The Raid of Kollanus -Chapter 02

The head medical person of the tall, smooth-skinned alien people was an older man whose name was pronounced Air-Sot. The passage of years had bent him somewhat at the waist. In addition to this, an old accident, actually dating from his days as a student, had scarred the top of his head so that in an odd looking pattern, no hair was able to grow. That same mishap also caused one eyelid to droop. There was still a further problem, an accident caused problem which forced one foot to turn in awkwardly as he walked. His students didn’t like him and Air-Sot didn’t like them. He was fully aware that they mocked his sagging eye, imitated his rather peculiar voice as best they could, and some had become quite adept in assuming his shuffling gait. Air-Sot kept his knowledge of this sort of thing very much to himself. He did return their childish unkindness in his coldness toward them and in his severe grading standards. Perhaps he might have been sorely wounded by their jabs at him, but Air-Sot was too well bolstered with an inner strength for this to happen. His strength came from his confidence. Air-Sot was a top flight medical man and he knew it. It was a supremely confident Air-Sot who stood surrounded by his array of examination paraphernalia awaiting the arrival of the young woman who was to be the first of the aboriginals to undergo his testing. She had been bathed, shaved and sedated prior being rolled into the examination room and her body had been covered by a smooth, pale blue sheet. As she was being transferred to the examination table, a half sneer and half smile wrinkled his twisted features and Air-Sot murmured, “So now we have come down to this!”

The first notations made concerned the squatness and the general ungainliness of overall look at the person. Then after following a look into various orifices, there were notations made concerning the size and shape of the teeth, in particular about the two broken ones. Then manipulating the darkened end of a hand held tubular device slowly over the entire head, he frowned and seemed to pay particular attention to the back area just above where it joined the stubby neck. Then he made notations concerning the ridge which pushed the eyebrows forward and also about the short thick mass which apparently served as sort of a chin. Meanwhile, an assistant was clipping samples of fingernails and toenails. Then, the sheet removed, what was revealed was the form of one who had lived a life of toil.

The short torso was wide, muscular and speckled with the stubble of recently shaved body hair. Here and there was the redness which betrayed the fact that those who had done the shaving had not been especially gentle in this. Air-Sot made notations about marks showing the minor infections of insect bites and a rash resembling psoriasis then directed his assistant to turn the body over onto its stomach. Once more the tubular device journeyed along the lines of the body and stopped above the neck, approximately where it had stopped earlier and once again Air-Sot frowned. Finding little of interest to note in the short, thick hands and feet he made some comment to his assistant concerning the big toe before again turning the woman’s body once more on to its back.

With his scissor-like device, Air-Sot took hair samples from the head and from the pubic area. Next he inserted a long slender needle several inches into the navel and proceeded to read another gauge on the small table next to his examination table. Nodding almost imperceptibly he reported some numerical reactions to his assistant and removed the needle. But then as the assistant was replacing the sheet over the woman, he glanced at her face and was startled to see that one of her eyes had opened and was responding to his stare with one of her own. Air-Sot turned his eyes from his notes in time to catch the woman’s expression.. “The testing is painful!” the assistant gasped, “And the subject was aware, and made no sounds !” Looking again, he saw the eyes were once more closed. While a mumbling Air-Sot made notations,. the woman was removed.

Throughout the remainder of the day, the others were similarly examined and several days later, six more captives from a second raid were also examined. Five of these were mature females and the sixth was a male in his late adolescence. It was during the youth’s examination that Air-Sot was surprised to find the sedative had not fully worked. Just as the needle was about to be inserted, a hand rose, quietly, and clasped the physician’s wrist. It was at this time that Air-Sot looked into the fully alert and snarling face. In response to Air-Sot. s shout of pain, several aides and a guard managed to tie down the flailing arms. The rest of the examination simply didn’t take place. The final report was issued:

AIR-SOT
HEAD OF MEDICINE
ASHER-0091
I HAVE BROUGHT TO EXAMINATION FOURTEEN OF THESE PERSONS. MY FINDINGS ARE NOTED HERE. THEY ARE ANCIENT PEOPLE OF RELATIVELY SHORT LIFE EXPECTANCY. THEY SUFFER FROM DISEASES OF THE INTESTINE WHICH CAN BE AVOIDED WITH THE OMISSION OF SWINE AND BEAR-BEASTS FROM THEIR FOODSTUFFS. THERE IS GNARLING, TWISTING AND THICKENING OF THE BONE STRUCTURE INDICATING LACK OF NUTRIENTS AVAILABLE IN FRESH FOOD PLUS A GENERAL LACK OF LIGHT FROM THEIR LUMINARY. THERE IS INDICATION IN SAMPLES FROM BONE SLIVERING THAT ANCESTRY HAS BEEN DEPRIVED OF SUFFICIENT LIGHT FROM THEIR LUMINARY IN THE PAST AND THAT INGESTION OF MILK HAS BEEN INSUFFICIENT FOR MANY GENERATIONS. MUSCULATURE IS MASSIVE IN ALL, ESPECIALLY IN MATURE MALES. BONES OF THE SPINE ARE SHORT AND THICK. VOCAL CORDS, AS ANTICIPATED, ARE F IRLY LONG AND TEETH ARE GENERALLY LARGE. CANINE TEETH ARE HUGE. ALL TEETH, HOWEVER, ARE GROUND CONSIDERABLY BY TIME OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. THERE SEEMS A RELATIVELY SMALL HOLDING AREA FOR THE BRAIN AS WE KNOW IT, BUT THERE IS REASON TO SUSPECT THAT A VERY LARGE CAVITY FOR ENCASING A SECONDARY BRAIN EXISTS. ASSUMING THIS TO BE SO, THEY HAVE POTENTIAL TO BE OUR INTELLECTUAL EQUAL, OR POTENTIALLY SURPASSING THAT. THE S ME POSSIBILITY EXISTS FOR THE PHYSICAL TRAITS. AS FOR OUR ULTIMATE PURPOSE, I SEE NO REASON WHY THE MATING OF THEM WITH OUR CRIMINAL ELEMENT SHOULD NOT BE PURSUED. THE RESULTS SHOULD BE FASCINATING.

In all, forty prisoners, thirty two men and eight women had been brought to Earth from their distant homeland. Each was a person of more than average intelligence and each was lacking in any apparent physical deformity. To balance the scales, however, it must be noted that each had a history of violence, depravity, predatory tendencies, or a combination of these which had not fallen within the curative powers of any institution or program. Many were classified as generically undesirables and unacceptable in society. Several were murderers, many were wanton destroyers of property, a few were classified as “those who prey on the helpless” and others were simply called ” degenerates” or even “hopeless makers of trouble.” What ever, these forty were the reason for the mission itself. Back at the world behind there were millions of others who like them could not be allowed free-range on a decent public. These were among the worst, however, and if a solution could be found for the forty, then a solution would exist for the millions of other “undesirables” in a world where the death penalty had long been made illegal and the f olishness of lifelong imprisonment was obvious to everyone. While all hope for any ordinary salvation was abandoned for these forty, they were kept well, fed decently and protected from each other all through the mission. There was no individual here who could be regarded as the “worst”; they were all pretty much equal. That being said, there was one long blonde haired, quiet young man whose name was Rabus, who apparently was the most hated by the guards and the prisoners alike. Rabus had spent most of his life in trouble for every conceivable type o f viciousness. His most recent crime was the rape of a pair of aged invalids, a man and wife. It was Rabus who was chosen as the first of the criminal contingent to participate in the great experiment.

If there were concerns twisting in his gut as Rabus raised his eyes to see four armed guards entering his cell, it didn’t show on his handsome features. Nor did it show as his wrists were manacled and he was taken, very firmly into the passageway to the left, away from the guards’ quarters. Several of the other prisoners, on seeing him being led past their doorways were concerned, however. There were hushed comments:
“Wasn’t that Rabus they were taking away?”
“I think they are going to execute him.”
“This is against all law!”
“I wonder who will be next?”

At the end of the hallway, there was a turn to the left : then a metal door opening onto a small, severe looking cubicle. Something about the way the metal door clanged shut sounded ominous and now Rabus himself felt that the time for his execution was at hand. With thoughts of how he might possibly attempt to escape criss-crossing behind his expressionless blue eyes, another, even smaller metal door opened and he was taken inside. He was trying to accustom his eyes to the bright lights in this cubicle when the manacles were released and now he realized that he was alone. “Gas,” he said aloud, “They are going to use gas. ” Suddenly he heard a peculiar sound and as he turneo, a most peculiar sight came into his still blinking eyes.

There on a low table, stubby arms strapped away from her body and short, fat legs strapped up and apart was a woman unlike any he had ever seen. Cleaned, the body hair shaved revealing a skin something like white leather and perfumed heavily enough to hide most, but not all. of her natural. foul odor, the woman’s wide, badly frightened eyes trained on him and from her mouth poured a stream of panicky grunts and gurgles. And while Rabus had never heard anything quite like this in all his life, the sound was as nothing when compared to what his eyes thought they saw, so he approached for a better look. Then as his hand skimmed lightly across the woman ‘ s leathery skin, pausing tentatively at the navel and on one breast, those watching through a thick glass window began to jockey for the best vantage places for voyeur purposes. One of them, deeming the occasion to be one meriting a filthy story began to relate it. Their fascination quickly turned to something else as they saw Rabus double his fist and slam it with all his strength into the middle of the poor woman’s face. Blood was spattered and spurting from a broken nose and cheekbone as they rushed in to restrain the grinning, shouting Rabus. The long planned experiment did take place that daY, but not quite as it had been planned. Rabus, literally pinned to the floor squirmed, but in the end surrendered his semen to a machine. As for the battered, and terrified woman, she was inseminated artificially. Then back in his cell. and locked in securely, Rabus heard the voices of his fellow inmates calling down the corridor with inquiries about what had happened and eventually he felt it necessary to answer something. ” Don’t ask, ” was his reply, “You’d never believe it anyhow.” As for the woman, now returned to her holding area and much the worse for the experience, she too was quizzed by the others whose questions were like those asked of Rabus and after she was able to speak she gave just about the same answer.

