Darwin's Sword: Savannah - Book Two

by C. P. McClennan

  Eviction would not be possible here, and she had convinced herself of this since leaving Gerald’s truck after her arrival. Finding that humans had been into space would be enough for her to return to Kettelgian and convince Master Cooper of her findings.

  Though she had never actually met Master Cooper other than on view screens, she knew Cooper would accept her explanation as the Kettelgians were much more willing to listen and discuss alternative ideas. Graven, however, was more of a concern.

  Like Savannah, he was an Emmi warrior. His ego could be the problem to get him to abort the mission.

  “Spacefaring,” she whispered. “How didn’t we know?”

  Of course they knew. There were tracking stations in this very system that would have sensed the Earthlings traversing the black towards their moon.

  Knowing the Earthlings were here, and how similar they were to the Kettelgians, Savannah assumed they were watching them to learn more about themselves. With how long ago Graven had been sent to Earth, there was no way they could have missed the lunar landings. She, as one of the Emmi, was not privy to the overall Kettelgian plans, though. Since Cooper had risen to leadership, the Emmi had been kept out of the discussions of Kettelgian.

  The Emmi were simple warriors, generally speaking. Some had evolved into other positions but were still seen as secondary on Kettelgian.

  Quelver came to mind. Quelver was the Emmi scientist who found how to put an Emmi form into a human body, thus making this mission possible. Quelver had created and put itself into a human male body to use just to help train Savannah.

  She grinned at the memory of their awkward sex training. As asexuals, the Emmi were not used to these mating rituals the humans worked with. Savannah had come to enjoy the sexual acts. An odd thought crossed her mind.

  Would Quelver ever call her Savannah, or would he still insist on her Emmi name, Shava?

  VIII

  The Ris Science Labs on the Third Moon of Kettelgian Five

  Five years earlier

  “Is it in?” She looked back over her shoulder at Quelver.

  Quelver had her legs spread with her calves hooked over either side of his hips. He looked down at the jigsaw puzzle of their midsections. “Yes, it is, Shava. Do you not feel it?”

  She turned her head. “I wonder if I need nerve regeneration. I’m not feeling much below here.” Lifting her left hand, she laid it just below her bellybutton.

  “Oh my, that’s not good enough.” He moved forward.

  Shava’s eyes bulged. “Fuck! Now I feel it. It’s so…ah…”

  “Yes, tell me!”

  “Full!”

  “Is it pleasurable?” Quelver twisted his neck to see their connection. He then pulled his hips back and thrust again.

  “Fuck me, yes! Wait, is ‘fuck’ the right word to be using here?”

  He nodded. “It’s as good as any. Humans generally yell some sort of explicative or deity name when they feel pleasure they believe is too good to be true.”

  “Fuck is an explicative?”

  “Oh yes.” He thrust again. “It is a word that suggests something taboo or bad, to most humans. I’m not entirely sure why, but this is what Cooper told me.”

  “FUCK!”

  “You’re getting the hang of this.”

  “Why don’t we have sex?”

  “We?” Quelver stopped and turned his eyes as though trying to read an answer in the air.

  “The Emmi? Why don’t Emmi have sex?”

  “Oh, well, we don’t procreate the way humans do. We don’t need a partner.”

  “But it feels so good!”

  He scrunched his lips into a duck bill and nodded. “Yes, it does. We don’t have these solid bodies normally, so it would be awkward.”

  She considered his words. “The Kettelgians do.”

  “Yes, they’re oddly very similar to the human anatomy that we have studied.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I’d finished my sentence, why would I…?”

  She smacked his hip. “I mean why did you stop fucking me. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  He grinned. “Oh, pain. That would be an interesting experience.”

  Her shoulders slouched as she expelled an audible gasp. “Fine, pain later, fuck now.”

  He pulled back and began thrusting again. “I can see why the human males are so enamored with watching the actual penetration process.”

  “FUCK! How so? FUCK, YES!” With her neck stretched back, her head rolled against the pillow beneath it.

  “With the male hormones I’ve added, watching my penis enter into you has actually increased its rigidity. It has become a much stronger erection.”

  “YOU FUCKING BEAST!”

  “Oh my. Shava, you really are enjoying this! Excellent.”

  Her eyes opened and locked on him. “What, and you’re not?”

  “Yes, of course, but this isn’t about me. It isn’t as though I have to mate with any humans.”

  “FUCKIN’ SHIT YES! You’re right.”

  “For science, though.”

  “FOR FUCKIN’ SCIENCE!”

  IX

  Darwin’s Sword

  March 17, 2018

  Gerald moaned and shifted beside her.

  Savannah sat up.

  Tears create paths over the bridge of his nose before dripping into a dark spot on his pillow.

  She shook him.

  His eyes blinked open, and he rubbed them. “What? Horny again?” The surprise of wet on his hands caused his eyes to widen. He lifted his head to scan the room.

  “You’re crying.”

  “Sorry, was dreaming about her again.”

  “Amy?”

  He nodded and let his head slump back to the pillow.

  She lay back down beside him and put an arm around him. “Do you want to tell…?”

  “She was shot.”

