Betty Adams's Blog, page 3

Humans are Weird – Denial

 Humans are Weird – Denial


“Whoo, yeah. That is very much a bad sound,” Human Friend Narcissus muttered as she downshifted the engine and steered them, presumably towards the shallower waters in the nearest bay.
Rollsgently spread her appendages to catch more of what was happening on the boat and tightened her grip on the bow of the craft. Human Friend Narcissus called this her ‘reverse figurehead’ position. Narcissus was crossing and angling her jointed appendages to guide the craft while Human Baby Valerian tried to mimic the gestures from his confinement pod. Rollsgently decided that whatever had gone wrong with the vessel was less enticing than the adorable little movements the immature human was making. She scrambled down and over to the perfectly sized human and thrust her primary gripping appendage in range of Human Baby Valerian’s.
After some considerable effort the little human managed to grab her and give a hearty squeeze and a happy little noise.
“Who is a happy little mammal?” Rollsgently demanded as Human Friend Narcissus beached the craft and leapt out to secure a line to one of the local blue-trees.
The human was just splashing back to jump into the boat when a frantic distress cry came from the general direction of the bow of the craft. Both the adult and the immature human started and Human Baby Valerian twisted up his expressive face in the distress shape that generally presaged leaking stress fluids and loud wailing.
“Feel me little human. Aunty Rollsgently is right here,” she crooned as she stroked the brilliant stripes on the pudgy cheeks.
The touch or the sound worked to sooth Human Baby Valerian and he smiled up at her, kicked his legs out as far as he could and began making soft babbling noises. Human Friend Narcissus leapt back into the boat and smiled over at them as she quickly moved towards the comm unit.
“Hey Babe,” Human Friend Narcissus called into the unit. “The repulsors finally went out on old Greensides. Be a dear and bring the replacements out to cove 73f1 on Popup Island.”
“Sure thing Sweetcakes,” the cheerful voice of Human Friend Narcissus’s mate called back. “Everyone okay?”
“I had a little heart attack,” Human Friend Narcissus admitted. “When we landed I heard a baby seal-snake distress call and thought that Josephine had snuck onboard and had been hanging on the whole way.”
“Josephine and Jalopy are both sunning on the dock as I speak,” the mate said.
“Yeah, turns out it was a clutter of wild babies,” Human Friend Narcissus said as she pried open the cover over the repulsors up and glared down at the broken items. “There’s at least three of them, the orange morph. There’s a breeding lagoon to the north. They will probably swim back to their mom. How long til you get here?”
“Bout twenty minutes,” he said. “See you when I see you!”
Human Friend Narcissus heaved a sigh and tugged at the cloth head-cover she wore to protect and contain her hair during these boat voyages as she sat down in the specially shaped cushions humans used to compliment their fat deposits when ‘resting their bones’. Rollsgently unlatched the safety restraints holding Human Baby Valerian and lifted him up over her core and carried him over to his mother.
“Thanks Rolls,” Human Friend Narcissus said with an uneasy smile.
She lifted up her shirt and attached the smaller human to her mammary gland. The rounded protuberance was swirling with healthy colors and glowing with the effort of refining enough fluid nutrients to feed the rapidly growing infant. Human Baby Valerian wriggled with delight and what little was visible of his exposed skin flashed with pleasure signals. However, the adult human was showing signs of unease as well, starting every time the baby seal-snakes gave another distress call. Finally she spoke.
“Rolls,” she said as she shifted her infant in her arms. “Can you go asses the situation and sound out if the mother has been around recently? I couldn’t get a good look at them.”
“That is something I can do!” Rollsgently assured her.
She scrambled up and over the side of the boat and fell into the water with a delicious splash. The scent-path the the baby seal-snakes was clear and even before she could see them it was clear that they had not been fed in some time. Their fur was fluffy and clean but they moved as if they didn’t have enough flesh on their internal skeletal system. Rollsgently circled them at a distance, carefully tasting the land and the water for any trace of a mature seal-snake. She finished her search and climbed back over the side of the boat.
“I would not say it is impossible that the mother will return,” she said. “But can not feel nor taste any trace of her.”
As she expected it would the statement made Human Friend Narcissus dim with stress, her stripes flickering between the joy of having her own baby in her touch and the sympathy she felt with the most likely orphaned seal-snakes. Rollsgently found a comfortable place in the sun to admire the human infant, wait for Human Friend Roberto to arrive with the replacement repulsor, and wait for Human Friend Narcissus to announce that they were going to adopt the baby seal-snakes.
Shortly the thrumming of the homestead’s larger cargo boat announced that Human Friend Roberto had arrived with the replacement repulsors and there was a flurry of greetings. Rollsgently resumed tending to the now sleeping Human Baby Valerian while the mature humans collaborated to replace the failed repulsor. Rollsgently heard enough of their conversation to be reasonably certain that the task would have gone faster had Human Friend Narcissus not been more focused on explaining the situation with the baby seal-snakes to her mate.
As Rollsgently would have expected Human Friend Roberto’s stripes, which were always a bit harder to distinguish than his mate’s due to his greater concentration of the solar radiation protection chemicals, flushed with empathetic concern, however unlike his mate’s they were tinged with an obvious effort to restrict them. A dull periodic flush that indicated a human was trying, and failing to hide their emotional reactions washed over him. That did however add a bit more context when they finished replacing the repulsor and came over to where Rollsgently was mimicking Human Baby Valerian’s noises back to him while he produced epidermal bubbles of saliva.
“We are going to round up those baby seal-snakes and take them back to the homestead,” Human Friend Roberto said. “If we don’t Narcie here will be stopping by this cove every time she passes for weeks!”
The human male shook his head as if he couldn’t understand the forces that drove his mate to such strange behavior while Human Friend Narcissus smiled from behind him. They leapt over the side of the boat and began the process of stalking the swift little creatures and shoving them into a storage container. It was a rather long process as there were plentiful place for the little seal-snakes to hide in the blue-treeroots on the beach, and by the time they were done both humans had multiple laceration injures to their fragile outer membranes.
“I hope you are happy!” Human Friend Roberto declared in a would-be annoyed annoyed voice as he applied an antibiotic ray to his injured skin.
“I am,” Human Friend Narcissus assured him, standing up on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you Babe.”
Human Friend Roberto made several more grumbling noises while his skin flushed with pleasure. He peeked into the box and gently pulled out the smallest baby seal-snake.
“It’s skinny,” he announced. “Hasn’t eaten in days probably. We can give it some goat-milk when we get them home.”
After a little more coordination he returned to the cargo boat and they resumed their journey in tandem with the other vessel. Rollsgently left the sleeping Human Baby Valerian in his safety pod and climbed up beside Human Friend Narcissus who was humming softly with satisfaction.
“Why did your mate seem to wish to place all responsibility for adopting the baby seal-snakes with you?” she asked.
Human Friend Valerian glanced down and her and gave an amused grin.
“So he didn’t look like a soft touch,” she replied. “At least that is what my mom told me when Papa acted like that.”
Rollsgently felt the idea over.
“I think soft touch much mean something else in your culture than in mine,” she said.
“Yeah, I think its easy pry in Undulate word-speak,” Human Friend Narcissus said, freeing one hand to make the accompanying word gesture.
“What current of human thought connects showing empathy to wild animals and allowing oneself to be taken advantage of?” Rollsgently asked with a wriggle of amusement.
“It’s a dad thing,” Human Friend Narcissus said grinning down at Rollsgently. “If they ever let on how soft they really are they think the kids will be bringing home every stray baby bird they find. Gruffing it up is supposed to keep the homestead from becoming an unlicensed zoo.”
“Does that work?” Rollsgently asked.
“Have you seen my Papa’s homestead?” Human Friend Narcissus demeaned.
“It is full of animals that have little to no purpose as far as I recall,” Rollsgently observed. “Most of which he found and brought home.”
“And he blames Ma’s soft heart for every one of them,” Human Friend Narcissus said with a laugh, the wind catching her hair where she had forgotten to reapply the cloth shield.
Rollsgently moved to retrieve the cloth and apply it to Human Friend Narcissus’s hair before she started getting twitchy from the stimulation. She wondered as she did if this emotional denial was something specific to the male mates chosen by Human Friend Narcissus’s genetic line, or if was something found in the wider human gene-pool.


