Memory transcription subject: Captain Sovlin, United Nations Fleet Command
Date [standardized human time]: March 26, 2137
The captured Kolshian sentry led us up several flights of stairs, after the UN soldiers rejected taking the elevator, and I waited with unease for a trap to show itself. There was only a modest room where an elderly Kolshian, with baby blue skin and a pompous air about him, waited. The figure claiming to be Maronis gestured to the seats, an offer Tyler accepted after some hesitation. I plopped down next to the blond human, while a skeptical-looking Aucel found a chair next to me. Onlookers from the UN and Kolshian dissenters packed into the room, ready to bring the Commonwealth leader into custody. Would he be wise enough to surrender?
Maronis leaned forward. “Well, humans, before you say a word, let me answer the obvious question. I’m Chief Maronis, the successor to Nikonus, but unlike him, I don’t paint a target on my back. I’ve tried to operate from the shadows, and everything I’ve done has been to crush dissent and ensure the continuance of our work. I don’t know if your kind can understand, but you simply must.”
“I understand you’ve built quite the underground city here. How many residents?” Tyler prompted.
“Millions in this city alone. This is the…shadow capital, a mirror to what you see aboveground, but there are other residences beneath our cities with separate entrances; you could find your way to one of them by bullet train. Much of our space was devoted toward the shadow fleet, before your breed destroyed it. I don’t know what I hope for from this conversation. I believe you do care about your friends, so maybe if you realize that you’re exposing them to tremendous harm, you’ll do the right thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll explain everything. I can see several of my own citizens are curious to find out why we needed to protect them from predators. Let me start by directing a question at your off-world Gojid friend. Captain Sovlin, how would you feel, knowing you and any other herbivore who’s interacted with humans could wither from the inside out? That your mental faculties could vanish in an instant, years later?”
I waved my claws dismissively. “I’d feel nothing, because it’s not true. Predator contamination is a lie, Maronis. Everything the Federation taught is wrong; the humans aren’t a disease.”
“Don’t sound so convinced. You came here to ask why we began taking action against predators. I intend to tell you the full story, and after I do, we’ll see if you still want to be sitting right next to one of those things. A disease is precisely what they are, and I’ll lay out a scientific accounting for why that is true. You cannot argue with a mountain of evidence.”
“Not unless you’re the Federation,” Samanatha sneered. “Did some animal rot after it died, and you’re convinced it’s tainted?”
“No. It was much worse than that. The Kolshian race was placed in immense peril, by the filth that festers in a predator’s fluids. And in the humans’ defense…I don’t think they realize what they’re doing.”
Was Maronis really trying to sell this tired argument of predator exposure giving us predator disease? Terran therapists had shown that mental conditions were more complex, as were the actual neurological causes behind them. It was fear-mongering to allude that I’d show “signs” in a nonspecific amount of years. While we hadn’t known the Earthlings long enough to disprove that, they’d not passed any ill effects to the prey animals on their blue marble. I leaned back in contempt, though I noticed Aucel scooting her chair further away from the humans. She wouldn’t take much convincing to believe that the primates were an infectious threat, given her instinctual disgust to them.
I am curious what scientific account Maronis thinks he can string together; he does sound like he believes it himself, just like Nikonus did. I do want to know what pushed Aafa down the path of causing so much harm to hundreds of sapient species.
Whatever the truth was, it could be as simple as one predator being a carrier for many diseases, and the Commonwealth applying that logic to anything that ate flesh. Even if it were true about humans, we knew that alien diseases didn’t cross the species threshold, due to differences in biology. I was at a loss, conjuring my own explanations; it seemed my Terran companions were mystified too. Tyler confirmed that his helmet camera was rolling, fully intending to capture every word the Kolshian said on video. He rested his elbows on the table, sensing that juicy information was about to flow.
The blond human’s expression was hidden beneath his mask. “Speak. Tell us everything, from the very beginning. How the shadow caste came to be is our business.”
“Well, it started with a string of mysterious deaths, decades before we made first contact with the Farsul. The strange disease was 100% lethal and unresponsive to our medicines, so if symptoms showed, it was a death sentence.” Maronis pulled up a series of mass graveyards, and ghastly images of sickly Kolshians. “They would lose their memory and their sensibilities, resulting in aggression and delusion. At first, the plague didn’t seem to be transmissible from person-to-person, so we didn’t quarantine victims with…a strict enough tentacle. It was only years later that the people who had contact started showing symptoms.”
“That’s a long-ass incubation period,” Sam commented.
