So you know how human vision is motion activated but hacked via their eyeballs constantly vibrating so they can still see things that aren’t moving
Humans are space orcs idea where other aliens don’t do that so looking at human eyes constantly shaking is real unsettling. Theres a lot of fun to be had about the intensity of eye contact, the almost hypnotic effects of their gaze, the difficulty in ambushing them, ect.
This also mean that The Polar Express, being uncanny to most humans because the eyes aren’t animated with micro-movements, is one of the few human films that can be aired on other planets without a content warning
Human brains being the envy of the musicians of the Galaxy due to the fact that music of all things comes to us so easily.
Human brains pick up rhythm and patterns so quickly compared to other species and alien musicians are heinously jealous. That’s not to say alien species don’t have music in any capacity, of course they do, but it’s less omnipresent in their cultures compared to ours. Music and singing to aliens are held to the same standard as sculpting marble. It’s a very difficult and precise art form that takes years of practice to get ‘right’.
And then there’s human children singing with each other as they jump a skipping rope. Using the beat to keep perfect time.
Humans sing to show each other every emotion under the sun. They sing to show reverence to their gods or ancestors or spirits. Humans will sing to anything that will listen and even things that won’t. Hell, Humans sing to pass the time. They sing when they can’t get a song out of their head.
That’s right, humans are so perfectly wired to understand music that their brains get hooked on musical stimulus and continually loop it. Involuntarily. Sometimes for days at a time. To the point of annoyance of the human.
Humans use music and rhythm to help them remember things because remembering something with a beat is easier than remembering something without one.
That’s like solving rocket science equations for fun to aliens.
So, I recently took a part-time job in a warehouse and apparently, THESE:
Are treated almost like... PETS??
Hear me out, NONE of them actually work like they are supposed to. One has a cracked wheel and makes horrible noises, other one will lower itself randomly, a lot of them lift only if you wiggle them in specific ways–
The point is, you rather quickly pick a favorite. And will look out for it CONSTANTLY or else it gets snatched within minutes.
That leads to me finding some interesting quotations written over these guys. Like:
See, there’s this joke going around among the other civilized species of the galaxy about the way humans have domesticated this one animal into so many different types that it’s hard to tell which Earth animals are, and are not, dogs. So I really felt like someone must have been messing with me when I looked at the large crate of animal cargo that we were supposed to deliver.
“Captain,” I said slowly. “These aren’t dogs. Well, one is, and it’s not the one you’d think.”
Captain Sunlight looked up at me, concern on her lizardy face. I could see how reluctant she was to ask me, “Are you sure?”
“Very,” I said, pointing at the Chihuahua. “That one’s a dog, one of the smallest kinds. But that is a ferret, that is a capybara, and that is a bear cub, and none of these should be in the same cage. Please tell me they’re going somewhere with an accredited zoo?”
Captain Sunlight turned to look at the client who had brought us the crate. He flicked his antennae and flexed pincher arms, giving away nothing but annoyance. Which wasn’t unusual for a Mesmer. “I was told they were dogs,” he insisted.
“They are not,” I said, pointing at the bear cub. “When that one grows up, it will be bigger than you, and able to rip the door off this ship.”
Captain Sunlight looked up in alarm. “How fast does it grow?”
“Not that fast,” I reassured her. “But it’s a bear. One of the biggest land predators currently living on Earth. Not a dog.”
The Mesmer hissed in irritation. “Can’t you just take them anyway? My supervisor wanted this to be handled quickly, and they’re contained safely enough.”
I was a little skeptical of that, but the four unlikely bundles of fur were behaving for the moment. The ferret was zipping about in a normal ferrety way while the bear cub and Chihuahua snuggled up to the capybara like it was an adoptive parent. Which it could have been for all I knew. We hadn’t moved the crate into our cargo bay just yet, pausing on the busy spaceport between their ship and ours. I asked, “Can I talk to your supervisor real quick?”
This hiss sounded exceptionally put-out, like an aggravated teenager forced to clean his room. “We need to take off.”
I retorted, “And I need to make sure these aren’t being sold as companion animals to someone unprepared for getting their ship ripped open.”
Captain Sunlight nodded, tapping the tablet with the details of this particular delivery. “The destination is a hub world with many species cohabitating. That tells us nothing.”
“Ugh, fine. Wait here.” The Mesmer stalked off back to his own ship, where he rapped on the door with a folded pincher and had a hissing conversation with someone just inside.
We waited. The ferret’s antics caused the bear cub to tumble over onto the Chihuahua, and now the three of them were roughhousing while the capybara watched calmly. This was clearly not the first time they’d shared a cage. Now that I was looking, I noticed that all four had collar dents in their fur, though they weren’t wearing any at the moment. The bear cub even had dents at its little wrists, and I did not like the look of that.
Someone left the other ship. I relaxed a bit at the sight of another human: a no-nonsense middle-aged woman who hurried over for a quick word with me specifically. I obligingly stepped aside, curious about what she had to say.
