how poorly this one did on the intelligence tests.”
“Well, it has been under considerable stress, sir. I didn’t do well on exams either after a night out on the town.”
“No, no, no, Fogel! This one was bred to have a low order of intellect. But our goal here is not to make friends or pets of the damned things, it’s to find out what makes them tick and then use that against them. Look, prepare it for another gastrointestinal probe, will you. Feed it first and set the monitors to work their way through its system in twenty-four hours.”
“Again? The damned thing will start that screaming all over, boss!”
“Yes, again! If your ears are too sensitive, go outside. I don’t care if they hurt the thing or not; they won’t kill it.”
“There was considerable blood in its stool last time, Doctor.”
“Set it up, Fogel! Now, dammit. I want to do another analysis of its stomach acids and its fecal material. Its digestive system is almost like our own, truly amazing, and I want to pin that down, Fogel, pin it right down. Analysis, analysis, analysis, Fogel! Facts and figures, man. We are on the verge of a tremendous breakthrough here. Well, get to it, man, get to it!”
Gobels had not taken Moses to Fargo and Universal Labs. He did not even report that he had found Moses. He returned to Earth on his own, to a small town known as Wellfordsville in the hills of what had been the state of Virginia during the age of the United States. There he had his own laboratory. It was where he planned to conduct his examination in his own time and in his own way.
The first thing Gobels did was to view a series of trids taken by combat reporters embedded with the Confederation forces during the war on Kingdom. He compared the physical features of adult Skinks with those displayed by Moses. “Compare the teeth.” He pointed them out to Fogel. “See how sharp they are on the adults but those on our specimen are closer in form to our own. Pointed, yes, but still very much like our own. They’ve been dentified on the adults, not bred that way but fixed some time after birth. Extraordinary! It has a fourchambered heart and pituitarylike glands in the brain that regulate its body temperature, like the mammals of Earth. We’ve compared voice patterns from the sound on the vids to the voice of our own Skink. His is not as harsh and guttural as those of the adults, but that’s probably because it’s not fully mature yet.”
“Yes, and language analysis has identified fricatives very much like those of human speech,” Fogel pointed out. “We need to subject them to analysis by an expert.”
Gobels shrugged. “Not of interest to me, Fogel. We aren’t trying to communicate with the bastards, only finding out how best to kill them.”
“I think the Marines know how to do that already,” Fogel said drily.
“Not just shoot them up, Fogel, but wipe them out as a species before they wipe us out! Damn, you’ve got to think big!
Now, look at this”—he produced a printout of Moses’s blood analysis—“these fatty oils in the blood. Something very strange, very unnatural about these oils, Fogel. Perhaps they aid in maintaining body temperature, but they’re highly volatile. When the creatures are struck with any kind of flame—and poof ! That’s why we haven’t been able to recover a dead one from the battlefield! Brilliant! Amazing! The thought that has gone into
engineering these creatures.” Gobels shook his head. “We’re dealing with scientific geniuses here, Fogel, no doubt about it!
And look at the gill slits along the lateral sides of the thorax. They’re vestigial, but with a minor surgical operation they can be altered so the things can breathe underwater! Truly amazing!
Fogel, we’ve only scratched the surface here. In a couple of days I’ll have the results of some definitive tests I’ve been running and then we’ll have a complete picture of what this thing is made of!”
“Do you think
“Well, it has been under considerable stress, sir. I didn’t do well on exams either after a night out on the town.”
“No, no, no, Fogel! This one was bred to have a low order of intellect. But our goal here is not to make friends or pets of the damned things, it’s to find out what makes them tick and then use that against them. Look, prepare it for another gastrointestinal probe, will you. Feed it first and set the monitors to work their way through its system in twenty-four hours.”
“Again? The damned thing will start that screaming all over, boss!”
“Yes, again! If your ears are too sensitive, go outside. I don’t care if they hurt the thing or not; they won’t kill it.”
“There was considerable blood in its stool last time, Doctor.”
“Set it up, Fogel! Now, dammit. I want to do another analysis of its stomach acids and its fecal material. Its digestive system is almost like our own, truly amazing, and I want to pin that down, Fogel, pin it right down. Analysis, analysis, analysis, Fogel! Facts and figures, man. We are on the verge of a tremendous breakthrough here. Well, get to it, man, get to it!”
Gobels had not taken Moses to Fargo and Universal Labs. He did not even report that he had found Moses. He returned to Earth on his own, to a small town known as Wellfordsville in the hills of what had been the state of Virginia during the age of the United States. There he had his own laboratory. It was where he planned to conduct his examination in his own time and in his own way.
The first thing Gobels did was to view a series of trids taken by combat reporters embedded with the Confederation forces during the war on Kingdom. He compared the physical features of adult Skinks with those displayed by Moses. “Compare the teeth.” He pointed them out to Fogel. “See how sharp they are on the adults but those on our specimen are closer in form to our own. Pointed, yes, but still very much like our own. They’ve been dentified on the adults, not bred that way but fixed some time after birth. Extraordinary! It has a fourchambered heart and pituitarylike glands in the brain that regulate its body temperature, like the mammals of Earth. We’ve compared voice patterns from the sound on the vids to the voice of our own Skink. His is not as harsh and guttural as those of the adults, but that’s probably because it’s not fully mature yet.”
“Yes, and language analysis has identified fricatives very much like those of human speech,” Fogel pointed out. “We need to subject them to analysis by an expert.”
Gobels shrugged. “Not of interest to me, Fogel. We aren’t trying to communicate with the bastards, only finding out how best to kill them.”
“I think the Marines know how to do that already,” Fogel said drily.
“Not just shoot them up, Fogel, but wipe them out as a species before they wipe us out! Damn, you’ve got to think big!
Now, look at this”—he produced a printout of Moses’s blood analysis—“these fatty oils in the blood. Something very strange, very unnatural about these oils, Fogel. Perhaps they aid in maintaining body temperature, but they’re highly volatile. When the creatures are struck with any kind of flame—and poof ! That’s why we haven’t been able to recover a dead one from the battlefield! Brilliant! Amazing! The thought that has gone into
engineering these creatures.” Gobels shook his head. “We’re dealing with scientific geniuses here, Fogel, no doubt about it!
And look at the gill slits along the lateral sides of the thorax. They’re vestigial, but with a minor surgical operation they can be altered so the things can breathe underwater! Truly amazing!
Fogel, we’ve only scratched the surface here. In a couple of days I’ll have the results of some definitive tests I’ve been running and then we’ll have a complete picture of what this thing is made of!”
“Do you think
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