by Chris Hechtl
Aurelia nodded. “For now, just the dolphins. We'll have to consider them a pilot program as far as releasing info about the Neos. We'll see how the public accepts or rejects them.”
“Well, the good news is, we'll prove they are sapient. Worse comes to worse they can go to a new solar system,” she said. That earned a raised eyebrow from her boss. “I'm imagining a world of Neos,” Kathy said, shaking her head.”
“It's … definitely appealing,” Aurelia said slowly, turning the idea over and over in her head. “The fanatics won't be able to touch them,” she said. She made a mental note to explore that idea in detail later.
“Well, up here no one can get at them or us,” Kathy said, sounding relieved.
“Oh, how I wish that were true,” Doctor Aurelia Lagroose murmured. Kathy turned to stare at her but she picked up a culture dish. “Come on then, we've got work to do. I want to get this next set of splices completed and tested by tomorrow,” she said. “I know the pod leaders want hands for their next generation so they will be able to better manipulate objects and their environment, but I'm not sure if it is possible to give them what they want and keep the flipper shape, and the whole idea of adding an extra set of limbs is nuts.” She shook her head. They had been using the locked recessive genes to explore returning the basic flipper shape to the limbs the cetaceans ancestors had over three million years ago. Identifying them had been easy, the entire genome of the dolphins had been mapped at the beginning stages of the uplift program, long before they'd started making changes. Turning them on hadn't been hard, but finding the right combination that didn't cause all sorts of headaches and heartache was.
She had eventually settled onto an incremental, almost evolutionary change program, regressing the arms and reshaping them bit by bit each generation until they figured it all out. Apparently the pod leaders were impatient with that plan and wanted more progress.
Apparently two of the pod leaders had found an ancient image, something over a century old on the net. Most likely from the archives, though it might have been picked up when someone had done research on the uplifting of dolphins for them. Some sci-fi goof had put an extra set of arms and made all sorts of body and coloration changes to the dolphins in the image. She'd tried to explain it was fiction but the pod leaders had been insistent they explore it.
It was good that they wanted to explore their bodies. It was a mark on how far they came and how they were now comfortable with it. But that idea was stuck in their heads. She was pretty sure they didn't understand what was involved, the sort of biological engineering needed to add an extra set of limbs. The shoulder joint mechanics alone! She shook her head.
“The genetic simulations say we can do a full limb though. We need to run another series of tests here, which means finishing this latest version and then fast growing the body parts to see if they will work. Preferably before I have to go on maternity leave again,” Aurelia said dryly. “If we have time after that, I know the gorilla clan wants another crack at their voice box and short legs. I think it's silly, but it is their body. And after that the Neodog pack leaders want more progress on their shift to biped. I think that is a major headache but an intriguing project,” Aurelia said, voice softening as her mind began to focus on the culture dish's contents.
(O)^(O)
2158
Tw'tw'ch'ka swelled in pride when she saw the press conference. Saw Nak'nak'chick, her granddaughter there, speaking for her people. Her young of young was the one the other two-legs, the ones who didn't know about them, would first see, would understand. Hopefully, it would be all right. She rolled again, thrashing about, fretting.
She knew the mother two-leg wasn't happy. She wanted more time, but that was too bad. The exposure was good for the fins; it meant they were one step closer to freedom. To choosing their own destiny, choosing their own path.
Risk was high, as was with all things. They needed to do, to be.
(O)^(O)
2160
Whistle'Tr'ck'ka't swelled with pride as he watched his people. They in turn watched the window that wasn't a window as the “ship,” the metal thing, move some of their people off to the distant stars. It was important, another part of their journey. Their path. He rolled, then when the party broke up he went to his sleeping spot.
The next morning when his absence was noted, fins spread out to find him. His body was found drifting near the air intakes. Fins keened in distress, alerting the watching two-legs. They came in and took the body gently. The two-leg Aurelia was clearly distressed as they were. “It was his time,” she said in an address to the group who waited and watched. “I'm sorry. He hid his illness. He will be greatly missed,” she choked out before she left the compartment.
