Chapter 19: Learning Curve

Paulie watched the short alien as he dusted himself off and waddled to the table. Their three umber eyes widened and they glanced at Paulie and then the destroyed instrument he had tossed onto the table.

Flurn stated slowly as he answered Paulie’s casual question, “Well. I don’t know actually. You exceeded nearly every single metric the ‘croak-hiss’ was designed to test for. This is actually quite terrifying, human. According to these readings you could crush my bones to powder with your grip strength alone.” They stopped and shuddered again. “What manner of world could breed such monsters?” they seemed to mutter quietly.

Paulie frowned but didn’t comment on it. It would likely just startle the poor doctor again. He pointed to the computer. “What else does it say?”

Flurn glanced between him and Jakiikii. “Well, it says that your muscle density is comprised mainly of slow-twitch fibers. Your body is built for endurance, not power. And yet you still possess such strength, what manner of creature would you be if you..” They stopped themselves and changed the subject. “You are fast when you need to be as I have seen, but tell me.. how far could you run without stopping should the need arise? An hour? More?”

Paulie chuckled at that. “Something you should know, my race are not purely predators. We are omnivores, so we didn’t evolve to hunt like other creatures. But we do call ourselves persistence hunters.”

Jakiikii butted in, “Persistence hunters? What do you mean by this, I have never heard of such a thing.”

He shifted on his stool, a little self conscious to be the center of attention for so long. “Well, we are endurance hunters. Humans have more slow-twitch muscles than most animals on Earth. So we evolved a hunting strategy where we would simply chase prey till they died of extreme fatigue.” The room was silent.

Flurn blurted. “You what?” His beady eyes as wide they could go.

Paulie ducked his head. “Well, this was a long time ago. Tens of thousands of years. Nowadays we usually just order from fast food or go to the store, ya know?”

Jakiikii leaned in closer, close enough that he could hear her slow breathing. “How far could a human run to catch their prey?” Her eyes watched him with an intensity that made him decidedly uncomfortable. Like he was a particularly interesting sample under a microscope.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t remember, twenty-five kilometers maybe? Most people wouldn’t be in that good of shape though. There was this guy that ran over five hundred kilometers without stopping though. I remember reading about them in a world records book when I was younger.“ he offered helpfully, his shoulders shrugging as he tried to remember the half forgotten facts from his youth.

Flurn looked dizzy, Jakiikii a little less so. The way she shifted from foot to foot seemed a little more excited.

“That is impossible.“ Flurn grumbled as he seemed to regain a measure of his previously lost composure.

Paulie shrugged. “And yet, it happened. You should hear about some of the other records my species has broken.” He paused as he looked down at his chest. “Hey, what was that stuff you gave me last night? My wounds are almost completely gone already!”

Flurn nodded. Pointing to the worst of the scarring on his chest the small man asked, “Is there any lingering discomfort? Any noticeable side effects?”

“No. None that I can tell, and it feels great actually!” He nodded. “What do you mean by side effects?”

The small lab coat wearing alien waved a webbed hand in an absentminded manner. “Oh the usual culprits. Nausea, excessively liquidated stool movements, rashes in unfortunate places, the loss of your sense of smell, total pulmonary collapse, rhinorrhea and temporary blindness.” he rattled off in quick succession.

“What is it made out of that it could cause all of that?” He hadn’t understood a few of the terms the man used, but clearly it was far from ideal. “And no, I haven’t noticed any of.. that.”

Jakiikii wandered around the table as the small alien continued speaking, their answer not nearly as helpful as Paulie might have wanted. “It is made from the crushed roots and bark of several ancient medicinal sources. These are concentrated into a purified amino acid amalgam and tailored specifically for your biochemical typing and packed with enough homogenised growth hormone to knock out a full grown jatterwog.” he nodded at that, seemingly pleased with the description given. But all it had done was open up new avenues of questioning for Paulie.

He opened his mouth to ask when he heard a loud growl from his middle. The oniuh froze again, but didn’t pass out from fear this time. Jakiikii’s six bright eyes alighted on him and the woman’s dainty mouth seemed to crack into the semblance of a smile. Her husky voice reached him, “Oh, if you are anything like me then that sounded like your tank is empty. Would you like me to get you something to eat?”

