Hive Minds Give Good Hugs

I don't know what I was expecting this fish to be, but it definitely wasn't a jet engine. Not that I'm complaining; whatever it was I had in mind, this is definitely way cooler.

Rather than acquiring propulsion through lateral water displacement, this aquatic alien—which I'm going to call the piston fish—possesses a series of hollow body cavities running down its full length. Opening the siphons from the front, it can suck water in by expanding the cavity, then close the forward opening and push the water out the back. By alternating all four of these siphons, the fish can maintain constant thrust as it sucks water in through the front with one siphon as it shoots water out behind with the other. The structure reminds me of what little I know of the human heart, although somewhat less complicated and with the pumps facing the same direction. The end result is a swimming system ideal for thin rivers, possessing excellent forwards and backwards acceleration at the cost of subpar turning speed.

Unlike my last aquatic meal, the piston fish also has gills… or at least an equivalent. I don't really know a whole lot about how gills work on Earth so I can't compare them to this independently evolved underwater breathing system, but it extracts oxygen from water as the water passes through. The gill organs are in fact within the pistons, allowing constant rapid water influx so the fish never suffocates as long as it is moving.

It should probably go without saying at this point, but that was delicious. I'm fairly certain this is also the same sort of creature that jumped out of the water and nabbed my bait when I tried to fish with a stick. I guess it can get pretty impressive bursts of speed!

Heartened by my fish-catching success, I have EE return to the water to collect more. I spend a few more hours lounging by the river, catching food and nursing my wounds. Out of the several dozen fish that pass by me, I manage to catch ten and eat them whole. I spread them between EE and EP, since ETB has more than enough food from bug collection. Now, with my immediate needs taken care of, I can start to plan.

I am, of course, extremely bad at plans. Long-term thinking has never been my forte, what with the ADHD and anxiety and just sort of not needing the skill. I go to school, I go to class, I do the homework, and I think about everything else later when I'm done playing video games or reading a book or wandering around the forest kidnapping crickets. But the way I figure it, as long as I keep my goals short-term enough, I shouldn't get too overwhelmed.

All three of my bodies simultaneously start to laugh at that. ‘I shouldn't get too overwhelmed.’ Oh man, I can really be a hoot sometimes.

"Please try to focus," Mr. Mooshi insists.

Oh, yeah, he's right. Where was I? Ah, I remember: short-term goals. First, the space weasels. Apparently, those things are pack hunters that attack animals on the surface. They seem a bit poorly-equipped for that, but perhaps they are just in an evolutionary stage where they are being forced to adapt to a new environment. A reduction of food in the underground ecosystem for some reason, maybe? I can't really argue with the results, either. I definitely could have died there. Now that I think about it, Mr. Mooshi has no defense against getting slowly whittled away by acid sprays from underneath; maybe the weasels prey on Mooshians. Dang it, all the more reason to hate them!

They have turned my home into a minefield. This is a problem, because I don't have any idea where else I could find an even slightly safe place to sleep, nor do I have any good landmarks. I want my cave back. I guess I don't really need it. It might be wise to try and set up some kind of camp by the river instead so I don’t have to make constant trips, but I don't actually have any idea how to make a shelter, and I am more than a little terrified of getting attacked by eels while I sleep. I have to deal with the weasels.

My second goal is exploring that light. I need to find people. I need to. I'm absolutely going nuts having only Mr. Mooshi to talk to. Who knows how long I'll have to survive here. A year? I don't even know how long a year on this planet is! There’s light at night, and I refuse to think about the very real possibility that it is something other than a big colony of sapients.

…Okay, well now I'm thinking about it, actually. Stupid brain. Let's say it's not people. What does that mean? What else could it be? An enormous forest fire? Some kind of colony of glowing creatures? Maybe it's where all of the fireflies I ate come from. Damn, that would be awesome actually. I want to go even more now. I suppose that settles it; even if it's one of the many things other than people, it's probably a good idea to explore this planet, despite the danger.

Which means, practically, both of my short-term objectives have the same first step: I need the ability to defend myself. I need to chase off the creatures around my home and be able to maintain defenses against them, and I need to be able to travel without fearing the many dangers of the forest.

I made Evelyn Experimental on accident. I made Evelyn Tinkerbell for fun. It's time that I expand myself for a more specific purpose. I need to make a body with a job, something that can solve my current problems and overcome anticipated ones.

I continue catching bugs and fish as I think. Am I really up for this? In some abstract way, it feels as though the more me I make, the less me I will become. But if I turn that question around, I'm forced to ask: can I afford to not do this? I need more than simply the capacity to survive day by day by catching every meal as it comes. I need to be proactive, I need to build up stocks of food and be able to protect them, or else I will never progress past the bare basics of survival. I am an omnivore, but meat is both more effective and more appealing. Which means I need to make a body designed to kill.

