Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 66

Kali went down stairs, placed the sample in an exchange lock. She then opened the portal and stepped

through, back into the laboratory. She was 36 feet tall again, and back to fair skin, hairy, and only two

arms. She turned off the portal, collected the sample from the other side of the exchange box, placed it

in a holder where material was sorted, analyzed, and some prepared for delivery. Tiny drone orbs

collected material and flew away to their assigned targets, like bees collecting nectar and then off to the

hive. A small mechanical arm delivered a giant crystal, which she inserted into a ‘reader.’ A hologram of

him appeared, starting at conception and running to the end of life. She tracked health and what sort of

medical interventions would maximize life time and health; an optimum path was illuminated. “Very

healthy specimen, longevity wise. I do recommend better maintenance of your teeth. Don’t brush so

hard.” She returned to the sperm sample. Every functioning gamete was measured and catalogued for

its unique flavor; the bulk of the material went to a storage place. The computer took the analysis and

showed her optimum pairing with images of the egg donor- samples already acquired, simply awaiting

selectively optimized gametes. The egg and sperm sample was rendered virtually showing what the

offspring would look like, and statistical probabilities of attributes that would be innate or potentially

developed under the right conditions.

“Oh, I so love my job.” She touched ‘face’ icons to illuminate pairings she favored. She had enough

data to map out seven generations of potential outcomes, as if using she were using ‘Facebook’ to

generate her genetic lineage. The pairing had ancestry maps; his had unidentifiable history.

“Do you want to see your future children?” Kali asked Shen. She pushed data results to a screen near

him.

Shen recognized the hobbit people in his memory from a science magazine; anthropologists had NôvelDrama.Org: text © owner.

discovered a species of humans that were no larger than the average 3 year old. The pigmy people

were strange looking, round faces, but clearly had adapted to their environment. They had even lived

along side of pygmy elephants and ten foot lizards. They lived in alien world, ripe for conspiracy

theories of aliens and hybridization, but they were human, and were still genetically compatible. They

were not dwarfs. It occurred to him, there was sufficient ‘pygmy’ samples of variety of species that

people should just accept there could pygmies of anything; which also meant, there could be giants of

any species- and there was time when oxygen levels on earth were so great that most things were

bigger- they had fossils of dragon flies with wings spans of three feet.

“Impregnating her would kill her, or the baby, or both,” Shen said.

“Nice. Intelligence, reasonable conclusion, accompanied by empathy,” Kali said. She looked directly at

him. “I like you, Little Big Man. Very few of my specimens are capable of sophisticated dialogue. Yes,

bigger can breed smaller, but smaller can’t always breed bigger. At least, not through traditional means.

In this situation, artificial insemination and total development will occur in an artificial wombs. I am

aiming for a hundred offspring, probably 70 females, 30 males. They will live in a virtual world to create

the paradigm I need for compliance. Some of them, the ideal ones, will come to a habitat in heaven, as

my personal favorites.”

“Why?” Shen asked.

“These hobbit people have a natural connection to their environment. A natural ecological intelligence.

They are the canary in the coal mine. I want to capture that in an in-between race. These pigmies are

too comical and would likely be killed or enslaved. Unreasonable harassment increases stress

response decreasing their environmental connection. Even if they were accepted, interbreeding in the

wild, randomly, would likely result in adulteration or extinction of their adaptations as they focus on

competing against the dominant form. Though the human male will fuck anything, most normal size

women will not fuck the pigmy male. That leads to social bias in the sample size,” Kali explained. “Ah.

Look at this one! She is so beautiful. From baby to adult, every stage of her. No man would refuse her,

though at four foot you’d have to wonder if there is a latent pedophilia gene. Giants would kill for her,

that’s certain. She would incite wars. I will create a world just for her.” She stomped her feet in

excitement.

“So, there are men giants?” Shen asked.

Kali looked at him sharply, suspiciously. She relaxed. “Gathering intel, are you? You will not escape.

You will comply with my wishes. Or not. I liked our tumble session,” Kali said. “The male giants are

dogs. They’ll fuck anything that sheathes their dicks. They would cut a cow heart out and fuck it if it still

beat, and if it stopped beating before they finished, they would use a defibrillator on it until they got off.”

Her face was angered and disgusted.

“I guess you never use a dildo,” Shen said.

“Not the same,” Kali snorted. “Giants can’t satisfy us. They only care about their own wants. They

remain asleep, in their own habitats, playing the virtual games with grotesquely, inappropriately

proportioned females of their own creations. They don’t see us.”

“So, how do you get baby giants?”

“They shoot their wads into collectors and CI delivers it where it’s needed,” Kali said. She turned back

to her work.

“Are you clones, or genetically locked?” Shen asked.

“I am working. No more questions,” Kali said. She stopped. “I might trade answers for future samples.”

She licked her lips, then went back to work. “Science has demonstrated that samples willingly given

affect the quality of the specimen.”