For the next several days sandwiched between treatments designed to make at least partial openings available in her crushed nasal passages and to test for signs of success in the impregnation effort, the woman was raised in status by her fellow captives. There were questions about the aliens, how they lived, what they ate and what they looked like up close. She actually knew very little about the aliens, but the woman made up answers when she could and always capped each comment with words about their unusual habits in the pursuit of having sex. “It really was not very enjoyable,” she said, shaking her bruised and aching head. After this, there followed insemination sessions, both artificial and natural, and while most of the women had to be forced, the men of both races seemed anxious to participate in the great experiment. In fact, the men of both varieties appeared to regard participation in this as great sport of the macho sort. Perhaps most surprising in all this came to the surface about a week after the breeding started. Three of the -crossbred couples expressed an interest in extending and deepening the relationship.

It’s a difficult thing to say just how it happened that on the fifth raid into the village, this one aimed at taking children, that four aliens were killed and several others were listed as “missing. ” Nonetheless that was what happened. The consensus was that the aliens proud of the ease they had experienced that far in manhandling the “Harridans”, as they called the villagers, had grown overconfident. It so happened this was exactly the case. It also happened that as soon as the villagers gained a measure of respect, they lost what little chance they ever really had to survive in the same form nature had intended for them. Within a few weeks, the only villagers left to their own ways were some thirty old people who were deemed too far along in time’s trials to matter. The rest were taken either to camps for breeding and crossbreeding or transported across the heavens to the faraway home of the aliens. To this day, it is related, their seed exists on that planet.

The metal and man-made stone- like building which housed the captured specimens as well as the anthropological scientists was a place which stood apart from the other structures and as is usually the case, was a place where rumors and wide-eyed speculations were born. What went on “in there” was discussed in whispers by those who had almost no knowledge of what was happening “in there.” Actually, what happened “in there” was a lot of study. At the particular moment we speak of, what was happening was a rather intensive, “hands on” study of two men of the now dying village. These two were men who had been charged with defending the people, archery men who took no part in farming or manufacturing and had fought stoutly before the gas had overcome them. The poking, scraping and peering – into actions of the scientists were completed on one of the men; the taller of the two. Now the other was on the table and lay loosely under the glare of light not quite as bright as the sun. One of the aliens, a woman was studying an eye in ·which the light intensity had drawn the pupil into the tiniest of dots. Another anthropologist was making notes as well as comments about the feet. “Hmm, ” he frowned, “will you look at this… the large toe looks as though it was until recent times capable of oppose activity.” It was at this point that the female examiner sighed, stood erect and looked into the face of the subject on the table. There definitely was a hint of a slightly lascivious grimace here and a trickle of saliva threading through the black stubble of the undeveloped chin. “One thing we must do in the future, ” she sighed, “is administer a stronger sedative.” Then as she brushed his hand away, she added, “This particular brute is not completely asleep. “It seems that this ” brute” had quietly lifted his arm from its dangling position and had begun, gently, to massage the doctor’s buttocks.

The trip which was to return a group of very homesick aliens back to their homeland was long and it was tiring. Such was not the attitude of the cargo, though. They, twenty of them, were fearful, excited, anxious and wide awake. Ten of them were men and four were children. Of the six women, two were pregnant and one of these was rather well along. She was carrying the child of Rabus. For her, when the craft landed on alien soil there were just three days remaining. It was during the period when she was under the effects of a general anesthesia that the chief surgeon, examining the bruised and broken portions of her face shook his head sadly and instructed his assistants to take the opportunity to correct what damage they could to the structures of the jaw, cheek and nose. As they went about this, the room reverberated with excited comments about the thickness and the shortness of the bony mass as well as the comparatively simple make-up of the blood serum. Shortly after the facial work, the child was born.

It was a most unusual looking little boy. There was a definite sloping to the forehead, a pronounced ridge shelfing across the area above the eyes and at the back of the little head, there seemed some sort of massive lump. All extremities, both hands and feet were relatively short and quite broad. Whatever, it was definitely human and it was quickly pointed out by one of the birth attendants that many other babies had been born with abnormalities ; many of them more unusual than those now before them. Then someone else pointed out that coloring these abnormalities was a kind of indefinable coarseness. “This one is somehow different than any other child I’ve ever seen,” whispered one of the attendants and another hesitated before asking a question many of the others had not the temerity to voice, ” What shall we do now … dispose of it?” At this the chief-of-staff looked about to see who had spoken and sighing loudly, because the same question had flicked across his brain, said, “No …. this we mustn’t do… our purpose here is to find what develops.