A Study of Hummus

They would talk. The scientists that Alice Jenkins found herself surrounded by - obvious psychological tests. Physical tests - some seemed designed for a human body, which defiantly wasn't what the pink goo that  now constituted her form was.

She was given her own room -  and was assured it was spacious, by spaceship standards. It matched up pretty  well with her old dorm room, in fact. The one that... she must still be using. It was weird to think of herself as a copy. In fact, she quickly came to the conclusion that it was pointless to think about herself as a copy. The Human on Earth was like ... a twin. And they'd finally moved away from each other a few days ago. Yeah. And maybe she'd move back  someday, but for now SCIENCE. And ALIENS. She was a very special  transfer student, pink hair and everything. Who had a room that opened up into a laboratory.

The  aliens had names. Not just names for humans to call them. Lainyng was in charge. She had claimed it was a human name... in Mandarin. Alice had  never heard of that. The alien, having abandoned whatever that smock thing was a while ago, looked pretty frustrated in response. In a  gooey way.

The scientists were part of the Direct Human Studies  group. There were other groups - Environment and Communications, at  least. They were at L5... which seemed to be not that far away from  Earth, but far enough away that she had to be sleeping deeply when she  was abducted.

Also, it made the internet slow. They had some tiny  satellites somewhere to speed it up - though everything was read-only.  No, no Netflix, she'd have to torrent.

Pirate Aliens. What were they to do, they didn't have credit cards.

The first... night? Was  weird. She was warned everyone was going - and shown her room, but the  lights just... went out. Everyone was gone.

She tried to check her  email. Her Facebook. They didn't work. BLOCKED. Discord downloaded  something, but it complained about not knowing what an MSI was. What  even was an MSI?

She tried to sleep. The lights shown through her eyelids. The Darkness was too dark, made her see things.

Eventually she fell asleep.

~

The  next morning she wasn't feeling too great... And apparently, she had  slept in, the scientists were already out and about. She had the water  hose shoved in her mouth - given what looked like a pod of laundry  detergent - wrung through the mixer again - and felt a lot better.

A  lot of tests were repeats. But yes, they could show her how to download  the Avengers movies. And how to turn on the nightlight.

That  night was better. She wasn't exactly sure how they had a gameboy, but  she was playing it. And... well, she couldn't really comment on how the  galaxy actually looked compared to the movies. There weren't any  windows.

And, she actually remembered to drink some water before falling to sleep.

~

The next day... repeats. Another laundry detergent pod. She excused herself for water.

She  was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with her oversized breasts  flailing about... she toned them down a little. Got the idea to try and  looked covered up... which met with some success. Any clothing look she  came up with was practically skintight.

No, there weren't really  bathrooms as such - but she would want to change her sheets every few  days, earlier if they actually started smelling.

Wait.

Even if they weren't answering every single question, they were giving her pretty much everything they asked for.

Lainyng was right there. 

"Can... I see the rest of the ship?"

Lainyng  seemed to melt a little bit in relief, "Of course dear," She stretched  out an arm and grabbed one of the many tablets available, "Right now, if  you want."

~

The main hallways of the ship, it seemed, were  a pair of huge rings, in which a few dozen off-duty slime aliens  wandered. There seemed to be appartments, offices, laboratories, a few  little gardens, a food court, and what looked like a boutique mall.  Alice's pink complexion caught several eyes - but nobody came up to the  pair. If anything, they gave them more space.

"This is the  equivalent of a 'drinking fountain' - everything recirculates in the  ship, so if you're drying out, use it, just put the nozzle back in the  sanitizer once you're done." It was much like the hose in the lab, only  half as thick.

"The food court allows 4 meals a day, and a little  more exotic than your basic rations you've had so far, but you don't  need to eat there. They WILL cut you off if you start asking too much...  a few previous subjects have found 'full body tasting' too extreme."

"Where are those previous subjects?"

Lainyng did not respond. There was no look onf confusion, her face just said "No".

"Why is everyone walking around... like people?"

"Ah,  well we're studying Earth, and the Human condition. We don't want to  just approach it from our... boneless? perspective. And the higher-ups  think this helps."

Alice half nodded. She didn't quite get it. 

"You  may have noticed that garden on the other ring was a tint of blue,  though. Do keep content in mind if you choose to stroll through... what  was the word..." she tabbed through pages on her tablet for a moment,  "Hippies? Anyways, no pulling up grass."

"You have hippies on a spaceship?"

"Well, they have their off time too. Their-" a bit of typing, "resumes went through the same process mine did." She shrugged.

"Wait. Can I see that tablet?"

"Uh-"

"This is Wikipedia. With... pokemon letters."

"Not  quite. We translate updates on a regular basis. ANYWAY. You non-edible  needs, and some desires, can be met in the provisioning section."

