Pylo honestly did not really understand the Terran hang ups over her producing food for them.

Well she knew why but not why that was why. she was a daughter of Courtesan after all and her mother would have been even more embarrassed then she probably already was with her if Pylo had been unable to comprehend the relatively blatant cultural and social cues for terrans and drinking various maternal oozings and seed material from another.

So in one regard she found the overarching cultural structure obvious as can be.

Pylo could not deny that it encouraged the most bizarre kind of skittishness around topics of reproduction, physical contact, maternal oozings and bodily materials and there were blatant associations with filth, degeneracy, ostracizing, appeal and many other subtleties of familiarity and bond that could turn the perverse to the divine and back to the abhorrent.

The nuance of it all was fascinating if you did not pay attention to the subject it was applied to.

But she was brought up short on how the structure she could plainly perceive as the underpinnings of terran linguistics could make any sense to anyone at all as a way to live let alone be so deeply rooted into a culture.

Just Pylo could not even comprehend how this happened!

How could they be this backwards?

With Aleph being the youngest the taboos were not quite as intense, She got a bit embarrassed at it. Somewhere between being ashamed as if she was doing something wrong and being ashamed for Pylo as doing something wrong.

Omega however was much worse.

There were many layers of intense disgust, discomfort and over all foulness associated with just the Terran acknowledging the act let alone actually witnessing it. It was like the middling Terran considered her somehow infectious with a virulent plague almost, or was watching her do something vile that required a righting of wrong.

Not as severe as rape but somewhere minutely in that direction along the spectrum of horrified dismay.

She mastered herself and her revulsion as far as most of the external visual cues and conscious communication went but the shame associations that coursed through her nervous system were obvious to Pylo. And if her concentration was lax the emotive gestures that underlaid overt Terran communication leaked through as well.

Quarti as was becoming a pattern seemed substantially less bothered by all the cultural underpinnings. She was bothered on some levels, but that seemed to be more from personal preference and aesthetics then the sort of ingrained disgust that came from an entire society shaping a response. It was curious that there was such a gulf but Pylo had come to realize that the elder of the terrans had about as much shared cultural heritage with the younger terrans as Pylo did.

Honestly the little clerk that Aleph adopted as an employee was closer to the younger terrans in cultural and social background then Quarti at this point.

Which was causing very interesting paradoxes for the creature as there were several uncertainties about what their social status should be in relation to the Terrans, the little displaced symbiotic cancers (as ▙◀ so helpfully explained earlier) had simply not invented categories of the Clerk’s status as far as Pylo was concerned.

Not one that was honest anyway. There were of course a few dozens of very poor choices of role the Terrans and Clerk could try to retrofit but if it started swaying towards the particularly distasteful ones Pylo would have to intervene.

Bizzare prudish hangups was one thing, but psychologically torturing some poor clerk with incorrect social roles was entirely something else.

She would only stand by so much backwards primitivism from her charges and on the manner of ethics there were some lines she could not condone crossing or letting them cross.

But the weird learned disgust pattern and shame web their society had created was not that bad and could be humored for the comfort of her passengers.

For the sake of Omega’s sensibilities at least they had set aside an arbitrary segment of the habitat to block Pylo from accidental viewing when she stocked them up on ‘produce’.

Speaking of that was the last of the containers and cartons filled with various unfertilized ovum and gland secretions.

Pylo called out to the most disturbed of her passengers.

“You can stop sulking in a corner now Omega, I’m finished!”

She began departing soon after, keeping everything cool and professional, not emoting her own disappointment that this was how it had to be.

Honestly she would have thought the whole exercise would have been a good bonding and socializing activity with the terrans given their biology and the underlying baseline of instincts and associations for it. Quarti seemed enthused to watch inspite of (or because of) any lingering discomfort.

Whenever the opportunity presented itself she would join her in the little cordoned off ‘milking station’ and happily spoke with Pylo when she came to restock the Terrans in various food stuffs their own equipment could not supply presently (or ever).

But sadly the elder was the exception.

Even Aleph who was by far the most flexible of the two youngsters was deeply unnerved by her own cognitive dissonance over actually seeing Pylo perform the act thanks to the incredible plethora of shaming associations that sprouted from the situation.

It was just so stupid and backwards. What kind of polity would develop so intense of a complex of hang ups over children, reproduction and maternal care?

Why the crossed associations between the three?

Why did they find any of them obscene?

Pylo sighed as she squeezed into the airlock and spun it to cycle. Letting the insulating vacuum of outside the habitat embrace her.

Wierdo Aliens and their idiotic society.

A quick venting to clear all her oviriticuli of random soupy atmosphere brought sweet chilling rush through her internal envelopes.

Then fortified by the cooling Pylo turned her attention back to comforting and distracting Tunie from her claustrophobia.