Betty Adams's Blog, page 4

Humans are Weird - Obsesson

Humans are Weird - Obsession  Bendseachthing crawled slowly along the bed of the current, turning over the conversations he was about to have with the base medic. He was far from certain that he should be having this conversation at all. So far there had been no harm, either to the community or to the individual in question. However the potential for the disruption of the community was there. Bendseachthing braced his appendages on the pleasantly rough natural stone and gave a final long stretch before lifting his leading end so he could ‘knock’ on the underside of the office door in front of him. The door vibrated a positive response to his request for entrance so he surged up through the seal, wriggling past the several layers that prevented the water from flooding the chambers of the terrestrial species.
“Welcome Bendseachthing,” Second Sister greeted him.
She was sitting on her couch, and a round container that smelled of insects and oils balance beside her. From the shiny look of several of her joints she had been tending to her outer membrane, making sure her fluids stayed inside of it and didn’t evaporate out.
“May I assist in in applying your moisturizer?” Bendseachthing called out.
It would be a wonderful chance to learn more about Shatar biology, and Shatar medical ointments rarely tasted anything but delicious.
Second Sister’s antenna curled down tightly over her head and her frill lay close to her neck.
“Is making that offer why you scheduled this appointment?” She asked in tones that were far more cheerful than her movements.
“Oh no,” Bendseachthing said as he shook the last of the water droplets off of his appendages before scrambling further into the room. “I have a human psychology question, but I can-”
“Then,” interrupted Second Sister, standing and giving her triangular head a brisk shake that loosened her antenna and frill nicely, “let us discuss human psychology. How may I help you.”
She trotted over to her work station, every joint speaking of brisk dedication to work. Bendseachthing let a few appendages linger on the scent of the moisturizer as he followed her and climbed up the side of the work station to perch beside her holographic display.
“You are aware that in addition to my mechanical duties for the Ranger Corps I make entertainment devices,” Bendseachthing said.
“Yes,” Second Sister said tilting her antenna in an appreciative manner. “My First Father actually purchased several for our hive. The tactile stimulation modules are quite entertaining for the younger sisters.”
“I did not know that!” Bendseachthing declared, arching up in pleasure. “Tell me,” he hesitated and pondered his question, “did your First Father report that any of your sisters were too engaged with the modules?”
Second Sister tilted her head thoughtfully, angling one large, multifaceted eye at him as she considered her answer.
“What would you consider an excessive level of engagement?” She asked slowly.
“For instance,” Bendseachthing said, “do any of them enjoy playing the games so much that they skip basic daily personal grooming routines or even eating to continue playing them.”
“No.” Second Sister said firmly, her antenna lying flat back in grim concentration. “What human was displaying this behavior, and which module was it?”
Bendseachthing shuffled to the side uneasily.
“It is not harming anything yet,” Bendseachthing said carefully.
Second Sister considered him silently for several moments, her body radiating skeptical consideration. Finally she smoothed her angles out and sat back.
“The human will not be in trouble,” she said. “However, obsession with new games is a recognized phenomenon in the species. It has especially been noted in humans of the age that is most common on the base. Given the enclosed quarters we live in, the ambient pheromone consequences of a young, not fully mature human forgoing grooming rituals can be-” she hesitated and tapped her fingers against her work station, “-uncomfortable for the rest of the inhabitants of the base.”
“Oh, is this the human-funk I have heard about?” Bendseachthing asked.
“Quite likely,” Second Sister said. “Now, tell me which human has become obsessed with this new game. I assure you, I will handle the conversation with tact. However, allowing a human to produce a ‘funk’ in an enclosed space is not a viable option.”
Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Obvious

