The Specimen

Ladono switched on the lights over the operating table and motioned for the surgeons to stop work. The cries from the struggling creature lying on the hard metallic board had died out but not before giving everyone working on it a headache.

"5 minutes," he said to the other surgeons who promptly threw their tools into the tray and left the room to take a breather. Ladono couldn't understand it, why was the creature in so much pain? All he did was cut up the surface of the skin, it wasn't as if he drew a knife right into the body.

Ladono followed the other surgeons as they watched the new planet from outside the window of the spacecraft. It was the homeplanet of this creature, a rather melancholic one. All shades of dark gothic colours could be seen, mixed with bright colours of blue and green. He imagined years ago, the planet had been a beautiful one. The liquid of the planet would have been the small blue bits that were remaining, and the vegetation of the planet would be the green areas. There had been areas where neither the liquid nor the vegetation were present, areas of brown. Now those areas were huge, greater than the liquid and vegetation areas. Ladono understood that the brown areas could only sustain the sturdiest of life, and the creature, now lying dead on the operating table, wasn't the sturdiest of life.

The planet had been a home for an intelligent species, a species which somehow couldn't get along with each other and killed each other for their own survival, a very disturbing and angry species. Ladono's ship had arrived at the most perfect timing. A major war had just been waged on the planet's surface, turning the lush blue planet into a sad one. The remnants of the intelligent species were now struggling to survive, and Ladono had managed to capture one of them, roaming around endlessly in the ruins of civillisation.

Through studies by other scientists, the species of the planet consisted of 2 genders, one was the life-bearing gender, the other responsible for the fertilisation of them. This was in contrast to the beings of Planet Cories, where Ladono was from. There was only one gender, and everybody was capable of reproducing asexually. In fact, Ladono had just given birth to his first offspring. The creature they captured was believed to be of the 'female' gender, the life-bearing one. Ladono recognised this by the presence of ovaries and the absense of an external sexual organ. Another thing he learnt of these species, is that they were somehow unreceptive to the idea of appearing in the nude. They wore layers of fabric over their naked bodies, and everyone seemed to do it. It was a running joke among the scientists that the different genders found each other's sexual organ offensive, for they wore an extra layer over those regions. It was hard for the Corians to accept, for to them, nudity was pride in one's body.

It was almost time, Ladona decided to go back to the operating table and analyse the specimen a little before they began further internal work. He saw that the creature had not too fair, not too dark skin, but apparently different types showed different skin colour. However, it was believed that the colour of their blood were all red. In contrast, Corians all had the same skin colour, green, but had different colour bloods. Those from the northern hemisphere of the planet had blue blood, while Ladono, from the south, had orange blood. There were other blood colours too, all across the visible spectrum. The skin colour of the species weren't as constrasting, ranging from very dark, to very fair. The hair of the female was black, long and silky, and hair apparently appeared in other regions too. The range of hair colours were also diverse among the species, from what he knew. Ladono only had a few strands of green hair protruding his ovoid head, and this was about it for the Corians. On the face of the specimen, there were 2 seeing organs, 2 hearing organs, a smelling organ and another organ which all the cries had been coming out from.

"Ladono," said one of the surgeons as he returned. "What do you intend to do now?"

"I was wondering why the creature was screaming so badly when we dissected it, we had taken all the necessary precautions to prevent it from feeling pain."

"I'm afraid we do not have the necessary chemicals," said the surgeon, whose name was Elkis. "The nerves of this organism is very close to its skin."

"Oh, I see," replied Ladono, at the same time wondering why he seemed to be the only one not aware of this fact.

"What do you think about it?" asked Elkis.

"A very simple structure," replied Ladono, toying with his 4 tentacle-like arms. "A head, two limbs on the upper body and 2 at the lower body, their evolution took place for little over a million years, so it's no wonder they look so pathetic. Look at us now, five billion years of evolution, maybe we looked like that once."

"Unlikely," said Elkis. "Our home planet wasn't as beautiful as this one was before. There was a need for our features even in our early stages of evolution. Four legs connected to an elongated body for mobility and speed, tentacles for flexible handling of objects, large eyes to counteract the dim light of our sun. These creatures have it easy, pity they had to ruin their own homeland."

By now, the other surgeons had entered the operating theatre, gathered over the corpse of the female alien.

"Sir," it was Ladono's student, Norto. "I don't mean to be rude, but I think the specimen is dead."

There was laughter among the other surgeons, Ladona too let out a chuckle.

"Yes, we can see that," he replied, trying to stuff down his laughter. "How would that affect our operations?"

Norto wasn't offended, he knew he didn't get his point across like he was supposed to.

"Would there be trouble studying the specimen if it's dead?"

This time, no one laughed. Norto had a point. There hadn't been much preparation for the operation since everyone was really excited about having captured a species from the planet for the first time, and an intelligent one to boot. The first thing that ran in any Corian scientist's mind after capturing a new specimen would be to cut it open. On Cories, no one died of dissection, it was done when the specimen was wide awake. Some medical students even dissected themselves in front of the class to present their findings. All it took was some minor medication to seal back the wound. Apparently, the alien species were very vulnerable.

