CHAPTER FOUR: INTRUDER

Saguaro rootsucker: Palatops wedgewood

Height: 20 cm

Length: 70 cm

Weight: 12 kg

The saguaro rootsucker is a descendant of the modern mole. It is a highly specialized animal that feeds off of the roots of the saguaro cactus. A single rootsucker can have a full square kilometer of territory, and cycles between all the saguaro cacti on its land. In this way, it never overuses one any one plant.

One of the most distinctive features of the saguaro rootsucker is its armor. This is made of highly compact hair, and is harder than the strongest of modern turtle shells. This armor is not, as one might expect, primarily a measure against predators, but rather an adaptation to retain moisture. The rootsucker retracts it head and limbs in towards its body shell, leaving almost none of its body uncovered.

Another easily recognized feature is the rootsucker's long set of front claws. It uses these to pierce the skin of tough cacti and extract the water and meat of the plant. Thanks to its armored paws, it is able to ignore the thorns while feeding. It also uses these claws as paddles to move through the sand. It makes its home underneath a cactus and travels to and from there.

"We were running from that?" asked Catherine, looking at the small, furry animal covered in armor. "But it's adorable!"

"It looks like a burrower," I said. "That must be why it was tearing out the wires. It must have thought that they were roots. Now the only thing to do is – hey, what's it doing?" As I was talking, the animal had approached me and was tugging at my shoestring. "Hey, that's mine!"

"Charles, wait," Catherine said. "We can follow it to wherever it's been taking the wires."

"Good idea," I said. I reached down and untied my shoe, allowing the animal to pull it out of the shoe. As it waddled away, we followed it, and we soon came across a loose panel on the wall. The animal pushed through the gap and sat down on a pile of wires and bandages. "So that's where it's been taking them. We'd better get these down to the control room. If you take them, I'll take the creature to the lab."

"Sure," she said. "I guess this one's yours to name, since you found it with your flashlight."

"I think I'll call it a rootsucker, at least until we get some more information. I'll take it in for examination. I grabbed the animal by the hips, and, to my surprise, it didn't struggle. It simply looked at me for a moment before it started licking my hand.

"You're a friendly little guy, aren't you?" I asked as I walked towards the lab. "I guess you wouldn't really have a predator problem with that armor of yours, would you?"

The animal purred, yawned and fell asleep in my arms. I chuckled. "You're a cute little fella, you know that?"

It had been about fifteen minutes, and the ship was up and running again. I was in the lab with the rootsucker, and I had already finished scanning him. I was writing my guide entry on his species while he sat on my lap when Catherine walked in.

"Really, Charles?" she asked. "You have it sitting on your lap?"

"What?" I asked. "He likes it. It's not doing any harm."

"It's not a housecat, Charles. It's a wild animal. You don't know if it's just waiting to lay its eggs in your brain."

"First off, he's a placental mammal. Second, he's male, and third, look at how sweet he is. He wouldn't do something mean like that, would you, Jeffery?"

"Oh, come on, you know what I meant, and besides, it – You named it Jeffery?"

"Look at him and tell me he doesn't look like a Jeffery," I said, holding him up to her face. "Besides, he's been playing around in our electrical system. We need to keep him under observation until we're sure he's healthy."

"Fine," Catherine said. "Don't get too attached, though. We have to release it before we leave the area.

"Yes!" I said. "Come on, Jeffery, let me show you my room. I'll make you a little bed to sleep in, and you can help me with my guide, and…"

"Oh, god," Catherine said. "What have I done?"

"Captain, you have to pull out the solar panels," Catherine said. "Not only do we have to keep the rootsucker under observation, but we need to capture water from the air to replace the water that he took. If you don't use the panels, we'll have to leave the reactor active."

"Fine," the captain said. "We'll use the panels, but don't complain if they get torn off in a sandstorm before they can activate the shield."

"Good," said Catherine. "I'll go organize a team to set them up." She walked off towards the living quarters. "Hey!" she said, knocking on each of the doors as she passed them. "Who's going to help me set up the solar panels?" Several crew members, myself included, left their rooms and started to follow Catherine. "You can't bring the rootsucker, Charles."

"Drat," I said, putting Jeffery back into our room, where he crawled onto his bed, yawned and scratched his head. "Stay out of trouble, Jeffery."

I stood up and wiped my hands on my shirt as I secured the last of my panels onto the deck. There were only a few more people finishing up, and I thought it was about time to start preparing lunch. We had been a bit preoccupied with Jeffery's invasion, and it was one o'clock, so everyone was hungry. I was happy to have access to the ship's kitchen again, as opposed to the usual campfire and grill rack. I planned to do something with the fish stores on the ship. Maybe it was the desert making me want something from the ocean. Regardless, as head chef, I had full choice over what we ate.

As I stepped into the kitchen, I saw that I was the first one there. I walked towards the freezer, which was kept on at all times with stored power from whenever the ship was active. Opening the door, I shivered at the change of temperature. The room was quite large, more so than any of our living quarters. It had to be to house enough food to last the crew six months. I walked towards the back of the freezer and grabbed a few Atlantic cod from the middle shelf. I also picked up a few lemons on the way out.

"Hello, Charles," Catherine said. She had apparently walked in while I was getting the fish. "Jacobs is helping the captain double check the wiring, so I'm on kitchen duty today."

"Great," I said. "What kind of experience do you have with cooking?"

"Well, I routinely burn microwave macaroni and cheese, so not much," she said. "I'm not going to be of much help aside from getting ingredients for you."

"That's okay," I said. "If you preheat the oven to one seventy five Celsius, I'll start seasoning the fish. Oh, and while you're over there, could you grab some parsley?"

"Sure," she said.