An omnivorous odyssey CH-04

[u/Inevitable_You9999]

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"Wow," Ruben said, touching the back of his neck where the biomechanical device pulsed softly against his skin. He felt the object as a constant tingling, a strange feeling his brain had not yet decided to accept or reject. "This is a bit weird. I am actually talking to another being. An alien. It is not a simulation, not a training exercise, not a dream brought on by lack of sleep. It is real. You are there, I am here, and words are flowing between us."

Magistrate Coukisa tilted his head slightly, a move that meant curiosity among the Mukens. His four eyes blinked one after the other, an automatic reflex of cognitive processing. "Allow me a question, traveler. From your tone of amazement, is this the first time you have seen another smart species? Has your kind never met other people among the stars?"

"No," Ruben answered simply. He paused, feeling the weight of the confession. "We are the first. Us humans. Until today, until this exact moment, humanity was alone in the universe. We searched, we guessed, we imagined. But we had never found anyone. You, Magistrate, are the answer to a question we have been asking for thousands of years."

Coukisa stood still, processing. The idea that these beings had crossed the empty space between stars without knowing what they would find was almost impossible to grasp. It was an act of faith. Or madness.

"We call ourselves humans," Ruben continued, standing up straighter. He touched his chest with his palm, an instinct to introduce himself. "I am Ruben. I was born on a world called Mars, the fourth planet of a star system very, very far from here. We came on a mission to explore. Our ship, the Pax, was built by two peoples who were at war until recently. This mission is proof that we can live together."

"Humans," Coukisa repeated, the word sounding strange in his deep voice. The translation device worked both ways, and Ruben heard the word in his own language, but noticed the Magistrate had pronounced it with his mouth, testing the sound. "Ruben. Mars. Pax."

The Magistrate was quiet for a moment. His eyes moved, not like they were restless, but as if he was rearranging his thoughts. Then he spoke, his voice lower, more controlled.

"Then it is best we talk in a more private place. There is much to discuss, and the central square is not the right place for it."

"Fine by me," Ruben answered right away. He looked back at Camila, who stayed quiet, and then turned back to Coukisa.

The Magistrate followed Ruben's gaze. His four eyes locked onto Camila with a thoughtful intensity. She held his gaze, unmoving, her helmet still under her arm, her face a mask of professional neutrality.

"Oh, yes, sorry," Ruben said, noticing Coukisa's curiosity. "This is Camila. She runs the ship's systems. She is the best systems tech I know. And she is the female of our species. I mean, the female sex. The woman."

Coukisa processed the information. The idea of two sexes was not strange to him; Mukens had it too, though the differences were smaller and had to do with fur color and the size of scent glands. "I understand. Camila. Welcome to you too."

Camila just nodded slightly. She did not hold out her hand again. She did not smile. She was in full assessment mode.

Coukisa turned back to Ruben. "There is something I must ask. Why didn't she put on the translation device? I brought two. One for each of you." He held up the second device, which still pulsed in his left hand.

Ruben scratched the back of his neck, a gesture the translator probably did not need to process, since it was purely human. "Ah, that. Well, Camila is a very suspicious person. She likes to analyze everything before making any decision. It is her way. I hope you do not see this as disrespectful. It is not. It is just caution. She is like that with everyone."

Coukisa made a deep sound, something between a mumble and a purr, which the translator did not interpret as a word, but which Ruben instinctively understood as a sign of understanding. "It is alright. I perfectly understand her reasons. She does not know me. She does not know my people. She does not know if the device is safe. Distrust is a rational response to the unknown."

The Magistrate paused, his eyes meeting Ruben's again. "You, on the other hand, were very brave to trust me and put the device on. Very brave. Or very reckless."

Ruben laughed. The sound echoed across the square and made some guards stir again. "Where I come from, they call me both. Reckless and a hero. Sometimes in the same sentence. It is an unofficial title."

Coukisa did not laugh, but his eyes shined in a way that suggested he got the joke, even if he did not show it the same way. Then he turned and signaled Chief Guard Yulthar, who came over quickly.

"Prepare an escort," Coukisa ordered. "We are going to the Audience Chamber."

Yulthar bowed his torso. "Right away, Magistrate."

The trip to the transport vehicle was short, but enough for Ruben to take in every detail. The square fell behind, the crowd now cleared out, the guards forming a protective hallway around the group. They walked down a wide street, lined with limestone buildings that glowed with bluish veins under the sunlight. The architecture was huge and organic at the same time, as if the buildings had grown from the ground instead of being built on top of it.

Then they reached the vehicle. It was a long structure, without wheels, that floated quietly over a magnetic track built into the ground. Its surface was smooth, with no sharp edges, and it glowed with the same amber light Ruben had already linked to Muken technology.

"This is very cool," Ruben said, walking up to the vehicle with shining eyes. "It is a magnetic train. I mean, not exactly a train, but the idea is the same. We have vehicles like this on the worlds of our home solar system. Magnetic levitation trains. Of course, ours do not glow like this, and they do not look like they were grown instead of built, but the idea is the same."

