The Nature of Predators - Kolshian Civilian (One-Shot #9)

Memory transcription subject: Aucel, Kolshian Civilian

Date [standardized human time]: February 16, 2137

Recel was always the brave one in the family. My brother had enlisted at the age of nine, less than halfway to maturity; he was young when he found his calling. The Kolshian military was teeming with new recruits, and with the steep learning curve for younger enlistees, they pawned him off on Captain Sovlin. At the time, the Gojid had simple dreams about starting a family, and honed a fatherly nature with his crew. The abrasive tongue that he’d boasted in his later years only sprouted when his daughter passed.

As Recel’s older sister, I was double his age at the time he joined the military, but I was instead enrolled in the School of the Flora. Aafa, a name that meant “garden” in a protolanguage, saw botany as the highest form of art; with the Arxur encroaching on Federation space, I thought we should keep some of our sapience alive. Recel would regale me with his brave adventures, until the blasted humans came along. Many among our people considered my lone sibling a traitor to all sacred beliefs, and he couldn’t exactly speak up for himself. He was atomized in the void, traveling as a liaison from the Commonwealth to the predators’ lair.

I hated those filthy vermin from the planet Earth. Just knowing that one of them had planted their slimy skin on our world, and tracked their contaminants through the governance hall—it was an outrage. I’d saved Recel’s final message from when he was imprisoned, only able to watch the first part of it. My brother’s mind had been infected with lies, just like the minds of the weak Venlil; he’d spat nonsense about humans not being like the Arxur, and feeling sorry for Marcel. All sapient lives had value? These were bloodthirsty monsters!

Now, I’m tempted to play the end of his message. What could my brother have seen in these predators, to make a loyal officer turn on Sovlin…a Gojid he considered a father?

“Thank you for your cooperation, Aucel.” The Kolshian sitting across from me had the veneer of predator disease, an intimidating pose about him. He claimed he was from the exterminators’ office, but knowing what we’d all learned about Kolshian castes since his first visit, I gathered he was from the secret police. “I have one final question for you. Do you believe there could be such a thing as a friendly predator?”

I tapped into my former convictions. “Of course not. Their way of life is unethical. They leave piles of carcasses in their wake to survive, just as early Kolshians were brutalized when they first walked the land—which was our destiny, just like the stars are our destiny. We knew predators were evil in our infancy; despite the comforts of our modern life, there’s no reason to second-guess that. You can’t be friendly with the taste of blood in your mouth.”

“Oh, you could have a wonderful career with the exterminators. I apologize for these routine predator-disease checks…with who your brother is, we must monitor you closely. Many deranged citizens have floated seditious talks in recent days, and even threatened Nikonus. They oppose us for having the reserves to protect ourselves.”

They’re angry because you hid the technology, did nothing to challenge the Arxur, and used it to attack innocent prey. We didn’t have a problem with the omnivores being changed; I was shocked such evil creatures were allowed onto our soil as equal diplomats!

“Well,” I began, “the Dossur are contentious because they’re prey, and it’s hard to stomach that peaceful herbivores can sow discord. But with the predator taint on them, the same thing that turned a brave soldier like my brother to madness, it was noble to pour our extra ships into freeing them from the predators. Even if they don’t want to be freed, how can we leave them in the humans’ jaws?”

The inspector stood abruptly. “Precisely. We’re glad to see you understand what happened with your treacherous brother, and why we have to make sure no human sympathizers are here.”

“You needn’t worry. I’ll never sympathize with those freaks.”

“I should hope so. I’ll be on my way, but I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

I watched as the royal blue Kolshian departed, and released a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding when he left. As the conspiracy unraveled, we’d learned there was an entire tapestry woven beneath our outward society; the Chieftains had dropped all pretenses with the attack on Mileau. The Archives’ findings caused critical voices to reach a crescendo, and operatives paid visits to anyone spreading those sentiments. Innocent people vanished overnight, and protests were put down with an iron tentacle.