Humans are Weird - Obvious  “Hey, Billy’s making one of his pre-workout smoothies in the kitchen if you want to go watch.”
The statement was thrown up in his general direction as the adolescent human female strolled through the room, presumably on her way to the bathroom for her morning cleansing given that she was carrying a massive, even by human standards, towel over one shoulder. Quilx’tch paused over the notes he was taking on his datapad and considered if a response was required or polite. Long before he reached a conclusion the small human had swept out of the room and he gave an amused click as he tried not to be offended. That was just how humans were he supposed, dropping information in the same way the Survey Ranger Corps dropped supplies on outposts. Still, he would be interested in observing the young male preparing his smoothie. He closed out his data pad and stood, taking a moment to stretch all his legs down to his paws before following the spider walk around the massive human room to the kitchen door.
Faint odors from the breakfast of fish and fruit lingered in the high places of the kitchen, and Quilx’tch paused to enjoy it as he pushed the door open and padded lightly onto the kitchen spiderwalks. Billy, the second youngest human, was nearing his full height but was still several years away from the dense, muscular roundness that his father, and most human males Quilx’tch had observed displayed. This gave the young human a spindly, almost Shatar-like, look to his body, though he completely lacked the confident, graceful movements of the Shatar. Billy was mentally old enough, according to his family, to start taking his own health in paw to some degree, and was currently focused on getting enough protein to build his mammalian muscles out to a more mature shape. This meant eating extra between meals, and Quilx’tch had been told that a ‘protein smoothie’ was the ‘most edible’ form for this.
At the moment Billy was wearing only a loose pair of pants and humming to himself as he bustled around the kitchen. Darting over first to one bowl on the storage counter to select a local tree-fruit and take a slight nibble out of it as if to test the flavor, then setting the tree-fruit down on the wooden cutting surface, then darting over to select two knives from the knife rack, then starting as if remembering something and rushing over to the freezing unit to sift through the bags of out of season berries stored there. Quilx’tch let himself chitter in amusement and settled down to watch Billy at work. He would no doubt learn far more from simply observing the chaotic, and very inefficient movements of the human than by interrupting him to ask questions.
After a very scattered process Billy had succeed in remaining the seeds and protective layers from the fresh fruits, and had measured, with some spillage what Quilx’tch assumed was the appropriate amount of frozen berries each for optimal nutrient absorption. Then Billy pulled out a liquid storage container and set it beside the other ingredients. It was marked as being the milk of the smaller domestic mammal the humans had brought to this world. Billy, then got out the bladed food processor and began dumping all the ingredients in and set it whirling. Billy set his hands on either side of the appliance and began tapping his feet to some unheard rhythm as the process worked.
Quilx’tch mentally tallied up how much protein was in the ‘smoothie’ and gave a perplexed click. When Billy turned off the machine, but before the immature human emptied it into his drinking container Quilx’tch called out, loudly for Billy’s attention. The human jumped, nearly spilling the contents of the appliance and looked around frantically for a moment before spotting Quilx’tch’s waving paw.
“Oh hey Quick!” Billy called out with a wide grin. “Did’ja come to watch me make my smoothie?”
“Indeed I did,” Quilx’tch agreed stepping forward and resting his paws on the railing of the spider walk. “I have a question.”
Somewhat more than the polite six seconds for a response passed as the human stared up at him, giant eyes blinking slowly, and Quilx’tch realized Billy was waiting for him to ask the question.
“How much protein did you intend to put into that smootihe?” Quilx’tch asked, gesturing at the appliance.
“Uh,” Billy’s face wrinkled in that funny way that human skin could as he frowned first at the appliance, and then at a piece of paper that was attached to the wall. “Mom’s notes says I am going for, about fifty grams protein in the smoothie total, and that’s two servings.”
“And what ingredients had the protein?” Quilx’tch asked.
The boy wrinkled his face harder as he glanced over the, to be frank the chaotic mess he had made on the counter, considering the various fruits and milk.
“The nuts!” Billy exclaimed as he lunged for a lower drawer. “Fully forgot ‘em! Thank’s Quick!”
Quilx’tch watched in amusement as the human grabbed a bag of whole nuts, still in their shells, out of the drawer and then seemed to consider the grinding power of the appliance full of other ingredients before searching through another drawer for something, presumably a tool to remove the nuts from their shells. Quilx’tch called out the loud attention click again before the search could go on to long. Billy turned and gave a curious grunting sound, one hand still rooting around in the drawer, which Quilx’tch decided to interpret as a fully polite question.
“May I ask,” Quilx’tch began, “why you are using the whole, shelled nuts instead of the per-ground flour form?”
“The what?” Billy demanded, wrinkling his face again in confusion, even as his hand found a hammer.
“The nut flour,” Quilx’tch said, indicating the storage container large enough to hold a half-appendage's worth of him.
Billy followed his gesture with his eyes, looked at the storage container, in clear line of sight, on the food storage counter next to the fruit, clearly labeled as per-ground nut-flour. The humans face smoothed and he laughed.
“Forgot we had that!” he said, dropping the hammer back in the drawer and the bag of nuts on the counter.
Billy lightly lifted the massive container in one hand and began searching for, presumably an appropriate sized measuring container with the other. Quilx’tch rocked back on his hindlegs to observe more comfortably. Developing adolescent minds were fascinating in any species, but apparently such human minds simply edited out parts of the world around them, even if those parts were things that they were actively in need of. Quilx’tch reopened his data pad and began taking notes. He really should thank Billy’s sister for pointing him to the kitchen.  
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Humans are Weird - Snitches

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

Humans are Weird - Pop  Fourteenth Flap sensed a chill wind sweeping in from the poorly insulated window and snuggled down closer to the warm skin under him, pulling the soft cotton blanket over his two exposed sensory horns before the draft could touch them. Even with those precautions the draft rolled up towards him and turned the air around him uncomfortably cold. Fourteenth Flap pressed closer to the human under him and peered out at the external temperature display. Of course the readings were within the predictions of what a statistically normal winter would be like at this latitude of this planet. Fourteenth Flap understood statistics and how they applied to real life. Logically he knew that ‘once in a thousand local years’ events could happen any year, but it just felt like an unfair downdraft that the planet didn’t wait at least five-hundred local years before blasting them with a ‘once in a thousand year’ record low temperature.
Johnny, more secure in his massive thermal mass finally sensed the temperature difference and his muscles began to twitch. He gave a short deliberate shake of his body, something most humans learned to do around Winged if they woke up in a communal space, and Fourteenth Flap gave a loud chirp to confirm his location, despite the fact that that let in a lot of cold air to his lungs. Johnny reached up a finger to confirm his location, before opening his mouth in a gaping yawn, being sure to tilt his head so his jaw was in no danger of smooshing Fourteenth Flap. Fourteenth Flap gave a shiver and thought that he wouldn’t mind a little smooshing if it protected him from the cold, but his mental flight path was interrupted as, at the apex of his yawn something made a horrible popping sound from inside the human’s jaw.
“What the winghook?” Fourteenth Flap demanded, darting out from under his blanket, and into the cold to get a good look and make sure the human’s jaw was still attached.
“Ugh,” the human grunted carefully bringing a hand up to gently prod at the place where his massive, seed-crushing mandible connected to his proportionally massive skull his face contorted in a look of sleepy pain.
Fourteenth Flap waited quite long enough for the human to self diagnose before darting forward to jab his exposed skin with a winghook.
“What was that sound?” Fourteenth Flap demanded.
Johnny slowly turned his eyes on him, the human’s massive jaw working slowly as he massaged the joint with his fingers.
“You heard that?” the human asked in a puzzled tone.
“Of course I heard it!” Fourteenth Flap exclaimed. “What was it?”
The human blinked and the great, circular irises in his eyes slowly tightened and loosened as he gathered his sleep muzzed focus.
“Just yawned too hard and popped my jaw,” the human finally said with frustrating slowness, “buildup of gasses in the joint I think. Nothing to worry about. Get back under the blanket.”
“That … really does not explain anything,” Fourteenth Flap grumbled.
However the human was adjusting his own massive blanket and his heart rate was slowing down again. Fourteenth Flap felt the cold draft being diluted by the internal heated air of their building, but it really was still chilly out. With a sigh he snuggled back into the human and made a mental note to ask the rest of his wing if it was normal for humans to release gas explosively.  


