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Reena hated the bungles. They were like black soccer balls that you couldn't kick. Some people thought that they were cute simply because they were short, and children are short. Reena saw them as black holes devouring her world. It wouldn't be too long before they pressed hard enough to turn every thing into the sameness of infinity.
The bungles called themselves the Bunkgualz, and it was best if you did too. If you couldn't manage that in a crisp, clear voice, it was better to just say Sir and hope that they could understand your thick, human accent. Their presence required politeness, so that if one of them ran underfoot, you were the one that had to apologize for being in their way. Every one in the universe was hell bent on getting along, so it was best to grow some manners.
To most, Bunkgualz were simply a sensitive but very helpful species that had opened up un-thought-of venues for the human race. Many of the Big Problems of the time before, such as starving poor and violent outbursts, were reduced to logic puzzles of statistics and biology. The medicine and transportation that the Bunkgualz brought were comparable to the first vaccine and the first airplane being introduced to the Roman Empire at the brink of its collapse. The human race hadn't been in a position to say “no thanks,” and now they could not imagine living in the time before.
But to some, the bungles came packaged with their own problems, and you could argue whether the trade-offs were worth it or not. That is, you could argue if you were deep in your basement with close friends. Although the bungles claimed not to have any extensive surveillance, even the oldest refitted satellites could pick up some noise from the surface. More importantly, they didn't seem to need it. Every one seemed to be on their side, convinced of their benefactors' genuine and undying care for Earth and its inhabitants. The Bunkgualz simply had their peculiarities, just like any culture. At least with the Bunkgualz, they were so much the same that it was easy to learn how to behave around any one of them. You didn't have to deal with unpredictable, wide variance.
Perhaps that was the real reason that Reena hated them so, she thought as she stepped to the side to avoid a group of bowling-ball anthropologists, identifiable by the tags projected unto the tops of their heads, a feature installed specifically to accommodate the tall humans. Not every one was tag-literate, including Reena, who had failed promotion because she could only identify 50 individual tags. However, Reena worked with different types of culturalists and sometimes imagined that she could identify individual bungles. She had lucked into the only sort of white-collar job that would tolerate her, as it was the cultural bungles' job to tolerate a certain amount of individual variance as long as it furthered their studies. Their interest in her culture was at times overwhelming. She imagined that in no other field could a human explain something to a bungle at such length, multiple times. She knew that from a psycho-social perspective, this helped account for her disdain of an otherwise highly esteemed people. They weren't any better than her, yet she felt that she was a second-class citizen.
She had on occasion been offered drugs to improve her mood or to relieve tension. She had managed to convince those around her that her tension helped her work, helped her think. They believed her because she was an overachiever and because humans thrived on illogic. What motivated her to produce was not a concern as long as she did produce and her biological processes fell within certain norms. On this front, her genetics allowed her to be left alone more than others. She had her regular check-ups and her data, along with DNA extractions, were added to the bungle systems. What a DNA bank did for the bungles she did not know, and she did care. There were too many things that she did not know, and that was the real reason for the tension. Going to work reminded her of this, but it also provided her with an outlet for what she did know, reminding her that she was worth something every time she was asked for an opinion or a recitation. For all their technology, she could still explain things and conjecture better than a computer.
Today she would be working on variance and pervasiveness of sexism across human cultures. The hardest part for the bungles was often cooking up functional definitions of abstract concepts. It was impossible to study sexism until you could define it in a way that lent itself to the collection of meaningful data. Her Bunkgualz supervisor, Juamz, was still convinced that the prime cause of sexism was a difference in appearance between the sexes. Reena had suggested, politely of course, that he chose to study racism instead. He ignored her comment, adding to her suspicion that he did not chose his area of study at all. She wondered if his complacency would remain were he assigned to collect her laundry every week instead. He sure spoke as if he were daydreaming, folding clothes. She tried to make up for him by speaking as if she truly believed that every day she worked brought humanity closer to the Understanding of Everything, the Jkun s'Lumn, which Juamz revered in his monotonous way.
“How do you tell if a Bunkgualz is angry?” she asked during fourth break. She scrutinized her colleague for any sign of surprise. He had probably thought that she was not taking fourth break, since she had remained at her station.
Juamz swiveled on his chair, slivered eyes just above hers and feet at just the right height to kick out her last rib. “Physiological changes are minute but predictable. A Bunkgualz is angry if you have done something to anger it. Have you done something offensive?”
“No,” she answered smoothly enough. “I just figured that you guys could tell, just on the off chance that one of you becomes unpredictable.”
“If I am unpredictable, I will not come to work,” he assured her before closing his eyes and rolling backwards unto the two parallel rails fashioned for just such this mode of transportation. He adjusted himself to face the direction that he wished to go, then closed his eyes again and pushed off into a smooth roll, feet sticking out to both sides.
Reena watched him silently, too stunned to form a proper response. She had not thought that the Bunkgualz would ever admit to being unpredictable even if it should occasion to happen. Luckily, he did not seem to require a response from her, and was soon gone on fourth break, probably to one of the bungle resting rooms that were literally and socially above her head. She could go on break too, if she wanted, yet she felt intent on her work despite the interruption. If she could only think like one of them for just long enough, she could send out definitions that they would accept. It was a small project, as was much of what went on in the cultural department, and so she was the only person generating definitions. She had no idea how many people were busy rejecting them.
Juamz found her grumbling to herself when he returned. She stopped immediately, knowing how it bothered them to hear the side effects of irrationality, and more importantly, how he might suggest a remedy. She turned to look at him, but he was all set up and facing his screen, transitioning so easily back to work.