The Human Experiment

by Kevin McLaughlin

  He would have to succeed then.

  Kantrobil thought a command at his console. The machines around him in the room hummed briefly. He was surrounded by a soft glow, and a moment later, stood in a glade near the human male’s encampment. His hooves trod carefully on the soil, avoiding damage to the plant matter beneath them as much as possible.

  For his people, a place like this was important. Though the plants present in the human’s pen were derived from species native to his own world, to better facilitate acclimation of their subjects, the type of environment was one Kantrobil was intimately familiar with. His own world was filled with lush forests, and every time he entered one of the human pens, he was filled with a sense of longing for his old world. The garden he and Felizian kept was not nearly enough. He wanted to be underneath the towering trees of Lustrial, back in the ancient woods among his own people.

  Not here on a desolate rock, made habitable by their technology. This sort of experiment was only done on other worlds. The risk of contamination spreading from an experimental subject to their own ecosystem was considered far too great. Kantrobil and Felizian wanted to advance in the sciences, so they’d taken the assignment. Difficult as it was, it had been rewarding. In a handful more decades, they would complete their work and return home with valuable data.

  In the meantime, much as he scoffed at Felizian’s habit of constantly entering the pens, Kantrobil privately could not blame his partner. Moments like this made him homesick and feel at home at the same time.

  He inhaled the fresh air for a few more moments, and then looked about himself. The male’s nest was only a short distance away. Kantrobil trotted toward the camp. He didn’t know if his appearance would matter to the human or not, but it was all he could think to do. Their presence had seemed to give the male comfort in the past. Perhaps it would do the same again now.

  Kantrobil stepped up behind a tree. The human was directly ahead of him, kneeling on the ground. He was binding vines and roots into more rope. Did he really think he had enough rope to reach the bottom of the cliff? Kantrobil shook his head. If the human knew how far that face descended, he’d surely give up on the spot. There wasn’t enough vine in the entire pen to create a rope long enough. But there was no way to tell the subject that without giving away far too much. The downside of pretending to be a dumb animal.

  The human glanced up. Had Kantrobil made a noise? Or had the human somehow sensed he was being watched? He wasn’t certain, but he’d been seen. He watched the human’s eyes widen with recognition. Nothing left to do but follow through with the plan. Kantrobil took a few steps toward the subject.

  “You’re back. Where did you go? How is that even possible? You can’t have been hiding here someplace,” the human male said. “I’d have found you. I’d have seen you at least once.”

  Kantrobil continued staring at him and cocked his head to one side.

  “I get the feeling you know precisely what I am saying, you know that?” the man said. “Which sounds crazy, but maybe mother was wrong. Maybe animals know more than we think they do. Do you know a way out of this place? Can you lead me?”

  That wasn’t the direction Kantrobil wanted this conversation to go. He needed the human to remain in his pen, not become even more focused on attempting to escape. He took a few steps toward the human’s half-finished dwelling and gave it a sniff. There was an elegant simplicity to the structure. It was crude, primitive, but it showed a creativity that Kantrobil found himself admiring. He cocked his head sideways again, managing to look at both the human and the dwelling.

  “No, I’m not staying. I’m leaving,” the man said. He scooped up an enormous coil of rope. “I’m done with this. Dana didn’t want to have me around before. Now that I’ve hurt her, I can’t stay. I have to go.”

  Kantrobil snorted with frustration. That was entirely the opposite of the truth. This human was supposed to stay. They had a backup for the female, but not the male. Their experiment relied on a mating pair of second-generation subjects. That meant they needed him far more than they needed her. But Kantrobil realized that convincing him of that would be difficult, even if he was allowed to communicate vocally with a subject. Which he emphatically was not. The female might not have bonded well with the male, but the male had surely bonded with her.

  “I wish I could take you with me,” the human said.

