Primal Estate: The Candidate Species

by Samuel Franklin

  “With sixty-five percent of the people in your country overweight and cholecystectomy being now a simple procedure, we will be able to immediately fill our quotas for this organ. This will do much to delay implementation of Managed Collectivization. You will publicly support these initiatives.”

  Synster read the look on Rick’s face. “This will all be painful for you. It will require you to break the laws of your country. And this is only the beginning, compared to the assassinations we may plan. Rick, you will also be my assassin.”

  There was a long silence. Rick could get around supporting things he didn’t believe in on his web site. He could lie, cheat, steal, and quite possibly a great deal more, but the thought of killing people who had not tried to kill him, who had families, loved ones, and lives to complete…then he realized… “Why can’t you kill them? Just take them like you did me and harvest them or whatever the hell you call it. Why make me do it?”

  “We may need you to do it to prove your trustworthiness, or to make it look like a political statement of your own kind. We are unsure at this point. But remember your benefits.”

  There was another long silence and Rick tried to think of benefits that would make him feel right about assassinating someone. A lobotomy maybe? He looked out the window at Saturn and realized he had his cell phone on him. He could take a picture. He felt strangely calm and yet nauseous and resigned to a fate of destruction.

  “Excuse me,” he began with a tone of apology, “but I was still adjusting to the idea of being food when you told me all the goodies. Could we go over that again?”

  “Aside from assuring the continuance of your current way of life for as long as possible, you will be allowed to exempt anyone you want from harvest, as long as you are close to them in some way. You will also have the ability to include certain people or groups in the harvest for any reason. It doesn’t matter. We are very liberal with this issue under the Program laws. You will also be given any material goods or pleasures you want, as long as they originate from the Earth. You can’t request anything we have created, for obvious reasons, though you may be provided with certain tools of ours from time to time to complete your mission.”

  “Can I get that deal in writing?” Rick thought he was being funny. One of his coping mechanisms was humor. What he really wanted to do was throw up.

  Synster didn’t get it. “No. I will leave you here now. You have five minutes to decide if you will cooperate. If you choose to cooperate, your efforts will be assessed on a daily basis and you’ll be notified if you’re deficient. You have five minutes.” Synster rose from his chair, walked through the cloaked door, and disappeared from Rick’s view. Looking through the threshold, Rick could see only a vacant science deck on the other side. It flickered once and Rick caught a glimpse of Synster. He had turned and was looking back in while speaking to another Provenger.

  Chapter 14

  Home Troubles

  Synster arrived home after a long day. The threshold cloak was still malfunctioning, allowing him to catch flashes of Nwella inside. She was sitting in the lounge and must have just gotten home as she was still in her public gown. In that moment, he decided not to discipline her until after his mind had settled a bit. Synster walked into the home. “Hello, Nwella dear.”

  “Hello, Father,” Nwella replied as she turned off her personal monitor and left the room.

  Synster sat where she had been and looked at the view of Saturn. He dreaded having this talk with Nwella. She was really far too old to discipline, but as long as she was still living at home, it was his responsibility. And her behavior had been atrocious.

  From the quiet, it appeared that no one else was home, and he eventually decided that now would be a good time.

  “Nwella dear, come here, please.”

  Nwella had been trying to avoid him and was not interested in being talked at. She could sense he was going to be critical.

  “What, Father?”

  “Come here, please. I need to talk to you.” Synster waited a moment. “I’m not going to yell to the next room.” Synster waited.

  Nwella took her time. She walked in slowly and stood at a distance from her father, saying nothing, a fist on her hip.

  “Sit, please.”

  “Father, this is unnecessary. I know what you’re going to say already, so you don’t have to say it.” Nwella insisted as she walked up and sat down.

  “Alright, you tell me what I’m going to say.”

  “You’re going to tell me that I was rude to you and that you’re disappointed in me that I would fluem for that human, that I embarrassed you, yada yada yada.”

  That was pretty close, but Synster tried to act like he was thinking something different. “No. What I was going to do was ask you what you were thinking. I want you to be successful in life and you exhibited such immaturity and lack of professionalism at a time when I was recruiting a vital link in our operations. I even suspect you arrived at that time on purpose just to take a look at…”

  “I was bringing your dinner because I knew you were working hard!”

  Synster glared at her with an expression of doubt.

  “So I can never just do something nice for you?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Synster rebutted. “What I’m say is that your behavior was not consistent with who I know you to be.”

  “Oh, so who am I, Father? Who do you want me to be?” Nwella got up and started to walk away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!” Synster yelled at her.

  In mid-stride, Nwella turned to the viewer and began walking toward it. “I’m not. I just don’t want to sit.” She stood looking at the screen, with her back to Synster. She acted like she was admiring Saturn, but she just wanted to be away somewhere else. She wanted to be free.

