Page 18 of Lagoon

Well, that meant sexual intercourse.

“But they’re amphibians. They don’t have penises,” he said. “Certainly, they aren’t using their fingers to deposit sperm.”

“A cloaca, then,” she said. “Like birds.” That meant the male and female rubbed their cloacae against each other and the sperm went from one opening to another.

He nodded at her. “And located where you’d expect it to be.”

“But you’re right where I am with it, then? He took me, and probably Nancy as well, because we’re female, and because…”

It was quiet.

He cleared his throat. “Certain amphibians do go into a mating season, which lots of mammals do too, a heat time.”

“So, what if he was trying to trigger something in me?” Riley couldn’t believe she was saying this out loud. “What if… you had some wild theory that they’re some missing link between primates and amphibians. If we do have a common ancestor, there could be some way that… that…”

“Well, that’s a fascinating idea,” he said, putting his keycard to the door.

The door slid open.

“Less fascinating when you’re worried that your reproductive organs have been tampered with, I assure you.”

“We’ll examine you,” he said. “I’m sure there’s no way he…” He paused, looking at Riley. “Do you feel all right?”

“It was hours ago, Dr. Greyson!”

“Apologies,” he said, clearing his throat. “This is all highly inappropriate. Let’s…” He sighed, starting down the hallway. “On the other hand, I supposed it bodes well for Nancy, doesn’t it? He’s probably keeping her alive if that’s what he’s trying to do.”

Riley trailed after him. “Yes, I guess so. But if there was violence and death before…?”

“I don’t know if this is related to that,” said Jonathan. “But the truth is that itwastriggered by a woman, just like this. The other one took her, and several men went after her. There were casualties in the process of getting her back.”

“Oh,” she said. “Did the woman survive?”

“Sadly, no, but it wasn’t the creature who killed her. She caught a stray bullet in just the wrong spot and bled out. Nicked an artery, we thought.”

“How horrible!”

“Yes, definitely,” said Jonathan. He was heading through the hallways of the laboratory now.

Within moments, they emerged into the large room that was full of tanks.

She looked up at them. “These look… what have you been working on, Jonathan?”

“I wanted to make sure that the species continues,” he said.

“Are those eggs?” she said. “They look like eggs.”

“I have been doing some various experiments,” he said. “Obviously, all we have is male DNA. They have no females. So, I’ve had to do what I could, splicing with different species. I’ve had some progress, but nothing has survived to grow enough to get out of the larval stage. Nothing’s working. I’ve tried all different sorts of things—insects, other amphibians, even mammals. But whatever the missing piece might be, I can’t figure it out.”

“So, you thought if you could raise a female here, in the lab, that you could revive this species.”

“Something close, anyway,” he said.

Riley looked around at the tanks on the wall.

“Now, who knows, with these? Maybe one of them is going to mature. I had hoped, if we were to work together, maybe you could be helpful in this way.”

“I don’t know anything about mating amphibians,” she said softly.

---