7 Days, 7 Stories — Day 1

[axael]

7 Days, 7 Stories: Day 1 — April 21st

🕮 Day #1 on getyourwordsout.

Please enjoy this short story about a lost alien. :)

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Tourist Ba-Teka

The spaceport district gave way too easily to streets filled with shops, entertainment, and a multitude of fellow tourists, and Ba-Teka found herself swept along with the crowd as the rumbling of the ship she’d arrived on grew distant. She was the only one of herself within vibrational range, the mostly human crowd masking all communication while, at the same time, casting the shape of every shop front lining the street and every cobble beneath her locotomors into stark relief. She stepped delicately around a very small human shrieking dense ripples into the air, tugged the long drape of her clothing out of the way of an open-top passenger vehicle piled with an indeterminate number of small, furry bodies, and tried desperately not to be overwhelmed by the general clamor. Half-dizzy with the novelty of it, she tried to take in everything at once.

Nothing could have prepared her to feel like she was drowning in such vivid noise. It was as invigorating as it was challenging, trying to gain her bearings when the cacophony of alien steps on stone felt to her like the most thunderous of downpours. She felt so small, though her quadmass remained raised above the level of most of the crowds’ heads. Small and, perhaps, humble. And, of course, exhilarated by everything here that catered to such foreign senses, the likes for which she had no frame of reference.

The surrounding aliens refused to approach into range of her graspers, leaving her within a bubble of polite distance. She was forced onward by the crowd’s eddies until the street widened and she was able to swiftly stride to a nearby bush and plant her locomotors through its branches into the soft dirt beneath. The bulk of the foliage kept all eight of her slender limbs from being jostled.

The bench next to the bush remained unoccupied, though she could read the attention she was getting in the shift of weight in human strides, and the direction of verbal speech toward and away from her between communicating aliens. She had never spoken to a living human before, and the prospect that today might be the day left her wringing her graspers together in both excitement and nerves. Her graspers twitched towards her speaking-face in anticipation.

Except all the aliens were speaking so fast, human and otherwise. She struggled to keep up with what they were saying in their messy language, with its rhythms less important than the vibrations themselves. Speaking was so much easier than trying to decipher what was being said.

Which reminded her. She fumbled her translation device out from the satchel slung across her quadmass and clutched it in two of her graspers. The little tetrahedron buzzed with a cheerful waking-up rhythm and then, a moment later, the translations themselves kicked in and started giving her snippets of every passing sound-based conversation.

“…at my place? You know you want to. My treat!”

“…right down the road, to the left, a little hole-in-the-wall…”

“I never thought I’d find one. You have no idea how long…”

“Covalent—no. No, covalent bonds. Right. That’s what I said.”

She curled her third and fourth grasper around the translator as the device spat out disconnected nonsense. Nervous fluting whispered through her locomotors as she surveyed the individuals crossing the park-like open area at the center of the intersecting roads. There was no indication which way the spaceport was from here, not that she could feel.

She’d merely wanted to take a peek at a mixed-population world. Now she would need a map or a guide to assist her back to the ship. Directions at the very least.

Again a little frisson of excitement zipped through her. She could ask a human.

The courtyard park was lined with small eateries catering to what appeared to be a singular ethic group of one of the human-variant species. However, several shopfronts had signs with lettering raised enough for her to read, all signaling adapted dishes prepared for her physiology.

Also, now that she was sensing for them, there were similar messages in relief on several of the vertical posts at the various street corners, directions to other courtyards, though not the spaceport. The raised letters felt like a little glimpse of something familiar mixed in with all of the unfamiliar. She shivered, pleased and thrilled, and lamented that she could not tarry long enough to try a human meal designed just for her. The refueling stop was not meant to take very long, and she hadn’t meant to go so far.

Extracting herself from the bush, she tugged her limb drapes away from grasping twigs and slid her locomotors free. The nearest shop with a sign she could read seemed to indicate it was some kind of hot drink shop. With her maw on the underside of her quadmass and the act of dining nearly too intimate to be done in public, a straw that could withstand heat sounded alarmingly risqué and cosmopolitan.

She headed straight for the shop, translator device held tight to her quadmass as she placed each locomotor carefully so as not to slip upon the street cobbles. If they had readable signs, the shop proprietors would hopefully be more understanding of her plight and more likely to assist her than one of the random aliens passing her by in the street. It felt rude to try and stop one of those.

A little bell above the door loosed sweet, high-frequency vibrations as she ducked her quadmass through the doorframe and rose once more to her full height. The shop stilled only a little as she did, her appearance apparently not unusual enough for more than a passing comment buzzed into the flat of her graspers by her translation device. That boded well for her.

Her attention was all on the counter, when she felt the brush of hair against the lower curve of her quadmass and, an instant later, a human nearly took out two of her locomotors. She flinched, losing some of her balance. The human stumbled backward in surprise, and she herself had to perform a quick dancing spin upon her six stable locomotors lest she tumble to the ground herself. The human’s hot drink cup flew forward out of its hand, and she shot one of her graspers towards the cup to catch it before it hit the ground.

“Terribly sorry,” the human said immediately, before it had regained its balance. “I wasn’t looking—oh, you’re not—you’re—oh! Are you alright?”

She curved one of her locomotors up to face-height for the human and forced air through the limb to allow her to respond using its sound-based language. “No harm has come to me.” She extended her grasper with the human’s hot drink, unspilled. “Nor to your beverage.”

