I'd never been unsteady on my legs before that moment. My slimy colleague didn't have legs of his own, for that matter he didn't have a permanently solid form at all, he could solidify part of himself for short periods, and on this occasion when it departed the hovercraft, as soon as the hardened exterior was rendered gelatinous again, it was jiggling like it had just sat through a quake.
I wobbled a little, and to my surprise, the small human female immediately was by my side and put her hand on my arm, her soft skin squeezed as delicately as a faedian's featherfall and she gave me that 'smile' expression again, though a little smaller, and asked me, "Are you all right? I'm sorry, I didn't think to ask how any of you could handle speed."
An 'apology' is a very strange custom humans engage in, it is an expression of regret for some offense or inflicted feeling. Curiously, as I would later learn, they have a 'nonapology' that is disguised as an apology. I know this may sound strange, but if a human tells me, "I'm sorry if you feel..." or "I'm sorry, but..." or "I'm sorry you..." Perhaps you see a pattern here? All of these three forms either include a negation 'but' or they make the apology a reference to the other person's perceptions. It turns out that 'true' apologies are focused only on the one who actually did the thing being apologized for. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I was late. I'm sorry for not thinking of you." All 'true' apologies among humans include the speaker taking responsibility for themselves and their actions.
All false apologies reference some facet of the other person’s status without accountability for their part in it.
This subtlety would quickly become important as I moved through human society after I met my host family.
But in that moment I just found her touch... pleasant. I didn't realize how warm human bodies could be, "I'm... fine, thank you, please don't worry about it." I knew what to say from those videos, and she responded immediately with a broader smile. My professor's tongue darted out and licked his eyeball only once, and I knew I had handled myself well.
"Please, let me introduce you to some of my friends and get you all a drink, it’s on me. It’s the least I can do." She said and pulled out a little plastic card, "Or rather, on the fleet's good relations account." She winked, a gesture I knew to indicate either playfulness or deception, and unsure of which I was being subjected to, I elected to nod silently.
"Come on!" She said and approached the double doors, they slid into the wall and I was immediately struck by the noise of voices similar to hers, higher pitch and deeper pitch, I generally thought humans were cleanly divided between obvious male and obvious female, but this proved that textbooks do not cover everything. It gave us the far ends, but not the spectrum. Some humans seemed to be almost as genderless as my fluidic companion. I couldn't tell one from another, and some of them played this up.
The room itself was enormous, our own species all used small spaces with few figures if any, but this was vast, easily a few hundred of my paces in either direction, filled with tables and something I recognized from films as 'bars'. My colleagues, fellow students I suppose, were mute, but I said immediately, "Lead on."
She took well to that and her feet made a small skipping stride, strangely, she didn't keep her back to us, but showed her back to the others of her species, and began to chat with us as if she'd known us for a lifetime. "So we have a lot of things here, but based on the data your ship transmitted, 'bourbon' and 'beer' are both viable for all of you, and you can place your cargo order on the screen so you can drink and work at the same time."
"Is drinking... important?" My fluidic semipermeable fellow student asked in his bubbling voice that approximated human vocal sounds.
"Yes. Very. In one of our ancient empires, Persia I think," she paused and looked away as she searched her memory, "yes, that was it. Whenever they had a disagreement they would first argue sober, then get drunk and argue the same thing again, they wouldn't accept an argument unless it made sense in both states. Alcohol plays an important role in social behavior for our race, it lowers our inhibitions, makes us more truthful, and for 'most' of us, it makes us more open to friendship." She frowned a little, "I admit, some people it turns into real jerks... but as long as you avoid those, it's fine."
By the time she said that, her back smacked into a golden tube that ran along the edge of the bar behind which a towering wall of human meat stood, unlike most of his race, he had a bald head up top and he was slightly over the normal weight that I saw from the others, but he did have sharp looking eyes, like a hunter. "Hey Mark, a round of bourbons for my new friends and I."
'Friends?' I wondered about that, I knew humans could bond quickly, and I understood the meaning of this 'friend' term, but I didn't expect it this fast.
