Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Dihydrogen Monoxide

The humans stood aboard the spaceship in near darkness shuffling nervously as they waited. Captain Kelly stood next to one of the UN representatives: She was a stern woman with a stiff resolve, but she was clearly very uncomfortable aboard the alien spaceship. This would have been her first venture off world. She hadn't even visited Mars yet

As of that current moment they had been waiting in the ship for almost two hours. They had been told that Lieutenant Vir was being shipped in, one his way from the medical facility, and would be there within the next few hours. The aliens had wanted to wait until all the humans were together before allowing them onto the central planet.

Turns out there was another important reason for Vir's contribution to alien science. As expected, diseases could be carried over from planet to planet. To allow them onto the planet, the entire population would have to be inoculated against human disease, and in turn, they would have to be inoculated against alien diseases. Vir would have received his at the medical facility, they received theirs earlier in the day. It was a little disconcerting knowing that the vaccines had only been tested on one human, but members of the Galactic Assembly had assured them that, out of necessity, they had become very proficient at creating vaccines.

Either way, no one was experiencing any adverse effects, yet.

One of the soldiers slumped down in the darkness to rest his legs.

The tension remained for another thirty minutes before a door in the side of room hissed open and a human figure stepped into the room. A stream of decontamination fog spilling around him. The youthful face of lieutenant Vir peered at them through the gloom blinking, "Who turned the lights off." He wondered.

Members of the crew got up to greet him breaking the tense silence with some friendly teasing.

"Look its alien boy, finally got to live your dreams getting probed by aliens."

The lieutenant rolled his eyes brushing condensation form his skin, "I've had army physicals more invasive than getting probed by aliens." He leaned against the wall as the rest of the soldiers crowded around him. The kid seemed rather excited to be getting all of the attention, and despite herself, Captain Kelly moved closer to listen as he talked animatedly about his lone experience with the aliens.

"What did they want?"

"Mostly like specimens and stuff, skin, hair, saliva. You should have seen them freaking out over stomach acid. Looking at me like they thought I was going to melt into a puddle on the floor. Oh also, they totally think we are nasty. Apparently the amount of bacteria and vaccines they had to synthesize was.... Uh.... What did they say.... Unprecedented. "

The UN official moved forward to listen in, "Really, I never assumed..."

Vir shrugged, "Well we always knew that there was more bacteria on the human body than there are cells of human in the human body.

The crew murmured in surprise, but just then, another decontamination door opened up and one of the aliens stepped in.

It was a Rundi; that much Kelly knew. She was only beginning to learn all the new species names, and was still slow on the uptake. She was sure that lieutenant Vir already had their names, genetic phylum and species memorized. He was like that, the kid was like a sports geek collecting baseball cards, accepted he collected aliens. She walked past his room once, and the entire place was plastered in sketches and drawings of the aliens that they had already cataloged.

The Rundi greeted them with a bow of its insectoid head, "The inoculation has been complete. The atmosphere should be compatible for you."

The UN woman adjusted her suit, "We thank you."