  No, thank you, Kantrobil thought. He was extremely agile, but he much preferred to float down kilometer-long drops from a plateau using anti-gravity devices not a hand-made rope.

  “But I don’t think you can climb, and I can’t carry you,” the man went on. “I hope Dana doesn’t eat you. She might, though, so watch out for her.”

  No, the other human wasn’t going to eat him. Kantrobil was well-defended against any sort of primitive attack from these animals. They weren’t a threat. But as the man scooped up the last of his ropes and got back to his feet, Kantrobil couldn’t help but feel a pang of emotion at the realization he was almost certainly going to have to rescue and mind-wipe this human.

  This was just a specimen, he reminded himself. Not a person. But part of him didn’t believe that anymore.

  Thirty-Eight

  Dana paced in front of her treehouse, holding her spear. She hadn’t put it down since John had left. She wondered if she would ever feel safe enough to put it down again. There was a moment as John turned away from her to flee that she had a clear shot at his back. One solid thrust and she could have ended it. Dana knew her own strength. She didn’t doubt her ability to put the tip of her spear into something vital.

  Her resolve was something else entirely. Killing gators and pigs was one thing. Murdering another person was entirely another. Especially since he was the only human being she seemed likely to have around anytime soon.

  She rubbed her jaw where he’d struck her in the face. The blow was a complete surprise. Dana had figured he’d be angry with her for defying him, but she never imagined he would lash out like that! Over a berry. She shook her head. It was beyond her understanding where he got the idea that it would poison her. She’d picked berries like that scores of times in the past. Finding the bush had been a nice stroke of luck.

  Dana was willing to admit that she’d been a jerk. She could have tried to calm John down and assuage his fears rather than insisting on proving him wrong by eating a berry. But his fear had pissed her off.

  No, it wasn’t his fear. It was him thinking he had a right to tell her what to do. It was him showing up at her home in the first place, playing the protector hero again. Bad enough she’d needed his help with the gator. How was she going to handle living on her own if he kept rescuing her?

  That much, she had no intention of conceding to. She wasn’t going to team up with this man or anyone else. No matter how much she wanted to. He wasn’t wrong, working together would help both. Two heads were better than one, and four hands were far better than two. But the wound of losing everyone Dana had ever known was still new and raw. She couldn’t risk that sort of pain.

  “But how can I convince him to stay away?” Dana said aloud, asking the birds in the surrounding trees, her only witnesses. “He wants to look out for me. Even if he has a funny way of doing so.”

  She ran her tongue over her sore lip. John’s blow had driven the skin against her teeth. Dana could still taste blood. That would be sore for a while. Damn him.

  A fluttering movement caught her eye, and she turned, readying her spear for whatever was there. But it was just a bird, flapping its wings on the ground. It looked like it was trying to take off, but it wasn’t getting any lift. Dana studied it for a moment. It didn’t seem to have a broken wing, both flapping normally. But it hopped and fluttered along the ground, unable to take off.

  The bird’s motions were growing more erratic. Dana’s eyes widened with alarm when she saw the animal rushing toward her, still flapping its wings in a jerky, spasmodic motion. She took two quick steps back and readied her spear. Something was
very wrong with the bird. It was hurt, or sick. Memories of the terrible illness her people had suffered flashed through Dana’s mind. What if she’d brought the plague here with her? What if this was some new disease?

  The animal abruptly stopped fluttering about. It stood stock-still for a long moment, and then fell onto its side. Dana stared at the bird, waiting for it to move again, but her gut told her that it was gone. There wasn’t even the smallest ruffle of feathers to tell her the bird still breathed.

  Dana had to know what happened to it. She poked the still form with the tip of her spear. There was no reaction, so she poked even harder. Still nothing. Dana was sure the bird would’ve reacted by now if it was still alive.

