Whenever I survey a planet, I prioritize studying its inhabitants above everything else. A planet is not just a world: a planet is a people. One gives birth to the other, and the other gives birth to more worlds. And so the very first thing I want to look at, is how the people of that world give birth.
It should be obvious this isn’t the normal way of doing things. Even if you know nothing about planetary surveying, starting in a nursery seems like the wrong approach. There is a reason I’ve never been asked to teach a class on how I do my job. My methods work for me and only for me. I was once forced to turn over a project to a colleague when I was severely injured halfway through it, and in the end they handed it back over after I recovered without any real progress on it simply because they couldn’t make sense of my process.
Sandra Wright, soon to be P.hD, thought I was insane too when I asked her about seeing a human give birth. She scrunched her whole face up like the idea was rotten. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Is there not a nursery or a hatchery that’s open to visitors?” I asked.
“A hatchery?” She took off her glasses and leaned forward over the desk we’d arranged in my accomodations. Sandra said it was meant to be the living room, but I was happier with it being a professional space and doing all my living in the sleeping quarters and washroom. Today, the 17th Earth day I’d been on the planet, she was grading a stack of undergraduate essays. It seemed that she was always grading papers or writing her own. I hadn’t been able to convince her to drop her teaching responsibilities yet, despite the fact I was paying her to be my assistant on Earth. I normally don’t just hire the first person on a planet who’s friendly, but she had applied when I made my desire for an assistant known, and she and I got along very well. Also, I had grown to trust her to explain things to me. She had a good head for planetary surveying.
“Do I look like I lay eggs?” she pushed my cold coffee cup towards me. She didn’t, but I had learned not to make assumptions. Also she kept most of her body covered at all times, a habit I was making sure to mimic. She did keep her dark hair up, twisted into a bun behind her head—#ometimes secured with a long pin or even a pencil—exposing her neck, which was baffling, considering how vulnerable of an area it was.
“You could,” I said, “All sorts of species lay eggs.”
She rolled her eyes, “Humans give birth to live babies, and I could find a video of it, but you won’t be able to see it in person.”
“I’d rather wait and look at our options. I want to experience it, not just see it.”
She widened her eyes and bobbed her head to the side. “You have no idea what you’re asking for,” She said, “but I have an idea.” She paused, “Okay two ideas.”
I just looked at her.
“There’s a daycare on campus,” She said, “next best thing to watching a kid be born is hanging out with a bunch of them, right?”
“You take children and put them all in one place for safekeeping?” I asked.
“It’s for students at the university with kids.” She said, “I’ve got a friend who works there. I can ask her about visiting.”
Two days later, I was standing in the center of a room that I can only describe as aggressively colorful. Everything was miniaturized and made of plastic, but I was surprised that it was all still hard. Some of the corners were dulled, yes, but everything was still solid. There were chairs, not pillows; tables, not raised foam; and hard plastic toys, not fabric dolls. It was disconcerting.
Sandra’s friend was a human woman named Martha. She was working with another caretaker, Julia. The whole staff was made up of women, which was a little strange, but not unheard of. I didn’t have time to inquire before the children started arriving. In fact, there was barely any time to say hello before the first of them came through the door being led by their parent, again a woman.
Martha pulled me aside while Sandra and Julia greeted the students. “We’re really glad you’re here,” she said, “ and it’s really cool to meet an alien. We just have a couple of rules I want to let you know before this place gets busy.”
“Of course,” I said.
“First,” she said, “and this is common sense for most every human, but I want to say it, don’t hit, slap, or even poke the kids.”
The look on my face must have told her how horrified I was that she felt the need to say it. “I would never even think about it.”
“Until about forty years ago, it was really common to hit kids as punishment,” Martha explained, “A lot of my generation grew up getting slapped from time to time. It’s not acceptable anymore.”
I was still taken aback that it had ever been seen as acceptable at all.
