The Nature of Predators

Memory transcription subject: Governor Tarva of the Venlil Republic

Date [standardized human time]: October 24, 2136

Wrapped in warm bedsheets, I emerged into a groggy wakefulness. It took a second to identify my surroundings as a hospital room, and another to recall how I ended up here. A human was reclining in a chair, with wire-rimmed glasses over her eyes and dark curls falling over her face. That was Sara Rosario, browsing something on her holopad.

“Sara?” I gargled.

Her rosy lips curved up in a smile, and she switched off her reading materials. The predator sprang up from her seat in a heartbeat, pressing a water glass to my lips. I didn’t understand why she was here, but it was good to see a familiar face. The scientist hadn’t made contact with my office since Earth’s fall; I was worried about her.

Sara placed a hand on my shoulder. “Stay down. Your body has been through quite a shock. I don’t know how to say this…”

I watched in silence as the human bit her lip, a gesture that suggested discomfort. She removed her glasses, and set them on the bedside table. The intensity of those forward-facing eyes, observing every little detail, was mesmerizing. I tried to signal with an ear flick that it was okay to be direct.

“That was a ‘go ahead’, right? Well, I’m afraid your tail had to be amputated, Tarva,” the scientist sighed. “If it was lacerated a few inches higher, you would have spinal damage. The good news is you can walk and return to normal activities.”

I lowered my eyes, taking a moment to process the news. “I…suspected as much, seeing the look on Noah’s face. But so much of our non-verbal communication is with tail signals. It’s like your fingers.”

“I know, and we want to help. I’ve gotten in touch with some great people on Earth, who’ve created prosthetics for animals.” Sara offered a comforting smile. “It’ll take some getting used to, but the prototype I ordered for you is cutting-edge; it’ll respond to your brain signals. We’d have it ready quicker, but our manufacturing is scrambled.”

My thoughts turned back to the maimed human attendees. It could’ve been much worse for me, as there had to be a vast number of casualties. My heart ached at the thought of more dead Terrans. I still couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing. Even predators killed for a reason; knowing why this happened would offer solace.

Explaining an event to my government and my citizens, which no doubt had been sensationalized by the media, would be a challenge. The Venlil populace must be freaked out; the smooth-sailing months of first contact lulled us into feeling safe around humans. This would give the exterminators backing for their vehement objections to the ‘infestation.’

I leaned back against the pillow. “I hope I didn’t say anything harsh about humans. My memory is…a bit fuzzy on the details.”

“That’s natural. Your brain is protecting itself,” she responded. “You were badly injured and in shock, and what you went through would traumatize a lot of humans too. If you’re scared of me now, I’ll leave; I understand the event is fresh.”

“No, please stay, I…just feel sad. I really wanted to see humanity succeed. You’re my predators, my friends, my snarling guardians. What happened, Sara? I don’t understand.”

“You know we react differently than you. You might’ve heard us reference our flight-or-fight response, as opposed to your flight-alone instincts. When crowds panic for you, there’s stampedes; we can have those too. But if a human group is agitated with our fight side…”

Understanding dawned on me, and I exhaled a shuddering laugh. Sara raised an eyebrow in a quizzical gesture. The fact that it was a predator’s stampede, not any murderous undercurrent, took a weight off my shoulders. Everyone would be able to grasp how personal agency became hazy in those situations.

The humans are just like us, a more aggressive version of us.

Of course, the Terrans felt like we did during an Arxur raid. They were threatened by a genocidal enemy, one they couldn’t hope to fight or dissuade. Every second on Venlil Prime, they were scared for their lives and for their entire species. Combine that with grief, and even stalwart predators would lose their refinement. The bomb’s chaos made fear-driven anger spill over; it was the mere culmination of a horrendous week for humanity.

“If it’s like a stampede, then it’ll make sense to any Venlil that things got out of hand. I must issue a statement to the public, and see that charges aren’t pressed. We know what it’s like to lose control,” I reassured her.

“What? There’s no excuse for violence!” Sara’s lips moved in a frenzy, as though she couldn’t say the words fast enough. “I was helping you understand the behavior, not exonerating it. Humans are expected to control ourselves, no matter how extreme the circumstances. Many people are hurt or dead; that’s never acceptable.”

“It was awful, I do recall. Noah took a long time to stand…wait, where is Noah?”

The female scientist lifted a bouquet of Earth-borne flowers from the table, and brought them over to me. They were an intricate cone of petals, bearing a rich shade of red. Unless this was a human gesture of condolences, I assumed those were left as a gift from Noah. I was still puzzled why he wasn’t present, but I took the alien plants with gratitude.

