up to the sand dunes of the beach were something that First Sister could never quite get used to. She understood from her lessons that humans liked, even needed ‘wide open spaces’ as defined by distances far enough to make it difficult to see another human without obstruction, but the searing light of the day and the forceful winds of the night made it terrifying to her.
She eased down onto something that looked sort of like a couch and resumed the simple weaving project she had brought with her when somewhat to her surprise the familiar tread of Human Second Mother approached from within the house. First Sister sprang up and prepared to greet her but Human Second Mother burst out of the door and swept around her, apparently utterly focused on reaching the secure bin that stored the tuber vegetables this hive used on a daily basis. First Sister watched, somewhat perplexed at the intensity in Human Second Mother’s face as she glared down at the tubers, selected a handful of bright purple ones, and rather more forcefully than was needed, reached down and snatched them out. Then, instead of taking them into the kitchen to prepare Human Second Mother brought the tubers up to her mouth and simply bit off a large chunk and started chewing. Her body language instantly changed, the tightness in the skin around her face relaxed, her fingers uncurled slightly, she stood taller and easier as if the bite had relived some distress. The crunching sound filled the porch as Human Second mother let her gaze wander out across the ‘wide open spaces’.
First Sister continued to watch in fascination as Human Second Mother ate an entire raw tuber. First Sister was not entirely certain that the tubers were indigestible to humans raw, but she knew that it was highly unusual for these humans to eat them raw in any mass. After finishing the first tuber, which was easily the size and mass of First Sister’s arm, Human Second mother frowned thoughtfully at the second tuber, gave a low grunt, and took another bite, less frantically than she had before. She glanced over at First Sister and smiled.
“Hey Kid,” she said turning to angle back through the door.
It seemed to be a general greeting, backed up by Human Second Mother idly reaching up to pat First Sister’s head between her antenna, so it didn’t require a reply. First Sister wondered at what she had just seen, but as no explanation seemed likely she turned her attention back to her weaving and the sunset. Eventually the artificial lights on the porch switched on and the sound of Human Friend Betty returning from the beach with Human First Sister drifted up the path. They greeted her joyfully, surprised at her presence, and the three of them entered the house together talking of the swimming conditions on the local beach. The humans decided to stay in their saltwater-soaked clothes until had hydrated and they sat down around the large preparation table in the kitchen to drink some acidic fruit juice. It was more than pleasant with the air rapidly cooling, the sounds of the night drifting in through the still open door, and the exotic taste of the juice. However First Sister stopped talking as she observed Human Second Mother pace by in that same, tense focused way, open the cold storage in the kitchen, and outright scowl at the contents before reaching in and removing several avian eggs. The adult human quickly cracked the shells, revealing the insides had been solidified through boiling, then proceed to eat the eggs with that same quick intensity she had applied to the tubers.
“What’cha looking at First?” Human First Sister asked.
“Is there something wrong with Human Second Mother?” First Sister asked, feeling her antenna curl in concern.
“Mom?” Human Second Cousin Betty asked, glancing after the retreating back of her mother. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
First Sister explained the behavior she had observed and Human Second Cousin Betty seemed as perplexed as she did, however the older Human First Sister only nodded in confident understanding. By the time First Sister was done Human First Sister was clearly wanting to say something.
“Hormones!” Human First Sister said with final firm nod.
“What does that even mean?” Human Second Cousin Betty demanded with an irritated frown.
“Oh,” Human First Sister’s face contorted in something between and grimace of pain and a smug smile, “you’ll understand in a few years. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried!” Human Second Cousin Betty insisted.
“What specific aspect of her hormones resulted in her eating so much?” First Sister quickly cut in to avoid a cousin argument.
“Its just that time of her cycle,” Human First Sister said with a wave of her hand. “Happens to all of us, eventually. You get one day where they hungry just won’t stop and nothing really satisfies it, but it’ll stop by tomorrow.”
“It’s a mammal moon cycle thing,” Human Second Cousin Betty offered when First Sister didn’t uncurl her confused antenna.
The conversation turned there as they had finished drinking and wanted to seek privacy to change out of their swimming clothes. First Sister waited for them at the table mulling over whether this strange food scavenging behavior was worth further investigation.  
