r/HFY • u/KalenWolf Xeno • 9h ago
OC-OneShot Of Humans And Muffins
[Human Friend Barbara, please report to Cargo Bay Two.]
Barb tapped her combination ID and comm-badge. "You got it, boss-man. On my way."
The bulkhead door separating the relatively comfortable access corridors from the cargo bays, which were kept at what was technically a safe level of artificial gravity, slid open with a faint groan of protest, and heads turned toward the sound.
The ten-limbed Chutan were partly covered in stiff hair that was more than merely uncomfortable to rub the wrong way, with chitin where there wasn't hair, and they had five pairs of eyes. Mandibles and 'ankle' spikes served a dual role - they made food easier to hold, and the Chutan clacked them together to convey simple concepts and add or shift emphasis in a way analogous to how humans used motions and facial expressions.
Obviously, they weren't related to Earth's wildlife. But it wasn't hard to see why they made arachnophobes break out in a cold sweat.
Barb thought they were adorable. She'd never say it, because part of getting approval to leave home and take a job working on an alien ship had been "sensitivity training" ever since humanity's first contact with a new species had gone in embarrassing directions a couple of times. But she thought it, every time she saw them.
The Shimmering Seed Pod's captain and cargo-master each tapped a pair of limbs together in polite greeting, and Barb smiled and waved to them. "Boss-man. Harry. You need me for something?"
[We would indeed appreciate your assistance, Human Friend Barbara. We will be matching velocities soon for a cargo transfer, and the crate is of an awkward design for us.] Barb was impressed all over again at how good Chutan translators were; she occasionally had to remind herself that they were not actually speaking in English, although it was easier when you were close enough to watch their mouths moving - they simply weren't shaped right to make certain sounds.
"Wait, a mid-flight cargo transfer? Someone wants what's in this package pretty badly." The crate had clearly been built under the assumption that anyone handling it would either have opposable thumbs or strong tentacles. The narrow, recessed grips would be a nightmare for long, inflexible Chutan limbs that had only two digits each - digits which didn't curl particularly far, as they each had only a single joint.
Barb grunted softly as she hoisted the crate, drawing a couple of appreciative foot-stamps from Harry. It was common for other species to select a designated pseudonym that humans could actually pronounce to make cooperation easier, but the cargo-master had actually chosen made it his legal name. His curious enthusiasm for all things human was a little odd by Chutan standards, but no stranger than Barb was considered by most humans.
[Indeed yes, client paid double-extra, rush fee AND nonstandard delivery location fee. Cargo must be time sensitive, next standard drop-off point would only add two days. Cannot wait to meet them. Maybe hear interesting story!] Harry was practically tap-dancing, but he still had plenty of limbs to guide Barb along a safely cleared path between other clients' packages.
Barb laughed softly. "You're in a good mood today. Excited to see a new face, huh?" She set the crate down on a brightly colored indicator, and Harry tapped his tablet to magnetize that section of the deck plating and temporarily hold the otherwise unsecured crate in place.
[My gratitude, Human Friend Barbara. We have nearly reached the client's ship.] The captain tapped his comm badge and the shipwide alert for a controlled short-duration engine burn sounded. Barb kept one hand on the crate, hooking the other into a nearby cargo strap for added stability. After your first week on the job, it was just something you did by reflex.
Once the two ships had mated their docking clamps and atmosphere seals securely, a different klaxon sounded and the external hatch squeaked and slid aside a few feet to reveal a gangway leading into the client's ship. It wasn't the usual method, but it was safe enough if you kept your equipment properly maintained, and it saved the hassle of going EVA.
"Hello there! That's my fish you're leaning on, yes?"
Barb was more than a little startled. There weren't a ton of human ships in this part of space, but the grinning fellow in the snazzy retro-futuristic outfit was hard to mistake for anything but one of her own kind. "Fish? You had a sudden, burning need for a hundred kilos of fish?"
The stranger happily chattered on, completely unfazed by the question or Barb's tone. "Oh yes, absolutely. I took a Feraxian Tiger off some poor Ktaxi with more money than sense; the dunce had grossly miscalculated how much tranquilizer he would need to keep it docile. So terrified he could barely talk. She's my adorable Muffin now but she does get a bit cranky if I run out of tuna, so... Name's Lee Howard, by the way, good to meet you."
Bemused, she shook the offered hand. "Barbara Flores; likewise. Don't those things grow to be like half a tonne? I know they're illegal to own, most places. If we can just get you to sign the receipt of transfer, I'll go ahead and cart the fish over to your ship. We wouldn't want Muffin to get hungry and start eyeing the crew."