“Indeed. There wouldn’t be a trace of any microbial agents in their tissue, and yet their brains were rapidly and positively ravaged. Once we clued in to the staggering delay in symptom onset, scientists were able to piece together the origin; stories from years before the first victims, where a local predator called the tarani went off the deep end, and started dropping dead in the wild. Select other animals in the ecosystem, to a lesser degree, had also begun to decay. We established a link between the increased predator activity, and the deaths that had plagued us.”
Tyler recoiled in confusion. “I don’t understand. How’d the Kolshians get infected to begin with…how’s it spread? Y’all roamed the wilds enough for a plague to pop off?”
“We didn’t know what the contaminant was, and we still don’t. What we’re certain of is that it contaminated the soil and the water, because victims were linked to nearby water mains and food shipments from the tarani plague’s epicenter. That’s why we can tell you scientifically that contact with predators and their byproducts leads to an irreversible decline. We called the disease The Hunger, and the entire government banded together to nip it in the bud.”
“The Hunger,” I murmured. “That’s what you called the humans’ vitamin deficiency in the Archives.”
“Now, you understand…and you’ll understand how everything we’ve done has been to stop this scourge from ever showing its face. I’ll address the human element after I’ve laid the groundwork, so there’s no seeds of doubt. But to grasp where the shadow caste came from—I hope our citizens can understand what we’re protecting them from—you have to know how we stopped the spread of the disease.”
Samantha groaned. “Let me guess. Burn everything?”
“Actually, yes. Fire seemed to be the only thing that could cleanse away the contaminants.”
While Chief Maronis searched up new images of the disease control efforts, I considered what I had just learned. The humans weren’t reacting with enough concern toward this invisible plague that only showed the tendrils of its infection after years; the photographs that the Kolshian chieftain was displaying seemed like genuine historical documents. Had the Terrans not warned us about the risk of them spreading The Hunger, for fear it’d push us away? Perhaps they had a cure in the form of this B12 vitamin, but I didn’t understand why the transmissible agent didn’t show on any tests. Aucel looked more petrified than I was, with her extended contact with my friends today.
Maybe predator disease can be caused by other factors than an infectious agent, but the Kolshians were right about microbes being one cause. I just find it difficult to believe the caring humans would put the Venlil at risk like that; I’ve seen firsthand how empathetic and protective they are toward their friends. Surely they would have warned Governor Tarva…except Maronis claims they’re unaware?
The Chief pulled up dated clips of Kolshian exterminators in full body suits, which had complex air filters atop the standard getup. I could see them burning the sickly corpses of curved-fang predators, and in some cases, living specimens that showed symptoms of the disease. In later timestamps, they had set out to wipe the tarani out entirely, even ones that hadn’t presented with signs yet. The most horrifying footage was them tranquilizing their own infected citizens, before burning them alive. Corpses from the mass graveyard were also dug up and incinerated, to slow the soil contamination. This ghastly outbreak explained why they were so determined to cleanse predators from every ecosystem.
“The exterminators were born. That firesuit acts not only as a safeguard from the flamethrowers, but also a biohazard suit—not unlike the gear the humans are wearing now. Those masks just might protect the Kolshians you’ve interacted with today,” Maronis continued. “Other predators besides the tarani were attracting the disease too, so we aimed to kill all of them. Any animal corpses had to be incinerated, before its entrails could settle. Our own dead were reservoirs of disease too. It’s the reason we have forsaken our aquatic roots; the water was its preserver. We’ve kept up those practices to this day to prevent it from ever returning, here or on other worlds.”
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I swallowed with unease, disquieted by my months in close quarters with Terrans. “Chief, might I ask…does this relate to predator disease at all?”
“It does. By tearing down those predator disease facilities, those humans are crippling your ability to detect the disease early! Aggression is one of the primary signs. Besides that, we couldn’t afford to have any nonconformists violating our quarantine policies, or engaging in predatory behavior. We barely kept a lid on the spread.”
“That’s all well and dandy, but I don’t hear nothin’ about no shadow caste,” Tyler pointed out. “It doesn’t sound like you were doin’ this in secret.”
“We weren’t, with the public health measures being so obvious. The secrecy didn’t start until long after we put the plague to bed, when we turned our attention starward. We made contact with the Farsul, and eventually told them about The Hunger. They were able to point out isolated instances of Talsk’s animals suffering inexplicable declines in post-first contact times…while not as contagious as our case, it seemed to have jumped to their kind on occasion. We feared we brought the disease with us. We used old quarantine methods, before the contaminants could mutate to their most-transmissible form, to stop the Farsul from facing a similar outbreak to Aafa.”
Sam crossed her arms. “You magically knew it was the same sickness, and that it would turn out the same as your ‘Hunger’ shit?”
