Originally Inspired As A Response To Some Posts By @banrionceallach And @marlynnofmany. Polished It Up

Originally inspired as a response to some posts by @banrionceallach and @marlynnofmany. Polished it up and decided it would make a good start to my lil story blog. Enjoy!

Not Our Usual Passengers

“What do you mean, there’s something wrong with the engines?” Captain El'ek'tak said incredulously. “You’re not an engineer, none of you humans are. You’re not even crew, you’re passengers! How dare you claim there’s something wrong with my vessel!?”

The outraged captain puffed up her air sacks, the feathery amphibian inflating as she stared down the trio of humans who had been travelling with them for the past week. They were not what she had come to expect when transporting humans, not one bit.

They were quiet, for a start. One of them didn’t even speak at all, just made an occasional tuneless humming sound when they were concentrating particularly hard on something. That was usually accompanied by a rocking back and forth that seemed remarkably similar to the Ke'tek autonomic stimulation ritual of focus.

Humans weren’t supposed to do that, were they?

The second of the human party cleared their throat softly - something they always did before speaking, which was quite a rare occurrence. The captain appreciated this, actually. So many humans she had transported interrupted her, or spoke over each other. The disrespect was really quite remarkable - but these humans waited patiently for others to finish, and this particular human’s throat-clearing was used similarly to the way El'ek'tak’s own species rustled their dorsal feathers to indicate their intent to communicate.

“Captain, apologies if we caused any offence,” at this the non-speaking human’s eyes widened in surprise, and they shook their head, clearly agreeing in a profoundly apologetic manner, without words. Their apologetic companion went on, “We can’t be certain there’s something wrong with the ship, we just thought you should know that it sounds wrong.”

The first human spoke again, nodding as they added to their companion’s statement.

“Yes, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to assert certainty when I should have stated a suspicion,” they gave a short smile, then their face quickly fell back into a neutral expression. The captain was a little taken aback by this, as that particular human seemed to very rarely express facially - quite the opposite to what she was used to with humans. It was a little disconcerting, but mostly because she had put a lot of effort into learning about human non-verbal communication.

She blinked, and stared at the three for a long moment. “It sounds wrong?” she repeated back, surprised. She had heard of some particularly sensitive species being able to diagnose certain engine issues from the vibrational frequencies, but usually this required extremely highly trained specialists.

The silent human nodded, and raised a handheld device, tapping something onto its screen for a few moments. The other two humans turned and waited patiently as their friend worked, and the Captain watched with a raised eyebrow (this wasn’t a natural Girurian expression. She had learnt it from her human studies, enjoyed how it felt, and how it could communicate so many things at once).

The human held up the device, and it emitted a gentle, slightly robotic tone, “Engine pitch changed one point five hours ago. Rising quarter octave every seven minutes. Hurt very bad fifty five minutes ago.”

Captain El'ek'tak stared for a moment at the human, her feathers rustling vaguely, as she tried to figure out a response. She looked between all three of them. “You can hear the engines, from your quarters half way across the ship?” she asked incredulously.

The most vocal of the humans spoke, while the throat-clearer nodded and the non-verbal one tapped on their device. “Oh yes,” they said, “we’re all sensitive to sensory input, at least for humans. Not a patch on Alirians sound sensitivity, or Hynoids electromagnetic spectral range, or the scent capabilities of the Teraxids - did you know they can smell a single smoke particulate in a standard atmospheric volume of 500 cubic metres?”

The human with the device gently put a hand on the speaker’s shoulder and smiled softly at their friend - who turned bright red and looked at the floor. “Sorry, xenobiological sensory discrepancies is my special interest right now,” they said, before taking a slight step back. It was at this point that the captain noticed that they were fiddling with a strange cube in their left hand, suddenly speeding up how they manipulated the piece of plastic, changing its configuration rapidly. It was a fascinating display of manual dexterity, and considered asking about it for a moment.

“Engine makes the whole ship vibrate. Can hear it any place,” spoke the little device, for it’s human, interrupting the captain's curiosity. The human’s head rose, making eye contact with El'ek'tak. The human’s gaze was intense - more so than even the other humans the captain had encountered. Eye contact was so rarely a positive thing, across a wide variety of species, but with humans she had met so far it had always been considered important. So the captain had learned to look them in the eyes. It had been a surprise when this group avoided it so much, rarely meeting her gaze for more than a split second. Early in the voyage, they had politely explained that all of them found it hard, and that they hoped she wouldn’t take offence. Frankly, El'ek'tak had been a little relieved, as all the eye contact with others of the odd little species had been quite exhausting.

But right now, the diminutive human who never spoke and could apparently tell when engines changed pitch, was looking into her eyes, and the Captain could practically feel this little traveller’s distress. It made her ankle feathers itch, and she was surprised to find herself understanding quite so much from just a look.

The captain nodded, and broke eye contact. The human looked down again, reverting back to their usual slightly-bowed stance.