“Along with that,” she said, “don’t pick up any of the kids unless they’re hurt, hurting someone else, or are sick. If they ask for your help standing up or reaching something, you can lift them for that, but don’t just scoop them up. If one of them is throwing a tantrum, hitting or kicking or biting, the proper way to restrain them is by hugging them and not letting them move. If it happens and myself or Sandra is nearby, let us handle it.”
“What about Julia?” I asked, wondering if she was unwell.
“Julia is on kitchen duty while she’s pregnant. It’s a lot less physically stressful.”
I looked over at Julia, realizing for the first time that her figure wasn’t just a variation on the human norm. No: she was growing another human inside her. I have to admit I find the concept of live-births disturbing. Chintillik lay eggs, so it’s a biological bias. Despite my best efforts, and no matter how many species I meet who do it, whenever I’m faced with the reality of growing one sapient being inside another, I find my insides crawling.
Sandra brought the child’s mother over to me, and introduced us. The little one, who I’ll call Cody here, as humans generally frown upon publicizing the names of children, was four and a half earth years old, with messy yellow hair and huge brown eyes. I expected him to be shy, but he walked right up to me, staring hard at my face, and then declared, “Armadillo!”
My ears pressed flat back against my head in surprise. Cody’s mother looked horrified, “No, Cody,” she said, “this is Dron Acharya . He’s from another planet. Say hello.”
“Hi,” Cody said with just as much energy, and promptly ran off into a corner and started pulling toys out of a bin.
“God, I’m sorry about that,” the mother said.
I waved off the apology and assured her it was nothing new to be mistaken for an animal by children. Only after she’d gone did I turn to Sandra and ask, “what’s an armadillo?”
She showed me a picture of one, and the child was right; there was some resemblance. I was actually impressed they could say the whole word, given how young they were.
Over the next half hour, the room filled with children, some as young as three years, others almost five years old. There were ten in total, which was a reasonable number for two adult humans to handle in a structured environment.
After everyone had arrived, Julia brought breakfast out of the small kitchen, and I helped give it to the kids. They were feeding themselves mostly, though the younger ones needed help spreading butter.
Then it was time for them to play while the adults tidied up. I started to help again, but Sandra stopped me, “Go talk to the kids,” she said, “that’s what you’re here for, right?” It was, so I went.
Ten children should not cause as much chaos as was taking place in that room. There was yelling and throwing of toys, not at each other , which seemed to be all the adults could ask for. I selected a quiet corner with two little girls in it – three-year-old twins. They were miming cooking in a tiny plastic kitchen. When I approached one of them asked me if I’d like something to eat, and I said yes.
I ended up cross-legged on the floor at a tiny plastic table being offered everything from artificial salad to styrofoam cake. I chatted with the girls about their family and home life. They had a cat, a pet with soft ears. “They look like yours,” one of them said, pointing at my ears.
Then they wanted to touch my ears, which I normally don’t let children do, but these two were particularly delicate, and I judged it safe. I bent down and allowed them both to stroke the back of them.
“They’re scratchy,” the smaller one said in awe. The other looked just as taken aback.
“Are cats not scratchy?” I asked.
“Their tongues are, but their ears are soft!” So cats were furry creatures then, I had probably seen several pictures of them already and had no idea.
And suddenly all the children were pretending to be animals. At least those old enough to act. It was mostly crawling around on all-fours and making noises that my implants couldn’t translate.
It was cute, until one of them declared themselves a dog, and began to chase the twins and the others around, attempting to knock them over. I expected the adults to rush over and intervene, but Martha just said, “Kyle, no wrestling. If you want to chase, play tag.”
No other species that I have come across chases each other as play, but humans do. They rush and bend and leap and shriek with delight, they spill into places they have no right being, and if they’re young and have no idea what they’re doing, they’ll slam right into you and knock you over.
Which is exactly what happened to me about five minutes into the game of tag. I’d stood up and was picking my way through the chaos towards the kitchen when one of the older kids hit my legs from behind. I fell hard, twisting to land on my back instead of my front. It was a good thing the whole room was carpeted.
