Evolution

Compared to most animals the jellyfish was a crude creature. It had a simple radial symmetry, and lacked substance and tissue organization. It didn’t even have blood. But its form was very ancient. Once the ocean had been full of creatures more or less like the jellyfish. They had anchored themselves to the seafloor, turning the ocean into a forest of stinging tentacles. They did not need to be more active; they were untroubled by predators or grazers, as there had not been enough oxygen in the environment to fuel such dangerous monsters.

Roamer was baffled by the sea. To her water was something that came in ponds and rivers and cupped leaves, a fresh, salt-free stuff that you drank whenever you were safe enough to do so. Nothing in her experience or her innate neural programming had prepared her for suspension over a great inverted sky through which drifted such bizarre creatures as the jellyfish.

And she was thirsty, terribly thirsty. Her hand reached down, dipped into that murky soup, and lifted a palmful of water to her mouth. She had forgotten that she had done this not an hour ago, forgotten the bitterness of the brine.

The males had done feeding, she saw. They had fallen into a kind of stupor in the day’s continuing heat. Of Patch, all that could be seen was a single foot, toes curled, that protruded from her lonely nest.

Cautiously, Roamer made her way to the place where the infant had been slaughtered. Blood stained the branches, smeared by the licking of anthro tongues. Roamer picked through the leaves carefully. She found nothing of the infant save a scattering of thin fur — and one perfect little hand, severed at the wrist. She grabbed the hand and retreated to a corner of the raft, as far from the others as she could get.

The hand was limp, relaxed, as if it belonged to a sleeping infant. Briefly Roamer ran it over her chest and remembered how Scrap would pull at her fur.

But Scrap was gone.

Roamer bit into the flesh of the forefinger, close to the knuckle. The meat was soft, irritating her dry palate. With a fast, jerking pull she stripped the flesh off the bone. She repeated that with the other fingers, then munched on the bare flesh of the palm. When the hand had been reduced to little more than skeletal, with a few scraps of cartilage and flesh still hanging off it, she bit through the tiny clattering bones, but there was only a dribble of marrow.

She dumped the bone fragments into the endless ocean. She glimpsed tiny silvery fish quickly clustering, before the bones sank out of sight into the greater deep.

Patch stayed in her nest of leaves for two days, barely moving. The males lay immobile in an untidy heap, occasionally picking at each other’s increasingly sparse fur.

Roamer moved listlessly around the tree, seeking relief. Her mouth no longer generated saliva. Her tongue had hardened into a lump without sensation or mobility, like a stone in her mouth. She couldn’t cry out or call; all she could make was a formless groaning. She even found herself picking at the dried shit left behind by the potbelly, seeking moisture, maybe a few nut kernels embedded in the waste. But the leaf eater’s dung was thin and dry. She sank into misery, exhausted, drifting between sleep and wakefulness.

On the third day after Scrap’s death, Patch stirred. Roamer watched listlessly.

Patch scrambled up to all fours. Dizzy, her fluid balance ruined by her long inactivity, she stumbled — and Roamer saw her grab at her belly. She was pregnant by Whiteblood, a pregnancy that was draining still more reserves from her depleted body. But she raised herself up and, doggedly, approached the males.

Crest sat upright as Patch approached, nervous, as if expecting an attack. Roamer could see his blackened tongue protruding from his mouth. His facial fur was still stained brown by Scrap’s blood.

But Patch settled beside him and began running her fingers through his fur. The grooming was only a partial success. All their bodies had lost fur, and their skin was broken by ulcers and lesions that would not heal; as she worked she broke open scabs and probed at bruises. But he submitted, welcoming the attention despite the pain.

And then she moved away a little, turned her back, and presented her rump to him. She was hardly looking her best. Her fur was ragged, her skin broken, and her swelling had all but vanished, days earlier than it should have. But still, as she pressed her rump into his chest, Crest responded; a spindly erection soon poked out from his matted belly fur.

Now, at last, Whiteblood took notice of this violation of the hierarchy. This was not like his own deception; this was not acceptable. He lurched upright, uttering an incoherent roar around his ruined tongue. Crest backed away.