Human Ideas

Ssath is a word in the Herpan language that just doesn't translate with the right amount of nuance. It's a strong profanity. It's also a fairly recent profanity. Roughly speaking, it means "the humans have an idea".

It was often difficult for Herpans to resist the urge to exclaim that particular word when trying to plan anything in the presence of humans. Even in a meeting about something as mundane as fuel supplies.

"We all agree that we need more exogehn. Especially if we want to expand our exploration efforts. The current mining installations can't keep up." Beverly Saunders was one of the highest ranking humans in the Allied Galactic Planets. Which on a general scale, wasn't very high ranking, but she was at least permitted to sit in on these meetings. At least, she was supposed to be an observer.

Athan ve Athel el Harsso was pretty sure this was going to be a ssath situation. She was trying to convince them of something. "Yes, but the probes clearly indicate that this world isn't suitable for habitation. Drones aren't capable of this sort of delicate mining operation unsupervised. We need to keep looking for deposits on more suitable planets."

Beverly pinched the bridge of her nose. "This is the most extensive deposit we've seen in the past year cycle. It has the potential to provide more exogehn than any of our current operations. And the planet doesn't really seem that bad."

Athan snorted. "Not that bad? The temperature regularly goes below the freezing point of water. It's just too far out from the star. The initial team was there during the more temperate season and it still wasn't a comfortable temperature."

Beverly clearly wasn't getting his point. At least, he assumed that was what that shrug was supposed to mean. He really wished he hadn't learned so much about that particular bit of human body language. "So it has winter. We'll have to bundle up a bit. We're not really going to let a little thing like winter keep us from fueling our interstellar drives, are we?"

That was the thing about humans. They had a bad habit of disregarding major obstacles as if they were minor details. This seemed like it was going to be one of those situations where he was going to spend a lot of time explaining the obvious. "The winter temperatures aren't a little thing. There's a reason the mountain ranges of my homeworld are still uninhabited."

"I think the solution is pretty obvious."

He couldn't resist any longer. He at least managed to keep the "Ssath" mostly under his breath. A remarkable display of restraint. Now he was going to have to listen to the humans' idea.


Beverly took his muttering as her cue to continue. "The weather is erratic. Often cold. Rain and snow storms. Variable terrain."
So far she was doing an excellent job of describing why this wasn't a feasible place to set up even a minor mining outpost, much less a colony that could support a major operation. "And I'm not sure why we're still discussing this."

Beverly smirked. Oh, that human definitely had an idea. Probably a very detailed idea. An idea that he wasn't going to like at all. And idea that was going to result in some poor Herpan officer having to oversee a bunch of humans on a marginally habitable planet.

"We just have to send the Canadians."