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Humans are Weird - Introduction

Humans are Weird - Introduction    Stck’ck carefully burrowed his paws down through the fine mass of hairs that covered Human Friend Giovanni’s head. Stck’ck wriggled his claws thoughtfully, it seemed that there might be less hair density than there had been when they had first met. He should bring that up at their next social meal. Stck’ck glanced down at the readout on his datapad. The thermal coils in this area were showing the inexplicable wear, just as they suspected. He clicked his chelicerae together and went to pull up the long term thermal flow data, but the screen did not respond for several long moments and Stck’ck gave an annoyed click before prodding Human Friend Giovanni’s scalp with a paw. The soft material over him lifted and let in a wash of cold air.
“What’cha need Sticks?” Human Friend Giovanni called out, a bit too loudly in the dense air.
“I need to be closer to the main data signal,” Stck’ck called out. “The thermal coils are very much over working but I can’t see a pattern in the pause.”
“Back to the signal! Gotcha!” Human Friend Giovanni and Stck’ck’s perch swayed as the human angled towards the corner of the sublevel where the data signal was known to be strongest.
Human Friend Giovanni dropped his cranial covering, his hat, back to its original position and Stck’ck pushed it back up to a comfortable height that gave him room to stand but didn’t let the cold air in. They reached the corner as indicated by his datapad chirping happily as it picked up the signal. Stck’ck quickly downloaded the needed data. However before he could finalize it he felt Human Friend Giovanni turn and rumble out a greeting to what must be another approaching human.
Stck’ck heaved a sigh of just barely warmed air through his lung and pressed one paw over his main eyes. Under his paws he felt the flexible skin on Human Friend Giovanni’s face wrinkle with a delighted smile. It must be a human who had not seen the performance yet. His perch swayed as Human Friend Giovanni crouched. From experience (and from observing surveillance recordings after similar previous events) Stck’ck knew that Human Friend Giovanni was holding his hands out in front of him in what might be considered a semi-threatening posture towards the other human. Human Friend Giovanni spoke, his tones dramatically changed with both mischievous delight and what Stck’ck was told was a vocal impersonation of some famous human entertainer. Stck’ck braced himself for the cold and dutifully lifted one paw in greeting as was his part in this little charade. He carefully braced his datapad that was still downloading the data.
“Say hello to my little friend!”Human Friend Giovanni declared, sweeping the hat up and off his head, revealing Stck’ck to the startled and mildly uneasy looking human.
“Hello,” Stck’ck said waving his raised paw dutifully.
The other human’s look changed from perplexed to delighted and she, it looked kind of like the new nutritional lead, laughed. She raised her hand and waved at Stck’ck.
“Hello!” She said.
Stck’ck reached up and pulled down on the hat that was poised just above him losing all the precious heat with a tap of a paw at Human Friend Giovanni’s scalp. Human Friend Giovanni laughed and dropped the hat back down to its resting position and Stck’ck resumed perusing the data.  
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Flying Sparks A Novel - A Lost Boy, A Freak Storm, An Alien Warrior, Two Worlds Colliding

Flying Sparks 
​A Novel - A Lost Boy, A Freak Storm, An Alien Warrior, Two Worlds Colliding From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go boomp in the night; Good Lord deliver us.
Traditional Scottish Prayer


A mountain with a secret.
A family in danger.
A guardian who carries his own dark curse.


Drake McCarty has more than enough stress in his life. With half the responsibility for his siblings dropped on him at an early age and child protective services sniffing around he can’t afford to make any mistakes.
Then a moment of inattention nearly leads to the wilderness taking his life. The alien being who rescues him promises to solve many of his family’s problems,
but at what cost? 

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#ScienceFiction #SciFi #Book #Reading #BettyAdams
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Humans are Weird - Nonsense

Humans are Weird - Nonsense  Fourth Trill shifted his datapad uneasily in his satchel and sent a quick click back down the corridor he had come. The rest of his flight was in another of the cavernous, human sized rooms of course but enough of them were peaking their sensory horns around the abrupt corner of the door to give him some sense of solidarity. They clicked back the sounding in a show of support and he leapt off his perch with the confidence that gave him ringing around his own horns before he could second guess this again. What was it with humans and this need for ‘privacy’, he wondered as he flitted down the corridor towards the so called ‘lounge’. Why couldn’t they sound the benefit in meeting potential unpleasantness in a nice cluster of wingmates? His musings ended as he swept into the room, over the back of a large couch, and into the enveloping warmth of a human’s thermal aura. Fourth Trill sounded the massive mammal out, the only one in the room, to make sure it actually was the human he was looking for and felt a surge of relief mixed with dread when it was. She twitched at the sounding and glanced up from the book she was reading with a perplexed look on her face. The book was something of a wonder on the base, not quite qualifying as an antique it did have hardened mammal skin as armor protecting it and the rumors of how much to cost their current lead ecologist to ship it with her from station to station filled many a night’s chatter with wonder. It wasn’t as if it were a religious text even, just a nice little story about a young female human finding herself a new wing after her old one has succumbed to some vaguely defined illness.
