In the last days of May, Claudette knocks on your door and enters your office. She places a tablet on the desk in front of you. "These are my conclusions on the alien cadaver that you found."
You swipe through several pages of graphs and tables. "I'm a little busy right now," you tell her. "Can you summarize the key points?"
"Absolutely." She takes a seat opposite you, and you realize how tired she looks. "My conclusion is that the Surgeons reproduce by aggressively modifying the DNA of a host body: they get into your system and transform you at the genetic level, making you one of them. I've seen some evidence of neural processes being transferred as well. Certainly the biology of your brain is transformed along with the rest of you, and it's possible that skills or memories are transferred too."
"Remarkable. And the Surgeon in your lab downstairs—this is somebody who's been changed?"
"My guess is that all Surgeons, everywhere, once belonged to another species. It's their only means of reproduction. The man downstairs…this is a failed change, a transformation that was halted partway through. This may happen in a certain percentage of cases, or perhaps this case was exceptional. I don't know. But whatever the cause, it killed the original host."
You take a moment to absorb this. "Could you identify who this person was? It was a man?"
"I've already identified him," says Claudette. "We have his genetic records on file. As soon as I saw who it was, I ran the test four more times just to be sure I'd made no mistake."
"Who was it?" you ask. "Who was this man who was partially transformed into an alien being?"
"It was Anaru Katariki."
Next Chapter