The Nature of Predators - Wild West (6/11)

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Memory Transcription Subject: Nilrie, Takkan Smuggler

Date [standardized human time]: April 7, 1851

Flaunting suffering in front of a predator’s cruel eyes was not a wise idea, but there was no better explanation than the real one: expecting a beast to possess sympathy. Under the short time limit Blake had given me, I didn’t have a moment to collect my nerves. Why would monstrosities that slaughtered each other, and considered it legal to burn and eat an animal, even consider smuggling a crime? It was remarkable that such creatures traded with each other enough to know the word, now that I thought about it. The idea of humans having “port authorities” and “customs” regulating what carcasses could go in and out was laughable. I doubted I should share such thoughts with the sheriff.

I flipped through pictures on my holopad, drawing a shaky breath. “The cryopods are f-for people with…incurable d-diseases. They can be frozen, er, until someone makes a cure. I j-just see their stories and try to help; I s-started stealing medical supplies after my dad died on the waiting list for a transplant. Fuck, do you even…know what a transplant is?”

“No,” Blake growled. “I’m sorry about yer pa though.”

“R-right. Shit, do predators even have medicine? I m-mean, you treated my wounds, but…”

His malicious eyes smoldered with indignance. “Of course we got med’cin! Bloodlettin’ for the chol’ra…”

“What the fuck is ‘bloodletting?!’”

“Ya gotta drain the infected blood or whatnot, so ya cut the art’ry and get it cured.”

“Do you freaks like the sight of your own blood? That’s not medicine, Blake! You predator savages can’t violence away a disease!”

“Ye don’t know what yer talkin’ bout. That mesmerism, invisible force shit, it’s horsecrap; disease is a poison in yer blood. I thought you was ‘splainin’ yer…”

“Well, I didn’t realize I had to explain primitive, basic science about everything. Bloodletting. What happens when you lose a lot of blood, Blake? Isn’t that how you kill your prey?!”

“So what, we just shouldn’t treat no infections? What causes them if not the blood, Nilrie?”

I groaned. “Bacteria and viruses. Very tiny pathogens which can’t be seen without a microscope, you know, then they get into your body? Like that, you’re sick. I guess your species evolved more for violence than brain power.”

“Don’t insult me none. Yer a real jackass.”

“It’s…not your fault, Blake. I’m sorry, I’m merely horrified. That’s true for many things your species considers normal.”

I wasn’t sure why I was surprised that predators’ medicine was so barbaric—actively harming patients and giving them wounds, since that was the only thing these beasts could think to do in any situation. At least these humans tried something, though I shuddered to imagine a “doctor” that used a cutting instrument as the primary treatment tool. Blake didn’t seem charmed by my commentary, and I realized I hadn’t given him much rationale about my smuggling outfit. It was his fault though, since he didn’t know the first iota about medicine to tell him my reasoning. The secondary explanation aside from blood—mesmerism—sounded like it was some mystical explanation of “magic”; the fools said the same thing for my holopad and a rudimentary shuttle.

It’s a miracle that Blake managed to save my life, or knew what bandages are, with his atrocious understanding of healing and medicine. This is hopeless to explain. I might as well let him arrest me.

“I should lock ye up since ya done a tonna insultin’ and no real ‘splainin’ to me, but I’m a tad curious. Glutton for punishment, I guess,” the sheriff sighed. “What’s a ‘transplant?’”

I tried to wipe the defeated look from my face. “It’s where you replace someone’s organ with a different one because it’s broken. Cut them open, take out the old one, put the new one in. Human surgeons would probably eat the bad organ, as an intermediary third step.”

“The fuck is wrong with ye? Surgeons ain’t cannibal folks. Look, I’m just not gettin’ where these ‘other organs’ done come from. Ya said there’s a list to wait fer ‘em.”

“They mostly come from c-cadavers. I hope that doesn’t just translate as ‘food.’”

“Christ, Nilrie. Ye take organs from dead folk, and yer horrified by me?! That’s straight outta Frankenstein! Ever’one knows ya don’t mess with the departed.”