“Eh, Fifteenth Click?” Susan guessed, squinting up at Fourth Trill.
He gave a chitter of amusement and landed on a table where it would be easy for her eyes to focus on him.
“Not quite,” he corrected her guess. “Fourth Trill.”
For a long moment her expression grew intense, and he could feel that she was a pursuit predator down to his very bones. Logically he knew she was simply attempting to memorize his notable features but it was disconcerting.
“Fourth Trill,” she finally said. “Did you want to read along?” she asked lifting the book invitingly and patting a shoulder.
“Actually,” he said lifting his datapad, “I wanted to ask you a potentially offensive question.”
“Ohhh!” Susan’s face lit with delight and she arranged herself in a more upright position. “If you fuzzy little menaces are concerned about how offensive something might be, it’s gonna be good!”
Fourth Trill blinked at that, not quite sure how to respond, so he activated his datapad and held it out to her.
“Do you remember that conversation we had when we met at the base of Seven Pulse Deep?” He asked.
“We had a lot of conversations…” she said slowly but squinted and the image of a room and then nodded as recognition lit her face. “Oh yeah, about the fancy organization thing.”
“The opinion you expressed to me at the time was that it was,” he hesitated as he tried to remember the non-standard word.
“Bunkum?” Susan offered.
“Bunkum,” Fourth Trill agreed. “At the time I accepted your judgment but -”
“You shouldn’t have,” Susan said with a cheerful grin.
Fourth Trill took a wingbeat follow the new vector.
“You didn’t deliberately mislead me as to the value of the organizational system,” he stated, quite sure that Susan would not.
“Nah,” she shook her head, sending the braided rope of fur she wore, very handy to perch on it was, bouncing, “I believed that at the time. I was convinced it was bunkum. Nonsense, spiritualism packaged as lifestyle.”
“Yes,” Fourth Trill agreed, feeling a wash of relief at the change of opinion her wording implied. If she had adjusted her judgments in the time since that would make this converstation far more comfortable. “That was the impression you gave me at the time. However my recent research into the system shows that it is based on fairly robust mammalian psychology and might even be applicable to Winged environments.”
Susan hummed with interest and tilted her head to the side.
“No sh-no really?” she said. “Well good for you fuzzy little nuisances!”
“Applying the principles might even make it safer for us to cohabit with giant, clumsy mammals,” Fourth Trill replied with a toss of his head and Susan grinned at him. “My questions is however, what changed your opinion on the matter?”
Susan leaned back as she mulled over that. “I saw it explained properly,” she finally said. “An expert laid out the psychology behind things like ‘energy flow’ and then I had a better understanding of habitat management so it made sense.”
“So it had not been properly explained to you before?” Forth Trill asked.
Susan gave her head a vigorous shake.
“So how did you come to such a firm and convincing opinion of the system’s usefulness?” Fourth Trill asked.
“Oh you know,” Susan said with a vague wave of her hand. “It was kinda, really popular when I was a kid? Just forming my opinions you know. A bunch of those kind of vaguely famous idiots picked it up and I was pretty skeptical of anything they liked. It sounded like bunkum the way they talked about it.”
Fourth Trill tried to sound some reason out of that.
“So because people you didn’t respect, attempted to adapt a system neither you nor they understood, you rejected the system as invalid based on your judgment of their intelligence?” He asked sure that that couldn’t be right, but Susan nodded with a bright smile as if the had fully explained the phenomenon.
“I was just a kid,” she said as she shifted in a way that meant she planned to go back to reading her book soon. “I know better now.”
Fourth Trill took off to let her get back to reading, and to let her answer settle between his horns for further understanding, because it really did not make sense.  
