Instant Story

An alien witnessing a human do the “Just walked through a spiderweb” dance for the first time

OR

A scholar writing a research paper on the one dance universal to all human tribal cultures, the “Spiderweb” dance.

In augmented scope sight, the web was clearly visible. And the spider itself stood out like a miniature sun.

“This spider,” whispered a lizard off to one side of the screen, “has been weaving and re-weaving its web all night. In a few hours, it will retreat from its work. Because it knows that foot traffic will soon ruin its chance to feast. We also know that a human regularly exercises through here. So we may have the chance to see something spectacular.”

The view changed to common optics, thus rendering the spiderweb invisible.

The lizard vanished somewhere off camera as the view focussed further down the corridor.

The human in question wore the usual warning signs. Non-emergency running in progress. Ze had some sound equipment on and hir eyes closed as ze jogged.

The instant ze hit the web…

“AUGH! Pthpht… Pthpht… euw gross uuuuugggghhh….” Hir arms and legs flailed in panic and alarm. Hir feet danced around and twirled her about.

“And this,” said the lizard, “is the first time the humans’ spiderweb dance has been caught in its entirety on a vid.”

The human said, “What in the Powers are you doing, over there?”

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You don’t reference Monty Python to be helpful, you reference Monty Python because you can.

On the upside, they now had an interstellar ‘ride‘. On the downside, it was an abandoned freighter. Its hold was still full. Which meant that the parental company had pulled the plug and evacuated the pilot when the cargo proved to be valueless.

And, of course, Shayde had to look.

“No,” she grinned. The tone of her voice made it sound like a good thing.

Which

A Havenworlder finds out that even after reaching the Information Age, with early-warning systems and all the other resources available to a species at such a level of development, tsunamis (“The term refers to several million tonnes of water traveling at two hundred meters per second.”) still killed an average of seven thousand people consistently, every year, over four decades

(last four from 2015)

Th’k’x had to wear full health monitors and have a Medik on standby, just to access