The Farsul populace seemed to have been complicit in the revisionism, parsing enough of the truth, but my government had never left a trace of what was going on. I could imagine the betrayal in Recel’s eyes, if he’d learned what the Commonwealth truly knew about predators and the actions our agents took. He was a believer in the cause; the revelation that we sparked the war might’ve broken him. I wondered if he, or the filthy humans he’d been trapped with, had any suspicions back then.

Drawing a weary breath, something compelled me to open up Recel’s last message. It was tough to think that we were something he would’ve been proud of now, and thus, it left a nagging guilt in my chest. Why did I have any curiosity about binocular-eyed, carcass-ridden scum? More importantly, what could make a good officer release a dangerous monster like Marcel into the wild? Earth would be dead from a Gojid first strike—dealt with and not sickening us with their ravenous faces. I didn’t know how my brother could bear so many of them crowding him at the Venlil outpost.

Skip to this timestamp, thereabouts, and hear the rest of what he has to say. Maybe he can explain it.

“—don’t have to fight humanity. This is our chance to end the war.” Recel’s voice was calm, reminding me in an instant how much I missed him. The sudden anguish made me want to double over. “Those predators haven’t done a thing to us; their leader begs for coexistence. How is it right that we enjoy their suffering, without any offense committed against us?”

“You can’t be that gullible. They’re too violent to coexist,” I grumbled to the recording.

“What I know is we’ve spent our lives living in constant fear, and now, I’m starting to ask why. I fear that my story might be silenced, because I released a predator. Watching Sovlin make Marcel scream…it hurt me. The captain was possessed by hatred. I wish I’d done more to help that poor human. You know, I watched him eat fruit, and pass up a Venlil while he was starving. They’re truly different.”

“Recel, you idiot! I wish you had known about omnivores; that stunt wouldn’t have fooled you then. The killing, the eyes, make humans irredeemable. You can feel it in your gut—”

“Aucy, I know what you must be thinking. Yes, humans are sickening to look at, but I can’t understand why they deserve to die for that. The Federation seeks what’s best for the galaxy, and I believe that is peace with humans—we have to see reason. Please, sister, give the Terrans a fair chance. The predators showed nothing but understanding in the face of hatred, and…they gave me hope for the first time in my life. You deserve that feeling too. I love you.”

It was the line about the Federation’s motives that gnawed at me; I didn’t believe that the government had the common people’s best interests at heart anymore. Recel had made some sense, with his suspicions about being silenced for his testimony proving prescient. The Terrans blamed the sabotage on our government, which I’d scoffed at, and yet…my brother touted that theory himself. It’d once seemed obvious that it was the human ambassador, quenching his thirst for death and suffering; the diplomacy charade couldn’t last forever. However, if Nikonus was responsible for the murder…

What if we are the predators? We seem like it, with the needless violence, deceit, and attacks on our own. I can’t do anything about them shaming and slaughtering my brother, denigrating his service record post-mortem!

Kolshians weren’t a meat-eating species, of course, but the government’s behavior seemed just as predatory as the massacres humans perpetrated on their own kind. If our actions were sacrifices to maintain peace among herbivores, why had the truth been kept under lock and key? As much as I doubted the conspiracy, there was nowhere to run to; even if I didn’t hate those slimy humans, Earth probably, in retrospect, looked back with scorn for Recel. It wasn’t like I could defect anywhere else, with other parties like the Duerten Shield also loathing us. I was stuck under a microscope for my familial relations, a pariah among my former friends. Fighting back against the system would lead to my death.

“How powerful are we really? We’re an ancient civilization,” I murmured aloud. “Why didn’t we attack Earth with the rest of the species? We could’ve ended them…Nikonus must think we can fix them. He’s going to bring those monsters into our union anyways!”

The horror of realizing in a few decades, we could be forced to interact with slavering human beasts on Aafa, was enough to make bile rise in my throat. That also meant that the government didn’t assess these predators as unsalvageable; Terrans couldn’t be without any trace of civilization. I’d heard Nikonus’ last public speech on television, mentioning attempts to cure human soldiers at Mileau. We were lucky the press was still running, to be honest, though I suspected censorship. A few prominent columnists were mysteriously unemployed.

