Procrastination
Seriously, it's amazing what you can put off if you've got the mind to do it. While I was in jail, I thought I could write it down with no problem. I thought I could just put it down in words right away, but I've been back for days now, and the most I've done is think about how to say it.

Let's go back to when I was with the Gaulagchs and how I got out of that situation. For months I'd guess I'd been sitting there, playing fetch naked as the day I was born, until one day in strides Danny in his full Han Solo gear. Went something like this...

"Hi," he said.
"Hi," I replied, somewhat dumbfounded.
"I'm Danny."
"May."
Awkward silence.
"You're human, right?" he asked.
"Yeah. Do you know where we are? It ain't Kansas, that's for sure."
"Actually, we're on the far side of the universe... and I've come to rescue you."
The only thing he was missing was the blaster.
"You and an army?"
"Well... you see..." He was blushing and actually playing with an invisible speck of dirt on his cuff.
"I'm not complaining... really. Let's go."
"Well, first I... we..." He took a deep breath.
"The reason the Gaulaughs can keep you here is you can't communicate with them. Humans are resistant to the translator microbes but I invented a new type that work with us. I just have to introduce them into..."
He trailed off again, this time finding a freckle on his left hand extremely fascinating.
"Okay. How's that work?"
"Well, the best way would be a blood transfusion, but we're not exactly set up for that. If I'd have had advanced warning I could have mixed up a new batch and just injected them into you. But as it is, there's only one option that will work fast enough."
"And that is?"
He coughed it out.
"Transfer of bodily fluids."
If I hadn't have seen the Gaulaugh's up close for the past few months and been sure that this was for real, I would have seriously thought this was some sort of scam... but his embarassment was real and I had a serious clue that what he was suggesting was not just based on a strange male trying to get into my absent panties.
"Sex."
"Yup."
So I had two options. I could refuse and spend the rest of my life playing naked fetch, or I could do the horizontal mambo with a complete, yet cute stranger.
"So let's do it."
- posted by omouse @ 4/26/2004 (0) comments

 
Planetside
Life is one big grand adventure. Where have I been? Well, it started as a simple journey planetside to this major city called Mariaf on Noway. It was at first a lark because their gravity is slightly less than it is on Earth. Though not quite able to leap buildings in a single bound, I did have quite spring in my step. And for the first time I was able to do some shopping.

Nowayans are similar to humans in the fact that they are bipeds, but after that, they're more of a cross between a cat and a lobster. Seriously. I'll draw you a picture when I get some more time. So Danny gave me some money so that I could do a little shopping. A lot of shopping, actually, considering my wardrobe consisted of some of his old clothes and a togalike sheet. Nobody really seemed to care. Nudity is regarded differently by each society I've encountered, and most of the time, it's difficult to tell what's a naughty bit and what's just an extra apendage.

I've never been the kind to run around with nothing on, and despite Danny's cool exterior regarding the fact, he wore clothes he must have found. And you can definitely tell one of his fashion influences was Han Solo and the Jedi Knights, which is, I suppose, better than Star Trek uniforms.

And I had no plan whatsoever to jet around in tight catsuits or minis... because it can get cold in space. Very cold.

Shirts were the easiest things to find, thought the arms were a bit bigger than I would have liked because of the Nowayan's claws. Pants were harder. They all have fairly large waists and legs that bend the wrong way, kind of like a cat's hind legs. So I picked up a couple of bolts and figured I'd do things the old fashioned way. Danny had mentioned he had a needle and thread and I could at least manage to make up a couple of skirts.

Bras and underwear were a different problem all together. Human females seem to be the only ones who need a little support for their mammaries. So while I might be able to manage to whip up a couple of pair of panties, an underwire is a little out of my league... and asking Danny is out of the question so me and my breasts are hanging loose for a while.
- posted by omouse @ 4/19/2004 (0) comments

 
Pizza Night
Danny promised me pizza tonight. I started drooling at the first mention of it. I haven't mentioned it before, but space food generally sucks. First of all, no one has ever heard of a cow... so that totally gets rid of half my diet. No hamburgers, steak, or even decent dairy product, though Danny has found a species that is completely in love with cheese. They even use types of it for currency. Every home has an NC cow-like or goat-like animal and they cruise the galaxy looking for new and exotic milks to make into cheese. Danny's been saving the results of his last trade for a special night.

