As he inserted the spinal tap, Doctor Kaltanoshkit sighed. The interns took their measurements of the unconscious subject. This species had been his life’s work, monitoring their population, observing their growth and development had occupied the last forty years of his life. He had come to this planet as an intern himself, when its bipeds were a curiosity for the intergalactic community, not a matter of great controversy.

He looked at this one. They didn’t seem intimidating by any means. Not like the ravenous monsters his ancestors had defended themselves from for generations before themselves joining the races of the heavens. This subject was a young-carrier, or at least that’s what the doctor’s definition of the sexes most closely translates to in our language. Sexual reproduction is common among the advanced species of the universe, however, it commonly is manifests itself in poly-chotomies, not the dichotomy found in fertile members of this species.

The specimen wasn’t particularly unique for its species, a bit overweight, as was the trend in species that only industrialized a few generations ago. Taking his usual measurements of the tranquilized subject, he noted the complete lack of claws on its digits, the weakness of its muscles. The fastest speed one had ever been clocked running marked it the towards the slower end of large terrestrial omnivores on its home world. The musculature of its jaw indicated that it could hardly break bones…

Those idiots on the galactic communication grid were just stoking the herbivore tendency for paranoia, the doctor thought. As he removed the small growth rate monitoring chip implanted in the subject’s brown fibrous cephalic structures, which researchers were confident were essential in the mate selection process, he couldn’t escape the feeling that the parliamentary discussion was absurd.

Sure, it was his own childish fears and curiosities that had led him to a lifetime of studying high-intellect omnivores, but he never thought his research, along with the rest of the teams, would be used in a debate over extermination, but then again, no omnivore had ever been this advanced.

Dr. Karamozov entered the room. He had just read the brain scans.

“Puzzling.” He said.

“What do you mean?”

“This one actually finds meat disgusting. I’ve never seen that before.”

“I think in their culture they’re called vegans.”

“Voluntary herbivores?” He said, looking up, “The intergalactic parliament’s decision just got harder.”

“They’re fairly rare, although in some regions we find them more frequently than others.”

“What are your thoughts on all this? You know more about this species than anyone alive.”

“I try not to think about it.”

“Why is that?”

Doctor Kaltanoshkit sighed again. “I understand the terror the community has at the prospect of a meat-eating species developing warp capabilities… and I know they have all the classic features of an intellectual omnivorous species, a history of perpetual warfare, long periods of localized cannibalism, industrial agriculture applied to livestock, incidences of genocide… but what we are debating right now, what I hear in our media, justifying a pre-emptied action…”

“… It sounds just like the things they say to justify killing each other.”

As the doctor measured the gum loss around the subject’s canines, he sighed again.

“This species is hardly suited to survive. Their minds and bony grasping digits are the only things they have. Without clothing, they’d die of exposure in one day on most of their world. They’re slow, weak. All they had going for them was intellect and tool use. I’m not surprised at all that they made the jump from inventing steel to inventing room temperature super-conduction in a mere one hundred generations.”

“So, you see the danger they represent?”

“I know. No omnivore has ever survived long enough to develop interstellar travel, but I’ve listened to their music, read their literature, seen their moving pictures, yes a huge portion is devoted to interplanetary warfare…”

“Murderous species at heart. All meat-eating species are.”

“But this one has had atomic weapons for several generations and still has not annihilated itself.”

“So, they’re cunning enough to preserve themselves.”

“I think it’s more than that. There’s something unique about them, a sort of urge that they often ignore but almost universally feel.”

“What do you mean?”

“They call it humanity.”

“Isn’t that what they call themselves?”

“Yes, but it has a second meaning, one that is a sort of blending of mercy, empathy, and compassion.”

Dr. Karamozov laughed. Hard enough to lift two of his four bony hoofed appendages from the floor. His tentacle-like prehensile tongue almost dropped the pen he held, and the laugh revealed his double rows of long flat molars. “How ironic,” he belted.

“Yes, but I think that they even see themselves that way means those things have some hold on their psychology.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I think they may tame themselves.”

“Not that it matters. We all know how the vote is expected to go. As soon as this species has a conceptual enough grasp of the physics behind warp travel, we’re dropping neutron matter into their sun.”

Dr. Kaltanoshkit looked down at me, his patient. “Shit, it’s awake.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I dunno it must have a high tolerance.”

“Let me just up the dosage a tad…”

“Ssshhh, this is all a dream.”

“It’s all a dream.”

“Did you turn the translator on?”

“No, give me a second… oh, it was already on.”

“[Untranslatable expletive] uhhh… this is all a dream… drift off now… you’re lying comfortably in your bed… ssshhh… what a strange dream this was…”     

I don’t believe Dr. Kaltanoshkit’s carelessness was accidental. Yes, he may have played along, but my awareness was intentional. I needed to hear that conversation. A month earlier, when I had first been sampled, he had merely gotten the dosage wrong. Hadn’t known I had a bit of a bad habit for ketamine and built up a tolerance for sedatives. Instead of putting me under then, his curiosity got the best of him. He’d devoted his whole life to study us, but he’d never spoken with us.

It must have been tearing at his heart for years by this point. We’d had a lovely conversation, a conversation I’d thought was a dream, because he’d told me it was before putting me back under. I didn’t fall for that a second time. He’d told me that there was a great intergalactic community of intelligent species, essentially a utopia where technology had solved all problems of war, poverty, and disease, but what he left out, he’d saved for this eavesdropped conversation.

We’ll never be a part of it, not the way we’re going. I know you’ll never believe me, I just hope, for the love of god, you solve the problems on our world before trying to ruin the next.