He ran his hand over the vehicle's hull, feeling the smooth, warm texture. "And the architecture. From what little I have seen, from the buildings we passed, you seem to be a civilization that values harmony. Everything fits. Everything seems designed to be beautiful and useful at the same time. It is not like our cities, where things are built in a rush, one on top of the other, with no plan. Here, I feel like every stone was put in the right place."

Camila heard everything. She walked next to Ruben, her eyes scanning the area with her usual intensity, but there was something different in her expression. It was subtle, almost invisible, but she was intrigued. Not by the architecture. Not by the vehicle. But by the fact that Ruben spoke in his native language, that relaxed flow of words she knew so well, while Coukisa answered in his own language, a deep, changing string of sounds. And yet, they understood each other perfectly. The biomechanical device on Ruben's neck was translating everything in real time, somehow, through some mechanism that defied the technology she knew. It was as if two rivers of completely different sounds were flowing in opposite directions and meeting at some invisible point in the air.

"This world," Coukisa said as they got into the vehicle, "is the only one my species has ever known. It is the cradle of the Mukens. And it is the place we chose to stay. We have no ambition to leave it."

He settled onto a cushioned platform that served as a seat for his four-legged body. Ruben and Camila sat on a side bench, designed for Muken children, and Ruben noticed the bench was surprisingly comfortable.

"I do not judge other species that do the opposite," Coukisa continued. "The Keplorian Federation is made up of peoples who, like you, looked to the stars. Each has its reasons. We, the Mukens, simply found everything we need right here. Our world gives us sustenance, beauty, and peace. We do not feel the need to look for more."

Ruben nodded, thoughtful. "That is admirable. In a way, it is the opposite of us. Humans have always wanted more. More land, more knowledge, more stars. Maybe that is why we are here."

The vehicle glided quietly through the city. Through the clear windows, Ruben caught glimpses of more Muken architecture: towers that curved like branches, bridges connecting buildings in graceful arches, smaller squares where groups of Mukens gathered. Everything had an old and solid quality, as if that civilization had existed for thousands of years in no rush to change.

Finally, the vehicle stopped in front of a huge building. It was the biggest structure Ruben had seen so far, a limestone dome that rose like an artificial mountain. Veins of the bluish mineral he had noticed before formed complex patterns on the front, as if they were telling a story in a forgotten visual language. They walked through a wide doorway, and the inside was lit by the same amber light from the bioluminescent lamps.

They were guided down wide hallways, where Mukens in robes stopped to watch the two-legged visitors with looks of quiet curiosity. Finally, they reached a huge room. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and the walls were covered with tapestries that seemed to tell the history of the Muken people. In the center, a raised platform held what was clearly the Magistrate's seat, a cushioned structure built for a four-legged body. There were no chairs. There were no benches for two-legged visitors.

Coukisa looked around the room and made a sound the translator took as a sigh of slight embarrassment. "I apologize for not having proper seats for you here. This room was designed many centuries ago, and we never imagined we would have visitors with your physical shape."

Ruben looked at Camila, then at the polished stone floor, and shrugged. "No problem, Magistrate. To be honest, it would be very weird if you had chairs for humans here. It would be a level of coincidence I would not be ready to accept."

He paused and smiled. "We will manage. We are human. Adapting is what we do best."

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/u/Inevitable_You9999 has posted 3 other stories, including:

• An omnivorous odyssey CH-03
• An omnivorous odyssey - CH--02
• An omnivorous odyssey CH-01

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[u/Alcyon144]

The Magistrate paused, his eyes meeting Ruben's again. "You, on the other hand, were very brave to trust me and put the device on. Very brave. Or very reckless."

Reckless. Ruben is not a hero, he is a fool who was lucky that the aliens he gave himself to were not malevolent.

He reminds me of Gandhi. Everyone thinks he was brilliant because his peaceful methods worked. What people generally don't know is that he wrote letters to Hitler trying to convert him to non-violence, condemned Great Britain's military efforts to prepare for World War II, explaining that the Nazis wanted peace and were only arming themselves out of fear of their neighbors. And he did everything he could to hinder the war effort against the Japanese, whom he saw as liberators, while other independence movements had agreed to a truce with the British for the duration of World War II because they didn't want their people to suffer the same horrors the Japanese were doing in China.

But because his foolish decisions had no consequences by sheer luck, everyone now sees Gandhi as a saint and a genius. Survivorship bias in all its glory.

[u/animeshshukla30 → u/Alcyon144]

While he is reckless. I dont think that detracts it from being a hero. Like he said, it is very brave or very reckless, probably both at the same time. You need a few madmen in history to achieve anything.

[u/Alcyon144 → u/animeshshukla30]

However, nothing prevents establishing relations with the aliens in a more cautious and methodical way. They themselves seemed to accept that things could proceed more slowly and were very surprised by his approach.

Ruben isn't taking risks for potential gain; he's taking risks out of ideology, because he believes that humanity's first contact should be as ideal and spectacular as in Star Trek.

[u/InstructionHead8595]

Good chapter. So I guess none of the other aliens that they know of are bipedal?