"What do you propose we do?" one of the surgeons asked Norto.

Norto confessed that he had no idea, because there wasn't equipment or chemicals they knew of that could nullify pain in the specimen. Ladono and the others let out a sigh, the only way they could find out anything new would be to go capture another specimen and try to keep it alive while they were studying it. As such, the remainder of the session wasn't much. In the silence, they extracted internal organs and did a map of the body. They weren't sure exactly what did what, just that the ovaries bore the fruit of the next generation.

"I think I'll raise the possibility of setting up a base on the planet in the next council meeting," said Ladono. "With their civillisation in shambles, we shouldn't have any trouble creating our own down there."

There was much discussion afterwards, until Ladono called off the session. The surgeons took a few cell samples and stored the organs in preservatices before throwing the hollowed-out corpse into deep space.

A few days later, the council meeting was held within the ship. It wasn't a totally grand affair, for there was only one representative from the collective consciousness that was present. He had followed the members of the ship to study the new planet. But he alone was good enough, one could say the entire government was already present. Other than Ladono, the members of the meeting included reknown individuals in their profession. The social analyst was the first to speak.

"Your honour," he addressed the representative. "I have determined that the system of governance on the planet is nothing short of primitive. There isn't one nation on the planet, but rather hundreds, each having their own government whose interest is only for their own people. Furthermore, the government isn't a collective consciousness one like ours, but consists of many individuals all intent on their own needs."

"That's horrible!" said representative Yakan. "No wonder the war broke out. With such messiness, how could they expect to thrive?"

Representative Yakan was one of the 500 members of the collective consciousness. This consciousness was the only government on Cories. Each knew what the other member was thinking, and they all operated with one mind, literary. This resulted in 1 million years of peace.

"Actually," continued the social analyst. "Their system wasn't much different from ours 1 million years ago. We were in the middle of a war among nations back then, until the great rebellion occured and stopped the war before we ended up destroying ourselves. Apparently, on this planet, the same thing happened, but no one bothered to try to stop the war. They fought and fought to the very last man, that's the name of the non-life bearing gender by the way."

"I see," said the representative sorrowfully. "So they weren't as lucky as us."

The social analyst ended his report there, for there wasn't much he could understand from the planet at a glance. Apparently, it was too complicated, the interactions of many separate minds. It was impossible for him to imagine a government that operated like that. After him was the geographer, who gave a detailed breakdown on the tectonics of the planet. After at least ten more speakers, it was finally Ladono's turn to report.

"Your honour, my team have successfully managed to capture one of the intelligent lifeforms that live on the planet. After some study, I can conclude that we're dealing with a very frail species with a very frail mind. As such, I propose the construction of a base on the planet itself to study the lifeforms closer to their natural habitat."

Ladono had already expected the commotion that followed. Representative Yakan was the only one who didn't stir as he carefully analysed the possibilites with the rest of the collective consciousness.

"Dr Ladono," he said eventually. "The rest of the government would need more convincing before we can even consider sending you down there for a long period of time. Do you have any reports to show me?"

Ladono then took out the data he had collected the day he studied the specimen and showed it to the representative. As he looked at it, he was also consulting the relevant expert in the government.

"This is not enough," he answered dryly. "I'm afraid you would have to do more research before you raise that possibility again."

"But sir, that's the problem. The lifeform is just too different from us! We do not have the relevant chemicals, or equipment to keep it alive. We need to go down there, and see exactly how they work. Mesonic scans from up here aren't good enough."

This time, the room was silent. No one knew what to say. The representative was now listening to the thoughts of his colleagues, his gigantic eyes twitching over their comments. Before he could reach a conclusion, the social analyst raised a tentacle again.

"Sir, if I may. I would like to make a personal trip down to the planet too. I want to see for myself how the survivors of the war organise themselves. It would give me a better understanding of how their government had run before."

The whole room was now focused on Ladono and the social analyst. With two people intending to go, the pressure on the collective consciousness was effectively doubled.

"Alright," said the representative. "We have a lot of money and resources anyway, so there's no harm in making a trip to the planet for educational and research purposes. 3 months, the both of you have 3 months, effective tomorrow. You may ask for anything you may need, but after 3 months, if nothing turns up, I'm afraid you would have to pay back the government everything."

The meeting was adjourned, and congratulations were given to the social analyst and Ladono. Ladono now knew the social analyst was called Sydeburn, and after a liquor chat, they were friends. However, they were both faced with a new challenge. How were they going to get the denizens of the planet to accept them? The specimen had been terrified when they brought her up, and cried and struggled as they thrussed her on the operating table. Would they be able to keep their promise to the government? Ladono looked out at the planet again, the melancholic skies now turning ashen gray as it turned away from its star.

"I'm just glad we're not like them," said Ladono with a smile. He then went to find his offspring in the playroom, to give him a good lesson on how fortunate the Corians were.

Moral: Wake up planet Earth! In the eyes of aliens, we're such losers.