Humans are Weird – After

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