“Is this one of your unscientific superstitions? Will the demons come and get you, Blake? They donate their organs to save the lives of sick people. It’s a final act of altruism before they pass on.”

“It’s mighty unholy. Man don’t create life.”

“Of course not. You only take it.”

“I swear, ya want me to take yers. All I heard as yer reason for goin’ into thievin’ was mesmerism mumbo-jumbo, and yer pa needin’ cadavers.”

Idiot. I shoved the holopad into his hands. “No, I wanted to ensure nobody else died waiting on medicine that never came. That’s the little Takkan girl that I decided to grab cryopods for. She has a horrible neurodegenerative disease which causes excruciating pain. Her legs are withering. Listen to her screaming when the doctors barely touch her.”

The predator’s gaze fixated on the screen, and I studied his reaction as the blood-curdling screams echoed from the speakers. Blake’s lips turned in a reverse snarl, as his eye fur strips slanted downward in what seemed like a grimace; it was a pained expression, with taut muscles warring against themselves. His abysmal pupils had dilated, while taking on a hint of a glassy sheen. The human shied away from the video with the rest of his posture, before depositing the device back to me with a sharp gasp of air. I couldn’t tell for certain that he wasn’t trying to stop himself from enjoying it, but either way, he showed some modicum of sympathy for the child. The creature’s trigger-pulling fingers curled in a tight fist, and he stood in a hurry.

Predators can’t have true empathy; Blake couldn’t slaughter living beings if he felt that bad about it. If he is feeling sorry for the child, it’s a diluted sense of what we’d consider to be heartache or compassion.

The human rubbed the back of his neck, eyes turned toward the ground. “That’s a helluva way to manipulate a fella, but this ain’t my first rodeo. Why are there multiple cryopods if it’s fer the girl?”

“For her family. What good does it do for her to be alone in the world as a child? I was an orphan, Blake. I can tell you,” I huffed. “It doesn’t matter anyway. My supplies won’t get there now. I’m trapped here, on this planet, with only a predator for company. Uh, no offense.”

“Ya can’t just slap a ‘no offense’ down after offensive shit, Nilrie. Yer worse company than I am, smuggler of the stars. Ye should feel sorry for me.”

“You don’t seem to care that I’m a smuggler anymore.”

“Yer a Robin Hood figure, ain’t that so? Steal from the rich, give to the poor.”

“You…have a human that does this?”

“Well, Robin Hood’s from folklore, so I don’t think he’s real. He’s a hero though, in most folks’ view. What else ye done?”

“Um, there was an experimental cure for a fatal autoimmune disease…er, that means the body attacks itself…in Drilvar, which is another species out there. A specific Drilvar had two months to live, but the cure needed six months to get approval.” I paused my recounting, doubting that humans had any approval processes required for legal distribution. Why would they care enough to do clinical trials and obsess over harmful effects? “He was willing to take the risks; he had nothing else. So I broke into the lab and stole a sample. He’s still alive today.”

The sheriff’s piercing gaze bore into my skull. “How’s I s’posed to know yer tellin’ the truth?”

“Because I can tell you dozens of stories, and I have videos for every single one. I remember…I care about these people. And think of what I’m stealing. What am I going to do with small quantities of medical supplies? Is that how you’d get rich quickly?”

“Hmph. Ye got a point. I think it’s pretty noble hon’stly, riskin’ yer hide and tryna save lives.” The human seemed oblivious to how absurd it was to hear him praise that objective. The words almost seemed sincere, just like his claim that he’d helped me because it was the right thing to do. “Let’s get walkin’ then, and ye can tell me more stories on the way. We got a flyin’ kite that needs a fireball uh nitroglycerin.”

