Niall woke up in Naskia’s hand. She was placing him on the matt in the terrarium. He had fallen asleep after spending hours browsing the local university network and chatting to Naskia occasionally. Naskia placed the pad in the terrarium with him just in case he woke up by himself. Niall went straight back to sleep again. Naskia had moved the terrarium down from the shelf and placed it on her desk so she could watch him while she worked. She knew he would never accept the role as her pet but the balance they’d struck during the day made her feel a lot better than she had done when she first woke up this morning. She smiled as she felt a warm fuzziness in her chest as she watched her new friend sleep.
“Wait!? Friend?” she thought surprising herself “It’s getting very hard to think of him as my thing…argh!”
She’d initially given him a bit more freedom to help him get used to being her pet but it seemed she was unconsciously looking at him as a friend now. She felt a pang of guilt run through her as she thought of all he’d been through. Going from a world where he was big and important to tiny and insignificant overnight, trying to kill himself, being stripped of his clothes and humiliated by her.
She got up and got dressed quickly. She got her pad out and made a list of things:
Toilet
Utensils
Clothing
Bed
She also rooted around through the scraps of clothing she had torn off him to see if there was anything of interest. She found a small electronic device about one quarter the size of her fingernail. “I wonder what this is?” she asked herself.
It looked like the equivalent of a pad. “Hmm. I wonder if the computer lab guys could do anything with it? It might be important to him.” She thought. She popped it into a small pocket in her bag and put her jacket on. She checked on Niall one last time and made sure he was sound asleep. She headed out of her apartment and made sure she locked the door behind her.
Naskia walked through the University campus towards the Computer Sciences department. She knew one or two people in passing and was hoping to use her charms to get one of the guys there to help her. After a brisk 10 minute walk Naskia arrived at the computing building. She went up to the 3rd floor and searched for anyone she knew, it wasn’t long until she spotted someone and went over.
“Hi Dorok…” she said coyly.
“Oh, hi Naskia. What brings you to the CS department? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
Naskia rustled in her bag and brought out Niall’s phone. “My friend found this and asked if someone could take a look at it. It’s alien technology so it might be a challenge. Do you think you could get the data off of it and on to my pad?”
Dorok took the tiny device and set it on an electronic surface. A file table of what looked like gibberish appeared on screen. “Yeah….I should be able to do something with it, basic binary system from the looks of it. I dunno when I’ll get around to it though.”
Naskia wanted to surprise Niall when he woke up later. She leaned over the desk and used her arms to press her breasts together and showed off some cleavage. She didn’t like doing it but she knew it would work. “Please Dorok, I’d really appreciate it….”
Dorok did his best not to look down Naskia’s inviting cleavage but he was as helpless as any man. “Ok…come back in a few hours and I should have it.”
Naskia sprang up and clapped excitedly “Yay! Thanks Dorok.” She gave him a quick hug and ran off leaving Dorok feeling mildly used but not unhappy. Naskia then went to the student services building to use the fabrication suite. Students used this mostly for making components for projects or specialist items that weren’t available in shops. Naskia joined the queue and waited a good 20 minutes until she got a seat at a unit and inserted her student access card.
“Hmmm…” Naskia said trying to decide where to start. She searched “human cutlery”. No results. “Ok…obviously”. She searched for “Cutlery” and found numerous examples of knives, forks and spoons in varying styles. She chose a basic, cheap, metal unit that she could afford and edited the dimensions to scale it down to human sized. She divided each dimension by 20 to get the right size.
“What?! Ten times the price when it’s far less material?! He’s only getting one each then….” She said to herself feeling a bit robbed. The fabricating machine whirred to life and soon chimed its work complete and deposited 3 tiny, slightly hot pieces of metal which looked like what Naskia had requested. Naskia tried to find clothes, a bed and a toilet but was less than successful.
“To the pet store then….” She said to herself.
Naskia walked to a local shopping district and found a pet store. She went inside and had a look around. It had that distinctive pet shop smell. Animal feed mixed with dirty litter. There were animals of all sorts in cages and tanks around the shop, fluffy baby mammals, colourful birds and at the end of the shop about 2 dozen tanks with a young human in each one. Naskia stood looking into the tanks. As she did the naked humans came running to the front of the tanks waving and smiling at her. Some jumped up and down or did tricks. They all looked very happy and friendly.
“Maybe I should have got one of these little guys…” she laughed to herself. “They would definitely be a lot less work.”
“Excuse me miss, is there anything I can help you with?” said an old male voice from behind her.
“Hi, yeah sorry. I just got a human and I’m looking for some things for him.” She replied to the short elderly gentleman.
“Oh well we should have everything you need. What are you looking for?”
