This post was inspired by a prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - Worldbuilding Prompt #874 - Life cycles
Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
"You're going to like what we've got in here, Doctor Pola."
The Doctor followed her colleague, Doctor Martans, through the security door into the holding laboratory, curious to see what she meant.
The holding laboratory was usually used for the most dangerous specimens, clawed and fanged raging monsters from deathworlds. All she saw was a single small open-topped cage on a table in the centre of the large room.
"Umm...." she began. "I was expecting some towering monster like the Tarazzik Swamp Devil you had in here last week. Something that could bite one of us in half at twenty paces, or spit acid from one side of the lab to the other. All I see is... these two cutie-pies."
Sure enough, the creatures in the cage were ridiculously cute. Small furry things, soft reddish fuzz shading to grey on their faces. Huge brown eyes filled with longing, and paws like little hands with not a claw in sight.
Martans grinned. "Yes. Dirallian Lemurs. Possibly the cutest creatures so far discovered. Everyone loves them. Even K'hss our Kuravan lab assistant. If $$%%&* our Malan technician finds them irresistibly cute as well, it tells us there is something inherently dangerous and wrong about them. Those two are the most unemotional beings on our staff. Even cats don't like them."
"So what you're saying," Pola said thoughtfully, "is that they are too cute to be credible, that there must be some secret danger about them, some dark secret."
Nodding unhappily, Martans agreed. "It's true. They are utterly defenceless. No claws, gummy ridges instead of teeth, nothing toxic about them. How the heck did something so pathetic survive the vicious game of evolution ? We think they might have some kind of empathetic ability. But to complicate things, we just can't work out their life cycle."
"What do you mean ? The two you've got there show the classic male/female type differences a majority of species exhibit."
"That's right," said Martans, "but it doesn't add up."
She consulted her data-slate to read over the notes there.
"The female has a pouch, like a marsupial, and ovulates into it. But the other one, well I'm not sure it even meets the definition of a male. To be crude, it lacks anything that might act as a penis. It's got a kind of small genital pouch that generates semen. But all it does is use the stuff as a kind of grooming aid. It sticks a finger in there and uses small amounts when it grooms itself, which is why it's fuzzier than the female."
Shaking her head in confusion, she carried on. "We haven't seen them mate, and have absolutely no idea how it would work mechanically. There's no evidence of a third gender. They're just cute and impossible."
Pola looked at the two round-eyed lemurs. The male looked back at her with an expression of... well, not exactly intelligence. Just a look of love, of neediness. It held it's arms up as if it wanted a hug.
She couldn't resist. Without conscious thought she walked over to the open-topped cage and picked the small furry creature up.
"No !" shouted Martans. "Don't tou..."
"Ow !" Pola let go of the furry animal, which dropped back into the cage and landed deftly as if nothing had happened. It wasn't spooked or upset, it just stood there exactly as it had before.
Pola looked at Martans. "That was really weird. For a moment, the fur suddenly felt sharp, like I was holding one of those cacti with the masses of thin bristles."
She was still standing next to the cage, and was taken by surprise when the female reached up with arms that seemed to suddenly concertina out to grab her hand. Catching her off balance, the captive hand was stuffed into the creature's pouch, and then released a few seconds later.
The two scientists looked at each other with a mix of shock and wonder.
"I think," Pola said to her friend, " that we've just solved both the reason for their empathic talents, and the way their life cycle involves a third party. It seems that any third party will do. But from that spikiness, I bet the offspring will have picked up some of my DNA as well."
"Ew. It is an alien Brother. It must be purged!"
lmao ! Not these aliens, these aliens must be hugged. 😁
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