Primal Estate: The Candidate Species

by Samuel Franklin

  He was known among the Provenger as the good-fighting imbecile. But they really had no idea who he was. If they had bothered to inform themselves, they would have found he was considered almost a god among his people.

  Yootu spent ten years fighting the males and almost as many laying the women. In a strange way, he realized he was already getting his revenge, but he yearned for their total destruction. Perhaps, he felt, their arrival at this planet called “Earth”, which he knew to be his own, would bring him an opportunity. Since they were learning many of Earth’s new languages, they often spoke them in his presence. So far he’d identified and started to learn three of them, understanding they were called English, Arabic, and Mandarin. But he had not heard his own language, and this caused him great concern.

  Yootu was worried. Despite all his company, he was getting lonely. He didn’t know how much longer he could last. The Provenger, masters of physiology, had recognized this and were interested in the effects it had on his health. They were concerned for two reasons. First, he was in demand for sparring, which paid his costs, and he would not be in peak condition if he was allowed to deteriorate. Secondly, having been abducted and held for a purpose other than a harvest, he was subject to guest protocols. He could not be simply killed or discarded. The Provenger had to provide for him.

  Guests were guaranteed quarters, sustenance, and care. But the provisions for guests did not necessarily include freedom. The Provenger could not, by law, simply dispose of their guests. They had their law and it needed to be followed. As long as he had to be maintained, it was to his keeper’s benefit to have him producing revenue in the sparring ring.

  Yootu turned his fish over and recalled the days of his youth on his green land filled with animals. Even though many had been taken by the Provenger, his family hunted every third or fourth day, as needed. Some years they followed the large herds for much of the summer and fall, as they had before the Provenger arrived. Then they returned to their tribe and caught fish in the river during the annual spring runs. Small animals were especially plentiful in the lowlands, by the river for which he was named.

  Legend had it that his mother, Noanan, was kidnaped and impregnated by the sun god. This god turned himself into the river so that he wouldn’t burn her. Yootu was therefore named after this river. But the story his mother told him was different. She said that she had been making love to a boy she had met and was taken to a Provenger temple and healed of her wounds after being horribly burned when the Provenger arrived.

  From his birth, he was considered special, and his people revered him. Stories of his ability to understand foreigners and animals became legend. Fortunately for Yootu, the Provenger were focused mainly on the successful development and spread of agriculture. Therefore, when he was grown they used him as their emissary. He wanted to roam and hunt. Since he was very capable, he managed to survive the many dangers of travel away from his tribe, and he always returned. The Provenger gave him wheat and told him to share it with distant tribes. When he returned Yootu managed to convince them that he had.

  Yootu’s power and fame grew among all people in the surrounding territories, and he saw how they lived from the bounty of the land, following the herds. He saw many of his people growing fat and drunk from the constant use of the Provenger grain and determined he could wait no longer. Yootu led a revolt against the Provenger and stole a bolt from a battle gauntlet that provided its power. He gave it to his mother, who hid it with the help of her cousin, Shainan.

  Yootu was accidentally transported to the Provenger ship while he was holding technology that the Provenger needed to take with them. He never saw his people again.

  Yootu’s keeper, Bryock, didn’t like the way things were developing. The quality of sparring matches had deteriorated considerably, and the patronage of the program had fallen off as a result. Bryock knew it was due to his fighter’s mood. Instead of having many months’ backlog of reserved matches, they were now being scheduled on a daily basis; no reservations required. Yootu was getting too easy to beat, and word was getting around. It could soon reach a point where fighting him wasn’t considered a bold activity. In his prime, he’d been able to stand his ground and even beat a Provenger now and then, but not anymore.

  Bryock made a deal with the keeper of Shainan, the female human they had taken ten years ago from the same Anatolian location. She was spared from being carnate for the ritual banquet because she walked in her sleep. The Provenger Psychiatric Unit insisted that she be kept for study. The duration of the studies now subjected her to Guest Protocols.

  Bryock’s deal was to allow Yootu visits with her. He had to try something to motivate Yootu. At the rate things were going, Bryock would have the responsibility and costs to care for Yootu the rest of his life without the benefit of the income from the sparring matches. And school visits and gratuities from Provenger females would not cover his costs. Certainly, as Yootu got older and his abilities in the ring waned, the females would also be less interested. And a one-animal zoo wasn’t a viable solution.

  To that end, Shainan found herself standing outside the threshold of Yootu’s apartment cell, waiting. To reduce stress levels, they had both been told the day before that they would be meeting. Even though they’d both lived on the Provenger Nation Ship for the last ten years, they had not seen each other. It was a big ship and their movement was under constant control by their keepers.

