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Shalion

Phoenix

AZ

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<$wc100> words.

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STRANDED

by Shalion

Dawn on the beach was an explosion of light and sound after the horrors of the night. Birds screamed at one another in the jungle, rising a cacophony that threatened to drown out even the incessant low thunder of the surf. The sun lit the eastern horizon, that great lantern already above the utterly flat blue line of the sea, a dazzling blue that was hard to look at. The tigress stirred.

The first thing she saw when she awoke was perhaps the most alien thing she had ever before encountered in her short life. Her orange tinted irises could not be torn from the towering palms and mangroves, the thick tendrils of hanging vines, the intensely green, amazingly broad leaves of the shrubs densely covering the floor of the jungle before her. The Jungle. To a cat that had spent her entire life within one sort of cage or another, the very concept bordered on incomprehension.

A wave came in and flowed up to the tigress's waist, briefly lifting her bottom off the mat of sand which had cupped around her like a mold in the time since she had washed ashore. She shivered and realized how desperately cold she was from lying in the water for goodness only knew how long. She felt weak and waterlogged, and unlike a fresh water pool, the sea salt stuck in her fur and was harsh on the underlying skin; she managed to drag herself out of the surf at least and up the beach, though she kept away still from the ominous gloom of the jungle that seemed to pull at her core essence somehow, the part of her that hadn't been manipulated, changed, by the horrible men she had know all her life long. She stretched out in the sun to dry and stared out at the ocean which, she now realized, had consumed everything she had known before, for better or worse.

The tigress had spent precious little time with her mother as a cub; only long enough to have started walking on her own and to have no longer needed her milk. In that time, however, she learned the most important lesson that had served her thus far: "Take everything you can get, Give nothing back." She knew she was born into slavery, or at least she was before her transport ship had encountered the freak typhoon, born into a life of prodding and poking and examinations and lumps of meat to be thrown at her with mind numbing regularity. Her mother had had the same life, as far as she knew, and her mother before that and before that as well for as long as anyone at the lab knew; at least, those she happened to socialize with. The humans had done something to her, something they had been working a long time to achieve. They had succeeded in her generation. The tigress began to groom a paw, frowning slightly at the salty taste. She found it quite ironic that the fact that they had succeeded was the very reason why she had been aboard the transport ship to America in the first place and it was the reason why she now found herself in her current situation.

When she had been old enough to understand, she realized, mostly from the human's talk which she learned passively over time, that she had been gifted somehow with the humans' insight and understanding of the world. She didn't pretend to know for what purpose, other than that they could do it, but she knew that she was nothing more than a spectacle. Even to her most gentle caretakers, she was a freak, some sort of oddity to be gawked at. And by the time that she was loaded aboard the doomed ship, she had come to understand that however gifted she might be, whatever she might learn, no matter what she did, it would never be to serve herself; only the naked bipeds who held all the keys to all of her cages. When the wave came that night, she had taken it as a gift from God, a release from her perpetual prison. Now, as she began to groom the rest of herself, she realized that that wave had come to set her free, but never in her wildest dreams could she have hoped for this. She purred in satisfaction, the sun blessedly warm on her bright orange coat stripped in black.

She started to wonder if any of the others had survived, nearly all of the latter generation subjects had been shipped from the lab after all, but then she decided capriciously, she didn't really care. For the first time, her life was her own and she was not about to begin defining her new life in terms of old relationships. As far as she was concerned, the depressed, captive tigress on that boat had died in the storm. She was reborn, birthed out of the sea itself. It was time to move forward. She stood up and shook the loose sand from herself, as if in casting away that layer of silt she loosed herself of her past miseries as well. She looked into the jungle, the gloom that did not seem so dark now and she knew that was where she belonged. The pupils of her eyes, made for the low level of light under the welcoming boughs of the trees, widened as she dove under them. Where she went, the birds silenced their squabbling.

The jungle was dense and fairly dark just a few feet away from the shore. Mangroves predominated, the soft pads of her paws finding a path atop the high and thickly tangled roots of the trees, one wrong step could mean a twisted ankle or worse. The dark, salt crusted soil showed signs of at least seasonal flooding. After a while, the vines hanging down from the low wooden branches threatened to entangle the striped huntress and she was forced to try a different route less impervious to the 550 lb feline. As she journeyed further inland, the mangroves grew less thick and the she-tiger had to be more careful about where she stepped lest she break though the increasingly fragile cage of roots under her. More than once she had to splash through a puddle between the trees or wade through an ankle deep mud hole. She obtained extra stripes of mud to added to her genetically gifted collection

The terrain grew rockier as the tigress climbed uphill through the forest. The rocky crest took her through the relatively low canopy of the mangroves at the beach, but when she reached its climax, she could only gape at the incredible lushness the island was capable of supporting where the land was not regularly invaded by saltwater. Tall, tall trees sprouted everywhere, towering even above her rather lofty perch of all kinds. It seemed every variety of green was represented somewhere and the great lines of the tree trunks made it seem as though the world had been turned on its side. The noise from the great many tropical birds was deafening. As she sat in awe, the tigress, who had spent almost a full year of her life (almost a fourth of her entire life) within a steel cage, wept at the beauty of it all. A flock of colorful red birds with blue and yellow tails took to the air and directed the tigress's gaze to the sight that was just visible over the tops of the trees. There was an immense mountain in the distance, composed of sharp, black rock like the edge of a broken bottle in which the nooks and crannies had been stuffed with green.

