by G. L. Argain
He took off the dead beast’s skin and decided that he wanted to make some leather clothes out of it. Unfortunately, he was unsure how to do it. He had no string, and it would take some time to find some stone, carve it into a point, and use it to pierce holes into the leather where the string would go through. Andrew searched diligently for some vines—they were the best substitute for string, in his opinion. He went out, took some vines back to the cave, and as he was just about to start working on the stone tool, his hunger kicked in. The hupac also became hungry, but it had already begun eating.
Andrew set up some sticks above the fire in a way that would allow him to cook his meat. After the past couple months, he had been very desensitized to the ideas of killing some animals for food and anything else he needed, but he still preferred to cook his meat rather than eat it raw. He never wondered if the hupac would prefer it that way, too.
By the time he finished his meal, he had grown tired, and he only worked on making his stone tool for an hour before going to sleep.
The hupac stayed up longer, watching Andrew while thinking to itself. It could not speak, but it could still think like a human. In its mind existed more than just ideas and representations of its physical world. It also thought about the future, such as where they would go next. It thought about the relationship it had with this human, how things have changed from paranoia and hatred to something like cooperation. It knew nothing about friendship, since hupacs are generally solitary animals. However, this hupac could not deny that it was a good thing to have Andrew around. Without his help, there would have been a weak chance of taking down that gray, leathery creature, and there wouldn’t have even been the idea of going outside its natural environment. If animals don’t stay in their own environments because it’s all that they have, then it’s because it’s all that they know. Plus, getting out of one’s normal environment requires one to receive help when needed, not to mention dealing with fear of the unknown.
The hupac had developed an idea on its own a few weeks ago, a concept that animals normally don’t conceive because they almost always have it in the wild—freedom. The only reason that the idea of freedom existed in this hupac’s mind was because the human had partially taken it.
A while back, the hupac wanted to eat some lemurs for a snack— upon realizing this, Andrew refused to let it happen. As the hupac came into sight of some lemurs, the human stood right in its way. It bared its teeth and jerked its head to the side, signaling Andrew to get out of the way.
“I’m not letting you eat those lemurs—there’s no need to,” said Andrew.
The hupac managed to raise its brows so that it looked astonished, in a way that said, “What do you mean you won’t let me???” It then growled ferociously to give him a final warning, forgetting that the lemurs could—and did—hear it.
“One step closer and I will take you down. You know I will.”
They went at it anyway, and all of the lemurs scampered away from the area for at least an hour. In the end, Andrew did win, with one hand pressing the hupac’s head onto the ground. It laid still in disgust, up until a few seconds after the human had stepped away. He won most of the fights between them, yet the hupac still kept its pride inside as an alpha, even if it was no longer true.
The fact that the hupac didn’t get to do what it wanted to do, that it was forced to comply to Andrew’s will, elicited a feeling of resentment, especially since it still didn’t know what was so wrong about eating lemurs.
According to evolution, as monkeys eventually turned into cave dwellers and then into humans, their intelligence increased, and their bodies became capable of using this newly-found intelligence in many different and expanding ways, including speech and language. However, with this newly-found ability, as well as the expansion of communication and thought, came limits and responsibility. As language developed and humans could communicate with each other in elaborate ways, they told each other what they thought was right and what was wrong—the birth of morals and ethics. Animals may have some ethical values as well, but mainly it concerns their own survival. Humans, however, have ethical values based upon other people’s benefits as well, not just their own. It was evident to humans that freedom and free will were “good,” something that should be kept, yet as times passed….well, are humans as free as wild animals are today? The hupac and its species wouldn’t know—at least, not for a long….long time.
Humans will always have conflicting opinions, and whoever becomes more dominant, whether it be by reasoning or by force, those dominant victors and their opinion shall have freedom, whereas the losers are oppressed to submit to the victors. Are humans forever bound to struggle for freedom as long as everyone is not one and the same? Even in a totalitarian world, where everyone is forced to have the same opinion, there is always somebody that pops up who feels differently, and he or she sees how oppressed his or her race has become.
Andrew had been thinking about his own freedom—the hupac believed he was asleep, but he was still awake with his eyes closed—and how he had been free to do what he wanted, away from humans and aliens alike. He didn’t worry about the hupac taking away his freedom, mostly because he was the victor. And yet….he felt empty again. He ultimately had all the freedom that he wanted—freedom from society, from government, from all of the modern world’s nuisances. And there was nothing to really reach for anymore. He knew that in time, he would be taken back to Juvir and be used as a soldier, having to obey once again. He hated the feeling of having little to gain and everything to lose. He didn’t want to go back. Not to Juvir, not to Earth. This was the only place for him.
Andrew and the hupac woke up the next morning to the sound of raindrops hitting the ground several times per second. It was raining heavily enough that just stepping outside would instantly drench somebody. They still had leftover food from yesterday, so they wouldn’t have to step outside of the cave much. As for water, they would drink from the nearby puddles; with all of the vaccinations and genetic modifications in their bodies, they became so physically tolerant that trying to get sick would be more difficult than trying to stay healthy.