  Savannah blinked as she processed this.

  “I came home and found her.”

  “In Winnipeg?” Unlike their southern neighbors, Savannah knew that guns were not as easily accessible in Canada. This seemed like an odd way for a grade school teacher to be killed.

  They had talked about Amy before, but not much. Gerald was never comfortable going into details. Beyond sharing that Amy had been a high school teacher and that she was living with him, he gave no other details prior.

  Savannah had seen pictures of Amy in Gerald’s apartment. She had flashed in after the eviction to make certain that they had extra clothes for him on the trip to Kettelgian. With the clothes, she collected a few small framed pictures that he kept on his desk.

  He nodded. “Yeah, in Winnipeg. In a locked apartment, too.”

  X

  Winnipeg, Manitoba

  June 9, 2013

  Sun cracked the horizon just enough to dance between buildings and hit the Red River. The birds of Stephen Juba Park celebrated by lifting their wings and flying up between the trees, passing one of the two medium-rise towers of a condo on their way.

  Most residents of the condo, at six twenty-two of the morning, were still asleep. One open window with the drapes mostly closed offered a different view and a soundtrack.

  Not that the birds stopped to look or listen.

  Inside that window was a bedroom.

  A king-sized bed with ruffled black sheets, a black comforter kicked to the floor at the foot, and a cherry combination of headboard and bookcase dominated the room. A matching low dresser stood opposite with a mirror running the full length across the wall above it. Past the bed were a black melamine desk and office chair that gave a minimalist assault on the extravagant bedroom furniture it shared the room with.

  The bedroom furniture was Amy’s. The desk was Gerald’s.

  At the moment, Amy and Gerald were on the bed and causing the black sheets to be further ruffled.

  Gerald grabbed her left hip for stability. His right hand wrapped around the base of his cock to help aim it. After a second of pos
itioning, he felt her warmth on the tip. Applying pressure, he felt her unfold around him, allowing his erection into her warmth and wet. No longer needed, his right hand grasped her other hip as he pushed slowly in for the first thrust.

  Amy began the thrust on all fours in front of him. With a pleasured groan her arms collapsed, and she planted her face on the pillow beneath her.

  The walls were paper-thin in this place. This was a normal action for her so as not to disturb the neighbors.

  Gerald slammed his cock into her, looking down to see it glistening between them as he pulled out for the next thrust.

  Amy cried out happily into her pillow.

  Their Sunday ritual was to wake up early for a hard fuck followed by brunch at eleven when they sat in their favorite café, The Muddy Swan, on Main Street. There they would make fun of the drivers leaving Holly Rose Church across the street.

  It became a drinking game, each sipping their ale each time one of the drivers leaving or entering the church parking lot laid on their horn. Their record was on Christmas Eve Sunday in 2006 at 25 honks.

  At the moment, honks did not concern either of them.

  Gerald thrust again and allowed a deep giggle to escape his mouth. Reaching forward, he took a handful of her brunette ponytail. His voice lowered to a near James Earl Jones depth. “I believe it was Bryan Adams that once said we should be waking up the neighbors, no?”

  “I thought we liked these ones?”

  “We do,” Gerald agreed and tugged harder. “She’s a cute redhead, and they should join us.”

  Amy laughed. The laugh morphed into a groan pushed from her lungs with the next thrust. “He’s not that cute!”

  “Shhhh…” Gerald released her hair and jokingly covered her mouth. “We don’t want them to hear that.”

  XI

  Gerald turned the key in the deadbolt before testing the low doorknob to confirm the door locked. He spun on his heels and, with a light whistle, headed to the elevator.

  Being their making fun of church drivers tradition was not until late morning, after sex his task was to wander across the street from their building and return with steaming java from Gregory’s Coffee House.

  Who was he to break with tradition?

  On this day he was going to muck with it a little by ordering himself an iced cappuccino rather than his usual double-double.

  He tugged at the hem of his dark blue hockey jersey and glanced down at the circular logo containing the blue jet and red maple leaf. Amy had bought it for his birthday, and he wore it every chance he had since.

  Only the night before, he had sat up watching the deciding game of the Western Finals that sent Chicago on to play Boston, the Eastern Champion. The Jets hadn’t made the playoffs, but he knew they would be playing in late June one day.

  Growing up in Saskatchewan, he had three choices for NHL teams to cheer for in Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg. With time zones as they were, Winnipeg games were on earlier and, for that reason, he chose to support the Winnipeg Jets. In 1996, when the original franchise relocated south of the border to Arizona, he was heartbroken even though he had no connection to the city at all. He was living further away, even, at university in British Columbia.

  When Amy was offered her first full-time teaching position, it had been in Winnipeg for her to start in 2006. A second offer from Calgary followed two days later. One from Vancouver wasn’t far behind.

  The offers were identical, but Gerald wanted Winnipeg, for his childhood hockey nostalgia alone. Amy agreed, so here they came.

  In 2011, a floundering big league hockey team relocated back to Winnipeg, Gerald was overjoyed.

  With season tickets, Gerald would be among thousands of faithful fans that had blossomed with the return. He was among friends who all knew this team would win it all one day.

