#one giant leap for bug/giant-space-monkey relations

[a-sweet-pea]

Humans are Megafauna

A/N: Inspired by the likes of "Humans are Space Orcs" and "Humans are Space Fae", a little dabble into the world of scifi! I had vain hopes of elaborating on the italicized portions and writing them out properly, but I think it's been sitting in my drafts gathering dust long enough. Consider this a late xmas gift, with a repost of its beginning (which you might recognize as Untitled Exoplanet).

The Charys - Ship’s Log - Cycle 308

10.08.00 - Pulse Drive Failure

10.08.01 - Charys exits Hyperspace

Solar System Report -

Yellow Dwarf Star

13 Planets (9 solid, 4 gaseous)

11.35.87 - Charys enters Gravity Well of Exoplanet

Exoplanet Report

Tertiary in orbit of central star

87kf diameter - Molten Core, Solid Plate Surface

Atmosphere: 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, Trace Gases - NONTOXIC, HELMET USE RECOMMENDED FOR PARTICULATE FILTRATION

Liquid Water - Present

Carbon-Based Life - Present

14.12.76 - Charys enters Atmosphere of Exoplanet

14.13.09 - Charys reaches terminal velocity

14.13.67 - Charys reaches subsonic speed

14.13.71 - Air brakes deployed

Atmospheric Entry and Descent Report

Hull Ablation: Minimal

Aerodynamic Heating: Within acceptable range

Terminal Velocity: 1.3*

14.13.98 - Impact

Expedition Log

C.J - At 14.15.23, Charys has landed on the exoplanet, no major injuries sustained by crew.

Z - My thorax is sore.

W - She said major injuries.

C.J - Landing site experiencing heavy precipitation, but the Charys was able to navigate through open bay door of superstructure and onto raised platform.

Z - Let the record show that the Charys had help from an expert pilot.

O.T. Who is going to have their channel shut down if they don’t stop interrupting.

C.J - Sensors indicate the presence of plant matter containing fructose within 3f, in sufficient quantities to refill both fuel tanks and food stores. First officer, pilot, and engineer to remain onboard to assess damages, Captain will leave the ship to scout location of plant matter.

W - As the exobiologist, I feel I should accompany you, Captain.

C.J - No one else is to leave the ship.

W - Captain, we are on an exoplanet with a superstructure indicating the presence of intelligent-

C.J - No one else is to leave the ship until I have established that it is safe to do so. Then you are welcome to join me.

Z - Just Telerin?

C.J - Once I have established the safety of the environment, the entirety of the crew is welcome to explore the exoplanet surface, with the understanding that, should we at any point encounter the presence of alien life, it is the Captain’s responsibility to mitigate first contact.

Z - I can’t say hi?

C.J - In the event of first contact, Pilot Zephyr’s channel will be muted to prevent the embarassment of our species.

Z - Well now I don’t even want to leave the ship.

Jeeyah exits the ship wades, through brackish liquid, leaps across a gap to the polished metal wall and climbs up. She reaches a vast surface of polished stone and starts hiking toward the source of the plant matter and sugar readings from earlier; enormous alien fruits in a semi-spherical structure of woven reeds. When she is halfway between the edge of the metal pit where the ship landed and the mound of fruit, the ground begins to shake

O.T- Captain, you are in distress.

C.J - Do not leave the ship. Keep cloaking and communications on, shut off all unneccessary indicators.

Sensors indicate the approach of native megafauna. She begins to run for the nearest cover (towering objects she assumes are buildings that house the native intelligent life-forms) but before she can reach them, a glass cylinder is lowered on top of her, trapping her where she stands. The megafauna is bipedal, incalculably enormous, and it makes a series of noises that sound like more than just primitive grunts…

W - The vocalization is a language.

O.T - You think the megafauna is sentient?

W - Switch on the translator!

