Read this story in illustrated zine format here!
By TM Hogeman
Kiera bounced at one sixth her regular gravity towards the divey Chinese place in Sector 5, her Shrimp People crew-mates Rodrigues and James close behind her. Through the habitat dome, above the cratered grey horizon, the Earth hung like a brilliant blue marble.
They had a few hours at the Lunar spaceport while Earth-Yutu Alliance Customs scanned the cargo pods on their hauler, and Rodrigues had asked Kiera to introduce them to one of her human food favorites. After so many months of nutrient paste from the Yutu hauler’s automated cafeteria, she was more than happy to oblige.
Rodrigues and James weren’t the pair’s real names. Yutu language wasn’t something easily replicated by human tongues; Rodrigues’ actual name was a consonant sound followed by two vomit-y retches, while James’ sounded like a baby starting to cry, and then a series of fluttering flute notes. Thankfully both had taken it in stride when Kiera had attempted to name them something more comprehensible to her. On their end, intricate cybernetics embedded along the side of their fleshy bodies and deep into their nervous systems automatically translated their words into human speech.
She thought of the Yutus as Shrimp People, because they both looked like nothing so much as a pair of giant peeled cocktail shrimp growing out of levitating steel flowerpots. Rodrigues was white with orange stripes, while James was light grey with black rings circling his bulbous upper half. When Kiera first started working with the pair on the cargo hauler, she’d jokingly thought of them as Cooked and Uncooked.
The Chinese place was still there, thankfully, nestled between a pressure suit repair shop and a Falafel stand. Kiera grabbed three menus from the counter by the register, and sat at a table in the middle of the small restaurant. Rodrigues and James floated to join her with their gently humming thruster seats hovering a few feet above the floor.
The two aliens hunched over the table and their menus, flicking through them with the dozens of needlelike appendages that hung beneath their curled torso-heads. Kiera eyeballed the menu, but already knew what she wanted: Mooshu pork. Hunan Palace in Lunar Sector 5 made the greasiest, nastiest, most delicious Chinese food outside of of Earth’s atmosphere, and though the technical wonder of blandness that was Yutu nutrient paste was perfectly calibrated to provide for her body’s needs, she needed something else entirely to satisfy her tongue’s desires.
“This is strange.” The speaker implant on the side of James’ head declared.
“What’s that?” Kiera said, looking up from her menu and dreams of plum sauce and pancakes.
“This word. I don’t understand the context.” One of James’ needle arms pointed to three dish names in rapid succession. Kiera followed along on her menu. A cold falling feeling gripped her as she read the section title. Seafood. 21 - Szechuan Shrimp. 24 - Sweet and Sour Shrimp. 25 - Shrimp With Black Bean Sauce.
“I’ve seen that word before, translated as a human colloquial term for Yutu. Shrimp People. Is this a....” James’ translator paused for a moment, usually a sign of a tricky translation, “...cross species food establishment?” He sounded disappointed.
“Uh...” Kiera wasn’t sure how to respond. She weighed the pros and cons of telling them the truth. They’d both be able to figure it out fairly quickly if they decided to look it up on the Lunar spaceport network with their implants. “So this is awkward…”
“Awkward is my favorite emotion!” Rodrigues chimed in, “It means we are learning!”
Kiera wanted to laugh, but the possibility of interstellar conflict brought about by her choice of lunch spot flashed before her eyes. That, or maybe just offending her co-workers and making them feel less welcome in her home system. Either way, not great.
“To us...to some humans, you kind of look like this aquatic animal that some of us...eat?”
James cocked his upper body quizzically. His single slit eye stared at Kiera, alien face otherwise inscrutable.
Rodrigues picked up the slack, “Ah, so this is a human food animal, AND also the informal name for Yutu?”
“Yes.” She replied.
“And here it just refers to the human food?”
“Yep.”
Rodrigues’ eye drifted back to the menu.
James rumble-whistled something in straight Yutu. Rodrigues rumbled back. Kiera felt a pang of regret, worried that she’d made the two aliens uncomfortable. Usually the two spoke in her native language around her, to help her integrate into the ship’s crew.
“If it’s an issue at all, we can get lunch next door, that’s vegetarian.” And less likely to have buried cross-cultural landmines, she added silently to herself.
“No, it’s okay!” Rodrigues said, “We just wanted to make sure this was authentic human food!”
James whistle-fluted again, then blinked his eye-slit rapidly.
“Are you sure it’s okay? What about James?”
“You call us Shrimp People, because we look like this Shrimp animal to you?” James jumped back into the conversation.
“Yeah. I promise, we don’t want to eat YOU, though!”
His eye slit blinked again. This time, a laugh track played through his speaker along with it.
“We call you Dog People.”
Rodrigues honk-belched at James, “Some of us. Sometimes.” Rodrigues quickly added in English.
This time Kiera did laugh, “What? Why Dog People? We don’t look anything like dogs!”
“On our homeworld, there is a species that many Yutu care for, as a pet. It bonds with those who feed it and provide it shelter, and is extremely loyal. The translator suggests ‘dog’ as a fair analogy for your social context. It...looks kind of like you. Humans, I mean.” Rodrigues explained.
Another of Rodrigues’ implants lit up, projecting a two dimensional video into the air. In it, a white and orange striped Yutu, maybe Rodrigues himself, grappled with a pale, sickly looking blob with four limbs and a spherical head. The skin had the texture of a drowned hairless rat Kiera had once seen floating in a harbor back on Earth.
“I don’t see the resemblance.”
James chortled through his speaker as he appeared to squint.
The video flashed away, replaced with a still image of the drowned-rat-creature standing on two legs. In the image, it looked somewhat like the stylized outline of a human being, more like the logo on a restroom sign than an actual person.
“Okay, I kind of see it there.”
“Also, on a macroscopic level, it makes sense because the relationship between our two...” James’ translator paused again, “...civilizations is similar to the relationship between an individual Yutu and their...dog.”
”Yes, this also fits!” Rodrigues added helpfully.
An awkward silence settled over the table. Kiera guessed that Rodrigues had been right about that before; she had learned something.
She nodded numbly, “Okay...so...lunch?”
“I will try the Shrimp!” replied Rodrigues.