At first glance I was a bit tepid. The sauce was blue, or apparently the only thing Danny could find that resembled tomatoes were blue. But he'd managed to rig an oven together, make a crust, and get most of the ingredients at a close match. He'd been working on the recipe for 10 years. I thought it was pretty good. It had a slight tangy aftertaste, but considering the food I'd lived off of for a few months, it was bloody fantastic.

The first feeding time with the Gaulagch's was odd. One of them entered the room and tried another unsuccessful attempt at talking to me. Suddenly he rolled a silver ball at me. I picked it up, quite unsure of what to do with it until he held out an arm. I rolled the ball back to him and he chittered away excitedly then tossed a biscuit at me. Now I hesitate to call it a biscuit. I mean it was obviously food, but after one bite, I was tempted to spit it out. It wasn't that it tasted bad, it just had no taste at all, but the alien was staring at me, and getting a bit agitated as I stared at it, so I swallowed the rest of the biscuit.

The Gaulagch moved back and forth, delighted... I think, and then tossed the silver ball at me. I rolled it back to him and he threw me another biscuit. It finally dawned on me. We were playing fetch. He was trying to teach me a trick. Oh, goody. My reward was another Tasteless Human Treat.

Carmen tried to explain that I shouldn't be offended by the food the Gaulagchs offered me. They don't have any sense of taste or smell. Those biscuits were quite nutrition and contained all the daily balanced diet that their research showed a human needed. Carmen is our protocol and liaison officer, so she's rather diplomatic. She's the one that warns us if something we're about to do will mortally offend an alien species... us being the crew members of the the ship and me, space baggage. She's quite informative and unlike Danny, is willing to give information that doesn't directly relate to Danny or something he's recently invented.

Carmen's the most interesting looking alien I've seen so far, which has been comparatively few. She's actually an it. Her species are hermaphroditic. I have Danny to thank for the gender assignation. He introduced her that way and she's been a she ever since.

My artistic impression. The orange and yellow things on her head are eyes. She got about a hundred of them. She's really bright blue on the main part of her body with her underside a sort of pinkish peach. She moves about quite easily on her three tentacles, and once you get used to the holes in her neck, she's interesting to talk to.

It's difficult to tell what she thinks of me. She's a diplomat, and has been permanently banned from playing poker, as she apparently has no tell whatsoever. She's quite good at getting her way, and making you think it was your way in the first place. She could probably run for President on Earth and be welcomed with open arms... tentacles.
- posted by omouse @ 3/22/2004 (0) comments

 
ASISTance
I've actually begun to feel validated spending so much time at this ASIST. Danny has explained that the more I use it, the more adapted it will become to me. The thing will literally learn how to fulfill my needs. Danny says it needs a month or so of constant using to work out most of the bugs and then from then on, only fine tuning. So sitting here and recording my thoughts and adventures serves a purpose, other than the fact that I desperately missed being able to read or write anything.

My attempt at drawing some of my current shipmates has not been quite successful, but I think I've captured their essense. The ASIST kept moving things around, and I kept cursing it, but I'm hoping we've come to an understanding. My headache has pushed down into a distant throb.

I started with Toad, thinking he would be the easiest to draw. My first day on ship I almost mistook him for a piece of furniture. Basically the shape and color of a large mushroom, I thought he was some alien's idea of a footstool.

After getting over appearances, Toad is a rather nice guy... note the deliberate avoidance of a pun - fun guy - fungi. Anyway, since he's not bipedal, the ASIST actually pulls itself onto the floor and Toad sits on top of it, allowing the thousands of little phalanges around his base manipulate the controls. We've had a few conversations. Toad is very polite. He's actually some sort of prince of a country on his planet. It's typical for them to take a year or two of space exploration before they settle down into the responsibilities of their office.

