Humans Wanted

by Vivian Caethe (ed. )

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  What Makes Us Human?

  Sidekick

  WWHD: What Would Humans Do

  Then There Was Ginny

  The Dowager

  New Union Requirement

  The Sound of His Footsteps

  No Way This Could Go Wrong

  Through The Never

  Human Engineering

  Once Upon a Time There Was a Xurit Named Xcanda

  A Second Zion

  Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn

  About the Authors

  Many many thanks to all of our backers

  About the Editor

  Humans Wanted

  Copyright © 2017 Cuppatea Publications

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This collection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  Cover Design by Owl Quest Creative

  Cover Images from Shutterstock

  Published by

  Cuppatea Publications

  Denver, CO

  Printed in the USA

  Many thanks go to Iztarshi for giving me permission to use their post for this anthology. More thanks go to the backers who made this a reality (and who are listed after the stories with our thanks). And thank you, reader. You are wanted.

  Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so quickly, they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink under their epidermis for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.

  You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.

  That's the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it's weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It's even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you.

  But if you're hurt, if you're trapped, if you need someone to fetch help? You really want a human.

  When Iztarshi’s Tumblr post first came across my dash, the thing that made me so excited about the concept was that it showed humanity in a light that was not only positive in science fiction, but also useful. It was unusual to see human qualities presented as positive in a world where we so often like to condemn our faults and ignore our triumphs. When our good traits are mentioned, we get very excited about when presented with the opportunity to explore that and the inspiration to do so.

  When I shared the post, it exploded with comments from my fellow authors about the stories they’d write. It showed me that there was not only a need for these sort of stories, but a burning desire to express them.

  So often in science fiction, humans are seen as the least favorable members of galactic society. Humans are the base species from which all the other aliens can be compared to. Aliens are more culturally developed, they are better able to handle extreme planetary atmospheres, more scientifically advanced, or more cognitively capable. Humans are only good for cannon fodder or seen as a blight for reproducing so quickly. Very rarely do we see science fiction with aliens that view humans as a species in a particularly favorable light.

  For the most part we are seen as the trash species of the galaxy, the ones most likely to ruin everything. In some cases, humans are somewhat useful, but for the most part they are either independent or an inconvenience. It is rare to see science fiction in which humans are viewed as contributing members of interplanetary society.

  This is a shame because humans, despite our faults, are wonderful. We are ingenious, creative, caring, persistent. We fight for what we believe in with a ferocity that transcends reason and have hearts that are capable of so much love that they can break from its lack.

  When I was reading submissions for this anthology, I searched for the stories that most embodied the heart of the original prompt. These twelve stories show not only who we are, but who we could be. They speak of the human experience from a human point of view and also show us from an alien point of view. The tales give a template of our future, and the relationships we can forge in a galactic civilization that might just welcome us.

  These stories span the breadth of the universe where humans do more than fight in wars and die in pointless battles. In this anthology, humans travel to the edge of the galaxy and through their unique nature, inspire those with whom they come into contact.

  Some of these stories show humans as helpers, others as rescuers. The humans in these stories are clever, brave, determined, and above all, human. Their compassion transcends what we would normally expect of ourselves and shows the entire universe what we can be. They visit worlds and places beyond our wildest imaginations and yet they still bring parts of humanity with them to remind us who we are.

  It is significant that many of these stories are written from alien points of view. Writing truly alien perspectives, ones that share nothing with the human experience, has often been recognized as difficult, if not entirely impossible. Each of the species in these stories shows us how we view our pride, our despair, our wonder through an alien lens and through that lens, we can see ourselves as we are and as we can be.

  We are better than we think we are.

  We are wanted.

  Tinis huddled in the smallest possible bundle underneath the moving ramp, trying to pick out the sounds of her kidnappers’ footfalls among the other myriad noises. All the sensations of the outer world hammered like a whirlwind of pins and spikes. She hurt so much she had to force herself not to cry out in pain. Everything that touched her seemed to be trying to steal some of her energy. She had to conserve all her strength, not let it be expended in terror. She was a very young child a long, long way from home. Where were Mo and Ro and Ga?

  The place where the evil ones had held her for three day-cycles smelled of meadows and dreams, a sure sign that drugs had been floated on the air. Her pale blue skin still tingled where the tiny, aerosolized droplets had settled. She did not yet understand chemistry, but she understood durations. Its evaporation should have resulted in continued efficacy at preventing ultraviolet light from striking her skin and reenergizing her system, but it did not.

  She forced herself to remain conscious while the evil ones’ guard went away from its post for recharging. It was a similar mechanical protector to the kind her family used. Tinis knew how long their systems could go without intense bombardment of proton particles, because sometimes her own caretaker had to undertake energy restoration in the way she needed to feed. She had waited until the mid-darkness, when the nourishing ultraviolet light had been turned off and the evil ones were certain she had fallen asleep. As soon as she sensed the protector’s stores lowering to suboptimum levels, it had withdrawn. The metacharge would not take long.