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Humans are Weird - Handmade

Humans are Weird - Handmade  Some human was stomping around the village round well after dark. Notes the Passing Changes felt the vibrations as the human moved from one building to the next, made the foundations of the wooden structures vibrate slightly, then moved on to another. Notes the Passing Changes debated extending awareness up, past the frost layer into the bitter cold. This deep in the winter cycle of this hemisphere it was quite dark out, but it was hardly late enough for most of the humans to be asleep. If this mystery human was up to nuisance behavior there would be more than enough mammalian eyes to observe the danger. However Notes the Passing Changes had just finished ruminating over several of the summer season observational threads that had been high priority and had nothing else of equal importance to attend to.
Carefully, Notes the Passing Changes eased sensory tendrils into the roots of the small, newly planted trees in the square. Fortunately, all of the young trees and shrubs had been there long enough to integrate with the local bio-network, and most of them were healthy enough, having been selected by the humans for robust-longevity, that they were being prioritized. The information from the deciduous trees was of course muted and dim, but the conifers were not only aware from their needles, but a few members of the hardier species were already beginning to extend buds. Between these and the always alert house plants that clung to the windows of the local buildings, Notes the Passing Changes was able to get a fairly detail rich visual of the curious behavior of the human.
It was a male, just reaching breeding age, dim in his thermal layers, only his face glowing out in bright infrared as he moved towards the physical manifestation of the main village library. The trees caught the sounds he was making, soft singing, an old song Notes the Passing Changes recognized from many winters spent observing the human colony. The human reached the side of the library and paused to examine the paper informational displays that were attached to the side of the structure. He reached up with one hand and began removing select ones. Notes the Passing Changes felt as stir of increased curiosity. One thought thread suggested this might be destruction of public property, another that this might be basic maintenance, the removal of material that had been up for too long. The careful, selective behavior of the removal suggested the second. Notes the Passing Changes observed the human for several more minutes until the human’s arms apparently reached capacity and he ended his wandering to cut across the round back to his dwelling.
The human was greeted at the door by his mate, a female of comparable age, apparently well into her first reproductive cycle, and she attempted to take the paper he had gathered with delighted sounds of greeting. Two humans, one of whom was experiencing coordination issue due to a rapidly changing center of mass, attempting to exchange an armful of uncontained paper, over uneven surface levels and in a narrow space, naturally resulted in no small amount of paper dropping to the floor and steps of the dwelling while the humans laughed at the chaos. The male gently pushed his mate inside with the majority of the paper, then scrambled to collect what had fallen. Notes the Passing Changes watched the door close behind the human as he finished and pondered the next step of this observation.
This was not a house that had an internal plant or fungal communication node, at least not one that Notes the Passing Changes had been invited to integrate into the general network. The names and general information for these two humans was stored in other nodes, locked away on the other side of icy barriers. They would be discoverable after the first thaw, but that was of little use in the present moment. Notes the Passing Changes could, of course, enter one of the houses, or public buildings that did allow access, and use the artificial communications system to call them, knowing their location, but that would be disruptive to whatever activity they were doing. Fortunately there was a fairly well developed coniferous tree within a useful distance of the main window to their dwelling. This window faced the village round and it was therefore a tacit social agreement that they did not object to other sapients observing them through it.
Notes the Passing Changes began the process of fusing with the tree, using the light receptors on the many needles to slowly resolve the human visual spectrum light from the window. The window sealed in all infrared like quite efficiently. The female was sitting on a low stool surrounded by piles of brightly colored posters on one side, and what looked like a chain made of the paper on the other side. She held cutting implements in her hands and was focused on dividing one of the posters into thin, rectangular strips. Her lips were moving as she occasionally conversed with her mate. He was sitting in a different chair reading a book and occasionally glancing over at her with a smile. When she had finished dividing the poster she set down the cutting tool and picked up a tube of mild adhesive. She took one of the small rectangles and looped it through the end of the paper chain creating another link.
Notes the Passing Changes gave the tree a slight shake to increase its temperature and the human male glanced out the window with a look of mild curiosity on his face as the human female continued her work. The purpose of what she was doing was slowly becoming clear to Notes the Passing Changes. The paper chain was a popular human decoration, easily made by recycling older paper products, easily recycled, or even composted themselves. Notes the Passing Changes had enjoyed feeding multiple cellulose rich chains to symbiotic bacteria over the years. This was how Notes the Passing Changes knew that every dwelling had a printer capable of producing whatever length of paper chain the inhabitants desired. The printed versions were faster made, more easy to both recycle and compost, and as far as resources went significantly more inexpensive. Yet this young mated pair, with a host of breeding associated responsibilities on them, had spent the time and effort to collect waste paper, properly shape it in a quite inefficient way, and then they would have to arrange it for display.
Notes the Passing Changes, satisfied that sufficient data was gathered gratefully retracted his tendrils from the cold tree and coiled back into his rumination nest under one of the storage buildings. Why would a human expend so many resources on something, essentially ornamental, that was so easy to obtain at a lesser cost? Was it related to the concept of exercise? Was paper chain making a base practice for some more critical skill that was deemed vital to human survival? They were interesting thoughts to ponder until the next thaw came.   Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Sentiment