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Humans are Weird - In a Tangle

Humans are Weird - In a Tangle ​Fiftieth Click circled the massive cabin of the human transport, sounding out his wing to see if they had made any mistakes he could swat at them for since his last pass. However the various clusters of younger or older Winged were either tending to their equipment or industriously painting their horns and winghooks in preparation for the night’s festivities. Everyone was behaving perfectly, except for the driver of the transport.
His wing second, a near balding old hook with year of experience stretched out his spine and glanced over at him.
“Should we send out a search party for Human Friend Lucy?” he suggested.
Fiftieth Click felt relief flutter through his fur and he selected a cluster of the eager volunteers with a gesture of one wing. They sprang up in a flash of festive colors and swept out of the transport after him into the fading evening light. The distance from the transport to the dwelling place was much too far, as it always was with humans, but they reached the door and it swung open as their approach triggered the sensors.
“What is this?” Fiftieth Click demanded as they burst in on Human Friend Lucy.
She didn’t glance up at the demand, which Fiftieth Click desperately hoped meant she hadn’t actually heard the high pitched exclamation, as there was no denying it was terribly rude. He didn’t need a trusted wing second to tell him that. However her daughter, Little Human Lucile did peer up at them from one squinted eye. The smaller human’s face was contorted with pain and her mother was making soothing sounds as she deftly worked a long, spike comb through the juvenile human’s hair. The hair that was tangled around some glittering structure.
“Hey Click,” Little Human Lucile said, the deep tones of her voice quivering with restrained stress. “Sorry, we’re late, it’ll just be a minute-”
Human Friend Lucy heaved a massive sigh and stood from her crouched position.
“I don’t think so Sport,” she said gently. “There’s no way I’’m getting this mess untangled in reasonable time to make the concert, not unless you let me shave you.”
“No!” Little Human Lucile yelped out in tones higher than Fiftieth Click had ever heard from a human. “Don’t shave it! Don’t shave my hair off!”
Her hands flew up to her head and she crouched away from her mother.
“No one is shaving your head,” Fiftieth Click called out in lower tones. “Clearly your mother was joking!”
Little Human Lucile glanced up at him hopefully and her mother gave a tired smile.
“I won’t be able to drive you to the concert after all,” Human Friend Lucy said. “You can take my codes and pilot the truck yourself, or you can call the local hire-transport.”
“But this was going to be my first concert,” Little Human Lucile howled.
“The tiara is going to keep hurting your head until we get it out Lucile baby,” Human Friend Lucy said in gentle tones.
“Fiftieth Click,” she said letting her gaze follow the wing commander, “you guys fly on. We are going to be stuck here awhile.”
“Nonsense and updrafts!” Fiftieth Click snapped. “Your fingers are just to big for this delicate work. Let us at it and we will have Little Human Lucile ready to go in moments!”
“Can you?” the juvenile human asked her head perking up.
“It’s very tangled,”the adult warned him. “Human hair isn’t like Winged fur.”
“I’ve dealt with mats behind ears so thick we had to laser them out,” Fiftieth Click declared, landing and slipping a winghook under a thick black rope of human hair. “How hard can recently formed tangles be?”
By the time the third member of the wing had gotten tangled in, and been released from, Little Human Lucy’s hair it was beginning to sink in that human hair, was after all, very different from both Winged fur, and any rope tethers that Fiftieth Click was familiar with. The rest of the wing had followed them into the house and had quikly arranged themselves into groups for fast sorties at Little Human Lucile’s tangles.
“You really should be leaving for the concert,” the juvenile human had said with dejection as the colossal timekeeping device that stood by the door chimed out an alert.
“Nonsense!” Fiftieth Click snapped.
“We fly together,” his wing second agreed. “We’re not leaving till we get you free!”
And that, of all things, was what made the little human really start crying, even her mother let a few tears drop at that point.
Fiftieth Click gave a puzzled click but focused on the knot in front of him. How the human had gotten the network of wire and refractive stones into her hair he would never understand, but the task was to get it out, not to figure out why the humans were leaking.  
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Humans are Weird - Conservation

