Every 25 years, a meeting of directors from all over the Galacticum is held (local & regional meetings are held more often)
The unofficial big topic of conversation at this meeting is "humans", as shortly into this 25-year period humans had joined the Galacticum.
Spider-Ted is present in a meeting room & has one (or more) tales of Phideaux to share.
Another crusty old facility director gets their turn to speak, and they admit that they have had no human assigned to their facility, but have a doozy of a "human" story, anyway.
The Director's tale
One day, all was going as usual at our research station out on the far reaches of sector 3. We were all surprised by the deep rumbling sounds of an unexpected visitor.
I walked outside to see an obsolete assault transport slowing for a landing on our pad. Such was unusual as shuttles were the normal mode of transport.
I had a bad feeling as to who was inside, and that feeling was borne out when the rear assault ramp slammed open and pirates started moving out.
These were the roughest bunch of pirates I'd ever seen. Not one was what you'd call "healthy". Most all of them had burn marks, large scars or other marks of a harsh existence on them. Some of them had bionics to replace missing appendages or sensory organs. Others had stunted or blasted appendages - as if the appendage had been majorly damaged and left to heal without proper treatment.
Another odd aspect of all this was that they had no weapons and were not running about shouting or raising a ruckus. The disembarking pirates separated into groups & each group of pirates moved methodically to a group of scientists or research building and asked politely (No, I do not kid you, fellow gentlebeings! "Please", "yes, sir", "no ma'am" and "thanky-sai" were just falling out of their oratorical parts) for materials or hardware. They did not hassle or force themselves on any of the resident scientists, and they all kept their grasping appendages to themselves and their ocular organs pointed downward the whole time - not looking directly at any scientist they were speaking with. There was no random & meaningless property destruction either, as was the norm when pirates visited.
Their behavior was very, very odd, and I was puzzling over the display I was seeing which was made all the more odd when one of the pirates passed close to me and - without breaking stride - whispered "Please sir, I beg asylum. Please help me!" before passing beyond whisper range.
After a bit, he pirates had all found whatever was on their particular lists and were making their way back to the assault transport.
The giant and the mobile flesh stripper
All the pirates had disappeared back into the transport with whatever they'd collected from us and a few minutes had passed when this unfamiliar furless biped made its way out of the transport. It was followed closely by a smaller quadrupedal beast of some sort. The large biped stood 2m tall, was smoothly muscled and covered with scars from burns, punctures and bites. It was obviously a predator of some kind with its binocular oculars & distinct mandibular structure. It wasn't wearing any coverings that I could discern, but had two carryalls, each slung over one shoulder. I had never seen anything like it.
The tall predator stood at the end of the ramp and calmly scanned the grounds of the facility. It then made a "tch tch" noise and gestured away from the transport with one grasping appendage and the smaller quadruped moved off, snuffling at the ground as it went.
The beast had sharp claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Its fur was evenly coated with some sort of glistening substance. Perhaps some sort of natural waterproofing? In any event, I was not inclined to examine it closely after it snarled at me and showed me its numerous sharp teeth as it passed by.
The beast sniffed around the grounds and suddenly - near an outside storage area - started jumping up and down and making a "reee reee reee" noise. Somehow, the large biped appeared next to it without anyone seeing it move. The furless biped kneeled down and stroked the small beast on top of its head and under its chin, making untranslatable mouth noises before making the "tch tch" sound and gesturing to a spot about 2m away from the storage unit doors. When the creature arrived at the indicated point and turned around to look at the biped, the biped arranged one distal manipulator parallel to the ground and made downward pushing motions. The beast immediately laid down in a watchful posture. The hairless giant then opened the storage unit door. The tall creature moved into the doorway and moved its head in several quirky-jerky motions that sent primordial fear coursing through my body - this biped was hunting something.
The furless one must have heard or seen enough, because - from a standing position - it pounced into the storage unit, and the horrified screams began.
The large biped emerged, dragging a struggling pirate. The biped had sunk its digits into the pirate's torso, and the fur surrounding these punctures was already turning colors & falling out. Most chillingly, some sort of organ had extended from the biped's lower bifurcation and a swollen red bulb was displayed on its end. I knew enough to recognize that "red" meant "danger" when it comes to biology, so moved back and continued to observe.
The biped dragged the pirate into the middle of the common area so both were in sight of the pirates inside the transport. "DISOBEDIENCE BRINGS DEATH" the biped said loudly, and then - with a quick & forceful shake - snapped the pirate's neck.
The biped walked over to me, dragging the corpse; "Where is your refuse area?" it asked. I pointed to our outdoor trash area, and - without any sign of exertion - the biped threw the corpse dozens of meters into the pile while glaring at the assembled pirates. I noticed that the biped's fleshy lower construct had returned to its nub-like appearance.
The small creature had resumed its position near the biped and it was given the "tch tch" & gesture combo again. It took off, snuffling the ground and moving in an erratic pattern hither & thither.
The small, oily creature made its way to the forest's edge and repeated the "I've found something" behavior from before. Again, the human seemingly appeared out of nowhere next to it, rubbed its head and sent it to sit a couple meters into the central clearing.
