CELESTE
Most of theplanets of the ICSS are strange to my human brain, but Zairion Prime is particularly so. I think it’s because parts of it are so familiar that it makes the differences so much more jarring.
The planet looks a lot like those renderings of Earth millions of years before humans evolved—back when giant insects ruled the land. Giant ferns sprawl amidst heavy flowers, and dragonfly-like creatures the size of large birds whir overhead as plentiful and mundane as seagulls.
The most striking difference is the colors. I guess photosynthesis evolved differently here or something, because very few of the leaves are green. Crimson and violet are the most common colors, but I also spy flowers of iridescent blue and winding vines in bright shades of orange.
Occasionally, I’ll pass a plant whose colors are just…wrong. One moment it seems red, the next it seems green, as if my brain can’t parse the signals my eyes are receiving. I hurry quickly past those plants, with the vague feeling that if I stop too long to contemplate them, I might go insane.
The city looks less like a metropolis and more like a series of clearings in a rainforest. The trees average twenty feet across and form a canopy so high all I can see is a blur of red leaves backlit by the blue sky beyond. Their gnarled, oddly horizontal branches sprawl and weave through each other, creating a network of paths for any creature nimble enough to climb them.
All around, giant Arthropoids stroll, clamber, and fly: spiders and moths and wasps and beetles and more. I even spy a centipede—then quickly look away, disturbed by just how long he is. Atleasttwenty feet.
I guess I shouldn’t call them giant. This is their planet, their city. Here, I’m the unusually small one.
Clothes aren’t really a thing here. The female Arthropoids walk around with their chests just as exposed as the males, though their breasts tend to be small, rarely more than a B cup.
That’s not to say the Arthropoids don’t have a sense of style; they string beads from their hair and hang garlands of bells and ribbons from their carapaces. I spy a wasp with a chain-mail skirt draped across her abdomen, the design so intricate she seems to herself be made of gold.
If an Arthropoid is in need of extra coverage, it’s only be on their humanoid torsos, and cloaks seem to be the garment of choice. These are intricately woven and dyed, some in beautiful patterns, others depicting landscape scenes or perhaps the likenesses of loved ones.
My neck already hurts from looking upwards, but it’s all so mesmerizing.
I quickly become aware of just how vertically challenged I am. There are staircases leading up to key places in the trees—wooden platforms suspended between trunks and lined with market stalls, cocoon-like houses woven from silk in the crook of branches and dyed bright colors—but it would take me so long to climb one, I’d better be sure of my destination first.
Since this is the planet’s port city, the ground is well-maintained for a variety of species. It’s not paved—doing so would be hideous by Arthropoid standards, according to the information packet I picked up on my way out of the starport—but flat stones have been placed at intervals appropriate for my human gait, so I don’t have to stumble through underbrush or plunge between giant ferns to get around.
A particularly tall Arachnoid strides toward me, her long, elegant legs holding her body twenty feet in the air. I freeze instinctively as she steps over me, as ignorant of me as I would be of an Earth spider.
I check the directions on my holo-watch again and veer toward a large tree that’s been painted a rainbow of colors. There are patches that seem out-of-place—a big splotch of red or blue in an otherwise evenly spaced gradient, but I’m pretty sure that means the mural veers into colors I can’t see.
I immediately feel at risk of becoming totally, utterly lost, and that thrills me. This part of the forest stays warm enough year-round that I could probably find some cubby in which to hide from the rain, gather up whatever fruit falls to the ground, forgotten by the Arthropoids above, and eek out an existence.
Not a bad fallback plan.
But before I resign myself to the same ecological niche as a raccoon, I want to see this meeting through.
I soon arrive at my destination: an inter-species lounge. The hand-painted sign above the door glitters with metallic paint in letters I recognize but can’t read. The Arthropoid language is elegant and flowing, with lots of little loops and connections between characters that adjust their meaning.
When I raise my wrist to place my watch’s holo-screen between my eyes and the sign, the image shimmers and rearranges itself into English.
Haven.
Yep, this is the place. It doesn’t have a door so much as an opening half-veiled with lush curtains. An Arthropoid attendant with the body of a cricket waits next to the door, pulling a rope to open the curtains any time a taller patron approaches to enter or exit.
They hardly even look at me as I scurry in, ducking under the curtain’s swaying hem.
It takes a moment for my brain to comprehend what I’ve just entered. The entire place, as large as two football stadiums put together, is framed in dense silk panels. A lot of the construction here is Arachnoid silk, it seems. This lends a subtle springiness to the floor underfoot, and my gait starts out a little uncertain, but other humanoids walk along with easy familiarity.
The mood is instantly recognizable as a swanky lounge, with rich jewel tones, velvet booths, burnished wood, and dim lighting.
Warm, murmuring chatter fills the place, making my neural implant itch as it overheats trying to translate a hundred overheard conversations at once. I reach up and tap twice just behind my ear, temporarily disabling it. I can now hear the chatter for what it is—primarily dominated by the musical, clicking language of Arthropoids.
It seems to exist in two layers. There’s the lower basin, where sapients my size mill about the open floor plan. Furniture designates various areas, like a cluster of booths from which hookah vapor floats into the air, a set of tables covered in a dozen cultures’ worth of playing cards, and a circular bar built around a pyramid of glass bottles, flanked by high-top tables.
The second layer exists above that, where Arthropoids walk easily on an open grid of silk, taking advantage of the vertical space as they cling vertically to walls while sipping champagne, or approach a bar from above, reaching down for their drink.
There’s plenty of mingling between layers, too. Mid-height platforms feature tables lined with chairs on one side and open on the other, so humanoids and Arthropoids can chat face-to-face.
