“Sit here,” Baht gestures at a table that is floating five feet off the ground with no steps or anything. I squint at it for a moment trying to figure out how I can leverage myself up onto the thing without asking for help.
Finally, Baht looks at me, looks at the floating table and after a second the table floats down two feet. He gestures at it again, “sit.”
“Nothing I am about to do will hurt at all, Snackling, so you can remove that look from your face. This will be a very basic scan of your anatomy and then a sample collection. The most superficial skin cells that you won’t even feel being removed,” he uses a tone that I suppose he thinks is soothing, but is actually annoying and condescending. And now he’s calling me “Snackling”?
“I’m not scared of it hurting. I’ve been in this medbay and been scanned before. I’m worried about the results. You’re being kind of cryptic you know,” also I’m worried about a maybe-pregnancy situation, but I don’t say that. I don’t want to deal with any questions about how that came to be or for him to get any ideas about how I had sex with an alien.
“I can access the results of your previous scan then, and only do the sample collection if that is the case.”
I shake my head, “Please do a scan anyway,” I demand, “And compare it to my previous scan. Then let me know if there’s any differences.”
He tilts his head at me, squinting with those glowing red eyes. I wait for him to ask the obvious question of why I would think there might be a difference. He doesn’t.
So I sit through the scan which is a light that shines on me for a couple seconds. It’s a weird, purple light that feels a little cold. I had experienced it before, so nothing was surprising in that. The DNA collection wasn’t what I expected though. I thought there would be some kind of instrument, like a swab or a scraping thing or something. Instead, it was a concentrated gust of air, like some invisible person was blowing on me and then nothing.
“That’s it?” Nonplussed, I look around for where that blowing air had come from.
“Yes. Please wait a moment though and we can discuss the results.”
He has turned away from me for a moment, focused on interacting with the med-bay computer or whatever.
He turns back toward me in a fast movement not typical of him, “Do you know that you are gravid?”
“Does that mean pregnant?” I ask in confusion, “How does the translation matrix know these obscure words?”
“Snackling, focus. You are not pregnant in the manner one would expect of a fuzzy-headed, teated mammal such as yourself. You are gravid. In swell as an oviparous creature might be.” He looks at me as he makes this pronouncement. He is expecting some kind of reaction, but I’m not at all sure what he’s saying.
“So, I’m not pregnant?” I ask.
He seems to shrug his whole body under his cloak.
“Small one, you are a mature female, yes? You are aware that certain activities, procreative activities, lead to certain outcomes?”
I stare at him dumbly and start to feel pissed off, “Baht, you need to speak plainly. You are being wordy and confusing and I don’t appreciate it!”
“You have fucked some egg-laying species of alien and now you are gestating four viable eggs that you have no natural mechanism for laying. This situation is dangerous to you and your perspective offspring. Is that plain enough?”
“Yes,” I reply softly, “plain as day.”
“Were you aware of this?”
I shake my head, “I suspected I might be, but I had no way to check because I couldn’t use the med-bay and I didn’t bring it up with you because who knows what you want or what you think and-“
“Calm, Snackling, take a breath. Do not exert yourself,” he’s using that annoying tone again, but I do as he says and focus on breathing evenly.
“Can I terminate?”
“Yes,” then he makes a ‘ch-ch-ch’ sound that I think is supposed to be soothing, “We do not need to do anything in this moment, you have time to consider.”
He gestures for me to get off the table and follow him, “I have additional findings I wish to discuss with you. Let us get you a beverage and talk.”
It’s a few minutes later that I’m settled back into the dining hall, sipping a cucumber-melon drink listening to Baht go on and on about my DNA.
I’ll sum it up:
The known universe has tons of planets, and a few of those are habitable. All the sentient species except for two share a genetic heritage and are obviously genetically engineered. Nobody knows who engineered all these life forms, or through what processes it was accomplished, or with what materials. It is estimated that all this engineered life was seeded throughout at least ten galaxies between ten and twenty thousand years ago. To what purpose, no one knows.
After taking a look at my DNA, Baht says it is obvious that my people, humans, are not genetically engineered. We are related to all these other alien species though. Apparently, human genetic material is the building blocks that all o these other species are made from. Probably spliced together with other earth animals with mixed results.
This is how we ended up with cat-people, lizard-people, spider-people and who knows what all else.
Baht had thought that the original species that all the others were made from was extinct. There had been no evidence of their continued existence at all.
Until now. Humans are it. The holy-grail of alien genetic engineering.
I make no comment on all this information. What does it mean to me when we can’t find earth anyway? But a question occurs to me.
“Are all these species breeding compatible?”
Baht shakes his head, “No. I assume one of your Homeworlder friends is your breed-mate. They are compatible with most other species because their eggs will fertilize themselves with any genetic material they encounter. They could implant any species and engender viable offspring.”
I let that sink in. So Shawn was telling me the whole truth. I might owe the guy an apology no matter how much of an ass-hole he was about it.
“I have new information apart from all this,” Baht lets me know now that he’s concluded his spiel about human genetic significance.
“More?”
He nods, “Homeworld 2 is returning Seven to you. He should arrive within the day.”
I jump up in excitement, “Really?!” I throw my arms around Baht’s bony form, squeezing him in exuberance. I let him go when I hear a loud ‘crack!”
“Sorry!”
He does a ‘don’t worry about it’ gesture.
“But what about Lu and Ken?”
“The Homeworlder who contacted me said that they would only return one and asked which we wanted. You seem closest to Seven, so I designated him. We have been asked not to contact them further about it.”
“Like hell!” I exclaimed loudly, “We are going to keep contacting them! We are going to contact them twice as often! Until Lu and Ken are released!”
Baht bobs his head, “I assumed as much and have already sent to messages to that effect.”
I mentally take back every negative thought I’ve thought about Baht. He’s obviously a great guy.
