Savage By Nature

by Jacob Russell Dring

  “On this note, we found ourselves—although it was a much earlier focus—baffled at the specimens’ limited senses. For as versatile as the creature seems, as complicated as one might describe it, it is ultimately an incredibly simple and straightforward organism. No earholes, nostrils, or even eyes. Its perception is limited to taste and the infrared sensors believed to be received through the skin in its head. Taste, however, plays a much larger part to these creatures than it does for humans. Similar to the common snake, which uses its flickering tongue to capture scent molecules, the Xeno carnem senses the world around it via simply breathing. Its jaws hang ajar, and the respiration draws scent molecules to the inside of its mouth, where taste buds line its palate and cheeks a hundredfold than any human’s. Analogous to the yellow bullhead catfish, or Ictalurus natalis, which has over 175,000 taste buds stretching from head to tail; likewise, these Xeno carnem feature similar regions on its hands and feet.”

  “So…it sees the world via taste?” Baxter asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Precisely,” Asher replied enthusiastically. “Through taste and smell, despite the absence of a tongue or nostrils, much less any kind of antennae or whiskers like the catfish, the Xeno carnem is more perceptive than a man with twenty sets of eyes, noses, and ears.”

  “Now that’s a disturbing visual,” Calloway half-snickered. He looked over at his peers, but they all regarded him with amateurish judgment.

  Felina subconsciously agreed though.

  “What of their reproductive capabilities?” Loudon asked. “Surely their ability to reproduce poses a threat to—”

  Asher curtly laughed, calling the notion “preposterous under these circumstances.”

  “What circumstances?” Loudon pressed, clearly irked.

  “They have no reproductive organs,” Ngo thought aloud.

  “Correct,” Asher said firmly, all of a sudden solemn again. He turned his back on the documenters briefly to observe the standstill creatures behind the glass, their figures tall and lanky, fearsome yet seemingly unfazed by the humans’ presence. Felina noted the fidgeting fingers in Asher’s hands clasped behind his back, and the slight tilting of his head. His voice dipped into a brief mumbling incoherency before turning back around to face them, resuming his normal voice. “The specimens are all male, as their DNA contributors’ were. They have no reproductive organs, something we couldn’t control, but have been able to discern. There has been no sign of a desire or nature to mate, nor the capability to even do so.”

  He stopped there and lifted his chin slightly, clearly proud of himself.

  Meanwhile half of the documenters continued to stare at the creatures through the glass, the others taking notes on their PDA’s.

  “What about asexual reproduction?” Zometa asked.

  “Impossible. Without any identification of reproductive genitals—hermaphroditic or otherwise—this goes out the window without question.”

  “Agamogenesis,” Felina abruptly stated, halfway torn between inquisition and statement. She cleared her throat and took a step forward when Asher raised an eyebrow at her. “What about agamogenesis? The asexual reproduction without the fusing of gametes? Genitals need not apply.”

  A couple of documenters chuckled.

  “A ridiculous notion,” Asher blurted, ostensibly offended. He didn’t appear at the ready for any explanation, nor even giving it a second thought.

  “The fact that you’ve crossbred extraterrestrial DNA with that of a human, successfully,” Baez stated with a lopsided titter, “is a rather ridiculous notion, too. So how can you dismiss such a logical question?”

  Felina wanted to thank Baez but instead just flashed her an appreciative smirk while the other documenters shrugged and let these words sink in.

  When sure that Asher would defend his stance, he instead just rolled his eyes and Felina remembered a quote she had heard over a decade ago. She noticed that Asher’s lips began to move but she wasn’t going to let her voice be hushed.

  “Aren’t you familiar with the statement—”

  “Life finds a way,” Calloway interjected, his voice dominant and matter-of-fact. Despite her previous thought, Felina folded to his utterance, although she figured better him than Asher. Besides, it was more or less what she was going to say.

  Nonetheless, the irksomely trademarked Asher laugh was the ultimate response. It quickly died down, leaving the documenters a little baffled. Asher swiftly recovered his composure, bearing his solemn expression and imperious voice so as to maintain a sense of authority here. There was a collective and respectable merit to his words, but only a handful of the documenters fell for its ploy.

  “As true as that might be in the wild, this is a highly controlled environment,” he said resolutely. “So I assure you that Xeno carnem cannot reproduce. Cannot.”

  There were no further questions or rebuttals on the matter, as the Manticore Science Officer had essentially put his foot down. Detecting his verbal triumph, Asher nodded to himself then raised his eyebrows and asked if there were any further questions. There was a brief pall of silence as a few documenters muttered in between themselves with hushed voices, but he received mostly shaken heads.

  And then Felina raised her hand as she spoke.

  “I have one,” she said. All eyes on her. “Earlier you mentioned the Xeno carnem achievement was reached “through trial and error.” Could you clarify?”

