"What are we celebrating?" I asked.
"Anything you like!" My friend answered.
"Shouldn't we wait for a holiday?"
"What is a holiday?"
"Like, the Fourth of July, Independence Day or Christmas!"
"I have no idea what you are referring to. There is no independence day anymore and your christmas is long gone with the full separation of church and state."
"I guess that makes complete sense. Space station life has to be different." I looked around at different humanoid species and nodded. "Yeah, complete sense."
Wandering about, I tried to focus on my task of cleaning trash receptacles, but was constantly distracted my trying to understand all the new languages. I had a language chip inserted, since I was a public servant, but you had to see how their languages actually worked before you could use them.
I was shooed away again and again, many thinking me a lousy human spy. That was the worst part, humans were low species on the ladder here. We were treated much like immigrants on 21st century Earth.
Sweeping up a pile of unknown material, I heard a party inside a room. Peeking through a crack in the draperies, a parade of humanoids were carrying another of their clan around the room. Well, carrying might be too specific a word. They were an airborne/humanoid species, so very long and feathery looking, so it really took almost the whole group to carry him, or it, or her. Looked like fun in any case!
Each species had their own section of the space station, except the high-gravity folks, who had to be divided, due to their weight and width. Most of us were balanced well though.
My favorites were the species from Canus5, the canine/humanoid species. I loved them! They were so friendly and wanted to play all the time. Their leaders had a rough time keeping them in check and I told no one how I got them to mind me. Had to do with a bit of meat product in my right pocket...
My home side of the space station was boring. everyone missed Earth or fast food or TV or something else just as trivial. The leaders were fine, of course. Well, fine enough after they were castrated of being number one.
My pod was shared with my sister, brother and our aged aunt. They were sleeping, as usual. I awakened them with food and juice. They moaned and ate and settled back again to sleep.
"Wake up! There is a whole new world out that portal! Come meet the Canines, at least. They are a dog/humanoid species and tons of fun!" They ignored me.
I bathed in the dry mist and dressed for an evening out. It was the Canines celebration of victory over their enemies from the planet Lupine, the wolf species.
I walked right into the celebration, well known by now, and started to dance around like they did, kinda on all fours and kinda upright. I even learned their woofs and barks that meant celebration. We had a ball!
At home, I slept, but was ready to get back to work. My family was pathetic and needed to go back to Earth.
***
My prayers were answered when we received word that a ship from the ISS would be docking and had room for thirteen to return to Earth. My family was first in line, thanks to an aunt of 92 years old.
They were gone and I had the pod to myself, for now. I knew they would find me a roommate and it could even be a man. I hoped it was!
My boss, one of the Lowlanders from the high gravity planet, looked up at me at work and shook his head. "They wanna know if you will bunk with a male." I nodded.
"They also wanna know if you'll bunk with another species."
"Depends on the species... Canine for sure." I frowned, wondering what was on his mind.
He nodded again and I went back to work.
There was a Lowlander in my pod and he was dressed in full grandeur for their annual celebration of life.
"Hello!" I said happily. He turned with a start and looked me up and down.
"A human for a roommate?" He was disgusted.
"Yep! Sorry you have a problem with me," I wasn't. He left, thank goodness.
I was told that I would be reassigned to another bunk-mate shortly.
I was told that I would be reassigned to another bunk-mate shortly.
No comments:
Post a Comment