Humans are Weird - Conservation  Second Cousin paused in the recycling room uncertain at first what had caught her attention. Her cone of focus had been on line of tasks the resident Third Sister had assigned her. However they were a string of simple fetch quests more intended to imprint the map of the base on her than to serve any purpose in of themselves so Second Cousin had little compunction about delaying the business and angling her cone of focus elsewhere. To be perfectly firm Second Cousin was beginning to doubt that this so called ‘chirality specific rotational force application tool’ even existed. The way the base humans had giggled when Second Cousin had assigned that particular search task had suggested something odd in the request. So it was with little hesitation that Second Cousin paused to trace the odd line that was disturbing here.
“The lead line recycling,” she clicked softly to herself as the issue came into focus.
When she had last entered the room she had tossed several grams worth of vine lead line ends into the appropriate recycling bin to be composted later. However now all of them were gone and the rest of the fibers in the bin had been disturbed, suggesting a rough search had been made to get them all out.
“What could anyone use such short scraps of lead line for?” Second Cousin wondered out-loud.
However that discovery satisfied her curiosity and stretching her antenna to focus herself she stepped out. Perhaps the chirality specific rotational force application tool had been lost in one of the bins for damaged rotational application parts.
Some hours of futile search later Second Cousin pulled off the now uncomfortably moist safety gloves and left the bins to the dust and dimness of the recycling room. She headed back to the open office where the Third Sister was fulfilling her duties of First Mechanical Repair Technician.
“I have not yet been able to locate the chirality specific rotational force application tool,” Second Cousin informed her.
“That is fine,” Third Sister informed her with a comfortingly gentle motion of her antenna. “It will be a particularly difficult task and I expected its persuit to take some time. You should take a rest break.”
Second Cousin couldn’t help but think that this Third Sister had not implied that she thought the task could be completed, but decided that exposure to humans was making her paranoid and dismissed the thought.
“Thank you,” Second Cousin said, moving towards the open recreation area that shared the space.
It always made her uncomfortable but the humans seemed to prefer the open floor-plan of the office space. The human Second Mechanical Repair Technician was sprawled at odd angles over a chair and desk just to the edge of the recreation space and seemed quite content. Second Cousin selected a sucuclant looking fruit from the potted shrub and was chewing on it when a shaggy sphere caught her attention on the human’s desk.
“So it was you who took the lead line fragments!” she exclaimed.
The human shot her a look that seemed mildly confrontational at the same time as an abrupt curl of Third Sister’s antenna warned her to not peruse the subject.
“Yeah,” the human said in a rather defensive tone. “’Cycle bin scraps are free for the taking. What of it?”
“They are,” she agreed, then turned her focus back on the fruit.
The human dropped his wide, fleshy hand over the sphere and slid it into a drawer, closing the drawer on it without looking at either the sphere of lead line scraps or at Second Cousin. When the fruit was consumed she stood, stretched, and walked over to Third Sister who gestured for her to follow her out of the office. Once they were out in the surrounding forest Second Cousin gestured back at Second Mechanical Repair Technician.
“Am I tracing up the wrong vine or was that human defensive about his use of the scrap lead line?” she asked.
“You are quite nearly on the right vine,” Third Sister said with a somewhat exasperated shake of her frill. “The human was defensive, but the reason was that he was not using the lead line.”
“Why did he take the lead line scraps out of the recycling bin if he doesn’t intend to use it?” Second Cousin demanded.
“Oh, he fully intends to use it,” Third Sister said. “The same way that Fifth Mechanical Repair Technician fully intends to use the scraps of paper she collects, and the human who comes over from the nearest farm intends to use the excess seed husks for an ornamentation to his garden as soon as he figures out the plan.”
Second Cousin angled her head and flicked her antenna in confusion but Third Sister didn’t go on.
“I understand that you are implying that this is a standard behavior in humans,” Second Cousin said, “but I am uncertain what single behavior you are describing.”
“I have seen no formal documentation,” Third Sister said, “but I believe it to be a individual manifestation of a general distaste for waste.”
“That creates a faint line,” Second Cousin agreed, “but it is hardly a materiel waste to compost biodegradable items such as you have described, and it would be a waste of space to hoard them uncomposted.”
“That is, I believe, the root of the humans’ discomfort on the subject,” Third Sister said. “They know that their behavior borders on the irrational and do not like to discuss it. Strings, seed pod husks, half used paper, every human seems to have one specific item they hate to see not used for a purpose worthy of its creation, and rather than seeing them destroyed at once they store them privately in the hopes that they will find a specific use. I don’t really understand it, but in the name of base harmony I ignore it, and I ask you to do the same.”
Second Cousin gave a slow click of agreement as they walked along. It seemed a small concession to inter-species relations after all.
“Now,” Third Sister said, walking more briskly. “Please resume looking for the chirality specific rotational force application tool. The humans have started taking bets on when you will be finished with the task.”
Second Cousin couldn’t help noticing the odd phrasing as she resumed her search.  
Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Tenderfoot