The suit power indicator glowed pale blue. Less than twenty-percent. If she survived this, Jeeyah was going to give Weylin’s carapace a good rattling for failing to hook up the suit to the charging station when she’d reminded them at least ten times. Shock-absorption, air filtering, thermal regulation, carapace rigidity, communication channel with the ship; all of these were draining the battery. The translator wasn’t usually much of a load when interfacing with an alien entity with which it was familiar, but to process an entirely new langauge, one composed of not just thought patterns but vocalizations as well?

C.J - I have to cut the other systems.

Jeeyah fumbled with the pressure pads on her forearm.

O.T - What systems?

The eyes in front of her were wide and unblinking.

C.J - Under no circumstances is anyone to leave the ship unless I give the all clear.

O.T - Captain!

The translator switched on with a buzz and a chime, while the indicators for shock-absorption, thermal regulation, and the ship’s communication channel blinked and shut off.

Jeeyah waits, but the megafauna doesn’t make any more sounds, it just stares and pulls out a large slab of metal with a display screen on it bigger than the whole dashboard of the spaceship (intelligent megafauna confirmed). She needs it to vocalize again to give the translator a baseline, why won’t it vocalize?!

It isn’t going to vocalize; it doesn’t know I’m intelligent.

Her hands shook as she pried a barbed piton from its housing against her leg. She punctured the emergency food ration strapped to her arm; the sweet green paste that oozed from the pouch made her feelers twitch, but she wasn’t the least bit hungry. She scraped it up and smeared it onto the glass wall in front of her. A series of dashes.

Any sufficiently advanced life form in the cosmos will recognize this numerical sequence.

l l ll lll lllll

Massive dark irises jumped back and forth.

Come on, come on.

The creature’s lips parted and it vocalized again, the quietest yet, but still well within the range of her suit mic. The translator’s amber indicator pulsed gently as it struggled to connect the audio to the active places in the alien’s brain and determine the intended concepts.

you - [an individual apart from the speaker]

Jeeyah’s feelers fluttered. Speech. It was intelligent, and it was addressing her.

are - [identity, quality]

not - [negation]

a - [single entity]

bug - - -

The translator struggled for an agonizing moment before spitting out its best approximation

[connotative term, biological entity native to the planet, class insecta or isopoda, small, insignificant, pest, lacking intellect or emotional capacity, ]

Insignificant. Her breath came quickly. Pest. A shadow fell over the circle of glass. A fleshy mass the size of the ship’s console perched atop the enclosure; jointed appendages sprouting from it, reaching down. If Jeeyah hadn’t known better, she would have thought it was a creature unto itself, but beyond it stretched a thick limb. It was merely another part of the megafauna, an enormous hand. Jeeyah crouched low as the glass wall rose up around her, lifted away with a mere fraction of the potential energy stored in the creature’s musculature. A minor application of pressure from one of the digits would be more than sufficient to crush her carapace. So why, having put the glass container aside, had it not done so?

Not. Negation.

Relief washed over Jeeyah like a sudden burst of radiation.

Not a bug.

“What-[inquiry] are you?”

Jeeyah lifted her head; the creature’s hand was moving toward her again and this time, there was no wall of glass between them. A friendly chime from her suit’s internals warned her that her hemolymph flow was unreasonably rapid. Not a bug, she thought, trying to stem the flow of adrenaline. It knows I am not a bug. The hand laid to rest on the stone surface, jointed digits uncurling like a fern opening in the sunlight. There were no more vocalizations, but the meaning of the gesture was clear. It wants me to step on. Jeeyah took a few steps backward, eyes focused on the creature’s face.

“It’s okay-[a neutral state of mind and body, a lack of (or capacity to manage) discomfort]”

“Don’t be scared-[anticipating danger, distress, potential negative outcome]”

Its mouth was stretched; pushing the flesh in its cheeks upward, narrowing its eyes. Is it focusing? Is it hampering its vision because it does not see me as a threat? Jeeyah had a fair amount of experience with mammals, but the trouble was that they all did different things with their faces to indicate different things. If it intended harm, Jeeyah reasoned, taking a step toward the living platform. It would have attacked. The megafauna was keeping still as Jeeyah approached, like Jeeyah herself did when catching aphids. Not a bug, Jeeyah replayed the thought in her head, and it strengthened her resolve. An explorer. An ambassador. A captain.