“Noah sat by your side all night, refused to let any doctors look at him. The blast gave him a minor concussion; I had to talk some sense into him, tell him to rest up,” Sara said. “I’m sure you’d want him to take care of himself. But he bought you these first…said he hoped they’d cheer you up.”

I flicked my ears. “What about Meier?”

The human’s thin smile fell in a heartbeat, like I’d asked her something terrible. There was the knowing glint in her eyes; it was the pitiful look of someone who couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Sharing the worst news was difficult, when it was bound to enact a heavy toll on another person. Tears swelled around my irises, long before she found her voice.

Sara averted her eyes. “The Secretary-General is dead. He bled out on the operating table…too many organs ruptured. Gunshot wounds to the abdomen are nasty. I’m sorry.”

I pulled the blanket over my face, in an attempt to smother the grief. Elias Meier had dedicated himself to virtue and the pursuit of peace to the last. Every temptation pushed him the opposite direction, but he was true to his beliefs. He steered humanity toward its best attributes; I counted on him to make hard decisions for everyone’s benefit. The Secretary-General was always kind to us, and bent over backward for our partnership to succeed.

Elias will be missed. He was a true leader, willing to do whatever was necessary. He dreamed big; there was so much he could’ve offered humanity.

“The Venlil doctors completed a brain scan post-mortem, at the forceful request of extermination officers,” the female human continued. “They wanted data to distinguish ‘good ones’ from ‘human animals.’ Analysis of our thoughts, weaknesses, and anatomy. Tarva, I don’t like the sound of that.”

My head poked out from the blanket. “What? They’re not in charge. Get General Kam over there, and make sure nobody else touches him!”

“Kam cleared them out for us, soon as the UN got wind of it. Lots of people don’t trust humans, after…well, the bomber of the assembly released their call-to-arms. We don’t know how to allay the general fear. We’re doing everything we can to identify the culprit, but that might take time.”

Sara lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, bringing her holopad into view. A human wearing a mask was recording themselves on video. Something about the way this one leaned forward with aggression screamed predator. There were no identifying features visible, so this could be any Terran I passed. The surroundings were dark, leaving no way of discerning the location either. Even the voice was distorted by some filter, which made the words throatier than an Arxur’s cadence.

“Our leaders have been putting alien interests before ours. They dragged humanity into a war we have no business being a part of, without getting the full picture. Elias Meier’s death is the first step in putting things right. He failed to defend Earth, while capitulating to the creatures who put us down. He, and everyone like him, are responsible for the billions dead.”

The predator finished the first segment of their claim; that boastful attitude resembled happiness, while taking credit for the dead human leader. How could that seem like an achievement to anyone? Behind the mask, the speaker was expressionless as they continued. But the accusatory finger wag they threw in was decisive, ripe with anger.

“It is time we have a government that puts humanity first! We are a superior species, more than the mindless animals that populate this galaxy. It’s time we claim our rightful mantle. Justice and retribution are due, not the peace groveling Meier sought, to our detriment. He was weak, in the face of continual attacks. He was soft, in the face of ultimatums. A senile traitor to mankind.”

The anonymous Terran breathed an aggravated sigh, losing steam for a moment. They collected their thoughts, and refocused on the camera. Despite not being able to see the ferocious eyes, I could feel their gaze cutting through me like a blade. This predator was unstable, polluted by hatred and blame.

“From now on, we must make sure that any human who appeases alien-interests has no safe haven. The officials must be replaced by force if necessary. We will not allow anyone to apologize for our nature anymore. Any aliens who side against us must be treated as enemies. Now is the time to take action, my fellow man.

Make your voices heard, and show no mercy! Death to the Federation!”

My eyes stretched wide, after the verbose speech concluded on a morbid note. I had no idea that humans had such scorn for the Secretary-General. And for the crime of wanting peace, of all things? The attack on Earth wasn’t his fault; blaming Meier for not pulling out a miracle was preposterous. Honestly, the predators were fortunate their planet survived at all.

There was a reason Venlil wanted to gloss over the necessary intervention of the Arxur. We didn’t want to associate our friends, humanity, with the race of savage tormentors. I doubted many people would be open to considering that the Federation started the war, besides me. My hesitation existed because our predators had been slapped in the face, time and again.

I understood how Terrans might think the Arxur were the lesser evil, after recent suffering skewed their view. The grays were the ones who showed interest in diplomacy, and came to Earth’s rescue in their darkest hour. I couldn’t fault my friends for questioning their loyalties. Still, it was jarring to hear a human murderer call for violent acts against the Federation and the UN.

I heaved an anxious sigh. “I’ve never heard one of your people talk like that. Is that what, well, predator disease looks like in predators?”