  She leaned in, hoping to learn more. There was bright red liquid on the bird’s beak. Was it blood? Dana plucked a leaf from a branch and carefully dabbed up a little of the stuff. On closer examination, it didn’t look precisely like blood. There was an odd tone to the color, a little blue shifting the shade almost to a ruddy purple. It seemed thinner than blood, too. More translucent. Almost like…

  A horrible thought. It couldn’t be! What if she was right, though? Dana cast the leaf onto the ground beside the dead bird and searched the surrounding area, looking for a glint of red in the underbrush. It took her only a few minutes to find the berry John had struck from her hand. There wasn’t much left of it.

  The berry had been too large for the little bird to swallow, so it had pecked it apart first before gorging on the inside of the fruit. Only tatters remained. Dana dabbed up some berry juice with another leaf. It was the same stuff as she’d found on the bird’s beak.

  “That doesn’t mean they’re connected. The bird might have died of anything,” Dana said. But she knew better. John had been right. These weren’t the same berries she had had before.

  He’d tried to warn her. The damning evidence of her own folly was right there in front of her. Dana let the red-streaked leaf drop from her fingers and slumped back against the tree trunk behind her.

  “I’ve been a complete ass,” she said.

  It was worse than that. She’d almost died! Dana’s hands shook as she realized how close she’d come to meeting the same fate as the bird, the same fate as the rest of her people. She wasn’t ready to die yet, damn it! She wasn’t sure what she had left to live for, but she sure as hell wasn’t ready to let it go, either.

  “I have to find him. I have to tell him. Apologize. Something,” Dana said aloud. The eyes of the dead bird stared up at her, unblinking and accusatory.

  She took a deep breath. Her hands still shook. Tremors made her want to sink to the ground and hide, but she couldn’t do that now. Dana shoved aside the thoughts about how close she’d come to death.

  She snatched her spear back up from where she’d let it fall. Weapon in hand, she took off toward the river. Each stride was filled with a sense of purpose Dana hadn’t felt since she’d buried her family.

  Thirty-Nine

  Damned if the deer didn’t follow him all the way to the edge of the ravine. John shook his head. He hoped the animal wouldn’t try following him over the edge. It didn’t seem especially inclined that way, though. The deer walked up to the edge like it was checking on something, nodded, and walked back over to join John.

  He smiled at the animal. “I’m going to miss you. You’ve been a good friend.”

  John looked into its eyes. The deer had rarely allowed him to be near enough to examine it in such detail. Those orbs were much like his own, except the middle was all black. There was no colored ring around the inky spot in the middle, like John had on his own eyes. Just pools of darkness. Looking into them made John feel strange, like the deer knew more about him than he did. John looked away again after just a few moments.

  There was plenty to distract him. He found a rocky outcropping, which would serve for his purposes. Nothing less would do for this. He needed the most secure post available if he was going to have any chance of surviving this crazy stunt.

  “This is nuts, isn’t it?” John asked the deer.

  It nodded, which made him laugh.

  “See, even you agree with me. So why am I going ahead with it?” John asked as he finishing tying the rope around the boulder. He dumped a few coils on the ground, then carried the bulk of the rope to the edge.

  John took a long look down toward the bottom. He still wasn’t sure he had enough rope for this, even after gathering every scrap into a single line. He threw the trailing end of the rope into the void. It dropped out of sight, well past the shifting mists. Would it be enough? Or would he find himself hanging at the bottom of the rope with no idea how far beneath him the ground might be?

  “Only one way to find out,” John said.

  He gave the rope a few firm tugs, ensuring that it was tied off. The edge of the cliff was raw, jagged rock. It might slice right through his rope. John pondered the edge for a few minutes, then jogged back to his camp and picked up a pile of fresh-cut logs. Each was about as thick around as his neck.

  He stacked them along the edge of the cliff face so the rope would rub against smooth bark instead of rough stone. It might still break, given enough time. But it ought to be enough to allow him to descend the full length. Hopefully, it would buy him enough time to climb back up if he had to.

