“Why so long?” asked Marroo as he gazed down on Antaska with something resembling possessiveness.
“I’m injecting millions of altered stem cells extracted and grown from her bone marrow into every internal and external organ in her body. Approximately 100 trillion cells will be directed by the invading cells to give birth to new, genetically altered cells, and then to shed themselves from her body. It is a complicated process that cannot happen over night,” he finished a bit huffily.
“Can you please confirm that you have made all of the alterations I requested to the incoming stem cells?” asked Marroo politely.
“Certainly,” answered Dr. Cheez in a coldly professional tone.
He paused to type on a hand-held electronic device.
“Per your request, I will make the following genetic enhancements to this female’s natural biology. Woogah genes will be added to her brain to increase her telepathic susceptibility to Woogah hypnotism. Additional Woogah genes will be added to her physical body to allow her to digest and survive on a diet of mostly molds and fungi native to this planet. To increase her strength and therefore her value as a work slave, I will add genes throughout her body from the mighty insect blattodea. Finally, I will add genetic lifespan material from the spruce tree, a life form that lives for thousands of years, to ensure she will provide long-lasting service. Now, if you will please tell her to give me her consent, I will begin the release of her new cells.”
Marroo leaned over the table and stared directly into Antaska’s eyes.
“Repeat after me,” he said out loud. “I consent of my own free will to genetic modification performed by Woogah Dr. Cheez.”
Dr. Cheez held a recording device close to Antaska’s mouth. In a flat, toneless voice, Antaska repeated the words exactly as ordered.
“That’s perfect,” said Dr. Cheez. “Now that I have her legally binding consent, I will begin the transformation.”
He pressed a few buttons on a control box positioned next to the metal bed, and the blue fluid began to travel down through the many tubes connected to Antaska.
On board the Jalapeno, Potat shouted at the Verdantes. “Let me out there! This must be stopped. Those psychos are about to do something terrible to my pet!”
She flew through zero gravity to the closed door of the bridge and began attacking it in a whirl of scratching claws.
“What! What’s happening!” shouted M. Hoyvil, who floated out of his chair and flew to the door too.
“Privates! Stand down!” barked Captain Kamphone, using the lowly title he had bestowed on Potat and M. Hoyvil. “There’s nothing we can do yet. We have to follow the plan we agreed on.”
Potat noticed M. Hoyvil returning to his chair, but she kept up her racket for a while more. The captain still needed to learn that cats don’t follow orders. After what seemed like long enough to get her message across, Potat stopped attacking the door and floated at a leisurely pace to where M. Hoyvil was hovering, with big eyes opened huge to stare at Antaska on the screen. Potat gripped claws on him and climbed into his pocket.
Lieutenant Dweeemm, floating near M. Hoyvil, spoke mentally to Potat. “I’ve scanned the facility. You can’t get in there. We have to wait till they take her where she’s going—one of the work farms, we assume. The force fields at the farms allow for the entrance of small non-humanoid life forms. Remember, we discussed this over and over on the way here. You understand that right?”
Potat hissed and swiped her claws at Lieutenant Dweeemm.
M. Hoyvil spoke to him. “She understands you. She’s not stupid, you know. And I wouldn’t treat her like that if I were you. She’s a lot more powerful than she looks.”
He looked down at Potat. “You’re not going to do anything bad to the lieutenant, are you?”
“Later,” said Potat.
Captain Kamphone spoke again. “I’m sorry, but all we can do for now is watch and wait. When they move, we follow.”
M. Hoyvil watched the video screen with increasing horror. He had a terrifying suspicion of what was being done to Antaska.
“This looks kind of like the cell repair process used by the Verdantes on the sick, but this is different, more drastic,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Lieutenant Dweeemm. “The Verdante doctors replace ailing and aging cells with regenerated healthy cells otherwise identical to the originals. So maybe that’s what they’re doing here. Making her stronger and rejuvenated for work in their factory but not really harming her.”
Potat hissed and spat at him.
“That’s not all they’re doing, is it?” said M. Hoyvil.