Humans are Weird - Tenderfoot ​Crunch heaved a sigh and pulled the satchel off his back, slinging it up onto a convenient flat rock and then dropped down to all fours.
“Come on,” he called to the human following behind him. “The buoy got lose again.”
He plunged into the water and struck out to where the brilliant orange buoy was bobbing around in the deep water in the far curve of the river. He listened for the wild splashing sounds a human always made when entering water, but by the time he had reached the buoy and dove down to grab the rope in teeth and pull it up to the surface he had not even heard the initial splash. Crunch gave a mighty thrash of his tail in order to propel himself to the grips on the side of the buoy, and felt only smooth polycarbon covered in river slime instead. The next several moments found him far too busy scrambling for purchase, and failing spectacularly to listen for his work-mate who was no doubt coming to his aid and not laughing and recording the incident from the shore, and there was no chance Crunch could have heard the human coming anyway over his own thrashing. Finally Crunch righted himself, having only strained have the river through his teeth and decided to brace himself in the mud of the riverbank instead of climbing the bobbing buoy. He rubbed the water out of his eyes and gave a disgrunteled snarl when he saw the human only just easing one flat, flipper like foot into the very edge of the water.
“Bigsby! I could use some help over here if you aren’t too busy grinding your own flour!” Crunch tried to say.
The rope that was still in his teeth mulled his voice into meaningless growls. Bigsby’s head snapped up and he scowled.
“I’m coming!” the human yelled. “Just-ow!- Hang on!”
Crunch snorted water out of his nostrils and gave his head a jerk to pull the buoy against the bank. Apparently the context had been enough for t he human to translate. Now the human was easing slowly across the river. Crunch noted the human’s footwear was on the rock beside his satchel.
“What’s taking you so long?” Crunch demanded through the rope, slapping hi tail into the mud.
“You shouldn’t of just jumped in like that,” Bigsby grumbled. This rivers full of rocks!”
The human reached out a hand and grabbed the rope, giving it a pull which Crunch returned starting just enough of a tussle to unbalance the towering biped, leading to Bigsby thrashing around comically and putting Crunch into a much better mood.
“Crunch I will -” Whatever threat Bigsby was trying to make was lost in the effort to regain balance. Once Bigsby and the buoy were both fairly stable Crunch braced his tail in the mud of the bank and with a leap propelled himself onto the access level of the buoy. It dipped and swayed under his weight but he was easily able to hold on and align himself with the data controls.
“You tow us back upstream and to the other bank while I make sure the data collection array isn’t damaged,” Crunch called out.
“Ow!” Bigsby replied.
“Just so,” Crunch agreed as he began clicking the sensors through a test cycle.
They continued back across the water with Bigsby grumbling and muttering the entire way. As they neared the shore the human’s exclamations grew more frequent and intense until one finally dipped down to a harsh profanity and Crunch jerked his tail in surprise as he left the data collection array to run its tests.
“Hold the gear!” Crunch declared, “are you really in pain?”
“You think I do this for fun?” Bigsby muttered between clenched teeth as he dragged the buoy through the now shallower water.
“I thought you were comically exaggerating!” Crunch declared. “When did you injure your foot?”
“I’m not hurt-I mean injured,” Bigsby said. “I said this river is full of rocks!”
Crunch snorted and slapped his tail against the water in confusion.
“Since when do smooth river rocks cause pain to uninjured paws?” he demanded.
“When you’re eighty kilos and stepping with all that mass on one soft pink foot at a time,” Bigsby explained.
“That makes sense in theory,” Crunch said.
“What does that mean?” Bigsby demanded as he reached the tether for the buoy and began reattaching it.
“The physics follows the grain of the grind,” Crunch said as he slid down into the water to help Bigsby, “But I have seen Sharon moving much faster than you were over very similar riverbeds.”
“Sharon,” Bigsby said with a grunt as he pulled the tether taught to test it, “is a farm boy from a river valley. He grew up playing in streams just like this.”
“What’s that got to do with the fermentation in the vat?” Crunch asked.
“His feet are used to the rocks,” Bigsby said. “They’re probably tougher than your scutes. Me, I’m a city boy with soft feet.”
“How strange!” Crunch declared as they moved back to the shore.
“How is that strange?” Bigsby asked.
“I was unaware that one colony could produce such genetic variation in skin durability!” Crunch explained. “How long ago did the foot-types differentiate?”
“That’s not-” Bigsby paused and gave Crunch a look that was difficult to read, before running his hand through his hair that had gotten soaked by his earlier thrashing. “That’s not how that works,” Bisgby said with a sigh. “Not genetics, just a matter of … I don’t know. How often you wear shoes or something as a kid.”
Crunch flexed his claws, feeling the rocks in the shift beneath his feet. He recalled the rough, often dirty appearance of Sharon’s feet and compared it to the soft, clean look of Bigsby’s and an uncomfortable idea bubbled up.
“Does this mean… you will be un…” Crunch hesitated to brew that sentence fully.
“Don’t worry,” Bigsby said with a snort. “I’ll toughen up and be able to do the work. It’ll just take me a bit longer than it would Sharon.”
Crunch idly clenched a pawful of rocks as he scrambled out of the water. It must be dreadfully inconvenient to have to worry about all your weight bearing down on a small point of unprotected flesh.
“At least it’s not lego,” Bigsby said with a wry laugh as he slipped his feet back into his shoes.
“What is lego?” Crunch asked as he pulled his satchel on.  
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Humans are Weird – Swung

 Humans are Weird – Swung
Prodsendlessly swayed her appendages to maintain her velocity against the stream and hummed the song she had learned at the last ‘campfire’ the humans had hosted. She felt the stream bed brush the tips of her appendages and flexed, bunched, and rebounded slowly up towards the surface. The taste of the water around her changed as the horizon fell and revealed the local star, warming the thin atmosphere and stirring the wildlife that teemed in the shallow stream.
Prodsendlessly tasted the shift in the water as the rich taste of silt based soil changed abruptly to notes of a granite that came from full unds away from the local bedrock. Soon she was able to see the abrupt ninety degree angle of Human Friend Billy Bob’s quay. She warbled happily and rolled to swim up to it. The rough surface provided an easy climbing surface, even as she left the comforting support of the water. She shuffled onto the pleasantly cool and damp surface and idly abraded the leading ends of her gripping appendages on the textured stone as she drank in the surrounding area. It was really far too early to enter the main house. Any human who wasn’t still asleep would be enjoying the peace before the young of the multi-generational community roused and bathed the compound in chaos.
Something towards the direction of the falling horizon and the now perceivable local star registered as distinctly different and Prodsendlessly decided to shuffle in that direction. As she neared the area that had previously been a flat area used by the humans for vigorous recreation it became clear that some significant mass had been added to the space. She felt soil grains in the surrounding grass that indicated someone had been digging and fairly deep at that. The soft green ground cover abruptly ended at a beam carved from one of the local trees and treated to resist water-rot.
Prodsendlessly patted the material as she passed over it thoughtfully. The treatment was chemical and tasted rather harsh. She would have to ask if it was toxic to Undulates. On the other side the native soil had been replaced with sand and a quick delving proved that there was an artificial drainage mat under it. Clearly the base was meant to let the water from the frequent rains pass easily to the river and not linger. Prodsendlessly came to another wooden beam, this one anchored upright in the soil and began climbing it. Like the quayside this beam allowed for easy grip and she reached the top just as horizonfall brought the full power of the local starlight onto it. She ambled along the top of the horizontal beam until she heard clanking under it and rotated her center of mass until she was clinging to the underside of the beam and prodding at the chain that was embedded there. She felt the swaying chain and decided that something more difficult in the way of climbing was in order before she dehydrated and needed to scoot back to the water. Some distance away a human form was resolving into one of the younger adults.
Prodsendlessly eased herself down the flexing length of shaped metal. To her surprise and delight the chain didn’t end at the ground but rather at a broad, comfortable observation platform. It tasted comfortably of humans and human clothes showing it was clearly meant to be a seat for the fat deposits they kept just below their center of mass, however it fit the Undulate form quite nicely as well. The entire structure made delightful creaking sounds around her as the starlight warmed it, causing the materials to expand.
“Prods! How did you get up there?” Human Friend Sally May announced herself, the sound soon followed by the smell of one of the caffeinated beverages the humans put so much effort into crafting.
“I climbed,” Prodsendlessly explained, gesturing to indicated her path up the support post.
Human Friend Sally May directed her gaze over the path and then gave a vague snorting sound before easing herself into one of the seats further down the support beam. Prodsendlessly wasn’t sure what the sound translated to exactly, but she had learned that humans weren’t frequently precise with communication before they had completed the caffeine consuming ritual. At the moment Human Friend Sally May had wrapped all of her stubby gripping appendages around the cup. She was staring in the direction opposite the now visible star and sipping at the drink, while occasionally kicking the ground, making her seat sway gently. When Prodsendlessly determined that she had consumed enough of the beverage she gave a polite hum. Human Friend Sally May glanced at her, her face wrinkled into a smile.
“What is the purpose of this new structure?” Prodsendlessly asked.
“You didn’t swim all the way upstream in the cold just to ask that,” the humans said with a laugh as she kicked against the ground and set her seat swaying to the gentle clanking of the chains that suspended it.
“I did,” Prodsendlessly insisted.
“Really?” was the only word the human said but Prodsendlessly had been swimming through the humans’ pools long enough to read her body language far better than their sound language and the angle of every appendage suggested mild disbelief and an invitation to continue speaking.
“I had not sounded this structures existence when I left my own pool,” Prodsendlessly explained, “but I did intend to come here and...chat… is the word I think. This structure makes a delightful conversation course.”
Prodsendlessly jangled the chains she was clutching in demonstration.
“I can taste the delight pheremones of not only our children but what appears to be half the children in the colony, and that is despite the materials still tasting new,”the Undulate explained. “What is this?”
Human Friend Sally May showed all her teeth and began flexing in a way that pushed her higher into the air.
“Just a swing set,” she said. “Took us awhile to get the beams made. It’s a super old, traditional bit of play stuff for kids. Some folks say it mimics swimming, some say flight. Whatever it does to kids brains they like it, and it’s not to dangerous.”
“I sound the reasoning,” Prodsendlessly said. She had expected to discover it was some form of device to enhance play. “But you are clearly using it, why do you keep insisting it is for your young?”
Human Friend Sally May laughed and let her motion slow.
“They get priority I guess,” she said. “You can’t really ask for a turn from a kid if you are an adult.”
“That is why you snuck out here while most of the children would be sleeping!” Prodsendlessly said in understanding.
“I did not sneak!” Human Friend Sally May said, her strips flushing with irritation. “I just came out of the house really quietly in case I woke…” her voice trailed off and she stared contemplatively into the mouth of her beverage container.
Then she snorted and took a sip.
“Yeah, yeah, I wanted my turn so that’s why I snuck out here, ya’ happy?”
“I am,” Prodsendlessly assured her.  
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Humans are Weird – Smell This

