Humans are Weird - Circulation ​ The strange human music pulsed through the dense air as Survey Corps Ranger Cest’kk carefully arranged the one-thousand seven-hundredth forty-fifth aquatic invertebrate specimen on the display slide with his claw tips and set the slide cover over the still wriggling creature with a satisfying click. The electromagnetic stasis field activated perfectly this time, freezing the creature in place, and Cest’kk felt every limb relax a little and even begin tapping in time to the human music. Really, the slides had worked very well today over all, but when one was processing hundreds of specimens, even a less than one percent failure rate grew agitating.
Cest’kk took a moment to flex one paw at a time, working stuffiness out of his joints. Behind him Survey Core Ranger Robberrtss was whistling a tune while resetting the traps. Due to the local sun shining down with no clouds for the first time this trip, the human had shed most of his uniform, trusting to his own robust immune system to protect him from the microscopic inhabitants of the stream they were surveying. Cest’kk certainly had opinions about that, but Robberrtss was well past mental maturity for his species and his actions were not directly against regulations.
“Some human or the other is going to be the first to catch whatever this ecosystem can throw at us,” Robberrtss had said when Cest’kk had brought up unknown parasites in the water that was still being surveyed. “Might as well be me as anyone else!”
The courage of the sentiment was unquestionable, the sense of it...Cest’kk shrugged a few legs and resumed his work. He finished the slides well before the local sun dipped below the horizon and called Robberrtss over to help load the air-cart. In addition to the rack of slides preserving the live invertebrates Robberrts had several ‘cool rocks’ to send back to the geologists at the main base and a ‘goop thing’ that didn’t seem to have any cells but didn’t quite seem abiotic either. A quick calculation showed that there was not nearly enough weight capacity for all the specimens and Robberrtss spent no little time culling the ‘cool rock’ collection before they could send the air-cart back to base and return to their own camp. However eventually he did finish, shoving the remaining ‘cook rocks’ into the pockets of the small clothing item he had chosen to wear. He held out his hands to Cest’kk who had just finished repacking his satchel with his tools.
“Ally’oop lil’ buddy!” Robberrtss called out.
Cest’kk gratefully leapt up into the offered hand, and clicked his mandibles so hard he felt a spark of pain in their joints.
“What’s wrong Cesty?” Robberrtss asked as Cest’kk scrambled off of the human’s hand and up his arm.
Normally Cest’kk was very, very mindful of the damage his claws could do to the human’s outer membrane, and he was glad to note that no blood dripped from the places he secured his grip on the mammal on the way up.
“What is wrong with your hands?” Cest’kk demanded once he reached the marginally more comfortable shoulder, however the effect was noticeable there as well, only the skin around the head and neck seemed unaffected.
“What?” Robberrtss asked, raising his hands into his narrow field of vision. “My hands are fine.”
“They have dropped, ten maybe twenty percent in temperature!” Cest’kk exclaimed shifting his satchel to a better position to be able to gesture at the human. “I know how mammals work! That is not good!”
Robberrtss gave a huff of laughter and set his eyes roiling around in their sockets, a thing he must know disturbed Cest’kk to no end.
“I am fine Cesty,” the human said firmly, beginning to walk back towards the bank and their camp. “When a human in in the water the body just draws all the heat into the core. My body as a whole has plenty of heat, it’s just that my hands aren’t a priority at the moment.”
Cest’kk dug through his satchel and pulled out a bioreader. Robberrtss heaved a sigh of exasperation but held out the relevant body part, the joint where his hand met his arm, for Cest’kk to get the reading.
“See Cesty?” Robberrtss said in a tone humans used to patronize others. “The temp is just…”
Robberrtss voice trailed off as he looked at the display.
“Okay,” the human said slowly, “yeah, no, yeah, that is maybe,not the best number to see there.”
“How are you even vertical?” Cest’kk demanded. “According to this you should be non-responsive!”
“Eh,” the human said shrugging his shoulders before scrambling up the bank. “Different strokes for different humans.”
“Stroke?” Cest’kk exclaimed, frantically reaching for his tablet and its list of human medical terms. “I need to observe you for a...that was a bad medical word wasn’t it? Let me pull up-”
“Common word, two meanings!” Robberrtss said laughing. “I just meant I am a little tougher when it comes to changes in body temp than the, let’s call it a ‘textbook’ human. Look, I am clearly vertical and responsive as you said. Now let’s get back to camp and I promise I’ll seal myself up in my sleeping bag.”
“Is that the suggested medical intervention?” Cest’kk demanded.
He wasn’t a mammal expert but he was pretty sure he remembered from his first aid training that once their temperature dipped too low they needed intervention to bring it up again.
“No medical intervention is necessary,” Robberrtss insisted, “I’ll just eat some quick digesting food and let my metabolism and the sleeping bag do its thing, but hey, if it makes you happy I’ll hook up the water pump feature and put the bag in hot-soak mode. Yeah, that’ll feel real good and get me toasty quick.”
“That sounds acceptable,” Cest’kk agreed.
It did sound like what they had gone over in the first aid training.
“And you know what they say,” Robberrtss said, twisting his face into the shape that usually indicated an attempt at a joke was coming. “Cold hands warm heart!”
“If you collapse before we can return to our camp I do not see what temporarily preserving your internal organ temperature will do for your survival chances,” Cest’kk snapped.
Robberrtss rolled his eyes again and gave a low chuckle, as if to make up for Cest’kk’s lack of amusement as the returned to their camp. Author Betty Adams Books
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