“No, it’s not!” Potat snarled telepathically.
“Do you know what they’re doing?” M. Hoyvil asked her.
“Yes,” said Potat. “They’re using tree genes to stretch out her life span...”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Lieutenant Dweeemm interrupted.
M. Hoyvil felt Potat twist around and bunch up her muscles. He put a large green hand in front of her to block her from lunging at the lieutenant.
“Let her finish,” he said to the lieutenant.
“OK, OK,” said Lieutenant Dweeemm, waving all twelve fingers in a gesture of surrender.
“As I was saying,” said Potat in an offended telepathic voice, “they’re also altering her body with blattodea genes—cockroach—to make her stronger…”
“What!” now M. Hoyvil interrupted, and the lieutenant sign talked, “wait, wait,” with his fingers at M. Hoyvil.
“And worst of all,” Potat went on, “they’re altering her brain with Woogah genes to make her easier to telepathically hypnotize.”
At that, several telepathic gasps were heard around the room.
“No!” shouted M. Hoyvil. “They can’t do that. It’s against universal law.”
The captain spoke. “Yes, it’s illegal, but it’s still a common practice throughout the universe, and it’s rarely punished. It’s a law that’s easy to bend without any sort of oversight.”
The older man crossed his arms and looked meaningfully at M. Hoyvil. “You know as well as I do that the Verdantes bend that law all the time. Verdante birth lab doctors manipulate the genes of embryos to get the modifications the primary donors want in their unborn children. And that’s standard pre-birth procedure in the universal organization.”
“But the Verdante doctors only work with Verdante or Earth human genes,” M. Hoyvil argued. “Since Earth humans were genetically related to the Verdantes in the far past, that isn’t an interspecies mix.”
“Right, right,” said Captain Kamphone. “Those Earth human donors are usually favorite companions of the Verdantes. Sometimes the Verdantes save the genes of an Earth human they were fond of to mix with their own genes and their mate’s when they create offspring. That happens all the time, and no one keeps track of it.”
“We could all have a bunch of human genes and not even know it,” said Lieutenant Sosha, and the Verdantes all looked around at each other.
“Everyone knows that. This information is nothing new,” said M. Hoyvil. “We all know that most of us have some Earth human genes in us. So what? But the Verdantes don’t mix in genes from other unrelated species. At least, the birth lab doctors don’t,” he clarified, thinking of Mistress Bawbaw and the Eeeepps. “And no one changes the genetic makeup of beings that are already living. Not that I’ve ever heard of,” he added.
Potat made a sound like, “humph,” and then there was silence around the room.
M. Hoyvil noticed the other Verdantes looking toward the captain as if for guidance.
Captain Kamphone walked over to stand looking down at M. Hoyvil, and then spoke in a solemn mental voice. “Young private, since we’re here on a dangerous mission, I’m going to tell you something the Verdantes don’t learn about until they reach adulthood.”
M. Hoyvil looked up at him, not really sure he wanted to hear.
The captain spoke. “In the far past, as you know, our ancestors fled
to the Verdante planet to escape the nuclear devastation that destroyed life on our own native planet. But the Verdante planet was alien to them. In order to survive on it, they mixed in the genes of native life into their own genetic material—not just in their offspring but in the people already living--the same process that this Woogah doctor is doing right now.”
“What species’ genes did they use?” M. Hoyvil asked.
“Can’t you guess?” asked Kamphone. “Why do you think we’re so much taller than other humanoids and so green? Why do you think we drink more liquid compared to food than other humanoids, and we have to drink chlorophyll water all the time?”
M. Hoyvil looked at the half-empty tube of chlorophyll water he was even now holding in one hand. His slanted eyes widened.
“Why do you think our life spans are so long, and we can understand the collective telepathic speech of the Verdante trees, an alien species? You know that’s how we power our space ships--through a mental and mechanical collaboration with the trees. Didn’t you ever guess that we might be related to them?” the captain asked.