Toad is always amiable, especially when he's had some Tacin powder, which as far as Danny can explain, is the closest thing Toad's species has to tequilla. That's when Toad begins to laugh and begs to play poker - an obsession that Danny taught him. With a set of digital cards, another of Danny's inventions, the three of us sat down for a game. Toad is a horrible poker player. The minute he has a hand that he likes, all the little tentacles at the bottom of his body go wild, wiggling back and forth. So far I've won a shuttle craft and the title of duchess on his home planet. I keep trying to explain that it wasn't really fair, but Toad insisted.

Danny just grinned, and said, "Anytime, your shortness, anytime." I asked Danny how he could get away with calling a prince "shortness" and he laughed. "It's the DATN's. They translate anything I want into whatever I want to say. In case you haven't noticed, his name really isn't Toad. It's His Royal Highness, Prince Echbachinashtaquyen of Hustelosholosho." Danny saw my confusion and laughed.

"It's like making your own dictionary. The DATN's automatically replace whatever you want to call them in English, with whatever is proper in their language. So when I called him Toad, he heard, 'your highness.' I named him toad because he looks like a mushroom. A toadstool. Didn't you notice?"

I tried to hide my sheepishness as Danny went into a fascinating lecture about DATN's and how I'd learn how to change them some day.
- posted by omouse @ 3/20/2004 (2) comments

 
The Life of a Space Pet
Waking up naked in a strange white room was pretty horrifying. Meeting the Gaulacghs for the first time was simply surreal. It really did take a while for me to realize I wasn't dreaming.

First of all, Gaulacghs are pretty ugly. Their three legs are rather odd. It was pretty obvious this wasn't one of those television aliens dressed up in with some extra celluloid features. The main part of their body is oddly pickle shaped but the smooth texture of a dolphin. It's rather greenish brownish with lavender spots. Their arms are actually pretty cool. Very quick and agile, their fingertips can receded like a snails antenae. They just shrink back into themselves, especially if they're annoyed. And honestly the strangest thing of all... Gaulacghs smell like cotton candy.

If you've noticed I'm not much of an artist... then keep it to yourself. Just imagine waking up naked in a room with that. There would have been a lot of screaming if was had been convinced I was actually awake. Instead, the thing just kept dancing back and forth muttering "gaulacgh, gaulacgh, gaulacgh, gaulacgh" like one of those cartoon monsters that can only say its name. After about half an hour of failed communication I establish a few main points.
1. I was actually awake.
2. I had been abducted by aliens.
3. I was completely naked, but it couldn't seem to care.
4. The only thing the creature could say was gaulacgh.
5. I really had to pee.

Conversly I think the Gaulacgh managed to establish a few main points of his own.
1. My new acquisition is as dumb as a post.
2. Maybe it can be taught a few tricks to impress visitors.
3. After all, not everyone can say they own a human.

- posted by omouse @ 3/19/2004 (0) comments

 
If Han Solo was a Space Nerd...
Danny went into so much detail explaining this contraption, that I'm completely stymied on how to describe it. An Antrellian Ship Interface System Terminal. The ASSIST. Oh, yes, acronyms exist here too. When I pointed out that Assist has two s's I got a dirty look.

Danny is cute in that slightly crazed braniac meets Harrison Ford kind of way. I suppose the attraction is also helped by the fact that he's probably the only human male within a million or so miles. This space stuff is old hat to him. From what I can remember, he was actually abducted by aliens when he was 15. I think he's some sort of space test to see if humans can fully interact with the other life forms out there. Rather like taking a kitten and putting it in a cage full of gorillas. It either gets adopted and begins to think of itself as a gorilla, or it gets smashed with a large stick.