Humans are Weird - Sentiment Sift was gnawing thoughtfully on the last remnants of a positively delicious bread roll that Martha had given her. The immature human had been doing a ‘deep clean’ on the family extreme-refrigeration unit when she had come across a ‘Yorkshire Pudding’ that had been made for a winter festival some years before. Despite it being ‘hard as a rock’ she had been certain of its safety, due to its being stored at well below the freezing point of pure water and had offered it to Sift because ‘you got the teeth for it’. Sift clenched her molars over the wad and swallowed a tongue-full of the taste. It really was too sweet, but only just a scale and she gave a pleased gurgle as she ran a critical eye over the project she was working on.
She wouldn’t say she had collected too much information on Mary’s advancing pregnancy, one couldn’t have too many data points fermenting in a good observational study, but she freely admitted that she should have begun sorting and labeling her observations sooner. The steady thumping of Rob, Sift had quickly picked up on the fact that only Mary was allowed to call her mate Snookums, provided a background as she began typing out the section labels with her claws. She was pondering if the morning sickness observations should go in a nutrient section, or a general medical section when Mary’s familiar step came up to her door, and the room shook with the powerful blows used by the humans to indicate a polite wish to enter.
“Come in!” Sift called out, swallowing down the last big of the bread roll with a gulp.
Mary came into the room, her usual pace offset by her changing center of mass as the growing little human took up space in her center. Sift rotated her body around and blinked up curiously at her friend. There were tears sparkling in the human’s eyes, a sign of stress, her face was stretched in a wide smile, and though Sift’s reptilian nasal nerves was not nearly as acute as an Undulates similar structures she could tell that Mary was giving off waves of pheromones indicating comfort and pleasure. Mary reached the center of the room and hesitated.
“Would you like a seat?” Sift asked, indicating the extra large beanbag she kept for human use.
Mary nodded and made as if to lower herself onto the seat, but at the last moment turned suddenly and danced around the room laughing.
“Oh I can’t sit right now!” the human said. “Do you remember that conversation we had about the baby images?”
“You mean how you were confused that you did not experience more emotion when your little one reached the state of development where it was pleasant to look at?” Sift asked.
Mary nodded vigorously, breaking out in a grin.
“Mother always told me that seeing your little one for the first time was supposed to fill you with all kinds of warm, fuzzy joy!” Mary said. “But honestly I just found looking at the scans a little boring. No color, the baby wasn’t doing anything interesting most of the time, and really, you can still see the bones better than the outside of the baby, and really,” Mary paused in her swaying around the room and rested a hand on her growing belly, with a somewhat rueful look on her face. “I just haven’t been getting much sentimental feelings out of this pregnancy. Not the way that Mother and the Aunties described it at least.”
“Every sapient mind process stimuli differently,” Sift offered. “I didn’t choke once on ancestral loaf at my wedding.”
Mary stared at her blankly a bit, but nodded as she chewed over the idea.
“True that,” she admitted. “But just now! Oh come here!”
Mary darted out of the room, waving for Sift to follow and Sift scrambled after her. Four low legs were not that much slower than two high-human legs but their complete lack of balance did give the humans an advantage in sudden changes in direction. She met Mary at a large window where the human was clutching the windowsill and beaming out at something.
“Look!” Mary said, pointing out the window.
Sift stood up on her hind legs and looked. From this angle the main thing she could see was a set of brightly colored woven and formed cloths, in very small sizes for humans to use. They had been strung out on a line to catch the benefit of the local solar radiation and the fresh air of the agricultural district.
“They will smell quite nice when you bring them in,” Sift observed.
“Those are my youngest Aunties,” Mary explained, her voice catching as she started to actively cry again. “The leftovers from her last baby. She packed them up and sent them to Mother, who sorted and mended, and washed them for me, but I was too tired to go pick them up today so Snookums, without my even asking, or even thinking about it, went and picked them up and hung them out just perfectly like that, and every time I walk by all the tiny baby clothes I just get-”
Mary’s voice cut off in a little choke and she produced a very small cloth to wipe the tears away from her eyes.
Sift glanced up at the human a bit sideways, fascinated by the way that strong emotion seemed to open every fluid producing gland in a human’s face. Apparently Mary considered that the end of the explanation because she just laughed softly and began swaying towards the kitchen, which smelled of some herbal tea. Sift pulled out her pad and began frantically taking notes. Was this powerful emotional reaction to the physical sign of community care really something odd? Or was Mary simply overthinking her own reactions again, something Sift had observe the human scientist to be very prone to.
“Come and have a cup of tea!” Mary called out.
Sift gave a grunt of assent and kept writing observations as she walked upright towards the kitchen. Perhaps she should ask Martha, the other resident female human wasn’t fully mature yet, but often had remarkable insights into her older sister’s thought processes.
​