"Needs...? Like, I can get a man here?"

Alice got a dull stare.

"Do you need to look men up too?"

"Division units are in storage if needed for emergency re-population. Which is unlikely with our current contingent"

"Division... like, cell division?"

Lainyng  did look this up, "Pretty much. We aren't here to populate a planet.  Anyways, of you want anything, any of the provisioners can tell you if  you have the credits available. Your stipend is about the same as mine,  actually, but you can always order semi-processed materials if you want  to try something out yourself."

"Semi... yarn. I'm not gonna get that bored on this ship, am... Why do you have a Hot Topic?"

She ran to the unlicensed storefront, one nook sunk in between another two. Lainyng followed close behind.

The  store was barely larger that the width of a hallway, several times  deeper than wide. Everything looked... like it belonged in a Hot Topic.  Most of it had collected a noticeable layer of dust.

"Howdy- Oh  nice, we got another one up from Planet Hummus?" One slime, paler than Lainyng stood up in  the back of the store, apparently doing some ironing.

"Hummus?" Alice turned back to Lainyng with a questioning look.

She  took a moment to faceplam before explaining. "It took a while to  properly tune in the radio signals were were receiving when we first  arrived. Also, the first human we abducted had a sense of humor. We revised the reference guide years ago." She sighed. "That's Ken'di. Who unsurprisingly does not keep up to date on reference guides."

The  girl in back gave an exaggerated shrug. It was odd to see her bright  white clothes - a little worse for wear - in the sea of black.

"There  is one more place on the ship I think you might be interested in -  Perhaps you'd like to get a glimpse of Earth from here?"

~

It  was ladder climbing time. Alice was disappointed that these wasn't a  series of tubes to schlorp up or somthing - but Lainyng reminded her of  the "Human Condition" requirements.

She was feeling lighter.

"Close  to the hub is a microgravity environment," Lainyng explained, "The ship  is essentially a giant space centrifuge, to save on gravity  generators."

"So it's like... we're going into actual space?"

"I prefer a breathable atmosphere... so not quite."

One  final ladder, up into a tube that passed into the next room, and  beyond. "At the end is our darkside observatory. Remember, blue dot."

The  ladder's last rung ended inside the tube... and there was nothing  pulling her in any direction. She pushed off the wall towards a black circle in  the distance, bumping along the side of the tube in a zigzag along the  way.

It was dark. She had expected a sky blazing with  stars... There were a few rocks - asteroids - slowly spinning nearby...  No, it was the ship spinning, and her with it. The rocks were just  bright with sunlight.

Slowly her eyes made out more stars. They looked... purple. Off.

And  there it was. A little marble hanging in the sky, just barely not  hidden behind one of the bright asteroids. It was almost the colors she  remembers form maps, from pictures of space. But off. Not big enough to  see continents. She momentarily wondered if she could make her eyes into  telescopes given her new shapeshifting powers - and her vision just  went blurry in the attempt.

There were voices. Well, nothing else to do here at the moment, so Alice started making her way back, trying  harder to not bounce off the walls as she went, trying to hear what was  being said... But it didn't seem to be English. 

At one point the  tunnel turned to what might as well have been clear glass, two of the  aliens standing on ... well, the floor below, but it looked like a wall  from Alice's perspective. One of them was Lainyng - she glanced up,  waved. She looked a little nervous.

The other was... taller. She actually wore a cape on her shoulders, over her dress. And gloves. And Glasses?

"Ah,"  the taller one spoke, switching to English, "So our sample is showing  some curiosity. Good, good." She walked onto one of the panels on the  wall and some hatches closed on either side of the tube. Alice was  trapped, floating in the the transparent section of tube above their heads.

"Her name is Alice, Counselor."

"Feminine?" she paced around the small room, getting a look at the form the former human had chosen.

"Yes, Counselor."

"Did she do the..." She was searching for a word, "the Breast reapportionment we saw on the previous samples?"

Lainyng averted her eyes, "Yes."

"Interesting. Troubling behavior, is it not?"

"I wouldn't say so. Their forms are rather static after-"

"I  mean couldn't it be anything else? Are the feminine ones stuck at  looking at that bit of their anatomy all their waking hours?"

"Our sample size is still relatively small, Counselor."

"Of course- Well, let me know when it's time for the next round. Unless you need anything further..."

She  left through one of the doors. Lainyng jumped to the control panel  mounted on the wall, and the hatches opened. Alice manage to grab hold  of one in the direction she had already been exiting, and launched  herself towards the exit ladder.

"I'm sorry. Grerbe had just been.. insufferable as of late. Thank you so much for helping us."

Alice  didn't respond. She just climbed down ladders, and wandered the halls  til she found her room. And refused to talk to anyone the rest of the  day.