12:02 29/03/2587 –(8734/654/29/53)

Oh dear, oh dear oh dear, he was running late, Gabriel should have either cut his shower or drink, but he was no one to deviate from a routine.

He charged through the crowd, the low gravity and increased oxygen content granting him near-superhuman levels of stamina and agility. Gabriel liked to think that the regular exercise he partook in was also helping.

The streets were wide and gave plenty of room to manoeuvre, though his way was blocked by pedestrians occasionally. Gabriel was not one for theatrics and did not like drawing attention to himself, but his concern over being late overwrote his shyness.

Fortunately, most people were large, and he could duck and weave through their legs. Most were startled and bemused by his actions, but no one was frightened; Gabriel chalked it up to his small size and supposed that many assumed he was an energetic child going for a run.

Someone might find it odd that one of the most notable species in the galaxy could travel through a vast city without anyone realising what he was. But when you considered the hassle someone had to go through to shake hands with a Paradiseworlder, it made sense that most humans simply did not bother.

They stayed in their systems, with only the odd tourist or diplomat seeing the wider galaxy.

Gabriel's extended stay on Minagerad had forced him to wear his suit; shorter trips could be made through a comprehensive decontamination process that killed all micro-organisms in a human’s body, but this could cause autoimmune problems if maintained for over a month.

Not to mention it also killed the symbiotic bacteria that lived in the human gut, and a year with a mix of constipation and diarrhoea was not something Gabriel ever wanted to do. So even if he had only been here for a week, Gabriel would have still picked the suit.

He skidded to a halt in front of the administration building his orientation was taking place. The lower gravity meant he overshot it by a few metres and had to double back.

The building was much the same as the others, with lots of glass shaped into elegant and visually pleasing forms. The automatic doors opened, and Gabriel trotted to the front desk, thankful there was no line.

“Sorry to bother you, I have come for the orientation,” he said, calling out to the sapient sitting at the front desk.

“Ah yes,” they said, standing up and looking at Gabriel, “You are running a little late, but that is nothing new; just go through those doors and take the first door on the left.”

Gabriel thanked them and followed their directions until he stood at the door; the sign above said orientation in progress; please do not enter.

He steeled himself; Gabriel could already picture dozens of eyes staring at him once he opened the door. His heart rate increased as the anxiety set in, and for a brief moment, he considered just walking away, pretending that he had never found the room.

Gabriel did not, though, he approached the door, and it opened for him.

No one was looking at him; in fact, no one could see him; Gabriel had expected a few folding chairs in front of a projector screen; what he got instead was more akin to a cinema. He could hear people talking inside their individualised booths.

Now that Gabriel thought about it, this arrangement made much more sense; each species had different seating requirements, so having a room specialised for the job was a good idea.

“I take it you are Mr Ratlu,” a voice called out behind him.

Gabriel was startled and quickly spun on his heels, “I apologise; I did not mean to frighten you,” the alien added. The Xenos was roughly two and a half metres tall, covered in a marvellous plumage of feathers; they were bipedal but held themselves horizontally like a theropod dinosaur.

They had wings but were far too small to allow flight or even gliding; Gabriel supposed they were a display structure. As his eyes were drawn to the sapient's face, he was struck with a case of the uncanny valley.

Despite the large covering of feathers, except on their comically oversized lips, it was eerily human. There were even whites in its eyes; however, all this might have been tolerable if it were not smiling at him.

It was all kinds of wrong, and Gabriel was hit by the instinct just to run, to get the hell away from this thing as fast as possible.

However, he did not, his common decency prevailed, and he replied, in an admittedly croaky voice, “yes, yes I am.”

“Excellent, there is no need to apologise for running late, the city can be a bit of a maze, and no doubt the decontamination process in your room took longer than you expected,” the alien explained, still maintaining that horrid grin.

“I’m sure you would look just as creepy to it as it does to you,” he told himself while simultaneously taking the alien excuse “yes, yes, it did take longer than I expected.”

Gabriel was somewhat disturbed that it knew it was staying in a Deathworlder apartment where he was staying.

“How did you know that?” Gabriel asked, trying and failing to mask the accusation in his voice.

The dinosaur man thing either did not understand Gabriel's tone or deliberately chose to ignore it, “I’m required your species to provide the correct seating requirements. As for how I knew you went through decontamination, you are a Deathworlder; it is a legal requirement.”

“Yes, that made sense; they worked here; it is not surprising it knew about him,” Gabriel thought, trying to get his nervousness under control.

“If you will follow me, I will escort you to your seat, and we can begin,” the sapient stated, pointing one of their wings and gesturing Gabriel to follow.

From the back, the alien was thankfully far less disturbing; he tried his best to ignore what sat on its shoulders.

Gabriel was led to a small but highly private booth facing a large screen, “Like an extremely high-class private cinema,” he thought as the person gestured for him to sit. Gabriel kept his face pointed at the person while averting his gaze, his suit hiding that he was looking away.