  They had been told they would be able to see each other in person, that this would be a part of a regular visitation program but that they would not be allowed to copulate. Shainan’s keeper didn’t want another generation of carnate to feed and maintain under the Guest Protocol. They would be allowed to talk for a limited amount of time once per day.

  Shainan was very nervous. She had seen Yootu only once during her brief return to Earth at the time of her tribe’s revolt against the Provenger. That was when she learned he was the son of Noanan, her cousin, and Noanan had told her that Yootu had great abilities. In fact, Shainan had seen him begin a fight with a Provenger, and when she returned, the Provenger was gone, and Yootu was still alive. He must have great powers, she thought, to have survived.

  Shainan was also worried about her age. She was fifteen seasons when the Provenger took her, and was told by her handler that ten seasons had since passed. At twenty-five, she was well beyond the age for an opportunity with a strong hunter, and yet she had always thought she would bear many children. It had been foretold by their tribal Shaman. He said she would have many and they would be great leaders. She had never given up on this hope. At times, some Provenger had tried to take her, but she made it so unpleasant for them that none had ever returned for a second try.

  Now was her opportunity. She must somehow get to Yootu, despite the tag on her arm, a band designed to inflict pain in response to disobedience. She must have his child. The cloak phased out, and they could see each other through the threshold. She walked in slowly and he stood still. Their thorough briefing regarding permitted behavior had left them overly cautious. Also, they weren’t alone. School children and various adults watched from Yootu’s audience window.

  They both sensed a growing sorrow as they slowly walked into each other’s arms. Tears flowed silently down their cheeks, tears for the ones they missed, tears for their common plight. They had not seen another human in ten years. They had believed they were alone on the Provenger ship and that they might never see another as long as they lived. Now, they were back with their tribe, for it took only two. They were overcome, all at once, by the realization of their loneliness for another, the need for the presence of another human, the communion of man. They forgot their briefing and their tags as they stood together. They held each other and cried. Their current existence dissolved around them as they became their tribe. Warm nights with big fires, the smells of meat cooking in ash, the laughter, and the songs all came back to their minds with the simple touch of another human, their distinct smell, the feel of tears on chee
ks.

  The Provenger applauded, and the children laughed. Nwella, sitting in a back row, alone, watched with great interest. She sincerely wanted to understand what was going on between these two. She understood they were from the same group of people, the same tribe. She understood that tears were a reaction to both joy and grief. Nwella could understand that circumstances that create both joy and grief could occur simultaneously, but she didn’t understand why the human wouldn’t decide on one or the other. They must decide on one, she thought. Their tears seemed to come from holding each other, so the tears must be joy. And yet their facial expressions indicated grief. Nwella was perplexed.

  As they embraced, Shainan whispered quietly in Yootu’s ear, “Who are you?” She had seen him only once. He’d not yet been born when the Provenger had taken her to be food for their banquet, but then she was retained for study due to her sleepwalking. On her return to Earth during the revolt, the Provenger had hoped to use her to influence her people. That is when she saw him, he was by then a man. But now she had lost her recollection of what he had looked like. She wanted him to say it.

  “Yootu,” he whispered back. “I remember your face. I can see the resemblance to my mother. I know you are her cousin.”

  Shainan burst into a new round of tears, more violent this time, as the reality that she was with one of her own overcame her. As she held him, she realized the Provenger had control over whether or not they ever saw each other again, and that thought incited intense grief. Ultimately, she knew this reunion would destroy her if she were never permitted to see him again. She’d spent ten seasons building an emotional wall to survive, and it had been utterly destroyed in the last few moments.

  They spoke their language in slang, hoping to confuse the Provenger. They used metaphor to convey meaning; they filled their conversation with references to tribal mythology, their gods, or those they both knew to infer emotions, actions or intent. This was their method of speech while trading with other tribes who knew their language, and though not direct and incapable of describing precise detail, it enabled secrecy that permitted privacy under the eyes of all. Their cryptic speech bored the Provenger that came to watch, and the audience soon shrank to only a few. Among them was Nwella, sometimes watching but always lost in her own thoughts.

  When the signal came that their visit would soon end, Shainan and Yootu had been able to communicate a number of important details. Yootu knew that Shainan had been able to hide the weapon he’d stolen during their tribal revolt. Shainan knew that Yootu knew how to use it. They both knew of the other’s intense desire to go home, to return to life as normal, and if that was impossible, then to kill the Provenger.

