Challenge #00761 - B030: What a Waste
A numidid who is the living embodiment of handsome - his feathers are perfectly aligned and gleaming, talons sharp and shiny, vibrant crest, and zygomatic arches to make everyone swoon.
He’s also a scientist. (from Amity or not)
Commence shenanigans!
Lu’iz had no idea he was handsome. He carried on in all his beliefs and allowed everyone else to be mistaken in theirs. Such was the life of a scientist.
And yet, every day, he would hear some female on the streets or public transits sigh and murmur, “What a waste…” as if his very existence was offensive to the order of things.
It plagued him ever since he passed puberty, and continued to confuse him for some years into his lonely adulthood.
Young storekeeps would coo or bob for him… right up until the moment he opened his beak and spoke like a scientist. It would be then that he heard those fated three words and the regretful sighs.
Sometimes, he received hate… as if his very existence was an aberration like none other in the universe. Lu’iz had very little idea how he had managed to capture their ire. He was, according to them, deceptive and dishonest. Trying to trap honest females in a sordid relationship with a -ugh- scientist.
He had given up trying to explain that he wasn’t trying to do anything of the sort when T’reka the Mad’s transmissions began from Toxic Island. He began avoiding going out in public, too. At least until the equally insane humans’ views began to infect the general populace.
His neighbour, Ii’ree was the first to talk to him. Nervous and clearly afraid of anyone seeing her at it, she asked, “Why did you go into Science? You could have easily been an actor. And far more acceptable.”
“Acting is the art of lies,” he answered honestly. “I have a far better relationship with the truth.”
“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
“None at all. Everyone keeps calling me a waste. Or a liar. I… I don’t like that.”
Someone came through the hall, cutting off all opportunities to speak further.
Lu’iz thought nothing of it for the following months, until she found him calibrating a telescope on the roof of their shared domicile. It was late afternoon and he was checking the orbit of the local gas giant.
“You’ll burn your beautiful eyes out,” she cautioned. Ii’ree was gathering her laundry from the rooftop clothing lines.
“All is well,” he assured, “I am not looking at the sun. I’m observing the nearby planets.”
“In daylight?” she scoffed. “There’s nothing up there.”
“We see the moon, do we not? There is more to see if one knows how to look. "I have counted four moons around Stripy Titan already.”
Ii’ree looked up at the boundless blue. “There is nothing to see but the air…”
“Then come and look closer. I promise you won’t catch Science Germs.”
She put her basket down and hopped up to his perch. Peered skeptically down the eyepiece. And then Ii’ree squawked and leaped backwards. “Impossible!”
“Deep breaths,” he soothed. “Impossible is another way of saying ‘don’t look’. The universe continues to work without our observation. The blue Stripy Titan is proof.”
“…but… but… How?”
“It’s always there. Night just allows us to see it better. And I counted the moons by the shadows they cast. It’s quite fascinating.”
“It’s terrifying,” breathed Ii’ree.
“Why?” he asked. “How could it hurt you?”
Ii’ree had no answer. But for the rest of her life - including the passage of time when it was legal to be his wife - she would take the time to look at the sky in wonder.
[Muse food remaining: 13. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
T'reka just wanted to learn. Unfortunately for her, her entire species views scientific thinking as a form of insanity. And when she wants to learn all about the various venomous, poisonous, and outright deadly life forms on a land mass named Toxic Island, you can almost see why. Little did she know that when she committed her life to the study of this strange and hostile land, there was already a colony of monsters setting up housekeeping. Now she’s face-to-face with the most dangerous life form in the known universe, and desperately trying to forge peace with the horrible creatures twice her size and four times her weight! They call themselves… HUMANS! [We’re mostly harmless, we swear.]
Going cheap (pardon the pun) at Smashwords!
Challenge #00745 - B014: Baldie
B’rka, the adventures of a
gooseNumidid with no feathers (For the prompt inspiration, see Borka)
The chick had been left in her nest. It was weak and cold and hungry. Serka knew that she didn’t have the time to call emergency services. And, since it was night, there was a high likelihood that they wouldn’t turn up until morning. By which time it would be far too late for the newly-hatched keet.