“Even if this one wasn’t the same pathogen, it was close enough to hit home. Convergent evolution is our universe’s reality, predator. It’s why we see such similar patterns on all worlds. All lifeforms exist to accelerate entropy…chaos is the natural state of all we observe, and there is nothing that can facilitate such large-scale disarray and decline as this disease does. Lethal contaminants and predators are two tentacles of entropic force; it’s why your ilk are found on all worlds. We do not accept this axiom.”
“And we don’t accept people calling us predators, but you always find a way to do it anyway. Why don’t you skip to the part where the shadow caste comes into the picture?”
“It all traces back to the Krakotl…and the Farsul stopping us from doing what was necessary. It was a regrettable mistake to chance flesh-eaters escaping our oversight. Shall I continue, or is the long-maned one going to interrupt my story further?”
Aucel squeezed her eyes shut. “Please let him continue, Samantha. It explains a lot about why we’re disgusted by predators. That response is triggered by ancestral sources of disease—”
“It’s why humans are leery of insects,” I remarked. “I’d also like to hear the rest of Maronis’ story, Sam. I’m, er, concerned.”
“You shouldn’t be. We’re not radiating invisible biohazards, for fuck’s sake. But since Tyler’s so keen on getting this jackass on the record, I’ll let him talk a little longer,” the Australian soldier conceded.
Good. I need to hear what he was going to say about the Krakotl; Nikonus mentioned that they were aggressive, and that the Kolshians tried to find the source of it. Maybe Nishtal’s population was carrying The Hunger too?
The tenets I’d thought hadn’t held a shred of truth were starting to make sense, in light of such dangerous contaminants that predators could pass along. At this point, I doubted the Chief had any incentive to lie, and he had the weight of evidence on his side. Maronis’ insinuation was that his people wanted to exterminate the Krakotl, the second they identified the dietary risk. The question was why the Farsul States had pushed back against it, and how they’d crafted the curing process. This could be the reason my own species was converted away from omnivory, rather than killed; it might give us the full story of the conspiracy’s founding and goals.
Maronis waved a tentacle dismissively. “You know the deal. The Krakotl were aggressive, and when we noticed their diet…it explained why their temperament was so much different from ours. Contaminants in meat impacted higher thinking, culminating in The Hunger after large quantities of buildup—perhaps passed down after it affects genes. We wanted to glass Nishtal, but the Farsul couldn’t live with killing another sapient race, not without exhausting alternatives.”
“The cure,” I breathed.
“Yes. The Archives were established on Talsk as a secluded location for the experiments, and a way to quarantine cured specimens. The Hunger didn’t present symptoms for years, so lengthy testing was the only way to gauge whether they’d been mellowed. The Farsul’s gene edits worked, to our surprise, and the Federation’s purpose was born. We’d stop all sapients from eating meat, and cleanse their worlds, to prevent exposure to The Hunger.”
Sam drummed her fingers with impatience. “I still hear fuck all about the shadow caste.”
“That all happened because there was public backlash to what we did to the Krakotl. Nishtal didn’t appreciate being saved at gunpoint either, and we worried they could seek regression some day. The shadow caste was formed of those who believed in the cause, and with the Farsul’s aid, we set out to wipe the record and disguise future cures. The only way to ensure the cured species never found out the past was to make our own citizens unaware.”
“Why is it fair that we don’t know the full extent of the predator threat? That our lives meant nothing to you? It clearly didn’t even work, because everyone found out the truth!” Aucel spat. “You helped the Arxur, and then these humans were left alive—"
“Darling, our plan worked for centuries, until arrogant Nikonus blabbed everything to a reporter! Just like he set about to reclaim anyone who rebelled against us, instead of crushing them like I did—they had their one chance during their uplifting. I agree that not knowing the full threat was a problem. The plague is still in the history books but…Aafa forgot why the pandemic was so scary. We needed a threat to continue to enforce our laws, and remind people why predators were dangerous. The Arxur were perfect for that.”
“You wanted the war, for my family to get fucking eaten alive, so you had an excuse to keep up your quarantine measures?!” I hissed.
“Yes. You get it, Sovlin. Back to the Kolshian lady’s point about our…predator occupiers here now, that’s on the Farsul. They refused to kill humanity like we ordered and lied about it, even though it was clear these primates were beyond salvation. We tried to fix them, the same as any omnivore, but the quarantined Terrans in the Archives all exhibited traits of The Hunger. We know now that a…cobalamin vitamin gives them some strange, long-lasting immunity, rendering the disease dormant and allowing sustained sapience. This requires further study.”
Samantha slapped her forehead. “So you do know about B12 now?”
