Sticks and Stones - fiction by freon

Professor Tripp sat back from revision and looked out the portal, trying to glimpse the star system toward which he'd been rocketing, nearly two dozen years all spent concentrating on one thing and one thing alone. The language.
The only commonality Erandii speech had with Earth's was the mechanism; vocal cords and tongue, forcing atmosphere through what passed (barely) for lips. Ancient audio communiques, all one-way, of course, finally established that the Erandii were not only understandable, but so much more complex that computer aid was a necessity, even for a master.
A meeting was inevitable, so who else would they send first but the premier Erandii-Earthtongue authority? In six days, his vessel - first ever Earth Emissary to Gam-Erandii - will set down on a world that, finally, appreciates his talents. He rubbed his studious head and gloated for a moment. As the first human to set foot upon this planet, those tongue-tied clowns of lowly Earth couldn't have chosen any better.
“Barbarians, all of them,” he spat. “Hell can have them. Here is the cradle of true civilization - Erandii!”
-
He staggered to the foyer, punching at the sky and cursing the blue-green sun at the top of his oxygen-fed lungs. The precious translator glanced smartly off the ground, showering Tripp's feet with the orange dust of Erandii soil. With a well aimed kick, he launched it at the makeshift consulate's wall, only to have it bounce back to within hearing range, still functioning perfectly. An anguished wail, and Tripp pulled his only other piece of gear from his environment suit and shot himself through the head with it.
-
The semicircle of gray-skinned elders parted to let the hoverbed through with its otherworldly contents. The stoutest of the five, Qaadeel, turned away and retrieved the human's talking machine, prodding the controls to no avail with his snouts. He looked up with nine apologetic eyes and frowned at his subordinates, hearing their words played out dutifully by the little box as they chittered, quiet and forlorn.
The box spoke, though no one listened. "Like, so he goes, 'no way', and, like, freaks in colors! Like, so we just looks at him, y'know?"
"Huh, yeah. Like whoa. So we like, axe why he can't do the do, dig? Like, dude, how could we not dis him, y'know? Know what I'm sayin'?"
"Dude. Talked just like my grandfather. Huh."

 

Sticks and Stones first appeared online in 1999.