She could see why her mother had abandoned her. There was no down on the tiny keet. No indication of any part of her skin that was meant to grow feathers. Not even a hint of down.
Serka loaned the trembling infant her warmth and regurgitated some of her dinner. She knew what the officials would do for this poor child. For the good of the flock. Serka could not bring herself to do that to a baby.
There was only one place that would welcome such an unusual keet. Which lead to the utterly sane decision to emigrate to Toxic Island, the definitive insane destination for a single mother with a child.
*
B'rka knew she was different. When others fledged, her human friends worked on improvements for her artificial wings.
For summer and winter, she chose clothes. And not just the typical Numidid vest and leg-wraps. She had clothes that covered all the areas where other keets had feathers. Some were bright and happy, while others were dull or matched the pattern of her Mama.
There was another difference. Other keets had as many as seven mothers. B'rka just had one. And no father. It was a lonely house in the middle of the Human city, Huatthehell, but they shared it with a dog and they had friendly neighbours and everyone knew her.
When she was smaller, B'rka would ride their dog, Harg, but now he was strictly for pulling her cart. Harg was a lot faster than even the fastest of her age-mates. And the cart was made specially to avoid any kind of accident.
But as time went by, B'rka could see, more and more, how she was different to the other Numidid. Her own name was an accidental syllable away from the word for ‘bald’, and some of the meaner keets risked expulsion from school for continuing to use it.
B'rka never let the names stop her. With the help of human intervention, she could glide just as well as any normal keet. She could glide so well that others accused her of cheating when she reached a race-point ahead of one of her feathered age-mates. And she could certainly climb faster than anyone she knew.
But her real passion was science. No other field would take her in just for the love of it. No other field welcomed her under its metaphorical wing like science did.
And, when it came down to the barest of essentials, B'rka wanted to understand why she had been born without feathers.
But her personal anomaly lead to so much other information. How heat retention worked, the genes behind hyper-plumage, how and why follicles appeared at all, the essential role of the body mite in immunity procedures… it went on an on.
Science loved her back. She learned as the humans had learned, that by studying the unusual, one gained understanding of the normal.
And because of her accomplishments, she was among the first to campaign for an end to mutation-related infanticide.
[Muse food remaining: 15. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Comparative…Let’s Say ‘Humor’
Shortly after encountering the Numidid, someone makes the inevitable “Numididn’t” joke.
(#00744 - B013)
“I am Numidid,” said Ambassador Su'sin, offering her hand.
The newly-minted Ambassador for the Consortium of Steam immediately struck a pose and said, “Oh nu-mi-di-en’t…”
One of the other members of the Consortium of Steam smacked hirself in the face at that. “We’re being ambassadors, today…”
“I don’t understand,” pleaded Su'sin.
“It’s human comedy,” explained Ambassador Stiiv, also of Amity. “Remember the archival stuff in your stereotypes module?”
“Oh,” Su'sin literally climbed up Stiiv to perch on her shoulder and said. “Let me try to get it right,” she fluffed herself up. “Yes she nu-mi-di-id.”
It was one of the rare cases that an alien species got along with the Consortium of Steam straight from the introduction. And one of the cases that caused the Galactic Alliance to argue about the infectious nature of human insanity.
[Muse food remaining: 12. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Get your copy of the newest book from CM Weller NOW!
Challenge #00730 - A365: Strange Nest-Fellows
Imagine a life-preserving pod being picked up by a human vessel. Imagine it contains a Numidid keet (and possibly a dead parent or message from them). Imagine that keet raised by humans with no contact or knowledge of the Numidid people besides the pod remains. Imagine that keet as a young adult meeting other Numidid for the first time with no idea of Numidid society.
[AN: I know this is hellishly late, but I was hoping our internets would have returned by the time I was done faffing about today. Alas. No such luck]
You pick up all kinds of weird things in the Greater Sargasso. There’s gravitational eddies where debris winds up and this one? Well, it it was pretty damn huge. All kinds of things wound up in there.
Including a survival pod.
There were two inside. Birds. Cogniscent birds. One adult. One little. The adult had clearly sacrificed itself for the little one. It had left a note. A recording.