  Tinis had seized her opportunity, and fled, leaving the petals of the borrowed sleepflower tucked securely around the cushiony pad at its center, as if she still lay there. She took nothing with her but the white smock and soft booties she had been wearing when abducted.

  Outside the chamber where she had been held, she recognized nothing. Other sleepflowers bloomed in rooms around the center stem of the building, meaning that more Ocetians lived here; whether prisoners or not, she couldn’t tell. During her
incarceration, she had not sensed anything beyond the walls of her room. Everything was densely shielded, blocking her abilities. When she had emerged into the open air, sensation slammed into her like a physical force. She had run, desperate for peace from the thrumming of life forms and machinery, and violent, selfish thought. Her slim, almost scrawny body, had been easy to conceal in between the ribs of the homeflower, but now she was at the mercy of the outside world. Her prison had also been the only respite for lengths in any direction. The travel ramp under which she had eventually sheltered let out a soothing harmonic above its heavy rumble, dampening the frightening noises somewhat.

  Feeding intruded upon her thoughts now. Since her escape, she had absorbed a little of the ultraviolet light from the blue sun that Ocet circled, which restored her mental faculties. Now she needed sustenance to support her bodily functions. She concentrated, sending her sensing mind out to the farthest distance she could reach. Nowhere could she smell the violet sunberries that she and her kind needed to live. They had plenty—oh, so succulent!—in the confines where she had been held. Sunberries tasted of syrupy, spicy warmth, like an embrace from Mo or Ga, but she wouldn’t return to that place.

  Her senses touched many unsuitable foodstuffs, the kind favored by the many visitors to Ocet, as well as the visitors themselves. Three different races had come a few year-turns ago to trade for sunberries and whatever the Ocetia could offer. Ro said often, when xi thought Tinis wasn’t listening, that they had worn out their welcome. Their cultures had changed Ocet, and not all for good.

  The numbers of alien strangers in the city overwhelmed her with their strange thoughts and jarring energies. She drew her sensing mind back to her with a snap, and curled in on herself, wrapping her four delicate arms around her two thin knees. Slender, yellow-skinned Pidirians, with their sharp minds intruding into everything, went here and there in their fast-moving personal sleds like living lightning bolts. Ocetians avoided them but for formal occasions when their energy was muted by societal agreement. Various-tinted Humans, big and slow-moving, ambled along. Ocetians felt as though they were big children, wondering at everything they saw. Hot, red Ne’ru’bu seemed angry at everything. Their thoughts burned her when she touched one of them.

  At her age, she would not normally have been acquainted with any of these. The shielding in her family’s domicile protected the delicate young within from any outward energy emissions. She wouldn’t have gone abroad unless she was in a transport capsule. She had had many visitors, though, once Ga learned, quite by accident, that Tinis could detect the presence of even trace amounts of horom, a rare and precious mineral. Ga had been excited because that sensitivity meant Tinis could hope to become a transporter, one who connected points of space to one another. Her mental abilities homed in on those tiny particles of the transuranic element and caused a chain reaction that resulted in instantaneous transference.

  He sought out investors who might sponsor Tinis’s training, meaning their humble home hosted numerous wealthy Ocetia families as well as some strangers. Ga trotted her out in late evening hours, when she would rather be tucked into her sleepflower, and the adults engaged in deep discussions over her head, both literally and figuratively.

  Screech! Thud thud thud! Tinis cowered as noise erupted above her. Two—no, three—personal conveyances had attempted to move into the same lane at the same time. By the whining, one of the capsules had been too damaged to move. Pieces from the conveyances tumbled down over the edge of the roadway and scattered on the clay near Tinis. Arguing in more than one language boomed out. She felt the anger of a Ne’ru’bu, strained words from more than one Ocetian, and slow rumbling from a Human. The shouting stopped as another Ocetian joined them, probably a Peacemaker. Tinis wanted to reach out to xir to help her get home. Tinis crept partway from her hiding place, waiting. After a long time, the Peacemaker had xir information and insisted the others move on. Tinis’s energy sagged. She was getting so hungry, but she feared the evil ones would come back.

  “Hello,” a voice came from above, startling her back into her crevice. A Human peered down at her. “Don’t run.”

  He—Humans were always ‘he’ to the Ocetians; it was so difficult to tell their many genders apart—had jumped down from the moving path to gather up pieces from the wreck. He hunkered down to look beneath the path. She blinked at him. He was huge, much bigger than Ga, clad in dark green, like a healthy plant, with bronze-colored skin and fleshy protuberances that ran horizontally above his eyes, down the middle of his face and around the edge of his mandible, and coarse black fuzz on the top of his head. They were so unlike Ocetians, who were hairless, with smooth, almost spherical heads. “Are you hungry?”