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Humans are Weird - Headache

Humans are Weird - Headache The slightly green light of the local sun was just easing to a less intense angle when the human staggered into the garden space. Shifts Under Observation had been processing a deep analysis of the rocky substrate under this garden space in order to prepare a report for the colony agricultural research board. Of all of the seeded garden spaces on the otherwise barren world only this one had truly thrived. The trees had sent down deep roots and were happily murmuring to each other along the robust fungal networks. Despite not one of the trees being old enough to seed they were already making sound mortality judgments and the lower shrubs fruited plentifully under their notice. It was only natural for the more motile species which depended on the fruiting bodies of the ecosystems for nutrients to want to know what factors made this garden space thrive so well. It was also normal for the tree loving humans to come in simply to bask in the murmuring of the life around them. However, Shifts Under Observation felt doubts crawl over every fiber that mere basking was the goal of this human.

A humans double tread was normally chaotic enough, but the nearly random vibrations this one was sending into the ground spoke of potential injury and this impression was not lessened when the steps staggered to a halt and ended with a thump that indicated a mass as large as the largest trees falling to the ground in stages. Shifts Under Observation let attention drift up and tap into the trees. The cluster of four trees that between them boasted the densest canopy were responding to an increased in carbon dioxide and pressure on their roots. Slowly vision added itself to Shifts Under Observation’s awareness as the leaves caught the light reflected off of the human.
It was one of the local females, physically at breeding mass, having a mate, but not yet reproductive. Shifts Under Observation stimulated a cluster of memory nodes and found that her name had unfortunately corrupted along with much of the local population information. Shifts Under Observation felt concerned at that. The information had been time consuming to gather and now must be gathered again. Then there was the question of how the corruption had occurred. The nodes were oddly high in nitrogen and a chemical burn was possible, but such a burn should have been noted long before it got bad enough to corrupt memory. Shifts Under Observation took a few moments to debate how much attention each issue required before deciding that the possibly injured human had a higher priority.
It was fairly easy to extend motile fibers into the trees that had been grown with access in mind. It was also fairly easy to give the leaves a gentle shake to warn the defensive mammal of the presence of another awareness. Therefore the human was prepared when Shifts Under Observation spoke.
“Are you in need of medical assistance Human Female Currently Laying Under the Densest Canopy?”
The human emitted a grunt and what was visible of her face contorted into what the textbooks listed as an expression of amusement.
“Did’ja forget my name?” she asked. “Or is this, like, a thing where you got your memories somewhere else?”
“I am afraid much of my memory is corrupted,” Shifts Under Observation responded. “Do you need medical assistance?”
“Corrupted how?” the human female asked. “Did one of the diggers grind over you somewhere important?”
Shifts Under Observation had no qualms with sharing relevant medical information with the local human population. Especially when such information impacted their collective ability to communicate, however the idea that this human was avoiding the question posed did occur to Shifts Under Observation and suggested a more imperative topic. Shifts Under Observation increased the volume of the projected voice.
“Do you need medical attention?”
The human experienced a full body movement, a wince, the corrupted nodes offered up, and Shifts Under Observation felt a flicker of hope that not all was lost.
“I don’t need no medical attention,” the human grumbled, shifting her hands to cover her face.
“So you do need some medical attention?” Shifts Under Observation pressed.
The human broke into laughter and let her hands drop from her face to her chest as she stared up at the canopy above her. She drew in a deep breath and flexed her body.
“I am in pain,” she said in slow clear tones. “I have already taken the necessary chemical steps to treat the pain but it is mostly,” she hesitated, and seemed to root around in her memory for the next word. “It’s my emotions see?” She said waving one hand in the air. “My stupid little brother did some stupid little brother thing and I got all mad and that made this part of my head hurt and my other brother told me to go calm down so I yelled and him and took some pain killers and came here to calm down. See?”
Her hands dropped back down to cover her eyes and Shifts Under Observation pondered the statements while simultaneously teasing information fragments out of the corrupted nodes. This situation called for more information than was currently available and the lack was causing confusing gaps in understanding.
“Your younger male sibling,” Shifts Under Observation said, carefully stringing memory fragments together, “who lives four townships to the east, has taken action to aggravate you?”
“Well, not yet,” the female admitted. “He’s gonna though.”
Shifts Under Observation pondered the situation.
“Your younger male sibling may be going to do something that would aggravate you,” Shifts Under Observation said slowly, “so in anticipation of the event your emotional reaction is causing you crippling pain.”
The human released a long exhale of carbon dioxide to the delight of the trees over her.