“So, while we’re in here until the rain lets up, wanna hear a story?” said Andrew.
The hupac looked at him drowsily for a couple seconds, then let out a grunt of indifference as it laid its head onto its front paws.
“Okay, so this one time when I was on Earth, my home planet, I was climbing this mountain with some dogs of mine. Dogs are animals, kind of like you, standing on four paws with fearsome teeth, and humans normally controlled dogs. The dogs seemed to be fine with it, though, since we fed them, protected them, and gave them love. Anyway, when we got to the summit, we could see for dozens of miles—it was unbelievable. I swear I could even see the curvature of the Earth, just a little bit. The dogs seemed to enjoy the sight, and I bet even you would have.”
The hupac smirked, stretching its mouth to one side of its face but not the other.
“Everything was just so clear and green and natural….and….I wish it was like that everywhere. You don’t worry about that—you’ve got a huge island, reserved just to yourself. But for my species, and I guess for all intel-beings—is that what they’re called? I think it is. Anyway, me and every other intelligent being on the plan—” Andrew paused, recalling that this was Ku-an Doel, not Earth. “Uh, in the universe, is turning everything to waste, it looks like. I mean, my species is millions of years outdated from everyone else in the universe, and even we are capable of destroying our own planet!”
The hupac perked up. It only knew the world from the few miles it had spanned, but it didn’t deny the idea that the planet of Ku-an Doel was immensely bigger than that. To this animal, there was no way of destroying such a big place, other than possibly the force of nature.
“Well, I don’t expect you to know what I’m talking about.” The hupac nodded. “But I can always teach you what I know.”
Andrew didn’t know how to put all of h
is ideas into perspective for this creature, but in time he told them well. He talked about the planet Earth itself, the climates that the hupac could’ve lived in, the animals that resembled the hupac—specifically the leopard and the wolf—and finally how humans made their mark on the world. He talked about all of humans’ events through time, from the cave-men, then to the Romans, then further to the Dark Ages, and finally to various events between World War One and the year 2016. He concluded saying how annoyed he was with how individual people cared more about themselves than about everyone else, about anything else.
The hupac itself was a very selfish creature. Andrew expected more interest from an animal that could understand English. The hupac just laid there with its eyes either partially opened or fully closed, not sitting up with full attention towards Andrew. Although, maybe it was interested and it just didn’t show.
“Are you comfortable? Not just here, but in general? Do you have all that you want?”
The hupac didn’t know how to respond. It wanted to say something like, “I don’t know,” but it didn’t have a larynx to speak elaborately with, nor could it even shrug its shoulders.
Andrew could tell that the hupac couldn’t say “good” or “bad.”
“If you don’t know, just put your paw onto my hand,” he said as he put forth his hand. The hupac looked forward and put his paw onto his hand, creating some kind of social bond between themselves.
“I guess there’s always something to want, huh? And yet at the same time, even I’m comfortable just sitting here in a cave, watching the rain, having enough food and water for the both of us.”
Both of them were sitting down, looking outside, waiting for the rain to stop so they could continue on with their journey.
Then, everything changed instantly. Andrew briefly realized that there was a flashing light enveloping him for two seconds before instantly finding himself in Anzem and Shul’s laboratory.
With the laboratory near sea level, and the hupac a few thousand feet higher, Andrew instantly felt the difference in the atmospheric pressure as he vomited on the floor.
“Ah, no, seriously?” said Anzem. “Just get your fluids out now, because we need to tell you something important.”
As the vomit disintegrated on the floor, Andrew said, “What? Do I have to go back to Juvir already?”
“No, it’s different. The Selentors have come here to Ku-an Doel.”
Chapter 17
After three months of contact with dirt, bugs, and other unsanitary things, Andrew had been sent to the sterilization room. This was different from the bathroom he had been in after his genetic procedures, mostly because chemicals were being sprayed out from every wall onto every part of his body. He came out smelling heavily like a fabric freshener.
As he stepped out, Shul quickly shaved off the human’s beard while saying, “I know, we could’ve told you the news before sterilizing you, but are you aware of how foul you were? Priorities!”
“Why are those guys here?” said Andrew.
“The Selentors, you mean?”
“Yeah. Who else?”
“They say they’ve come to talk about the treaty. It probably involves you.”
“They know I’m here?”
“I don’t know. But it’s best to keep you here until they leave.”
A silence filled the room for a few seconds, then Andrew said, “Can I bring Hupac in here?”
Meanwhile, at the AOIB headquarters, Juvir stood in front of the entrance to meet the Selentors. The other members stayed in the conference room, waiting to see why the Selentors were really at Ku-an Doel.
“Wait, what? The alpha hupac? No! That animal would just make trouble while it’s here! Probably try to kill us, too—”
“He’s not just some beast! I’ve lived with him for three months, and I know he understands speech!”