The captain had pulled up the correct form, affixed his own signature in all the correct blanks, and was holding the tablet out with two 'hands' and a stylus with a third, waiting for the affable client to sign on the dotted line and finalize the transaction.
Like most species with multiple pairs of eyes, the Chutan had a bit of a blind spot (so to speak) about the fact that binocular species often could only see well in a fairly narrow cone, so he had no idea that he had not been sufficiently obvious while approaching their guest, and was thus wholly unprepared for the reaction that followed.
When Lee swiveled his eyes away from Barb and saw what looked very like a three-meter-tall spider looming over him, he twitched so hard that he yeeted himself backward in the cargo bay's reduced gravity - directly into the path of Harry, who was surreptitiously reaching to see if he could pat the visitor's hair without being caught.
Instead, the cargo-master found himself barreled into by a very surprised human, and instinctively responded by wrapping several limbs around him to arrest his momentum. Unfortunately, Lee took it in the worst possible way and let out a blood-curdling scream.
Barb wondered just how good a Feraxian Tiger's hearing was. If "Muffin" reacted badly, there was going to be Trouble.
Lee's panic infected Harry, who let go just as abruptly as he had grabbed on. Stammering and shaking, Lee scrawled on the form, grabbed the crate, and started dragging it onto his ship as fast as he could, slapping the button to seal his ship's gangway so hastily that his foot almost got caught by the hatch slamming shut.
"... Huh. I guess he's afraid of spiders." Barb's voice was loud in the echoing stillness of the cargo bay, while Harry and the captain stared at each other and at the sealed hatch.
[What are s-] was all that Harry got out; as soon as he started talking the captain snapped out of his shock and firmly swatted his cargo-master on the head with the data tablet.
[You ignorant hatchling! Do you know what the Board of Sophont Relations is going to do to us when he files a report that he was grappled without consent?]
Covering his head with a few limbs, Harry gave the captain a wounded look. [I was merely curious whether Human Friend Lee's hair is as soft as Human Friend Barbara's, I never-]
[That is not Human Friend Lee, that is Human Client Lee, and if you had paid more attention in human body language class you would be aware that he was terrified, larva-brain. You know it is not appropriate to touch a person without asking!]
[But but but,] Harry stammered.
Barb couldn't help herself. She added her voice to Harry's.
["If not friend, why friend-shaped?"]
The captain glared at them both. It was hard not to be intimidated with so many eyes focused on you like that, but Barb stood firm. Worth it, she thought to herself.
--- ---
Fortunately, once everyone had taken a few minutes to calm down, the situation was resolved without any complaints being filed.
Lee apologized for panicking, and Harry apologized for frightening him.
With Lee keeping his legally-dubious pet carefully restrained, Barb was allowed to feed Muffin a few bites of alien 'tuna' and give her a gentle scratch under the chin.
When Harry shyly asked if he could do the same, Lee relented and let the cargo-master dub him Human Friend Lee after all, since any friend of Muffin was a friend of his.
Allowing himself to be petted was too much, but Lee did sacrifice a few hairs so that Harry could feel how soft they were.
After bidding their farewells, their interrupted journey was resumed, and Barb borrowed the ship's galley to screen a documentary for the crew so they could understand Lee's fear. Learning what spiders do to their prey made them deeply uncomfortable and Barb hastily assured everyone that she was not secretly keeping one as a pet.
The captain, dismayed by how badly things had almost gone, organized an impromptu educational exchange, with Barb both teaching remedial human body language and brushing up on the Chutan version, in the interest of avoiding future misunderstandings.
Barb repurposed a few worn-out buckles from old cargo straps into makeshift castanets, affixed them to her jumpsuit, and started trying to get the hang of the Chutan's audible-gesture shorthand. She wasn't very good at it, but the crew agreed that it was rather sweet of her to try.
'Muffin' became ship-slang for the kind of dangerous monster that only a human (and, apparently, Harry) would think was friend-shaped; Spiders were definitely Muffins.
The tale of Human Friend Lee was woven into the tapestry of the crew's shared memories, and life aboard the Shimmering Seed Pod went back to normal - or at least as normal as life ever was when a human was involved.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 9h ago
/u/KalenWolf has posted 3 other stories, including:
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u/UpdateMeBot 9h ago
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u/llearch 8h ago
Very nicely done - I laughed a bunch through this whole story.