“We got some humans to talk about how they could adapt to plants without dying, during our personal experiments at Mileau. We believe these renewed curing efforts might’ve been successful in ridding you of the disease, if you long-term abstained from flesh.”
“Ain’t happening, for many reasons, not least—”
“I know you can’t give up your addiction on your own. But listen, if you care about the friends you’ve been infecting, who could start dying in a few years…without warning…you must continue our work. If you care, you’ll leave the herbivores alone. Maybe you’ll even become a new threat…enough to remind the masses to be afraid of predators. It’s a sacrifice someone must make.”
My eyes watered with sorrow, as Chief Maronis finished presenting his case. His explanation fit with everything we’d uncovered along our journey, and it gave a reason for the Federation’s entire history. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that loyal, friendly humanity would be asked to make that sacrifice—to isolate themselves so not to contaminate their friends. I’d come to love my crew aboard Monahan’s ship, and while the contamination sounded like a terrible way to go, I was willing to die for the Terrans’ right to exist. Their culture was too rooted in hunting for them to give up their identity and cure themselves.
If humans were immune to the Hunger, as long as they could access B12, keeping to Earth and forsaking the Sapient Coalition might be the best option. I knew they’d never be the Arxur, not with how their empathy had prevailed time and again. My spines bristled as I waited for Tyler’s response, which would address how the Terrans would handle this latent threat Maronis described. It didn’t seem fair that, after all this work to usurp the Kolshians as the galaxy’s supreme power, the predators had to take their place in some capacity. They didn’t deserve to suffer for factors beyond their control.
It’s not their fault that they’ve been spreading The Hunger. I don’t think what the Kolshians did was right, but we can’t let predatory diseases wipe out the galaxy.
Tyler raised a finger, in a “wait a minute” gesture. “That’s a nice theory, except for the fact it’s all horseshit. We ain’t infectious, and B12 don’t work like that. Your ‘Hunger’ is caused by prions, man.”
“Misfolded brain proteins,” Samantha chimed in. “Freak mutations that are transmissible if you make contact with infected tissue. The reason you see it most in predators is because they eat said tissue.”
Chief Maronis blinked, dumbfounded. “You know what causes The Hunger? You can treat it? I heard you did with your Archives’ rescues…”
“The two aren’t related. Prion diseases aren’t treatable, but we can detect them with blood tests. We’re not infected just by virtue of being predators or eating meat. That’s the difference between us; we live in a world of science, and you live in a world of fear and speculation. We seek proof and answers, while you seek verification for your existing beliefs.”
Tyler bobbed his head. “Our vision might be narrower than yours, but at least we ain’t blind as y’all. Sounds to me like you did all of that horrible shit for nothing.”
“It sounds like that to me too,” Aucel hissed, while the Kolshian dissenters piped up with agreement. “You believe Terrans are moral, and care for their friends; you said so! You have zero proof the humans…or any omnivores are dangerous, after all.”
“You tried to scare us into believing that it was dangerous to be around them. They’re people like us, not biohazards or a threat; I’m sorry I considered it for a minute,” I huffed. “This is just another falsehood you broadcasted.”
“That’s not possible. This human says it’s transmitted by eating flesh!” Maronis protested, his tentacles flailing in frantic motions. “The Hunger is seen on Earth, like every other world. We did this to save all sapient life!”
Tyler slammed a fist on the table. “We don’t need your salvation. We need two things: your surrender, and you personally to show us where you keep your prisoners. This is our galaxy to run, and we ain’t gonna be keeping up the death and suffering circus. ‘Cause you’re the real predators. You’ve led the galaxy into ignorance; ‘decline and disarray.’ Your legacy is entropy, huh?”
“I…if my words haven’t moved you, maybe that is all we leave behind. We were supposed to save lives, and without that purpose, the shadow caste is nothing. I’ll order the workers to surrender, and lead you to the place where we keep humanity’s friends. Follow me.”
The Kolshian chieftain stood with a defeated posture, reeling from the humans’ certainty that so-called prions were responsible for their plague. It was a positive sign that the shadow caste agreed to stand down, with their mission undermined and their fleet erased. I was relieved to hear that the Terrans weren’t a hazard, and that their science had illuminated the dark corners of our past once more. Where Maronis claimed to have a mountain of evidence on his side, it was the predators who could interpret it correctly. Aucel, the other Kolshian citizens listening, and anyone watching Tyler’s video would see who was in touch with reality.
Once we recovered our friends, the next item on the agenda would be to set the galaxy onto a better path. There were many issues to iron out, but with the Federation’s lies and deceit stripped away, I was hopeful we could birth a new era of enlightenment.