“Just because it can understand language,” said Anzem, shortly after entering the room, “doesn’t mean it will cooperate; and it especially doesn’t mean that it will be friendly to everyone it encounters.”
“Well, maybe I could—”
An abrupt ringing sound came from a screen nearby Shul, who developed an expression of shock as he looked at the problem.
“It’s a Selentor, and he wants to speak to us!”
Andrew and Anzem both looked at Shul, then to the screen.
The Selentors entered to meet the AOIB, with Commander Fall leading them. Every one of them only had a black suit on, showing that they were not planning to fight. Some had regular eyes, others had black eyes.
“Greetings, Commander Fall. We’ll talk in the conference room.” said Juvir.
“As you wish.”
———
“It looks like it’s got something in it’s hand, like….a dead animal from the island.”
Andrew’s heart pumped harder at the sound of this—he needed to know what it was. He looked onto the screen and saw a Selentor facing straight into the camera, holding a hupac by the legs in its right hand. The alien was the kind with black eyes and dark muscles. “THAT SON OF A BITCH,” Andrew said between his teeth as he grimaced.
“Calm yourself,” said Anzem, “I’ll figure out what this guy wants.” He pressed a button and said, “Who are you and what’s your business here?”
“I’m just here for your help,” it said. Andrew felt as though he recognized the voice. However, this Selentor’s physique seemed a bit too large for him to remember who exactly it was. It couldn’t have been the commander. “As you know, my kind has come to the planet for some political business. I was sent here to talk to you fellows, but on the way I noticed how hurt this animal was and I was hoping you guys would attend to its wounds. I suppose someone like you knew about the animals on this island, and how to deal with their injuries?”
Juvir noticed that the sound of their footsteps were off—they sounded harder and heavier than those of organic beings.
The AOIB vice president sat down in his chair in the conference room, but the Selentors remained standing. Some of them stood standing outside of the room.
“Well then, what have you come here to discuss with us?” said Juvir.
“We have tracked down the path of a forbidden being to this planet,” said Fall, “and we are curious whether you may be hiding it or not.”
“We sent it away a long time ago, the moment we discovered that it was a forbidden species.”
“So you have seen it, then?”
“Yes, but what I’m curious about….is why you are tracking down a forbidden species.”
“Fucking lies,” Andrew muttered. He moved straight in front of the screen and shouted, “Bullshit, ‘you found him hurt!’ YOU DID THAT!!!”
“Is it any different that it needs medical attention?”
Anzem had shoved Andrew away from the screen with an expression of fury. “You aren’t allowed to speak to him! This is a delicate matter—let me handle this! I’ve already got this under control, anyway!”
During this quick aversion, the Selentor whispered into something on its left wrist: “The human is indeed here.” Moments later, a beam shot down upon him, giving him an armored suit along with some futuristic weapon. He dumped the hupac onto the ground.
Fall had picked up the lone Selentor’s signal from a device implanted in his head, undetectable to Juvir.
“I’ve just got word that the human is here,” said Fall, “and my mission here is complete.”
“WHAT?!”
“I can just tell you everything here and now, since it’s evident that we both broke the treaty.”
“Why the hell couldn’t you just teleport him into a prison or something?!?”
“Because he has rights!”
“And I don’t?!?”
Anzem had leaned towards Andrew’s face, curled his tongue so that the tip pressed onto the back of his upper teeth, and was about to utter something. In this same instant, Shul was appalled enough to about to intervene. However, what sto
pped both events was the destruction of a wall, and the Selentor barged in. Anzem had just faced towards the sound, then the Selentor shot his weapon and hit the scientist directly in the head. His head was vaporized clean off, with a spark or two coming out from his neck. He fell onto the ground.
As Andrew could see by his severed neck, Anzem was an android—just like Lee—and he had just been shot in front of the human’s eyes. His face turned pale from pure fear and astonishment.
“We had been harboring humans for centuries now, but this particular human has been the only one who has managed to land into the safety of your hands. Normally they just die trying to escape the ship.” Fall had a smirk on his face for a moment, but it had faded shortly afterwards to an expression much more serious. “It’s time we took back our most important subject.”
“OH YHN, ANZEM!!!” screamed Shul.
The Selentor aimed directly for Shul’s heart. Andrew’s right arm was in the path, and when the vaporizer fired, away the lower part of the arm went. The vaporizing beam had reached Shul’s torso, but it had only penetrated halfway through his body. Even so, with the mass of metallic and electric components exposed, it was evident that Shul was robotic as well, and both he and Andrew could feel pain.
“AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!!!”
Regaining his composure after a matter of seconds, Andrew leapt towards the Selentor in a boiling rage, only to hit him as though he hit a brick wall. The Selentor retaliated by slamming its fist right into Andrew’s head, making a cracking sound as he hit the wall.
“And just for the record, you should keep closer control of your own subjects.”
Juvir pulled out a vaporizer and shot Fall four times, revealing all of the circuitry within—a fake, he thought. All of the other Selentors behind him had suddenly shut off and fell down, each of them beeping.