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Humans are Weird - Slice

Humans are Weird - Slice  Clouds of steam laden with delicious smells did their best to fill the workspace before they were whisked away by vent systems that were just a hair’s touch under-powered for a kitchen feeding a crew of giant mammals. Quilx’tch brushed a paw over his upper mandibles and shook a few drops of condensate off of his talon, resisting the unsanitary urge to taste the liquid. Instead he used a different paw to lift the lid on his simmering pot of broth and lifted out a test with a third. It was a perfectly adequate broth, but something a bit sweeter was more what he thought the rest of the crew of Trisk would appreciate in their bowls this night. Quilx’tch turned the heat down under the broth, taking it down to just below a simmer and padded lightly to the edge of his raised workstation.
Below him wide platues of cooking surfaces spread out, marked with warning colors specific to his species. “This space is likely to have tanks of boiling water dropped on it.” Read one of the counters. “Earth Fruit is Round and can be up to twenty times your mass.” Declared another. This one was marked with a very simple warning glyph, in the color of blood that translated to “it rolls”. Quilx’tch gave an amused click as he noted the number of surfaces in his visual range that were marked with that particular warning. Finally he spotted what he was looking for. One of the human cooks was reducing the orange tuber they so often favored to what were small shreds even by Trisk size conventions. Quilx’tch calculated the quickest route over the spider walks to the human’s work station and trotted happily through the delicious fog until he could wave his apron for the human’s attention.
The human, one known to Quilx’tch only as “Cookie Green”, glanced up at him and bared his large teeth in a friendly greeting. Cookie, of course was a traditional fond alteration of the title, cook, and made sense in a Shatar sort of way. However as the man’s family name was not green, he did not favor ‘greens’ in the vegetable sense in his recipes, and was distinctly not a color the humans would consider green his designation remained a mystery to Quilx’tch.
“Can I do something for you Quick?” Cookie Green asked.
Quilx’tch swiped another drop off of his mandibles before replying, and the flick to get it off of his talon caused Cookie Green to smile wider in amusement. A sentiment just as puzzling as the human’s name but Quilx’tch brushed that off as well. He had a crew to feed and a pot just below a simmer with the macro-nutrients in a delicate state. Observations on cultural reactions could wait.
“Could I request this apron full of your shredded carrots?” Quilx’tch asked, loudly to be heard over the din of the room.
“Didn’t know carrots were good for you spider types,” Cookie Green said in surprise as he lifted more than the required amount, pinched between three fingers on one hand and held them out so Quilx’tch could position his apron under the mass and catch it when it dropped. Quilx’tch felt his fur puff out in shock and his mandibles twitch in concern.
“They are quite safe,” Quilx’tch assured the human. “And the sugars are delicious when properly extracted. Pardon me Cookie Green, but the end of your middle digit is bleeding!”
The human uttered a low word that Quilx’tch was fairly certain was a common swear word and immediately pulled his hand up to his eyes to inspect the blunt ends of his digits.
“Coulda’ sworn that was healed enough not to split again,” the human rumbled in annoyance. “Still, looks like to caught it before any of the blood escaped the crack and the scab. Thanks Quick. I’ll just go put a quick clear-seal on this and get back to work.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Quilx’tch demanded.
“Stings a bit,” Cookie Green admitted, “at least it does now that I noticed it. Would have really stung if I added the citrus juice to the salad before I sealed it. So thanks there. Saved me some pain.”
“I am quite pleased to hear that,” Quilx’tch said, relieved that the human was taking his safety, or at the very least the integrity of his kitchen, seriously. “But how did you get that injury there, did you cut yourself on a knife?”
Quilx’tch was trying to imagine at what angle the human could have been holding a knife of any kind in the kitchen to get such a shallow, to the thick-skinned humans, cut on his dominant hand. However Cookie Green shook his head.
“Not sure,” he said. “But I wasn’t even in the kitchen when it happened. Never been hurt in my kitchen by my tools. I was just out visiting the seal-snake, Old Toby, you know he’s one of the last of generation one still alive?”
“Ah, did he give you a play bite?” asked Quilx’tch a bit hesitantly. The injury did not really seem consistent with that either.
“Old Toby?” Cookie Green asked with a laugh. “With what teeth? Nah, I was scritching him behind the … well they don’t really have external ears but in that general area and his tracking tag, one of the old style, brushed up against my finger, and something on it, couldn’t see through the fur gave me this slice. Bugger of a thing a slice on the end of a finger. Doesn’t like to heal quick and if you are even a little careless just splits apart and undoes three days healing.”
The human heaved a tremendous sigh, used his uninjured hand to wipe condensate off of his eyebrows, and flicked the water off of his hand without laughing Quilx’tch noted thoughtfully, before turning away from Quilx’tch with a wave.
“Gonna go seal this now, hope the carrots are what you needed.”
Reminded of the task at hand Quilx’tch turned and trotted back to his own pot of broth, marveling at humans who were so casual about loosing three days worth of outer membrane healing, but putting it aside. His broth did need more sugar, which the carrots would provide, and Cookie Green clearly considered the slice of no importance.  
Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Clean Up

