“These results cannot be accurate!”

His uncle’s words, not Xenon’s. Yet they echoed the exact thought he’d been having for the past three day cycles of this planet. Ever since he read the initial report on the lupinhominid he’d titled “Female 7-133” in his study.

“I performed the scans twice. Then I ran a lengthy system diagnostic, before putting her bloodwork and DNA samples through a third time. But the results came back the same every time,” Xenon answered. “I assure you on my brother’s throne, they are correct.”

“But how can they possibly be correct?” The Royal Overlord shook his head at Xenon’s assurance. “Her carbon date is nearly that of a twenty-rotation female, but she has no history of severe infection, and her skin graphs show minimal scarring and weather damage. She has traces of DNA from every single lupin genus we have observed thus far, as well as plant life from every continent and several varieties of vegetation not included the Lead Agriculturist’s initial report. And how can she have such a high percentage of fatty tissue throughout her body? It is unfathomable!”

His uncle opened his glottis to make a skeptical hiss in the back of his shell’s throat. But his gaze remained intent on his lab wall as if the results would morph into something he could comprehend.

The confusion in his uncle’s flame sparked guilt in Xenon’s own. He’d temporarily put aside his father’s advice to allow no others into his confidence or lab while on this trip, to seek answers with the Royal Overlord. But he had not completely forgotten his father’s warning that he should trust no one on this mission as it could impact his survival.

So lest Xenon somehow be blamed for a match arrival coming through an un-encoded portal, he had given his uncle Female 7-133’s scans without the full backstory. Instead, he’d claimed her as a non-experimental or control group anomaly who had somehow wandered into the Group 7 village.

“This lupinhominid is an impossible construct. And you say she is nearly as tall as an average drakki?”

Xenon nodded. “She is an outlier in every way, and I cannot comprehend how she could be possible amongst this species. This is why I brought the scans to you,”

A second opinion. That was what he decided he needed after running the giant lupinhominid’s genetic sample through his computer three times—a feat, considering each scan took nearly a quarter of this planet’s day-to-night cycle to complete.

In truth, he felt somewhat validated by his uncle’s shock upon reading the results. And he hadn’t even told the older drakkon what he’d found while analyzing the female’s odd footwear. A reddish-brown sediment, the kind that could only be found in the hottest areas of the origin lands.

“And these undocumented chemicals—including one that seems to be suppressing her ability to shift.” The older drakkon shook his head at the green scan results Xenon had uploaded to his lab wall. The Zone 6 glacier station was nearly two times as large as Xenon’s, with not one, but three labs and a staging room big enough to house all one hundred drakkon on the mission team. And thanks to his uncle’s mission title of Lead Investigator, the glacier station had ten times as many analytical tools as its Zone 7 counterpart. But none of those tools could help either of them understand how a genetically engineered hominid came to have such comparatively sophisticated drugs in her system.

“Mind you, the chemical makeup is rough by our standards,” his uncle observed, seeming to speak more to himself than Xenon. “But it is eons beyond what this species has at their avail.”

His uncle’s flame remained a neutral dark blue, but then older drakkon were better at controlling their flames than younger ones. In any case, Xenon could tell his uncle was genuinely disturbed by the angry hiss of his esses as he spoke.

Xenon thought back to three day cycles ago when the female’s attack angered him so much he could not control his glottis. He’d hissed at her much like his uncle now hissed at the data on his lab wall.

“She also carries no species tracker as the rest of the Royal Geneticist’s hybrids do.”

Like most drakkon assigned to their research team, his uncle had opted for a beard when designing his native shift shell. However, instead of the short and bushy styles like those Xenon and his cousin, the Royal Huntmaster, chose, the Royal Overlord’s was silky like the lupinhominids of groups 6 and 7. He stroked his shell beard as he asked, “Is it possible she hails from somewhere outside this planet as we do?”

“No,” Xenon responded after a moment of thought. “She might not have one of the Royal Geneticist’s tracking systems in place, but the DNA from his experiments with Group 3 is evident within her—though strangely, she has absolutely no jackal or lion tracers in her DNA. It’s as if a Group 3 lupin found an anthro from the origin lands, turned that anthro into a lupin with a full moon bite, and then a lupin descendent from that pairing somehow mated with a lupinhominid from Group 3.”

“We’re not even three generations into The Royal Geneticist’s first viable experimentation groups! There hasn’t been enough time for such a thing to occur.”

“I am aware of this.”

“So then how is this female possible?”

“I do not know,” Xenon confessed. “Again, that is why I came to you, Lead Investigator.”

With a grim flame, his uncle spent several more wing beats staring at the female’s scans. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “the ban you have imposed on Zone 7 could be lifted? Just for a quarter moon or less? So I might observe this female with a few other researchers.”

The Zone restriction had been the last edict his father made from his death pallet. Xenon’s curiosity would not trump that. Even if his father had quite literally banished him to the frozen wasteland to “keep him safe.” Xenon shook his head immediately at the suggestion. “No, whatever zone I reside in remains off limits to other drakkon. That rule will remain in place”

Even an old drakkon like his uncle couldn’t keep the disappointment from showing in his flame. But then he seemed to shift gears, and declared, “Then she must be brought here. To my labs. I must run the tests myself. After all, my lab has more equipment, and I am the one with the advanced training. You are but an underling on this mission.”