 Humans are Weird – Smell This Quilx’tch gingerly set the canister of gas infused fruit juice in the cooling unit and then turned to the cutting surface where Fss’tss was finely dicing the massive chunks of melon that Bob had procured for them from the human’s garden. Fss’tss paused to flourish three of the four knives she was wielding in an – entirely unnecessary and exhibitionist in Quilx’tch’s opinion – gesture at the currently cold stew pot.
“Shall you get that hotted up?” she prompted. 
Quilx’tch waved four of his paws in a gesture of assent as he hopped over to the heat controls. He would rather the young chit take it as mild mockery of her own around-twice behavior, but from the smooth set of her, very many hairs, she seemed rather pleased than not with his mock-exuberance. With a disgruntled click Quilx’tch settled back down on most of his paws and turned on the heat under the stew pot. 
Fss’tss began sliding her knives under the diced fruit and flinging it into the pot. Quilx’tch flinched back, but not only did the flesh itself land in the water, so precise was Fss’tss’s aim and energy  that the droplets of juice and rebounding water did not escape the container. Still Quilx’tch was on the very outer hair of snapping at her to be more careful when the massive human door opened with a whoosh of air as the pressure compensatory prevented a gust of wind that might disturb delicate culinary experiments. 
Marina, one of the local colonists who took full advantage of having a University test kitchen close to her home, strode in, her bifocal eyes scanning the room with predatory eagerness. One of her hands was raised and clutched something unseen. Her gaze finally landed on them and she lunged over, thrusting up her hand to their level. 
“Quick! Hissy-Fit!” she called out eagerly. “Smell this!”
Fss’tss immediately sheathed her knives and scampered forward, expanding her mandibles to drink in the aroma profile of whatever was off-gassing from Marina’s hand. Something Quilx’tch could easily observe from where he had landed after jumping away from the proffered hand. Fss’tss was now bracing her two primary paws against Marina’s fingers and rubbing her mandibles together in appreciation. 
“That is delicious!” the Trisk exclaimed. “Has it been cleared for flavoring yet?”
“No,” Marina said in the sighing tones humans used for regret. “We only just extracted it from a local fungus. The fancy science boys have figured out it’s no poison, but they’ve not yet begun to test interactions. Don’t you want a sniff Quick?” 
Quilx’tch trotted back into range and bobbed his body respectfully. 
“Now that I am sure it is something nice smelling, I would quite like to smell it,” he agreed. 
“Quilx’tch!” Fss’tss exclaimed, “how rude!” and the fluffy little chit had the absolute gall to genuinely seem shocked at his behavior! 
Quilx’tch gave her withering grimace using all his mandibles before loosening them to scent the  dried fungal extract, which did indeed smell delicious. In fact, it had almost a perfect flavor profile to compliment their melon stew and Quilx’tch felt a touch of regret that they wouldn’t be able to use it today. 
“Wasn’t that rude by human standards?” Fss’tss was pressing Marina.
However the human only laughed and shook her head. 
“That depends,” she said. “Does Quick here have mostly brothers, or mostly sisters?”
“What does that have to do with it?” Fss’tss demanded. 
“Eh, you know,” Marina replied with a vague gesture of her free hand as she popped the fungal extract into her mouth. 
“I think,” Quilx’tch said when it was clear that Marina wasn’t planning on expanding on the topic any time soon. “That what Marina means to imply, is that I, having been primarily exposed to human males, at perhaps a seven to three ratio, am more used to the results of such interactions being very different.”
To do her credit Fss’tss visibly tried to wait the full six seconds of politeness before replying, her paws dancing as she restrained her question. 
“Different how?” She finally blurted out. 
Marina gulped down the remains of the fungal extract and grinned at them as she used those paper thin human claws to pick a bit of fiber out from between her teeth. 
“That’s one of the differences between human males and females,” she said. “See, when a lady like myself tells you to smell something it surely smells nice. When brother Andrei tells you to smell something, well, there’s a decent enough chance it’s just…”
The human paused, the way her eyes ran over them suggesting she was more calculating the social implications of the adjective she wanted to use rather than seeking for a potential adjective, finally her face rippled into a lopsided smile. 
“Nasty,” she finally concluded the sentence. 
Feeling rather impressed by Fss’tss’s display of self control in letting the human finish without interruption Quilx’tch was hardly surprised when the young Trisk bounced forward demanding to know what nasty things Marian’s brothers had demanded she smell. Quilx’tch examined the piles of diced melon still left on the cutting surface and began transferring them to the now simmering stew pot. He had not really noticed if the trend of humans wanting to share ‘nasty’ smells was a gendered phenomenon but in retrospect there might be a trend that way. He also speculated that the adjective Marian had wanted to use might be the mild profanity used to describe fecal matter and it might be a good idea to privately communicate to her that it was entirely socially acceptable to use it even around young Trisk like Fss’tss. Currently their conversation seemed to have unstrung itself and Marian was admiring Fss’tss’s knives.  Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Take Heed

