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3 - Pulmonoscorpius Symensis

* * *

Suni

I’d only known Rupert for about a month, but in that time, he’d been perfectly consistent. He was lethargic in nature and docile in temperament. He tended toward curious and was a strict early riser. He woke an hour before dawn every day, at which point he’d howl as loud as he could, declaring his presence to anyone listening. Rupert was, of course, a Lekarsian red howler monkey. And at this particular moment, he was trying to steal the egg from my lunch.

“Rupert... ” I said, letting a bit of a scold creep into my tone. “That’s not your food. Hey!” I clapped my hands and he startled, then leapt from the windowsill and into the nearby tree. His prehensile tail wrapped around a branch, steadying his balance so he could turn to give me an accusatory look.

“It’s bad enough we let you on the windowsill, but you can’t associate people with food,” I reminded him. He couldn’t understand my words, surely, but could he understand facial expressions? Body language? I wasn’t sure. The most recent studies into primate intelligence had yielded interesting results, but since coming to Lekarsos I hadn’t been able to get updates on, well, much of anything. One of the downsides of taking an apprenticeship this far from the capital. That being said, the upside was worth it.

I looked past Rupert, over the wall of the Lekarsos campus of the Imperial College, and out to the lush vegetation that covered the isthmus. It was a naturalist’s dream. Untamed, undisturbed, and almost entirely undiscovered. The sheer diversity of ecosystems was overwhelming, to say nothing of the miraculous fauna that inhabited them. And then there was the flora. It would take a lifetime just to complete an introductory survey of the most common species. Another two or three to research their properties, medicinal and otherwise. It was all overwhelming in the best possible way.

The Lekarsos campus of the Imperial College was far from extravagant. It was the largest building in the town, but that said more about Lekarsos than it did the college. The main campus building was a hulking, three-story thing, surrounded by smaller outbuildings, most of which were laboratoriums. All of them had properly tiled roofs, unlike the palm-thatched buildings in town.

The room I was in now was my preferred working spot. We called it the study, but really it was a mix between library and work space, which served as a lounge by night. Being up on the second floor, it had tall windows on all sides and they were open to let in the sounds of rustling leaves and, if I was lucky, a cooling breeze. There weren’t many of those in Lekarsos, though. Wind moved from cool areas to warm, which typically meant off of the sea and onto land. But considering the year-round warmth of the waters of the Carritaenean, its breezes were far from cooling.

I wiped a trickle of sweat from my forehead before it could soil the pages of my field journal, then looked over at Rupert. He was still on his branch, chewing on a leaf now, though clearly annoyed it wasn’t a hard-boiled egg.

“Pout all you want, but I still have to finish my sketch.” I held the tip of my reservoir quill just above the page, then focused on Rupert. The red howler monkeys of Lekarsos were primarily differentiated from those of the old world by the lack of a prominent hyoidean bone structure. It meant their throats were more recessed, less jutted and bowl-shaped than those of the common howler monkey. Didn’t make them any less loud, though. Rupert’s pre-dawn howling made for an effective alarm clock.

I touched the reservoir quill to the page and thickened the lines along the bottom of my drawing. If my sketches were ever going to be good enough to grace the pages of an official field report then I was going to need more practice. The lack of a distinct hyoidean bone structure in Lekarsian red howler monkeys needed to be clearly depicted.

After that, it’d be down to the east laboratorium to sort and label the samples of allergenic toxicodendrons Professor Symeos had collected. The townsfolk had been complaining endlessly about the rashes caused by the plants, so identifying them was the first step toward removing the worst offenders from heavily trafficked areas.

Once those were all labeled, it’d be on to feed the swallowing plant, and if there was time left in the day, I’d get a bit of reading in after supper. Professor Symeos was an avid naturalist, and the first to conduct field research in the Far Wild. His unrestrained enthusiasm for the natural world had led him to a five-decade career, during which he’d studied the most extreme habitats across the empire. Some had said it was time he retired. In response, he’d moved to Lekarsos, established this branch of the college, and penned, to date, fifty-four studies on the environs and animals of the Far Wild. Catching up on all of them was a prerequisite before moving further along the academic side of my apprenticeship. But first, finishing the sketch. I touched my quill to the page and drew a careful stroke.

A shrieking hiss tore through the room and my hand jerked, scoring a fat, ink-filled line through my hand-drawn Rupert.

“What in the world!” I looked for Rupert, expecting to find him tugging the tail of an ocelot again, but he was innocent this time. And that hiss had been far too loud to come from one of the minute jungle cats that lazed around the town.

“Hey, now. There’s no call for that. Don’t be impolite.”

Someone was talking down in the courtyard. A man I didn’t recognize, with curly black hair and a wagon at his back. A wagon that, on closer inspection, was filled by...

“Oh my goodness. Where did that... How could he have... ?”

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Professor Symeos ran out to greet the newcomer, then shook his hand with an excitement visible even from all the way up in the study. I bolted from my chair, snapping my field journal closed and tucking it into a pocket as I took the stairs two at a time. I missed the last step and the world spun as I hit the floor hard and slid a pace. My hip complained but there wasn’t time to worry about it. I scrambled up and was out the front door in the next breath.

“My ancestors but she’s a wonder, ain’t she?” Professor Symeos was saying, staring into the wagon. He clucked his tongue in appreciation and turned to the newcomer. “Thank the ancestors you didn’t take her to the trading post! They would’ve just murdered the poor girl. We’ll always outpay them for any live specimens you can bring in.”

