Chapter 38
Diana
Friends
Diana sits in front of her computer looking at the new test results from all of the female humans taken in the last few days from the different ships, still no new Brenda. She has begun to stress over this. Normally she would only now be getting up and starting her day, but instead she has been up for the last few hours. Her thoughts drift to Steven, last night he had listened intently and given advice to a couple of Dahax troopers. After that, a young security officer came up seeking his advice. She had stayed away, but it made her furious that so many should seek his counsel. She finally had enough, since he had not seen her there or at least it seemed that way, she just left without speaking to him. It should not have bothered her the way he seemed so open to people seeking his advice and interrupting his day. Making time for such unimportant things, what a waste of Steven's time.
Diana had decided after that to go to her lab and walking down the hall she saw Martin chatting to Jack the skin specialist. They nodded to her and asked about her evening, but as they left they continued laughing and apparently setting up a time to meet for chaffee; no that would be coffee for the next day. Martin had so many friends. She had not gotten very far when the next people she saw was Barbara and Nancy the other skin specialist giggling about perhaps imbibing in a little special drink. They stopped talking and nodded to her as she walked past them. As soon as she was down the hall the giggling began again.
Now the most infuriating thing of all, Jason has not been with his new roommate all that long and you would think they were the best of friends. She jerks as she has just slammed the desk with her fist, it is a move she didn't even know she had made. Where were her friends? Yes, she could grab some boy and get him to go to bed with her. In fact, she has two she is preparing to be her next happy distractions. Diana thinks about it for a moment, it would not be the same as being a friend or someone people may turn to for advice. Sex and friendship are two different things, with a shrug she really doesn't need or want friends anyway. Everything is as it should be, but the giggling from Barbara and Nancy, advice seeking young officers who have turned to Steven of all people; this bothers her. No, she doesn't need anyone. Being bothered by such things makes her pathetic.
She stretches, the room seems much to warm, she brings up her device to lower the temperature in the room a bit. She really needs to keep her focus on the work she is doing. The thought comes to her to review all of the information on the tests done on the sexually mature human girls again. Of course, this was first done by someone else previously and then sent to her. The second time by herself just now and if she did this again it would be yet a third review. All they can do is look for the human with the more open accepting gene, they found Brenda why not another. She touches the hologram and brings up the file on the male Whipelli sperm tests. At least things are looking good in that area. Gordon had the latest test done on him and the results were amazing. They were even better than she had hoped for, but without a Brenda she can't move forward.
Diana finds herself frowning as she moves to the next thought that has been aggravating her; the SSG officers Brian and Brett have taken both Downstairs Carl and Jason to Sechin Bajo in Peru. Supposedly the drawings are very much like the ones in Siviley. She actually doesn't believe in that ancient alien stupidity. However, the Great One; no his name is Mihee, today she will think only of him without that stupid 'Great One I Am Superior Than Everyone', name. Mihee believes that ancients came and have laid down the way for him to be the one who will lead the universe, live forever and of course get that special Whipelli organ. An organ she needs a Brenda replacement for. If you can manipulate cells; why can't they get the Whipelli and Depol DNA to work together. Why does it take a whole different host to make this work? If the ancients wanted to give him his supernatural abilities why didn't they just give them to him. No, he says; this is one of the reasons to be here on this planet. There must be a struggle, a sacrifice and so on and on. He tells her this has all been laid out by the ancients, to discover, learn and apply what has been learned so that he can take his appointed position as the Leader of the Universe.
Diana frowns and finds that she is banging the desk again, at least a bit more gently this time. Supernatural powers from an organ that simply works to keep the Whipelli from freezing in their sub-zero temperature of northern mountain winters. The binal organ of course is with the Dahax and Depol as well, but it is only to keep the newborn child warm. Within weeks it literally becomes a tiny unused and unneeded organ. However, it does not go away with the Ibrea and Whipelli; it is necessary and now they can't even live without it. Strange how her people survive without it, but Ibrea and Whipelli die without it. Yes, strange. Then again, they have some odd bonding ritual. She herself attended one; the power surge that they must release does have a feel of something supernatural.
There are Whipelli women with the gift; males do not have the gift of future dream or any other special gifts. The woman with the gift lays down with someone and they go to sleep; the other individual is taken to a moment in their future. The one with the gift though cannot see their future or the one they have brought to that moment. Diana wishes she could look into the future. Oh, what she could and would do without hesitation if she knew the future. This also means if she understands this that Mihee has not seen the future even with the short time he has a binal replaced. Maybe it is a gift only a woman can understand how to use. She smiles, maybe Mihee is looking at this incorrectly. Men do not have the gift and even if he does procure it, the gifted one does not see the future. Now of course if women have the gift it is hidden to keep Mihee from placing the woman in protective custody. Protective custody is where the organ is removed and placed in Mihee. The woman of course dies, the organ does not last long. Mihee though does have some abilities that are unusual; maybe he will be embracing supernatural gifts with his new organ. An organ that contains at least some of his DNA so it will survive and be with him permanently.
She frowns; all the ancient drawings truly have him believing that once he finds further information left by the ancients his goal for gaining immortal life and the path to his becoming a leader or god or whatever is rummaging in his brain will come to fruition. She shakes her head; who is the idiot in this? The truth is that if it does come to be true; well she will be right there at his side collecting her share of power. Maybe immortality. If nothing comes of it, then she can still say she stood by his side.