Jeeyah stepped onto the platform of flesh, feelers vibrating. If one of my crew did this, I’d recommend them for a psych evaluation. Maybe Jeeyah would write herself up when she got back to the ship, if she got back to the ship. Clearly, there was some dangerous flaw in her reasoning, to so willingly place herself in danger. The creature’s hand rose like the elevator on the Ysenia station (if someone had disabled the gravity cushioning), and Jeeyah was trapped again, in a prison she’d walked into.

“Can-[ability to perform task]

The creature’s vocalization drew her attention upward again.

You talk-[vocalize thoughts]”

No, Jeeyah thought. But my suit can. Jeeyah switched on the audio output. The audio input had never been switched off (in the event that she ran out of power to keep her body functioning on this hostile planet, the recording of their mission would still be worthy of preservation, either as a museum artifact or a cautionary tale for future explorers). She rewound the recording until she reached the appropriate words, clipped them, re-ordered them, and sent them to audio output, as many decibels as the suit could produce. I hope you have sensitive ears.

“CAN TALK.” The suit echoed the megafauna’s words back at it in a frail imitation of its powerful vocalization. First contact with an alien species, Jeeyah thought. No doubt she would look back on this moment as a great honor if she ever made it safely back to the ship. The creature’s pupils dilated and it’s mouth stretched, revealing two rows of omnivorous teeth. No, Jeeyah frantically scrolled back through the recording. Did I pick the wrong words? Did it not hear me? Did the translator-

Jeeyah’s thoughts were scattered by a sudden g-force. She fell to her hands and knees as the platform rose up at a dizzying speed, toward the creature’s face.

“CAN TALK, CAN TALK, NOT BUG.” She sent the few words she had screaming through the suit’s speakers. “NOT BUG.” When the movement stopped and Jeeyah had the strength to lift her head again, she was level, not with a gaping maw lined with crushing bone plates, but with the creature’s staring eyes.

“No, not a bug.” The voice coming from below her was quieter, the pitch higher, the inflection different. The translator added an extra layer of meaning to the repeated phrase.

[Comfort, safety, dismissal of threat]

“What’s your-[possession]

name-[vocalization indicating specified individual]?”

But Jeeyah had no vocalization for herself. How did you make a thought into a sound? She could think ‘Jeeyah’ at the creature for a dozen cycles and it wouldn’t make it through the skull; the creature’s body just wasn’t built for it.

“NO NAME.”

“No name?” It repeated, questioning. “What do I call-[address subject] you?”

Jeeyah sorted through the words of the creature’s lexicon that the translator had so far catalogued. NOT-BUG seemed like that only appropriate phrase, but she didn’t like the idea of the BUG word being in her name, even if it was preceded by negation.

“How about-[thought being processed]...”

Jeeyah looked up; the creature was looking back and forth across the superstructure, as if scanning for some piece of information.

“Jade-?”

swore she could feel the translator heating up with the effort of processing the vocalization.

[gemstone found in-shade of green-Jeeyah.]

The creature hadn’t said Jeeyah, it couldn’t, but it had thought it. Whatever else the word meant in the creature’s alien tongue, it wasn’t relevant. It’s a word for me. Her feelers thrummed. It made a word for me.

“NAME IS JADE.”

The creature’s mouth stretched wider, but somehow the show of teeth didn’t feel threatening.

“Nice-[positive] to meet-[primary encounter] you, Jade. I’m Sam-[self, name]”

“NICE MEET SAM.”

#one small step for bug #one giant leap for bug/giant-space-monkey relations #giant tiny #g/t #giant/tiny #g/t fluff #g/t writing #g/t fiction #asweetpea writing #asweetpeawriting #scifi #humans are megafauna