I suppose the test has been some sort of a success. He's still alive, that is. In fact, Danny is a useful member of the crew, while I am currently just space baggage. Which is a step up from space garbage... my previous title. Oh there was apparently a great hullabaloo when I was scooped up without a permit.

There's only one alien species, the Antrellians, who have the technology to travel great distances in relatively quick order. They guard the secret rather viciously... and therefore everyone pretty much does what they want. For the most part, that's a good thing, as the Antrellians tend to be moral and noble in the best human sense of the word. Danny says the Milky Way Galaxy is on their watch list. There are a few sentient species there, with humans being one of them, but none of them are ready to join the rest of the universe in free trade. So the Antrellians put humans on a sort of endangered species list where no one can interfere or cause undo alarm by invading and enslaving our population and pillaging our natural resources. We can do that to ourselves.

The Antrellians granted the Gaulacgh a permit into the Milky Way for scientific and noninterfering exploration. They did not have a permit for souvenirs. So when they scooped up a bit of space debris, a satellite that had drifted off orbit, they caused a rather large scandal among the community and got their pass pulled. They were banished from the Milky Way for life, but they were allowed to keep their collected specimens... namely a few non-communicative alien life forms (NC's as Danny calls them). I'd call them animals, or plants. Anything that is unable to express its desires using the UTN's (Universal Translating Nanobytes). I told you Danny was a nerd. I can't even begin to explain the two hour lecture I was pelted with when I asked why the UTN's didn't work on humans. That lecture was followed by an hour long explanation of DATN's (Danny's Adaptable Translating Nanobytes) Yeah. I don't think anyone should let him name things anymore. In short, Danny invented a new and improved little micro doohickies that translate anything and everything into anything and everything and back again.

DATN's work very much the same way that UTN's work - by floating around like little cells in your body, attaching themselves to nerve endings and parts of your brain, fooling you into believe that the alien you're conversing with is actually speaking in intelligible English, which considering some of the aliens around here don't have tongues, or even mouths, is quite a feat. DATN's are much better than UTN's... or at least that's what Danny assures me, though I think he's probably biased.

So anyway, the Gaulacgh were shipped back to their own part of the universe with a slap on the wrist, but their space garbage still in tow. On further inspection, they found that of the twelve capsules, only three had not been damaged. Of those three, only one survived the reanimation. That was me... but since UTN's don't work on humans, the Gaulacgh classified me as an NC. And that's basically the story of how I became the pet of an alien species.
- posted by omouse @ 3/18/2004 (0) comments

 
A Place To Start
I know this has to be Andrew's fault. I know I'm kinda starting in the wrong place, but no one but my crazy brother would have thought of this scheme.

I remember hearing the blurb on the evening news about people being frozen and chucked into orbit for storage - it's colder up there, less chance of malfunction or some utter line like that. I distinctly remember thinking, who in their idiotic mind would actually pay for that? Sending their loved ones off in little satellite clusters of tubes rotating around and around the planet until someone decided they could be defrosted and brought back to life - it really was complete crap... the exact kind of crap that Andrew would buy into.

Of course, I don't remember being dead... or dying for that matter. The last thing I remember was walking home after school one day. I think I waved to a student of mine. And then? Not sure.

I woke up in a white room. At first I thought I was in the hospital, except there were no doctors, and the bed I was on was directly on the floor. There was no other furniture in the room. The walls sloped slightly, like a dome. The floors wasn't quite straight either. There wasn't a straight line in the room. Everything was white and curvy. Especially me.

It was rather like trying on a new pair of glasses and seeing the world bent at the edges, but definitely had lost an semblance of a tan. I was a ghost, but not a skinny one. It didn't feel normal. It's hard to explain, but I knew that it had been a long time since I'd been conscious.

It was then that I noticed the little eye - the lens on a stick poking out and examining me from the wall. I noticed it even before I realized I was naked.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. I haven't even really explained anything yet. It's rather nebulous... trying to squish a few months worth of living into a few paragraphs. I'll have to think on it.
- posted by omouse @ 3/17/2004 (0) comments