It took a while for the fact that an entirely new world had become available to the tigress to settle in despite the joy she had felt back on the beach. A hot, humid breeze wafted through the trees and on the tip of her tongue, the tigress caught the scent of fresh water and she realized then that she was very thirsty. Picking up without a thought was becoming easier the tigress realized as she instinctively picked a path down the rocky slope into the lush valley before her. She also realized that whatever had been done to her as a result of generations of genetic tampering, if she was going to survive here, it was her natural instinct, what remained of it anyways, that was going pull her through. There would be no reasoning her way through her new life, no amount of logic was going to fill her belly; the sooner she learned to let go of her rational self the better... or at least she thought as she let her nose guide her forwards.

This jungle in which she now found herself was actually immensely different from the one she had just traversed. She thought it was funny that the single human word, "jungle" could apply to two completely different worlds. Here the canopy was so far over head she could scarcely see it. The sensation was less like crawling through a damp and muddy cave so much as ambling through the knees of giants. The soil here was a rich, odorous loam which supported all sorts of odd wide leafed plants that thrived in the dim light. The ground was actually clear in lots of places where it wasn't covered by thick vines or fungi that thrived on decomposition that is. Here and there, where one of the titan's had fallen and broken a hole to clear sky, real grass thrived in a relatively short burst of life. In these pockets where the sun came down there were also shrubs and new saplings all engaged in a furious battle of growth which occurred as if in stand-still for the fleeting life of a mammal like the tigress. She took in all the sights without much consideration or opinion, she was too busy trying to determine the direction of the water for which her body yearned and on trying desperately not to get lost.

Woodscraft did not come as naturally as the tigress had hoped, though she shouldn't have expected any different. Three times, she was sure that over the next ridge, behind the next tree, she would find the stream, puddle, maybe even lake that she had smelled. Down in the valley, however, everything was moist and she lost the scent directly. After an hour of wandering, the tigress had to admit that she had lost even the general direction in which she had launched herself. She sat down in frustration. The forest had crowded around her in the time since she first marveled in its beauty, the tree trunks around her were an impossible puzzle in a game that she had assumed she would excel at simply because she was a top predator; in a good world she would have been above even humans, certainly she would have no problem dealing with one without their fiendish machines and gadgets. It felt like yet another test, one in which the rules had not been explained... and also one in which she was failing miserably. Except in this game, the object was survival and to lose... well she didn't want to think about losing. But if she couldn't even find water? How could she expect to find food enough to sustain her. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was odd that she hadn't found any scat or feces at all. This forest was a remarkably clean place.

It was about that time that the tiger, perhaps simply an overgrown house cat on the inside after all, felt the stinging and biting on her bottom. She yowled and batted at her rear and saw that she had sat almost on top of an ant hill, well she thought it was an ant hill, but she had never seen ants that were four inches long with huge spiny mandibles and covered in tiny black hairs. She ran through the jungle, yowling, tears stinging her eyes as she stopped here and there to roll around in the dirt and scrap her softer parts against the trunks of trees.

The tigress had just about decided that the jungle was not quite the fun place she had imagined it to be when she almost fell right into it. There, at the very base of the mountain whose top she had glimpse were shoals of small rocky pools fed by an incredibly tall waterfall. Several of the horrendous black ants still clung to her and it did not take much more prodding on their part to convince the tigress to make the leap. She gathered herself and tensed the muscles in her legs. If her woodcraft was not quite where it ought to be, then at least she could jump decently. Decently was a mild way to put it. The tigress soared 20 feet through the air and landed with a tremendous splash near the center of the closest pool. Ants and mud alike were washed away in the blessedly cool liquid as the tiger paddled and drank simultaneously; it was the best water she had ever had.

It was obvious that the pools were very deep, so deep indeed around the base of the water fall that she couldn't even see the bottoms. There was only a small stream leading away from the collection of pools however and it didn't seem to be enough to account for all of the water flowing into them from the waterfall. The tigress was resting in the shallows when she heard for the first time something other than the constant screeching of the jungle birds: a dog's bark. It was something that she wasn't sure she would ever hear again and upon noticing it, the tigress was filled with mixed feelings of comfort in familiarity and dread that her previous life had come calling even on this remote isle. The dog barked again and the tigress emerged from the pool, water streaming down the underside of her coat and turning the dark soil under her an even darker shade. She might have been ignorant about a lot of things in her relatively short life, but she knew that willful ignorance was stupidity. Ignoring something just because it made her uncomfortable would not make it go away, be it a threat, a boon or whatever. She needed to know what was happening on the island because it was pretty obvious that she wasn't alone.

The she-tiger stalked through the jungle floor carefully in the direction she first heard the bark, assuming of course, that she hadn't lost her way again. She heard a third bark, this time from a different voice and then a long low howl shortly thereafter; the tigress checked her course and began to stick to cover. Not for a second did the tigress entertain happy thoughts that this might be some happy coincidence, that she was mistaken and would find merely a community of native canines. If she washed ashore here on this island, why couldn't any other animal who had been aboard the transport barge, or for that matter, any other human? There had certainly been an abundance of canines aboard both domestic and wild varieties. There had only been a few rare and exotic species, such as her own gorgeous self, aboard, but she would have to be wary nonetheless. Revealing her existence too early could not serve any of her own interests; which perhaps might extend to eliminating everyone else on the island. That particular scenario wasn't her first choice in how everything should pan out in the end, but she wasn't above considering how she would go about it if she needed to.

She opened her mouth and scented the air with nose and tongue. There was hardly any breeze under the stifling canopy, but where there was came off of the ocean and her sensitive olfactories caught the rugged, noisome odor of dog and also of manure. Manure, of course could only come from the modified domestic farm animals aboard the ship, of which there had been far more than there had been of carnivores. It seemed that at least a few had survived and made it to the island. What itched the young huntress's mind the most however, wasn't the presence of farm animals or dogs or even full blooded wolves, it was the possibility that men, self-proclaimed masters of the planet and the food chain, had also made it to the island. The images of chains, iron bars, syringes and gruesomely flat, flabby faces twisted in sadistic glee flashed in her mind and was potent enough to make the tigress falter in her steps. As much as she hated to admit it, the fear of her old self had remained a scar on her new life. It was potent and made the tigress want to cover her face in her paws and curl up so small that she might disappear... but she didn't. Instead, she drew a deep breath and continued forward, forcing her fear into focus of what needed to be done and trying desperately not to let it master her.

