Page 14 of I Married Amreth

I licked my lips nervously and nodded. “Obviously, everyone in the medical community had countless questions about the source of the cure. But Jacobs—along with his entire team—stated that it was some kind of a wild beast that they couldn’t identify. It decayed too quickly from whatever disease was eating it from within. It had also mutated far too much to allow them to identify the original species it belonged to.”

“And you believe that?!” Svira asked with obvious disbelief.

I hesitated and then shrugged. “It was indeed a rather disturbing accounting,” I conceded. “Quite a few people expressed feeling troubled by it that they didn’t even have sketches or any preserved samples that could have allowed more advanced computers than the field ones to try and recreate the original creature from the DNA. But you cannot challenge an entire team of highly regarded scientists without solid proof or at least a strong cause.”

“And no one thought of coming back?” Aku challenged.

“Many of us wanted to. But the Sangoths’ home world is under strict Prime Directive guidelines. Thatbeastdid not naturally dwell in the areas inhabited by the Sangoths. Trying to track down a creature whose actual appearance they weren’t even certain of would have greatly risked disturbing the ecosystem. It didn’t feel justified under the circumstances. Anyway, the entire quadrant was too hyped about further digging into SS12.”

“Well they lied to all of you,” Aku ground between his teeth. “That wild beast was my older sister. She was training her son at tree hopping when she stumbled upon two humans. They were coupling by the river where they had been eating. We had never seen humans before. But my nephew, who was only five years old at the time, focused on the food left on display. He ran from his mother to go eat some of it.”

“Oh, no!” I breathed out.

If that couple had been on a romantic escapade, there was no way they would have brought the sterile rations that were authorized when eating in protected environments. God onlyknew what kind of negative reaction the local population could have to it. As if he had heard the thoughts crossing my mind, Aku confirmed my fears.

“The human male noticed my nephew grabbing the food. He chased after him. Naturally, my sister intervened to protect her son. The human shot her,” Aku snarled.

“Oh, my God!” I whispered, horrified. I would have pressed my hand to my face, but the energy field kept me restrained.

“She still managed to fight him. She bit and clawed him. The human female shot my sister as well. That succeeded in knocking her out. And they both fled, abandoning my sister and my nephew distressed about the state of his mother.”

“She died?” I asked, my voice constricted.

“No. They shot her with tranquilizers,” he replied.

I flinched upon hearing his words. You never injected new species with any types of drugs before performing extensive tests to see how they would react. In this specific instance, beyond the fact that they never should have been there, they should have used a stun gun to incapacitate their target. How the fuck did they compound so many mistakes in one go?

“What you need to realize is that the river where this took place is located more than a day’s run from the closest Sangoth village,” Aku added angrily.

“This means at least an hour flight in a personal shuttle,” Svira specified. “Those humans didn’t stumble there by accident. It was a deliberate choice, knowing they were violating the Prime Directive just so they could enjoy a pretty setting to fornicate.”

“I’m sorry this happened. The way they handled it was beyond poor. They certainly panicked, which made them act irrationally,” I said in an apologetic tone.

“And that makes it acceptable?” Aku hissed.

“Of course not,” I said in a soothing tone. “They never should have been there in the first place. But what happened? If I’m here, I’m assuming that she had some sort of negative reaction?”

“At first, she seemed to fully recover once the sedatives wore off. But then she started getting sick about a week later. As she was a wet nurse, she was breastfeeding many of our infants, including my nephew.”

“Oh, heavens!” I whispered, my chest constricting.

“The younglings got sick, as did the ones who no longer breastfed but played with them. And then it passed on to their siblings, their parents, and to the entire village. Our young breastfeed until the age of six or seven. Most of our females only have two, or maximum three, babies in their lifetime. In the two months that followed the incident, four out of five of our infants died. Barely a third of our females remain. Some are starting to show early signs again. We are becoming extinct!”

Despite the horror his words awakened in me, my scientific mind kicked into gear, thanks to years of dealing with these types of situations.

“Only the females, not the males?” I asked.

“Both genders are affected, and have similar death rates, except it becomes even more fatal for the females, if they become infected after puberty,” Aku explained.

Could it be impacted by estrogen levels?

If their hormonal development followed a pattern similar to humans, males and females would have similar testosterone levels in their infancy, but women would see a significant increase in estrogen.

“What do your doctors say about it?” I ask carefully.

“Our healers do not possess advanced enough technology to be able to fully understand what is happening,” Aku said begrudgingly.

“Kreelars fall under the strictest guidelines of the Prime Directive for a reason. They’ve only recently developed basic electricity. They don’t even have connectivity,” Svira explained.

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