I heard a thump from behind me, and then one to my side so I turned to look. Two of my scientists had fainted. I resumed observing the biped and found out why - it had squatted down and was slowly - almost to the point of imperceptibility - and silently moving around the forest floor in a pattern. As it moved it would turn its head in various directions, apparently looking or listening for something.
As quickly as a lightning bolt, the biped suddenly leapt and jammed one of his upper appendages deep into the ground! It started struggling with something underneath the forest floor and for a few seconds there was a bit of a tug-of-war between surface & the depths.
The biped eventually dragged another pirate out from the ground (apparently the pirate was of a subterranean lineage). The biped had his distal manipulators embedded into the pirate, as it'd done with the previous pirate and the digging pirate was also screaming in agony or horror (or both).
The biped moved immediately to the rear of the assault transport, dragging the pirate the entire way (with the small creature taking the opportunity to nibble at the pirate's exposed body parts).
The large biped stopped about 2 meters from the edge of the assault transport's ramp and gave each pirate there a hard look. It held up the still-struggling pirate and said "DISOBEDIENCE BRINGS DEATH" at which point it slung the pirate high into the air. In the time it'd taken for the pirate to ascend, the large biped had taken a few steps backward. The biped's "danger stick" had returned and it bobbed up and down with every step the biped took. When the pirate started to descend, the furless biped quickly ran forward and forcefully struck the hapless pirate with one of its lower distal appendages just before the pirate hit the ground.
The pirate disintegrated.
The assembled pirates (and the interior of the assault shuttle) were bathed in bodily fluids and hit with small pieces of what used to be the pirate. There were several more THUMPS from around the perimeter as more scientists fainted.
The biped gestured toward two of the pirates and said "bring it." It then walked over to me (curiously, its "danger stick" was deflating) and said "I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused. Please accept this as a small token toward reparations"; the two pirates had arrived holding a transit case. The biped opened the box to expose a 1kg block of neurolambdium ferroalloy - one of the most expensive substances in the Galacticum.
The pirates set the box down, and they, the biped and his small creature all boarded the assault transport and departed. We never saw them again.
Solving one puzzle creates many more
I dispatched medics to aid the stricken and locked the ferroalloy in the facility's secure storage. I then sat down at my terminal and started collecting footage from the camp's sensor net to run through the Galacticum archives.
To my surprise, it seems we'd been visited by not one, but TWO really exotic species that day.
Smallboi
The smaller creature was Allurian Treebeast. These animals were native to Allure 7 and lived in the forests on that planet. They were arboreal & terrestrial and were known for their high aggression levels toward anything that wasn't them. The Treebeasts are proscribed from Galacticum commerce not only due to their high strength-to-weight ratio and laser-sharp claws, but for the fact that they secreted a deadly toxin in their mouth fluids. One bite will kill all known Galacticum species in short order and there is no known antivenin. Did I mention that along with the claws, they've got lots & lots of sharp teeth, too?
Getting back to the tale, Allurian Treebeasts clean themselves with their tongues, coating their entire body with this deadly toxin. Only a handful of these animals are known to exist off of Allure 7, and those are held in highly secured research labs. Not a lot is known about them, as their aggression makes them hard to study and there have been no known survivors of its toxin (yet another factoid our human visitor set firmly on its aural organ). Until I uploaded the footage from the pirate visit to the scientific community, it was thought that the Treebeasts couldn't be tamed, but apparently that is no longer true, either.
Big boy
The large furless biped - according to Galacticum datasets - was a tyranosapiens terranus horrificus (a human) and boy! Did it live up to its nomenclature!
The human that visited us was not wearing a SocialSuit and appeared somewhat feral, as it had long unkempt follicular growth around its head & mandibles. According to the Galacticum database, the fleshy nub / "danger stick" located at its lower bifurcation indicated this was a male of the species (still no clue as to what caused that particular construct to grow & deflate during his visit). His highly aggressive predatory behaviors indicated he had not read any "Introduction to the Galacticum" material, either. His appearance raised lots of questions: How had he come to be in charge of a group of pirates? How had he tamed a notoriously aggressive Allurian Treebeast? Further, how was he not affected by its toxin? Beyond that, how had the animal come to be in his possesion in the first place? He spoke rationally, so he was not totally feral. The questions raised by this one encounter could fill a couple of datapads!
From studying the pirates on the video, it was readily apparent that the human ruled them with a toxic, iron manipulator. Not sure the correlation of species-specific bite scars on the human's appendages to the somewhat freshly installed bionic jaws visible on those same species, though.
A happy ending
As for our facility, we divided the ferroalloy up equally among the scientists posted there at the time. Many sold their portion and retired to places they were unlikely to ever see a human (or a Treebeast) and some secured their share and kept working.
I had a bracelet made out of a bit of mine, as a reminder.
The speaker pulled his garment's cuff up to expose a ferroalloy bracelet engraved in the speaker's native language.
The comm implants of those around the table translated it into
Humans are our friends • Beware the humans
