This Alien Does So Much for Human Romance in the Stitra System ...

The law of unintended consequences in space is as inexorable as it is on Earth, as are the strange outcomes.

But, at least we all got to enjoy Wilhelm Allemande laughing uproariously instead of ending someone's entire ego and career with that agelessly mighty voice of his.

This was an emergency call that never came because a peer to 95-year-old Commodore Allemande had discovered both the creature above and something about it that it had in common with its analog on Earth.

Noticing the slight smile on the alien and the outcome of the human encounter with it would make you think this was a friendly creature … but that's just the bias of humanity to determine so much by whatever we think of as a face. The Stitral Mosquito will serve you up to eternity with a smile – those six compound mouths and all the knockout venom they can quickly administer before liquefying you and enjoying you with their hunting partners are not to be played with.

Human settlement would have been delayed indefinitely on Stitra 6 because eradication of an entire species in an ecology is out of the question under the First Imperative of the consortium except for one chance incident.

Lieutenant Herman Gutzeit had a reasonable accommodation from fleet regulations regarding what could be worn on the body: he had a skin condition that required the application of lime oil to keep it in check. Thus, when he and his away team beamed down to Stitra 6, they never encountered a single Stitral Mosquito. The next two away teams from the next two vessels were almost completely eaten up.

It turns out that, like mosquitoes on earth, Stitral Mosquitoes are repelled by citrus-type odors. The sillage – the odor imprint – of Lt. Gutzeit's skin treatment had protected his entire away team. He had figured it out because on Earth the previous summer, the same thing had happened with his family sitting near him: no mosquito bites.

This discovery led to a fleet exception that carried on to all scientific teams and eventual settlers: fragrances with the appropriate citrus and citronella notes were allowed.

This led to Sitral 6 being the best smelling human settlement in that segment of the galaxy, and a hub for perfumers who loved working with strong citrus-type notes.

This also led to men and women encountering each other smelling wonderfully, and romance budded much more readily because of it.

Sitral 6's population growth has outstripped every human settlement in the five parsecs around it.

Herman Gutzeit retired as a commodore also, and called his old friend Wilhelm Allemande one day in their 90s when he heard about the population growth on Sitral 6 and realized why it was the best-smelling, most romantic planet in its segment of the galaxy.

I heard Cdre. Allemande laughing clear down the gangway, and he was glad to tell me and the entire command staff … so laughter spread like the unexpected aroma of a species spared and human life preserved and multiplied through the law of unintended consequences.