  John’s palms were sweating from just thinking about the climb. He was in good shape. Hard work had honed his muscles. He was stronger now than he’d ever been. If there was ever a good time for this attempt, now felt right. He rubbed his damp palms in the dust, drying them. Then he took hold of the rope.

  “Wish me luck, deer,” John called out.

  The deer snorted and looked away.

  John grinned. So what if the deer thought he was crazy? This wasn’t about the deer, anyway. This was about him. Also about Dana. He winced and closed his eyes when he thought of her.

  Even now, it hurt, knowing that she had to hate him for what he’d done to her. Better for them both if he simply vanished, even if it meant falling to his death.

  “Of course, not falling would be a whole lot better,” John said. He walked backward to the edge, clinging to the rope for dear life as his feet reached the side of the cliff.

  Then he sucked in a great breath and stepped out over the edge, carefully laying a foot on the side of the cliff. The second foot followed, and now he was moving down the cliff. Wind whipped past him. It was an exhilarating feeling, almost like he was flying. This might have been like what birds felt.

  A rock shifted under his foot, breaking loose from the cliff. John twisted his body to retain his balance. His bare foot scrabbled against the rock, looking for a new foothold. He found a spot and managed to avoid crashing into the cliff face.

  “Or maybe not quite the same as birds feel,” John said with false bravado. “They don’t seem to have this much trouble.”

  He glanced down. At the top of the mist, John could make out a ledge, a long way below him and off to his left. The rope reached there and past. It might be a good spot to rest before continuing his descent. John’s arms already screamed from the stress of holding his body in this position, and he couldn’t relax them except to change his grip on the rope. He aimed for the ledge. It would be big enough to stand on, even sit and catch his breath.

  The wind slammed against him, trying to knock him from the rope. He spread his feet farther apart to anchor himself better. A few more steps, and he’d be right over the ledge. Then it would only be a matter of lowering himself down to it. The little shelf was deep enough into the mist that maybe he would be able to see the far side. If he could spy the bottom, then John would know what he had to do to reach it.

  “Or at least I’d know if this is a stupid waste of time!” John said. He had to shout to hear himself over the wind, which felt much more intense here than it had above. That was the crux of it all, of course. He might reach the bottom of his rope and not find the bottom of the cliff. He’d put together every scrap of vine he had to make this thi
ng. If it wasn’t enough, then he wasn’t sure what he would do.

  Would he have the strength to climb back up? His arms were already shaking. John wasn’t sure he would be able to return to the top. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. It might be better to simply drop and hope he landed safely. He’d survived falls before. Even though he couldn't see it, it had to be there.

  Another footstep, then another, each one painfully slow to keep his balance. The gale continued to tear at John. He grimaced, fighting to keep his feet in place and his grip on the rope firm. A rock shifted beneath his feet, breaking loose from the cliff. John twisted his body, trying to recover.

  But he couldn’t find a spot to place his foot in time. His off-balance body swung in toward the cliff. He smashed into the rock with his right side, stunned when his head hit stone. Everything down that side of his body hurt. John’s vision went red, and he realized that he’d gashed his head. There was blood running down his face, stinging his eyes. He could barely see through the haze of blood and brain fog.

  John scrabbled with both feet, trying to restore his balance but couldn’t manage it. His fingers were slipping. Releasing the rope with one hand, he tried to wipe the blood from his face so he could see, but all he managed to do was soak his hand in blood as well. He couldn’t keep hold.

  It was all going to end like this? Without ever knowing what was down there, or even reaching the end of the rope? Not if he could help it! John growled, struggling mightily to plant his feet against the wall again. They slipped, and he spun around at a dizzying speed. John’s head cracked into the stone again.

  He was falling. That last blow separated him from the rope. Perhaps he’d see what was at the bottom, after all, was his wry thought. He turned to face downward. There was something nearby, just below him! The ground? No, the ledge! The realization struck him just before he slammed into it.