“Well, one of the reasons you put perfume on the wrists is that there’s more body heat there or something so scent carries.” Brennan said. “Plus, sir, it’s a lot less invasive than if they wanted to sniff our necks or butts.” She added, shrugging.
Sykes relented, “Alright. Let them smell your wrists, non-dominant hands though.”
One by one they held out wrists that were sniffed by each of the three members of the greeting party in turn. Johnston did not look happy, and only reluctantly held his arm out, but they all did it.
The three villagers then got into a huddle and there was clearly a short argument, but as is the purpose of huddles it was hard to hear and Makari reported it was unable to translate. It seemed to go well though, as post-huddle the three unwrapped their wrists and hands and presented them ceremoniously to the team.
Dr. Zanna’s heart fluttered as she delicately took each wrist and had a quick sniff. They smelled, like people really. People who had been out working up a sweat. Honestly the wrist part was unnecessary as a breeze in their direction carried over the smell ably as well as a sweet, almost cloying scent she assumed was from the field of overgrown flowers. She also noticed fine white scars on each of the villagers, just little white dashes here and there where perhaps their wrappings hadn’t covered them as much as they would have liked. Although that was assuming the scars came from the flowers or their silk.
Afterwards they crouched down again, but straightened when Makari made some gesture she wasn’t able to see properly, one of its forelimbs having obscured the motion. Yes, there was definitely something going on there, but she wasn’t familiar enough with either Makari 4 as an individual or the Jaasoos Videshee as a species to tell what or even if it was something intentional on Makari’s part, although if she were forced to guess she’d say Makari was feeling uncomfortable. But did it have feelings? There were so many unanswered questions there, like what the deal was between Makari and the US government? Questions for another time.
Standing straight, although looking uncomfortable doing so, the tallest member of the greeting party was a couple inches taller than Dr. Zanna, putting him, she would guess, at around 5’8” and had brown almond shaped eyes that were red rimmed. He didn’t show any of the other signs of tears so from an allergic reaction perhaps. Or perhaps not, it wasn’t necessary to speculate on this so she pushed the thought from her mind.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The two groups examined each other carefully and silently. When no one had said anything for a minute or so she gave it a try. “We come in peace. We are explorers from, from very far away.” She kept her hands up and tried to radiate calm. A moment later Makari translated, she guessed, and it involved small mandible gestures and soft huffing sounds and clicks. When the humans responded it was warily, their bodies angled away from the team. A few words were spoken, but a lot of the communication seemed to be done through hand and foot gestures, all of which were directed at Makari even as their eyes flickered back and forth across the Earthers.
Makari translated in its gender-fluid tones, pitched Dr. Zanna would swear, to sound soothing to a human ear. “They would like to know why you do not smell the same and what it is that you want. They do not have extra kefti, the plant they are harvesting, and you do not look or smell like people of the neighboring clans.”
“Uh… Tell them we use different things to wash our hair and bodies.” She shrugged, mostly in Sykes direction. “I don’t know why they find that strange, but without knowing that I figure honesty is the best policy?” This was not going as well as she’d hoped, but then again her hopes had probably been unrealistic. To instantly pick up on all sorts of cues that other people would miss and almost immediately make groundbreaking leaps in xenoanthropology. She sighed and shrugged again.
Sykes gave Makari the go ahead and it translated once more. Further exchange occurred and Dr. Zanna tried to pay attention to the broad strokes, in terms of tone, pace, when gestures occurred and so on. She wanted to figure out things like if the language was tonal or atonal, what role did the gestures play, were they for flavoring or meant to convey their own ideas or some combination of the two. Her guess, given the uniformity, almost formality of the gestures between the different villagers, was that the gestures were the language itself, and the words were used for emphasis.
Sykes cleared his throat at Makari. And then from the back of its head it said, “One moment Major, I am explaining to them that you are not all of one household, that you come from different clans within a larger societal grouping.”
“Ok, well maybe just translate and we’ll tell them about where we’re from.” Sykes said, arms folded across his broad chest.
“You know, if your people were to adopt the nanites as was suggested by Makari Prime then this would not be an issue.” Crispist, upper-classiest British for that one, but bereft of tone that would indicate if it was intended to be passive aggressive or not. Also, Dr. Zanna wondered how many Makaris there were and what differentiated the ‘Prime’.
“That is under discussion with the senior scientists and not my decision to make.” Sykes said slowly, with a bit of an edge.
Makari flexed its mandibles and then said, “I apologise, I am addressing both groups now.”
Dr. Zanna looked up and indeed the other group was looking right back at them, all parties seemed a little surprised. Her heart fluttered, having both going at the same time would be tremendously helpful as she could gauge reactions in real time, or at least near it. Languages paced pieces of themselves differently. She might be able to notice where this one did.
The team spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to explain nation states to the villagers before them, until they got bored and practically begged to take these pedantic strangers to meet the village elders