“Uh…? Yes, I am human,” Carlos said carefully. Hesitantly. “Uh, no – no offense, but… why did you lick me?”
“Uh… no, not really,” Carlos said. “Some places we would
give one-another a kiss on the cheek, but… no, that’s about it. Usually, in a
professional setting we just… shake hands.” He offered his hand for the other
to take. “But – I mean, unless your people don’t do that then that’s cool too!”
He started to lower his hand back to his side, unsure. God, he kind of hated
space.“Oh…” The Collector seemed to be processing the information that Carlos was providing, he was looking at the Terran’s hand and greeting and then letting go, he give a small smile, “Now, tell me … You terran stopped sending animals to Space?”
Carlos blinked at him. He nodded slowly. “Um, yeah, we… we
have. There were ethical issues with it, and the general population isn’t
really keen on sending anything other than a consenting person into space
anymore.” It was a bit of a strange question, but he supposed people would be
interested in how space-savvy his race was.
The Perfect Scientist 