"Just a minute," she said, reaching for a phone. "I want confirmation-"
I hobbled over to her, leaning heavily on my cane. "One," I said, "I gathered those specimens. Two, I killed a Chtorran to get them here. Three, I haven't seen one piece of research out of this lab, so as far as I'm concerned, the effort in bringing them here was wasted. Four"-I was unfolding the orders that had been handed me that morning by Major Tirelli-"I have all the confirmation you need right here. And five, if you don't get out of my way, I'm going to place this cane in a most uncomfortable place. And if you don't believe I can do it, I'm the fellow who killed the Denver Chtorran."
She read the orders, then handed them back without comment. She sniffed. "No, you're not."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You didn't kill it."
"Say again?"
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Do all lieutenants have lousy hearing? I said, `You didn't kill it.' "
I turned to the aides. "Load that stuff on the jeep. I'll be right out."
"Hold it!" She barked. "You touch those cages, I'll have you shot." The aides stopped where they were. She poked my chest. "Let's you and me settle some things first."
I looked at the woman in the lab coat. She wasn't wearing a name badge. She had green eyes. "What's your name?" I demanded.
"Lucrezia Borgia."
"Is there a rank in front of that?"
"Just Doctor."
"Right. Well, Dr. Borgia, do you want to start making some explanations?"
She pointed to a set of double doors at the end of the room. "Two rooms down," she said.
I hobbled through the double doors. She followed after me. I was in a wide hallway with another set of double doors at the end. I pushed through those and
-there was the Chtorran, almost motionless in the center of a large room. The room was brightly lit. The Chtorran's flanks heaved regularly as if its breathing were labored. There were men attaching probes to its sides. There were ladders and scaffolds all around the creature.
"I ... uh . . . "
"Didn't kill it." She finished for me.
"But I-never mind. What're they doing to it?"
"Studying it. This is the first time we've ever been able to get close enough to a live one to poke it and prod it and see what makes it tick. You crippled it. It can't see, it can't hear, it can't move. At least we don't think it can see or hear. We're sure it can't move. It certainly can't eat. Your gun pretty well destroyed its mouth. We're pumping liquids into it."
I didn't ask what kind of liquids. "Is it safe to approach?"
"You're the expert." She said it acidly.
There were men and women all over the animal. I hobbled forward myself. Only one or two of them looked up at me. Dr. Borgia paced me quietly. She took my cane and poked at the creature's mouth. "Look here," she said. "See that?"
I looked. I saw a clotted mass of flesh. "What am I looking for?"
"See that row of bumps? New teeth. And if you could climb the ladder, I'd show you the creature's arm stumps. And its eyes. If we could get underneath, I'd show you its feet. The thing is regenerating."
I looked at her. "How long?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Three months. Six. We're not sure. Some of the gobbets we've carved off it show signs of trying to grow into a complete creature too. Like starfish. Or holograms. Each piece has all the information necessary to reconstruct the original. You know what this means, don't you?"
"Yeah. They're almost unkillable. We have to burn them."
She nodded. "As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you killed this thing. They even paid you for it. But the truth is, you only stopped it. So don't you ever come into my lab again, throwing your weight around and acting like an expert! You got that?"
I didn't answer. I was looking at the Chtorran. I took a step toward it and reached out and touched its skin. The creature was warm. Its fur was silky. Oddly alive. It felt electric! My hand tingled as I stroked it.
"Static electricity?" I asked.
"No," she said.
I took another step forward, almost leaning on the warm side of the Chtorran, almost pressing my face into it. Some of the strands of fur brushed softly against my cheek. They felt like feathers. I sniffed deeply. The creature smelled warm and minty. It was oddly inviting. Like a big friendly fur rug you wanted to curl up in. I continued stroking it.
"That isn't fur," she said.
I kept petting. "It isn't? What is it?"
"Those are nerve endings," she said. "Each individual strand is a living nerve-appropriately sheathed and protected, of course-and each one has its own particular sensory function. Some can sense heat and cold, others light and darkness, or pressure. Some can smell. Most-well, while you're busy petting it, it's quietly tasting you."
I stopped petting it.
I pulled my hand back. I looked at her. She nodded yes. I looked at the Chtorran fur again. Every strand was a different color. Some were thick and black. Others were fine and silvery. Most were various shades of red-a whole spectrum of red, shading all the way from deep purple to bright gold, and touching all the bases in between: magenta, pink, violet, crimson, orange, scarlet, salmon and even a few flashes of bright yellow. The effect was dazzling.
I brushed my hand against the fur again, parting it gently. Beneath, the Chtorran skin was dark and purple, almost black. It was hot. I thought of the skin on a dog's soft underbelly.
I realized the Chtorran was trembling. Every time I touched it, the intensity of the shivers increased. Huh-?
"You're making it nervous," Lucrezia said.
Nervous-? A Chtorran? Without thinking, I slapped the creature's flank. It twitched as if stung.
"Don't," she said. "Look-"
A shudder of reaction was rippling up and down the Chtorran's body. There were two technicians on a platform hanging just above the Chtorran's back. They were trying to secure a set of monitor probes. They had to pull back and wait until the Chtorran stopped shuddering. One of the technicians glared at me. When the creature's flesh stopped rippling, she bent back to her work.
"Sorry," I said.
"The creature is incredibly sensitive. It can hear everything that goes on in here. It reacts to the tone of your voice. See? It's trembling. It knows you're hostile. And it's afraid of you. It's probably more afraid of you than you are of it."
I looked at the Chtorran with new eyes. It was afraid of me-!
"Remember, it's just a baby."
It took a moment for me to grasp the implications of thatnot just for here in the lab, but for outside as well, out there, where the wild ones were.
If this was a baby-if all of those out there were babies-then where were the adults? The fourth Chtorran-?
"Wait a minute-this can't be a baby!"
"Oh?"
"It's too big-I brought in eggs! A baby Chtorran should only be . . ." I spread my hands as if to hold a puppy. ". . . oh, about yay big...... "
"Have you ever seen one?"
"Uh-"
"What's the smallest Chtorran you've ever seen?"
"Uh-" I pointed. "This one."
"Right. Have you ever heard of heavy metal accumulation?"
"What about it?"
"It's a way of measuring the age of an animal. The body doesn't pass heavy metals, like lead or mercury; they accumulate in the cells. No matter how clean a life you live, it's inevitable that you'll pick up traces just from the atmosphere. We've tested this creature extensively. Its cells are remarkably earthlike. Did you know that? It could almost have evolved on this planet. Maybe someday it will. But here's the thing: it doesn't have enough trace metals in its system to be more than three years old. And my guess is that it's actually a lot less. Maybe eighteen months." She held up a hand to forestall my objection. "Trust me-we've tested it. We've deliberately introduced trace metals into its system to see if perhaps it doesn't have some way of passing them. And yes, it does--our estimate of its age is based on that equation. And that's no anomaly, buster. All of our supplementary evidence supports the hypothesis. Eighteen months. Maybe two years at the most. It's got an incredible growth rate."