Michael Siemsen: Exigency

Minnie had lied. “It’s nowhere of concern right now, but I’m going to have its internals destruct after nightfall.” She hadn’t said that nightfall.

Two days later, she received an M:

JOHN: Is MIN1311 taken care of?

She’d replied, taking advantage of the ambiguous wording: Yes, it is.

She didn’t know how long she planned to keep it there observing. Indefinitely? She’d be caught for sure. But she’d performed multiple risk assessments! If a Threck noticed the probe and picked it up, the internals would instantly self-destruct, leaving only a hollow, charred core within the shell. The Threck might keep it as an interesting find, show it to acquaintances. Worst case, the object would be given to a Threck with geological knowledge. Recognizing the shell’s foreign material, they’d tool it open, revealing the burnt core and minute fragments of internals. Their most likely final analysis: some sort of meteorite.

So what was the big deal? After all, the probes were designed with the assumption that an IL would eventually discover one and crack it open.

Minnie stepped from the ladder’s last rung to the lab floor, and noticed Ish sitting in her own lab area across from Minnie’s, her hands in a combox, manipulating some object on the planet surface. A workaholic even more obsessive than Minnie, Ish had apparently rushed straight here after group.

Ishtab Soleymani was the mission’s lead specialist on the primitive Hynka race that dominated the northern hemisphere of Epsilon C, or Epsy , as it had come to be known. Though the Hynka were brutal predators, Ish was extremely protective of them. She even refused to call them Hynka .

The Threck, for whom Minnie was lead specialist, had recently begun dabbling in transoceanic exploration, and at some point encountered these terrifying behemoths. They branded the creatures “savages”: Hynka . At the time, as Ish had yet to determine a single name by which the team could refer to her ILs, the Threck word became the default. Once Ish finally ascertained what her darling predators called themselves, Hynka had already become ingrained in the team’s heads. And besides, the hissing, guttural Oss-Khoss just didn’t roll well off the human tongue. Minnie didn’t think the bloodthirsty beasts would be all that offended.

She’d once told Ish, “Go down and stand in front of one of those things and see if Oss-Khoss gets you devoured any slower, or with more compassion, than Hynka .”

Petite, doe-eyed Ish had merely stared at Minnie with a thoughtful air, seemingly perplexed by the notion that standing before a towering, chest-heaving, wheezing, drooling Hynka would be anything other than a dream come true. In that species, Minnie surmised, Ish saw only a brilliant hunting machine—the highly successful top of the food chain in a land the size of Eurasia.

Minnie (and everyone else) observed a hulking, too-fast, energy-squandering, gorillagator beast that owed its survival to the rapid breeding and bounteous litters of a few of its surviving prey species. And that balance wouldn’t last. The Hynka population continued to maintain steady growth and dispersion. Within 200 years they’d eat their way to their own extinction, leaving behind a vast, fertile land for Threck expansion. It was inevitable. There simply weren’t enough huntable calories to sustain the population once its size doubled, and the beasts didn’t appear to be within a thousand years of agriculture.

Minnie approached Ishtab’s combox and peered over her shoulder at the screen. “Whatcha got there?”

Ish was surprised, but thrilled to answer. “It’s actually a discarded tool. I’ve got vids of a female using it to pry roots away from a burrow, and then as an extension to spear the hiding rodent inside.”

“Aww. Poor bunny.”

Ish glared. “Is it more humane how your people consume living worms or suffocate their fish?”

Minnie shrugged. “Just saying poor bunny. Got a soft spot for fur. Find me a fuzzy Hynka and I’ll ‘awww’ right there with you as it devours its own brother’s guts.” She turned to go, ignoring Ish’s stammered protest.

“Siblings would never… Conspecific cannibalism isn’t…”

At her main console, Minnie accessed her alerting system and cleared the queued probe events. She pulled up the language database and looked at the breakdowns. 114 new words or usages. Reviewing them in their recorded context, she felt that same elated ear buzz she’d enjoyed over the past two weeks. As usual, a few of the definition suggestions were a little off, but she listened to the audio, watched the Threcks’ body language in the vids, and input her corrections. The computer always had difficulty pairing gestures with audibles to form single words. Not only were the Threck dependent upon head and arm movements to convey meaning and inflection, the identical word could have two entirely different meanings if spoken during inhale or exhale.

After six playbacks, Minnie discovered a new modifier: a sort of doubletake head gesture with a subtle shrug. “I miss those days” became “I mourn [that person].”

As she had yesterday and the day before, Minnie decided she’d kill the probe tomorrow .

Minnie gnawed a chewstick while watching from their bed as Aether sponged her face in the mirror. Her eyes perused Aether’s long body in the dim light.

“You have a bruise on your butt,” Minnie said.

Aether twisted and observed it in the mirror. “Ooh, that’s an ugly one. That stupid workbench in Engineering. On the left when you enter.”

“It’s crazy how high your butt is. That corner always gets me on the waist. Hurry up.”

Aether leaned into the refresher nook, the soft hiss of microjets as it dried her face.

Minnie rolled onto her back and stared at the perforated ceiling. “How about that drama in group today? Pablo and Zisa.”

“They worked it out well.” Getting Aether to engage in petty gossip always proved challenging. She tossed back a swig of mouthwash and swished it around in her mouth.

“Yeah, eventually, but sexual harassment ? Really? He complimented her. I was there when it happened.” Minnie deepened her voice. “‘Oh, hey Zees. Been putting in extra time on the legger?’”

Aether spat the mouthwash in the sink. “Well, it does imply he’s just looked over her body, and she’s always been sensitive to that sort of thing. We all know he was only talking about her legs, but he should know better with her. It’s over though. What matters is they’re still friends, and he’ll be more conscious in the future.”

Minnie’s gaze had lost its focus at some point, the ceiling holes blending and merging with the glazed metal’s faux wood coating. What time was it in Threck City?

Aether crawled into bed.

Minnie rolled on her side to face Aether and engage, but additional language advancements could be happening right that second. Her mislaid observation unit was down there, hard at work, like some tireless assistant working for her day and night. Joy mingled, in equal portion, with her fear of being caught. She wanted so badly to tell Aether about the OU, but it’d put Aether in a bad spot having to either betray Minnie or lie to John. Better she didn’t know.

“Pensive face,” Aether said, and tried to mirror Minnie’s expression. “You’re worried about what to do for my birthday, aren’t you?”

Uh-oh, is it this week?

Minnie pulled up the calendar app. “Yeah… exactly. You psychs just see right through a person, don’t you?” Two days away. She’d have to make her something. Something physical.