“Let me check with engineering,” she said, and turned to the panel by her side, tapping a screen to raise the engine-room. Slipping comfortably into her own language, she greeted the pair of engineering crew on duty, and asked them about the state of the engines, particularly frequency or oscillation-related issues. She gave them the time to check on it, waiting silently, still as a statue, while the humans figeted, or rocked gently side to side. Their motion made her a little uncomfortable, but she had learnt that with these three, continuous movement wasn’t a sign of impatience, as it has been for many previous human passengers.

After a few minutes, the engineers returned to the screen, and exchanged a few explanatory sentences with the Captain, before tapping fingers to their foreheads respectfully. The Captain returned the gesture, and ended the call.

El'ek'tak turned back to the humans, to see that the non-verbal one was already tapping on their device. She couldn’t help but rustle her feathers, wanting to reassure the humans, but not wanting to interrupt this overt preparation for communication. The throat-clearing human raised a finger briefly, a clear request for a moment of time, and the Captain found herself surprised again at how wide a variety of perception these humans could contain within a single species.

“Pitch dropping rapidly. Expect normal range in four minutes. Thank you, captain,” said the device, as the human beamed a broad smile at her for just a brief moment.

El'ek'tak’s feathers rustled briskly, and then she replied. “Yes, that’s alright, thank you for bringing it to our attention,” she said, pausing to gather her wits. “The interphasic array had become slightly misaligned. It wouldn’t have been detected by our sensors for another hour, and then we would have had to pause the engines to manually readjust it. Catching it this early, we could simply vary the input parameters to re-compensate, and bring it back into synchronisation,” she explained, relaying the gratitude of her engineering crew.

The most vocal human flapped their hands back and forth vigorously, grinning with delight. “Oh, thank goodness, I’m so glad we could help, and that the engine noise will at least be consistent. We were worried it would be horrible for the whole trip, and we’d have to reconfigure our ear protection all the time! Genuinely helping out the engineers is so great!”

The captain’s eyes bulged with happiness, quite unable to resist the infectious joy of the gleeful human. “I am glad your trip will be more comfortable, and I will pass on how helpful you were to Central, once we reach our destination.”

The throat-clearing human, who had so consistently noticed the captain’s non-verbal communication, smiled too. They actually chuckled a little as they said, “More neurodiversity stuff to go in The Guide To Interstellar Travel With Humans,” seeming pleasantly amused.

El'ek'tak winced in embarrassment. She had already sent in three amendments to the guide regarding natural variations in human cognitive capabilities and behavioural norms since they had left Alpha Centauri, the two weeks of travel offering surprise after surprise from these passengers. But as far as she knew, the guide wasn’t acknowledged by humans - she didn’t even know the species was aware of the now rather sizeable volume of collected knowledge. It certainly wasn’t available in any human languages that she knew of - after all, what would be the point?

The human’s chuckle became gentler, and the other vocal one of the group raised a hand in an extremely close mimic of the Girurian comforting gesture - as close as could be with the wrong number of digits, anyway. The Captain couldn’t help but relax, the effort the human put into the gesture only adding to the positive impact. They flashed another brief smile as their companion explained, “Don’t worry captain. Most of us don’t bother with it, but I find it fascinating. It has been wonderful seeing the updates since our trip began. Please, the more human neurodivergency is documented, the easier space travel can be for people like us.”

There were a few more polite exchanges, during which the captain learned  that the strange device she had notice was an 'infinity cube,' which was apparently a kind of 'fidget toy.' Then the humans left her ready room; a quiet, somewhat surreal collection of beings who had rather put a lie to the notion that humans were uniformly capable of being brash and difficult to deal with.

But they certainly didn’t do anything to diminish the captain’s view of humanity as a species eternally full of surprises.

"Hey guys! 4 days and the rescue team will be here!...any luck with setting up that emergency shelter?" Quip looked towards the others.

They all groan and curse in response. The small group surrounded by pieces and parts and an instruction sheet.

"It's not hard...it's not! We have everything we need; food, water, first aid, enough to last us weeks! ...So why does our downfall have to because of a faulty packaging?!!" screams Glip throwing down the piece she was holding.

"We're not going to die! We'll just have to sleep in the shuttle tonight and bundle up close tonight..." sighs Quip.

The shuttle had crashed thanks to a malfunction on the navigation system which lead to the shuttle getting blindsided by a meteor shower.

No one was killed and the most injured would surely live and the planet they crashed on was a favorable one. They had plenty of emergency food and water but what they didn't have was a proper shelter. The planet they landed on was freezing cold in the night, reaching far below the negatives.

If only the emergency shelter included the much needed tools necessary to build it...

The night was cold and unforgiving. The shuttle creaked and groaned from the violent winds and accumulating snow on it's roof. The beings inside shivered and prayed that when they fell asleep they would wake up in the morning.

When morning came they had to dig themselves out of the shuttle. Over 3 feet of snow from last night. The roof sank in the center in a way that made everyone nervous.

"...just 3 days. We just have to make it through 3 more days and we'll be rescued." muttered Quip.

"If we don't get suffocated in our sleep that is...or freeze." grumbles Glip.

"Would it kill you to be positive?"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Unlike you I don't have a fur coat to keep me warm in the night and stayed up all night worried that I wouldn't wake up if went to sleep!"

