The Trial of Extinction by Stan C Smith

Author:Stan C Smith [Smith, Stan C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

11

Volunteer

April 11 - 12:11 PM

Infinity pushed the last few globs of food around on the leaf with her finger, wondering if the lemurs would be offended if she didn’t finish all of it. Her thoughts then began to swirl in her mind as she tried to make sense of her group’s dilemma. Why had Kitty, Tigger, and Teddy selected this particular version of Earth for the trial? Did they intend for the humans to become embroiled in the liberation of these forest-dwelling lemurs? Regardless, the trial’s absurd design—judging an entire species and planet based on the actions of a few individuals—was cruel and unfair.

She decided to quit worrying about which actions were right or wrong for now and just focus on keeping the remaining members of her team alive. She had never considered herself all that well suited to matters of ethics anyway.

She swallowed the last bite of her buggy-nectar goo and looked out over the sea of hundreds of seated lemurs. Many of them were stealing not-too-subtle glances in her direction, while others were flat-out staring.

She nudged Desmond. “What do you suppose they’re thinking about us?”

He had actually been licking his serving leaf, and he flashed a boyish grin as he quickly put it back on the ground. “I would guess they’re fearful and suspicious. They definitely have reason to be, considering all that’s been done to them. I mean, humans are certainly guilty of mistreating their fellow humans, but keeping them in enclosures in order to hunt them for sport?” He shook his head.

Gideon, sitting beside them and having apparently overheard, said, "I hunted at a game farm in Texas once. For a price, you could pick the species you wanted to shoot, and they would take you to the right enclosure and guide you within range of one of the animals. Everything but pull the trigger for you.”

Infinity raised her brows as she turned back to Desmond.

“Look, I’m not defending human behavior,” Desmond said. “But this is different. These lemurs are intelligent—at least as intelligent as we are. All I’m saying is that they have every reason to be fearful and suspicious.”

Infinity nodded. “Yeah. Which makes me wonder why they haven’t killed us yet.”

Bishop, who was sitting across from Infinity, nodded toward something behind her. “Incoming.”

She turned. Scarface, Grayface, and another adult male lemur were making their way through the crowd toward the humans. Following them were two juveniles.

The group of lemurs approached the humans and came to a stop. Grayface spoke, and Desmond’s wrist device translated. “These children would like to speak to you. Our children are important to us, so you must be respectful, and you must not threaten them or try to harm them. Do you agree?”

Desmond spoke up. “We don’t wish to harm anyone. Thank you for introducing us to your children.”

The three adult lemurs listened to the translation and then stepped aside. The juveniles moved forward, their round eyes flitting back and forth between the humans. Infinity noticed that both were females, each with two pairs of diminutive nipples on her abdomen.

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