While Blake Donovan was brutish and unintelligent much of the time, there were worse predators I could’ve been stuck with. Some alien monsters like John Marlow were much more vicious, and ones like Preacher Collins were more primitively superstitious. The sheriff was trying to prevent his own kind’s rampage alongside me, and had enough brain cells to grasp that I came from the stars. He even had enough stunted empathy to appreciate my purpose; it was miraculous that my story had kept him from turning on me. With a bit less fear thrumming in my chest, I looked after Blake into the woods. There were plenty of tales I could tell the peculiar beast on our walk.

---

The lanky biped was tireless, though water secretions soon coated the pelt beneath his vest. I didn’t understand why the sheriff kept wearing the heat-trapping garments on such a lengthy trek, but I didn’t dare to ask. The closer I looked, the more I was convinced they were crafted from the skins of dead animals—perhaps it was a way of boasting about hunting kills to other predators. Blake had to be a social creature to tolerate talking for so long, across multiple days in my presence; that might’ve accounted for the differences between him and the grays. The humans had a slight interest in connection with others, as their sole redeeming attribute. Instead of a herd, they had a pack, didn’t they?

Do they have everything else about them aligned with the Arxur? I’ve never asked if they slaughter each other, and develop technology in the name of violence. War is a strange motivator for progress, one that explains their laughable ideas about medicine.

“Blake,” I ventured, slowing to catch my breath as we left the wooded hill behind us. “Do humans fight w-wars with each other? You know, killing over disagreements to tremendous bloodshed?”

Sheriff Donovan grunted. “Sure, we fought a war couple years back ‘gainst Mexico. ‘Nother country, didn’t wanna sell their land to us, but our soldiers went in anyway to grab Texas. Quite a bit of opposition back in Wash’ton, and political bullshit going on. Polk done want more slave states, and he’s toutin’ all the ‘Manifest Destiny’ shit.”

I stopped in my tracks, horrified by the humans’ nonchalant explanation. There were “slave states” on this planet? That was the most predatory, Arxur-sounding thing I’d heard; I couldn’t bring myself to ask any more, but the expansion of something so heinous sounded like an atrocious reason for war! Perhaps this was a natural consequence of a predator’s urge to dominate, and their disregard for anyone deemed weaker within their hierarchy. At least Blake spoke as if it was someone named “Polk” who wanted all of this, not himself. I struggled to find my voice, imagining if I became roped into servitude at the hands of these beasts. Anyone who’d take away another person’s autonomy and bend them to their will was unfathomably cruel.

“W-what’s ‘Manifest Destiny?’” I choked out.

Blake stopped walking, hands on his hips. “I ain’t the political type, but I think it means it’s our God-given right to expand ever’where, that we’re all special and chosen. I went west to settle down the trail, and wanna see our waterin’ hole grow, but I dunno about that. We make an honest livin’ here, and leave the cityfolk to bicker an’ war.”

My heart skipped a beat in my chest, hearing the human describe the Manifest Destiny philosophy. If they believed it was a divinely given right to steal others’ land, conquer, and expand on their own planet, what happened if their species reached the stars? I shuddered to think of a galaxy where these predators had flung themselves to every corner, believing it to be their destiny. This was a species that’d pile up bodies over territorial issues and greed, just like the grays. We had to ensure that Marlow and his ilk didn’t get my ship, no matter what it cost us. Too many lives were at stake if these savages made it off Earth, regardless of whether there were a few glimmers of personhood in the sheriff.

“Mankind been warrin’ as far back as we’ve been around,” Blake continued. “Empires, kingdoms, fights ‘tween who believes this and who wants that. People die fer that, and I won’t lie to ya. Our country is pretty new, so we ain’t seen that many fights. We’ve had somethin’ to prove since we got our independence.”

I drew a shuddering breath. “Independence? F-from…?”

“The first war we fought. The Revolutionary War, we call it. Britain had us as a colony, but we didn’t wanna be under their flag no more. Guess we put up enough of a stink they decided we’re more trouble than we’re worth. Now we got a system ‘bout votin’ and representin’ the locals, not no kingdom.”

“You…fought a war to get away from an empire? I wouldn’t think predators could have a…democracy. Only the most powerful should get a say as your rulers…your alphas!”