“Now that everyone is here, we can begin,” the sapient said and left Gabriel to it; he let out a sigh of relief. He knew on an intellectual level that the person was no threat and that he was being racist to act this way. Yet he could not help it; there was just something wrong about them that triggered some primal part of his brain.

Gabriel comforted himself by saying that he would get over it in a week or so after regular interaction with them. This is a "you" problem, but you will get over it.

The room darkened, and the screen lit up. Mercifully the alien remained out of view though they still spoke.

Their orientation was pretty standard, with a brief overview of the rules, where you could go, what tours, rides, and other cities you could visit. Gabriel paid attention, mainly because the slideshow was exceptionally well made, with numerous videos that surprisingly avoided the cringe factor that usually accompanied these things.

It also provided many safety warnings that while Minagerad was a civilised world, it was also a nature reserve, and almost all the animals were wild. Much of the planet was untouched by society, so always follow the safety guideline when travelling on a guided tour.

It was also essential to keep your survival kit on hand when leaving the city limits; this was to be provided at the end of the orientation. Several survival experts designed it, a list of these professionals was displayed on the screen, Gabriel did not know most of them, but one name stood out, Madeline Bahn.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Gabriel had heard of her; she had been some working shlub like him, who had saved over two hundred lives and fought off a band of pirates while stranded on a Deathworld. All without getting a single scratch.

Ms Bahn was still alive if he recalled correctly, still living on the world that bore her name, though it was now a human colony.

Gabriel would have probably continued wondering about her; while Madeline Bahn's star had long since waned, she was still known in certain circles.

The disturbing alien said something that snapped him from his thoughts, “Now we also have special information for a certain individual amongst us.”

The Xenos gave away no information about Gabriel himself, seeming to want to respect his privacy to the most extreme degree, which made Gabriel supremely grateful and far more guilty for the visceral reaction he had had to them.

“We understand that many of the warnings about toxicity and temperatures might not seem important to an individual from such a…” the alien struggled for a moment, trying their best to find a flattering word. “Such a potent world as the one they hail from,” they explained.

“And while this will be true in most circumstances, we do not know how all the wildlife will react to your constitution, so while you will be given more freedom in your movements than most, as to avoid condescending to you, it is imperative that you follow all safety advice,” they added.

Gabriel felt that was a very wordy way of saying, “don’t get too big for your britches.” He supposed it was fair; many Deathworlders had gotten themselves hurt or even killed by assuming that a paradiseworld would just roll over for them.

One of the courses he had taken before leaving Sol had been very clear about this; the one that stuck out for Gabriel the most had been the case of Tomas Rink. He had jumped off a cliff on a Class 6(H), assuming that lower gravity meant he could not die from a fall.

They had been peeling him off the rocks for hours.

***

The rest of orientation had passed in a more mundane fashion. It mainly consisted of popular destinations, how to arrange passage to other locals and leisure activities that could be partaken in.

It was all good to know, but Gabriel knew what he was doing first thing tomorrow morning; he was visiting Reshu Zoo, the prominent New York-sized complex that sat adjacent to the city.

The zoo contained many of the more famous or delicate specimens so that the less adventurous visitors could still enjoy their stay. It was so vast that he intended to spend at least a week seeing every animal he could; his V.I.P. package also allowed him to go behind the scenes.

His package also included guests, but that did not apply to him. No, Gabriel planned on spending as much time as possible by himself this year.

“Thank you for your time; we hope that has been informative, and if you have any more questions, do not hesitate to ask,” the alien host said as the screen went dark and the lights returned.

Most people seemed satisfied with the presentation and slowly filed out of the room. Gabriel hung back, not out of a desire to speak the Xenos again, who Gabriel just realised had not offered him or anyone else a name. He knew that some species did not use names as humans understood them.

Gabriel held back so that he could slip out of the building unnoticed.

Once the crowd, although crowd was perhaps a generous word, as there were less than fifty of them, had gone, Gabriel quietly left his booth and quickly glanced around. The alien was standing in front of the screen, and Gabriel shuddered slightly; he could see their disturbing face even from this distance.

Fortunately, they were talking to someone already, and Gabriel took the opportunity to exit. Then he stopped and looked again, not at the disturbing alien but who they were talking to.

It was that alien that had bumped into him in departures; he thought it was an odd coincidence at first until he realised that she had been right behind him in the line. That they ended up in the same orientation was to be expected.

He had not paid much attention to her at the time; he had been so frazzled by the encounter that he had just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. The only two things he could recall were that the woman was arthropodal in nature and a mother.

Gabriel knew it was impolite to stare, but curiosity got the better of him; he had spent almost all his life in Sol and had rarely seen any aliens outside of movies, video games and educational literature.

It wasn’t easy to make out any accurate details about her other than she had an exoskeleton. She was tall and thin, not hideously so, just with minimal excess.

The woman and her daughter also wore clothes, not just a token belt or scarf, but a complete covering; only the face, hands and feet were uncovered; it seemed her species had a similar concept of shame as humanity.

