And Then There Were Five

Posted on Thu Oct 1st, 2015 @ 7:42pm by Ignatius Reilly

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Galileo Science Center

* Sciences *

Another?

Ian Bren sighed and nodded sadly. "Another one. I'm sorry, Iggy, I'm not sure why but it seems like there's a congenital condition in some of them. "

Iggy stroked a leg along the body of a dead spiderling - her dead child. Do all of them have this condition?

"No, I've run scans of all of them. Ariadne is in great health. She's due to molt again soon. Aragog and Gilroy are also okay. But the rest," at this point, there were just five spiderlings left, "are not. There's issues with each."

Iggy started crying in a low keening and Ian hesitantly petted her. "I know this is sad, Iggs. I'm sorry. I don't know why just the three are okay."

Yes, and none of them have spoken. I thought she was going to be ...Eli said he made contact, but... I haven't. And it's been days!

Ian winced. He didn't know the right things to say to the sentient spider. He wished Oralia was there or Jackson or Li or... well, anyone but him. "Maybe Jerry was exposed to something that made his little swimmers defective."

Little swimmers? Iggy turned to look at Ian. Jerry is a spider. He doesn't swim. What little swimmers would he have?

"Ah...." Crap! He'd painted himself into telling her about biology! Ian hedged, "Well. Um. With most species, the male produce sperm --"

I know what sperm are and that males make sperm. Are you calling sperm 'little swimmers'?

"Yes! Because they swim up the fallop--. Oh," Ian realized that spider sperm possibly didn't swim. They were more of a paste spread over the eggs; he grimaced and decided to never again attempt to explain biology to an alien. Any alien. "Never mind. Ask Oralia."

Perhaps Jerry's sperm was defective, Iggy agreed. Silently, she wondered whether the fault lay in her eggs. And what did that mean for the five left?

**************
Ian Bren

Ignatius J. Reilly-Zeferino