Before he could attempt to stop it, his uncle’s words spiked Xenon’s flame. As a prince who was second in line to rule, he wasn’t used to being addressed as an underling by any drakkon. Even his brother, who bothered not to mask his red and black flame when it came to his younger brother, had never addressed him as such.

His uncle, however, was correct. Xenon was technically but an assistant to the Lead Investigator on this trip. Also, if anyone could solve the female’s genetic mystery, it would be his uncle. He had studied all manner of sciences before and after being given the title of Royal Overlord. And during his last speech to his people, Xenon’s father had claimed that his youngest son had inherited his brother’s curious mind, which was why he decided to accompany his uncle and cousin on this expedition.

Those words had been mostly untrue save for the curious part. And in this case, one curious mind could not deny the other. Especially when said curious mind was technically in charge of this trip.

In the end, Xenon agreed to bring the female anomaly to his uncle with a sharp nod.

But then his uncle said, “As soon as you can, Prince of Drakkon.” Like many on the trip, his uncle insisted on using Xenon’s royal title as opposed to the one assigned him for the mission. “This might prove the Royal Geneticist performed experiments not included in his initial report, and if that be the case, we can declare this investigation null and void.”

His uncle’s flame colored in a way that suggested the idea of ending the investigation before it had even begun appealed to him. “Yes, I will make my own study of her. And if necessary, I will cut her open to ensure the Royal Geneticist didn’t splice her genes to ensure a false positive result for a civilized evolution in his report.”

Cut her open. That meant his uncle would euthanize the female anomaly to conduct a thorough autopsy. The thought did not sit well with Xenon. And it continued to distract him even after he took wing. Flying north and then east, back toward his glacier habitat.

The sleeping drugs he tubed into the female would wear off in less than half a day’s turn of the planet. And he’d already risked much by letting her remain alone in his lab while he flew to consult with his uncle. It wouldn’t do to have Female 7-133 wake up on her own.

Not that it mattered, he thought grimly. He was under explicit orders to bring her back to his uncle. She would spend the remainder of her days being poked and prodded on a Zone 6 examination table…and that was only if his uncle decided not to euthanize her from the start.

After all, if she were an outlier side experiment belonging to the Royal Geneticist, as his uncle suspected she might be, that would be it for their thousand-year study. The Royal Geneticist’s claims of having successfully created a shifting sub-species with the utmost of scientific care would be summarily dismissed. And royal ships would be dispatched to the planet to begin the long-delayed hunt.

Xenon should not care how this study turned out either way. Unlike his brother, he did not consider anthros such a rare delicacy. Nor did he appreciate that they were something only royal drakkon could eat. This hunting business struck Xenon as elitist and silly. He was much more interested in conducting his research and experiments on Group 7, which could lead to fertility breakthroughs on his home planet. But other than that, he had no interest in the Royal Geneticist’s spliced hunting beasts.

Indeed, he should be relieved at the chance to return to his planet, where he could study the research he had gathered. Quietly, and without the nuisance that came with living in proximity to Experiment Group 7. He should be happy his uncle might be that much closer to truncating this trip. And yet…

The thought of the large lupin female being euthanized, so the drakkon on this mission might return home earlier, turned his flame a strange mix of colors.

His thoughts circled back to his first examination of her. As they had so often over the last few day cycles. Mostly he was perplexed at how his male works had responded to her. They had never stirred so before. Not on this planet, nor the one he called home.

He could not help but think how the formerly dormant flesh beneath his soft underbelly had risen. Seeming to swell, much like that of the advanced primates he’d been studying. The ones who seemed to have only two prime directives: eating and breeding. Indeed, though the Royal Geneticist had claimed these lupins a worthy species, Xenon had yet to observe them do anything that didn’t pertain to those two imperatives.

Still, the glacier station had seemed…different from the moment he’d escorted the female into it. Better somehow. Less isolated. Even after he’d put her to sleep. After the initial consult, he was certain he would be the one to run further experiments on her. In truth, he’d been excited at the prospect of keeping her there for a little longer before handing her over to the Group 7 wolves for mating.

Also…

He shook his head, not liking the direction of the latter thought much. But his dislike did not change the truth of it. And he had the distinct feeling when he reshelled and went back into his lab, he’d find his male works swollen with the sweet pain he could not quite identify—but also could not say he disliked.

Either way, he suspected the problems with his long dormant male works would abate once he’d delivered the female anomaly to his uncle’s cave. I should be relieved to almost be rid of her, he thought, when his glacier lab appeared over the horizon.

Yet, he wasn’t. In fact, the closer he got to the Zone 7 lab, the more dread pooled in his belly.

Eat. He should eat, he thought to himself when he saw a pack of hooved tundra beasts sipping at the small stream he’d redirected to flow through the station. They were but a few feet from the entrance, which was strange. Not as strange as the female anomaly, of course. But usually the pack animals did not veer so close to his station, perhaps sensing something strange and unnatural about both the stream and the structure it ran through.

But he had not hunted while so focused on his study of Female 7-133, and real meat would be a welcome diversion from the peculiar emotions upsetting his flame.

He dived toward the sure to be delicious midday snack, neatly cooking one of the bigger hooved tundra beasts before he touched ground.

However, even as he ate, he couldn’t stop himself thinking of her. He found himself wanting to both rush back into his glacier habitat, and delay his meal so it would be that much longer before he was compelled to wing her back to his uncle’s lab.

In fact, so distracted was he by the dilemma, he did not sense the group of anthrohominids sneaking up behind him with raised spears. Not until it was too late.