It will be interesting to see what is found in the ruins; even she is intrigued. The Siviley drawings on her world were fascinating. How could a people who would not have know what their own planet's continents looked like; could then possibly know what another planet's continents looked like. The other circle underneath what is their planet and Earth; is that a planet or a representation as the Mihee has said is the universe.
She sighs deeply; so much on her mind. The thought of people seeking Steven's advice causes her to sneer. Why does John put up with Steven? Diana snarls and shakes her head. John, that one is a fool. Why was he chosen to lead. She should have been chosen; not John. It was she who demanded that part of the trip here would be to place empty pods in the ship to be used on their arrival to begin taking humans and storing them like so much fresh meat in a freezer. These humans could be taken back home; for those that suited the need they would be trained as ground soldiers to fight the Banteen. Yes, they would be like breathing shields used to distract the true army. Other humans could be used as slaves. Slavery had been abolished a very long time ago on her planet, but humans understand slavery. On her planet indentureship had been the way to force people to work willingly and has returned as their world struggles to maintain the population. When someone signs a contract to work a certain amount of time doing some promised job, it is a different kind of slavery. Yes, an agreed upon slavery. Diana tilts her head and frowns as she can't leave the thought of slaves, maybe the Regime does have slaves. Then she smiles, that would be the Youth Corp; they really are not indentured. The Youth Corp in many ways are slaves, they just think they are in charge of their own lives.
She smiles as her thoughts return to the human food source, John did not want to feed Dahax human meat. However, she persuaded Mihee to command John to do just that. John thinks that if the Dahax find out that they will be angry, yet he says that they will stay quiet. He apparently fears the quiet more than anything else, he feels silent unrest is more dangerous than those that strike out. John is a coward, now he has no choice. Diana imagines Dahax eating strips of bloody human meat with berries wrapped inside. Yes, she will have to go down some time and watch them eat. Besides Dahax are stupid, jungle people who only know how to farm and shoot guns. Then she grunts, the Dahax gun scores have gone way down. Steven is always bringing this up and how they are in pain and blah, blah, blah. Men are such weak creatures or at least males of her planet. Hum, maybe she should be thinking of a human male as a possible sex project.
Her thoughts turn to Mike Donovan as he does have a nice body. However, the immediate disgust of the thought comes to her, no Mike D in her bed. She is happy that his son has been taken. Her people and humans share the same emotional responses. Can there be a better bait than someones child.
Now that he knows what her people look like and human history shows how the humans will react to what they perceive as lizard monsters, it could motivate these people to violence against them. She rolls her eyes, really lizards; do humans not know the phrase alien lifeforms. The humans will not see them as a people, once they know what their true selves look like. No, they will only see evil monsters. Things may actually be coming together to unite the ships towards Mihee's quest. The problems on their home planet are for real; real fear of losing their families is what has motivated them to come to this planet.
Get Mike Donovan and make him an example for her people to see how humans really will react if ever they know what is beneath their fake skin. That is going to be a lovely day when they put that visual together. They will show the reaction of humans that they have recently taken captive as they see the faces of a couple of her people without their pseudo-skin. Especially, Dahax with their larger crests and no earlobes. A Dahax will look even more different than a human and she will make sure that they stick out their tongues. Maybe spray a bit of venom. Yes, a couple of Dahax troopers will be perfect. The humans should most certainly look fearful in the visual; where as her people will only see their people and not understand the fear. Another thought, give the humans guns that don't really work, she doubts it will take little urging to get at least one of them to fire. This will all be done in of front of crew members as they put the visuals together, they will spread the word amongst the rest of those on the ship. The fear of humans will be there long before they show the visual. No more of this, 'I feel badly for humans,' amongst not only crew, but officers as well. This is how humans really are, like it or not.
This should ease John and other officers concern of a revolt or some other drama due to any growing unrest. Although she doubts that there really is any, it is an over reaction of John and officers like Steven. The supposed unrest of the crew will all be halted when they see just how humans really feel about them. Maybe, she should see about assigning Alex to do this, his gift for inserting appropriate visuals for the required emotional response will really add to the anger against humans. Unfortunately, she will have to run this past John. Yes, this may be take care of any unrest on the ship that may be there or may happen in the future. A happy smiles graces her face. Even John may be excited about this.
Then she looks at the holograph again. When will a new Brenda be found; she now has four young men she can use to impregnate her. All the work on Brenda had shown her how to manipulate the egg. The only thing was how much DNA from Mihee should be used. Her thought is twenty for the mother, twenty for the Youth Leader she uses and sixty percent from Mihee. However, she needs a backup plan, she can't see how that would not work, but sometimes it may be good to go the other way. Forty percent for mother and the young man used to impregnate her. She winces, only twenty percent from Mihee. If she gets what she wants, which she is sure she will get now. The one that is mostly Mihee will be his greatest gift and the baby will be sent immediately to him. They can clone the baby as well so that there will always be a replacement. If the one with less of Mihee and mostly human and Whipelli; well it can be killed or kept for other experiments. Power will be hers after that, who needs friends when you have power.
A sudden moment of depression comes, all she can hear in her mind is giggling. Women giggling and having fun. Gossip about men, officers, or little things they have seen others do. Sitting over alcoholic drinks and whispering to each other about some girlish secret. She snorts they are just little girls. Giggling, who giggles. Suddenly she misses Jason, go figure she should miss bossing him about.
Diana stands and goes to a mirror and looks at it. She then giggles, then laughs and pretends she is talking to someone in an excited way. Then she shrugs and walks away; giggling really is stupid. Friends a waste of valuable time, power is what life is about.