Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

I'm a walking petri dish II

The doors to the medical bay opened, admitting Rccw, Nxt, and Qcpt, supporting a weak-kneed and wheezing Strrk between them. He made a terrible spitting sound and his head exploded into motion, first flung back in a massive inhalation, then whipping forward in an arc and slamming into the ground in front of him where he left an imprint of his face in snot and tears.

"What happened to him?!" Asked Xkkrk, helping the other three carry the shaking Strrk to the primary medical bed, which had a built in bio-medical scanner. Xkkrk had been so excited that she would finally be able to see every cell and pathogen in any organism able to fit on the bed, and now she had a chance to use it, although she would have wished she did not have to try it out on one of her own crew mates.

"We have no idea. Cqcq'trtr . . . " Xkkrk inwardly groaned when they said that name in relation to the current emergency, but didn't interrupt " . . . was destroying Fttfk in a game of warrens . . . " Now she did interrupt.

"Excuse me? I misheard."

"No. You didn't. Cqcq'trtr played Fttfk a few minutes ago. Not only did he somehow know the rules of the game, but he played to a degree I'd never thought possible. The game was over in about [5 minutes]. Fttfk never had a chance. I don't even want to think about what this means."

Xkkrk did. It meant they'd been horribly, irreparably wrong. It meant Cqcq'trtr wasn't an animal, but a thinking, sapient, though perhaps primitive, being they'd merely been treating as a pet. Tricks, behaviors, quirks, those could be taught by a persevering previous master. A game like warrens - especially warrens - was a game of abstract thought and advanced forethinking, something no animal possessed. Crap.

Strrk seemed to be having a seizure, so Xkkrk moved the matter to her "Do-immediately-once-someone-isn't-dying" list, which had become alarmingly full in the last [few hours]. The bio-medical scanner came online, and within seconds had analyzed every cell in his body. It also immediately noticed the unknown organism rampaging through Strrk's body. It alerted Xkkrk to its discovery. Xkkrk almost wished it hadn't. It was a virus, but unlike any virus she'd ever seen before. Most of the viruses throughout the universe, though easily contracted, were fought off in a matter of [weeks] if not [days]. Most viruses weren't like this virus though.

It seemed to have two layers of protection for its destructive RNA; a capsid, though composed of proteins Xkkrk had only seen in some of the strongest bio-materials, and a second layer of what appeared to be a phospholipid bilayer, as if it were a cell! It also seemed to have three times as many glycoproteins on its surface, as though it thought it would be destroyed in seconds if it couldn't find a cell to bond to.

"I'm an engineer, Xkkrk, not a microbiologist. I didn't understand a word you just said." Xkkrk hadn't realized she had been speaking out loud.

"Fine. Say your standard virus is a gricka" she said, referencing an almost galactically known predator which had been taken from a deathworld [millennia] ago when the galaxy was still largely unexplored. No one remembered which deathworld it had been anymore, and the gricka had changed dramatically as it had been introduced to other planets either on purpose or by accident. It was a majestic beast with a sleek body, pointed ears, and a dexterous tail with which it could display nearly sapient levels of emotion. It was even kept as a house pet by those who liked exotic and dangerous beasts. If you managed to domesticate it, it was one of the most rewarding pets due to its soothing, rumbling purr it would produced if you mastered the art of petting it; a skill in and of itself, although all who owned them said the first lesson was to never touch the belly unless it was presented to you, and even then with extreme caution. Indeed, the gricka hated having its belly exposed to the point that if you dropped it with its back towards the ground, it would twist itself so as to land on its feet. Some people went so far as to say gricka always landed on their feet. Superstition only.

"This virus would be a gricka in military-grade body armor with an autonomous heavy pulse-turret mounted on its back." The room fell silent with this ominous description.

"Will he live?" asked Rccw after [several long seconds].

"I don't have the needed facilities here. We'll need to get him to the nearest settled planet. I might be able to slow its progress down. It would help if I knew how he contracted it." She looked at the three not attempting to eviscerate themselves through their mouths.

"I think he got it from Cqcq'trtr," Nxt said. "He was holding onto Strrk's hand during the game with Fttfk since he couldn't directly interact with the game board. Right after the game Strrk was acting all fidgety and then started throwing his head around like a madman."

Xkkrk could have guessed as much. Not that Cqcq'trtr had been holding Strrk's hand, but that it had come from Cqcq'trtr. Anything unbelievable seemed to originate with him. "Bring him in here. If he's immune to this plague then we may be able to see how to fight it or even cure it. You should be safe from the virus so long as you don't touch him." She suddenly remembered with a sinking feeling the way in which those whom had been protected by Cqcq'trtr in the engine room had thanked him. "Get Cqcq'trtr in here now, I think he may have infected quite a few more people than Strrk."

Her worst fears were realized when Piiqrrt stumbled into the medical bay, dry retching as he attempted to spew the contents of his stomach which appeared to have already been emptied down his front. "What's the matter!?" Xkkrk asked with growing horror. Piiqrrt opened his mouth and such a disgusting smell reached her nose that she too vomited all over Piiqrrt's front.

She had Strrk's caretakers move him to a nearby bed as Piiqrrt took his place on the bio-medical scanner. It soon revealed that an unknown form of frighteningly durable bacteria had invaded his tongue and beneath his gum line, giving his breath a monstrous odor. She had never before seen a bacteria that did this. Of course she knew hundreds of pathogens which lived in the mouth, but she had never come across one which made its victim never want to open their mouth again.

She was relieved when Cqcq'trtr was escorted into the medical bay and placed himself on the bio-medical scanner after Piiqrrt had been laid next to Strrk. Not wanting to be distracted with his incredible physiology, she set the scanner to search exclusively for dangerous microorganisms on par with those infecting Strrk and Piiqrrt. The computer would beep when it had found one, if Cqcq'trtr was carrying any more. She initiated the scan, and the computer immediately beeped. It kept beeping.

It turned out I hadn't made my point. After Whip left it seemed every blue-giraffe and his second cousin thrice removed wanted to play a game with me. I happily obliged. Then I just kind of obliged. Then I started unhappily obliging. It was rather annoying playing games with beings that seemed to have the strategic capacity of a hamster. After about the tenth game in so many minutes, the three who had helped Drippy out of the room reentered and clicked at me, motioning for me to follow them. Not needing anymore of an excuse, I brutally ended the game I was playing, hopped off my seat, waved goodbye to my most recent unwilling assistant, and followed Drippy's entourage out of the lounge.

They brought me to the ships sickbay and motioned me to get on the largest bed in the room. I looked at the other beds and saw Drippy. His sneezes had become even more alarming and exaggerated. Even as I watched, his chest heaved and his entire upper body skyrocketed off the bed. His head hit the ceiling with a dull thud and he collapsed on the bed, knocked unconscious. Stiffling my laughter I looked to another figure near Drippy and recognized Jiggles. He seemed to be crying, two variations of sick on the front of his robe.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked, more for my own benefit than anyone else's. Jiggles seemed to want to talk to me though. He opened his mouth, and I added a puddle of my own to the foot of his bed. His breath REEKED. I had had some nasty cases of morning breath before, but halitosis had this giraffe by the balls. More as an excuse to back away from Jiggles, I quickly hopped on the indicated bed. Mama Giraffe, who was standing nearby, began punching buttons on a console I couldn't see. The whirr of a mechanism in motion emanated from the bed at the same time a faint but rapid beeping began to sound from Mama's console.

I could tell by the light of the console playing over Mama's face that it was gathering some form of information from me. Her face began to pale. "That bad eh?" I chuckled nervously. She looked up from her console and my eyes locked with hers. Oh. s**t.