“It’s not hostile,” she whispered. “It’s… displaying maximum vulnerability. In Earth animal behavior, splooting means trust. Or heat exhaustion. But on Gloop VII?” She knelt, her knees sinking into the warm mud. “Let’s try something.”
It was the size of a beached cargo pod, shaped like a deflated bouncy castle, and covered in short, orange fuzz. Its four limbs—if you could call them that—splayed outward at cartoonishly perpendicular angles. Its belly, a pale cream color, was pressed flush against the cracked mudflat. Its face, such as it was, consisted of two googly eyes (genuine, not metaphorical) and a tiny, pursed mouth that made a soft "mrrp" sound. splootalien
Not attacking. Not scheming. Splooting —the full-body, belly-down, legs-akimbo sprawl of a creature that had given up on dignity entirely. “It’s not hostile,” she whispered
Klik’s voice crackled over the comm. “Dr. Voss? Are you… bonding with the anomaly?” Or heat exhaustion
In the far reaches of the Chitin Expanse, the Galactic Zoological Society received a distress signal from the mud-volcano moon of Gloop VII. The message was brief, sticky, and smelled faintly of damp socks: “SOMETHING IS SPLOOTING OUR RESEARCH STATION.”
“It’s not an anomaly, Klik,” she said, smiling as the alien’s warmth seeped through her suit. “It’s a diplomat. It came here to teach us the most important word in the galaxy.”
It was splooting.