and very widespread. Maybe she had better think again about the checkpoint regarding social structure... Nah. Mud-based societies wouldn’t need to be complex.
Ocean surveys! Borgs couldn’t be on multiple continents unless they could cross the ocean somehow! Maybe they could swim! One looked at a floating Borg ought to be enough to get her off the hook. The Scout ships had sent a few lifeboats down briefly to float on the ocean surface and film the shallower sea bottoms.
She accessed the marine videos hopefully. Her heart sunk again. Borgs might be swimming in there but she had no way of knowing which of the floating multitude of shapes represented a Borg. She scanned through several of the videos disheartened, and then suddenly clicked the replay button. A small group of ‘eels’ darted past to hiding places in the sand. Worms? What was that on the ocean floor? A sinkhole?
Her eyes glinted as she ran back through several of the videos, her attention now directed towards the rocky bottom. Regularly spaced sinkholes rewarded her search.
“Blast it!” she said out loud, then muttered more lurid phrases under her breath. The ugly creeps must realize how ugly they are, she decided. They hid from sight even under the ocean. How the blazes was she supposed to get a look at one?
A heated sense of desperation floated beneath her thin veneer of devotion to research. She could see months or years of work ahead of her, with no promise of recognition for any of it. A small hope was being seeded, however, that just maybe these creatures were a unique species. Still, if they weren’t...she muttered to herself again, something she had been doing a lot of. If only she could identify some characteristic that would fit some of these monsters into somebody else’s niche now, before she had wasted too much time on them.
Were these things intelligent? Or just well adapted potato heads? External morphology ought to give her some sort of clue.
She risked a quick look again at the one good shot of the large black mud beast. It was every bit as grotesque as she remembered. Borg had been caught aboveground only for a moment. The worms stuck out of his mouth like lively spaghetti, with a greenish yellow sauce. And the beast was a sloppy eater.
She almost threw up again. “Damn,” she said out loud.
“What’s the matter?” asked Camille.
“How am I supposed to study a species when even looking at it makes me sick? Goddamn Scuzzhogs!”
Camille absorbed Imelda’s language calmly. She had been sitting at her study console next to Imelda’s for the entire shift. She was getting used to her speech pattern.
“Scuzzhog? Is that what you’re going to call Borg?”
“You’re damn right I am. We’re supposed to choose a name that characterizes the species, aren’t we? Well, I have determined their character. From henceforth they will be phylum Guzzlewormea, order Scuzzporcino. That big black bastard there will represent Scuzzporcino humongous aceospadus. I’ll come up with names for the rest of the species if and when I ever get a chance to see them, not that I particularly care to, mind you.”
Camille raised her eyebrows. “Dr. Caldwell won’t approve.”
“Well they certainly don’t deserve the name cutesy fuzzball.”
“I don’t think Dr. Caldwell had in mind terms quite so graphic. Perhaps there is some other feature you could incorporate into their classification.”
Imelda grunted. “I suppose I could use the designation ‘Lookfast blackblob.’“
Camille grimaced. “Maybe you had better wait awhile before assigning them a name.”
Imelda shook her head. “Scuzzhogs they are, and scuzzhogs they will be. I wonder if all the different varieties eat those scuzzy little worms?”
Camille shrugged. “Upon such questions Pauling prizes are born. Good luck on finding out.”
Pauling prizes indeed. Only dead
Ocean surveys! Borgs couldn’t be on multiple continents unless they could cross the ocean somehow! Maybe they could swim! One looked at a floating Borg ought to be enough to get her off the hook. The Scout ships had sent a few lifeboats down briefly to float on the ocean surface and film the shallower sea bottoms.
She accessed the marine videos hopefully. Her heart sunk again. Borgs might be swimming in there but she had no way of knowing which of the floating multitude of shapes represented a Borg. She scanned through several of the videos disheartened, and then suddenly clicked the replay button. A small group of ‘eels’ darted past to hiding places in the sand. Worms? What was that on the ocean floor? A sinkhole?
Her eyes glinted as she ran back through several of the videos, her attention now directed towards the rocky bottom. Regularly spaced sinkholes rewarded her search.
“Blast it!” she said out loud, then muttered more lurid phrases under her breath. The ugly creeps must realize how ugly they are, she decided. They hid from sight even under the ocean. How the blazes was she supposed to get a look at one?
A heated sense of desperation floated beneath her thin veneer of devotion to research. She could see months or years of work ahead of her, with no promise of recognition for any of it. A small hope was being seeded, however, that just maybe these creatures were a unique species. Still, if they weren’t...she muttered to herself again, something she had been doing a lot of. If only she could identify some characteristic that would fit some of these monsters into somebody else’s niche now, before she had wasted too much time on them.
Were these things intelligent? Or just well adapted potato heads? External morphology ought to give her some sort of clue.
She risked a quick look again at the one good shot of the large black mud beast. It was every bit as grotesque as she remembered. Borg had been caught aboveground only for a moment. The worms stuck out of his mouth like lively spaghetti, with a greenish yellow sauce. And the beast was a sloppy eater.
She almost threw up again. “Damn,” she said out loud.
“What’s the matter?” asked Camille.
“How am I supposed to study a species when even looking at it makes me sick? Goddamn Scuzzhogs!”
Camille absorbed Imelda’s language calmly. She had been sitting at her study console next to Imelda’s for the entire shift. She was getting used to her speech pattern.
“Scuzzhog? Is that what you’re going to call Borg?”
“You’re damn right I am. We’re supposed to choose a name that characterizes the species, aren’t we? Well, I have determined their character. From henceforth they will be phylum Guzzlewormea, order Scuzzporcino. That big black bastard there will represent Scuzzporcino humongous aceospadus. I’ll come up with names for the rest of the species if and when I ever get a chance to see them, not that I particularly care to, mind you.”
Camille raised her eyebrows. “Dr. Caldwell won’t approve.”
“Well they certainly don’t deserve the name cutesy fuzzball.”
“I don’t think Dr. Caldwell had in mind terms quite so graphic. Perhaps there is some other feature you could incorporate into their classification.”
Imelda grunted. “I suppose I could use the designation ‘Lookfast blackblob.’“
Camille grimaced. “Maybe you had better wait awhile before assigning them a name.”
Imelda shook her head. “Scuzzhogs they are, and scuzzhogs they will be. I wonder if all the different varieties eat those scuzzy little worms?”
Camille shrugged. “Upon such questions Pauling prizes are born. Good luck on finding out.”
Pauling prizes indeed. Only dead
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