Page 35
Chapter 7
A quick glance at thetime showed Georgia she’d been working in the lab for over twelve hours. After getting naked with Ash, she’d grabbed sleep, a shower, and something to eat before joining Dallin in his exploration of the animal’s body they’d retrieved from Sysal.
So far, they’d run blood tests and tissue sample scans, taken bone scrapings, and run DNA through the analyzer. It all suggested this thing was abnormal, lethal, and alien made.
Georgia didn’t mind working with Dallin. He only spoke when necessary and wasn’t into idle chitchat. Not many Apexians were, if you discounted Ranger. That guy knew how to talk.
And as for Ash’s warning about Dallin, she didn’t feel like she had anything to worry about. Dallin was calm, composed, and only grimaced occasionally and rubbed his forehead when he was concentrating hard.
Georgia let out a sigh and rolled her shoulders. There was a dull ache behind her eyes from staring at a screen of toxin reports for too long.
Dallin glanced over at her. “Let’s take a break. It’ll be twenty minutes before the test results on the latest bloodwork are ready.”
“No, I’m good. I’m just not used to being stuck in a lab for such a long time.”
One side of Dallin’s mouth lifted. “You get used to it. Come take a look at this. I found something interesting.”
Georgia steeled herself before heading to the body Dallin was working on. When he said interesting, he usually meant blood and guts would be on display. She didn’t have a problem with that, but it turned her stomach every time she looked at the poor tortured remains they’d brought back.
“What have you found?”
“Nothing good. Whoever these mysterious aliens are, they’ve created hybrids that can reproduce.”
Georgia lifted her eyebrows. “Is that unusual?”
“Not in your standard hybrid, but there’s nothing standard about this. And this one is female, with a fully functioning reproductive system.”
“When they give birth, what would they create? More of these mutated animals?” Georgia said.
“They could. Although I’ve yet to dissect the entire system. The skin on this animal appears to have been stretched, which suggests a rapid rate of growth.” Dallin exposed a fallopian tube. “I’m thinking that, when these animals reproduce, the infants grow rapidly.”
“How long would gestation be?”
“Uncertain, but most likely to be fast, too.”
“So you get an ever-growing army of dangerous animals,” Georgia said. “You create them, let them loose, and they continue to breed.”
“That’s what I’d do if I was creating these things. I’d want the numbers to increase rapidly, so I’d engineer them to reproduce quickly and birth fast-growing infants that need little care.”
“That could work. Snakes are independent from birth. It happens in nature, and the newborns thrive on their own,” Georgia said.
“And it’s possible that whoever manufactured them introduced growth hormones to increase the speed of their development.”
“If they’re reproducing so quickly, they’ll put indigenous animals at risk. Could that be what the plan is behind this?”
“Why not? It’s as legitimate as any other theory. These creatures could easily take over whatever planet they inhabit.” Dallin lifted his purple gaze from the animal.
“Yeah, that happened on Earth all the time. It was devastating to rare colonies.”
Sloane sashayed into the lab and shook her head. “It’s time for a break, you two. Too much time spent corpse staring is bad for you.”
Dallin looked at the animal. “I’m good. Why don’t you take Georgia to grab some coffee? She has cabin fever.”
“No, I don’t need a coffee. I want to keep working here,” she said.
“You both need a break,” Sloane said. “No complaints. Neither of you will be any use if you fall asleep on the job. And I know what you’re like, Dallin. If I don’t keep an eye on you, you’ll sleep in this place.”
He lifted one shoulder. “What if I do sleep here now and again? Sometimes experiments need checking in the middle of the night. It’s easier to roll out of the cot in the corner than go back and forth from my quarters.”