  “Nwella, I want you to be as successful as you can be. This nation is very competitive right now, and both you and I need to be at our peak in performance…” Synster continued talking about the stress he was under, the project he was coordinating, and the dire consequences of failure. He spoke of the chances of Ryvil taking over and the pressure he was under to secure a position in the new nation ship when it arrived.

  His voice faded out of her consciousness as Nwella’s mind drifted far away to ten years ago and her first visit to Earth. She was twenty-seven years old, and the implementation of the project had just begun. The teams were all in place and doing their job, and she and her father were free to pursue adventure.

  They had both gone to a remote beach on the southern coast of the Anatolian peninsula. The great floods caused by the small moon’s destruction had not yet come, and the water there was still a beautiful blue green. They had gone there to swim and hunt. With their clothes hanging in a tree near the water, they also hung their bladed gauntlets. There were electronic components in their garments that could become compromised from the minerals in the water. They swam in the gentle waves and scrubbed their bodies clean with the wet sand, and then reclined on the slope where the waves and the beach met.

  Two lions appeared from behind some rocks down the beach. Nwella saw them first and showed her father. It gave her such a thrill to see them. Synster immediately wanted to hunt them and made toward the tree for his gauntlet. Reaching it quickly, he hurried to dry his arms, put them on, and rushed after his prey.

  Nwella begged him not to, as she wanted to watch them, but he wouldn’t listen. Off he went, down the beach, with only his gauntlets on his arms. Nwella didn’t care to watch and laid her body back in the sand, enjoying the sun in the massage of salt and sand that crawled back and forth in the light surf. She was irritated that he would interrupt their day together to go off on his own.

  She should have known better, but there she remained, lying on the brown beach in the ocean wash, looking very small and very vulnerable to the additional lion crouched on the grassy dune immediately beyond the tree where her gauntlets and clothing were hanging.

  With legs slightly bent, she fel
t the sand between her toes and swept her hands in the sand above her head. Without a care, she thought of the years ahead and the wonderful experiences she’d have when all their plans would come to fruition. Completely unaware of the wild territory she was in, and completely stripped of all defenses, she drifted in and out of consciousness.

  At twenty-seven, she was fast and strong, and with her gauntlets had a chance to defend herself against any lion. But naked on the beach, with her eyes closed and unaware, she was dangerously close to being flayed by this wily cat.

  The lions apparently had a scheme. The Provenger had never experienced animals so cunning before. They were primitive and yet seemed capable of intricate planning and complex communication that even the Provenger underestimated. The two cats up the beach were a diversion to separate the large prey from the small, as is the perpetual goal of the predator. The successful ones are those who can get a meal, any meal, with the least possible effort and threat of harm. For if harm comes to the body of the predator, the animal has no recourse but death. They live in a small margin where physical performance means success. Anything less brings ultimate failure.

  This lion was the best hunter of the three, and she took a quick look down the beach and didn’t see the large prey. He had disappeared behind the rocks. She could smell him, though, on the warm constant breeze that flowed down the beach. He smelled distant as his scent cone was thinned by many parts of air. Now was the time. Kill and carry away. While still crouched, the lion emerged from the grass. It was leaving cover and therefore moved at a moderate pace silently down the sand slope to the waterline, closing the time-distance gap. Complete focus on the flesh waiting for her, all systems shut down except for her senses, brain focused on the nose, eyes, total focus, make no sound, no breathing, closer, ready to lunge, closer, ready…

  A shrill screaming from the other end of the beach made Nwella bolt upright, bounding from a prone position on her back to standing in an instant. She was so startled that she let out a small yell of her own. Then she saw the huge cat almost upon her and, from both fear and ferocity, the yell turned into a hissing scream.

  The lion was startled from the sudden movement of her small prey off the sand into then a much taller animal, the screaming down the beach, and the shriek of this surprisingly large quarry. She hesitated. The clamor continued as Nwella backed slowly into the surf. This was the kind of drama predatory instincts reviled against. Bad surprises lead to injury. She wasn’t that hungry, they’d just killed yesterday and had half a carcass to return to. Sudden change from the small prey to large, loud prey, two sources of human noises, outnumbered two to one, a possible fight in the water... The cat decided to run, and with a quick dash and a few leaps was back up the slope and over the dune.

  Sprinting toward Nwella but no longer yelling was a man holding a long spear. His naked body was painted completely in swirls of black and white, and his chest was heaving from his sprint. He dropped his spear to show that he meant no harm. Holding his palms out in front of him, he blurted out a language she could not understand. From his tone and sign language she quickly deciphered his meaning. He had been a distance down the beach, seen the cat stalking her, and ran as fast as he could. Then he yelled to scare it away when he saw it begin its final rush.