It was into this vortex of pain, anger, frustration and fear that the hapless Golden Labrador tumbled into completely unawares.

The Labrador mix - or Golden Lab, it's quite a popular breed in its own right you know! - trotted through the woods with a sort of carelessness that could only be born from a lifetime in a sheltered, controlled environment and a genetic predisposition for having someone else do your thinking for you. He could have bounded energetically, but today was certainly not one of his better days. He didn't realize how true that statement was until he heard the rustle of leaves behind him and turned his head enough to see the shadow falling upon him. The jungle has given him the creeps ever since he first laid his colorblind eyes on it and now his apprehensiveness had a basis in fact although it was certainly too late to exercise any wisdom gained from the experience. He yipped and whined like a newly whelped pup.

To his surprise, really to his utter shock, he was not immediately torn to shreds, though he could feel the pin pricks of claws lining his neck and belly. Behind those pricks, however, was a dreadfully powerful weight, the force of which increased on his neck until he could not even cry out in terror. It was then he looked up and realized what exactly was on top of him and then, therefore, how little chance he had at surviving should the enormous feline decide to butcher him.

The great tiger opened her mouth, revealing bloody great fangs greater than the length of his paw digit. But instead of clamping down on his neck, she spoke in the common tongue which the intelligence trained animals at the lab had learned, "Are you going to be quiet if I let go?" she asked with deadly sincerity. It had been about 20 seconds since his air supply had been cut off and the lab mix would have agreed to pretty much anything to return the precious supply of oxygen to his stressed and shaking body. The Golden Lab vigorously pumped his snout up and down. He gasped when the weight was removed from his neck, but the tigress continued to hold him firmly; she smelled damp but not with sea water and actually seemed remarkably clean save for the mud streaks on her paws. The thought struck him strangely and then he began to pass out from sheer terror and shock, but the tigress shook him until his awareness returned (despite his own personal reservations about returning to the present reality).

The tigress growled softly as if in disgust before saying, "I want you to tell me who you are, where you came from and who else is on the island."

It was clear that the tiger who out massed the rather soft and somewhat pudgy lab mix by eight-fold of pure muscle was not in the mood for discussion. But staring into that great, fang lined maw, her saliva dripping slowly onto his neck, the lab found his jaw for all intents and purposes welded shut. Inside, the dog was crying out loud against the unfairness of life and all the terrible things that seemed to only happen to him. 'They knew this was going to happen! Those bastards sending me out into the freaking jungle like this alone!' For a moment the lab whose only name besides his serial number had been given to him by an overweight and lonely female lab technician and now supposed would indeed take it to his grave as he had proclaimed in the past had a happy thought. 'Perhaps when this beast is done with me, she'll move on to the beach and eat the lot of those rat-eaten, half-rabid fucks... but she'll have to know how to find them.' It was that solitary thought alone that gave him, perhaps not the courage, but the gall to speak before the waiting mouth of Death.

The tigress had precious little patience for the quivering, whining cur she held under her. She hadn't wanted to delve immediately into cruelty, she really hadn't planned on doing anything more than snapping the neck of whoever she stumbled upon in the woods, but if she needed to dash this mutt against the nearest tree trunk to snap some sense into him, then she was going to do it. Luckily for the canine, he decided to speak before she could figure out how precisely to grab him without breaking his neck or severing any major arteries.

"Th-There's others. Close by. On the beach." The lab mix managed.

"What others? How many?" The tigress pressed. She hesitated but also asked, "Are there humans?" The striped feline clearly heard the own fear in her voice despite her best efforts to maintain control. She didn't think the canine noticed, however.

"Hah-Half of the c-canine unit managed to get free from the ship. I didn't s-see any humans, but there was a horse on the beach. It ran away and that's all I know, I swear!"

"How many of you are there on the beach?" insisted the tigress.

"I don't know! About thirty, maybe less. Most of them are wolves. They're there fighting for Alpha right now, just follow the shore!" whined the lab.

The lab seemed pretty eager to betray his friends to a 550 lb predator, the tigress noticed. 'Maybe they aren't very good friends.' Thought the tigress slyly. She flipped the canine over onto his stomach easily, he had gone as limp as a noodle. His golden white coat was matted with more than mud, the tigress saw. The base of his wide, thick tail was still oozing blood lazily from the bites he had already sustained there. 'Driven out of the pack. The marks of an exile.' Her mother had told her about some of the basics of canine society, mostly to draw a humorous parallel between them and their "caretakers" but the tigress grinned when she successfully remembered what the marks meant. She quickly began to devise uses for such a dog.

Finally she said to the prone canine, "Hmmm... I'm going to let you up now and you are not going to run away. If you do, I will chase you down and you will be my first meal on the island understand?"

The Golden Lab, still shaking but visibly curious said simply, "Y-yes. I do."

The tigress got off of the relatively smaller animal. "Good." She said and was vaguely surprised that the lab only stood up, shook the worst of the mud off his dirty coat and did not, in fact try to run away. She was almost disappointed at being deprived of the fun of a chase and a fresh meal at the end (the pudgy Labrador looked like he could make more than a decent snack), but if he did what she wanted, then this would prove far more useful.

The solid canine still looked fearful and dejected as he sat on the moist soil of the jungle floor, but he was also a great deal more calm than he had been under the tigress's claws. After a long moment of appraisal, she said. "I have an offer to make you, but first I want to know why you didn't run away."

The dog's laugh was literally a harsh bark, "Because I knew I couldn't possibly have escaped you."

