Chapter Thirty-Three

Getting ready was a very noisy affair. Fauve, normally a quiet, almost ‘demure’ child, was loud and bouncing off the walls… metaphorically speaking, upstairs as she shouted at her tablet on the Chaos server about how she was going to see a ship land. To most species this would be nothing special, especially these days, but at the time? No alien vessel had landed directly on Earth before.

Not even the vessel that brought my professor, actually landed. Like all vessels, they orbited, docked, and then boarded Earth transports to descend into the docking area.

This was an exception, the very first of its kind, a direct landing on Earth, and that too was strange. I could chalk up the reason that both Earth and Dlamisa were approving it, given recent events. “Anything that shows we’re completely at peace with one another, must look good to both sides.” I muttered while I toweled off downstairs and listened to Fauve’s excited noises.

She had to have been in the kitchen just waiting for me to be ready to go, and was busy talking to her friends on the server while either she or one of her parents brushed her hair. Sex divisions in labor were once very stark in humans, but the lines blurred as their general sense of equality increased, and as a result in the modern era, William spent abundant time in caring for his children. Notably, he seemed to enjoy it, particularly in brushing her hair, considering it ‘father and daughter time’.

The human urge to connect is a powerful one, crossing lines of sex and culture and… evidently… species. Or oddly enough, even reality itself, as humans grew bonded to both inanimate objects and fictional characters… more on that in the future.

For the present at that moment, I was rushing a fair bit myself, I went through four towels even with both fans going at the same time, then threw on fresh clothes. I suppose I didn’t actually need them, what with the fur and all. But I thought it was best if I met with the landing ship dressed in the local custom so they’d recognize I was between both worlds at that moment.

For clothing, I chose short cargo pants that were good and loose, coming down to just above the joint in my legs, and a button down shirt with a chest pocket to hold a pen and paper pad. While most people on Earth didn’t even need them anymore, I liked the aesthetic, and I appreciated the pragmatic approach of having a backup item to write with in case something went wrong with the electronic device I always had on me.

After changing, I picked up my drenched clothing and tossed it into a basket holding other laundry to be done. Mrs. Walker did most of the washing, she was very particular about it after William said once, ‘As long as it gets dry, who cares how?’

As I heard the story, she muttered something about ‘weaponized incompetence’ and forbade him from doing laundry after that, preferring to let him do something else instead.

I had yet to be assigned any chores in the household, save for occasionally minding the tiniest human in the family, a task I enjoyed a great deal even if it did occasionally get my tail pulled. I took my time going up the stairs despite the fact that I myself wanted to hurry, I was listening to Fauve’s incessant chatter.

“...I know, people who actually live in space… it’s amazing… yeah, yeah I’m getting the occasional nasty message still, but they’ve dropped off a lot. No, I’m not really worried, I’ve got Bailey and the others, plus mom and dad, I guess maybe those xenophobic nasties may throw a fit over an alien ship landing on Earth. But who cares? Teresa is still sore about what happened to her parents and won’t let them get a lot of media attention except when they get arrested for stuff. I really wish Mr. Barnum were here to see this. He was a cool old man…”

Some humans would perhaps criticize me for eavesdropping on my human that way. It is considered rude by most human cultures, but, not being human, meant I didn’t think that way. I’m a dlamisan scientist first, a researcher in anthropology, and some things you can only learn by covert observation. The Walkers knew that when they took me in.

I suppose, yes, I’m making excuses. But only for the greater good. Had Fauve’s words been intimate or harmful to her, I would never release them. This however, only offered insight into her excitable nature and the socialized way excitement was shared between individuals. I noticed how she still turned a thought to the late Percival Terrance Barnum. He was an intriguing old man, there was no denying that. This is just one more example of the human capacity for bonds, even brief ones, to transcend death itself even for the young.

I reached the main floor of the house and made my arrival known by not hiding the sound of my footsteps. William wasn’t present, however Boatswain, Byron, and Rebecca were.

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Fauve’s mother was finishing up putting her daughter’s hair into a ponytail, and when she saw me emerge she said, “I don’t mind if she goes, but just to be clear, that’s only if it isn’t dangerous.”

“It isn’t. It’s safe even by dlamisan standards.” I promised, and with that, Rebecca made her decision.

“Good. You’re so risk averse I’m surprised you sleep on an elevated bed. If you say it’s safe, it must be.” Rebecca chuckled at her own joke, but neither Boatswain or I did.