Humans are Weird - Take Heed ​Notes the Passing Changes carefully lifted and dropped the half developed gourd, testing its weight on his movement fibers and pondering how many nutrients could reasonably be diverted to such a low-calorie, low-nutrient fruit. The Shatar and Humans in the local area valued the fruits for their taste, but to grow them to the size that humans preferred for harvest would put a not insignificant drain on the nutrients needed to maximize the very taste they were valued for. There were only a few days left in the growing cycle before Notes the Passing Changes could effectively control the final size of the gourds. Notes the Passing Changes had not yet come to a decision when the ground around a speaking long propagated with strong enough vibrations to suggested a stressed, if not a panicking, human wanted attention.
Notes the Passing Changes connected to the photosensitive and sound sensitive fibers that were permanently embedded in the speaking log and a roughly human shaped mass slowly focused into Sandy.
“Did you wish to speak to me or were you simply drumming to impress mates?” Notes the Passing Changes asked.
Sandy paused and blinked at the speaking log.
“Humans dinna’-I mean well, some do for sure and -but I already have Pat…”
Sandy let the choppy thoughts trail off and shook his head vigorously.
“What happened ta’ all the blue flowers in tha’ glen?” Sandy demanded. “I went ta’ get my Pat some bonny blues and there was na’ one!”
Notes the Passing Changes made a thoughtful hum as he pulled up the relevant memories. It took some time to logically deduce which of the narrow valleys surrounding the agricultural land Sandy would consider important enough to deserve the article designation ‘the’ glen. Then Notes the Passing Changes had to determine which of the flowering plants that could reasonably be expected to be in bloom would manifest as ‘blue’ to human eyes. Unfortunately all this led to a very diffuse spread of conclusion threads.
“It does not seem that any of the blue flowers have experienced an unexpected die off,” Notes the Passing Changes replied.
Sandy gave a quick, irritated burst of air and shook his head violently.
“Na’, an’ they’re there still,” the human said. “Just, the blue is gone! They’re all a pasty yellow white!”
Notes the Passing Changes added this information to the growing thought matrix and gave an uncertain hum.
“There was a complex chemical nutrient present in some of the flowering bodies that was needed in the Shatar vineyards,” Notes the Passing Changes said slowly. “As it was no longer needed to attract pollinators I redirected it there. Though I have never observed humans to notice such minor chemical changes.”
“What chemical was it?” Sandy demanded.
Notes the Passing Changes stimulated the manipulation form in the small local library into motion, incidentally startling a visiting Shatar Aunt, and pulled up the chemical database.
“Anthocyanin,” Notes the Passing Changes read out. “ah, it does say that this is the chemical largely responsible for blue coloration to human eyes.”
Sandy heaved a sigh, and shoved his hands, which had been gesturing vigorously into his pockets.
“I really wanted some bonny blue flowers for Pat,” he said in a morose tone.
“There is a population I have not altered in a glen on the Shatar side of the agricultural land,” Notes the Passing Changes informed him. “You would have to seek permission to harvest there but-”
Sandy let out a whoop and darted off towards the Shatar main hive, throwing a sound of gratitude over his shoulder.
Notes the Passing Changes made a point to apologize to the startled Shatar Aunt in the library and slowly retreated from the speaking log as new thoughts circulated in tendrils. Though the humans had never before mentioned noticing the more subtle chemical decisions made in their ecosystem, perhaps they were more heedful of them than their comments indicated. It was something to be aware of when pursuing ecosystem wide goals.


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Humans are Weird - Laugh and Laugh Again