The great cat studied him as only one of the feline family can, "No, there more to it than that. You could have at least tried."

Now the lab hung his head, "It's... it's because I have no where to go. I have no pack, no master..." the side of tigress's mouth twitched. "I'm nobody."

The large tigress stroked her whiskers. The wind changed under the canopy and she could smell rain coming. "How would you like to be someone?" the lab raised his head, his eyes wide and ready to believe as any dog is, "How would you like to be Alpha?"

The dog didn't laugh, in fact he almost choked on his next words, "Me? Alpha?! I can't even hold my own in a fight."

"Ah, but that is the beauty of it." The tigress leaned closer to the lab and he instinctively backed up on his haunches. Thunder boomed somewhere on the other side of the mountain and the soft pitter patter of rain sounded high above in the canopy. "I can hold my own and more. I will make you Alpha... as long as you do everything I tell you to without question."

The dog gulped and like a switch had been flipped, the world was suddenly half water. It fell in torrents despite the thickness of the canopy. It splattered fresh mud on the tiger, but was actually quite cleansing for the lab who hadn't done anything more than roll around in a muddy brook since pulling himself from the ocean that morning. His decision was not long in the making, "Whatever you say."

The tigress grinned, "Smart dog."

The rain ended shortly into their voyage towards the shore. The tigress took the opportunity to shake her coat clean of water and continued to walk primly forward. She had to admit, it was a brilliant plan. Faced with her own... inadequacies when it came to wood craftiness, she had realized that to survive she stood a much better chance together with other survivors; preferably ones who knew how to find their way about in the wild or especially how to hunt food. Of course when she realized there must at least be canines on the island with her, she didn't consider actually being equal with them. No, a proud and regal tigress such as herself deserved a position of authority when dealing with lower cast creatures like dogs or even wolves. Despite all her power, however, she knew that as animals with real intelligence, they would never accept subjugation from an outsider like her. They might however, accept subjugation from one of their own, as their non-enhanced brethren so often did from one source or another. What she had needed was a controllable regent and one had just happened to fall into her lap; the more vulnerable and spiteful the better.

The tigress walked through the dense underbrush with light paws. That lab was almost certainly going to take retribution on those who had spurned him and in the process, of course, certainly make even more enemies than he already had; enemies there was going to be only one person who could protect him from them. Ah, that was surely the most beautiful part of it. The lab would soon be falling head over paws to avoid displeasing her for he would realize, sooner or later that if he lost her favor, then he wouldn't be around much longer after that. 'And this way I don't have to spend so much time around those smelly mutts.' Thought the tigress, 'And as soon as I learn the lay of the land, I'll let the mob have their pudgy little sacrifice and be on my way.' The tigress virtually glowed with self-satisfaction as she waltzed through the dripping fronds.

The tigress smelled the canine's "camp" long before she saw or even heard the ruckus within. A mile out, the scent marks began and only grew denser as the dog and great cat trudged through the jungle together. The scents were a tangled mess, the result of every male trying to each mark as many trees as possible. The tigress snorted at the increasingly strong urine smell on virtually every single tree or even knee high rock or bundle of vines, disgusting creatures. But it was then that she remembered that tigers were not clean of the same actions either, at least the males anyways, or so she'd been told; males and females were split up almost at birth at the lab. She wondered what had happened to her own male siblings, if any were still alive, and if even she wanted to meet another male tiger...

The lab brought her out of her fog of thoughts when he turned and led the way to a small ridge where they could look out over the camp without being seen. The "camp" did not amount to much even in the non-human eyes of the tigress. Really the small sandy meadow hadn't been altered in any way by the canines except for the general tramping down of the chest high stiff bladed grass and the many shallow nooks dug into the sides of dunes that served as nests for sleeping. A wolf, or a tiger for that matter might not require the many accommodations a human might need for shelter, but this clearing - the tigress just couldn't justify the word "camp" in her mind - was about as barren as it got. Almost the only thing it had going for it was the fact that it, unlike the territory of their wild counterparts, was free of feces. Some enterprising canine had dug a latrine for the solid waste - it was clear that not a drop of the liquid was going to waste - though the many conspicuous piles further out in the jungle confirmed that not everyone was as hygienically mindful. The tigress made a mental note to meet with the one who had the foresight to dig the waste pit.

As far as the dogs themselves were concerned, the lab's statements under duress fairly summed up the situation. The fighting had clearly wound down as the newly released canines established their societal hierarchy. The battered and bloody losers were scattered about the fringes of the camp, the worse off secretly nursing wounds and avoiding attention drawn to their weakened state while those still able to fight circled, ready to gang up on a competitor if it looked like they were faltering. The females sat to the side under the shade of some nearby palms. Either they had already decided their own looser version of the picking order or they were waiting for the males to finish their jousting. Either way, there was clearly an alpha female among them, a full blooded timber wolf by the looks of her. She lay with her assorted nurses and maidens, a few bloody snouted yearlings cowered next to her, whining and licking under her chin in submissive pandering for their offenses.

The alpha female actually concerned the tigress more than the male. Though physically smaller, the female would be least tolerant of another female asserting control, even through the proxy of her puppet, the lab. The tigress reflected that she would probably have to kill her which was a shame since it looked like she was already carrying pups - a possible explanation for how she came to be Alpha in the first place - perhaps she would listen to reason; females were supposed to solve their differences with more subtle social gesturing than beating each other to a pulp.

As the tigress scanned the scene below, a strange sight came to her attention. It was that of a smallish canine sitting on the beach. What drew the eye wasn't her activities but her strange appearance. She had an abnormally large head with even larger fan like ears, her neck was scrawny and her ruffled coat was a bizarre mismatch of a wolf's grey and white with broad stripes of yellow like a labrador. While she was overall a tad withered, her legs were horribly bowed out and stiff, as if they had each been broken in three places and set... badly, she also lacked a tail. This weird looking canine was staring intently into a large grey boulder in the sand and drawing odd designs in the sand which she smoothed out about once a minute and began again. The tigress could not help but point out the freak to the lab.