“Sounds kinda stupid when you put it like that,” she said quietly, but she was smiling.
“I merely observe and try to understand,” Shifts Under Observation assured her.
“Yeah, s’why I came here,” she said with a yawn. “The trees don’t judge you when you’re kinda stupid. Makes it easier to calm down.”
Shifts Under Observation remained quiet, listening to the trees observations, and judgments of the mammal who had flung herself down at their roots. Disrupting a belief in another sapient species was always a delicate matter, even more so if that belief was currently aiding some healing state as this one clearly was. Perhaps the fact that the judgment had nothing to do with her emotional state, and was generally positive – this species of tree considered large mammals mostly symbiotic – would make the judgment palatable to the human, but Shifts Under Observation decided that it would be bet to not challenge the human on it until the corrupted memories had either been restored or replaced with a better understanding.  
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Humans are Weird – Betwixt

 Humans are Weird – Betwix Doctor Draft bent over the primary fomentation vat and gave a satisfied prod at a patch of cloth that had billowed up above the clear water. The workroom was pleasantly humid from the steam and he felt a bubble of a thought suggest he might have invited his visiting Undulate colleague to observe this with good results. However he had not thought of that on the forepaw of this day and there was no point in interrupting the visitors day. Currently he would be out poking around the north blood-grain fields. Doctor Draft dropped the lid over the vat and leaned the stick in the sterile corner before turning back to sorting the mineral supplements for freshness. The magnesium had been looking a little oxidized, which should have been impossible –
The giant door to the too-tall room burst open and a giant flailing mass of limbs staggering into the room. Doctor Draft heaved a sigh and carefully pushed the mineral storage sets to the center of the table to minimize spill hazards.
“Yo Dogh,” the human slurred out, the sound mangled by the fact that the human had several of his wide, thin claws shoved into his mouth, something that was highly medically inadvisable to the pathogenically fragile mammals. “Gough som foss?”
Doctor Draft debated taking the time to figure that out a moment and then slammed his tail on the floor to get the human’s roving attention. One helpful thing about the species was that there was no doubt where they were addressing their brain power as long as you could see their bizarre, white ringed eyes. The sound worked and the human turned both his body and eyes on the doctor, one absurdly long finger still prodding at an upper tooth. Doctor Draft raised himself up on his hind legs and mimicked that gesture the human nurse had taught him, crossing the arms they called it, as best he could, while deliberately letting his tail tip lash against the ground. The humans squirmed under the attention and removed his finger from his mouth, though his lips continued to contort oddly.
“Do you have some floss,” the human articulated carefully before beginning to prod at his tooth with his short, stubby tongue.
“What is floss?” Doctor Draft demanded, running a mental tongue over the term.
The human hesitated and his forepaws raised, the long narrow digits working as if they were kneading dough as he presumably formatted a description.
“It’s long, narrow thread,” he said, pausing to tongue at his upper teeth again, and without the forepaws to hide it Doctor Draft noted the grimace of pain with concern. “It’s used for cleaning gunk and stuff out from between teeth.”
Clicking his jaws in understanding Doctor Draft turned and scrambled towards a shelf. “Yes I do keep some of that on hand,” he said. “It is hardly ever needed save for when the old tooth fails to dislodge when a new one grows in, but yes, I can see why humans would need it more frequently now that you describe it. I presume you have some, gunk, did you say? Stuck between your teeth?”
“Not gunk exactly,” the human said, relief in his voice. “I was trying some of that new bird-thing meat and it turns out to be pretty stringy.”
Doctor Draft lunged into the cupboard of minor surgical supplies and pulled out the ball of, floss, the human had called it and he made an effort to ingrain the name in his memory as he handed it over to the human.
“Is this condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked as the human gratefully snatched at the ball that looked tiny in his long digits.
The human made short, frantic work of finding the free end of the string and biting off a length. Then he wound the ends around two of his digits and forced it between the tightly packed mammalian molars.
“Is the condition causing you pain?” Doctor Draft asked again.
One eye rolled towards him and the human made a positive sounding grunt and nodded while working the floss between his tooth and his gums. A thin thread of flesh popped out from between the molars and immediately relief showed on the human’s expressive face. Then suddenly with an audible snap the floss broke. Doctor Draft reared back in surprise. The surgical rated string wasn’t exactly designed to take much of a load but it shouldn’t have been so easily for a human to accidentally snap it. The human seemed hardly surprised and simply took another length before attacking the minuscule gap between to other teeth talking in the moments when his mouth was free of obstruction.