“Uh, I guess? Most humans are normal as can be, harmless unless harmed.” Sara scratched her scalp, and hunched her shoulders with discomfort. “Our outliers are more extreme, because we have more of an inherent ability for violence. I apologize for the supremacist rhetoric that individual broadcasted.”

“Not your fault. I’ll happily agree that you’re a superior species in many ways. But ‘mindless animals’ sounds like it could come verbatim from an Arxur. Oh, uh…I need to get out of here, now.”

Sara pushed me back, as I swung my legs over the bedside. My brain had blotted out Meier’s last request upon waking, likely because my subconscious wanted to avoid the task. The Secretary-General had known his survival odds were negligible. Freeing the Venlil cattle was what he wished to be his legacy.

Elias claimed that the nightmarish Chief Hunter aspired to end the war and sapient farming. It was quite possible the Secretary-General was projecting his own dreams. That human wouldn’t have intended for me to get hurt, of course. He had little concept of how manipulative and deceitful Arxur were. It was tough to tell where calculation ended, and authenticity began.

The hateful words Meier touted as theatrics, a stunt by Isif to avoid execution, had convinced me well enough. There hadn’t been a moment’s hesitation when he called me lesser and an ‘animal’, much like the human bomber. The fact that the first parallel that popped into my mind was a Terran mass murderer wasn’t a good sign. Did I trust the Secretary-General’s judgment enough to go through with this?

It wasn’t like I actually heard what Isif told Meier for myself, to make my own judgment. It’s down to whether I believe an obligate child-eater could want peace.

“Stop kicking me! Governor, you’re not going anywhere!” the scientist objected. “You’re just tiring yourself out.”

I flicked my ears. “The Venlil cattle exchange has to go through, and Meier isn’t here to finish it. This can’t wait; I have no idea who your new leader is, or what they’ll do. Elias begged me to speak to Isif…I respect him too much not to try.”

“Isif? The Arxur’s commander in this sector?! Meier shouldn’t have requested that, especially with your personal history.”

“Despite that, if an Arxur truly wanted peace, I am willing to try. It’s its…his intentions I’m concerned about. Our history with them doesn’t offer any indication of empathy.”

“But you know they’ve shown it to humans.”

“Or at least mimicked it. The mere thought of Isif makes me shudder, and want to crawl under the bed. Damnit, I’m going, before I change my mind. I just have to release a statement to the Venlil people first, for your sake.”

Sara knitted her coarse brows together, and raised a finger in the Terran ‘one second’ gesture. She retrieved a wheelchair from the corner, moving me into it before I could protest. How weak and frail did the human think I was? I could walk on my own! Getting used to the lack of balance from my missing tail, before I faceplanted with Isif, was important.

“I’m coming with you, and it’s not a debate. Noah’s not the only one who can disregard his welfare,” she quipped.

I squirmed as the chair rolled out of the room. “You don’t have to do that. The work you’re doing with the Venlil soldiers is important.”

“You’re more important. Besides, I thought you’d want someone you knew as your liaison. I’m here as the interim ambassador, and also as an old friend who owes her life to you. Isif is less likely to harm you with a human around, so I’m coming.”

“Well, alright, if you insist. The two of us have a lot of catching up to do, Sara. I haven’t seen you since the exchange program.”

“Heh, you were gone to Aafa for over a month with lover boy. I hate politics, anyways. Your diplomatic functions bore me to death, if I’m honest. I’ll be a poor ambassador for that stuff.”

“Likewise, doing your work…all the data and analyzing, would bore me silly. But your curiosity was one of the first things that made me sense a kindred spirit in humans. I know how much research excites you.”

“Oh, the science going on now is everything I’ve dreamed of. We’re mapping the Venlil genome, testing fear responses, and writing theses about your sociology and ecology. Full study might take centuries, but the breakthroughs we’re making are priceless! Suffice to say, I’m happy manning the projects and lecture circuits.”

It didn’t escape my notice that Sara avoided mentioning the Arxur as a topic of interest, despite their commonalities with humans. Something told me that she was afraid of Isif too; the grays’ actions had sickened her from the start. Her unease made me feel a bit better about my soul-crushing dread.

What good could come of this meeting Elias wanted, beyond a bitter agreement? I wasn’t sure it was possible to have a meaningful conversation, with creatures that thrived on cruelty. At least sailing off into the night would reassure the Venlil. Visiting Earth would be a public display of trust in humanity, to back my issued statement.

If the masses knew the reason for my voyage, it would undermine the soothing explanation about human stampedes. They would spit on Elias Meier’s corpse for broaching the topic, and despise me for negotiating with vile monsters. It wasn’t clear how we would disguise the methods used to save any Venlil cattle. This was going to be a precarious situation to manage, from an optics perspective.