"Oh that's Buttercup." Whispered the Golden Lab as if that explained everything.

The tigress resisted slapping the irrepressible canine and asked quietly, "Is there a reason why a mutated freak like that was on the boat to America?" The tigress had thought that only the best specimens, such as herself, had been boarded. She couldn't explain why one so... half-finished would have been aboard.

"Well... Buttercup's a little... weird." Understated the lab, "I haven't spoken to her, but there are whispers that traveled in the kennels. They say that she is the result of some half-baked attempt to engineer psychic abilities. I don't put much stock in it myself. Last month they said they were going to change the kibble to lamb flavor but it's just the same ol' chicken every-"

The tigress placed a sheathed paw over his snout to stop the lab's blabbering. After a moment, she let go, saying, "What about psychic abilities? I never heard they were doing anything like that."

"Well why not? We can talk just fine can't we?" The lab's ears dropped remarkably fast when he saw the look on the tiger's face, "Well maybe the tigers wouldn't have heard of it. They do more experiments with us dogs than you exotic types. Anyways, they say she can move things, like without touching them. I've never seen her do anything much besides stare into space myself. But I have to admit that sometimes weird things happen around her. There was this guard at the lab, got a laugh out of kicking us once in a while when we were be'in fed. Well, he sets down Buttercup's food and gives her a great wallop in the ribs when she puts her neck down to eat; bastard laughs his head off. Next day he don't show up for work on account of breaking his leg falling down the stairs while leaving the building." The lab was quiet for a moment, and then spoke in barely a whisper, "Her gene-stock, or family or whatever, looks after her but the rest leave well enough alone. I don't know what she is, but I do know whatever she is, it's bad news."

The tigress turned her face a little away before rolling her eyes; she didn't think she had ever heard a more preposterous load of superstitious crap in her life, even from the lower cast test tigers who broadcasts their "horrific" experiences to increase the sympathy towards them but more often resulting in everyone else's' general annoyance. But the fact remained that whatever was indeed truth, these canines obviously believed there was something special or at least weird about that misshapen female on the beach; it would be wise not to forget about her.

The tigress lay silently studying the little cliques and groups of dogs as they moved about the clearing. There were only three largish proto-packs remaining, each having gobbled up smaller groups or absorbed members from the isolated individuals on the fringes. Each of them had an alpha and his second-in-command beta. They were taking a break at the moment, but eventually two or all three of them would get in a fight, deposing at least one more of the potential alphas. If left alone, there would undoubtedly be a new Alpha for the whole pack, more than likely before the end of the day. Canine's the tigress observed, and the lab agreed whole-heartedly, were quick to pledge allegiance once shown who was in charge. The tigress grinned to herself, 'I'm sure it won't take them long at all to see who's in charge.' And the sooner she struck the better, before they were able to formally organize themselves.

A twig snapped behind them and of course the lab sprung up immediately to meet the source of the disturbance, neatly revealing himself in the process; not that his bright yellow and white coat was much camouflage in the dense green of the surrounding foliage. The tigress shifted slightly more into the shadows of the low hanging leaves and grass, her black stripes hiding her at least adequately while the brilliantly colored lab moved forward. It was then that she realized that another dog was growling.

The lab's hackles rose at the sound and he set his paws defensively against the opponent that the tigress couldn't see. A voice was added to the low-throated, vicious growl, "You knew what would happen if you came back here, outcast. We don't have a place for soft pets like you."

The lab's tail shifted up under his rear, but to his credit, he did not look to the tigress for support and thereby reveal her position. He backed up a couple steps towards the edge of the low rocky ridge and the aggressor stepped into view. He was a large grey wolf, though he was more brown with his thin summer coat. Muscles flexed in his broad shoulders under the skin, he was trim and rugged and more than a match for the soft, rather flabby Labrador.

The lab inhaled a deep shuddering breath as he gathered himself, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"And what's a drippy, spineless coward like you going to do about it?" asked the wolf as he continued to advance unknowingly closer to the tigress.

The lab's hind feet met the end of the ridge and a couple pebbles fell down the fifteen foot incline. "You still have time to get away." He said. The tigress noted he was no longer shaking barely a tail's length away from the she-tiger's nose.

The wolf barked a laugh, "Me? It's you who should think about running. Not that you can get aw-"

The wolf never got a chance to finish his threat for the tiger pounced and with all of her 550 lbs behind her easily brought down the much smaller canine. He didn't even have time for anything other than a startled squawk before she ripped him open from throat to belly. The white bone of his ribs shined through the streams of blood as the legs twitched and spammed with the wolf's horrible gurgling demise. The lab, his nose flecked with tiny droplets of his would-be killer's blood, blanched and whimpered quietly at the sight; even more so when she began to nose at the abdomen of the fallen canine.

"W-What are you doing?" Asked the lab gingerly, refreshed as he was in the knowledge of just how easily the great cat could take out even a pretty large dog.

The tigress looked up, "What? I haven't eaten anything since the boat.

The visible skin on the lab's nose and around his eyes paled even more. "Th-then, can you at least wait until I move away a little?"

The tigress sighed with exasperation, "If you must..." The lab bid a hasty retreat, though not too far away from his protector, before she began to extract the more succulent bits out of the torso of the dog.

