"No, that can't be true."

Andrew nods at Lewis.

"Yeah, Lou, think about it. What do we export to the Xandrians?"

"Metal... gems... but come on, they live on a gas giant, they can't produce it themselves! It only makes sense we..."

"It's not one thing, it's the result of everything."

"Still, it's too much to assume they-"

Andrew interrupts him again.

"When they celebrate Earth day in Neptune, what kind of food do they share?"

"Come on, that's speciesist."

"Answer me, what's our dish in outer space?"

Lewis sighs. Defeated, he admits.

"Beer"

"It's beer, it's fucking beer."

"But Earth Day has its roots in Oktoberfest, it's not like they made it on purpose!"

"Root shmoot, it doesn't matter. When Gardion Prime thinks aout us, they picture hairy, short drunkards that export metalwork."

"We are so much more than that..."

"Yes, we are, but that's not the point Lou."

"Ok, ok" Lewis straightens on the chair, ready to deal his final blow to Andrew's argument. "What about our scientist, explorers, artists and whatever?"

"Oh, you mean Penelope Schaffer, and her work on Arious III? What was it?"

"Yes, she was a geologist, bu-"

"Or Cacius, the best jeweler in the galaxy."

"That's no-"

"The Abioye family did colonize and terraform plenty planets. For their mining operation."

"You are just cherry picking now!"

"Name me one famous Earthling that has not been filtered through the flanderinzing ray, come on."

"Ah... there's... Well, the crew of Pleiades doesn't count, they were testing new spacefaring technology..."

Muttering to himself, Lewis eventually falls silent.

"Fine, we are space-dwarves."

"Still very speciesist, but yeah."

"And do you think some species out there would be the space-elves?"

Andrew's face twists in horror. "Dude, don't even joke about that. Super offensive to Martians."

"What? But you just-"

"Shame on you Lou, shame on you."

"Right!" the bearded human bellowed into the crowded cantina, his impractically hefty warhammer resting on his shoulder. "I come tae drink alcohol an' hit things wi' a giant FECK-OFF hammer, and I dinnae give two shites which one I do first, so ye best bring on th' bloody booze!"

Behind him, a half-dozen other similarly bearded and attired humans raised their weapons in the air and roared their hearty assent.

Krenzik the Naxor bartender gaped at the humans in astonishment for only a moment, before hastily dispatching a serving drone to escort them to a table and take their drink orders, lest they make good on their threat to start breaking things.

He knew that many species were comprised of multiple markedly different cultures, but all of the humans he'd met previously had seemed fairly civilized, unlike this raucous and heavily armed group.

"I will be right back with your order, sir." The serving drone said to one of the humans, in flawless Terran. The human responded by slamming a hammer into the side of it, leaving it with a sizeable dent.

"Ah'm a WOMAN, ye daft bucket o' bolts!" the human shouted, in the higher-pitched voice common to females of their species. She pointed to her long flowing beard, which Krenzik had previously thought was definitely not common in females of the species, and added, "Did ye nae see the FECKIN' PINK RIBBON IN ME DELICATE FEMININE BEARD?!"

The other humans erupted in laughter and cheers, as the drone hovered away unsteadily to retrieve the humans' drink order.

Krenzik wrung several of his hands nervously, as he watched the humans out of the corner of his upper eye, suddenly unable to remember if their species considered eye contact friendly of threatening. As he tried to look anywhere but at the loud and boisterous humans, just in case, he noticed Kizro, a fellow Naxor and regular at the cantina, seated a short distance away at the bar.

"Kizro!" he hissed, leaning close to the other Naxor. "You're a Xenologist, right?"

Kizro looked up from his bowl of intoxijelly, blearily. A few bits of the gelatnious substance clung to his siphon as he pulled it from the bowl to speak. "Huh? Yeah, that's right. Why?"

"What the deal with those humans? Are they some different culture we haven't seen on station before? Or a subspecies? That female human has face-fur!" Krenzik whispered.

Kizro glanced over at the humans, then laughed. "Oh! Nah. Those are just regular humans."

"No they're not!" Krenzik insisted. "A whole group was in yesterday, and none of them were carrying battle-axes!"

Kizro's siphon rippled with a tipsy chortle. "Nah, see, that's the thing. This is kind of a...a demonstration."

"Of what?"

Kizro jiggled his tendrils in the negative. "It's not demonstrating anything, it's a demonstration -- like, you know, a protest."

"What are they protesting in my cantina?" Krenzik demanded.

"It's nothing personal, more a general thing. See, last week, the Galactic Confederation came out with a summary of important sentient species in the Alpha Spiral Arm, and so the humans got a mention." Kizro explained.

"So? That's a good thing, isn't it? Aren't they always saying the GC doesn't take them seriously enough?" Krenzik asked.

"Kinda, except it was a short mention. Really short. It was just one sentence, in fact: 'Sol 3 is home to humans, a short, hirsute mammalian species of exceptional craftsmen and miners who are known for their love of rare ores and gemstones.'"

"Kind of terse, I guess." Krenzik said, with a slight wince. "So they're upset about that?"

"Yeah, so I gather." Kizro agreed. "They said it made them sound like some whimsical creatures from their species' mythology: Dorbs, or Dorgs, or something? Little hairy miner guys with a lot of face fur that love hammers, if memory serves."

"And that's supposed to prove they're not like that?" Krenzik said, gesturing to the increasingly boisterous group.

The other Naxor jiggled noncommittally. "It's a human cultural practice, I don't fully understand the reasoning behind it. They call it 'leaning in to the bit' or 'yes-and' -- I think it's supposed to be some kind of...I dunno, a rebuttal via satire, maybe?"

Krenzik was about to ask another question, when suddenly the humans raised their voices together in song:

...TO DIG AND DIG MAKES US FREE,

COME ON BROTHERS SING WITH ME!

I am a Dwarf,

and I'm digging a hole!

Diggy-diggy hole,

diggy-diggy hole!

Krenzik looked on in horror as the bearded female human climbed up on a table with one of the even-more-bearded males, and they linked arms and started dancing in a circle, heedless of the creaking of the tabletop under their boots.

Kizro drunkenly bobbed his head to the song. "Oh yeah! Dwarf! That's what it was."

“Hey, Leo, you know about dwarves?” I asked as I walked up to his workstation, where Leo was hunched over, absorbed in his work

Leo’s hunched back unfurled and his head turned to me as he pulled away from his most recent work. It was a circular object with thin lines inside and insanely detailed contraptions, with segmented “legs” on two sides. “Dwarves? The fairytale type?” He responded, his voice dry and gruff. “Bingo! Just the thing,” I said cheerfully, “the craftsman-miner-people”. “What about ‘em?” Leo questioned, “I wanna get back to my watch.” “Well,” I heeded, “aren’t you pesky human types the dwarves of the universe?” Leo’s face flushed and illustrated a confusing composure of amusement and anger alluded by the assortment of reds and pinks on his face. Amazingly, his face stayed relatively the same, except for a faint smile. He seemed taken-aback, positively flustered, but that was exactly what I expected. After a second, instead of feeling indignation, anger, or anything of that sort, he put on a mischievous grin. “Yeah, I suppose we are. I can’t be talking, at the very least.”

“Told you so.”

////

Here’s my author’s notes I guess. I didn’t really know what to do so I chose to do a little “slice of life” instead of some crazy action-packed sequence (though now the idea is totally in my head!!!! Ugh!!). I really liked the alliteration but maybe it was too forced? Either way, hope you enjoyed!

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