According to her helmet's head-up display, the air was very pure, exactly 26% oxygen and 74% nitrogen, almost like back home. And nothing else, it was even purer than on their ship, the carbohydrate traces had dropped when the alien's ship's hatch had opened.
The clanmother looked back at her. "Can we go now?"
She took off her helmet, sniffed and nodded. All she could smell was herself and the clanmother. The alien ship was an olfactory void, as featureless as the diffuse white light that shone through the hatch. She followed the clanmother.
As soon as they both were on the alien ship, the iris hatch closed behind them and disappeared. They stood in a brightly lit, featureless room with no visible corners or shadows. The light came evenly from all the walls floor and ceiling, making it impossible to guess the size of the room. It was very disorientating. The only guide was the pull of the centripetal forces, giving them an up and down.
Then an iris on the other side opened and the avatar entered. Her general shape was not so far off from a cat, she had a snout and the same outline, shoulders with two arms, hips with two legs. She was naked, but somehow not. Her whole body was covered in small iridescent scales. Which meant that the breasts were not breasts at all, just smooth mounds. She didn't see any genitals either. And no tail.
The avatar took ten steps across the room to meet them. The room could not be that large.
"Welcome, Clanmother Fiyul and Second Pilot Rerra." This time it was her mouth that created the sound, her lips moving in sync with the words. She spoke a soft Standard, carefully crafted to be soft enough for a mother, yet alien enough for the avatar. "We are the avatar for the Kolani." The avatar bowed well for a tail-less alien.
The clanmother bowed, and she followed, bowing even deeper.
"Thank you for your offer. I came as soon as I could."
"We have all the time in the universe, Clanmother Fiyul. We are glad you have made the long journey to meet the last descendants of our ancient civilisation. Will there be others joining us?"
The clanmother turned to her. "Second Pilot, please call Fanny, the others should join us."
The iris hatch in the seamless wall opened again, revealing their hard, utilitarian passenger docking port tunnel. "Please, Second Pilot Rerra, go ahead. Feel free to adjust the pressure to ease the access." The avatar made an undefined hand gesture, a hand with five fingers.
She nodded anyway. "Excuse me for a moment, Avatar, Clanmother, I will override our hatch." She stepped into the tunnel, which now felt dirty and dark. She quickly punched in the override code, which was printed on a vacuum-rated label tape next to the screen for emergencies. After a few moments, the hatch opened. She stuck her head through. "Please come over, we are all invited to the other ship."
Soon there were seven cats standing with the avatar in the room on the other ship. The indirect lighting with no shadows and no clear corners made it difficult for some of them to keep the balance.
"Welcome, we are the avatar of the Kolani." The avatar bowed again.
They introduced themselves, Fanny first. Then the two doctors, Daria and Yuri. The guards hesitated, but then also introduced themselves as Dac and Rocka. She suppressed a smile at their very appropriate names.
The avatar nodded gracefully. "You have travelled far. We have prepared several environments for your stay, a light woodland, a savannah, a cave, and not from your planet but the home of the ocelots that lent you your fur pattern, a tropical forest and a mangrove coast with a beach and a tropical sea."
"Dear Avatar, if possible, we would prefer business first," the clanmother said, "since you have agreed to a demonstration, and we do not wish to take advantage of your hospitality any longer than necessary."
"Clanmother, rest assured there will be a demonstration in due course. But your companions seem disoriented in this reception room. Young Fanny, do you have a preference?"
The clanmother started to speak, but the avatar held up his hand. Fanny looked around forlornly.
Rerra knew what she would choose. She had only heard stories of endless water. And though there were a few larger lakes on the planet, she had never been to one. "Please, the sea," she murmured, her voice much louder than she wanted it in this featureless room.
"Second Pilot Rerra, did you suggest the sea?"
The clanmother gave her an angry look. But it was out now. She squirmed, then nodded.
The avatar turned. "Please follow us. We can visit another biotope if this is not to your liking."
An iris appeared and opened, bright sunlight shining through. On the other side, they emerged from a rock and stepped onto bright sand running left and right and between strange tall trees with all their leaves on the top and endless water. A little further down the sand ended at a thick shrub that stretched into the water. The air was hot and very humid and full of strange smells. Animals soared through the air and a thunderous noise came from the water. They all stood stunned.
