Tiles and Platters

 

Just to remind them of their place in keeping up the Savannah Platter, the Zebrites kept the color scheme in the Receiving Verandah geometric and black and white. Cebble had always lived just off the Platter, not far from this grand reception room, a gallop of a maybe twenty minutes. From this window, she could see arrival nodes winking and flashing, obscuring the savannah that stretched all the way to the edge of the sea, where the humans waited in a glass compound. Glass and whatever they’d brought with them.

Cebble had seen that place in person once, learned how to say “city” from one of them, who’d then explained that people like her were considered “livestock” on the human planet. Apparently, this was a “magical” world because people like Cebble could speak. At least, that human had considered the translation orb as passing for speech. Not all of them did; making even a short visit uncomfortable. As alien as the Platter could be, there were few things as alien as that tower ssittee. Humans told themselves they discovered an empty world and established a great city. They flung their stories into the sky and waited. Even if they knew the Zebrites read those messages before they left, they boasted.

Recently, the boasts had taken on a manic fervor. They had been given a mission from sky.

Cebble glanced up. They’d punctured that same sky in a rude display of fire and speed, ignoring the well-used node grid that flashed like a fountain of persons and trade. The sky contained mysteries, even after the humans had come through it, dragging their stories of a tissue of cerulean creatures whispering among the clouds and sunlight. She wondered what their world had been like after they’d broken their own sky. She stomped a hoof and shook her mane. There was a blue flash, nearer than expected. When she’d blinked away the glare, a human was standing on the Platter.

A cadre of Zebrites trotted up to the edge, watching the human stumble down the lane, bumping into a large feline and being sent fast stumbling by a heavy paw. They collapsed on the tile in front of the Zebrites.

Cebble wheeled from the window and hurried out of the reception area. She didn’t recognize the human, but she recognized the disorientation symptoms from hours of viewing people arrive. Some didn’t react well to node travel. If humans in general didn’t, their method of arrival made sense. There were too many all at once, but maybe that was necessary. And she could ask—if she could be the assigned reception recovery agent.