Even thinking that makes my stomach roil, but it's hard to argue that train of logic. It's not ever okay to kill a person. I firmly believe this. Animal cruelty is absolutely a problem at home as well, particularly in regards to the mass breeding and slaughtering of farm animals, and that's something I have much more complicated feelings on. I think… this is not that. I am stuck alone in the wilderness; it is okay to hunt animals to survive. That's what all these other animals in the wilderness are doing anyway! It's fair game, and even if it wasn't I'm not sure I'd have a choice.

So. A hunter. Immediately, I recognize an obvious flaw in my current body designs in terms of killing other animals. All of my current signs are humanoid, and while humanoids have obviously dominated Earth, they did so by using tools. And sweat I guess, but… that’s off topic. The point is, I am a complete dunce and I can't figure out how to start a fucking fire, let alone make a weapon more complicated than a stick. I am quite attached to having arms, walking on two legs and using my head rather than my strength to solve problems, but that just isn't cutting it here.

It's time to get feral.

"Okay Mr. Mooshi, so I'm going to go full Zergling and discard the pathetic weaknesses of my humanoid form and cool stuff like that. But now what?"

"Narrow it down, of course," Mr. Mooshi answers impatiently. "Is this going to be a land hunter or a water hunter? Some combination of both?"

"A water hunter would be really cool. I just ate this awesome fish, and I really want to—"

"Don't forget your goals for making this, Evelyn," Mr. Mooshi chides.

Oh, right.

"It's gotta be a land hunter, because my fight against the weasels will be on land and the glowy stuff is probably on land," I realize.

"Exactly," Mr. Mooshi agrees.

Well, that's a good start. Unfortunately, I haven't actually eaten any land predators. I don't know if I have a good idea on how to make one. Well, no, I suppose that's not true. I don't have the biological basis for one already pre-built in my head, but do I really need that? I know a crap ton about biology and I should have all the individual parts I need to make something functional. So… what should I base it on?

The first thing that comes to mind is a cat. Not a housecat, one of the big cats that are very commonly apex predators of their respective environments. But considering the circumstances…

"I think this is more of a dog situation," I mutter out loud.

"Because you intend to make multiple and use pack hunting tactics?" Mr. Mooshi asks.

"No, because I really need the positive attitude and energy of a dog friend more than the adorable tsundere softness of a cat friend," I tell him.

There's a pause.

"Evelyn, the new body is just going to be you again," Mr. Mooshi says slowly. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah of course," I say, waving him off. "Just like how I'm speaking both sides of this conversation."

I look down at him for confirmation, but he doesn't respond. Oh, I mean, of course he doesn't respond. That’s what I was expecting.

…Will having four bodies make me go crazy four times as fast?

"I don't think it works like that," Mr. Mooshi assures me.

Oh, thank goodness. Anyway, dog body. Maybe with some cat-like independence. Evelyn Experimental tosses another dead fish out of the water while I think, and I catch it for munchies. EP gets all food from here on out, since laying an egg is hungry work. I'm not actually sure if my other bodies could do the deed, but Evelyn Tinkerbell is super tiny and Evelyn Experimental is sort of still a kid? At least in terms of physical development. I'm curious to see how quickly that part of me grows now that I am getting some good protein in me rather than just munching sticks.

"Stay on target," I squeak at myself, flicking EP's nose with ETB.

Right, right, right. Dog body. I could make it fuzzy, but the only hair I have is my presumably human hair and that just seems weird. Besides, a chitinous body is pretty darn superior given all the body types I have access to. It's not difficult to take my humanoid skeleton and reshape it into a canine form. The skeletons have the same basic structure, the skeletons of nonhuman mammals mostly just have different bone lengths, shapes, counts, and configurations. I don't know if my end result is anything like how a dog skeleton actually looks, but it doesn't really need to be. It's similar enough and my mental simulations declare it functional.

Now for the extra bits. Firstly, I want this creature to hunt those fucking weasels. Which means it needs to be able to attack them while they are inside tunnels. As far as I'm concerned, this is the easy part. Whip eel tendrils are fast and thin enough to shoot down a tunnel and snatch something before it can scurry away, and I can use the trilowasel's very own advanced whisker structures to be able to aim and attack with such a tendril without being able to see down the tunnel. There's no good reason to not make this tendril the tongue, since I want it to pull my target into my mouth anyway. Like a cat or dog, biting things is going to be my main way of killing them, so that's just efficient.