What if Recel was onto something, about the humans being different from the Arxur? It must’ve been important to my brother, if he spent his one call begging me to give them a chance. My choice was merely whether to engage with humanity’s wild selves now, or to wait until they were brought into the union as purified creatures. I searched the data dump from Noah’s original visit, relieved and a little surprised to see it still on the internet. Citizens already knew about it, so I suppose taking it down drew more attention to it; that, or there was enough in here to paint the Terrans in a negative light.

On a whim, I tried to search for something that bloodthirsty monsters should’ve never thought of—my profession and passion. The keywords “flowers” and “flora” guided the AI’s findings, as it combed the selected files. I laughed to myself, trying to imagine the ridiculous scene of a vicious predator tending to flowers. There would be zero results from a killing-oriented race. After centuries of cleansing species, the archivists must’ve known what they were talking about, to class humans as warlike.

“13,000 results?” I gasped. “That…must be wrong. It’s likely just them scoping out ‘flora’ prey could hide in.”

The sights that greeted my eyes had to be staged, except for the fact that some seemed ancient. Also, it would require incredible collaborative effort to pull off this deceit; the humans would need to know intuitively the kinds of silly pastimes prey engaged with. There were images of hedges and trees trimmed to look like objects, and colorful walkthrough gardens that screamed beauty to the eye. Other images showed what seemed to be vendors of flowers, with curated bouquets. The shopkeeper, with its piercing gaze and unnatural form, made me shudder, but I forced myself to keep looking.

What would a predator derive from flower artwork, some of towering proportions? It rivals the feats we have here, built into the skyline. Why would they sell non-edible plants to each other?

Other Terrans were wearing pelts decorated with flower patterns, or were painting intricate petals onto a canvas for reasons I couldn’t fathom. Bouquets like the one from the shop were proudly displayed as home decorations, and some crazy predators even decorated massive trees indoors with ornaments. They’d turned their strength, meant for strangling animals, toward hauling gigantic trunks indoors? I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with beings that looked like these things, especially knowing my brother would be alive if he hadn’t stuck his neck out for them. But I couldn’t deny the ample documentation of peaceful, prey-like affairs in their files.

Recel begged for me to give them a chance, though it was obvious the Terrans wouldn’t give any Kolshian a chance—we were their mortal enemies. I had nothing to offer them to spare my life, and I couldn’t look at them without wanting to vomit. Reminding myself of that compulsion, and seeing their toothy expressions on the screen, was enough to make me nearly heave all over my desk. I swiped out of the files, thinking about what would happen to me if the government discovered I doubted them. Commoners like me were disposable to them now.

No, I couldn’t…wouldn’t go near the predators; I wasn’t going to be tricked as easily as Recel. If the humans ever made it to Aafa, I wondered whether invoking his name would be helpful at all. The Kolshians were identified as the responsible party for the war, and with the inclinations running through the beasts’ veins, I imagined they wanted to slaughter us all. That was simply what predators were driven to do. My best plan was to hide away here until the war ended, and try to get others to remember my brother as something more than a traitor.

“Close these files, and never look at them again.” I can’t believe the idea of engaging with a predator crossed your mind, Aucel. “With any luck, you won’t have to interact with human filth in your lifetime. We’re gonna win this war, and hopefully, those Earth vermin get isolated where no one has to look at them again.”

I returned to aimless scrolling of social media, in a hope to divert my thoughts from the jarring images I’d seen. Whether humans were different or not, they were the enemy. No matter how many flowers they picked or flowery words they expelled, there was no chance of coexistence between us and them.

A/N - The narrow winner of the discord poll, the Kolshian POV! Recel's sister describes how the populace has been kept in line via secret police and censorship, with all facades dropped, and also details her own response to her brother's choice to save Marcel. Aucel can't quite bring herself to see the truth, convincing herself that humans just would want to kill Kolshians for being their enemy. Does this peek into Aafa's society change your perspective of how complicit the average Kolshian is?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting! HE2 launches very soon--chapter 1 will be the 75th piece of bonus content!