Humans are Weird - Clean Up First Sister trotted towards the human hive’s front porch clicking with eagerness. First Grandfather followed behind her emitting the occasional judgmental hiss as the passed the recently pruned fruit trees. He would no doubt have much to discuss with Human Second Father about the human hives tendency to ‘absolutely mutilate perfectly healthy trees’. First Sister shifted the heavy basket in her arms and plotted the quickest way to get out of the large social area the older human usually congregated in, and safely into Human Second Cousin Betty’s bedroom, where they could discuss their plans for the two hives’ joint outing the next rest day.
The muted sounds of the forest were suddenly interrupted by animalistic barking and First Sister tried not to let amusement color her frill, which was getting quite long enough to show her emotions, it had grown two fingers-breadth this harvest season alone, when First Grandfather started and skittered a bit closer to her at the sound.
“It is only Wriggles,” she reminded First Grandfather, as the silky golden head appeared from around the shed it slept in, all four eyes sparkling with curiosity. Then blinking slowly closed as the creature identified them and decided that they were not worth leaving the shed for. The round head dropped down to the ground and its soft grumbles followed them to the door where Human Second Mother had appeared smiling and waving at them.
“First Sister! First Grandfather! Come on in!”
They entered the human hive and First Sister placed the basket on the table where its contents could be sorted at leisure. As she had expected First Grandfather quickly wove the conversation that followed the greetings to how to properly prune back woody, fruit-bearing plants. Human Second Father listened with polite respect, asking the occasional question and First Sister was very relieved when Human Second Cousin Betty appeared out of a back room carrying a large container of some white liquid. The small human flashed her broad white teeth at First Sister in a friendly greeting and her odd, bipedal pace increased, presumably towards the main refrigeration unit. However First Sister had gotten used to judging the hasty Human Second Cousin Betty’s paces and she realized quickly that there was something wrong. With a yelp, the human’s body toppled forward, her arms flew out and caught the majority of her mass on the wooden floor with a thump that sounded painful and she did give a cry of distress, but it was hard to hear over the sound of the container clattering to the floor. The lid came off, spraying the white liquid all over the floor, and all over Human Second Cousin Betty.
First Sister stood frozen, unsure if she could help, as Human Second Mother strode briskly over to her fallen daughter and pulled her up. Inspecting her for injury while asking what hurt. Human Second Cousin Betty admitted her knees and wrist joints hurt a bit and Human Second Mother took her to a nearby sink to wash off what of the white liquid, some fat rich, organic compound by the look of the way it pooled on the floor, had stuck to her. First Sister caught a meaningful angle of First Grandfather’s antenna towards the spreading pool and perked up instantly. Human Second Father was still standing in the middle of the seating area, staring after his mate and daughter.
“Is this substance safe for me to touch?” First Sister asked, springing over to the closet that she knew held the cleaning supplies.
“What-” Human Second Father glanced over at her, blinked, and then laughed. “No, no!”
“It is not safe?” First Sister asked in surprise, exchanging concerned antenna tilts with First Grandfather.
“No, yes!” Human Second Father said with a dismissive wave of his hand as he walked towards the front door. “That’s just some goat’s milk Cousin Billy sent over from the north settlements. Perfectly safe. I think the north settlement hives are even bartering for some goats of their own. I meant don’t you bother cleaning that mess up. We have someone who wants to do that much worse than you do!”
First Grandfather was clearly confused by the phrasing, by the way his antenna curled and his head tilted. First Sister sympathized. Human Second Father moved to the door, carefully stepping around the spilled fluid and opened the door to thrust his head out. He gave a sharp whistle.
“Wriggles!” he called out. “Got a job for you! In here boy!”
Frantic barking followed his call and the sound of thick coils bounding up the front steps soon sounded, followed by Wriggles’s silky, golden head coming up and onto the porch. First the four eyes fixed on Human Second Father, who pointed to the slowly spreading puddle of white fluid.
“Get it boy!” the human called out.
Wriggles threw his body into three delighted spirals before darting at the puddle and attacking it’s edge with his broad mammalian tongue. First the dark maroon tongue reached out, touching down on the floor and spreading out over the fluid, then the rest of its fleshy mammal lips followed forming a sort of pressure-seal that allowed the creature to begin slurping up the fluid.
“He’ll have that up in minutes!” Human Second Father said with a chuckle as he bent to pick up the container and take it to the sink.
“I would have had it cleaned in minutes as well,” First Sister pointed out in some confusion to First Grandfather as they watched Wriggles eagerly work his way through the puddle.
“This cannot be within normal human hygienic standards,” First Grandfather pointed out, stress and fascination both obvious in his pheromones.
“I am not even sure it is within seal-snake hygienic standards,” First Sister agreed.
Human Second Mother led Human Second Cousin Betty back from the sink, and all signs of pain and discomfort had left the smaller human, replaced by signals First Sister had learned to interpret as guilt in a human.
“That was the only goat milk we’ll get this season,” Human Second Cousin Betty said with mournful look at the rapidly shrinking puddle.
“Well at least Wriggles is enjoying it,” Human Second Mother pointed out.
Human Second Cousin Betty looked at the seal-snake who was vigorously working at the puddle and her face crinkled in laughter.
“Now take First Sister to your bedroom and get started planing the picnic,” Human Second Mother said, giving her offspring a shove in that direction.
Human Second Cousin Betty instantly perked up and began pulling First Sister towards the other room, chattering about her plans. First Sister cast another glance back at Wriggles and exchanged a final befuddle look with First Grandfather. Perhaps Human Second Father would explain why it was considered both safe and amusing to let a half-domesticated omnivore slather its saliva all over the floor.