The article of clothing that stood out the most to Gabriel was the exquisite cape that hung from her ba… It was not a cape. They were wings, large wings that very nearly scrapped the floor. Was she capable of powered flight? It was a rare sapient that could fly. Gabriel had undoubtedly never heard of one.

Flight was an energy-intensive process and the idea that a fully sapient species would also have enough energy left over to power an energy-hungry brain was challenging but not impossible.

***

Pista, thoroughly bored by her mother's questions about libraries, scanned the room for any distraction. It did not take long for her to notice the little alien staring at her. Or at least she assumed it was staring; it had no eyes.

It did not take her long to realise that this was the same one that had knocked her mother over. Was it following them? Why was it here? She grasped her mother's hand a little tighter.

***

Gabriel realised that he was staring, and the last thing he wanted was to be labelled a pervert, so he headed straight for the exit without so much as a glance behind him.

“New plan, stay away from those two, and mind your own business,” Gabriel told himself as he left the building and into the busy but not overcrowded street.

“Hmm, what to do first?” he asked himself, looking over the map he had been given. Gabriel thought about it and decided that he could do with some more reading material, and not ebooks either, real ones.

***

Pista clung to her mother far more tightly than usual; the little Tufanda often swung between fearlessness and nervousness, common in most children. Nish noticed, however, that her current jumpiness was more intense than normal.

As Pista glanced around the lobby, Nish asked, “What’s gotten into you?” Her tone was a mix of mild annoyance and genuine concern.

“That alien was here,” Pista replied, peeking out from underneath Nish’s wings.

“There are aliens everywhere sweetie; you go to school with aliens,” Nish explained, running her hand through the downy fuzz that covered Pista's head.

“No, the one that knocked you over,” Pista explained, her head darting back and forth, looking for the unknown sapient.

Nish clicked, “I keep telling you, they did not knock me over; I walked into them and nearly fell.” Nish knew it was pointless; however, the little lady had already made up her own mind about what had happened and was convinced the odd but perfectly polite individual was a criminal.

“They came here to see the animals just like we did; they were just ahead of us in the line; they were attending the orientation like we were,” Nish stated, hoping that this obvious explanation would be the end of it.

“But it was staring,” Pista replied, her voice croaking slightly.

“First little missy, you can’t see “Their” eyes, if they have any; and secondly, “They” were probably just looking at Torgu and wanted to ask him some questions, but I took up too much of his time, and they went to find someone else,” Nish explained. She was getting tired of this; you would think the Xenos had held Nish up at gunpoint by the way Pista talked about them.

***

Books, books, books, so many books. Gabriel immediately felt at home here, he preferred those old dusty shops you found back on Earth, but this place also had its charms. It was a lovely little shop, constructed out of stone, or at least coated in stone, located in a section of the city designed to have that old-time feel.

He had a feeling he would be spending a good chunk of time in this place. It helped that the shop was nearly deserted; apart from the shop assistant, he had only seen one other person.

Gabriel began browsing the shelves, dozens of books caught his eye, but he was careful to restrain himself. If he did not, he would wind up buying half the store. As he wandered from fiction to non-fiction, his eye was drawn to one volume, the title read, “A Guide Of The Sapient Races Of The Galaxy.”

Briefly glancing over his shoulder, though Gabriel had no idea why he was doing it, he picked up the book and flicked through the pages. The species were listed alphabetically, as opposed to by physical traits, so it took some time for Gabriel to find what he was looking for.

Tufanda, so that’s what the woman and her daughter were, from a Class 8(H) called Yursu. Famous for having exceptionally low gravity for such a high-class habitable world. Yursu’s Class 8 was caused by the high evolutionary competitiveness of the lifeforms found there.

Tufanda, as a result, along with most life found there, had a strong Exo and endoskeleton along with a relatively robust immune system. Gabriel closed the book and rapped his fingers against the spine.

“It’s always good to be informed about the other races out there,” Gabriel thought as he looked for more reading material.

***

Pista had been put to bed; she was always a handful at night, never wanting to go to bed no matter how tired she was. Leaving the door open a crack, she quietly tiptoed to the sofa and relaxed.

Nish collected her P.D.A. from the counter, enjoying the sensation as her muscles stretched. She stared at the screen for a few moments, she had been waiting for this moment for the entire day, and now that Nish had a moment to herself, she could not think of anything to do.

Tapping her knee, Nish was suddenly reminded of that strange alien she had bumped into. She opened up her search bar and then paused, she had not seen its face, only a vague body plan, and with over two hundred and fifty sapient races to sift through, that could take hours.

Yet Nish had an advantage; she was almost sure that the little creature was a Deathworlder, which narrowed it down to five.

Nish typed in what she did know, and the result was almost instantaneous.

“Sacred Tears, Sacred Tears!” she exclaimed, carefully controlling her volume to keep Pista from waking up.

There it was, a little bald thing with two arms and legs; it looked soft and squishy, it looked harmless, but she recognised the name; just about everyone in the galaxy knew the name.

Humanity.