He smiled in return, noticing that his flashing teeth seemed to startle Flurn a little. The alien waddling slightly closer as Paulie answered her. “Oh, yes please, that would be delightful. I think there are some of those nutricubes on the top shelf. I took a peek in there last night while Mack was showing me around.”

He saw her walk away, one of her eyes seeming to linger on him intently as he glanced back towards Flurn. The man had removed another small device from the bag and stepped up towards him before holding it up. “I would like to check your reactions. This device will flash a bright light at you and record your pupil dilation speed and other such factors.” Paulie waved an arm wordlessly and nodded.

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The alien set it on the table and motioned for Paulie to stare at it, which he did intently. It sat there, silently and seemingly inert. He was about to ask Flurn if the damned thing was broken when it suddenly emitted a loud popping sound and flashed brightly. He jerked away as if stung, his eyes snapping shut instinctively as his body reacted to the harsh stimuli.

The oniuh pulled their hands out of the front pockets on their lab coat and moved towards the device. “Marvelous, I scarcely even saw your movements. You may be even faster than a riiken, now there’s a thought.” They seemed to waddle back to their flat computer for results when a hand tapped on his bare shoulder.

He turned halfway and saw that Jakiikii had grabbed several of the off white cubes and placed them into a drinking glass. He cocked his head at that as he fished one out. “Thanks Jakiikii. Er, what’s with the cup though?”

She seemed to flash that pale white again, he was starting to recognise it as some manner of emotional response. “Well.. I, uh. I wasn’t sure what kind of dish you eat them with and so I just grabbed what I would have used. Was it the wrong thing?” She seemed genuinely concerned with her choice of dining equipment and so he was quick to reassure the flustered termaxxi.

“Nonono. It’s fine, just a little odd I will admit. What do you mean a dish you would use? You eat out of cups?”

She hesitated and then took a little step back and opened her mouth before something far longer than he would have imagined possible curled from her mouth. He was a little shocked, at first he took it for a tongue. But as more and more of it slipped from her mouth he realised that he was incorrect. The strange organ was lightly tapered and about the same color as bubblegum and seemed to be quite dexterous. As a full forty-five or so centimeters of the strange organ slipped from her slit-like mouth he looked from it to her face, the unspoken question died on his lips.

She seemed to chuckle again, her ability to speak with the long tongue thing sticking from her maw was at once unsettling and mystifying. “You look surprised, you don’t have nectarivores on your world? Surely you must have at least a few.” She seemed to suck the proboscis back into her mouth like he would have slurped up a strand of spaghetti noodles.

He blinked as he watched the display. “You.. nectarivore? Like.. you drink nectar? From flowers?”

She nodded. “Yes, evolutionarily at least. But nowadays I am like you. I generally go to a food stop or a market to get something tasty to drink. Like a slushice or an argonated juice.” She said in such a matter-of-fact way that he was given no choice but to believe her.

He popped another of the food cubes into his mouth, her eyes watching him as he chewed. “So no wonder you don’t speak with your mouth. You have all of..” He gestured at her face. “..that in there. It would be like trying to talk through a mouthful of food.” he said, a bit of nutricube spraying from his mouth as if to illustrate his point and he covered his mouth with a free hand before blushing in mild embarrassment.

She giggled and did that little side to side shuffle he had noted earlier. It must be an involuntary display of delight he decided. “Yeah. A bit.”

Flurn chose that moment to butt in. “If you are quite done flaunting your assets at each other, I have a few more tests to run.” Paulie sobered up and turned back to the man. A little annoyed by all the poking and prodding. The oniuh doctor rummaged around in their pack and then pointed a small remote at him. “Alrighty. We checked general strength and reflexes. Now I need to check your vital status, immune response and log your specific genetics. To determine if you need any kind of flash-gene therapy.”

Paulie mouthed silently at Jakiikii, ‘Flash-gene therapy?’ Of course she had no idea what he was trying to say as he was mouthing in English. Not termaxxi or yuuvian or whatever language the aliens were actually speaking.

So in response she just shrugged and gestured towards Flurn. He cleared his throat. “What is flash-gene therapy?”