  “Ah, yes, a keen ear you have,” Asher said with a smirk and bob of his right forefinger. He appeared to have lightened up after his previous burst, and although Felina would’ve liked to believe it was false, she could tell it wasn’t. Asher was genuine in his buoyancy, but it was obviously not a disposition that held the documenters in highest regard. He clearly was beyond the realm of fascination with these creatures, he was stuck in a stage of worship that meant he subjected himself to divination. This elitism was not all too surprising among Science Officers, much less one aboard such a prestigious USRD vessel, but this didn’t keep from agitating Felina.

  She knew she wasn’t alone either.

  She felt grateful for Baez and Loudon’s presence.

  Perhaps Calloway was even on the right mindset, too. She felt questionable about the others, but in due time she hoped to discover their true feelings about this enormous revelation. The details surrounding such a creational experiment still left her mind in a warped state of disbelief, but after the question she just asked it was obvious Asher still had more to show-and-tell.

  She was growing less and less avid to hear the “tell” aspect of Asher’s tour. She wanted more “show,” so as to deduce her own observations for dissection later down the road.

  Felina trusted Felina more than she did Asher.

  “Of course,” was his immediate response, lost under the shadow of her inner contemplations. When she finally readjusted to the room and its surroundings, he was beckoning the documenters to follow him out the door. He spoke with a flutter to his voice midstride. “Better yet, I shall do more than just clarify or elaborate. Allow me to show you.”

  Felina’s wish was granted.

  She eagerly followed along with the cluster of documenters, although it was a given that leaving the observation compound was a difficult task. How much more would they get to see of the creatures? Felina reminded herself that Asher had said there were twelve total specimens of Xeno carnem aboard the Manticore, all in the main labs on this level. In fact, as they exited the Observation Compound, she recalled how they were all in that facility, via three other chambers identical to the one they occupied. Now faced with the other two MALBO entrances, Asher led them through the auto-door designated as the Intermediate Facilities. As far as Felina could tell, the corridors, bulkheads, walkways and ceilings were all identical to the Observation Compound’s. Except that instead of four access doors there were two, which Asher claimed were the observation chambers nearly identical to those in the main Compound.

  “Now, before we enter,” he paused to k
eep them hindered at the entrance of the first auto-door, his hand hovering over a keypad there. “I don’t want any screaming, we’re all adults here.”

  Felina felt her skin crawl. What the hell kind of a disclaimer was that?

  “I will go ahead and explain that we used to have nine defective specimens that originally were placed in both chambers, dividedly. So there were four in one, five in the other. Their hostile behavior—as it was learned that they house a much higher aggression level than the healthy specimens you just saw—led to fatal infighting, leaving us with three unsalvageable corpses. After autopsying them for further studies, it was decided to implement demarcations within the observation panel, as you will see, with our remaining six.”

  With a swallow of uncertainty that appeared to abrade Felina more than the others, Asher turned to the keypad and entered his code. The auto-door slid open and he entered first before sidestepping. The documenters flooded the observation chamber, identical to the one they had just occupied. Except that, as per Asher’s explanation, the chamber behind the thick panel of glass was divided into three sections. In each demarcation was a single specimen, clear of mist and well-lit, although Felina wished this hadn’t been the case.

  No, she wished for the sake of her mind and stomach that she wasn’t seeing what stood before her. Albeit safe thanks to the thick silica-palladium glass, the space between the specimens and Felina felt insufficient. And standing before her they weren’t all necessarily doing, in lieu of their defunct nature.

  This, Asher explained over the sounds the creatures made—muffled behind the glass—was an “unavoidable step in the science of progress with such experimentations.”

  He tried convincing the documenters, who made their own horrified and perturbed sounds, that what they witnessed was a necessary evil. He eventually even used these words, which didn’t comfort Felina the slightest.

  “I understand your reactions, they’re only natural considering the impulses you’re used to as humans without ever experiencing such a sight before, except in media fiction, but I assure you all…this is real. This is life—the science of it is rather flabbergasting, but on a marvelous level. From the bioengineering roots of splicing the DNA to harvesting an actual physique for the Xeno strain to rebuild itself led to many failed specimens. These are those failures, kept alive for the sake of furthering our studies and understanding not only of the extraterrestrial DNA but also this process which we’ve since mastered.”

  “Mastered?” Wisniewski nearly exclaimed. “What part of these aberrations is considered mastery?”

  “I understand your shock and skepticism, but please,” Asher replied calmly, “settle your voice. Remember why you’re all here, and the marvel in your eyes when you stepped into the room with the others. You couldn’t have possibly believed such a high-caliber project would yield absolute success without fault. Well, these are the fault-lines in our analogical Earth, the blemishes in our skin. A necessary evil to the totality of Project Xeno carnem.”