Humans are Weird - Laugh and Laugh Again Wing Commander Tenth Click darted down to the control panel again and checked to make sure the hover-transport was still tethered correctly to their path. Again the display revealed that the hover-transport was working perfectly. Tenth Click thought about checking the straps that secured the massive rolls of soft, natural fiber fabric but he could hear the clicks of younger wing member sounding out the load and satisfied himself with darting around the formation. The air in their midst was full of happy chattering as mostly young males who had not been home in years chittered over the chance to see a newborn. Tenth Click gave a happy click himself at the thought as they approached the massive, false-stone dome that served as human housing on this dry and arid section of the planet.
The wing came to rest against the side of the dome,easily finding purchase on the swirling patterns of plants that had been printed into the structure when it was first erected after the human family’s arrival. Tenth Click dug his nails into the easily grip-able surface and admired design. Tayen Tsosie had expressed delightful taste, though the raised mural leaned a bit too heavily on herbaceous plants for a Winged’s taste. Tenth Click thought adding a few sturdy tree trunks into the design would really pull it together.
“To each their own as the humans say,” Tenth Click said to a general murmur of agreement from the wing.
There was a brief mid-air scuffle between the younger wing-members as they determined who got the privilege of ringing the door bell, an actual handcrafted bronze bell with a natural fiber pull rope that gripped your feet delightfully, and the three winners darted down and flung themselves into the ringing with gusto. Tenth Click noted that they hadn’t perfectly applied their hearing and horn protection, there were visible gaps in the applied foam but he decided to lead with the gust of enthusiasm rather that clip their obvious delight.
The sound rolled through the wing and summoned Tayen’s mate. Small, by human standards the male was frequently away from home shipping goods to the more distant asteroid mining colonies and as such humans often did, showed skin damage from decompression and other accident related injuries. However today his whole body was so awash with delight that Tenth Click rather thought the human might leap into flight despite the disadvantage of his dense bones.
“Come in, come in!” He shouted, waving his hands. “She was just doing it again!”
Forgoing the usual effusive human welcoming ceremonies the male spun and lumbered back into his home. The wing accepted his invitation and darted after him the hover-transport trailing after them placidly. The human came to a cluster of other humans in the main room, all of whom were crooning and cooing at something below them. The male wiggled his way through his larger humans and claimed the spot of honor beside his mate. Tayen herself was folded into a comfortable, for a human, seating situation on the couch, curled around a bundle of soft blankets. Tenth Click examined them closely as the wing approached, feeling satisfied that their gift matched the blankets already in use for softness and wrap-strength equally. The pattern was a traditional Winged design as Tayen had indicated she would prefer. Her mate whispered something to Tayen and she glanced up with a wide grin on her face.
“She’s doing it again!” Tayen announced, as she started unwrapping the blanket bundle. “Remember to stay out of the way of her hands, she doesn’t have control yet!”
The wing dedicated itself to proper acrobatic displays of delight and tried to remember to lower the frequency of their delighted chitters as the very, very round human that was exposed.
“Tayen’s mammary glands got so round-” a voice declared and Tenth Click was suddenly grateful no one was remember to speak in human ranges.
“And that made the baby so round!”
“Look at her cheeks!”
“Do you think she has pouches in those?”
“No, it’s just subcutaneous fat deposits.”
“I want to shove my nose into her cheeks!”
“Remember what Tayen said!” Tenth Click barked out. “I am not having the party ruined because someone got their wing joints crushed by a baby hand!”
“It would be worth it!” the voice cheekily returned.
“She is so cute!”
Tenth Click sighed and approached the pair of humans to formally offer their gift. They accepted with distant politeness, all of their real attention obviously on their offspring.
“I meant to ask,” Tenth Click said once the wing had landed on the retaliative safety of the adults’ shoulders to observe and admire the tiny human, “what developmental milestone are you commemorating with this party?”
“Her first laugh!” Tayen declared, lifting her eyes from her child for the first time since they had arrived. “It was last night. She had the hiccoughs and I started making hiccoughing noises back at her and she started laughing between hiccoughs! Watch!”
Tayen bent over her child and made a senseless squawking noise. The round little creature wriggled and indeed began to convulse in what the humans called laughter. The wing lifted off and danced over Tayen’s head in shared delight.
“Oh! That is a wonderful sound!” declared many voices at once.
Tenth Click found himself tapping his feet in delight.
“Oh your gifts!” Tayen’s mate suddenly declared, standing up quickly and picking up a tray filled with tiny satchels!
“The traditional metabolically available salt for seasoning food!” he declared. “We got this from the synthesizer over at the neighboring hive so it should be matched to your needs, but you can absolutely wait to test it before you eat any. We won’t be offended.”
Tenth Click signaled for the wing to take the gifts and they flew down one at a time to politely take the satchels of salt. Tenth Click wondered if the salt was really the gift, or if the neat little satchels, woven from Shatar vine fiber were supposed to be the real gift. It seemed an odd way to commemorate an infant’s laugh. However the gift giving was clearly not the main focus of the party, the sounds the very, very round human was again making clearly were as Tayen’s mate clearly demonstrated by setting the tray of gifts down before half the wing had claimed their salt, and darting back to have a playful battle with Tayen’s sister over the privileged place by her side.
Tenth Click idly tasted the salt. It was salt as advertised, and turned his attention to the real focus of the party. He could investigate whatever cultural significance salt had once had later. Traditions formed and drifted down the winds of time like dust, often landing so far from their origin that not even the species who valued them knew where or when that was, but a baby with big round eyes, was always a baby with big round eyes.  
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Humans are Weird - Deep Lore

Humans are Weird - Deep Lore  

“Mooooooo.”
The low, round sound was coming from Mary’s bedroom, followed by the sound of two human females giggling, before repeating. Sift paused and shifted the basked in her claws as she listened to the sound in interest. She then carefully walked forward to the counter and shifted on her tail to get the height necessary to shove the basked up onto the human-height counter, finally resorting to shoving it the rest of the way with her snout. That done she dropped down to all fours and scampered to the bedroom door and the source of the odd sounds, pulling her datapad out of her carry pouch as she went. She just remembered to pause and thump the door with her tail before entering.
“Come on in Sift!” Mary called out cheerfully. “I’m not decent but it nothing you haven’t seen!”
Sift gave a rumble of amusement as she stood on her hind legs to open the door and trotted into the bedroom. The morning sun was streaming through the window and Mary, still looking exhausted even days after the mammalian birthing process, was sitting on the soft mass of her bed. Her younger sister Martha, was sitting on an equally soft ‘chair’ a sitting surface with added structure to support all those extra-long joints humans had, holding Mary’s hatchling to her center of mass. Martha was jiggling around in a rather deliberate looking manner that Sift made a mental note to ask about later.
“May I smell the hatchling?” she asked as she scrambled towards the little one.
Both humans laughed with delight and Martha held the round little human down and out to give her easier access as Mary verbalized her consent. Sift rested her front claws on Mary’s knees and pressed her snout into the delicious hatchling smell for a long moment. Her tali waved in delight.
“It is astounding,” she finally said when she could pull her snout away. “He smells nothing like one of our hatchlings, but it is still identifiable as a hatch-ling smell.”
“Oh!” Martha said, sitting back up and rearranging the little one against her center of mass. “Maybe its like how all babies look cute to all species? Like with big eyes and chubby appandages? But with smell. Maybe there is a universal cute smell?”
“A neotenous scent profile?” Sift speculated, tilting her head at an adorable little squeak that came from the hatchling. “That would be an interesting study.”
She glanced back at Mary to ask about the last time she had smelled a reptilian, or perhaps a Shatar hatchling but started and blinked. In her eagerness to greet the hatchling she had missed the fact that Mary had something attached to her mammary glands. They were clearly some kind of vacuum pump-bag, on paying attention Sift could hear the soft thrumming of the active pumping, and the storage container was gradually growing as it drew a rich yellow fluid out of the glands. Mary caught the direction of her attention and grinned, lifting up the large glands with her hands and repeating the low, round sound Sift had heard when she first entered.
“Moooooooo!”
Martha burst into giggles at the sound and Mary only stopped to laugh and Sift found her tail flicking with amusement at the shared humor despite her confusion.
“What is that sound you are making?” she asked, shifting away from Martha and the tantalizing scent of the hatchling to address the new mother.
“Oh, it’s just-” Mary paused and her face when slightly slack as she thought about her answer. “It’s just a sound you make when pumping out your excess colostrum,” she said.
However the slow tempo of her words and the tones indicated a bit of uncertainty.
“I think it means that the mom is a bit frustrated at being so busy with pumping and nursing and all that,” Martha offered. “Oop, baby needs a dipey!”
The younger human jumped up to change the waste restrainer on her nephew and Sift turned her attention back to Mary.
“Yes,” Mary agreed as she removed the, presumably now full, containers of fluid from the peak of her mammary glands and placed them in a refrigeration unit beside her bed. “That is how Mom always used it, and the aunties, but I actually don’t know where it comes from.”
“It is not a reproduction of the sound the pump makes?” Sift asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mary said. “Now you got me curious, give me a moment.”
The human reached for her data pad, presumably to look up the historical source of the sound and Sift scampered over to assist Martha is making soft noises at the now clean hatchling. Sift had just caught the hatchling’s attention with a clicking noise made with her tongue on her teeth, that had also set Martha laughing when Mary gave an exclamation of surprise.
“Where does it come from?” Martha asked without looking up from playing with the hatchling.
“Well!” Mary said. “Back on the home-planet there’s this absolute giant of a species that they still use for meat and milk products. It was and is the backbone of the milk industry, has been for as long as we remember historically too, looks like.”
“Like a bit goat?” Sift asked.
“Way bigger,” Mary said, and turned the datapad around to show a truly massive animal standing next to a human.
Sift gave a gurgle of astonishment.
“They eat way too much to have been viable during the first transforming efforts,” Mary went on. “So they never got popular in the colonies, much easier to keep and tweak goats, but they do have a few live specimens at some of the bigger agricultural universities.”
“That is why I’ve never seen one in a human colony,” Sift speculated.
“Anyway, moo is the onomatopia of the sound this animal makes,” Mary said. “So it’s kind of a tradition to make it when you collect your milk.”
“But it must have been several generations since your family has been around these creatures,” Sift pointed out, “why do you still use that sound rather than a more goat sound to express the concept?”
“Must be some kind of cultural fossil tradition,” Mary said with a shrug as she stood up and moved to reclaim her offspring from her sister. “Now hand him here. You brought the basket for the photos right?”
sift waved her tail eagerly.
“Yes! As well as some dried ripe grain that will be quite aesthetically pleasing!”


Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Hot

Humans are Weird - Hot ​Second Sister drew in deep breath and pulled her attention away from the display that showed the human’s slowly cooling skin. The enzyme mix was following the lowering temperatures down and eating the coating of melted polymers off of the thermal damaged tissue. From the lack of movement it appeared that the painkillers were working and the human had finally fallen asleep. She leaned back on her hind legs and tilted her triangular head to address her attention to the healthy human who was shifting back and forth on his feet far more than was normal, even for the notoriously unstable bipeds.
“Your friend is stable,” Second Sister said. “He is in no pain and appears to have fallen asleep.”
The other human started and then flashed a smile at her. She wasn’t the best at reading fleshy human expressions but the smile seemed strained. Which made sense.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” she asked.
The human bobbed his head up and down so fast it seemed like it might fall off his thick neck, or at least concuss his brain against his bony skull.
“Sure, sure,” the human said. “I didn’t see everything, but I think I got it figured out, mostly.”
“Proceed,” Second Sister said with a wave of her hand.
“So Hae, he was going to dance Pele at the festival later tonight.”
The human’s concerned expression rippled and his voice trembled a bit. Second Sister again mused that she was not especially skilled in reading human emotional cues but that did sound far more like amusement than concern.
“Anyway,” the human went on after getting his reaction under control. “Irony aside he wanted a good costume for the dance but we were all pulling time and a half shifts because of, you know-”
The human waved a hand out the window, presumably indicating the clouds of visible volcanic ash, and invisible toxic fumed that the local geology had been spewing for some time now. The mechanic crews had been forced to preform far more effort per individual than had been expected when their numbers had been assigned to counter the damage to systems. Second Sister deliberately ‘nodded’ her head, hearing a worrying popping sound from her neck at the unnatural movement.
“And none of the good cloth was in the right colors and as great as uniform grade cloth is it is impossible to dye,” the human went on, “so Hae went to the printers and just fed in an old cloth type he knew would work. He wasn’t thinking about thermal safety at the time.”
The human stopped speaking again and this time she was sure he was fighting back laughter.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “The irony, it’s just the irony.”
Second Sister was unsure what was ‘ironic’ about the situation but her grasp of the concept was weak in general.
“Hae didn’t really have time to finish he costume till today and the festival is tonight,” the human went on. “The rest of us went down for a nap after shift so we could party all night but he spent the time sewing and stuff but the cloth had gotten all wrinkly by the time he was done. So he rigged up an iron out of some old thermal couples to smooth it out, but there was no way to make a regulator so it got way hotter than he expected, and the only flat, clean surface he had to work out the wrinkles on was the bed. Just when he was about to get started on the cloth one of his alarms went off across the room where is comm was and we all, I started cussing, ah, yelling at him to turn it off. So he ran across the room to do that and left the iron on the bed. Then he ran back, but he must have forgotten exactly where he sat the iron down because he sat down on on the -”
The human burst into giggles again and had to gather his composure for several seconds.
Second Sister mentally considered the story so far. That would explain the odd location of the burns.
“He sat down on the iron he had made and it was hot.” The human burst out in several profanities which still sounded more amused than anything else. “Never heard a scream like that. I jumped out of my bunk and he was curled up on the floor. Obadiah figured out what had happened first and then I said we should get him to the bathroom and run cold water over him while they brought you in.”
Second Sister nodded again with another pop from her neck.
“Then you sent the medical floater and it brought him here,” the human said, and then fell silent, his small eyes angled expectantly at her as if he was done.
“And how did the burn become coated in the polymer?” She asked, tapping the screen that showed where the enzymes were eating away at the remaining mass that had fused to the human’s skin.
“The costume for the Pele dance,” the human said fighting back a grin. “He had already put the under layer loin cloth on and it got stuck between the iron and his skin. Turns out the materials melting point was way lower than how hot the iron had got.”
“I see,” Second Sister said curling down an antenna thoughtfully. “Such a mistake would seem to be very unusual for a human of his age and skill level.”
“Sleep deprivation,” the human in front of her said, his shoulders bobbing up and down in a ‘shrug’. “Heck of a drug.”
The human was staring at her expectantly again, as if that was a sufficient explanation. Which, it might very well be Second Sister admitted to herself.
“Thank you for your information,” she said. “Do you wish to remain with your friend or leave for the festival?”
“Is he going to wake up?” the human asked, glancing at the screen. “He’s not actually drugged up right?”
“It is rather unlikely,” Second Sister confirmed. “He is not under a general anesthetic. This does simply seem to be his body demanding rest.”
“Let him sleep then,” the other human said. “I’m going to go to the festival. If he wakes up tell him I said he’s an idiot.”
Second Sister watched the uninjured human leave and then turned her attention back to the sleeping human. Why this particular sever injury qualified as more ‘funny’ than ‘serious’ she did not know any more than she could read human facial expressions, but clearly it did. Perhaps her actual patient could explain once he woke up.  
Author Betty Adams Books
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