The fins swam about in sorrow.
She ignored the complaints of some of the male fins as they gathered. They wanted to prove their worth, but the other fins ignored it. “We choose.”
“Must be strongest!”
“Smartest!” A young fin retorted. The elder thrashed his tail at him and chattered in anger.
“Oldest is out,” Tw'tw'ch'ka stated. “We need fresh eyes. Fresh minds,” she said, rolling slightly.
“Or not. We stay the course,” Ch'nn'k said slyly, eying her. She blinked in surprise. “Serious. You.”
“Me?” She squawked, taken aback.
“Yes. Vote,” Ch'nn'k stated, looking at the other pod leaders. If he was nonplussed that his ploy backfired and she was elected, he didn't say. Tw'tw'ch'ka wasn’t aware of politics, of the possibility that he'd set her up. She didn't care; she only cared about what to do next.
With trepidation she made an appointment with the two-legs of two-legs, mate of the mother of them all. She was surprised that he accepted. She was even more surprised when he came to the fin habitat the next day.
“You have my condolences on your loss,” Jack Lagroose told her.
“Thank you,” she stuttered out. She fought for composure.
“I hear you are the new leader of the fins? Congratulations as well,” Jack replied. “It is both an honor and a curse. A burden.”
The fin eyed him. Slowly she nodded.
“Okay, what is it you want?”
“Freedom,” she sputtered out, fighting to get the word right. “Right to choose,” she added in case the first word was unclear.
The two-leg blinked at her. She could tell from her sonar that he was surprised. “You have it of course.”
“To go where we want. Not slaves.”
Jack winced. “That's been brooded about. It's bullshit.”
“Is it? We choose young. We choose!” She insisted. “We choose fate. Destiny. Will work. Get paid,” she emphasized.
“You'll what? Pay rent or something? Pay for the food you eat? The air you breathe?” he asked.
She blinked at him. That part the fin hadn't thought through.
“Water. Ball,” she tossed her head to the red ball. “Go there. Water, all free.”
“Not exactly,” Jack said, turning to the image of Mars. “And not anytime soon. But I get your point. You want out? Regress the uplift? Go back to fallow?”
“No,” she thrashed her head in negation. “Tool use. Choose. Will work.”
“Understood,” Jack replied. “We'll, um, draw up proper contracts. We've had a trust going. For the record, you and the others ... you've never been slaves. You never will be. But to some you have to prove you are sentient. That takes time and effort. Sacrifice. But I'm not going to treat you like slaves. You have a choice.”
She eyed him. “Will see.”
“I'll make it happen. You'll get to go to the ocean as soon as it is safe,” he stated. “It will be many years.”
She thrashed her head up and down. “Know. Will work.”
“Good.” Jack sighed. “I'm going to have a hell of a time breaking this to Aurelia. She dotes on all of you.”
“Know. Parent must let young grow up,” the dolphin insisted. Jack winced.
“You are right. Thank you,” he said quietly over his shoulder as he departed the compartment. Tw'tw'ch'ka watched him go wondering if it had been enough. If she'd made a difference.
(O)^(O)
April 2165
Nak'nak'chick flinched when another contraction hit her. She had wondered why they'd gone through the natural birth at all until she had become pregnant. The great Doctor Lagroose, godmother of all Neos, had told her with an enigmatic smile that she'd understand once she became pregnant. She hadn't, at least not at first, but then after talking with a few other dolphin mothers it had been explained to her in more detail. They were right; there was a sense of … completion, of being a mother. Of bringing new life into the world. It wasn't without risks, something she worried about, but that was why there was a medical staff on duty.
She thrashed her tail, moving her flukes more to flex her muscles than to stay in place. “Better here. No water,” Tw'tw'ch'ka taunted her through their sonar.