“Oh, wow. Wow, thanks! That was a close one. You’re sure you’re alright?”

“I am sure,” she said, amused, though she did not know how to convey that amusement in any way that the human might understand. Just having the opportunity to even worry about it was heady.

“Were you here for a drink?” the human asked. “I can get you one, to make up for almost taking you out at the knees.”

“I do not wish for a drink,” she replied with a delicate shiver. She would need to work up to that kind of public lack of modesty. “However, may I impose upon you to escort me back to the primary spaceport? I fear I am lost.”

“I’m so sorry. Of course, sure. Let’s get you back. You’ve a ship?”

“Indeed. Refueling is likely nearing completion, and this district is unfamiliar to me.”

Its face creased in a way that she could not yet understand the contours of, unused to the dampening of vibrations inherent to human flesh as she was. After it performed this expression, it beckoned her out of doors once more. When she had followed, it set off down a different street than the one she entered the courtyard park area from.

They walked in stillness for a span, adjusting their strides so that they might walk side-by-side. She had to shorten her steps to make sure she did not outpace it. Her long, slender locomotors had a far greater stride than its shorter, trunk-like pair. As she was still somewhat concerned about losing her stability on the cobbles, she did not much mind taking more care in placing her locomotor tips.

That, and she wished to attempt to use her speaking-face. Shifting her quadmass balance so that she was walking upon only her four below-midline locomotors, she gleefully pulled out her brand-new speaking-face. The vendor at the spaceport before she embarked on her journey had told her that the human face inscribed upon the surface was designed to indicate enjoyment and contentment. She lifted the oval and laced her four above-midline locomotors into a four-cross pattern with the oval at the center.

“Thank you for the gift of your time,” she said, tipping her speaking-face in what she hoped read as a gracious nod. Forcing air through each of the limbs held in the speaking pattern around it left her oddly breathless.

The human had been sipping its hot drink, but at her speech, it nearly dropped its cup again.

“Holy—” the human said, its speech vibrations fainter than they had been. A little stronger, it said, “Yeah, no problem. I really should look where I’m going.”

“Likely,” she said, and this time she could tilt her speaking-face to indicate the amusement she felt. “Though I have benefited from your inattention. May I also have the gift of your name?”

It responded with another creasing expression. “Lowen. Name’s Lowen. And you are—?”

“Ba-teka,” she said, clicking out her personal rhythm by striking her speaking limbs against one another. The hollow percussion rang out, and she followed it up with the vibrations she’d chosen in sounds. “Buttercup.”

“Buttercup!” Lowen laughed, then tried to replicate her rhythm by tapping it against its drink cup as they walked. It did very well. It had interacted with others of herself in the past. Then, waving a hand at her quadmass, it asked, “Because you’re such a bright yellow?”

“Just so,” she said, pleased once more. Finding a speech vibration with satisfactory meanings that also matched her name had occupied herself and others of herself for many adolescent learning days that should have been dedicated to other subjects. It was good to have her choice appreciated by this very first human.

Lowen’s face creased once more and it tapped out her rhythm, Ba-teka. “Lovely name.”

Fluting in faint embarrassment, she told it, “Please do not flatter me. I have never spoken to a human before.”

“Sorry, sorry.” It laughed in several great waves. “I’ve never spoken to someone using a speaking-face before, even though we’ve several of you on our crew. I thought speaking-faces were super formal?”

She tipped her speaking-face from side to side to indicate that such an assessment was half-correct. “The only way to become adept enough for formality is to practice with an audience. My speaking-face will be saved for formal occasions upon arriving at my destination.”

“You’re impressively expressive with it already.”

“What did I say about flattery?”

Lowen laughed again, then pointed at the cross-street that they needed to take. The shopfronts finally seemed familiar. The signposts now had directions back to the spaceport on them, unlike those in the courtyard. She was almost disappointed to know she was so close to leaving the planet. Though she’d only spoken to this human briefly, she found she wished to continue to do so in the future.

Honestly, there was no reason why she shouldn’t.

Feeling emboldened by the human’s friendliness and a little drunk off of the ever-increasing vibrations of the crowds as they found their way back, she asked, “Might I contact you further? After this?”

“You’d want to?” It sounded surprised.

“Why wouldn’t I? You have been very kind.”

The two of them strolled to a stop in the center of the street, the entrance to the spaceport down a broad avenue she could likely manage to navigate with little trouble. The translator still tucked into one of her graspers began to vibrate with an announcement demanding she and all the other passengers return to the ship as swiftly as possible.

“Sure,” Lowen said. “Let me give you my contact.”

“Thank you.” Then, unable to help herself, she reached out with a locomotor and gently laid it against Lowen’s throat to feel its speech vibrations directly through the skin.

To the human’s credit, it didn’t jump at the touch, just looked up at her with deeper creases on its face and said, “Thank you. You rescued my coffee. I pretty much owe you my life.”

She tilted her speaking-face to convey amusement once more. This human was very funny. “If that is so, then you must contact me if you need any further rescues. It would not do for me to be careless with your life.”

The low chuckle in its throat was a very pleasing sensation.

She hoped that this would not be the last she felt it.

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I hope you enjoyed! This was written in a day and only briefly proofed.

Prompt: Tropy meetcute between a human and a space alien.

Return to: Axael's 7 Days, 7 Stories Masterpost