Author Betty Adams Books
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Humans are Weird - Getting a Grip

Humans are Weird - Getting a Grip "Is your harness secure?” Human Friend Albert asked, his voice slipping through the thin air to land on Bouncesover’s appendages.
Bouncesover gave a final tug at the weak points of his safety harness and gave the human ‘thumbs up’ signal. He mused that it was a grand thing that some human gesture language was so easy to mimic, even without having their bones and tendons. Outside of their artificially generated bubble of air pressure the daylight atmosphere of the planet glared in at them in swirling patterns of color.
“We’re over the dropsite,” Human Friend Albert said as he stooped to pick him up, gave his harness a final tactile check and attached their harnesses at the primary contact point on the human’s center of mass. Bounces over arranged his appendages in a comforting grip on the human’s ‘chest’ that allowed him to hear the steady thrumming of the human’s internal fluids even through the protective layer of the flight suit. Human Friend Albert’s pulse was the steady pattern that indicated intense focus as he strapped their gear into his backpack, secured it on the other side of his mass and ran the final checks on the control console of the sub-orbital platform. He leaned closer so Bouncesover could add his final confirmation as well, and the display on the console changed from green to amber to red as the atmosphere bubble dissipated, leaving them in a rush of wind and air that was far too thin for safety.
Human Friend Albert gave a muffled whoop of delight as his suit covered his nose and mouth with an oxygen membrane and took three running steps to the edge of the platform before leaping off in the rainbow swirls of mid-level atmosphere. The human’s heart-rate accelerated as they dropped and Bouncesover could feel the wild laughter rumbling though the human’s mass rather than hearing it over the rushing of the wind. After a few delighted tumbles the human flung out his arms and managed their fall so they could watch the atmospheric disembarkation platform shrink as it reunited with the suborbital pod, which in turn rose away from them into the blurry distance where it would reunite with the main space station. Bouncesover felt his harness begin to release a gentle flow of oxygen rich fluid between itself and the surfaces where it gripped him in response to the outer conditions and snuggled closer to the warm mass of the laughing human.
Human Friend Albert, with more grace than he ever showed on land, turned them back over to face the dimmer rainbow whirls, tending more towards orange, that indicated they were now facing the ground. Of course this was also made clear by the fact that the rushing air was now pushing Bouncesover into Human Friend Albert’s mass rather than trying to rip him away from it. Still laughing Human Friend Albert activated the navigation screen on the arm of his flight suit.
“Looks like the winds are good for landing at either the Alpha or Gamma locations,” Human Friend Albert observed. “Do you have any preference?”
Bouncesover considered this a moment before replying.
“Delta site has the best soaking facilities,” Bouncesover observed.
“No way!” Human Friend Albert interjected, “The water there is barely room temperature!”
“But it tastes much better,” Bouncesover argued.
“The sulfur at the other sites isn’t that bad,” Human Friend Albert countered.
“Yes it is,” Bouncesover said firmly. “Remember you only have a small patch of taste sensitive appendage. I vote we land at Alpha site so we can end our first ground day at Delta site with a good long soak.”
“Alpha site it is!” Human Friend Albert said, tapping that information into his display, which lit up with the indicated path down through the atmosphere. We’ve got plenty of time, would you rather slow drift or terminal fall most of the way?”
Bouncesover gave a wriggle of amusement at the carefully controlled tones of the human’s voice. The time difference between a controlled glide verses a maximum free fall decent would not be enough to have a leisurely snack, let alone effect their functional efficiency. However Human Friend Albert always felt the need to get his partner’s approval before wasting even those few moments, felt the need to get an excuse.
“I think you will be better able to scout any routes on our way down if you slow drift,” Bouncesover suggested.
“Yeah!” Human Friend Albert whooped out.
He deployed the wind-wings and the rush of air grew louder and slower as the atmosphere began to push them up against the pull of this planet’s gravity. Human Friend Albert wrapped his arms around Bouncesover as the wind-wings took over positioning control from his limbs, and also giving Bouncesover the use of the display on his forearm so the Undulate could calculate the time to their landing at Alpha site. Presumably the human was seeing the same data on the display on the suit membrane over his eyes. Bouncesover idly pulled up the human’s biometrics and gave another wriggle of amusement at the clear delight that was displayed in every readout. Human Friend Albert’s arms tightened around Bouncesover and another delighted laugh ran through his mass. Bouncesover let his awareness drift out into the thin, tasteless air, and the vague swirling colors of the world around them. Why the human preferred to jump from the platform of the suborbital pod rather than taking one of the landing craft down was still something of a mystery to the Undulate, but clearly the human did, and if Bouncesover couldn’t see what the mammal did in the situation, he could certainly enjoy Human Friend Albert’s enthusiasm.


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Humans are Weird - Understandable