“Stranger, should you find my little Pippit alive, I beg you to care for her as you would your own. If we are both gone by the time you find us… I bear you no ill will. My people may be looking for me… for us… but I suspect we have been declared as ‘lost’. I beg you, be kind… and cherish my Pippit.”
Pippit was dehydrated and hungry. And cold. Three things I could fix, at least. And the data from the pod. The medical analyser on board declared her species to be super-fragile. At least, compared to human kids. A broken bone could mean death by shock.
I’d never even thought of being a parental, let alone a parental to a super-fragile birdlike critter.
“I can’t promise you I’ll get your name right,” I said to the poor little kid. And she was a really little kid. Less than a quarter the size of the adult. “I’ll call you ‘Pip’, and log your genetic parental’s message. I’ll teach you everything I got about your kind which, sadly, ain’t much. And I’ll do all I can to keep you safe.”
Pip just plain didn’t talk for a Standard Week. I could grok. She’d just lost her entire world. I did what I could for ‘mama’. I guessed it was a mama. Comp said she was a female, so I made her neat and plastered the pod with every known memorial sign while I copied every last scrape of data from the pod.
Then I asked the Powers That Be to care for Mama Bird’s soul. And sent the pod back into the Sargasso from whence it had come.
Poor tiny Pip followed me around, ever after that. Always at my heels. Huddling close.
I almost had heart failure every time I nearly stepped on her. Poor fragile little creature. I found out that a hoodie or a pouch had her feeling safe and me not fretting about breaking her.
Making her own bed-slot was a hassle. I fudged Mama Bird’s dimensions and cleared out a closet that seemed about right. Pip had a soft place to sleep, warm food, and a caring parental. All she needed was an education.
And -hell- when you’re a scavenger, what you got is either what you find or what you bring with you, so Pip learned her ABC’s from the Spacer’s Manual of Useful Knowledge, and lots of my personal library.
Which included Great Expectations. Don’t look at me like that. I read it to fall asleep. Pip was so excited to hear her name that I read it to her. Of course I told her how much society had changed in between the writing and the reader. And how some of the characters were just plain unobservant about what was clearly in front of them.
I kept talking, of course. Little by little, Pip opened up. Called me ‘tall-mama’, and generally took an interest in everything and anything.
Any answers I didn’t have, I showed her how to look up.
When we finally hit Cashport Station, Pip had almost finished getting her adult feathers. Her clothing was lacking. Fabricated things that sort-of-fit, made from recycled blankets. Clothing said ‘cogniscent’ better than clothing, and Pip needed better clothing than his fabricator could provide.
She rode on my shoulder, of course. Muttering to herself about this species and that species. What was good manners and bad manners. She even waved to a pack of Meeyahndans and said, “Hello! I am not prey! I am not threat! Good hunting!”
Bless her heart.
Admin gave us trouble. I had no paperwork but the stuff Mama Bird had recorded. Therefore she was registered as Pip Foundling, and I got a whole bunch of free educational material for our next long haul.
Getting her a life suit, ship skins and all the other stuff was expensive. I didn’t mind. She deserved to have some of the pretty things. And a set of serviceable work boots so her feet weren’t in danger. And by serviceable… I mean that she could also grip with them. The end result was ceramisteel armour with carbon-fibre and kevlar blend under-cloth.
And somewhere between the Sargasso and Rest Stop, our next port of call, Pip became my Pip. I didn’t have to look after her. I wanted to.
But Rest Stop was where we found her kind.
They stayed in the big trees, and hooted and whistled. Not cat-calls. Bird talk. Mama Bird had spoken a variant of GalStand in her message. I’d had no idea Pip had her own language.
Should have guessed, but there you go.
Pip swapped to GalStand Simple. The streamlined version of the unholy mess that is GalStand Entire. “No me knowledge, bird talk,” she shouted up. “You come teach?”
The ‘dangerous human’ -me- had to go and sit far away while Pip discussed her origins. She was excited and eager, but her fellow feathered friends were far more cautious and spooked by her.
One of the elder Birds came to roost on my table. “You raised this keet?”
“Pip? Yeah. I found her in a life pod in the Greater Sargasso. It was that or let her die, and I’m not the mean kind.”
“She will not have a good life among her own kind. She is only suited to be a scientist.” That last word was pronounced like something a body would scrape off a shoe.