“Why is that funny?” I asked, and Rebecca answered me with a casual quip.

“Oh, it’s just that every year a few hundred people around the world die by falling out of their bed while they sleep.” She replied, and both Botswain and I gasped.

“I’m picking up a rod to put in the frame so that doesn’t happen to me.” I said at once, and all three of the humans laughed, while Boatswain nodded along with me.

“How are you all not extinct as a species? You’re all so reckless.” I was utterly baffled, but they shrugged all at once.

“Weaponized judicial recklessness has its uses, I guess.” Byron replied to me and got up as soon as Fauve’s hair was done.

The girl turned and traded an embrace with her mother. “Okay, we’re going, mom. I’ll do my schoolness tonight after I get home!”

Fauve’s homeschool program, being self paced, let her work whatever hours she wished. I’ve said little about the human education system, but as we left the house, I asked what she knew about it in general.

I will relay what she said as best I can.

“My dad says that a long time ago, schools were based off some kind of dumb ideas about learning, that education was one size fits all, that the goal was to make just good factory workers and that’s about it. Lots of memorization and repetition and tests… and it was only OK even at its best. That sounds kinda bad to me. But when things got modern, or started to, they got to kinda customizing education. Me, I got ‘basic skills’ early, the stuff everybody needs. Simple math, language, writing, stuff like that.”

“So that’s like most education systems I’ve seen, including home.” I pointed out, and Fauve shrugged and said…

“I dunno about that, but when I started to get older, they started ‘talent checks’ where I tried a bunch of different things, that was around ten after I had most of the basic skills a person needs just to live. Talent checks are where they started letting me look at more advanced subjects and trying simple versions of them. Different types of science and other stuff from art and music to cooking and programming. The whole idea is to figure out what I’m good at. I’m still doing those now, and they’ll keep going until I graduate.”

“What happens then?” I asked, “Do you get assigned a job?” I didn’t think this was the case just based on my observations and Teresa’s offer, but then, I couldn’t be sure that my presence wasn’t altering the options of my humans.

“No, I start applying to different things, they give me my aptitude ratings for everything, and I start secondary education if I want. Like if I want to be a doctor or a nurse and I have a high aptitude for it I go for free to study it, but if I have a low aptitude for it, I have to spend two years volunteering for a hospital or something and ‘earn’ a placement spot before I can go. Same goes for anything else, if I have a high aptitude for cooking, culinary school is covered, low aptitude, I have to go through an apprenticeship to earn a spot. If I really want to do something I have a low aptitude for, I can ‘buy’ access to the school if I’ve got the money… which I guess I do now. But I can only buy an empty seat, which means I may have to wait months or even years for one to open up.”

“Hmpf, what if you don’t want to do secondary education?” I asked.

Fauve shrugged, “Since Mr. Barnum left me lots of credits, I guess I don’t have to work if I didn’t want to, but I guess I could just keep working, secondary isn’t for everybody. But most people who don’t go secondary, instead go for a paid intern spot or go work at one of the other jobs that don’t ‘require’ more education to do. Or ones that will train you specifically for it.”

“Do you know what you want to do?” I asked, I’d never asked Fauve this question, I knew she was intelligent even by human standards. I tried to think of a job she couldn’t do, and none came to mind.

“I don’t know. I like what Teresa does, what Mr. Barnum did, I’d kind of like to keep that up. Teresa says I need some secondary school, but with her recommendation I’m guaranteed a spot anywhere in the world and can do a work/study split. But I’m also kinda interested in all the new xenostudies stuff. Maybe…” Fauve had stopped talking to me, she trailed off, lost in her own world, I may have asked the question, but as we got on board the hoverbus that would take us to a then completely unused landing platform outside of town, I could tell she was asking herself questions.

“I wonder if maybe I could combine xenostudies and media management? Xenomedia Specialist, maybe?” She wasn’t really answering me anymore, I could feel the shift in her focus, young girl or not, there was ambition in this one, an ambition I could completely understand as being not that different from my own.

There was a reason I liked this human so much, a reason I considered her mine.

Reader, you may recall my mention of the spreading of media from Earth out into the wider galaxy, the popularization of human music, movies, television, and more? Perhaps it jumps ahead to tell you why, but the why was sitting right next to me at that moment as we raced on, wind in my face, savoring the scents and feel of the breeze, and happy as could be despite not knowing all that lay ahead.