“Stop!” Martha commanded, and a moment later, I felt human hands helping me up off the floor. Sandra steadied me on my feet. Martha marched Cody over to me. He looked scared. At least I thought so.
“What do you say?” Martha asked him.
“Sorry,” Cody managed.
“Sorry what?”
“I’m sorry for running into you,” Cody said.
“It’s okay,” I said, though I could feel a sore spot forming where I had landed hard on my side. “No harm done.”
“You need to be more careful,” Martha told him, “look where you’re going when you run around. Take two minutes and sit at the back table, and then you can rejoin the group for story time.”
It was, by my childhood standards, a very minor punishment, but Cody looked like he might cry. He sulked off to the back table.
Sandra still had a hand on my shoulder. Humans are strange about touch. They turn their noses up at it for weeks at a time, not even offering to shake hands, and then suddenly you can barely pry them off you. Some critical mass of companionship is reached where touch is acceptable, and that’s that. I wasn’t complaining about it, especially not when I was still shaky.
“You okay?” She asked me, “that was a good tumble.”
“Surprised,” I said, “they’re stronger than they look.”
“Yeah, we’re scrappy,” she said, “you went right over though. You sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t have very good balance,” I said, “it’s a trade-off my species made to have better mobility when we lost our tails.”
“And the twisting?” She said.
“A reflex so we don’t burn our face or stomachs on hot sand or rock. Our backs are sturdy enough to take it.”
“Okay,” she patted my shoulder and let go.
“You’re talking like I’m the one under a microscope.” I pulled out my notebook and began writing.
“It’s only fair,” she said, and then, “Humans stick their hands out to catch themselves instead of flipping over. But cats-”
“I’m not here about cats,” I said, “I’m here about humans.” I said it without reproach, but she looked at me with wide eyes anyway. “Why are they learning to hunt and to flee?” I asked.
“What?”
“The game they’re playing,” I said, “they’re learning both to hunt and to flee from a hunter. Why both?”
She looked at me as if I had sprouted a second snout. I had apparently shaken her more than I thought when I redirected her focus back to humans. I didn’t understand the human fascination with their animal companions yet: I had only been on earth for a couple weeks. I gave her time to collect her thoughts, and wasn’t totally surprised when she patted my arm to get my attention instead of just speaking.
“We evolved from prey animals,” she said, “climbing primates that lived in trees. No claws, no fangs. They’re way, way stronger than us, and these days a human couldn’t fight one with any chance of success, but they were mostly prey. And then, somehow, one of them worked out how to hunt the animals that had been killing and eating them.” There was a peculiar sharpness in her eyes, the same look that the children had when they were chasing each other. The gaze of a predator, eager to hunt. She smirked at me, exposing three teeth, including the sharp incisor. “So we learn both how to hunt and how to be hunted.
I found myself just a little frozen, instinctively hiding from the predator beside me. But she looked away as Cody rejoined the group, and I relaxed.
The children were beginning to quiet. Julia had come out of the kitchen and was picking a book from a basket beside the only normal-sized chair in the classroom. Some of them couldn’t sit still, and rocked back and forth incessantly, or fidgeted and pulled at their hair and clothes. All biology being systematically wrangled by society, pushed into the right shapes.
“Your species doesn’t hunt.” Sandra said. It wasn’t a question.
“We keep colonies of invertebrates,” I said, “we always have. That is what we eat at home.”
Sandra spluttered, but she didn’t have time to put the reaction into words. Julia hushed the class.
“Today,” she said, “I’m going to read you Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Speaking of hunting and being hunted.” Sandra said, “you’re about to hear what passes for a human’s children story.”
Several of the students already knew the story, but I didn’t. It was about a little girl and her grandmother who were eaten by a wolf, which was some kind of four-legged predator which apparently fed on human children. Prey animals they were indeed, at least from their stories.