Humans are Weird - Understandable  Seventh Click rubbed his horns in frustration and squinted down at his report. His second in command, Fifteen Trills gave a sympathetic click in his direction and a quick rustling came from the other Winged’s workstation. Experience told Seventh Click that the young Winged, young enough to resent being called fluffy, would be at his side in a moment, offering to take some burden off of his back. Fifteen Trills was setting up to be a good commander in his own right and it would be a lucky wing that got him when he was inevitably promoted. Still, there were some things that even the swiftest wing-beats and strongest talons couldn’t assist with.
“I am done with my daily assignments,” Fifteen Trills called out as he scampered up to Seventh Click’s desk. “May I have some more?”
Seventh Click wrinkled his snout in amusement and held up the report he was working on.
“Let me ping an idea around your skull?” he asked.
“Of course!” Fifteen Trills declared taking a moment to scramble his wings around into the most receptive position. “What is giving you difficulty-”
“The humans and these – desire paths – the official record calls them,” Seventh Click explained. “You know the local ground cover is essential to keeping the dust down?”
Fifteen Trills bobbed his whole body in eager understanding.
“The silicate particles in the local soil are not only dangerous to breathing when in the air, but the dust interferes with sonar -”
“And the local species mix the botanists worked up is nearly perfect for keeping the dust down where it belongs, holding nutrients for the growth of plants,” Seventh Clicks went on. “Of course the humans fully agree on this, they don’t have the sonar issue -”
“Of course not -”
“But the lung issue is identical,” Seventh Click expanded, tapping his own chest cavity with a hook. “Humans know this. It has been brought up in multiple safety meetings.”
“And they know that forming these desire paths increases the silicate presence in the breathable atmosphere -” Fifteen Trills observed shrugging his wings in confusion.
“Every single one of them!” Seventh Click exclaimed in frustration. “Yet, instead of staying on the clearly marked, reinforced walking paths they insist on saving some minuscule caloric value by cutting across the more fragile planted areas and -”
There was a soft chime from his workstation and Seventh Click turned to address it as Fifteen Trills went back to his own work. The chime was a reminder to address an odd loitering pattern that someone had noticed in his wing. He stashed his work pad and hopped to the door where he dropped down and flew in a lazy arc towards the human living quarters of the base. He spotted the issue as soon as he drew near. One of the local humans had expended the time and effort to add a structure to the top of their personal dwelling. Built of the same local wood as the dwelling it consisted of a small roof, pointed well past the angle necessary to shed the local rainfall, and sturdy corner beams with thin planks between them on all four sides, angled the perfect distance to let a Winged in and out.
This was such a delightfully cozy setup that one could hardly imaging it being anything except an invitation to the Winged specifically to visit the house. Hardly, save for the fact that the majority of the structure was filled with a shaped metal noise-maker of cultural significance to the human who lived there. When the report had first landed on his horns Seventh Click had not been surprised the structure had attracted the younger members of his, and other wings, and the human inhabitant of the house had never objected to their presence. Indeed, the human had gone to great lengths to install safety measures so the visiting Winged were never startled, or possibly injured, by the bell sounding suddenly. Which safety measures hardly seemed necessary as the bell was almost never rung. Said human was currently tending to some plant in her garden, chatting with a few Winged who were collecting aromatic flower petals. Despite the comfortable domestic scene Seventh Click firmed his joints to demand an explanation from the loiterers in the structure. With a wide range of far more comfortable social perches on the base there was very little besides some mischief that could have induced so many into the harsh corners, and dry winds of the structure. It at the very least warranted investigation.
Seventh Click was greeted with the casual cheerfulness of a social wing who anticipated no censure for whatever they were doing. Something that both soothed him and made him suspicious. He struck up a casual conversation about the warm weather with the highest ranked member from his own wing and was able to quickly bring the conversation around to were he wanted it.
“With so many cooled perches around,” he said, “I am rather surprised that you enjoy hanging around this structure.”
“Nothing surprising about it,” the younger Winged said with an amused chitter. “It’s well worth it to be able to help out Rita.”
“The human owner of this structure?” Seventh Click confirmed to a general sursurration of wings in confirmation.
He was about to ask what good this Rita gained from having wings scatterings of loitering youths in her structure when one of the ones nearest the slats, serving as look out called out excitedly.
“She’s got another one by his nose!” The entire group instantly scrambled to the slats, stopping just short of being visible to the two humans below them. Seventh Click followed curiously. The humans seemed to be talking about the owner’s, Rita’s apparently, choice in planting season.
“-in the middle of summer?” The visiting human was asking. “Are you nuts?”
“Well!” Rita called out, markedly more loudly than she had been speaking before.
The scattered wing gave a collective chitter of amusement and braced themselves on the slats.
“It is said that I have bats in my belfry!” Rita declared loudly with a wide gesture of one arm at the structure.
The Winged surged halfway out of the slats and waved their wings vigorously down at the two humans.
“She does!”
“Here we are!”
“So many bats!”
“All up in her belfry!”
The face of the visiting human visible contorted in distress even at this distance and he released an audible groan while Rita double over cackling with human amusement.
Seventh Click quietly backed out of the far side of the structure and lifted off, back towards his office. He found Fifteen Trills busily checking the air filters as he hopped over to your desk.
“Were you able to determine why so many of the younger Winged were gathering in the sounding structure?” Fifteen Trill asked with a cheerful set to his nose.
“Yes,” Seventh Click said in a tone that sounded oddly dry and lifeless, even to himself.
Fifteen Trill gave a perplexed chirp and scampered over to look over Seventh Click’s wings as the older commander pulled up the report he had been working on previously.
“They gather there,” Seventh Click said slowly. “For the same reason that the human built the structure. That is, on the off chance that another human, or any sapient will do perhaps, will walk by and give the human a chance to reference an ancient human insult.”
“What insult is that?” Fifteen Trills asked.
“She has bats in her belfry.”
Fifteen Trills actually staggered a bit to the side he chittered so hard at that. The sub-commander took a few seconds to get his fur smooth and his amusement controlled before responding.
“Isn’t that a wing-lifter! I will have to join them some time!” Fifteen Trills hesitated as he sounded the still perplexed and somewhat depressed mood of his commander.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” Seventh Click said, lifting the report on the humans’ near absolute dedication to energeticly efficient ‘desire paths’ as he calculated the energy required to build and mount the belfry.
“I just wonder,” he says slowly. “If it should bother me more that so often humans make no sense to us, or if it should bother me more that sometimes they make perfect sense to us.”
Author Betty Adams Books
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