"Not good amongst your kind, eh?”
“No[1].”
“Well, if you don’t want her, I’ll take her in. That’s how we started. Family is more to me than just genes in a matrix. And maybe it’ll be more to her and her kin.”
I passed him a copy of Mama Bird’s last message. So the family would know. But Pip? She was almost doomed to be that weird estranged relative to her gene-family.
Screw ‘em. She has all the family she needs with me and my tribe of scavengers. We do whatever we can to help her be happy.
[1] Of course, these events happen within days of Amity’s rediscovery by the Galactic Community
[Muse food remaining: 10. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
T'reka stood, arms akimbo and wing-feathers out, as the supervising technician made certain all of her straps were on correctly and snugly.
“Remember, DO NOT FLAP,” the technician reminded her above the engine noise of the Flight Machine. “This pack has its own glider-wings, and any flapping on your part will disrupt the steering mechanisms and put you in the ocean!”
“Understood!” T'reka chirped.
“We’re going to drop you in five.”
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
The doors beneath the pack that held her in straps dropped away.
The Flight Machine jumped away from her and wind rushed in her ears.
T'reka fought the urge to flap by increasing her grip on the shoulder straps and sinking her toe-talons into the canvas of the pack. She made her analytical mind take over for the descent.
The Flying Engine’s rapid ascent was an illusion caused by the pack’s bulk and apparent solidity in a rapidly-changing environment.
The apparently-ascending ground should not terrify and, though she felt the urge to slow her descent, she knew she must not.
The pack’s own wing should be deploying any moment now.
Any moment… now!
She fought terror by attempting to analyse the geography of her soon-to-be home.
Better-be home.
If you liked this quote, why not buy the book?
Did you know? You can read all about one innocent explorer’s close encounter with these dangerous creatures in The Amity Incident!
READ! The thrilling tale of T'reka the Inquisitive!
THRILL! At the baffling and bizarre habits of humans!
FUND! This impoverished author so ze can afford to write more thrilling adventures!
(Source: drharleyfquinn, via vorpal-one-deactivated20151206)
Very possibly out now for sale!
It took me ages to edit it so that it could be coherent and I really pray it worked this time.
Available for pre-order on Smashwords!
T'reka sighed as she put her books in order and reluctantly disposed of her former, almost-done presentations.
There would be no room for half-finished and never-to-be-finished projects on her expedition. But it still felt like she was tearing her own gizzard out.
She’d worked hard on each and every one of them… and she would never be allowed to complete them. As far as the Flock was concerned, all her contributions amounted to replicated data and that was that. Not even a footnote in the book of deeds.
It was illogical to mourn the loss of those things. Ridiculous. Possibly stupid. Those who shared the floor with her certainly let her know so.
T'reka put them carefully into a waste-bag nonetheless. Swallowed her noises of distress and upset, lest her neighbours hear and mock her again.
Of course she was ridiculous and stupid and foolhardy and illogical and irrational. She was a scientist. It was what she was best suited for and it was the best fit for her soul.
She carried the clinking bag carefully down the stairs and placed it with a whispered apology into the dumpster.
Crueller hands would have her good work, from now on.
“Spring cleaning at last, eh?” chirped Kikkiki. A student and a dancer. One of the many who lived in the small flats for economic reasons. “You do know it’s unhealthy to eat the bugs who invade your nest, right?”
“I am aware,” T'reka sang, trying to keep her voice and intonations positive. “I do not breed bugs in my home, and if I did I would certainly not be eating them.”
Kikkiki appeared to not have heard. “You scientists have the worst habits. I swear I saw one male eat a filth-bug just because it crossed his notes! No wonder you all have bad feathers and sparse plumage.”
T'reka, who kept her feathers properly groomed and released her stresses through her personal journal instead of indulging in plume-plucking, politely muttered a, “No wonder,” very coldly as she returned to her little hide-away.
She couldn’t help hearing Kikkiki mutter, “Ugh, antisocial scientists,” to the universe at large.
If you liked this quote, why not get the book?
Know someone who would love it? Gift it to them! Spread the word! Share with all your friends. Tell Facebook. Tell twitter. Tell every social network that you’re on.