  Felina’s ears heard Asher’s words but her brain processed them as borderline gibberish. The creatures on the other side of the glass panel, divided into three sections as per the three of them, appeared to be pain incarnate. They were awestruck each, wearing horrified expressions that were already warped from malformed flesh and lopsided features vaguely humanoid. Each specimen bore minor differences from head to toe; it was difficult to discern which one was more or less human than the next. Facial features seemed to rise and drip in a terrifying stillness, some lacking noses and others bearing them upside-down or in unnatural locations. The same went for their eyes, ears, and mouths. The figures were generally discernible with likeness to the healthy specimens in the Observation Compound, with the gaunt arms and legs, claws, and rib cages. But it was the manner at which these features were composed that rendered the creatures incapable of proper composure, including ingrown joints and fused bones. The unique skull that the healthy specimens donned were mostly absent here; only one of the three had the elongated skull, but the face appeared as if chopped short with a fire axe. On this creature, its entire bottom jaw was missing, and a human tongue lolled out to utter incoherent groans of torment. The other two creatures kept their primitive skulls, save for lower jaw deformities such as bone protrusions and permanent dislocations; one of them had a chin crest as the healthy specimens possessed except that it literally curved into its chest. This physical defect limited its head and torso movement, leaving it in a state of constant anguish and indolence. All three of them were distantly recognizable as male subjects, despite the consistency that none of them bore genitals.

  With unnerving passiveness, Asher lackadaisically strode to reassure the documenters of the specimens’ wellbeing.

  “Contrary to initial speculation,” he insisted, seeming bored, “these specimens are not sentient. Their brains are in an even greater mess than their bodies, to the point of complete ineptitude. They breathe and go through the motions simply because they can, and there is no distraction to deviate their focus. Although, that statement alone is contradictory, as their mindsets are utterly oblivious. As you can see, they perceive our presence unlike the specimens in the Observation Compound because here they still have eyes, and while their vision is believed to be highly impaired, they can nonetheless see us. We’re hoping that this might be a connection, like a cheat sheet, to the workings of the mind to a healthy Xeno carnem.”

  Strangely enough, Godunov was the least disturbed.

  Although upon entrance, not a single one of the documenters including himself was without terror. But now that feeling had washed over him, replaced with a peculiar awe that made him observe the defective breed bearing curiosity and even pity.

  “What of their hunger, digestion, and aggression?” Godunov asked, PDA at the ready. He asked the question while staring at the creatures through the glass, punctually turning to gaze at Asher.

  “Well, as I mentioned earlier, prior to the demarcations they were rather hostile toward each other. A strange thing to witness, but not shockingly so, as they bumped into each other and began attacking.”

  “Stranger things than this do not exist,” Felina muttered, gawking motionless.

  A few of her colleagues turned to give her a peculiar look, then she swallowed rising bile in the back of her throat before turning away and rubbing her temples.

  “And consumption?” Godunov pressed. “Did they proceed to devour that which they killed?”

  “No, in fact, they did not.” Asher’s level of intrigue and interest in the matter of these ‘intermediate’ specimens experienced a rise. “Oddly enough, when approached with a variety of perishables for consumption, as we practiced with the other specimens, they would only try. As you can see, their jaws are most deformed, making mastication and consumption incredibly difficult. But there was little effort to, even for those deductively capable of ingestion. Neither of these three might be, but two of the other three are, and yet still they abandoned the process. So far hunger has not caused them great alarm, nor damage, only a state of mindless confusion.”

  That last statement seemed most contradictory to Felina, but she wasn’t in the mood to throw a rebuttal Asher’s way. Not again, at least, not right now.

  “With these here, and the twelve healthy specimens in the Observation Compound,” Schuman asked, appearing both curious and troubled, “what is the likelihood that the Manticore will continue with these experimentations?”

  “Well, there is really no room for ‘likelihood,’” Asher replied matter-of-factly, sounding even as if insulted. “With so many healthy specimens, the Xeno Project is now an entirely observational venture in research. Expansion of the species, as per Central Command’s direct order, will not be addressed until after we’ve docked with Dingir in the following weeks.”

  Although this statement truly stirred a mixed bag of feelings amid the documenters, most notably Calloway, an intercom announcement interrupted their focus. It called for A
sher to the main labs’ foyer, designating it an emergency. The voice, although vaguely mechanical and feminine, was however noticeably not Birch’s. Felina assumed it belonged to one of the desk employees at the foyer.

  “Ah, just in time!” Asher announced, clapping his hands together. “I hope you all have enjoyed your tour down here, I can imagine many more questions and curiosities remain to pick your brain, but you still have seven days and on top of that the rest of this one, after lunch.”

  “But that wasn’t the lunchtime call—” Wisniewski said.

  “Clearly, indeed, however if it is what I expect it to be then after this, lunchtime will be on quick approach.”

  Without further elaboration, Asher ushered the documenters outside of the room, leaving behind three groaning specimens, hurriedly guiding them back the way they had come.

  Reentering the main labs foyer lent them the sight of a six-man group by the main entrance. They stood in a casual huddle, lingering on the edges of their feet in a waddling manner. They appeared one part bored and one part confused, despite an engaging conversation between them. Their attire struck Felina as overtly military, and upon closer approach she discerned USMB patches on their biceps. Their uniforms were steel-blue with dark cobalt vests, shoulder pads, knee guards, and fingerless gloves. Ballistic belts sported satchels used for ammunition reserves, leaving enough space for holstered Deci handguns on each right hip.