Chapter 1: Chapter One

"What is the meaning of 'acceptance'?"

I still remember the words of the Tlaxishi professor asking that in class, his narrow tongue darting out of his green mouth to lick his eyeballs clean, he did it more than most of his species, and as a budding xenobiologist I knew that meant he was uncomfortable among so many students. Unsurprising since his species was known to be primarily made up of loners... that alone made him unique in this job. But more than that, what made him most exceptional was the way he understood species other than his own. Hence his question, and it was the very question that launched whole careers, because it began... with a race called 'homo sapiens' or as they typically called themselves, 'humans'.

No answer followed his question, though many of us, with claws and tentacles and nails and more, were rapidly scrolling through the digital text to search for the word. The echo of his question faded away against the walls... and this too was what made him unique. Unlike most professors in the University, he conducted classes in person, demanding we socialize up close. For reasons none of us quite understood, it somehow made us better students, and little by little his policy was spreading to other instructors.

"What is the meaning of 'Family'?" He asked the follow up question, and our hasty searching picked up speed. My neighbor, a Chitilxian with a rubber touch assist over his slimy digit, was typing the new word into the search bar.

A hand went up before mine, "A biological classification including several subclassification-" The answer came from one of the miniature dwarf species, an avian race coated in spiny feathers, it came up no higher than my knee. His name was Chirupus... and he was top of the class... after me. My frustration burned as he outdid me, only for relief to flood my air sacs when the professor shook his head. Even with the breath adaptor implants, I found being out done ‘suffocating’.

"No, that is 'a' definition, but not the one I mean." Our Tlaxishi professor, Sxlith by name, licked each of his five eyes in rapid succession. I knew that he hated correcting people. But I also knew that the definition he sought was not in this book, so I raised my fur covered arm and opened my elongated jaw, my tongue wagged as I spoke, and I tried to keep my tail still when I said, "Professor, no other meaning is present in the book, please... Can you tell us what you mean?"

In all my life I had never heard the noise he made next, it was clear he was imitating some species we had not seen up close, and here is where it all began... he pushed a button somewhere out of view, and a curious creature appeared on the screen while his mouth made this 'haw haw haw' kind of noise that couldn't have been natural to him. On screen was a bipedal species with fur on their round heads, small thin lips and only two arms.

"This is the species you will learn the answers to those questions from. If you can understand 'this' species, you can understand 'any' species. In my one hundred and fifty cycles of instruction and research, I have never found another like this one. They bond with inanimate objects, fictional characters, unknown infants, outsiders... as strongly as a vastian oviraptor with its own eggs.

We gasped, chirped, gulped, belched, and rattled, whatever our own expressions of shock as different species, we made it.

"I know, it sounds impossible. But this is the only species that is capable of 'finding' family and forming communities out of any species, or at least 'any' that they have ever been observed with. They domesticate predators and bond even with species that might otherwise eat them. If one is rejected by its parents, it may find new ones, or ones to fill that role. There are stronger species, there are smarter species, there are faster species, there are longer lived species... but there are no species more passionate.

They are in their mating season all year long, and constantly form new groups that grow and change... if you can get one to bond with you, they will die for you without regret. There is no species so full of contradiction as the Homo Sapiens Sapiens. They love more deeply, hate more deeply, laugh... that was that noise I was making earlier... and are both greed and generosity given flesh. They appear weak... but because of all these contradictions, they are not only the apex predator of their planet, but no invading armada dares cross into a system where a human colony has formed bonds with others... The great victory of forty-seven five-hundred and ninety two was brought about by 'this' species acting on a distress call from my own species when I was a child. A human starship responded instinctively to our call for aid... and destroyed themselves in a suicide run which crippled the invaders... self termination for another species? Who has ever heard of that?"

The professor paused at the rhetorical question, it did seem at odds with all reason, no species I knew would do that... and though I'd heard of that victory, the strange vessel was barely a footnote, humans were not even named, a low rumble of uttered doubt passed among us all.

"I promise you, it is true. I was there. That was the cause of the peace which followed, self termination for another species was unheard of, and the Zenti didn't know what to make of it. I was present on the station while the impromptu negotiations took place... and the study of humans by both sides began... I knew I had to learn more, and spent my life among them as soon as I was able. I spent one hundred of their years in a single human community. Within ten years I gained acceptance, not long after that I was 'neighbor' then 'brother' and 'uncle' I watched their generation grow and age and die... and to my shock, I felt that grief myself.

To know humanity's depths is to find them in ourselves... that is how I got here, that is why," he leveled his shaking fingerclaw out toward us in our seats, and we all sat a little more alertly when he did so, "you are sitting among one another. All of you comprise long lived species, three hundred years on the high end, and all of you will spend the next fifty years in an extended study of humans. You will join their communities, learn about them, and about yourselves. When you are through, you will know what 'family' means in a way that you never dreamed before... and carry that spark out to all your home worlds, from there... who can say what will happen? But I... I think we will have a better galaxy for it."

I don't know why I felt so certain that he was right. Maybe because his reputation was so widespread? Maybe because he'd chosen us, hand picked each of his students, and his faith in us made us more confident in him? But whatever the reason, I was suddenly even more eager to study than before. 'And even if I don't like it... what's fifty years?' I thought.

What I didn't know yet, but would know beyond a doubt when I was in the last days of my fiftieth year, was that the answer to my question was, 'The best years of my life.'

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