Humans are Weird - Tops ​Twenty-Trills cinched her carry pack a little tighter to her ribcage as her foot-claws dug around in her bag and her wingmates jostled and bumped around her in their excitement to get started. One, two, three, four, five regulation sized packs of saline solution; each containing enough individual doses to clean out the eyes of every deployed member of her wing. This was in addition to the ones stored in the massive transport the humans were allowing them to travel in, but those were under the wings of the quartermaster and she wouldn’t be able to get access to them until they reached the site of their destroyed camp. The weight they added to her carry pack was substantial, but she would be able to rest in the transport much of the way.
Her final survey done, she spread her wings and darted up, and up, past the highest scouts, until she could see past the first barrier of mountains that had shielded the main Survey Ranger Corps base from what she had learned was a volcanic eruption. The massive clouds of ash, smoke, and just straight down rocks had cleared, all the material falling back to the ground where it belonged, but a thin wisp of steam, no doubt super heated by the pulsing, almost living rock of the planet, still drifted up into the blue sky. Twenty-Trills hissed at it as her flight bulged up under her, about half of the flight starting to follow her up, before getting distracted and drifting back down. Eventually only the wing-commander made it to her elevation in the cold, morning air.
“Anything to report medic?” He asked briskly, his thinning fur puffed against the temperature.
“Nothing new,” she replied, “just that.”
He stared grimly at the evidence of the planet misbehaving and then shook himself.
“The geologists say the dangerous portion of the eruption is over,” he commented.
What he might have said further was interrupted by a resounding metallic gong. Below them the three humans who would be escorting them back to their camp were tossing their massive carry packs into the now empty cargo compartment of the transport. The gong had been the male setting his personal water container, which not only could have held all of Twenty-Trills’s saline solution but herself as well, on top of the transport.
The wing-commander trilled out the order to board and the flight rushed down and poured through the door the human male had just opened, causing him to jump away from the cab of the transport with a deep, booming yelp. The two human females who had already loaded in joined in the amused chittering at his reaction as they all secured the restraints necessary for a transport with an internal combustion engine, no real momentum absorption technology, and velocity capacity that made the base safety officer loose his fur at an accelerated rate. The human male was the last to load after doing a final check of the outer latch points for the small amount of cargo they were carrying out, mostly water and digging tools. He slung himself into an outer seat and the elder female started the engine and set the vehicle moving . Twenty-Trills heard the metal water container shift on the roof above them through the insulation on the inside of the transport.
“Is it a magnetic lock?” She asked.
However, the human didn’t notice the question and she gave an irritated chitter at her mistake. She dug a roll of white tape out of her bag and attached it to one wing hook and began waving it vigorously. The younger human female noticed first, tracked her line of sight, and nudged the male with her elbow. The male turned and smiled at Twenty-Trills.
“’Sup Doc?” he asked.
“Oh, I have nothing associated with my professional position to ask,” she assured him. “It’s purely a matter of curiosity. Was it magnetic attachments? Because the weight of the water doesn’t seem enough to warp the roof but-”
“Is what magnetic?” he asked.
“The attachment point for your personal water container-”
At that point the human male’s hand reached for the round slot in the door and finding nothing there his face flushed with horror.
“Carrie,” he said, turning an urgent look on the elder female, “slow-”
The transport reached a corner and the cab resounded with a massive gong sound as the water container tumbled onto its cylindrical side and the shot past the window, impacting on the ground and breaking into three parts, releasing its water into the soil of the road. The human male yelped and the transport surged to a stop. He leapt out and gathered up the pieces while the flight chattered around Twenty-Trills, waiting to see if this was harmless enough to be counted amusement. From the wide grins on the females faces it was and though the male did not look happy when he resumed his seat, his pheromone profile was not scenting of stress.
“No,” he said addressing Twenty-Trills as the transport resumed moving. “It wasn’t attached magnetically.”
“Then why did you leave it up there?” demanded a voice from behind Twenty-Trills.
“For your entertainment!” Called out the clearly amused elder female. The flight chittered in amusement at the clear joke as the male strained to reassemble the container and Twenty-Trills settled down to ponder. Why had the human left his water container on top of the transport.




Author Betty Adams Books
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