I wanted to ask Sandra or Julia about it, but I didn’t because afterwards it was structured time, and it took all four of us to get the children sat down and they were learning a letter from the English alphabet. It’s written “R,” and tied together the story and the lesson with the color red. It made a bit more sense then.
They drew Roses and Ribbons and Red Pandas, which were apparently real animals. Cody drew a dragon instead, which Sandra hurriedly explained to me was not a real animal. I didn’t have any down time to discuss anything with any of the adults until after the children had eaten lunch. By then, I was starving, so it was a relief when Sandra, Julia, and I were able to go outside to eat. It was apparently Martha’s turn to watch the children during nap time.
I hadn’t eaten a human meal before then. I brought my own food supply to earth, intending to eat standard space-faring meals until I could determine what was safe to eat. It seemed that most human food would be just fine for me, and Sandra had offered to buy me what she called a “traditional american lunch.”
“Normally,” she said, “political travellers and diplomats have servants and housekeepers or at least travel itineraries. You should have at least figured out what meals you were going to eat while you’re here.”
“It’s worked for me in the past,” I said. “I like eating native foods.”
Julia smiled at me, showing teeth, and I suppressed the urge to wince. “I saw the social media you set up,” she said, “you say the government can’t contact you. Do you just prefer to go it alone? Or are you not allowed to get any help at all from anyone?”
“I prefer to explore on my own,” I said, “especially on civilized planets. Sometimes people try to conceal the truth of things.”
“So what have you seen so far?” She asked. “Anything hiding?”
“No, I’ve seen very little,” I admitted, “I’m just getting my bearings. I’ve only just gotten comfortable in my accommodations.”
“They’re staying in the grad student accommodations,” Sandra said. She fished through a paper bag until she had three separate parcels, and distributed them to us. They were sandwiches: carbohydrates making protein and plants easier to handle. Mine was mostly meat, which was fine. Julia’s was entirely plants, however, including the protein. She claimed she could live off plants comfortably as long as she kept eating beans and tofu, even while carrying a child. It was impressive: usually predator-species need meat to survive.
“Do you still want to know about tag?” Sandra asked after a few minutes.
I nodded, chewing.
“As in the game the kids were playing?” Julia asked.
“Yeah. Do you know where it’s from?”
“No, I think it’s played around the world though.”
“Are all childrens’ games like that?” I asked.
“Like tag?” Julia thought about it a minute, “There are a ton of variations. We used to play duck-duck-goose and freeze tag all the time as kids.”
“There’s hide-and-seek,” Sandra said, “and kick-the-can.”
“Oh my god, I used to love kick-the-can,” Julia lit up, “almost makes me want to play it again.”
“During my undergrad, we used to play this game called manhunt,” Sandra said, making my ears perk up. Now there was a name that gave everything away. “It’s not really a game for kids, but it’s good fun.”
“How do you play it?” I asked.
“One person is the runner,” Sandra said, “and the rest are hunters. And every few minutes, every ten, say, the runner has to send a picture to the hunters of where their location is. And that’s how they find you.”
“That’s like hide-and-seek on steroids!” Julia laughs, “god, and terrifying. That’s like actually being hunted down. What the hell, Sandra?”
“Hey, a little adrenaline is good for stress relief, and it was a great workout. Running is scary, but hunting feels amazing, you know? Especially in the dark.”
“Yeah. When I went to camp, we used to play this game where we all walked in a line, and one by one the people behind you would start to get taken. Sounds kind of like being in the front of the procession and looking back to see no one is left. Scary, but good fun. Made a couple kids cry though.”
“Is that the human fantasy?” I asked, interrupting their rhythm, “to hunt and be hunted?”
They thought about it for almost a full minute, both of them, until Sandra finally said, “Yeah, I guess it is, in one way or another. Not always literally.”
“And children play these games?”
“Not all children’s games are about chasing,” Julia said, “there’s things like jump rope and hop scotch that are just about timing the coordination. There’s also red-light-green-light, which is…”
“All about stopping and staying still when something you’re hunting is watching you,” Sandra says.
