E-ROVER 1409-A REPORT 2227
REGION: PACIFIC COASTLINE
HIVE: 306
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Earth Rover one-four-oh-niner-dash-alpha signing in after . . . an extended absence. Apologies, Dan. I didn't mean to destroy your precious streak.
This'll be quick. I can't stay long. I need help.
You sitting? Find a snug spot on your high horse, you bastard, because shit's about to get bizarre. I need to get you up to speed but there's no time for the full tale.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE RUSTLING]
It was the morning after my last report a year ago.
Hive three-oh-six was unremarkable. As you know, I've dealt with this bullshit assignment without nearly as much complaining as the previous stooges dropped here to document the innocuous chuffings of Earthlings. It's the same dark, angry, lava-crusted hellscape it was fifteen years ago when we returned to test the planet's habitability. But you had to toss me over to hive three-oh-six when you know I hate being so close to the fucking volcano. I've been wasting the best years of my career drowning in vog, and you know it. This is all because of that night with Sheila. Don't try to deny it.
[HEAVY SIGH]
I don't have time.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE SCREECH]
It started a year ago. The colony scavengers appeared for the nightly hunt above the fields as usual. They scurried around the lava rock, scrounging for fallen fruit under the blanket of ash like I've observed a million times before. Nothing new. They crawled on their calloused hands and knees, groping the dirt as they sniffed. I noted they must have recently consumed a hive member because their bulbous bellies scraped the top layer of dust, their normally saggy, pink flesh stretched taut over protruding guts. Their useless, filmy eyes turned toward the moon through the hazy, sulfuric air. They lifted their pointed, red-stained noses through the dense cloud to chuff loudly at each other when they found something ripe. I watched from my pod, noting the lack of peculiarities.
Until I noticed two scavengers quietly wander away.
Weird. I know. Hunting hive members don't divert from their objectives. They were moving away from the fruit trees.
I followed them for miles. They were a male and female, scuttling in the falling ash, chuffing in the opposite direction of their usual territory. I'd never seen the two sexes interact, so of course I was interested.
When they reached a significant distance from the group, they turned to each other and fumbled in the dark, grasping each other's skin. The female cupped the male's cheeks with her curled hands. She snorted between her enormous incisors, tilting her bald, wrinkly head from side to side. She nudged her long nose against his.
The male, silent until then, returned her snorts with zeal.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE RUSTLING]
They continued this for weeks. I was obsessed with documenting their behavior and eventually tried to approach. I inched closer and closer, day by day, until they accepted my proximity. They let me pet their necks. I named them.
Things were fine until Lulu and Rex tried to mate. I panicked.
Males belong to the queen. They don't mate with worker females. It's unheard of—an impossibility within colony hierarchy. I didn't want Rex to be labeled as a vagrant and eaten by his queen, so I jumped out of my pod and made a ruckus to scare them apart. They didn't run. They turned their beady eyes toward me and squinted, scrunching their noses and twitching their cheeks as I tried to pry Rex off of Lulu's back. They clung to each other tighter, Lulu hissing as Rex continued to thrust around my grasp.
I knew what I had to do. They needed protection, and I was the only one with the sense to give it. So I stood sentry beside them with a stick in my hand, ready to bat at any curious hive member who might wander our way. None did, thankfully.
After that, Rex and Lulu sought me nightly. They chuffed for my scent, located my observation pod, and brought gifts of fruit and shiny lava rock. They mated in my pod as I guarded the door.
Here's where you might lose your shit. So we've noted the inter-species evolution of the Earthlings left females barren with the exception of their queen. You know this. I know this. Fucking third-graders know this.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE SNORTING]
Dan.
Are you sitting?
Are you sitting down for this, Dan? Because Rex. Impregnated. Lulu.
I meant to record this, I swear, but I was busy freaking the fuck out. You realize the implications, right?
No way could I allow Lulu to leave. I kept her contained in my pod until she birthed her litter of two bald pups.
Immediately, I separated mother and offspring as I was terrified she'd eat them. But Lulu pined, chuffed, snorted, gnawed at her restraints until I pushed the critters against her.
She was gentle. She nurtured them, fed them from her breasts.
Dan.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE GROWLING]
We were wrong. We believed Earthlings were so devolved, they had lost all capacity to independently act outside the hive. They are capable of divergent intuition which completely negates the alternative hypothesis of every Earthology theorist of the past hundred years.
This proves there's still a little bit of us in them.
[INDISTINGUISHABLE CLANGING]
I'm calling you now because we're in danger. The hive came searching. They found us.
When the pack of eight aggressive hive females scuttled toward Lulu and her pups, Lulu turned to me with her wide, filmy eyes and chuffed in my direction.
I snatched the pups in my arms and bolted for the pod.
I see them now.
Lulu and Rex are facing the hive females. They're bearing incisors and kicking up ashes with wide hands slapping the dirt.
Oh, God.
Lulu's dropping her knuckles to the ground and—Dan—she's . . . she's pulling herself upright. She's standing on two legs, Dan. Holy shit you have to see this.
[CAMERA SWIVELS TO OUTSIDE VIEW OF BROKEN TERRAIN -- LAVA RIVERS SPLIT CHARRED LAND THAT APPEARS LIKE HOT COALS SMEARED OVER TOASTED EARTH. NAKED BIPEDAL FEMALE STANDS WITH CURLED HANDS CLENCHED INTO FISTS. NAKED MALE RISES AT HER SIDE. INDISTINGUISHABLE HISSING. INDISTINGUISHABLE GROWLING. BIPEDALS ATTACK GROUNDED EARTHLINGS. CAMERA SWIVELS]
I know this breaks all protocol—we were sent to observe, not interfere, but I couldn't let these innocent creatures be eaten by their hive. Release an evacuation pod to my tracker. I'm bringing the pups with me.
We can rehabilitate them, Dan. These pups are our chance to redeem the national guilt. We left their ancestors here when we knew Earth was dying, but there's hope. Maybe we can integrate, maybe we can study, hell, maybe we can stick 'em in the Marsonian Metropolitan Zoo and let people paint their features on children's faces using fucking glitter pens. I don't know. But we need to do something, Dan. We need to save these Earthlings.
[TRANSMISSION ENDED]
YOU ARE READING
Tevun-Krus #57 - Colonisation SF
Science FictionThey came, they saw, they conquered. Or maybe they came, they saw, they co-existed and educated?