The human’s jaw hardened. “Is that how Takkans run things? The powerful lordin’ over the have-nots? No wonder you’d hafta to go Robin Hood.”

“N-no. We’re run by an elected legislature, and um, our original one broke up because the p-people couldn’t agree about staying. We can call referendums at any point we want to replace our leaders, even off-cycle. W-who is Polk, if you don’t have an alpha?”

“I guess President Polk was the ‘alpha,’ Nilrie, but he don’t make decisions on his own. We got a lotta branches that work in tandem. Now get yer ass back in gear, because yer in danger standing out ‘ere.”

My mind was reeling, as I replayed everything Blake had just told me and what I’d witnessed in my time here on Earth. Humans viewed any resources or living creatures as theirs for the taking, without a reason not to. To escape another predator’s rule, they had to prove themselves strong enough and wage a costly war to be allowed to choose for themselves. This very nation turned around to enslave their own citizens, expand their territorial claim, and continue waging wars with anyone who stood in their way. The locals would place animals like Bourbon under their dominion, without a care for her autonomy, forcing her into a life of labor. They’d stalk about the new lands with new prey, gunning them down to fill their stomachs. All of this, because they believed it was their destiny.

Perhaps I understand what drives a predator, beyond the simple answer of cruelty. They believe they’re entitled to rule over anything that they can, as long as they can get away with it. That’s why they need a sheriff like Blake to coerce them into submission, and maintain a fraught order.

“N-now, I know what you meant fully. About my ship bringing out the ‘worst’ in other humans,” I stated. “I have a q-question. Why doesn’t it do that to you? Why aren’t you tempted by riches, like Marlow?”

Sheriff Donovan sighed. “All I need is a roof over my head. I wanna keep the folks I care ‘bout safe, and protect the town. It’s why I became a sheriff. I saw folk takin’ advantage of the loose laws and ain’t liked it much. Someone’s gotta stop the bad men, or there’ll only be bad men left.”

“We…have to stop them. If we don’t, there’ll be only ‘bad men’ here and beyond, Blake.”

“I believe ya. I also know we don’t wanna attract no attention from them Arxur. Fightin’ a war against that…you’d be better off swingin’ from a rope.”

“Swinging from a rope?” I echoed.

“How do y’all execute criminals back on yer world?” The human cupped his hands around his throat. “We tie a noose ‘round the neck and hang ‘em high. Gotta strike the fear uh God in them somehow.”

My blood ran cold as I fully processed just how a predator would have to keep order—so much for Blake having any feelings about killing others, even of his own kind. The mental image of killing with a noose was horrifying, though I supposed it was the only type of message that vicious, instinct-ridden humans would understand. Was that what he’d meant when he considered “arresting” me? Tired of asking any questions about these creatures’ so-called “society,” I trudged behind the lawman in silence. Until the explosives had destroyed every trace of my ship, I couldn’t rest easy. These monsters were much too violent and expansionist to ever get their hands on such technology.

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A/N - Chapter 6! Nilrie explains that he got into smuggling to try to help those in need, because of how his father died, without access to a life-saving transplant. Blake and our Takkan share shock and horror at each other’s medical methods, though the sheriff decides Nilrie is a Robin Hood and is sympathetic to his mission; the human’s appreciation for saving lives makes Nilrie think he has some prey traits, and be a bit more trusting of him. Trying to understand social predators, he asks about humans’ wars, and Blake gives him a history lesson that involves some dark elements: slavery, Manifest Destiny, the American Revolution, and public executions.

Our narrator remembers that Terran society is a far cry from his own, and is more certain than ever that we can’t reach the stars, since we’ll try to take over and conquer everything in sight…out of a sense of destiny. What do you think of Nilrie’s reactions to various pieces of 19th century history and customs? Is he justified in believing we’re too violent and expansionist—a threat to interstellar civilization—as the Federation also did a century later? Do you think his story of altruistic smuggling has made the sheriff view the alien differently?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!