"Yeah. How do you know?"
"My gift." She said, while pointing to the thin, pink almost gelatinous antenna on her forehead. "They call these caldousil. It's like an advance nose in your race."
I looked at it with feigned amazement. I've never seen it in person but I have read about them before, sometime over the last 40 years during one of my Xenopology classes.
"I'm Klathykksi. You can pronounce it Klat with your tongue." She offers her hand to shake. But I know she's not shaking hands. I've read it before. So I pull my hand out, spit on the back of my palm and slaps it to the palm of her outstretched hands. She seem quite surprised by what I did, her black eyeballs widened. But her eyes then start to close into a slit. She is feeling the spit with her hypersensitive skin.
She is a Krayohian. From the 178th quadrant of the Andromeda galaxy. Marine-based lifeform. Salt-based. The have highly enhanced senses of smell and feeling. But almost completely blind. Life span of 255 Earthian years. Only female exists. They reporoduce asexually via psychomitosis.
I learned it all from college.
Our race is one of the weakest lifeforms in the universe. We don't have special organs or body parts. We did not evolve any extraordinary appendages. Even the lower lifeforms in our planet are more equipped with special organs than us. What we excelled in is learning how to use tools and using them to our advantage.
That's why the Earthian government decided that we should excel in knowledge. But not the knowledge to exceed the Wikians. Their mental prowess are far, far superior than us. Almost infinite brain capacity. What we did focused on is on the 'street knowledge' of the universe. What things do we need to know to protect ourselves. How can we survive out there.
You may think it's almost combative and competitive in nature. Learning how to survive by finding out things about other races. Learning other's weaknesses.
But it's how we survive. How our species will survive.
'Nice meeting, you. You have a nice life ahead of you.' The Krayohian greeted as a warpbus docks. 'And by the way, if you happen to pass by 178th, just spittulate and they will know that we are acquaintances. See yah!'
In that entire conversation I said exactly only 5 words. And yet I have forged an alliance between two races from different corners of the world. My mission here is accomplished.
Another warpbus arrives. Time to proceed to the next target.