"Stop yelling! You're making the others worry!"

"You-!"

"The human is awake! She woke up!" shouted a purple looking avian.

During the crash the only one to really get injured was the human on board, having hit their head on impact and been unconscious for the past 30 hours.

"...how is she?!" calls Glip

"She's lost it! She's digging through the snow like a lunatic!"

Glip and Quip share a look before heading to the other side of the shuttle where the avian was and looked.

There several yards away was the human who was digging through the snow with her bare hands.

"What's she doing?" asks Quip.

"No idea! She was already awake when I went to check on her looking for something in the shuttle and then made break for it once she saw the door was open...think she's brain damaged or something." they muttered.

"...someone should check on her." Glip says before shoving Quip forward.

..

After some arguing and reminders that out of the three of them he was the most people friendly Quip trudged out where the human was to check on her.

She had dug a hole nearly 4 feet deep and showed no signs of stopping. The look in her eyes and bloody bandages on her head made Quip feel she was too far gone to the Great Stars but he had to the right thing.

"...heeyyyy...Kim...what uh, watcha doing there?" he asked a safe 5 feet away.

"Looking for tools...need tools for the shelter." she muttered.

"Tools? ...Kim the shelter didn't come with tools; they weren't lost in he crash." he tried to gently explain.

"Not those, different tools. Good tools that every planet has."

"And what...tools, are those?"

"Rocks and sticks!"

"...great! Good luck on that!" he walked as fast he could to the others, practicing how to gently break the news that the human was broken.

...

Hours passed and the human Kim had founded 3 rocks of different sizes, some large sticks, and taken whatever pieces of the shuttle that had broken off and put them in a pile in front of the Emergency Instantaneous Shelter manual.

The others looked on with pity with some looking disturbed at how proud she was for her findings.

No one stopped her when she started to grab the pieces of the E.I.S. and smash them together with her rocks and hunks of broken metal. Nor when they heard the scraping and screeching of the metal shards she twisted against them. Without tools it was worthless...plus the determined manic look in her eyes scared everyone too much.

When night was starting to fall everyone had taken refuge in the shelter again. Everyone but the human who was too focused and entertained by the smashing of rocks and scratching of metal.

"Kim! Come inside! You'll freeze out here!" ordered Quip.

"Human! You don't have fur or anything to keep you warm during the night!" Glip shouted.

The human looked at them and smiled, waving and shouting that she was almost finished.

"...she's a little out of it but she's well enough to come inside when she should." Glip pushed her friend through the shuttle door and together they joined the sleep pile.

....

When Glip surfaced from the snow that landed on her face she screamed for everyone to leave. The roof had finally gave and was seconds away from dropping a mountain of snow onto them all.

She grabbed Quip and the purple avian, Kal, and dragged their half-asleep panicked bodies out of the shuttle. When out she watched with them and the others the shuttle concaving from the snow.

The wind and snow bit and scratched their faces and exposed flesh. The shrieks and howls from the dying shuttle, their only hope of surviving the nights, seemed almost organic. The fear and realization of their fate made them shiver more than the cold did.

"DONE! ITS FINALLY FINISHED! LOOK! LOOK AT WHAT I BUILT!!!" The human popped up from the other side of the destroyed shuttle, eyes wide and glowing from the flare she held for light.

When no one came forward fast enough for her liking she scrambled over and grabbed Kal and dragged them towards the thing she built.

"ITS NOT AS NICE AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WITH REAL TOOLS BUT I LIKE IT! YOU CAN HAVE SECOND DIBS OF WHAT SPOT YOU WANT!" she shouted over the howling wind.

The two disappeared from view for a minute before Kal popped his head out screaming.

She had built the Emergency Instantaneous Shelter. With nothing but the rocks and pieces of metal she found. It wasn't perfect; a wall or two was dented, the roof was scratched and somewhat held up by two strong sticks she dug up, but it was warm, safe, and dry.

"...how in the f*ck did you build this?" Quip shivered as he climbed inside.

"I just followed the instructions, its pretty simple really." the human smiled.

"...but you didn't have any of the tools!" Glip shrieked.

"Well after reading the instructions I realized that a good rock would perfectly substitute like half of the tools I didn't have. And the metals shards I found worked great as screwdrivers!"

Glip opened her mouth to argue, to scream that a rock was nothing like the sophisticated tools that great engineering minds had invented...until she realized the human was right. The tools simply added the instant to instantaneous shelter. With them you build this grand 20 person shelter in 2 minutes. Without them it would take hours of hard labor.

"...how did you know that a rock would be the perfect substitute?"

"...I don't know. Its basically instinct to most of us. The perfect tool for a simple job is a big heavy object... rock."

"...rock." Glip repeated.

"Rock." the human confirmed.

*weeks later*

"Oh my god it is instinct!" Glip screams as she watches a group of human younglings use rocks to crack open other rocks to simply see the shiny patterns on the inside at the indoor park she walks through. With others using sticks to dig up more rocks to smash.

Don't call us weird.

🤮

artist unknown