  Knowing the ways of the Provenger, they suspected they might not see each other again. They knew that only now was real. They held each other for a long time. Occasionally they whispered a promise, occasionally a vow. They told the other of the wonderful things they would do, the fires they would build, the game they would roast, the stories they would tell, and the children they would have. They cried with each other again. Then they were pulled apart by Bryock and returned to their isolation.

  Chapter 7

  Crop failurE

  Synster’s daughter, Nwella, entered his office on the science deck to bring him a meal as Synster was reviewing the recent scans of Earth. He didn’t look well. He looked angry or sick. He rarely was sick so he must be angry, she thought. “What’s wrong, Father?” Nwella asked.

  “Nothing dear, just some complications with this project again.” Some complications, he thought. This project had been a nightmare. Just about everything had gone wrong since the Contact Protocol at the site he first supervised. After the deleterious effects of wheat had been recognized by the humans, the rebellion had started. None of the other locations had noticed the effects. Why this one? The evacuation went well as far as the technology was concerned, but they’d lost the entire Provenger ground team. Mobs of humans had surprised and overwhelmed them.

  Now he’d arrived on schedule with the expectation of a smooth Harvest Protocol to find the worst nightmare he could possibly imagine. He needed someone to talk to, and, though he didn’t want to distress her, he decided to share it with Nwella. She had a right to know, after all, and she always had a way of making him feel better.

  “Alright, there is something wrong.”

  Nwella’s expression grew concerned, and she sat at the bench against the wall, half reclining. “Tell me.”

  “The scans have come in and things are bad. The population we need to sustain a harvest is certainly here, but the quality is not consistent with standards.”

  “Are they not fat?”

  “No, they’re plenty fat. Their stupidity is the problem!” Synster raised his voice. “They’re not nearly as advanced as we thought they would be. They haven’t managed to figure out how to maintain their own bodies. They’re full of drugs and toxins they’ve made for themselves. If anything, the Algorithm theorized that they might eventually discover the deleterious effects of their diet and modify it to sustain optimal health, but they would only do that after we had the population we needed, and they arrived at harvest date without the technology to defend themselves. But what they’ve done instead is use what technology they’ve developed and applied the methods of their very first scientists to attempt to manage their health.”

  “Father, you're not clear. You must be upset. What methods are you talking about?” Nwella asked.

  Synster forced his mind to calm and took a deep breath. “When I saw the problems they were having with their health, I quickly reviewed their history over the last five hundred years to see what we’re dealing with. It seems the humans’ first scientists were motivated by profit, much as we believe ours were. No surprise there. They wanted to find easy ways to make more materials that were valuable to them. Gold is one example. They would start with other less costly materials and add elements or compounds to it, generally manipulate a variety of elements in different ways. They would simply add compounds to a system and expect the sum of that addition to amount to what they wanted! It works, of course, with a few simple things, like mixing colors, or making concrete, but not with anything as complex as their physiology.

  “In this manner they would try to do things like change lead into gold. That never worked, but they maintained this method, developing chemistry, where the very simple manipulation of nonliving chemicals showed them they could predict a variety of outcomes. They toyed with this for a few hundred years.

  “Then they discovered that there are life forms so small they can’t see them, life forms that can infect them and cause disease. They developed treatments that could be added to their physiological systems to kill these infectious diseases, just as we did. That’s where the parallel nature of our development ends.

  “For any kind of illness other than infectious disease, for instance, the failures of our systems as we age, instead of researching those bodily systems and enhancing their own protective and healing mechanisms, humans thought they could develop single or multiple physiologically unrelated treatments, and add them to the failing system to cure the problem.” Synster noticed Nwella was beginning to look at him with a blank stare.

  Synster realized he was rambling again and decided to give an example. “Remember two years ago when one of our meal storage units was improperly calibrated and the storage field was causing the destruction of all the food’s essential nutrients?”

  “Yes,” Nwella replied, hoping to understand soon.

  “Some Provenger began to have some very mild issues surrounding the ability to concentrate, their children either falling asleep at school or behaving inappropriately.”

  Nwella understood where he was going. “Obviously due to a micronutrient deficiency that was affecting healthy cellular metabolism, hormone function and synapse firing…”

  “Exactly. So the first thing we looked for was the root cause. Getting them the correct nutrients so their bodies can oper
ate as designed. We looked at the source and recalibrated the storage unit. The problem turned out to be with those who were eating more than half their meals sourced from that unit. Problem solved. Do you know what humans do?”

  “I have no idea,” Nwella replied with the same blank look on her face.

  “In the tradition of their first scientists from hundreds of years ago…they called them alchemists, they try to add a compound, a drug, to their bodies, which they think might help the symptoms. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t,”