  He now stood before her, the panicked look calming and his large chest heaving. He was imposing for a human, young and healthy. His arms were strong and muscular, as were his legs. He had large eyes that were green with the bushiest lashes she’d seen on a human. He had long straight black hair pulled tight, close to his scalp and tied back, falling down the back of his head. This last feature, with his hair out of the way along with his large stature, made him look almost like a Provenger. Nwella’s eyes danced across his body. What a great idea, she thought. The painted circles all over him excited her. His square features were a little different from the other primitives they’d encounter far away during the Contact Protocol, but this one was obviously not one of them. He was wild. He was beautiful, Nwella thought.

  He was soaked with sweat and still rambling away. Nwella quickly recognized he was saying the same thing over and over, and since she had already figured out what it was, she wanted quiet. She gently put her hand on his mouth. He immediately jumped back and stared, startled from her act.

  He began to slowly circle her, amazed. He’d never seen a woman like her before. She had no hair on her head, no hair anywhere, not even eyebrows or between her legs. Her body was completely void of any blemish and so clean. Her skin was a light bronze color and she had no weapons. He thought she must be some kind of witch or nymph from out of the sea, going about in such a dangerous place alone with no defenses. He felt a twinge of fear and thought perhaps he shouldn’t look her in the eyes, or perhaps he should run. Or maybe he should fall to his knees. If she was a witch, he hoped that by saving her, some favor might come to his tribe. He looked down and got even more nervous. Her body was perfect. She looked strong, toned, and lean. Her breasts were full and her hips were wide. He instinctively wanted to have children with her.

  Nwella looked over his shoulder, down the beach to where her father would be and didn’t see him. Nwella knew she was on adventure, and that gave her a little leeway when it came to her actions. She wasn’t sure if what she was about to do was outside of protocol for adventure, but she was tired of trying to keep track. Under these circumstances, if this man had been a Provenger, it would now be her prerogative to offer herself to him. Wasn’t the wild and outrageous the standard for adventure? Wasn’t there a very loose and forgiving attitude when it came to transgressions during adventure? Hadn’t Father just left her to pursue his? He might be gone for some time. Shouldn’t she have hers?

  Nwella reached out, pushed his chin up with her fingertips and locked her eyes on his. Even in the blazing light of midday, her intent made her pupils large. He saw this as he instinctively stared back into them, and the completely unexpected became real. He imagined that a spell was being cast on him and his head began to swim.

  Nwella slowly dropped to her knees as she drew in a deep breath, smelling her way down his still heaving, breathing body, dripping with sweat. His scent was of earth and of sunlight on skin, and the tip of her nose became wet from a droplet as it rubbed down his skin. Once on her knees she grabbed him with her hands and pressed her left cheek to the skin below his navel, turned her head slowly, and pressed her right cheek to the same spot. Nwella began to sweat and her heart beat faster. She could tell he was getting the right idea. Maybe these humans weren’t so different, she thought.

  She stroked him with her hands as she rose to her feet. He touched her body as their gaze met. While looking at him again, straight in the eyes without blinking, she let go with her right hand and drew it back. She smacked him as hard as she could with an open hand on his backside and jumped away from him, smiling.

  His eyes bloomed wide, and a confused stupor gave way to a warm smile. He crouched slightly, raised his hands in front of him as if ready to attack. His muscles bulged, and he was rigid and looked huge. The deep gasping from his run turned into the rhythmic breathing of excitement, and he slowly stepped toward her.

  She matched his steps forward with equal steps backward as the two developed their own dance, a leap apart. He understood the dance, she thought. They already felt a union. After four such steps, Nwella shrieked with excitement, turned, and ran down the shoreline, in the direction away from where her father was. She ran as fast as she could, and he followed.

  He was amazed at her speed and for a moment thought that she was really trying to escape from him until she glanced back at him, flashing a smile. Her body was trim and muscular, and the white sandy soles of her feet taunted him as he followed her with eyes and body, putting full effort into both. She must be a witch.

  She felt free and wild with the wind billowing across every inch of her bare skin as she fluemed, filling the air in his path with her sweet, fleshy scent. He would catch her and take her
.

  As he pursued at a full sprint, his desire to catch her suddenly began to rage within, and a madness of lust compelled him. Just when he thought his heart would burst, she left the hard, wet sand, veered for the water, and dove into the waves. He followed, dove, grabbed her feet, and pulling her toward him, took her waist in his grip. She grabbed him, wrapping herself tightly and engulfing him around the waist with her legs. He held her thighs and stood as she released her arms, her hands clearing her face of water, continuing to the back of her bald head where they stayed as she gripped tighter with her legs and leaned back, flexing the hard muscles of her stomach. Her nipples poised on her round breasts turned rigid from the cool water and warm wind as he walked them both out to the sand. His legs quivering from the chase and their combined weight, he dropped to his knees, lowering her to the hard, wet sand, the salty foam flowing around them. Their breath was heaving in unison from the dead sprint, and their blood was pounding.