I went through two cans of peaches before my stomach was satisfied. I had an odd desire to shake myself and I gave into it, feeling a pleasant sensation spread through my muscles as I did. I heard a series of musical 'tink' sounds, like wind chimes bumping against each other, and stopped to search for the sound... only to blink in surprise as the sound suddenly stopped. I looked around just to be sure, then shook again, shifting back and forth like a dog shaking off after being drenched from a bath.
The almost-musical chime picked up again, and I smiled, suddenly understanding. My scales must be bumping against each other from how hard I was shifting, having the effect of hundreds of really tiny wind chimes.
That was neat. It was a pretty sound, and shaking off like this was pretty fun to do - not to mention being relaxing for my stretched and tired muscles.
I stopped shaking myself off and dropped into a sprawl against the floor, letting the tired muscles in my wings rest to recover. I let out a satisfied warble and started to zone out from the happy feeling left behind by being well fed. The voice on the recorder droned on, which actually made it easier to relax.
I wasn't sure how long I rested there before I blinked in excitement and felt my ear tufts rise with interest. What had that been?
I curled back towards the dictation machine and tapped the rewind button, then tapped play. The voice started up again.
"-ther incision above the fifth rib to-"
The voice broke off as a door opened, then shut. "Ah, Alex, thank you; I was just about to send for the next round of treatments. The subject is ready for them."
"The 'subject'? This is Nate. We know him, he worked here! I don't... how can you just call him 'the subject'?"
There was a clinking sound as if a tool had been dropped on a tray, followed by a sigh. "Because it is the subject. We've been through this - they stop being people the second we start our work. In a few more weeks it'll just be an egg, and a few days of observation after that it'll be moved off into holding with all the other subjects."
"It's not right. Why are we doing this? He's too old anyways; nobody this age ever makes it."
"That's half the reason right there. We've been having more and more success with older and older subjects; our knowledge of treatments and procedures have gotten better. We would have to try again eventually, and his poking around just meant we can try it now."
"Why would we have to do it eventually? Why are we even doing this at all? There are easier ways to prolong lives, easier ways to cure diseases. Do we really have to do this?"
There were a few seconds of silence, followed by another sigh. "You saw what was on that crashed ship. The records on it, the records of other alien life?"
"Yes."
"Did you pay attention to the lifespans of those aliens?"
"No. What does that have to do with anything?"
Another second of silence. I had the impression the older-sounding speaker was shaking his head in frustration.
"Those aliens live for hundreds of years. Some of them are listed as living for nearly a thousand years, one of which is the dominant power in our region of space. Do you understand what that means?"
"That they have a lot of stories to tell around the campfire?" There was a frustrated sarcasm in the younger sounding voice.
"You could say that. They have a lot of stories to tell their grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and great, great, great, great grandchildren, who will all easily be alive in their lifespan. As opposed to us. No matter what advancements we make in extending the life of the human body, it will never compare. Four or five generations of humanity will pass in the time it takes one of them to reach adulthood - and they'll see dozens more come and go in the course of their life. Their Einsteins, their Hawkings, their Curies, will all only be getting started by the time ours take their last breath."
Another pause, then the voice continued. "This is the solution to that. The human body can't sustain us much more than a century, maybe two if we get really lucky with treatments. But this... Imagine if Hawking wasn't bound to a wheelchair. If instead of spending billions on computers, all so one of the greatest minds of humanity could communicate - not even heal him, just enable him to simply speak - imagine if instead of that, we gave him a new body. One night he would fall asleep, and the next morning he would wake up in a new body. A healthy body. One with another two hundred years of life ahead of it, minimum. What if, instead of dying from cancer, Openheimer shed his dying body and emerged in a new one? If instead of dying from old age, Einstein was still making discoveries today? How many more advancements would we have seen, how many more new technologies would we have today? Think of all the subjects we've already saved from death - gunshot victims, fatal illnesses. King, Gandhi, Lincoln - how much better would the world be today if they were shot... and then simply continued onwards in a new form, the same mind still serving humanity?"
There was a long pause... then the voice continued again. "The alien races out there already have the advantage of years over us, in addition to having this same technology themselves. The records say that the dominant power in our region is intolerant of any other intelligent life but their own. There's some contradiction in the records, so that might be propaganda or lies, but even if that one race continues to ignore us, the long term outcome will still always be the same. Without this technology, we can't even hope to survive in their universe. We can barely even survive in our own. That is why we have to do this."
The recording grew silent once more, the pause lasting long enough that I glanced to see if the recorder was still playing. It was. Finally, the younger voice spoke again.
"We could ask for volunteers..."
"And tell them what? Aliens are real, we're trying to figure out how to use their technology, so could they please volunteer for a procedure with only a one in ten chance of survival?"
I blinked at that as the voices paused. The way the voice spoke made it sound like aliens being real was a big deal, but... I couldn't remember enough to know if that should surprise me or not. My memories were vague on the subject, with only random images of what I was sure were costumes. I tried focusing on the encyclopedia instead, and it provided me with information. A lot of information. My head was still pounding from that when the voices picked up again.
"Sick people might - "
"And we'd never know if a death was caused by the illness or because we were doing something wrong. They'd be useless for getting most of the answers we need."
More silence. "We could at least give Nate the memory treatments, so he can-"
"No, we cannot! We're not ready for that. It took us forever to figure out what was causing the subjects to remember, and one day we'll incorporate that back into the process, but not yet. It's too dangerous. We need to learn about long term effects from the surviving subjects, but there are limits to the risks we can afford. If something happens and one of the subjects escapes, then right now it's just a crazy story. One to be dismissed as people too drunk to realize what they were really seeing, or so high on drugs that they were hallucinating something from mythology. If our lab gets discovered, and we have animal rights activists poking over everything, it's just a previously undiscovered animal we were studying before making anything public. There are already people in place and cover stories prepared for those eventualities, contingencies designed to let us pick our work up right away, in a new place, away from prying eyes."
A pause, as if the man was gesturing. "But those don't work if one of the supposedly mindless animals can communicate. If it can make those chirps and whistles understood, if it can learn sign language, if it can pick up a pencil and write, if it tells a story of what it used to be, and of what we did to it, then... that's it. The whole world will know we're turning people into animals. Ethical professors and religious scholars will howl. Politicians will get involved. People will get in the way - and our work will die. And with it, so will we."
"No. No subject can be allowed to maintain memories, not a single one. Not until we're near the end."
There was silence, then the sound of the door opening.
"Alex. We're getting closer. Keep your eyes on the big picture."
Another pause, then the younger person spoke, voice sad. "Sorry dad. The only picture I can see is of my friend on that table."
The door closed. There was another pause, then the older voice continued speaking, this time heavier, with a forced professionalism to it. "Chief scientist notation. Newest subject has provided significant insight into the procedure on older adults, but appears to have placed a strain on Doctor Alex Parkinson. He will need to be monitored, and may need to be made to undergo the procedure himself should he begin to pose a risk to the project."
The voice continued speaking, moving on into more technical medical jargon... but I just stared at the recorder, unable to believe my ear tufts at what I had heard.
And for once, I was actually glad that I was all alone.