“That one hurt,” he said, “real bad in spurts where the teeth were pinching it.”
Another thread of flesh popped out.
“That one was only annoying,” he said. “My teeth are too big for my jaw you see…”
Doctor Draft blinked slowly as he processed that. The second string snapped and the human reached for another. Doctor Draft made a mental bubble to order more, and possibly sturdier, or thinner perhaps, dental string. Human’s could, as a common thing judging from the casual attitude this one was displaying, have teeth that were too large for their underlying bone structure. That, if it wasn’t the idle misinterpretation of a layman, might be something worth looking into. There was a gurgle and a clink from the fomentation vat as the pressure displaced the lid and Doctor Draft turned back to that cleaning task with a thoughtful hum.   Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Big Stretch

Humans are Weird - Big Stretch  “Are you absolutely sure that Human Friend Rocko is not signaling for help?” Shiftsback asked from his work station somewhere above Rollsrolls.
Rollsrolls shifted in annoyance, not at the very logical question, when Human Friend Rocko did what he called his ‘dynamic stretching’ it really did look like nothing so much as a desperate call for help, but because the makeshift workstations in these field camp allowed for such limited visual contact that most questions lost vast amounts of context. There was no way to tell if Shiftsback was getting increasingly concerned at a change in Human Friend Rocko’s behavior, or if Shiftsback was merely still agitated from his last inquiry.
Rollsrolls lifted himself up and scrambled out of his tepid work pool to Shiftsback’s. He lifted his best distance perceptive appendages and absorbed the view of the massive mammal swing all four primary appendages around in frantic, but very patterned circles.
“Yes,” Rollsrolls stated firmly, reaching over to pat Shiftsback in a comforting gesture. “I know it looks like a panicked call for help but humans do have that fussy thing with the fluid turgidity you know. Keeping that healthy requires some odd movement patterns.”
“Their circulatory system?” Shiftsback asked with the eagerness of his own personal first contact still obvious in the set of his appendages.
“If you angle it that way,” Rollsrolls said with a vague wave.
“Their internal fluid systems,” Shiftsback explained, and Rollsrolls firmly patted him to silence before he could go on in detail about the humans needlessly complex internals while he focused on the human in front of them.
“Human Friend Rocko is fine,” Rollsrolls said firmly.
“But he said his vertebra were acting up last night,” Shiftsback said with an adorably concerned wriggle. “He asked me to keep an appendage up for distress movements today!”
Rollsrolls made the mistake of showing a bit of curiosity in his more lax dangling appendages and Sihftsback surged on it.
“Oh! Vertebra are very important! They are what allow that upright walking movement. Human Friend Rocko damaged his at his last station by lifting too much mass against gravity and-”
Rollsrolls simply turned and dropped back down to his station, letting himself fall into his tepid, and somewhat stale tasting work pool with a splash. He saw Shiftsback’s lagging end peeking over the edge at him and Rollsrolls waved tiredly up at him.
“It is very nice of you to spot Human Friend Rocko for injury signals,” Rollsrolls gestured, being very careful not to broadcast any annoyance, mainflow knew that humans needed friends to watch them. “It is even better that Human Friend Rocko trusts you to do that.”
Shiftsback’s lagging end gave a happy jiggle.
“Let me know,” Rollsrolls paused to choose his terms carefully, “if there is any negative change in his movements,” he finally decided.
Shiftsback gave another happy wriggle of agreement and his lagging end disappeared back into his work station. Rollsrolls flexed his appendages out and went back to work. It really was, it truly was a good think that the members of this team were integrating so well. He could only wait patiently for Shiftsback to develop a more holistic understanding of human movements.   Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - First

​ Humans are Weird – First “Undulate Friend Gripsstrong!”
The human voice struck the surface of the basking pool and warped as it shifted from the air to the water, but not nearly enough to hide the stress and frustration in the mammal’s voice.
“My human friend needs me!” Gripsstrong wriggled in positive delight. “She needs me badly!”
“That is a good translation of her vocal emoting,” Rollsrollsrolls agreed with a sleepy stretch, even with the cloud filtering the afternoon sun had comfortably warmed them. “You should go see what she wants.”