The dog was actually scrawnier than his musculature would have indicated, but the tigress felt more up to facing the collective power of the pack with the liver and a couple other choice morsels settled inside her. She had eaten only lightly as her mother had instructed before a fight, and her blood ran hot in anticipation. The lab walked quickly in her wake as she marched openly down into the canine's chosen living area. It seemed like every eye was on her, and her blood stained mouth and forepaws, and that suited her just fine; let them bask in awe and fear for what has come into their camp. Lots of space was made around her as she calmly walked straight out to the first of the proto-packs and immediately caught the eye of the alpha.

She didn't pounce on him, she didn't growl or roar, in fact, she intended not to make a sound at all during the entire affair. She simply sat and as had instructed the lab beforehand, he came forward to meet the potential pack leader.

The lab stood smugly before the eight grouped dogs and glared right at the alpha. "I suggest that you all split up 'cause there's an Alpha here now."

"Really?" said the lupine leader of the small eight member pack, "I don't see one around here. All I see is a fat spoiled pet whose just brought a flipping predator to our new home." The other members of the small pack began to growl and gather closer. The tigress noticed that the other two competing packs were also closing in slowly, ready to stand and fight against an outsider, but equally ready to let the other packs sustain the most damage. She would have to do something soon if the lab didn't-

The lab strode forward until he was nose to nose with the much tougher would-be Alpha. Amazingly he wasn't bitten immediately, "I might just be a dog, but I am a dog whose made friends with a 600 lb tiger" The tigress frowned slightly at the exaggeration of her weight but shrugged off the silly thought almost immediately. The lab continued, "If anyone wants to challenge me for rights to Alpha, they're going to have deal with my tiger friend here too." The lab snarled viciously, obviously eager to release a lot of his pent up frustration at his own impotence. He was already pumped and breathing heavily as he barked, "Anyone want to take me up on the offer?"

Of course it would have all been too easy if she hadn't had to shed any blood (she'd already forgotten about the mangled carcass cooling above on the ridge). The minor alpha didn't move, but two of the youngsters rushed forward from the line and were too far from the beta wolf for a quick nip to remind them of their places. They were on top of the soft Golden Lab in seconds, but the tigress was just behind them. She bulldozed one of the little brats with her head as a battering ram and swiped at the other with her right claw. There was quite a bit of risk for the lab involved with her half-blind slash, but luck seemed to favor him today. The first juvenile escaped without facing her fangs and didn't bother to turn and face them either. The other one, however, was throw a good eight feet away into long grass and sandy soil, four deep, parallel furrows carved into his back. He lay whimpering softly and calling for his mother; he wouldn't last the night, or perhaps even the hour.

The tigress displayed her four and a half inch fangs for all to see and hissed loudly as she stepped off the prone yellow furred canine. The lab was bleeding a bit around the neck, but otherwise looked no worse for wear. He got to his feet and called out, "Any other challengers?" The tigress had to admit that he had some guts after all, though she'd never tell him that herself.

The air was silent save for the omnipresent crash of the ocean and the chattering of tropical birds. The lab stuck his chest out, "Good. Now, no more little packs. I'm Alpha now and you all answer to me." The main bodies of the competing packs were still hesitant to respond, but the stragglers and the less loyal, or more opportunistic, of the gathered wolves gravitated towards the leadership the lab had claimed according to deeply ingrained genetic programming. It didn't really matter who was leader as long as everyone agreed who that leader was. In fact most canines, wild and domestic, wanted to be lead; it made life so much simpler to know one's place.

The tigress stood by the lab's side as he quickly asserted control. Posturing and quick snaps with his own teeth did most of the work for him, and, of course, the tigress was standing by to dispose of any real threats. It helped that as a giantess among the much smaller canines, she developed a more than healthy circle of privacy around her and her "friend." The lab turned out to have at least some wits about him. As a boon to his potential rivals, he made all of the proto-alphas his beta wolves above everyone except the lab himself, and of course the tigress. For the rest of them, their relative positions in the hierarchy really didn't change all that much and the majority didn't give a whit about who was in charge as long as there was someone in charge.

When affairs started to settle down, the tigress took the opportunity to make herself comfortable in the nook of a nearby sand dune. It was still pretty early in the afternoon, so the sand flies weren't terribly oppressive yet. She watched as the lab arranged sleeping areas for everyone, careful to disperse old pack mates and put several key rivals closer together; the idea being that they would be too busy fighting each other than to worry too much about the lab. The sun was setting by the time that everyone had been assigned their new sleeping nests and the last of the stragglers in the outreaches of the "camp" had been brought in and brought up to speed. It was then that the lab went to where the females were clustered and, very publicly, claimed his foremost rights as Alpha. Interestingly, the tigress supposed, she wasn't resistive. In fact, she went along with it quite willingly and enthusiastically for one a little less than mid term. The tigress watched her steadily as the curtain of velvet night fell upon the island. Whether she would be as accepting of the tigress's rule remained to be seen.

The tigress, even with her sophisticated eyes could see only dimly through the overcast night. The sand flies were making a valiant effort to invade the tiger's eyes and ears, much to her displeasure and she set out to find a pleasant enough nook in which the spend the night; and one where the lab would also rest nearby if he knew what was good for him. The tigress paused, however, to look at a lone figure only now making her way towards the camp; it was the strange looking dog she had noticed earlier. This so-called "Buttercup's" overly large eyes were frighteningly bright on this dim evening and she was staring intently at the tigress. For some reason, despite the fact that she could have obliterated this mismatched canine as easily as swatting a fly, her gaze made her intensely uncomfortable and she found herself wishing that she'd stare at some rock or tree, anything but her. The tigress snarled and hurried up the beach, broad, heavy paws making good headway in the sand, leaving the freakish mutant behind.

Up the beach, where the sand began to solidify into real soil and other wiry shrubs began to be laced with the long grass, the tigress found the Labrador lounging with his newfound mistress; they lay next to one another, practically on top of one another, but there was little real affection (The lab seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, however). The tigress smirked as she passed them and began climbing into the jungle proper, 'Males, they are all the same.' She thought with redress.