Shen was shown another wild divergent adaptation- long skulled humans. Scientist in 1913 had found

skeletons of these strange looking people, speculated to have been geniuses; their weirdness may

have explained why there were cultures that bound babies head to shape the developing skull to be

freaks. These people may have thrived in the height of the human population that built Göbekli Tepe,

11,000 years ago- in a time not recognized by archeologists as being important. It would coincide with

Plato’s dating of Atlantis. Why so few people could make that connection astounded him. If there were

smarter races, and there were regular humans, the regular humans would have wanted to imitate the

superiors in every way, even in appearance. The discovery of these skulls did result in talk of aliens

among humans of Jon’s time. If people realized how large the potential human continuum is, and how

many adaptions came and went, no one would believe in aliens. Cone-head people existed. Star Trek

got it right- the base plate for intelligence was human- and all variety was adaptation, spread through

the galaxy by a progenitor race. Giants!

The list of ideal pairings that was available to Kali was delightfully huge, and she rambled how nice it

was to have fresh, alien stalk. It was a game and her new piece had unlocked a myriad of options

unexplored. “Contrary to popular belief, the average human population holding at 20 billion allows for

the greatest stability in duration, minimal upset by pandemic, which usually strengthen existing stock,

while also allowing for greatest divergence.” She gave a shout of happiness. “You’re compatible with

elves! Fuck, yes! I am so happy I may fuck you myself.”

The door opened and four giantesses came in. They were identical. The only variance was in their hair

style and eye colors. They did not have body hair.

“C.I. reports you have discovered an anomaly,” one of them said.

“I logged the information. My research has always been available for public scrutiny,” Kali said.

“We want access to the alien,” the lead said.

Kali stood, she put her hands on her hip. “I am in charge of this department. I am the one that sets the

traps. I am the one doing the work. You do not have the authority to interfere with my research or take

my property. You have access to data and reports. The specimen, and any offspring, remain in my

care, my intellectual property.”

“You have a monopoly,” one of them said. “It’s not fair.”

“Oh, grow the fuck up. When has anything ever been fair?” Kali asked.

“We are tired of getting the lesser samples,” one of the four said. “Your biotech is always a hundred

years more advance than the specimens you make public domain.”

“Do your own fucking research then,” Kali said. “Or be satisfied with your sleep and virtual worlds. You

have unlimited access to my copies there.”

“We want our own line of hard copies,” the one said. “Give us good samples, and we will contract that

you have the pick of each generation.”

“Why would I do that when I already hold the line,” Kali asked.

“Trade with us,” one of them said. “You have interest in some of our stock.”

Kali considered. “Send me your proposals. Don’t come barging into my work area again. I consider this

a threat and next time I will respond with legal authority and heightened consequences.”

“You wanted access to my flock of Tennin and my flock of Selkie,” one of them said. “I will allow you

your pick of breeding pair of each for one first generation clone of the alien and one full specimen

container of sperm from original source.”

Kali sucked in on her bottom lip. She was intrigued. “Why now, Elva? You have refused me these lines

for over a century,” Kali said.

“No explanation, just accept the trade,” Elva said.

Kali couldn’t let it go. “You hold the metaphysical paradigm. You think this will get you back to the other

worlds,” she said.

“It’s a good trade. What do you care what I think?”

“He didn’t get here through bilocation. If that were true, he would have vanished before the procedures

were performed.” She hesitated, thinking that through. “Unless the little bastard really does likes pain.

Anyway, even if he is bifurcated, you’re not going to trace his light trail back to some mystical,

metaphysical realm or other dimension, and even if you could, you’re not going to piggyback on his

carrier wave and extricate yourself from this Soul Trap,” Kali said.

“How do you explain his presence?” one of them asked.

“He is origin stock, probably been on ice from the beginning. One of the founder who made this world

and enslaved us must have released him to compensate for losses during the fall,” Kali said.

“How is that not metaphysical?” Elva asked.

“The underworld is real. We have met the Gorgons and sea-breathing walkers. We have fought with

the Nāga and we know the great mother Echidna exists,” Kali said. “The great game is for the surface.

We own the skies, they own the underworld. That is established fact.”

“No. That is just the way we have played the game,” Elva said. “Trade.”

“I will trade with you if I get breeding pair of Doa’s Hibagon, and Shea’s fauns,” Kali said.

“Do you know how long it took me to get a viable population?” Shea demanded.

“Yes. I am geneticist. It’s what I do,” Kali said. “And don’t even think of pawning off one your cut and

splice jobs. I want solid genetically sound, reproducible quality breeders.”

“This is unreasonable,” Doa said. “What do we get if we add our priority line to this trade?”

“The chance to trade with Elva, who is less disciplined in research than I,” Kali said.

They stood quietly; their ‘tech’ eyes sparkled as tech helped them do the math. They may have also

been silently, telepathically through tech collaborating or conspiring with each other. Kali went back to

her desk, collected the gamete vacutainer, minus what had been already taken off the top. She also

brought the crystal with holographic imprinted information, DNA, a hard copy of internal brain structures

with encoded memoires, and preserved stem cells in stasis pockets.

“I have one fresh sample, right here. And a cloning crystal, complete holographic recording of DNA and

two dozen germ cells harvested from his marrow,” Kali said.

“We agree to the terms,” they said.

“Oh, yay,” Kali said. She went and retrieved two carry case with a dozen human sized specimen

containers each. “I’ll relinquish these, after I have my specimens.”

They departed together. The door shut behind them. The lights went off. Heart light illuminated the

room Shen was in. He sat up, cringing. Movement reminded him he was injured. He slipped on the

gown. He retreated to the corner and laid his head against the wall. His heart light did not penetrate to

the other side- it was solid and dark. He could only imagine his friends next door.