“Yeah, when you break it down to basic biology, I guess it is,” Julia said, “so dodgeball is all about throwing things at assailants, I guess. And dodging them?”
“This is all normal,” I soothed, forcing myself to be calming because, while jump rope and hopscotch sounded like fun to me, the other games that these two very nice, very civilized human women apparently played as children sounded like nightmares from a truly dark world. Things like that were so far distant in my own species’ past that we had forgotten about it save for in our oldest stories and deepest dreams, where winged-things that were far larger than ourselves still plucked us from the ground and carried us away into the sky. “Children play games that help their bodies and minds develop. That’s how all species are.”
“But you said it’s unusual that we play by hunting each other.”
“It is,” I said, “most species that hunt play by hunting things that aren’t each other. Sometimes small animals, sometimes soft toys. I only know of one other species that hunts each other to play.”
“What species is that?” Julia asked.
I told her, but she looked at me like I hadn’t said words at all, which to her I hadn’t. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I guess you don’t have the necessary parts to pronounce that.”
“And you do?” Sandra asked.
“No, but I have implants that help me speak languages I don’t have the biology for.”
“You’re using implants to talk to us?” Sandra asked.
I flicked my ears at her in amusement, “of course. Do I look like I can naturally speak English?”
“But where are they from?”
“From the galactic library,” I said, “my employer. They aren’t mandatory, but I like the convenience over using a handheld translator.”
“That’s some futuristic shit,” Julia said, “Men in Black level. James Bond wishes he had tech that cool.”
“More stories?” I asked Sandra.
She nodded. Her eyes were flicking back and forth over my body, trying to see where the implants were actually located, I guessed.
“Stories that are good fun,” Julia dug in her bag and produced three round, red fruits. “Stories about how humans think about Aliens, which should interest you, Dron. Has Sandra showed you any of our films yet?”
“No,” I said, “but not for lack of trying. I’ve just been busy.”
“Hmph. Want an apple?” She passed Sandra one of the fruits, and then started to put one in my hand as well, paused. She was looking at me oddly again, like she was trying to read my DNA through my skin.
“How’s your resistance to cyanide?” She asked.
My ears twitched and I cocked my head to the side, hoping the different perspective would provide clarity. It didn’t. “Nonexistent?” I said.
Julia reached into her bag and pued out a knife, the cut the fruit in half, then removed the center of each half before passing them both to me.
“Is this safe to eat?” I asked.
“Is now,” she said.
“I didn’t even think about the seeds,” Sandra said. She was already halfway through her apple, eating around the central part Julia had cut out of the one she gave to me.
“Sorry,” Julia said. “It’s probably an overreaction, but it’s good to be safe. She touched her own stomach, “being pregnant makes you think about stuff like that.”
I took an experimental bite, tasting closely, but the fruit didn’t raise any red flags. It was good, a touch tart, and it had enough water content to keep me going for several hours.
But the fact that apples were, if ingested improperly, poisonous, and I had seem them in nearly every room I’d been in on Earth, it reminded me again of the species that chased each other to learn. They too were beset on all sides by poisons and laughed them off. I still had a couple friends among them. Maybe I should consult with Skaalt: my colleague and a member of that species. He might have some insight.
Julia cleaned up her lunch and went back inside so Martha could have a break.
“Dron?” Sandra said.
“Acharya is fine,” I said, “Dron is my formal title.”
“Oh,” she said. “Acharya, would you actually like to play a game of tag or hide and seek? I could set one up.”
I thought about it, weighed my fragile trust of humans and my professional obligations against my fear. I finished the apple unscathed, licked a sticky patch of juice from my fingers. “That would be fun,” I said, “please do, and let me know what you need.”
She smiled at me, “I have a bunch of anthropology undergrads who would love an excuse to play tag with an alien. Just give me a week to set it up.”
This story is also published on Archive of Our Own, where the story is being published in addition to the blog. To read more, follow me here or on AO3 or Tumblr
