Challenge #02088-E264: Visual AidssteemCreated with Sketch.

in #fiction6 years ago

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Just read and interesting science article about how Humans are actually Bioluminescent but we can't see it because our eyes are not sensitive enough.
How amazing would that look to aliens? Especially if it were different colours like the Naa'vi in Avatar -- Adam in Darwin

The most astonishing fact that the Scollarids learned about Humans was this: Humans can't see their own glow. These Deathworlders were on par with them when it came to surviving strategies. They did more with less, did less with more, and got into further territories than any other species known to intelligent life. It seemed like they could - as a species - accomplish anything.

But they could not see how their colours wavered and intermixed with their moods. They couldn't perceive the soft, warm tones of their own body heat, or the subtle patterns of their inner radiations as they went through their days. The Scollarids said, Humans are beautiful in the dark, and the Humans didn't understand it as a compliment.

Humans glow. Their soft illumination has soothed many an infant Scollarid in the middle of the night. Their mood-lamp patterns of infra-red, ultra-violet, and electron blue have calmed hundreds in times of stress. It's such a pity that they can't see themselves with Scollarid eyes.

Therefore, it was no surprise that Human Grig didn't believe it when Wavemotion[1] came up to him and said, through a harness translator, "I find your lights to be beautiful."

Seated in the dimness of the relaxation lounge and staring aimlessly at the stars, Human Grig side-eyed his current Scollarid companion. "This is the third time one of y'all have said that. I know some folks have some weird aesthetics, but... I'm uglier than a bulldog's ass. I keep thinking y'all are setting me up for something. I have... concerns."

"We have no reason to prevaricate," said Wavemotion. "It is your eyes. You cannot see you as we see you."

"And your photos don't help, either," Human Grig sighed. "Guess I gotta get used to it or something."

Wavemotion absently groomed hir frontmost claws. "That will not do."

It took the crew of the Surprised Stance a GalStand Month to make the prototype. It shifted the spectra they could see into wavelengths that their Ship's Human could comprehend, and it worked like goggles. In them, Human Grig looked like a bug.

He laughed as he put them on. "What are these? Like beer goggles?"

Wavemotion was the one to turn the lights down. Signallingclaw[2] brought out a mirror.

"They let you see you as we see you," said Wavemotion.

The breath went out of Human Grig as he saw... more or less... what the Scollarids saw. "I'm... you see me like this all the time?"

"Your lights ebb and flow with time. Your light tides have a four point two hour interval. But yes, this is how we see you. So that you can see."

Human Grig couldn't say it out loud, but his rubbery lips made the words, "I'm beautiful," all the same.

[1] Scollarid names are rather complicated and difficult to translate into GalStand, since they speak a complicated sign language that requires four limbs to perform. This one's actual name is, Wave motion with the oscillating right front claw while the lower left claw clicks thrice.

[2] Properly annotated as, Signalling claw over two lower claws inter-clasping whilst bobbing up and down.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / teguhtirta]

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