  Likely long before the Toronto Maple Leafs ever did, Gerald thought and sprouted a grin.

  This June morning, The Peg was basking in near 30 degree Celsius temperatures and sun, which left few stereotypical Canadian visions of hockey in most minds. A few clouds hovered around overhead in preparations of the anticipated rain on Monday but otherwise, it was a simple deep blue above.

  Gerald strode from the building and only stopped after walking down the path to the sidewalk. He looked up at the blue and grinned.

  The sky was Winnipeg Jet blue.

  Refocusing on the coffee shop across the street, he continued and jaywalked at a near jog. He stopped a second time when he reached the opposite sidewalk and heard a car backfire. He spun to look, as backfiring was rare in the Twenty-first Century. He expected to see an old jalopy of yesterday, or maybe some leather-clad biker overcompensating on a hog.

  It was much too hot for leather.

  Jalopy or otherwise, no cars moved on Waterfront Drive.

  XII

  “I have coffee!” Gerald cooed as he kicked his sneakers off in the front hall.

  No voice returned, though.

  “Did you fall back asleep?” He walked from the door and turned left into the hall towards the bedroom. “Yeah, like you’d answer if you…” Looking in the bedroom, he froze, and the cardboard coffee tray fell.

  Blood was the first sight. A splatter was on the window that looked out at the Red River and produced trails down the wall to the floor. Amy sat on the floor at the base of the trails, as if she were a marionette with cut strings. A single dark red hole was in the middle of her forehead.

  Gerald collapsed in a puddle of java.

  XIII

  Darwin’s Sword

  March 17, 2018

  Savannah stared at him. Erect on her knees, her eyes searched his face for a clue as to how she should respond. Consoling was another thing she had not been trained in. Death was part of her training and something she was not supposed to react much to.

  This was Gerald, however.

  “Did they find out who shot her?”

  He shook his head and looked away. “First they thought it was me.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Our friends used to joke about how Amy and I never fought. Police couldn’t find a motive or a firearm in my place. The questioning got intense, but I figure they were seeing if my story stayed consistent.”

  “Was it a break in?”

  He shook his head again, still unable to look back at her. “Deadbolt was still locked. If it was, there was no evidence of it.”

  Savannah’s face slackened. “Your parents died mysteriously, too?”

  Concern showed on his face as he turned back. This time, he nodded.

  “Your parents were scientists?”

  “Yeah. I figured a religious nut killed them for their open atheism. In the 70s, it wasn’t as acceptable as it is now.”

  “What was his specialty?”

  “My dad?” Gerald shrugged. “Originally biology. Both my folks were biologists and even had their medical licenses. They both focused on evolutionary studies after they got into teaching.”

  She thought for a moment before lowering onto the bed beside him. “It all sounds so odd somehow.”

  “Yeah, it does. Always has to me.”

  “How were your parents killed?”

  “Car accident. They were t-boned by a tractor trailer heading home after seeing me at school.”

  Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled tight against his back.

  “They had talked me out of leaving school. I was failing out, but they talked me into staying. As they were leaving, dad told me he had expected I’d be going home with them. He was so happy I wasn’t leaving school.”

  Savannah cocked her head at this but remained silent. Her lips gently kissed his shoulder before she found her voice. “I need to talk to Quelver.”

  Peter Gabriel’s voice began to serenade them once again, singing of “The Secret World”.

  Gerald was out before the first chorus was sung.

  Savannah tried to fight the drowsy feeling. Since leaving Earth, there had been a lot of s
leep. She knew it was how these bodies handled illness physically but had begun to consider it was also the brain’s way of dealing with stresses. That she was inclined to sleep as well had her concerned.

  XIV

  January 12, 2017

  Toronto, Ontario

  Savannah looked down at the pile of dust beside her on the bed. “Clones? How is that possible?” she asked the tiny screen.

  Quelver stared back at her from the tiny handheld screen and shrugged. “I don’t understand it either. All I know is the samples you’ve sent me suggest that the humans are somehow Emmi clones.”

  To humans, the screen would have appeared to be a small makeup mirror until it turned on. It was one of many devices Quelver had come up with for Savannah to hide whatever tech she required.

  “But we don’t have these bodies.”

  “You are correct. Perhaps we are further along the evolutionary track? Purely conjecture, as I don’t even have a proper hypothesis for this.”

  Savannah’s eyes dropped from the screen. “I thought the humans were connected to the Kettelgians. They look almost exactly…”

  Quelver’s eyes widened, and he held a finger to his lips to silence her.

  She was happy he had kept his human form. The Emmi were not as easy to read as humans, not having gestures or facial expressions. As white free-form beings, they only had colours to give a clue as to what any Emmi was thinking. “We need to meet.”

  He nodded. “I will find a way, but there are things I cannot share until we are able to discuss physically together.”

  She clicked the device off. Her gaze returned to the pile beside her.

  Toronto had become a good hunting ground for her. It wasn’t as big as New York, London, or Los Angeles, but the liberal and secular views in Canada made hunting much easier. It had been the city in which she had first discovered sex clubs.

  Toronto City was, roughly, a fifth the population of New York City, but it had three times the sex clubs.