“Just 3 items for now. A proper toilet and whatever comes with it, a decent bed rather just a matt and some clothes?” she said as the old man’s eyes grew wider.
“Well that’s quite a list. Most people don’t want any of those things. We have better toilets. This one has a tank at the top and a tank and the bottom, it’s similar to a Titan design.” He said showing Naskia a box he pulled down from a shelf.
“Oh that looks good I’ll take that. What about the rest?”
The old man slowly went over to a cupboard and rooted around before taking out a wooden bed complete with mattress.
“Hand made by a local supplier. A hobby really but it should suit your purposes.” Naskia examined the bed. It was hand carved in a hard wood and well finished. She tested the mattress with her finger, it felt soft and comfy.
“This is probably a nicer bed than the one I sleep in!” she said “I’ll take it too.”
“Clothes now…..” the old man continued his search “We don’t have any normal clothes as no one buys any. The only thing we do have are these costumes.”
The costumes were all very garish and looked like they were mostly used for performing pets. “Ehhh….I don’t think he’d like them…I’ll just take the stuff I’ve got here.”
The old man led her to the till and rung up the items. “You have a very odd relationship with your human, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Naskia smiled awkwardly “Yeah I just got him yesterday. He’s from Earth, not a tame one so I’m trying to settle him in.”
“Ahhh, now that explains it. We have books on how to tame wild humans if that would interest you? The bed and toilet come to 120.”
Naskia gasped.” Wow that’s like 2 weeks food money” she thought.
“Here you go” she said scanning her ID going slightly pale.
“You must be quite attached to the little fella, a lot of money for you girl like you to be spending on him.”
Naskia smiled feeling a bit queasy from the amount she’d just spent. “Yeah I must be….he’s getting to be expensive. Thanks a lot….” She said and then took her purchases and left. Naskia went outside and sat on a bench trying to work out just what she would be eating for the next few weeks.
“Study problems replaced by money problems! Will it ever end?” she thought to herself. Naskia sat for a few minutes and collected her thoughts and then got up to continue her errands.
Naskia returned to the computing department after another few hours. She had done some food shopping and made Niall’s appointment with the vet. “Another expense…” she thought. Naskia went upstairs and found Dorok.
“Hi Dorok, did you have any luck with that device?”
“Yeah I did actually. There were multiple types of media, notes, pictures, videos, music and a few other things. You didn’t tell me this was a human device though. I didn’t know they had this kind of technology.”
Dorok noticed Naskia looked uncomfortable at him having gone through the files. “I had to verify some of the files .There were quite good quality photographs of humans. If this has of been a Titan pad then I wouldn’t have known any different.” Dorok sounded quite pleased with himself.
Naskia smiled nervously. She wasn’t happy Dorok had been looking through Niall’s pictures. “Oh well I didn’t know either. Can you transfer the data to my pad?” she asked.
“Yeah sure, just set it down the desk and I’ll do the transfer.”
Naskia did as she was asked and Dorok transferred the data in a matter of moments.
“There you go, do you mind if I keep the human device? It’d make a great project and would cover payment.” Dorok asked.
“Ehhh well it’s not mine, it’s a friend’s so I can’t really give you it.” She said plucking Niall’s phone off the table and putting it in a pocket and slowly moving away.
“Well tell your friend they owe me big time.” Dorok said.
“Oh well if you ever need help with some physics or maths just give me a call.” Naskia said making towards the door. Dorok got up and followed her to the door.
“Well how about you let me take you out for a drink instead?” Naskia was already heading down the stairs. She felt bad for using him to get Niall’s data but she really wasn’t interested.
“I really can’t. You know how busy I am! When do you ever see me out?” Naskia called from half way down the stairs.
“Yeah sure, ok….bye” Dorok called to her feeling a bit hurt.
Naskia rushed back to her apartment and went straight to her room. Niall was still asleep. He’d been out for about 6 hours and Naskia really wanted to wake him up. She peered in through the side of the tank and thought about what to do. She decided to let him sleep on, the more he slept now then the longer he’d be up later.
Naskia pulled out her pad and opened the folder of data that Dorok had recovered. Her pad had already compiled an image gallery. She flicked through the images. Most contained pictures of an old style tokamak fusion reactor or equation scribbles. There were very few of people. The most recent picture was one of Niall with a group of people all dressed in cold weather gear somewhere on a mountain.
“This must be just before he was taken….” Naskia thought. Niall was standing at the end of the group. A lot of the dozen or so people in the picture had their arms around each other and smiles on their faces. Not Niall, he stood tall at the back with his arms crossed and serious face on. Naskia smiled.