Last and not least, for a bit of ironic justice, I can make the teeth of my dog body out of a similar substance to trilowasel claws and give them the ability to produce acid. From my first contact on this stupid planet, I have decided that I really hate acid. With my luck, most creatures here have evolved it somehow, which would just be a pain in the ass. But while I have the ability to produce it, I may as well use it. No doubt acid is useful for a lot of things if so many creatures opted to evolve it.

Okay… I think that's a design set. Now I just need to figure out the best place to lay the egg before I—oh, oh no, I feel it growing oh shit why didn't I think of this!?

I buzz over and jump out of the water, helping myself off of Mr. Mooshi and quickly towards the best sight-lined part of the riverbank I can find. I didn't think this through at all! If I don't have my cave, then where am I going to safely lay an egg? The riverbank is doubtlessly going to have all sorts of creatures stopping by for a drink, and some of them are absolutely going to want to eat delicious juicy eggs!

Mr. Mooshi wiggles his feeding tendrils in distress, smelling concerned for me. Oh yeah! The Mooshians might not be able to get me any food, but they are fantastic friends and ideal defenders. Setting myself down and mentally preparing to unhinge and drop an egg once more (which mostly just amounts to doing absolutely everything in my power to not think about it), I focus on expelling a complicated array of scents that will draw the Mooshians to my aid. Sure enough, three more of them slowly waddle over to form an impregnable wall of Moosh so that I can hopefully spook off any predators that decide to get too close.

Eventually, the deed is done. Exhausted and hungry again (at least in one of my bodies, which is kind of an odd feeling), I go back to fishing and spend the entire rest of the day gathering enough meat to make yet another me if necessary, as well as feed my new body when it hatches. It's boring work, but I know it's necessary. With little to do but wait by the river, I watch the hours pass as many creatures I've never seen before wander by for a sippy. A small, six-legged fuzzy creature, the same red color as the grass, scurries up to the water with undulating movements, its long ears flat against the back of its body all the way until it starts to drink, at which point they shoot upwards to detect any incoming motion. The dome-headed bat-eagle I saw a while ago returns as well, dropping from the sky to steal a fish swimming too close to the surface. Speaking of fish, I acquire many more kinds, although very few of them have interesting attributes the piston fish did not. The most notable was a fish that swam in much the same style as I'm used to on Earth rather than the frankly much more interesting siphon jet. A few of the fish had toxins in their skin, but none of them seemed to have any detrimental effect on me and I have no real way of knowing how dangerous they would be to any other predator if ingested. I might be able to run a few simulations in my head to figure it out, but frankly I feel like designing a body that produces deadly poison is just sort of asking fate to get that body eaten. Not that I believe in fate, but… you know, dress for success. Build the body that survives how I want to survive, not the body that dies how I fear to die.

Before long night starts to fall, and I prepare myself to sleep within fort Mooshi. My relatively lifeless cave is a stark contrast to the teeming activity of the riverbank. I'll just have to trust that no predator is going to want to mess with four Mooshians plus whatever the hell I am. Safety in numbers, and all that. With the exception of that creature I found trapped in wires, Mooshians are the largest land animal I've encountered here. Even that big thing isn't going to want to mess with a group of them.

That thought, no matter how logical, is little comfort. Huddled around my own unborn self under the open stars, the terror of the night keeps me brutally awake. EE and ETB are exhausted from working all day, but EP, despite the incredible effort of making another one of myself, has done little else but sit around waiting for a broken ankle to heal. It's just not enough exhaustion to fight against the buildup of anxiety that has been growing since the day I first found myself here. Alone at night, trying to sleep, the worst kind of panic attack finally hits me.

There's no immediate threat. Nothing is attacking me other than my own mind, but attack me it does. What if I don't make it out? What if I never see my family again? What if I die here? What if I live here but never escape? What if there is nothing here, no other people and no possible salvation? What if I'm trapped forever and I go insane, turning myself into something so far from human that nothing of what I am now remains when some spacefaring race finds me raving and indomitable thousands of years from now?

Nothing but spirals of fear on fear are left in my head, trapped in a triple nightmare of my own devising. Any logical resolution is met with an instant counter, never sounding reassuring to my maddened mind. My heart rate is far too fast for sleep, my bodies each on the verge of tears. In a horrible sort of way, I'm lucky this hasn't happened sooner. Not even medication ever totally stopped these moments from consuming my nights, and now I'm not only missing drugs but I have far fewer safety nets in general. I have no one, nothing. Not a stuffed animal to hold, not a mother to dial and call... in fact, remembering those things only adds to the panic that consumes me, hours and hours into the night, plagued by the ever-present temptation to just dig metaphorical fingers into my brain and shut it all off.

I don't know when I finally become too incoherent to remain awake, but I know I'm not likely to be rested tomorrow.