When the lab saw that she was leaving, however, he managed to get up from under the heavier female and pace quickly after her. "Wait! Where are you going?" he cried.

"If it concerns you, which it doesn't, I'm going to find a place to sleep that doesn't reek of urine marks and damp fur." Said the tigress without turning her head or slowing her pace.

The lab continued at her heels as if attached by an umbilical. She couldn't blame him for wanting to stick near her, though. Being left unguarded for even a single night presented an excellent opportunity for any of the many new enemies he had made that day to dispose of him. 'The sad part is,' the tigress reflected, 'that the pack is much stronger as a single unit than it was divided and quarreling with itself. If someone did get rid of the lab now, they would dissolve back into their clicks and continue in-fighting instead of taking care of each other and hunting together. But not a single one of those would-be's look beyond the direct result of their actions. Idiots.' The tigress dismissed the thoughts with a snort.

The reality of the situation was that she would have to trek literally miles away from the canine's sleeping area to be away from the taint of the overzealous markers. What she was in fact doing was setting a respectable distance away from herself and those of the canine community. It wouldn't do to have the Big Bad Cat sleeping with them as if they were (gasp) equals. She needed an aura of power and dread about her if she were to maintain control and a little mystery sprinkled on top would help towards that end.

In the end, she didn't go back to the ridge overlooking the long grass of the meadow where the assorted dogs and wolves slept. She turned in the opposite direction, moving up the other hill which sheltered the hollow of the beachside meadow, but was less rocky and densely covered in thick trunked trees. The ground was covered in kudzu and the thin leafy vines wound around most every truck. The soft plants would have made a fine enough bed, but the tigress was wary, her rear still itched and burned from the many bites the ants had managed to inflict on her earlier that day. She wanted, if possible, someplace she could sleep off the ground. However, despite a cat's natural climbing ability, the she-tiger hadn't actually practiced the art since she was a kitten and with her 550 lb body she was beginning to doubt that she would find a suitable place that could withstand her weight.

It was very dark under the trees with the canopy blocking out the heavens above and their soft glow, luckily the tigress's eyes were very good at picking up even the lowest amounts of light; the same couldn't' be said for the lab as he stumbled along behind her, tracking more by scent and hearing than by sight. He whined at the eerily silent broadly spaced and thick trees. In fact, the tigress herself found it more than a little odd that come nightfall, the apparently plentiful birds and their deafening catcalls had abruptly vanished, but then, many tropical birds had the luxury of being diurnal. The great cat, despite ancestral preference for the night had been raised from birth on the human clock and thought of the night and its mysteries naturally as something to be avoided by sleep. She was about to turn back, she was getting a little too far from the "camp," when she saw something that struck her eye.

It was two trees, however, one of them had apparently died long ago and had fallen against its mate. Both of the trees were sturdy hardwoods, like the rest in this patch the jungle. What the tigress saw was a veritable ramp leading right into the divergence of the thick branches from the main truck of the still standing tree. As long as it wasn't rotted through, the truck was plenty thick to support even a much heavier animal than herself; not to mention it saved her an incredible amount of effort trying to claw her way up the side of one of the smooth trunks. She purred in excitement and bounded up to the collapsed tree. She started climbing it gingerly, crushing the thick leafy vines under her feet as she went. She was ready for it to start to break, but there was only a slight creaking, the upper branches of the fallen tree had so entangled themselves in its partner that the nice little ramp didn't even budge as she climbed higher and higher until her head was at the lower boundary of the low hanging canopy. Moss thickly coated the truck and it was more than broad enough for a stable perch. In fact, the tigress thought she would sleep on the ramp itself rather than climbing into the opposite tree. It was a shame that her contentment had to be stained by the loudly panting white dog that virtually shone like a ghost in the dim light of the jungle. He snuffled the ground and eventually found himself at the base of the ramp. But he was unwilling to climb up the wooden surface (Thank goodness!).

"Where... where are you? Have you stopped?" he asked the darkness hesitantly.

The tigress let him stew for a few moments before answering, "I'm here. I've found a place to spend the night." She didn't feel the need at all to explain her reasoning or even what exactly she had found and the lab had spent enough time around her today to have learned not to ask. She began cleaning her face and paws in preparation for sleep, but her lips curled when she saw where the lab was settling for the night: directly under her perch. She had already begun to feel protective of her find and decided to demand a more proper distance of respect out of her subordinate. Of course, there was only one way the tigress could think to do so politely. "I can still smell you." She murmured loudly enough for him to hear.

The lab tilted his head quizzically at first, "Wha-"

"I came out here to be rid of dog stink. Including yours. Now move farther away before I think about eating you and adopting some other stooge in the morning." The tigress spoke lightly almost casually and the lab whined softly. He did do as he was told, however, and moved a good a good 30 yards away before rolling around in the soft leaves to form his simple nest for the night. The tigress had her own little rituals before slumber as well, spending some time yawning stretching and, most importantly, scratching her claws against the thick wood of her sleeping platform (most enjoyable!). Before long, the lab had rolled onto his back and the tigress could make out his twitchy kicking legs as he dreamed his simple little dreams. The tigress crossed her own paws and rested her great head on them. It was still some time after she had shut her eyes that she was able to go to sleep; the jungle was indeed far too quiet.