“True,” Nak'nak'chick replied. She didn't envy her grandmother's generation or those that had proceeded before. They had to give birth in water like the fins on Earth. They'd had to keep close to the surface, breathe, and once the calf was born get it to the surface, then under to nurse. Tricky, but nature had worked out the steps long ago. The Neo fins were naturals in null gravity now; they loved it. Sure there were issues with bone loss, cardio problems, and eye issues, but the medics were on top of that. As long as they exercised regularly and took their supplements, they were fine.
She was about to give birth to the latest generation. Generation 8.5 as Doctor Lagroose called it. She swam about lazily, conserving her energy. She rolled slightly, eying the young as they moved off in pods, playing and jumping about. They are calves; all about to enter school for the first time she realized. They were smarter, easier to communicate with humans, far smarter than the gen 1 through two mods that had come long ago. They were taking on more human style names but had less contacts and association with the earliest generations. In some ways she rather regretted that; a lot of their history and culture were being lost in the zeal of the moment.
She wondered about her calf. She'd requested of Doctor Castill, Hannah, to be the first to birth a calf with flukes that had been modified with grasping digits like the primates had. The doctor hadn't committed to such things but had pointed out that her child would have a lot of the latest changes. And with all the modeling and testing they had done, there was an incredibly slim chance the calf would be born as a mutant.
She felt a contraction hit her and sighed. “Coming close time?” Tw'tw'ch'ka asked, scanning her with her sonar. “Yes, not long now,” she pulsed. Nak'nak'chick frowned ever so slightly. Her grandmother lost a lot of her vocabulary when she was stressed.
Tw'tw'ch'ka was acting as her midwife. She preferred it that way. Some of the cetaceans were trying to take over as their own healers and caregivers. It wasn't working out as well as they'd hoped. One had to have human hands to do a lot of things, but they were getting better. Implants allowed them to control robotic arms to do a lot of probing that a human had once done. Soon they would be able to do such things on their own.
A trickle of urine dribbled out of her despite her attempt to control it. Another dolphin midwife directed a robot to clean it up before it spread through the habitat. “It's normal,” she chattered. The mother to be bobbed a nod.
Some cetaceans had begun to lobby for additional Cetacean species to be included in the Neo program. Stenos were a popular idea, as were true bottlenose dolphins, orca, and even whales. She had no idea how they'd do that; she didn't want to try to give birth to one of those monsters! This one was bad enough. She rolled, and then her sharp eyes caught the sight of Doctors Lagroose and Castill nearby on a landing watching. The two-leg elder gripped the railing, watching expectantly.
“Doesn't she have anything better to do?” the expectant mother grumbled.
“Now, now, she's being supportive,” the fin nurse murmured, clicking fast to do a scan. That was one advantage they had over two-legs; their ultrasound allowed them to scan internals without the need of a machine. “A few more contractions. Try not to bear down and push until I tell you,” the nurse warned. Again the mother nodded.
“How is she?” Doctor Castill asked loudly. It took a moment for Nak'nak'chick to realize the woman was using the speakers. She clapped her jaws in annoyance as the midwife went over to report. She felt a soft nudge then a presence. She rolled her left eye to see her grandmother alongside her. Their flippers touched. Her fingertips touched the top of her grandmother's pectoral fin, then her flank.
“You good,” her grandmother told her.
“I'm trying,” she said, then oofed as a contraction took hold. When it finally subsided, she breathed out through her blow hole. “That was a strong one.”
“Getting closer.”
“Yes. Close,” Nak’nak’chick replied, then gasped as another contraction ripped into her, faster than expected. She fought the urge to bear down until she smelled the puff of blood.
“Okay, you can bear down on the next one,” the nurse said, returning to her right flank. The mother thrashed her head in annoyance and agreement. A second contraction rippled through her body and she thrashed, instinctively arching as the baby crowned and then seemed to explode from her womb in a cloud of fluid.
“It's out!” the nurse said, twisting to check on the third nurse who had wrangled the newborn and nudged it back to its mother. Nak'nak'chick's grandmother moved aside as the infant was escorted in. She looked, rolling her tired eye to the calf. It was white, very white. Also beautiful.
