And… I may have gotten invested. This is unlikely to turn into an actual story, but I thought some of you would appreciate this first part. Enjoy!
“Whoa,” I whispered as I took in the scene in front of me. This was my first time offworld, and I could hear my hired pilot/bodyguard, Ralph, chuckling at my amazed reaction. We were in one of the many floating markets on Neptune, a pressurized dome of layered transparent graphene extending from the shipping docks and enabling the artificial atmosphere. Though the planet’s distance from the sun should have made it nearly impossible to see here, it was bright within the market, the entire floor glowing a rainbow of luminescence, dull enough that it was not painful to the eyes unless stared at for an extended period of time. Newcomers like myself simultaneously flinched whenever we saw methane ice flying towards the market, courtesy of Neptune’s up to 2,000 kilometers per hour winds, while veteran shoppers ignored them as they bounced harmlessly off of the dome and into our dark, blue surroundings, which reminded me of the depths of the ocean.
My attention, however, was quickly drawn away from the exterior and towards the market before me, bustling with activity like a beehive. The difference being, we were all here for pleasure or for profit. Still, the analogy was startlingly accurate, looking out at the geometrically placed, neutrally colored booths of wood and stone and steel, where sentient beings ogled at and haggled over the nonsentient and the abiotic. I took a step forward and had to stop. Despite having been told that it would happen, multiple times, in fact, I was still trying to acclimate to the fact that I was heavier on this planet, thanks to its higher gravitational pull. Ralph, the only person who hadn’t sounded like a robot when he had said it, had also promised that I would get used to it soon.
Still, I took a moment to observe the market from there before I moved. I tried not to stare at the Centauri too much, but it was difficult. They varied so much in size and shape, each with their own species name, but since all of them had come from what we called Proxima B in Alpha Centauri, they were collectively known as the Centauri. They had reached our solar system fifty years prior, but I had never seen them except in photographs until then. For security purposes, aliens weren’t allowed on Earth, so they had set up shop in various other places. It was probably better for them, since they came from the Dark Side, as we’ve since dubbed it, the cold half of the planet that faces permanently away from their sun. They never settled on Venus or Mercury, rarely on Mars or Jupiter. They preferred colder planets, like this one. If the dome weren’t heated, and this place matched the outside temperature, it would be about minus 200 degrees Celsius here, and we’d all have been icicles. As it was, it was probably around 10 degrees (Celsius), and I had a double-layered jacket on for thermal regulation.
The Centauri had set out this way millennia ago in a large group of interconnected vessels largely referred to as “The Lifeboat.” It was sort of like that old story, Noah’s Ark, except that they had the good sense to bring more than two of each species. Each of their sentient life forms had sent what was deemed a survivable, genetically diverse population, which of course brought their fair share of luggage, as well as a likewise diverse group of nonsentient beings, as livestock. It was largely agreed amongst the global community that their sun, a red dwarf, being young as it was, was unstable, and it wouldn’t take much for it to cause devastation. They sent out The Lifeboat so that if something happened, their entire population wouldn’t be wiped out.
Though I tried not to stare, I did spend a large amount of time doing just that. Even as I began to make my way forwards again, my eyes were locked, not on the merchandise, but on the beings. Being the first-timer, standard human tourist that I was, I didn’t know what any of the actual species were, and they confounded me. I saw a multitude of what I took to calling Squids, though of course they weren’t. They were a palish-pink color, with four hooved legs all under the center of their body, eight eyes, each with four eyelids, and at least twenty suctioned tentacles that sort of flowed outwards from their body, like a fountain. Their skins were coated with a mucus-like, sickeningly sweet smelling fluid that seemed to emanate from their suctions, and they had no noses or ears perceivable to the human eye. One tried to sell me some sort of pitch black vine-like plant, as a medicine I think, but his odor made it difficult for me to think and I left the booth quickly.
As I wandered further inwards, I saw everything from one-legged frog men (the leg functioning like an omnidirectional wheel) to glorified flies that must have been seven feet tall, at least, to what might have been Earth monkeys had they not had their noses and their eyes switched, and had they not perfectly understood and spoken English. This last fact I found out when I whispered a question to Ralph concerning their anatomy. “Well how else are we supposed to see what we’re smelling?” One retorted to my question, which I had thought would have been too quiet for them to hear above the noise. Inside the booths, which were run by all sorts of Centauri, and some by humans, were so many objects and trinkets that I lost count: bright and colorful and beautiful fabrics, statues, designs; mind boggling machines and puzzles; a whole slew of plants and animals and bottles up for sale, as pets and foods and medicines.
If the visual input was overwhelming, the audio was only just barely bearable. All around me were voices, high and low and everywhere in between, and whistling, chirping, chattering, clicking… and somewhere, through all the din, I swear I heard music, too. As I moved from booth to booth, not really able to hear the vendors but nodding along with their words while I read the signs and looked over the merchandise, I was also bombarded with new, unknown scents. Some were pleasant. For instance I was rather fond of one plant that smelled like a mixture of cinnamon, licorice, and honey, at least until it tried to eat me. Some were not ever even remotely enticing. Almost all, however, I didn’t recognize, and doubted I’d ever be able to name or even describe.