Gripsstrong pushed up off the sandy bed of the pool and swam to the surface. He saw Human Friend Diane’s shape and stroked strongly in that direction. As he got nearer he saw that her stripes were flushed with frustration that stood out especially strong in the sunlight that was filtered through the dense clouds over head. From the way the light refracted around her she had already absorbed enough of the rain to push her past the usual level of acceptable comfort when wearing the thick protective layers that she was. It had taken Gripsstrong some time to figure out the connection between the mass of ‘clothing’ that a human was wearing and their comfort with getting wet but he found it to be a reliable measure.
“How may I make your day easier Human Friend Diane?” Gripsstrong asked without preamble.
Human Friend Diane grinned down at him and made a sudden abrupt gesture with her hands, very much like the ‘throwing’ gesture, but modified. Before he could calculate if the mass in her hands had actually changed something soft landed on top of him. Gripsstrong wrapped it in his appendages to examine it and identified a plant based rope of the kind that Human Friend Diane favored for securing items to the above water crystal coral like growths.
“That!” Human Friend Diane burst out, seconding the word with another gesture, “you will make my life so much easier if you can just untie that knot for me!”
Gripsstrong gave a thoughtful hum as he worked the knot through his appendages. It was the simple form the humans often used. It was deliberately designed to not bind to the point a human could not undo it when it was cinched with the force of human hands. Human Friend Diane watched him for a moment before folding her body down and pulling some metal hardware out of her pocket and beginning to patiently rearrange it.
“What force was applied to this rope?” Gripsstrong asked once he was sure he would be able to work the knot loose and had set to applying gentle pressure along the appropriate vectors.
“It’s been tied to a tree all winter,” Human Friend Diane said as she finished on the one piece of hardware and produced another to work on. “It was holding up the cover tarp over the dryish storage area.”
“If you do not mind my asking,” Gripsstrong said as he freed the rope and held it up to the human, “was your plan for today not to put up a new dryish storage area?”
“Yup,” Human Friend Diane said as she placed the hardware back in her pocket. Gripsstrongly thought they were the reusable joints for the tarp roofs.
“They why are you taking down an existing storage area?” Gripsstrong asked.
Human Friend Diane heaved a massive sigh and rocked back on her feet.
“Welp,” she said. “First I thought I’d just need to get the ladder out and put up the new tarps right? Don’t want to use the hover boards in the crystal forests where they could set up a resonance. But it turned out I’d loaned the good ladders to Bob over the way,” she indicated which way with a gesture, “and had to go get them first. He came over to help and noticed that there was a dead crystal tree right, and mercy, he was right. Not a single branch left on it, just a stump that happened to be more than tall enough to take out the new shed the first strong wind. So we had to spend half the morning finding the chainsaw and safety gear and then we saw that there was a good chance that when we took the dead tree down it might take out one of the anchor ties,” she gestured her hand holding the rope to indicate that it was the tie in question, “of the old dryish storage tarp so we had to let down one corner of that, and we got the tree down safe and when that was done Bob had to leave but when I went to put the anchor rope back up it would not fit and I needed to reposition the knots, but search me if I can even undo this on my own.” The human heaved a long sigh, and then her face brightened as she ran her hands down the now smooth rope. “Then I remembered my good buddy Gripsstrong,” she concluded.
“You have had a very busy and ultimately productive day,” Gripsstrong observed, “even if you did not quite accomplish your original goal.” He gave an inviting wriggle. “Perhaps it would sooth you if you came for a swim with me? Despite the lack of solar radiation the water is quite warm.”
From the way she angled her body Human Friend Diane was clearly considering his offer and was regretful of eventually rejecting it, but she stood with a drawn out groan and shook her head.
“I started out to get that second dryish storage tarp up,” she said, her tone turning grim, “and I am going to get that second dryish storage shed up, as soon as I fix the first one and,” she dug her hand into a pocked, “and find the rest of the hardware.”
Gripsstrong waved a sad goodbye as Human Friend Diane stalked off back towards her goals and he sank into the pool.