“At least he’s the same with them as he is with me then.” She continued to look through the pictures and the notes that were written. There was very little to do with personal interaction. No pictures of people who looked like friends, no girlfriend. Just work stuff and colleagues. Naskia felt a bit sad for Niall.
Naskia was contemplating putting on some headphones and hearing what human music was like when she heard the front door open. She put the pad down and headed through to see who it was. “Oh Kiri, Hi….I didn’t expect you back until later!” She said a bit nervously.
“Yeah well you know how my family are. I couldn’t really stick them any longer. Come here and give me a hug! It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages.” Kiri responded dropping her bags on the floor and hugging her friend. She noticed Naskia seemed and bit on edge and wasn’t being her usual excitable, bouncy self.
“What’s up Nas? Everything ok?” she asked.
“Ehhh yeah of course….there’s nothing wrong.” Naskia said sitting down on the sofa keeping herself very rigid. Kiri sat down beside her and gave her a look.
“Well there is one thing….” Naskia knew Kiri wasn’t going to react well so she was putting it off as long as possible.
“Come on Nas, what have you done now?”
Naskia gasped “Why do you assume it’s something I’ve done?”
Kiri gave her another knowing look.
“Ok fine! It’s something I did. I bought a human….”
Kiri sighed. “Awk Nas. I thought we were going to talk about getting a pet? Like a shaar or something? Humans are lots of work.”
Naskia was still rigid and staring straight down at her bare knees.
“There isn’t more is there?!”
Naskia looked up, she wasn’t looking forward to telling someone about trying to treat Niall as an equal. Kiri’s reaction would maybe influence how she would treat Niall even though she was quite happy with the decisions she’d made so far.
“You have to let me finish before saying anything ok?”
Kiri nodded sensing Naskia’s nerves.
“Well on the way back from the trip to the research centre we stopped off on Titan Station in the Sol System. I bought him there, I was feeling really down about the problems with my studies and I just really liked this one…..turns out he’s from Earth and isn’t exactly keen on being a pet.” Naskia paused still a bit nervous, Kiri assumed she’d finish.
“Well I’m sure we can look into training him. We can to do it together….” She realised Naskia wasn’t finished.
“Kiri, I don’t think he is a pet human. He’s one of us…..he can do equations in under an hour that take me days.” Naskia got up and started to pace, her voice increased in pitch “I tried disciplining him but he uses these moral arguments on me about rights and sentience and I dunno….I think he’s right. I think he’s one of us…”
Kiri laughed “Nas, only you could let a human get to you like this. You’re just too nice. I know you’re having a crisis of confidence but you are smarter than a human and if he tries to tie your head up just let me sort him out.”
“No! You don’t get it!” Naskia rushed through to her bedroom and came back with a pile of paper. “This is my working out for one equation” she said setting the stack down on the table “This is his working out.” She set one piece of paper down.
Kiri examined both, she could clearly make out Naskia’s handwriting though she didn’t understand any of the equations. The other was one clean set from start to finish. “Wait…wait…this is in our language, if he just got here how does he know it?”
“I know!” Naskia threw her arms in the air looking exasperated. “He translated it while I was sleeping. This is what I mean….even by our standards he’s a genius!”
Kiri was still puzzling over the papers. “I dunno Nas, he’s yours so it’s up to you but I don’t see any reason why we can’t train him. It just means he can do one more thing than most pets.”
Naskia looked uncomfortable. “He’s asleep just now, will you at least reserve judgement until you’ve actually talked?”
Kiri sat back and sighed. “Sure Nas, for you, but I suspect this will all sort itself out over the next few days.” Kiri noticed Naskia still looked upset, she stood up and gave her a warm hug “Is there anything else?” she carefully enquired.
Naskia shed a tear and muttered “Yes….I just spent 2 weeks food money on bits to help Niall settle in.”
Kiri chuckled. “Awk Nas. You really are special. That’s why I love you. You can have some of my food if it’ll help.”
“Can Niall have some of your food too? He hates the human food…” Naskia asked wondering if she was pushing her luck.
“Yea, if you want. I don’t think he’s going to eat us out of house and home.” Kiri replied.
Kiri made the pair some tea and they spent the next few hours chatting and catching up. Naskia talked about her trip to the research lab and Kiri talked about spending time with her large family. Naskia then went on to cover the events of the last day in detail and explain why she was so flustered. Kiri sort of understood where she was coming from. She had always known Naskia to be a sweet, caring person who occasionally could make poor choices under pressure. Though Naskia would often make the most conscientious decisions that would put others ahead of herself and Kiri respected her for that. Kiri was studying to be a psychologist and while she wanted to support her friend she also thought this could make for an interesting study. A human who was smarter than a Titan? This didn’t happen.