“Collect the bounty from the trading post? Oh, I would never,” the newcomer said. He pressed a hand to his chest as a look of concern spread across his face. “I couldn’t abide the needless slaying of an innocent creature.”

“Good man.” The professor laughed and clapped a leathery hand down on his shoulder. “Here, step inside and we’ll get you paid.”

“With pleasure. Marcos, see to the beast.” A coin purse jingled loudly at the newcomer’s hip as he shouted over his shoulder, then strode into the college.

“The hell does that mean?” Marcos shouted after him.

“I can help. Uh, Suni Koudounas, at your service,” I said, but my eyes were already looking past the laborers, fixed on the creature. Up close it was even easier to identify it. My breath caught in my chest as I stared. I’d read about these in one of Professor Symeos’ reports, but to see one in the flesh?

Pulmonoscorpius symensis was the official name Professor Symeos had chosen when he’d first described the creature two years ago. The common name was “lung scorpion.” Or, as the superstitious townsfolk had named them, “impalers.” This one looked to be one and a quarter, maybe one and a half meters long. A good size for an adolescent!

The lung scorpion was all too true to its name as it let out another roaring hiss, but it was tightly bound: legs, pincers, and stinger secured such that they could barely move. Nonetheless, the creature was struggling. And hurting itself. Hairline cracks had formed in its exoskeleton where the ropes were tied tightest.

“We need to get those ropes off,” I declared, moving in among the laborers. They froze, then turned as one to stare at me. The scorpion continued to squirm and hiss.

“Once it’s in the cage, I mean. Obviously. Over here.” I led them toward the stables. Lekarsos was too small to have any use of horses so we’d converted the building into a holding pen for all sorts of specimens.

“Oh, and steer clear of the swallowing plant,” I said, guiding the laborers wide of the fence surrounding the pit. Nonetheless, several of the men swallowed hard as they peered down into it.

“The hell are you people even doing here?” Marcos asked. “What you want with monsters like this and... ” He nodded to the pit. “Like that?”

“To study them. And they’re not monsters, they’re animals.”

“These bookish sorts aren’t but a waste of space,” another laborer muttered to the rest. “Their sort don’t belong out here. Ain’t cut out for survival.”

I felt my cheeks go hot at that and searched for the one who’d spoken, but when I met his eyes, I winced and looked away.

“The college’s charter explicitly reserves us a plot of land in every colony and a spot on all expeditions,” I said, speaking to the ground and hating myself for it. “How else are we supposed to further our understanding of the world around—”

“Yeah, yeah. Charter this, charter that. Talk to me again when you actually contribute something out here, eh?” Marcos grunted. “Now where do we put this cursed thing?”

One of the scorpion’s legs came free and kicked a laborer in the head, knocking him over. There was a scramble as the rest of the men got it secured again, then eased the beast into the biggest cage in the stables. It was an entire horse pen that we’d reinforced with steel bars.

Once the scorpion was inside, the men backed out quickly. The last came with the end of a rope in his grip. He handed it to me, then followed his companions in hurrying from the stables. I watched them for a moment, anger in my chest. Just because they didn’t understand our role here didn’t mean it was okay to belittle it. It’s not your fight, I lied to myself. Focus on what you can fix.

I turned back to the scorpion. It was still bound, but I gave the rope a pull and the knots tied around it came loose. All at once legs and pincers and one good-sized stinger were freed. I backed away, even though I couldn’t help but admire the creature.

It was beautiful. A masterpiece of a predator. How had the laborers caught it? Some elaborate trap, surely? I wanted to ask them before they left but I could do without more ridicule.

“Oh, she’s a beaut, ain’t she?” Professor Symeos was striding into the stables. The wrinkles on his face were deepened by the smile stretching across his features.

“You can tell it’s a she?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. Though the scorpions can be a tricky bunch.” He reached the front of the cage, then leaned in a bit closer. “Here, have a look at this. See those little protrusions on the bottom of the abdomen? Those are pectines. I suspect they serve some function related to sensing prey? Either way, they’re much larger on males. These are quite small.”

I focused for a better view, but the scorpion was curled up in the back of the cage now. Panicked and scared, no doubt. Poor thing. She’d had a crazy day.

“We’ll need to get her some dirt and foliage. Something to make her more at home until we can release her back where she came from, beyond Deadman’s Door,” I said, thoughts reeling. “This is just too good to be true! How did they capture her?”

The professor laughed at that. “The bloke that brought her in said he wrestled her all by himself. Tall tale if you ask me. She’d have given him more than his fill, I’m sure.”

“Wrestled her all by himself? Sure, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes, then stood up straight. “Where’s Kamil? He’s going to love this.” Professor Symeos was the head naturalist in Lekarsos, but Kamil had been his first apprentice. Now he was a full-fledged naturalist himself and helped Symeos with my apprenticeship. He was like the brother I’d never had.

“Kamil? Why, he’s seeing to the skyship. How could you forget?”

Oh. Oh, of course. The expedition!

“Wait. If Kamil and I leave in the morning... ” I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the skyship fields, then turned back to the scorpion longingly. “We won’t have any time to study her.”

“Marvelous a girl as she is, your first expedition is more important, Suni.” Professor Symeos was digging around in his bag for something. “You’ve been waiting for how long now?”

“Six months,” I said with a sigh. “Since my first day in Lekarsos.”

“Right.” He pulled his field journal from the bag and crouched in front of the cage. “I guess we better get studying, then. Make the most of this time with our beautiful Pulmonoscorpius symensis while we can?” He looked over at me, that familiar light of excitement in his eyes. “And tomorrow, you’ll set out on an expedition to see wonders far more magnificent.”