  His Ocetian language was terrible, so bad that she could only understand him by prying into his emotions to sense his concern. Humans responded to head bobs, so she nodded. He pulled on his back and a portion of it came away with an alarming tearing noise—no, that was the kind of container they often bore to contain personal goods. From the cloth bag, he brought out two brightly colored commercial packets and offered them to her. She wouldn’t put out any of her hands to a stranger. He sensed that, and put them on the ground instead. Tinis hesitated until he backed away, then reached for the little bags.

  The first contained a heavy protein concentrate, unsuitable for young like her. She pushed it away. The other—oh, relief! —contained sunberries. She tore it open and poured the round purple nodules into her hand. They were dried and covered in sucrose powder, rendering them into candy. Humans liked things very sweet. Tinis gulped down three, and immediately felt better. The syrupy sweetness spread throughout her mouth and down her throat. She could almost trace the improvement as her skin regained its tone and natural defenses against outward impediment, and her body stopped fighting against her mind. She put the bag on the ground and poked it toward the Human with a tentative foot.

  “Don’t you want more than that?” he asked. The Human seemed puzzled that she rejected the first envelope and left the second almost full, but how could such a primitive understand their superior metabolism? She had eaten what she needed for restoration.

  “Thank you for your kindness,” she said, rising to her feet. She steadied herself with one set of arms and brushed her light garment with the other. “I must go home now.”

  “You’re just a child,” he said, and his internal senses broadcast protective worry. “I should accompany you.”

  Tinis straightened herself. “That will not be necessary. I can get home.”

  But how? She was so far away she couldn’t sense any of her loved ones. She glanced over the edge of the roadway. Broken pieces of the carry-capsules lay strewn in heaps. No stop for public conveyances was close by. She would have to walk until a kind stranger halted.

  “All right,” he said. “Then maybe you can help me. My taxi got broken up in the accident, and I don’t have any way to get to where I’m going, or where I’m supposed to go. All those others left me here by myself.”

  Tinis opened one small palm. “The Peacemaker should have helped you. Xi was asking if you needed assistance.”

  The Human frowned. “Is that what she was saying?” He sighed and sat down on a chunk of broken capsule. “This place gets me all confused. I’m supposed to visit a family on the far edge of town, but it isn’t a town at all the way I know places. And there’s no edges. You live in flowers, and they’re scattered all over the map, not in any kind of order I can see.”

  He prattled on. Tinis didn’t understand all his words, but she was willing to help him.

  “Do you know the shape of the flower you seek?” she asked. “Our homes call to us in shape, scent and size, not lines as in your world.”

  His lumpy face crinkled as he thought.

  “Six petals,” he said promptly, and drew upon the air with his hands. “Blue. They have pointy tips that touch up at the top of the blossom. It’s kind of pretty.”

  Tinis closed her eyes to think. “My h
ome has six petals like that one, so you need to look among ones that stand twelve to fifteen heights high, perhaps in the meadow where mine lies.” She gulped, but felt she had to be brave for this helpless Human. “Come with me. We will find your friends.”

  “Maybe we can ask your progenitors how to find my destination,” the Human said, looking skeptical.

  “Why? I can read flower-heights as well as they. Better than Ro.”

  The fleshy mouth spread sideways, and the square white bones set in its jaw appeared. “Who’s Ro?”

  “What are you called?” Tinis asked, not comfortable discussing family with a Human.

  “Rish,” he said. “It’s short for a much longer name that I don’t like. What do they call you?”

  “M’Tinis’desim Oghal Yuirimha,” she said, with a mischievous glance. “When I am older and have gained accomplishments it will be longer still.” Rish looked dismayed at having to form all those syllables. “But you may say ‘Tinis.’ That is my use-name.”

  “Thanks!” he said, gusting a breath out. His breathing vent, unlike a good Ocetian, had a strip of flesh that bifurcated the opening at the bottom, so the air divided and went in two directions. “Now, if you’ll just help me get where I’m going, Lady Tinis, I’ll be very grateful.”

  He looked around, nervously peering at the short, pale-lilac homeflowers close by and the capsules buzzing past them on the moving roadway. Humans were even more foolish than she thought they would be. How could a grown being get lost so easily? He seemed afraid of not knowing where he was. How was it that her small kind could identify such subtle points, and big people like Humans and Ne’ru’bu could so easily get lost?

  “I will protect you,” she said, reaching up to take his big, rough hand in both of her right ones.

  “Thanks!” he said again, squeezing her long fingers gently. “I’ll be your sidekick.”

  “What does that mean?” Tinis asked, trying out the harsh syllables on her tongue.