“I think,” he said with a little discontented wriggle, “that Human Friend Diane might be just a little too stubborn for her own good.” Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Lids

Humans are Weird - Lids First Sister came lazily aware to the faint tingling her her antennas that indicated a human she knew had been shouting frantically a few rooms over in the echoing wooden hive. She stretched her legs mindful of the harsh ninety degree corners on the human furniture and idly reached down to pat Third Sister between her antenna when it looked like she was starting to stir. The light filtering through the ultraviolet shielding on the bedroom window showed that it was far to early for the diurnal humans to be generally away and around so there was no point in Third Sister adding herself to whatever chaos Human Second Cousin Betty was fomenting, presumably in the main work-shed if First Sister had any ability at all to judge distance and direction in the above ground structures. Her stretches finished she trotted out into the hallway, too cool and too quite by any Shatar Standard and felt her frill lay tight to her neck to preserve warmth. She followed the sounds of a human dancing in an anxious pattern that vibrated through the floor to her toes as much as through the air to her antenna, and found Human Second Cousin Betty with her hands flat on a counter glaring at what looked to First Sister like a relatively inoffensive printer. First Sister allowed herself another leisurely stretch as she considered the situation. The human literally dancing with impatience, the printer set to the fastest safe output, the scent of heated poly-carbons in the air, and the line of three heated-sand containers gleaming with fresh sterilization.
“You lost the lids again didn’t you?” First Sister asked, not trying very hard to keep the amusement out of the set of her antenna.
Human Second Cousin Better snapped her head around in that swivel motion that had once been so disturbing and tightened her face into a properly intimidating glare.
“I am not the only person in this house!” Human Second Cousin Betty hissed, bypassing her vocal chords to avoid the deeper, louder notes that might wake the other humans. “This is not my fault! I told them that the honey-pot lids go on the high shelf when last season’s pot is empty! I know that I put one there myself!”
She flung her powerful arms up in a wave of frustration and glared down at the printer.
“Faster!” she hissed.
“The printers-” First Sister began, her mandibles twitching with barely constrained humor.
“Don’t respond to verbal commands!” Human Second Cousin Betty interrupted her, dancing sideways in frustration. “I know, I know, and printers can smell frustration so I shouldn’t let it know I am on a timeline! Or how embarrassing this is going to be even if I get all three hydro-proof lids printed before Old Woman Honey shows up with her vats! But I cannot face begging spare lids off of her again! We had extra lids last season! It’s going to be bad enough that when she sees the printed lids she’ll know we can’t keep the others...”
First Sister stood a little taller in shock as something Human Second Cousin Betty had said in her rant properly formed a thought vine.
“Second Cousin!” First Sister interjected with a warning click that the human heeded by stilling her dancing and spinning to face her. “Are you saying that the machine mind in this printer is complex enough to identify human emotion patterns and respond to them out of spite?”
Human Second Cousin Betty paused, and her head actually tilted to the side in a properly thoughtful gestures as she pondered that.
“No,” she said slowly, her face skin contorting into a frown. “I mean, I know it’s not supposed to...but it kind of does? Or maybe just acts like it? I don’t know-”
Her musing was interrupted by a faint click as the lid currently being printed dropped to the counter and the machine gave a friendly chirp as it started printing the next one.
“Watch this. I need to give this a smoothing bath after,” Human Second Cousin Betty said as she snatched up the lid, forced it down into the jar to shape it, and darted out the door, presumable to dunk the printed and shaped lid into a hardening bath.
Presumably she wanted First Sister to watched the automated systems print out the next lid. Was she expecting First Sister to observe for and report any signs of...spite? Resentment? In the device. It gave a little grinding noise that sounded like nothing short of contentment, bust First Sister still eased a little away. If humans needed to keep a continuous watch on machines as simple as printers for signs of active sabotage that might just be something she needed to report to a Grandmother. Of course it might just be human fancy and metaphor, but now that she ran those memory vines behind her eyes she could recall most of the humans showing physical and verbal affection to most of their complex machines. First Sister eased carefully closer to the printer that had just finished a complicated section of the lid. She raised a hand and patted the top gently enough not to disturb its work.
“Good printer,” she said, attempting to mimic the tone Human Second Father used on his truck.
“First Sister?” a voice called out from the door as Human Second Mother loomed into view, “What are you doing?”
The human’s tone spoke of perplexity and possibly amusement and First Sister had the sinking feeling that she had failed to consider the option of Human Second Cousin Betty’s behavior falling into the category of a ‘prank’.
“Making sure the printer cannot smell frustration?” First Sister answered, deciding on simple honesty.
Human Second Mother started at her in confusion for several long moments, and then burst out laughing before leaving without explanation. First Sister tilted a sideways glance at the printer. It was most likely only her imagination that it chuckled at her too.  
Author Betty Adams Books
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