Picowrimo Day 10 - Another Ficlet (Primeval - gen, 770 words)
Inspired by previous thoughts, this is for my beloved little dinosaur show, first season, and irredeemably silly.
Not Yet in the Record
"It's... beautiful." Cutter gazed at it almost reverently.
The others - Abby, Stephen, Ryan and his men - were all gazing decidedly less reverently - pretty much boggling, in fact.
"Scientifically," he conceded, "it's beautiful."
In fact, the... whatever it was, was quite the most hideous and evil-smelling monstrosity they'd encountered in any eon ever, all slimy limbs, sparse hair and what looked like a million teeth. Or fangs. Or claws.
The ugliness didn't deter them, though. The ARC's premier dinosaur-chasing team had learned the hard way that beautiful and friendly were rarely if ever found in the same body, whether prehistoric or futuristic - though to be honest, ugly and amiable were just as rarely found together. This was simply because of the remarkable lack of friendliness in monsters.
And the reason they weren't deterred was because it was poles apart from any creature they had ever seen or heard about, ever, a complete incongruity unlike any fossil ever found, an utterly unknown type of antediluvian beast, a scientific first and last that obviously had not survived this late Permian era the most recent anomaly had landed them in.
Oh yes, and because it was clearly, definitely and disgustingly dead.
"You're not going to take it back, Professor," Ryan said flatly.
"What?" Cutter looked up with pale preoccupied eyes. "Ahh no, a record only - film, photos, maybe Connor can write it up, if he -" He looked around. "Where is Connor anyway? He can take a record. Perhaps samples..."
"I don't think Lester will go for that."
Stephen smirked, crouching down for a closer look. "He won't know till it's too late, will he?" He reached out and touched one gelatinous limb, rubbing a finger against the clammy skin and inspecting it closely, even sniffing it.
All of the big, tough solders cringed, and Ryan muttered something decidedly unmilitary. "That's just... even more wrong than usual, Hart."
"Definitely dead, and none too recently." Stephen looked up at Cutter. "Be messy getting it home."
Abby was also getting rather too close. "Is it really that unique?"
"Oh, I'm certain of it, Abby," he said quite cheerfully. "We can tell Lester it's an unknown page in the fossil record and the history of life -"
"Or not." Connor said from behind them.
They all turned to stare at him, almost visibly vibrating with something that might have been tension - but looked worryingly close to glee.
"Connor?" Stephen and Ryan exchanged looks, and levelled their weapons. Both knew too well that when Connor got excited... things got hairy. And when he actually started bouncing...
Connor started bouncing. "This is so cool, guys, so absolutely cool. This is even better than everything cool so far, ever since the beginning. This is -"
"What, Connor?"
Connor closed his eyes and said the words blissfully. "A prehistoric... alien, guys."
There was a dead silence. He opened his eyes again, and found them all looking at him in an all too familiar way, even Ryan and his men.
"What? It makes sense!"
"Connor -" Abby began.
"Total sense. It's got to be completely outside evolution as we -"
"Connor," Stephen tried.
"- Know it, way too far outside to be natural. Though yeah, as everyone knows -"
"We do?" One of the soldiers mumbled.
"- The record is anything but complete, we're lucky to have what we do, there'd be thousands on thousands on thousands of species that left nothing, not a trace, not a single fossil. Yeah, I know that, but this one -"
"Is incredible, yes," Cutter said calmingly, "Not incredible enough though, is that it?"
"Uhhhh," and the younger man deflated, but only for a moment, "No! no no no, that's not not at all, I just -"
"You think it's not simply another unique find. Why?"
Connor was definitely, actually fizzing now, words tumbling faster. Ryan and Stephen exchanged glances again, and hefted their guns again. "Like you were saying, Professor, you and Stephen, you both know you've never seen or even heard of any non-arthropod extinct creature anything ike it. The musculature, the tentacles with teeth, the way the orifices seem to be... everywhere, the while way it's put together ..."
"Connor!"
"... Oh yes," he took a breath, "and the fact that down the hill there, there's a... spaceship."
They all blinked at him.
"Just as alien. Metal, biggish, bright purple. Crashed or something, I think. Sad, really, but... Professor?"
"Connor?" Cutter said faintly.
Connor bounced again, and grinned. "Bit of a waste, leaving a totally cool spaceship lying around for 300 million years... can I take it home?"
***
Yep, it's a third (and last, I promise - at least for now) Alien Encounter. Poor big and ugly, but I couldn't resist.