Fanny picked up a handful of sand, sniffed it and threw the sand in the air. Then she went to a tree, took out her claws and dug deep claw marks into the bark. She climbed up a little, supported only by her claws.
The avatar spoke again. "This is all real, right down to the grown flora and bred fauna. We even added two ocelots. But they hunt in the twilight, so we will meet them later. Please explore a little while we prepare for the demonstration. We will be back soon." And then the iris in the rock opened and swallowed the avatar.
On their own, they went in different directions, testing this reality.
And it was real. Even the gravity felt stronger. And it was really hot, the artificial sun was burning. She wanted to feel the sand too. She took off her thinsuit, ignoring that she was naked underneath. The sand was hot. So she ran to the border between the sand and the water. She was fascinated by the water coming in and running back to the sea. It was so great. Who cared that it was an alien ship! This was more exclusive than any resort planet (if they were a thing at all). She splashed through the water.
After the first rush, she turned around. The two guards were chasing each other on the beach. The doctors looked at the plants. Only the clanmother stood with her usual poker face in the shade of a tree near the rock they had entered, apparently waiting for the avatar to reappear. Her loss.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She waded deeper into the warm water. There were fish, very colourful, and other sea creatures. They escaped her attempts to catch them and hid among the red and brown plants. Fanny joined her, curious to see what she was doing in the water.
They didn't pay attention and were both buried by a big wave. The water was salty and stung their eyes. They still giggled with joy and shook it out of their fur. Then she took Fanny and threw her playfully into the water. Fanny squealed with glee and came out blowing water from her nostrils. And asking for more until it felt like a workout, even though the skinny Fanny was half her weight.
Then she tried to swim in the hip-deep water. But she had no idea how to swim and her instincts were telling her nothing. Neither did Fanny.
* * *
She wasn't sure how much time had passed. But after a while, there was a shrill noise. She blinked the water from her eyes and followed Fanny's pointing claw. The avatar had returned and had brought with them a large carcass. (She had chosen the plural because the avatar always spoke of themselves as we.) They were also building something out of wood. The others approached them and thus, they left the water and went to the stone circle too.
Fanny's fur clung to her body. She really was a slim, fragile cat, probably the slimmest of them all which strongly contrasted her small strong build. The guards who watched their return from the beach whispered to each other. She did not mind, let them talk.
She smelled the smoke before she saw the small fire the avatar had built in the stone circle. On the planet, fire had been something special. She had seen the few well-guarded and pampered trees in the central gardens of the main Samul residence. Otherwise, the climate on the planet was too dry and cold, and thus low shrubs were the only source of wood. Burning real wood was rare and only done on special occasions. Hence, their preference for raw and dried meat. But there were more trees on this beach than on their planet.
They all huddled around the stone circle and watched as the avatar fed the flames.
The avatar looked up. "Thank you for coming. We have prepared a giraffe carcass for dinner. But first, it is time for the demonstration. Who is the volunteer?"
A giraffe carcass? A real giraffe? The so-called giraffe meat from the planet was likely engineered as there were four giraffes on the planet. And here they had a real giraffe, grown just for them?
"Rerra will do," the clanmother decided, ripping her from her thoughts.
"Second Pilot Rerra, will you help us? We promise you a free pass afterwards."
"Ok," she said to the avatar, not sure what that meant, and stood up.
"Please take our hand," the avatar said.
She touched it. The silver skin was warmer than hers. From the look of their skin, she had expected a colder temperature, like the fish.
"Interesting mutation," the avatar said, "your children will also have hands and feet, whether the father is cat or human."
She looked at them startled. "No normal kittens?"
The avatar continued, "We can change that. Whoever designed your ancestors went to great lengths to make the cat genes dominant. Your mutation has integrated these human appendages to them. By the way, your father was a human with more than 99% certainty."
"But my birth certificate," she trailed off. Perhaps that was why there had not been so much surprise that she had been like that. Why they had not really cared, had not considered an operation when she had been an infant. It suddenly all made sense. She was shocked. "Those literal bastards!" she spoke much too loudly, "Sorry." Samul had lied to her all her life!
The avatar placed their other hand on her shoulder. "We are very sorry for having brought this up."
"No, I am grateful for the truth." She still stood tense and her tail whipped out, spitting drops of water and grains of sand.
"Would you still come with us?"
