This is a little sci-fi vignette/fragment that has no particular place in any of my stories. I wrote it because I wanted to explore just how much a human and a non-human character could misunderstand each other.
A cocktail party in a long-circuit starliner is a very easy place to have an interesting, disturbing or perhaps even dangerous conversation. I stood at the top of a short flight of marble stairs, overlooking a dimly lit grotto of plant-riddled gardens, paths and pools. Starlight leaked in through a large fretwork porthole in the ceiling. All about, the murmur of speech could be heard, and I could discern many races, some unknown to me, deep in parley with each other. Closest to me, at a white-painted iron table, lay a Burunti. The creature was large, black and vaguely crab-like, with the addition of a large distended spherical head at one end, and two thin tails at the other. I was almost sure it was looking at me. I straightened my golden brocade jacket and loosened the ruff at my neck. I walked down the steps to the creature’s table.
“Excuse me, kind Burunti traveler. May I spend some time in conversation with you? The voyage passes slowly for me, and I would welcome the diversion.”
The Burunti started and snorted a small cloud of vapor from an opening on its head. For a moment, I was worried that I had startled the creature out of sleep. Limbs moved under its layers of insulating clothing for a few moments. I guessed that it was preparing some kind of translation machine.
“Indeed, please do arrange yourself nearby, that we might learn a little of interest from each other”, it replied with a deep and resonant synthetic voice.
I sat down on a chair that matched the table. It was far too large for me. “Tell me of the dominant religions amongst your kind,” I asked, surveying the massive Burunti’s recessed features. It heaved another limb under clothing and swung its head ponderously. Adjusting its translator, perhaps.
“A curious choice of opening gambit when talking to unfamiliar aliens,” it replied. “When asked of some species, that question could get you shot.” Its expression was of course unreadable. I decided to take the comment as a joke.
“Which would in itself be a telling insight into the psyche of the creature,” I replied, smiling. “I enjoy discussing such things with aliens; I find it gives great insight into their character.” The Burunti seemed to understand the meaning of a human smile, and managed to simulate something that resembled a low, rumbling chuckle.
“We have a few such things”, the creature replied. “They differ markedly from your fascinating human concept of monotheism.” It shifted its weight, then hung its head further towards me. “I find it curious that you don’t recognize that the form of most of your religions is a reflection of your biological mechanisms. We celebrate this connection, ourselves.”
I looked at the many folded legs beneath the Burunti, and its two lightly oiled tails. I was at a loss to divine what deity such a creature would invent for itself. “Then what form do your gods take, may I ask?”
“Our reproduction has three sexes,” it said. I surmised from its seemingly off-topic reply that, true to its word, the creature kept a tighter conceptual link between its biology and its religion than we humans did. “A male and a female lay gametes inside a third host. The host is consumed by the youngster.”
I had heard of such processes before. “A selfless sacrifice!”
The creature continued. “The hosts share none of our genetic heritage. We breed them and keep them safe. They host our children. A fair trade.”
I kept a straight face, just in case the creature could read my expression. “Are these creatures sentient?”
“Yes, but their intellectual capacity is lower than ours.”
I stared at the creature for a few moments, trying to imagine its society. “Do these hosts have any legal rights?”
“Some. Their social standing is not fixed. I even have friends who are hosts.”
“But do they choose to become hosts? Or is this choice imposed upon them?”
The Burunti shifted its weight and drew itself up higher. “Sometimes we choose, sometimes they choose. I have parented two offspring, and both were raised in unwilling hosts.”
“This is very different from our way of doing things,” I replied, trying to keep the shock out of my voice, hoping that the alien couldn’t discern my discomfort any more than I could read its emotions.
“Is it? I understood that you have two sexes, and that one gender implants genetic information in the other, and that the child grows within the body of the other.”
“Well, yes, but it doesn’t hurt that person. At least, not much. It doesn’t kill her, at least not nowadays,” I stammered.
“Your mechanism must perforce dictate similar social structures to ours. I expect you pen the hosts, and have some mixture of consensual and forced impregnation.”
“No. Well, sometimes forcing happens, yes, but we consider it a crime. And we don’t pen women- the hosts. At least not in modern cultures.”
“Hmm. How interesting. How unusual that your species can change its biologically imposed behavior. I wonder if you really have changed, or if this move towards consensual hosting is but temporary. How very interesting. My mind is boiling,” replied the creature, lashing its left tail.
“I beg your pardon?” I replied, somewhat off balance and trying not to be alarmed by its indecipherable body language.
“Ah forgive me. I refer to a common conceptual custom amongst my kind.”
“In which you boil your heads? A strange trend. Or is this one of the religions of which you spoke?”
“Somewhere between a fad and a religion. This particular movement holds that one can draw an analogy between levels of consciousness and the phases of water. Non-sentient animals are intellectually solid. Enough thoughts, excitation quanta in the fluid of the mind, that is, cause a phase transition to sentience. More thoughts still cause a transition to the vapor phase of consciousness.”
“Interesting. And presumably a plasma state beyond that?”
“Myself, I cannot claim to know anyone who claims to be intellectually vaporized, much less in a mental plasma. Although I myself do enjoy lowering my mental pressure, the better to induce my transition to a higher phase, if you care to follow the analogy.”
“A delightful metaphor, especially to one such as myself who presumes to dabble in matters of science. How does one lower one’s mental pressure?”
“I like to take a bath. And there are certain intoxicant fluids that seem to do the trick,” it added mercurially. “Tell me, what is your business aboard the Shame-Honor? Where are you bound?”
“Another question that could get a being shot,” I replied smiling again.
The Burunti seemed to react negatively and began bobbing a large fraction of its body up and down. It didn’t speak for some time.
“I am a simple trader,” I said, hoping the reply would calm the creature, if it was indeed upset. “I am traveling to meet a supplier.”
It stopped bobbing. “In what substances do you trade?” It asked, and its voice had taken on a strange, clipped quality.
“Water, sir. I gather small samples from the oceans of many worlds. My clients believe the waters hold healing powers.”
“You trade in water?” it said, in a louder voice. “And your commanders allow this?”
Its reply was a non-sequitur to me. I was about to reply “And why would they not?” when I intuited that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the alien’s opinion on water trading. The conversation seemed to be deeply upsetting to it. I elected to change the subject. “May I ask your own business, sir? Something pleasurable, or profitable, or both?”
The Burunti seemed to take a moment to settle itself back down on its legs. “Indeed both, sir. I am transporting a crate of hosts to a dear friend of mine, who wishes to mate with them. Hosts raised in a particular area of the world from which we set out have highly regarded pleasurable qualities.”
Before I met many aliens, I used to pride myself on my ability to deal with foreign ideas and mores. These days I was more realistic about what imaginatively disturbing things the universe had to offer. The Buruntis’ casual juxtaposition of sex and murder was more than I wanted to think about after a heavy meal. I thanked the creature for an interesting conversation and excused myself.
I took off for my cabin. It seems that every time I talk to a new non-human I come away shaken in some manner, be it large or small. I find I need to spend some time with other humans, just to let the old assumptions fall back into place. Jeni was a good choice. I called her when I reached my cabin.
Jeni’s round bald head appeared on the monitor. She had chocolate on her chin.
“Jeni, hi. Tell me something normal,” I asked.