“Well, no,” M. Hoyvil admitted. “I’m too young to understand anything the trees say, and I wasn’t really interested. And it’s not really important to me right now. I don’t care that much if they alter Antaska with tree genes. And it bothers me that they’re putting cockroach genes in her, but that’s not the worst thing. They’re altering her mind with Woogah genes! It’s like they’re turning her into a Woogah! The vile, despised enemy of the entire universe! Can’t you understand how bad that is? We must stop this horrendous procedure!” shouted M. Hoyvil, losing his cool once again.
He placed Potat on the computer console, jumped up in the air, swerving around Captain Kamphone, and dove with lightning speed for the control panel that opened the door of the stealth ship.
“No!” yelled all the Verdantes and Potat at once.
Lieutenant Sosha, even faster, was there ahead of him blocking the console with her body.
“Not yet! You’ll never get her back if you go out there now!” Lieutenant Sosha insisted. “You’ll alert them to our presence, and they’ll blast this ship to perdition—completely legal by universal law. We have to stick to our plan. It’s the only way.”
M. Hoyvil froze in place in front of her and looked at her in distress.
“You’re right,” he said. He turned and floated back to his chair, then sunk into it, dropping his head into his hands.
Captain Kamphone, who hadn’t moved, looked down and spoke to him again. “You know, I was worried about bringing an adolescent on this mission. This is a job for level-headed adults, not someone driven by out-of-control emotions. In a dangerous situation like this, that’s the recipe for sure failure. I didn’t want to take you, but your cat talked me into it.”
M. Hoyvil turned and looked at Potat. She was busy cleaning a paw.
“‘Must take pet, must take pet!’” she told me,” said the captain. “And by that I think she meant you. Is that right that you’re the pet of this small creature?” he asked M. Hoyvil.
M. Hoyvil noticed the other Verdantes attempting to muffle their snickers.
“Sure, I might be her pet, but you took orders from her,” said M. Hoyvil, and then all of them burst out laughing.
“OK. You’re right about that. I did take directions from this small creature,” said Kamphone, with his eyes crinkled up in the Verdante facial expression for amusement.
Then he turned serious. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake in doing that. Have you thought about what the consequences would have been if you’d rushed out of the stealth ship in a reckless attempt to save Antaska? You wouldn’t have even made it through the door because the force field surrounding the building would have detected you. Woogah guards would have easily apprehended you. You’d be locked up permanently in a Woogah prison for illegally stepping foot on their planet without permission. And that’s the best-case scenario. Like Lieutenant Sosha said, most likely we’d all be space dust by now. Obviously, we’ll need a more subtle rescue plan to extricate Antaska from the hands of the Woogahs.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” said M. Hoyvil.
“Great,” said the captain. “Now, if everyone agrees, we’ll stick to the original plan of sending this small animal in under the force field at whatever work camp they eventually send the Earth woman to. Agreed?” He looked around the room.
“Agreed,” they all said telepathically. Potat nodded her tiny head.
“The plan is good, but there’s still one weakness in it that I’m worried about,” said Lieutenant Dweeemm. “I’ve been watching the native animal life out there, and I haven’t seen any felines. Can we really count on the work plant owner not noticing that this cat isn’t from this planet?”
He waved a large six-fingered hand toward one of the screens, and everyone turned to look at the view as it panned in a circle around the ship. The force field surrounding the medical building was invisible, but its boundaries were marked at intervals by assorted animal corpses in various stages of decomposition. A few live animals were seen wandering or flying about, but they mostly avoided the electrified boundary.
M. Hoyvil saw large lizards, toads, and rodents scurrying by. Potat seemed quite interested in the rodents. A group of skunks walked by on the side of the ship away from the building. Their black bodies were hard to see in the planet’s dim lighting, but the stripes on their backs glowed like reflective strips. The adults were twice the size of Potat, but some kits among them were about her size.
“Wait a minute! That gives me an idea!” said Lieutenant XoXo, the science officer and medic. She turned and stared at Potat.
Potat leaped from the console, flying through the air in zero gravity, and landed on M. Hoyvil’s chest with a tiny thump. She dove into his pocket and curled up into a tight ball. M. Hoyvil could felt her trembling, and with his superhuman hearing, he noticed that the rate of her heart beat and breathing was faster than normal.