Her whispered explanation made it all better.
“I stole them from a circus,” she said. “Terrible place. I have a contact waiting to take them back to a sanctuary on Earth.”
“Oh, good!” I said in immense relief. “I was worried someone actually thought they were all dogs.”
She shook her head once. “That’s just for the paperwork. The circus owners are still looking for them. Think you can get in the air soon?”
“Yes I do,” I told her, giving Captain Sunlight a thumbs-up. The captain saw it and moved to finalize things on the tablet with the Mesmer. I told the other human, “This is not too different from how I got my cat.”
“Glad to hear it,” the human said with a smile. “I’ll be leaving them in good hands, then.” She didn’t press for an explanation of the cat thing, because we were all in a hurry here, and the circus types could come by at any time, and who needed that? Not us. She gave me a nod and a wink, then hustled back to her own ship.
I glanced around in what I hoped was a casual way. Not that I would necessarily recognize a representative of this particular terrible circus, but I’d encountered enough in my time that I felt like I’d sense the callousness rolling off them. There were entertainment groups that incorporated animals in a respectful way, of course, but those tended to not be the kind described as “terrible,” which inspired random humans to stage a spontaneous rescue.
I could relate.
Captain Sunlight asked me, “All good?” The other human was disappearing back into her ship while the Mesmer activated a hover lift under the cage.
I nodded. “They’re dogs for today. Fido, Ursula, Cappy, and Fairy. We’ll want to leave quickly.”
“I trust I’ll get an explanation once we’re up?”
“Yeah. You remember where Telly came from.”
Her expression turned stern. “Understood. I’ll tell Eggskin to get out the medical scanner, and Kavlae to prepare to leave immediately.”
“Thank you. Maybe Telly can say hi through the bars once they’ve cleared the health check.”
Already walking towards the cargo bay, Captain Sunlight gave me an amused glance. “I thought dogs didn’t like cats.”
I shrugged. “Who can say, with these four? A sniff through the bars should be fine. They’ll probably have lots to talk about.”
Captain Sunlight just smiled and hurried ahead.
I hoped they were healthy, and as tame as they looked. I was planning to spend a significant part of this trip in the hold, keeping our animal cargo comforted and calm. It wasn’t every day I got to pet a bear cub, much less a capybara and a ferret as well.
Pardon me, several dogs with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about them. Even if one looked exceptionally cuddly, another had little ratty feet, and a third was long and lightning-fast. Totally normal dogs heading back to Earth where they belonged.
~~~
(The cat thing is a reference to this story: Bargains at the Space Market)
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EDIT: There's a Part Two!
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These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.
Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.
The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).
My take on the Humans Fuck Yeah sci-fi genre is that the real "human specialty" is domestication.
Humans have an entire rogues gallery of animals on our planet we do interspecies cooperation with. Our social grooming instinct is so strong we are famously driven to pet anything and it is so advanced we instantly know where "the spot" is on every animal we see, even of species we never interacted with before.
We domesticated parasitic bacteria in our guts before we discovered fire!
Clark was just watching the remains of the building that had collapsed when a sea of humans—his fellow reporters—came running toward him, despite their imbalance and comparative slowness, weaving around rubble in stiff shoes and heavy coats, clutching microphones and cameras to their chests.
They shouted his chosen name as they approached.
“Superman!”
“Superman, were there any fatalities?”
“Can the audience get a comment on the incident?”
“Superman, over here!”
He could not help smiling as he lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground.
Immediately they crowded around him in a dense, warm cluster of bodies and noise, each one trying to angle themselves nearest without actually touching him—though several did, briefly.
Clark’s smile widened.
Rao! They were adorable!
He could see every tiny movement inside them. The pull and release of tendons under soft, soft, soft skin. The frantic contractions of little hearts hammering away in narrow ribcages. Lungs filling and emptying and filling again.
He felt like he was drowning in kittens. Tiny baby kittens.
One of them shoved a microphone so close to his face it nearly bumped his chin. Clark went a little cross-eyed trying to focus on it before looking back down at the reporter holding it.
The man froze immediately under direct eye contact.
Clark has to hold himself back from squeezing his cheeks.
Batman was exhausted.
Most humans were exhausted all the time, he’d noticed. Their little bodies weren’t built well. Too much stress weakened them quickly. Bad sleep patterns. Poor nutrition. Everything hurt them.
Clark, naturally, lifted Batman to put him to rest in any nearby surface. He trashed in Clark’s arms initially but otherwise didn’t protest.
Batman was, to Clark, the equivalent of a particularly hostile alley cat. Tiny. Violent. Malnourished. Feral beyond belief.
And somehow convinced he could fight things thousands of times larger than himself.
Did Batman sometimes forgot that he was just as human and fragile as the villains in Gotham?
Well, no harm done. Clark was not interested in fighting Batman at all.