Flurn turned to look him over, beady brown eyes blinking in the relative gloom. “Oh, you have no equivalent on your planet? You must have some basic understanding of genetics and gene therapy though. You mentioned that your people had discovered atomic energy over two-hundred years ago.”

Paulie corrected, “Eighty years, well. Earth years anyway. Two hundred of your years. And yea, we understand a bit about genetics. But not enough to manipulate them for medical reasons, at least not outside of embryos. Are you saying you can edit my genes right now? As an adult?”

Jakiikii seemed to titter as the man let out a huff. “Oh, no.. tell me human..”

“Paulie.” He said flatly.

“Pawly.” Flurn said in some manner of horrid gurgling accent that his jargon-worm apparently didn’t even attempt to translate. “Do your people still suffer from ailments such as cancers, birth defects and hereditary conditions?”

There was a long pause after the question. Paulie wasn’t really comfortable with the topic, he had lost somebody close to cancer only a few years ago and still hadn’t really gotten over it. Had not let himself get over it. He cast his gaze down and just nodded, not trusting himself to speak as a tear formed in his eye at the memory of the one he lost.

Flurn seemed a bit taken aback by his reaction at first, “What is wrong with your eyes?” The diminutive alien asked, their eyes blinking in succession as they turned towards him fully.

Paulie waved a hand as he held it together. Pushing the pain deep down inside of him like he had gotten used to doing. He coughed, “I’m fine. Just.. something went down the wrong pipe I think.” Flurn nodded but Jakiikii seemed unconvinced. Five of her bright orange eyes gazing at him with something akin to curiosity or perhaps worry.

Flurn checked his screen again. “Well, you don’t seem to be afflicted by any obvious maladies. Though you do seem to have some slight hereditary predisposition to so many minor ailments I am surprised. How on Gike have your people made it this far without gene editing medicine?” he seemed to shake his head as he thumbed a few of the buttons on the small remote.

The termaxxi turned and walked slowly towards the large simulation screen as Paulie was once more assaulted by the instrument wielding oniuh doctor. Paulie put up his hands as Flurn approached with another strange device that looked like somebody had taken a pocket sized disco-ball and glued green cheezit crackers to it.

He asked warily, “Uh, what the hell is that?”

Flurn paused and then shrugged. “You got me. I don’t remember what this is called, the boys back at the station just call it the discombobulator. But I think the name is a bit prehistoric. But I suppose it fits in a way.” He reached it out towards him and Paulie flinched back.

“W-wait! What does it do?” He asked, not at all wanting to find out from first hand experience.

Flurn seemed to pause before coming to a mental decision. “Well, usually it probes the subconscious mind of the individual causing mild mental confusion for a minute or two. But on a being such as yourself, I am not sure the effect it will have. So I would ask that you try to clear your mind before the procedure.”

Paulie swallowed. “I guess. Does it hurt?”

Jakiikii spoke up encouragingly. “It shouldn't.”

He gave the doctor a nod and scooted closer to the table as Flurn set the strange object down in front of him. He muttered as he tapped at the screen of the medical display and then nodded. “Well, here goes..”

He pressed a button on the device and Paulie’s vision seemed to explode into a vista of multicolored sparks as the boundaries of time and space appeared to fizz away from him as water might run from a heated metal plate. The light twisted and moved like a living thing before the discordant colors seemed to meld into a single glowing yellow orb like the sun.

He tried to shield his eyes, but he had no hands. He tried to shout in alarm, but he had no mouth. He wanted to flee but he had no body, no muscles, no bones. He was totally and uncompromising alone in that strange stinging brightness and so he did the only thing he could. He stared at the orb.

His consciousness shuddered as the orb turned, a great black spot opening on the surface as it seemed to look back towards him coldly. It looked through him and he heard a voice in his mind, great and terrible like unto the sound of infinity itself.

BEGONE.. WORM..

Paulie would have gasped had he the lungs to do so, and he felt as though he was falling. He fell for what felt like forever before his conscious mind seemed to slam back into his body with enough force to shock him back to wakefulness. His eyes flashed open and he lurched back as he lost his balance on the stool before he fell off it backwards with a shout. His arms flailed before he hit the carpeted floor and his head rebounded off the hard ground.

His vision blacked out.