“It's a girl,” the nurse told her.
“I know,” the mother said as the nurse nudged the calf to her side. She rolled, allowing it to feed. “I was thinking of Atlantia, but the color … I may go with Winter or Arctica,” she said.
“She's definitely different,” the nurse said as she studied the calf. “Not what I expected. But she is well developed. We're scanning her now for the records. Congratulations,” she said.
Nak'nak'chick grunted but didn't reply as she felt the small beak probe her underside for her teat. She felt herself relax and her eyes close as the calf began to suckle.
(O)^(O)
“Again! She did it again!” a midwife cursed, eying the white dolphin calf as it if was diseased. “Why? They promised!” Dolphins were around the two-legs, some unhappy and expressing it in their body language and tone. A few of the two-legs were aware of the mob's disagreement but bewildered by it.
“She is healthy?” Nak'nak'chick asked.
“Yes.”
“Then don't worry about it,” the mother stated. The midwife clacked then turned away. She went to speak with the two-leg female known as Hannah. She nuzzled her calf, glad she was healthy and alive as any mother would.
Tw'tw'ch'ka eyed the mother and calf, then the two-leg Hannah. Hannah would probably understand their displeasure. Hopefully it would start to sink into the mother two-leg, but she doubted it. Should she call and remind Jack? She wasn't sure. She swam laps to try to relax.
(O)^(O)
2166-2199
For several decades fins volunteered to pilot tugs, starships, and to go to the polluted ball to help there. They did this to be seen as not children. Equals. When the two-leg mother was finally stopped from her tinkering in 2177 some of the fin cheered or jeered. Others like Tw'tw'ch'ka were relieved but felt remorse. She meant well; they understood that now. As parents they had trouble letting go too. It had taken her far longer to learn that lesson though.
But at least Jack had remembered his promise.
(O)^(O)
June 2200
Tw'tw'ch'ka felt the bumps as the two-legs moved her gently down the pier to the thing they called a boat. Some of her children were there, watching over her, waiting their turn. As the eldest of the fins, they had all voted to give her the honor of being the first in the blue waters.
The sling both
ered her, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as the hated tube she'd rode in long ago. They'd used the sling for the trip down. It would be her last she knew; she couldn't handle a trip back up. The mother two-leg had warned her of that.
Some of her kind had swum on the blue bal l over the past few decades and had brought back stories of the tastes and things. But she was excited to see what it would be like. “This is it,” Aurelia murmured. “Are you ready?” She looked down, stroking her fingers on the fin's back.
“Ready,” the fin replied.
“Then let's get this lady off,” Aurelia ordered, nodding to the men and women around her. Fins and other Neo species were near as well. Some of the fins were in robotic walkers, they'd waded into the water to get a better view. They were excited, thrashing in their slings.
“From here? I thought you wanted the boat?” a worker said, indicating the vessel.
Aurelia looked at the cameras, then the fin. “Here is good,” she murmured. The fin nodded. She stepped back and motioned for a Neogorilla to lift the back of the sling.
It had all come to this. Freedom. She remembered the long journey here, the loved ones lost along the way. Those in space … she shook her head slightly. All lost in space. But she was here now.
“The water is going to be cold. Very cold. It'll be salty too. Don't go into shock,” Aurelia warned, fretting. “The air is thin too ….”
“I'll be fine,” Tw'tw'ch'ka assured her.
“There aren't a lot of fish. Very few actually. We're rushing this, really. We should wait for this ocean to stabilize but …”
The gorilla grunted. “Doc, she's not exactly a light weight. Are we in or out?” he demanded.
“Oh yes, I suppose,” Aurelia replied, stepping back.
Tw'tw'ch'ka felt the sling tilt, saw the water before her. It was a glorious sight. She felt something undo around her body, straps loosen, and her fins moved free of the holes in the sling. After a moment the sling tilted again and she felt water under her, lubricating the sling, allowing her to slide out. She squeed in excitement as she fell, diving into the waiting embrace of the Martian sea below. Finally, she was home.