The human she called 'Mark' spun around, tipped a few clear bottles holding a dark amber liquid into a few transparent glasses and then slid them up to each of us as we stood on either side of the human.
"A toast." She said and raised up her glass before we could drink.
"This is liquid... is not 'toast' bread that you have cooked twice?" The burbling voice of my colleague asked, and both Mark and our new human laughed.
"He's funny. I'm Lisa, by the way. And no, well yes, but also not because it's something we do before we drink. It's where we make a wish for something good. You're travelers, like us, so we have this tradition on our ship, when we encounter travelers we raise a glass and 'toast' that is, we 'wish' for safe travels for those we meet. So... a toast to safe travels." Lisa gave us that same broad smile again, and then slammed back her drink and smacked her lips before sliding her card across the bar. "Keep em coming, Mark, we have to show them how humans do it."
Fortunately we’d cleared ourselves to consume almost every human beverage beforehand, but that didn’t really prepare me for actually doing so. I held the little glass in between two fingers after making our ‘toast’ and looked at the amber colored liquid, studying it with my naked eyes. It seemed innocuous, I brought it to my nose and took a sniff while surreptitiously eyeing my colleagues.
My professor was already downing his and reaching for another, but the rest of us had our doubts. The smell was something else. A sharp bite to the nose would have been more subtle. Maybe if I weren’t such a coward I might have gone first, or maybe I wouldn’t have gone at all, but I felt the expectant eyes of Lisa and Mark on me, waiting for me to try it.
My fellow students were no different, and it was our gelatinous colleague who went first, an appendage emerging and sticking into the little glass, he soaked it up like a sponge.
One by one we went, with me being the last. I tilted my head back and threw the liquid down my throat in one clean motion. I gasped, panted, bent forward and coughed while slapping my hand on the surface of the bar.
The shot hit me… like I’d been shot. There was a deep burning sensation in my gut and I felt Lisa’s hand on my back, “You okay there, buddy?” She asked, but Mark only slid another row of glasses out toward us with a little smile on his face. He saw something Lisa had not.
When the burning was still going, there was a sense of ‘warmth’ coursing through me, perhaps it’s because I have multiple hearts to the humans ‘one’ but my blood pumped faster than theirs and as a result the liquid toxin raced through me at a much higher speed. I felt that ‘relaxed’ sensation coming over me.
Mark, a dark haired human in a fairly tight fitting silver shirt with a black vest, wore a mirthful face. “He’s fine. He likes it.” His voice was buttery smooth the way he said it, or it seemed so to me.
Lisa, realizing that Mark was right when I reached for the next glass, didn’t stop patting my back, but it slowed down and became more congratulatory. “I guess you’re right, Mark.” She said and then leaned her back against the bar to look out over the sea of faces.
“So what made you want to study humans?” She asked me, and I imitated her gesture while my fellow students drifted off into their own experiences and I joined Lisa in people watching. “That’s what your ship is here for, isn’t it? To take you to study us?”
I must have looked surprised to her, because she laughed at my silent expression and said, “We don’t take a lot of aliens to Earth, word gets around.” She explained.
“I figured it would help me get rich, famous, and it would let me work alone. Not many of us are studying humans, and I am kind of curious, you’re a strange species.” I said and threw back another shot.
“Yeah, I guess we kind of are.” Lisa replied, “But that’s it? Curiosity, money, and fame? You sure you’re not a human in a dog suit?”
I threw back another shot while she laughed at her own joke and matched my shot with one of her own.
That was how I learned about two more things. First, human competitiveness... shot... by shot. Until my semipermeable friend was a puddle, my professor's tongue was dangling over the bar, and I found myself embarrassingly passing out curled around her feet. And also... the absurd human tolerance for alcohol. I didn't learn until well after my first hangover passed that the human liver actually had a special part of itself which only existed to process alcohol. I had great fun... I think. From what I remember... but that takes us to the next step in a long journey.
AN: Feel free to stop by my author discord for free downloads of my work or just to hang out. It's a pretty positive and social place and I'd be happy to have you. Or stop by r/TheWorldMaker. (If you're a reddit user) anyway, thanks for reading!
