Humans are very excitable. I think that is the best way to describe it, some of that excitability seems to decline or at least moderate with age, but even so they’re an intemperate species on the whole. Quite frankly, after a century on Dlamias and a life of drudgery, I found humans to be delightfully refreshing.

  I will note that since coming to Earth, my own ability to be ‘excited’ by things has gone up a great deal, perhaps my whole species has the capacity for happiness that humans do, and we’ve just so repressed ourselves that we didn’t even notice that we’ve somehow made our proud and ancient civilization into a dystopia?

  If you are reading any version before the third edition of this book, that previous paragraph did not exist, as it was censored by the ruling body. Suffice it to say, within two hundred years of publication, views have changed.

  As of the hour of that note first being written, the first hint of change on my homeworld reached my datapad. Dlamisan laws change slowly when they change at all, and I was notified that the first tender steps toward our transportation changes was taking place per my recommendation. I hadn’t the reputation yet that they would listen to me alone, but with Professor Sxlith signing off on my research, that added the weight needed to begin the first tentative steps of study.

  It was the only time I ever saw the words ‘the most fun I’ve had in my entire life’ written in any form of official communication. Broader rollouts of transport laws allowing the open air to strike the faces of my species would take time. But it was successful enough in our capital that they were ready to start the slow spread of change…using it as a reward for meeting productivity quotas, passing inspections, etc.

  I confess I did not even at that time, realize how truly small our lives had become along the way. We were the strongest race in the galaxy, and yet we were unhappy… we just didn’t notice because we knew nothing else.

  I am a dlamisa of science, reason, evidence and logic. I place little stock in intuition. But as I read and reread that line from a minor functionary simply relaying information to the inciter of change, I felt something come over me. A little flash of the intuition I think so little of, that it was only the first pebble of a very large avalanche about to come crashing down on my people. I am but one of my kind on Earth. Bonny Red and her crew are not even two hundred in total and they’re not likely to go back to the homeworld if they can avoid it. My half-sister is not even published yet and I still didn’t know if she even had any connection to the University.

  But what would happen when human mass migration began? My species intrigued humans a great deal, and they’re an active species, much like my own. When they travel to Dlamias or our colonies, and when dlamisans travel to Earth in large numbers for trade or education… can we even hope to stay the same?

  One human throwing a ball in one of our preserves might just be enough to throw an entire workforce there into chaos. And once we started opening up to each other…and I considered that inevitable… would my people ever want to be away from our humans? Or the other way around? Boatswain threw away the opportunity of a lifetime to stay with a human he barely knew for months. If it came down to it, would I have quit University and applied for residency on Earth?

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  A scary thought, but I think I would have.

  Dlamias never grants citizenship to nondlamisans, long term residency at best, but when humans residency visas are due to expire, I could picture only two outcomes. Mass riots… or it is totally unnecessary because the highest levels of government feel the same way as the most unfortunate outlier and have already made accommodations for humans like the Maxiki have.

  Unprecedented is the word I would use, but even that seems somewhat of an understatement.

  Now, as to what had my humans excited…specifically, Fauve? Well, the hour of Bau’s arrival was coming near. Normally as human young go, Fauve was an even-tempered girl not given to outpourings of emotion, and even at that moment she wasn’t expressing a lot. At least not obviously.

  The humans call it ‘bouncing off the walls’ though, it is where there is an abundance of energy without a ready outlet, usually it is the result of anticipation of the future. Humans you see, differ from dlamisans and all other predatory species I know in that they do not live in the moment.

  For most species, forward planning is hard, even for mine, it is a deliberate act that requires a steady mind. But humans live in the future, the moment is an obstacle to that which they anticipate. They are always thinking ahead, the next episode, the next day, the next vacation, the next game. It is one of the few areas where I must critique them in a negative fashion. Happiness, once it finds a species, is a very present thing.

  But humans seem to enjoy anticipating things, more than the things they are actually anticipating. Perhaps it makes them skilled planners when this energy is tempered in some fashion. However, it also makes it very difficult for them to focus on what is right in front of them. I suppose it is fair to say that this is one of the gifts dlamisan philosophy brought to mankind in later years.

  Of course, if you’re reading the fifth edition of this set, you already know how this resulted in new levels of political, military, and economic might for the alliance between dlamisans and humans alike. Perhaps it is unprofessional to throw in a personal remark, but I will say it anyway, the Zenti never saw that coming.

  Now, as I was saying, I was seated in a rocking chair in the corner of the living room, a common area where the household could mingle and watch a program or play games together… a very social space, similar to the kitchen but without the ability to prepare food, and Fauve was being quite antsy.

  “What is it like to have siblings on your world? Do you get along? Do dlamisan siblings play games together?”

  She threw many questions at me, but if I’m being honest, she didn’t like my answers.

  Humans take family for granted, but for dlamisans, family is just an engine to create functional and socially useful citizens that can take a role in our society without being a burden on it. I was not close with my mother, when I showed intelligence by learning at an early age, she reported it, I was tested, and I was routed through the system of the state until I reached academia.

  I was at home for decades, but a dlamisan parent is an instructor, not a companion and where Fauve was loving and close with her parents and sibling, I was not.

  My half-sister, assuming she came about like most of us, was probably the result of a mutual agreement after a state reproduction incentive. Where humans expect to have children out of mutual devotion and affection, a dlamisan in those days did not. If her upbringing was like mine, and I am sure it was, she was tested, parental observations were noted, and she was routed down the path chosen for her with little individual input from her.

  But somehow? Somehow she’d bucked the entire system and gone off on her own.

  Fauve looked at me very strangely as I explained all this, and the constant bouncing of her feet slowed down little by little until they stopped. She then patted the place on the green couch, asking me to sit with her.

  I got up from the chair, approached, sat, and she put her arms around me and gave me a very big, very tight, hug. I didn’t really know why, but that felt even better than usual, and she held onto me like that until we were interrupted by a knock at the door.