The Human

He's never met a human before. Now one's booking a ride on his ship.

Kekitaka has never met a human before, but this one needs a ride, and Kekitaka needs the money. He's been stranded on this dingy, backwater space station for three years with a broken down ship. This human's family is offering to fix his engine in exchange for passage, so Kekitaka's jumping at the chance. He's going home. He doesn't know much about humans, but he's got a book about them. It seems fine… until he meets his passenger.

Alarmingly, the human turns out to be terrified of him. And are humans supposed to be this small? Spending ten days alone together on the journey home could be more complicated than Kekitaka thought, between a scared young passenger, a ship that keeps breaking down, and a galaxy full of people who fear and misunderstand his species.

If they're going to make it to Kekitaka's home planet, these two people of very different worlds will need to overcome their distrust and pull together into a strange little two-member crew…or maybe even make friends.

"The Humans" is a short standalone story of about 10k words, ideal for fans of character-driven, found-family science fiction such as The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.