“Well, we’ll see…,” said M. Hoyvil.
And so M. Hoyvil and Potat and the crew of the Jalapeno continued to wait hidden from the Woogahs in the stealth ship while the doctor completed Antaska’s genetic procedure.
Chapter 15
Around the same time, Master Meeepp’s space shuttle landed on the Verdante planet. Relieved to have electronic communication again after a month in warp space, he sent an email to Mistress Bawbaw directly upon arrival.
“I’m in my personal room,” was her only reply.
Hmm. That’s strange, thought Master Meeepp. She’s usually more excited to hear that I’m home, and she rushes out to meet me at the tube door. I thought she’d be pleased that I’m returning sooner than planned. Could she be mad at me? he wondered.
Anxiety hastened Master Meeepp’s pace. Tabxi and Vorche race-walked to keep up with him. On entering the vast hallway of his home, he noticed at once how empty and quiet it seemed. He sensed that no one was around. Of course Mistress Bawbaw was down below, but where was Zapop? Where was baby M. Bomp? Zapop never went down there, and surely she wouldn’t take a baby down into that dank, cavernous place.
“Is everything alright?” his human companion Tabxi asked in a shaky voice.
“Can you two please check on Zapop while I go see if M. Bomp is down under with Mistress Bawbaw?” he asked.
“Certainly, Master,” Vorche answered.
The two elderly humans headed down the hallway toward Zapop’s room, and Master Meeepp, a giant green blur, dashed away to the tube entrance.
As usual, at first sight of Mistress Bawbaw’s underground personal space, he almost questioned her sanity. What Verdante could really be comfortable in this dim, musty place? Yet she spent her rest time in this dank sanctuary reclining on a stone slab as if it were the most cushioned of lounges.
At second sight, a bizarre, incomprehensible tableau met his eyes. Instead of reclining, Mistress Bawbaw sat up straight and unmoving on her stone couch, eyes not looking t
oward him but staring straight ahead. Her fluffy-haired human pet Zapop stood facing her. Instead of his usual casual pose, he also stood stiff and unmoving.
In contrast, a raucous buzz of activity and chatter came from the area in front of the Eeeepp’s lair. The Eeeepps, ignoring Master Meeepp, chittered and chattered while dragging travel cases, boxes, and other containers from their lair to set near the tube entrance. And wait! Master Meeepp squinted to peer at the biggish human male sitting on the stone steps outside their room’s entrance. Could that be Eegor, pet of Master Mytaar, who had been sentenced to confinement for his mistakes with M. Hoyvil’s pet Antaska?
Stunned, Master Meeepp stood frozen in wonder for a moment.
Then he spoke to Mistress Bawbaw, making a effort to rein in his shock and dismay. “Hello darling! What is going on here, if I may ask?”
An older female Eeeepp paused from her incomprehensible activities and came over to stand next to Mistress Bawbaw. She turned to face Master Meeepp with what looked like a wicked smirk on her snouty face.
“Hello darling,” said Mistress Bawbaw in voice frozen to ice. She didn’t turn to look at him, but stared with eyes fixed on a spot in front of her.
“Hello darling,” Zapop mimicked her words, and the little old Eeeepp snickered.
“What is going on here?” Master Meeepp asked, raising his telepathic voice. “Where is M. Bomp? And why is Eegor here?”
“M. Bomp,” said Mistress Bawbaw. “M. Bomp, M. Bomp…”
“Yes?” Master Meeepp demanded.
“M. Bomp…is…with…Mistress Friiz,” she forced the words out in the same cold robotic voice.
Master Meeepp slapped huge hand against his huge chest and took deep breath of relief. He hadn’t realized how worried he was until that moment. Whatever was going on here, at least M. Bomp was safe with his gene relations.
“Hello, Master Meeepp,” a small squeaky voice spoke out loud beneath him.
He looked down at the short female Eeeepp next to Mistress Bawbaw.
“Hello?” he addressed her out loud.
hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2) Page 11