They all walked to the stone they had entered through. The iris appeared before the avatar and led them into another white room. This room had a brownish, elongated box on the floor, its rectangular appearance contrasting sharply with the smooth contours of the room.
"Is this it?"
"Yes, Clanmother Fiyul, this is a modding chamber, or modder as you call it. For the first mod, we will operate it ourselves. But rest assured, we will explain the interface later." They pointed at her. "Now Second Pilot Rerra, please lie down on the modder."
The top of the box was softer than she thought. It was a bit sticky, though. But that could be because her fur was still damp.
She heard the cats gasp and then the lights went out.
She was standing with the avatar in another white room, even though she had just laid down on the box.
"Second Pilot Rerra, we are inside the modder. This is where you can try out the new bodies before the actual mod begins. For tonight we would like to ask you to join us in a body similar to ours. We will undo this later, and you will be free to choose any feature you like, within reasonable limits."
"Sorry, I am a bit confused."
"This is an advanced modder. It can transform your body into any carbon-based lifeform in this galaxy, far beyond the crude things you have so far. Clanmother Fiyul asked us to help her advance your modding technology, and we agreed to provide her with two modders. For a demonstration of the modder's capabilities, we would like you to be a second avatar tonight."
"You are the only one on this ship?"
"Second Pilot Rerra, we are one of the first civilisations and we are tired. This modder is able to give eternal life by regular modding into a younger body. But life needs a purpose. That is why most of us have faded away."
"I am sorry."
The avatar sounded amused, though their face did not move. "So you will honour our request?"
"Yes. I trust you."
"Thank you."
The room faded into darkness and moments later everyone was gasping, though it sounded very different. Still lying on the modder box, she sat up. Then she saw her skin - or rather her tiny silver scales. She inhaled to speak, "Oh, by Hopkin!"
It was her voice and yet not, it had overtones and other timbres. And it was her body, though it did not look like it. A solid out-of-body experience.
The other cats looked at her, frightened and confused.
"Second Pilot Rerra, thank you for joining us as an avatar this evening."
"That was less than a tenth!" Yuri exclaimed, coming over to her, "Rerra, this is really you?"
She nodded. "Yes, but I feel strange."
"You can examine her later," the avatar interjected, "though your equipment may prove inadequate as her body is now based entirely on 8 base pair DNA, down to every single protein. We created the avatar template long ago to interact with other races after most of us had given up our physical bodies. We have tweaked it quite a bit and, of course, added some cosmetics depending on the rare guests we entertain."
"But that's impossible," Daria, the other doctor, shook her head, "not even a cosmetic modification would be that fast. And you rebuilt every cell?"
"Do you know how your modder works in detail?" they asked.
"No, not in detail, sorry," Daria admitted, "I am just operating it. But in principle, yes, I know. It could never change something so fundamental as the proteins inside each cell."
"This one is more advanced. It actually rebuilds each cell. We think your visit to us will be well rewarded, as we will provide you with two of our modders."
This even brought a hint of a smile to the clanmother's face.
The avatar turned to her. "Second Pilot Rerra, can you stand?" The avatar reached out and pulled her up. They were surprisingly strong.
She stood a little wobbly, now balanced on the toes of paws. And she stood taller, at eye level with the avatar.
"We'll let go of your hand now. Are you all right?"
She stood and then took a step. "Yes, but not having a tail is strange and, well, everything is so different, the smell and the colours and even the room. How can I see the walls and the irises when there is nothing to see?"
"As we said, these bodies are highly optimised. Let's take the eyes. Cats have only two chromophores in their eyes, red and green. Humans have three, and you now have five, from infrared to ultraviolet." The light changed colour five times before returning to white to make their point. "We have increased the olfactory receptors and enhanced all your other senses to avatar level, some of which you did not have before, such as acoustic depth perception. That would be the one that tells you the size of the room and its exits. Try it, close your eyes and follow us."
She obeyed and closed her eyes. More muscles went into action to close the eyes completely and it went dark. But not really dark, a more diffuse 'view' of the room remained, with lesser detail. The people in the room also changed. Fanny had a bright, flickering heartbeat, a strangely coloured breathing sound and a very distinct outline. The clanmother's heart was firm and steady, but her breathing was shallow and her outline more diffuse. The avatar was just a faint acoustic outline, emitting very little sound. "This is incredible." She still 'saw' the avatar turning and heading for one of the exits.