Nothing came for them in the night as the lab had feared, however, the tigress had perhaps the strangest dream in all of her four years of life. It started pleasantly enough, the tigress was alone in the jungle, but she didn't feel lost or frightened, quite the contrary, she felt a sense of pride and confidence crystallized past what she felt in waking life. That alone would have made this a fine night, however, the tigress soon grew hungry and took to wandering the green expanses of the jungle. There were no birds this time, nor even any insects to mention; it seemed like there was nothing but the plants and the rocks and yet... she smelt food. It was a strong odor of freshly butchered meat and it seemed to come from everywhere the tigress cared to search and yet she found nothing. She finally settled down after what seemed an age of wandering. Her stomach hung empty within her filled with a desperate longing. She thought she might die after all even in this lush environment. It was as she placed her head on her paws, however, that she smelled a vine before her. The vine smelled like fresh chicken. She was so hungry now that she didn't even care. She took it with her paws and bit down. It was amazing, the vine tasted like chicken! She bit down and again and again, pulling the vine across the ground and eating it inch by inch until it snagged. Even then, she was still so hungry that she followed it, sucking it into her mouth and chomping it down like an immensely long and thick string of spaghetti. Before she found its source, however, she smelled something different, tuna! Some fish would really hit the spot after all that chicken flavored vine. She tracked the smell to a bush and with logic only available in a dream, set straight out to chomping down on its leaves. It was still incredible, the leaves even managed to mimic the texture of fresh never-in-a-can tuna. She ate all the leaves, the twigs and the branches and in what seemed like hardly a minute or two, the entire bush was gone and yet hunger still lingered. It seemed that whatever she wandered into was made of some sort of food palatable for a large cat. She licked a tree, it tasted like beef ribs, even had what looked like bones under the surface once she sunk her teeth into it and tore off the bark. There were pork loin saplings, tender and juicy. When she tapped open the trunk of a mighty tree, it wept melted fat instead of sap. A bunch of figs fallen from a palm tree was like caviar. The moss was salmon pate. It seemed the entire island had become made of food. Even if the plants should become exhausted, the very dirt and rocks still tasted like a high grade dry food for cats, meaty and greasy, even if it did indeed taste like dirt compared to the delicacies around her. The island was offering herself to the tigress, and the happy cat was only too happy to accept. It seemed a much longer time later, the tigress belched and tossed aside a bit of bamboo jerky that was just a little too stiff. She looked around, the vegetation was cleared around her in what was easily half an acre of what had once been dense jungle. The tiger belched again, even louder and sighed with contentment. It was time to move on to a richer part of the jungle. However, the tigress experience quite a bit of difficulty when it came time to move. It seemed like there was a great weight keeping her down and then she lifted her head and looked at herself... all of herself.

The tigress woke with a gasp that she managed to muffle at the last second. Her heart was fluttering, the dream had been so real it was frightening. She slumped back down onto the log with a huff of relief. She would have let herself drift back into slumber despite the lightening sky to the east if her jaw hadn't happened to land on something that went crunch. She lifted her chin and saw what she initially took to be the cap of a mushroom, but while it was circular and white as bleached bone, it was very flat for a mushroom and last time she checked, mushrooms didn't crunch. She cupped it with her paw. It was flat and disk shaped, about five or six inches across, with hard and crisp at the tapered edges, but softer and thicker in the middle. Something orange showed beneath the white surface where it was slightly smashed and had cracked open; that something smelled very strongly of meat. The tigress had fortunately been fed only a couple hours before the accident that had landed her on the island, however, that was now a day ago and she had had no food since. Thus she didn't think about it overly much before she placed the... the thing - it might have been some sort of weird fruit, she thought more as an excuse - into her mouth. When she chewed, rich succulent juices came out of the little disc and it tasted just like... roasted chicken. The strange dream came back to her immediately and she was sure there was some kind of connection, but she couldn't fathom what it might be. Still... she closed her eyes in grateful bliss as she chewed for a long time, savoring it as long as she could before swallowing it.

When she opened them she gave a quiet huff of surprise for there, resting on her tree trunk perch were more of the white crunchy disks marching in a staggered line up to the opposite tree and those weren't the only ones. On the forest floor, the little white shapes shone through the green littered here and there beneath the tiger like they had fallen out of the sky. They certainly were not there the previous day. She didn't know what to make of it, but after tasting the marvelously succulent first one, her stomach made up her mind for her. She started by collecting the ones on her tree trunk first, collecting them in her mouth that it. She turned gracefully around on the fairly narrow avenue and found more disks arranged in a staggered line down the rear half as well. Each of them tasted like the best chicken she had ever had and by the time she reached the forest floor, she had consumed a dozen of them. She padded through the thick kudzu as she sniffed around for the scattered disks, they were harder to see down on the ground for the foliage. She found one, grasped it in her mouth and as she picked it up, there was a tiny bit of resistance and a little snap as she pulled it away from the ground. She thought nothing of it at first, but it was the same for all of the rest that she found on the ground as well, almost as if she were breaking some minute piece in taking them.

The lab continued to snore away the early morning light, hind legs in the air as if he were a stuck pig. Little wonder his companions thought him soft, he had no sense at all for the wild. However, now assured that she wasn't being watched, more for maintaining appearances than anything else, she bent her head close to the ground and looked under one of the white disks. Her initial thought that these things were some sort of mushroom was reinforced immediately for there was a thin stalk leading up to what she supposed would have to be called the "cap." However, it was not a typical mushroom stalk if she was any judge. It was preposterously thin for one, the cap was more held up by the surrounding foliage, and like the edges of the cap, it was brittle like a dry leaf. When she took the cap, it broke off with hardly any force and was crushed into a minute pinch of powder. She popped the cap into her mouth and chewed reverently; it might be fungus after all, but if it went well... who really cared in a survival situation right? She didn't know how such a relatively large cap could grow from such a tiny stalk, though she supposed it might have simply dried after growing sometime in the night, but that still didn't explain how the disks on the truck had appeared. Those certainly hadn't had stalks. Was it possible that they had been placed there? She frowned, there was too much she didn't know including when, if ever, this convenient food source might reappear. She decided to wake the lab, it was time that they all needed to start learning more about this strange place they had drifted ashore.

The tigress considered briefly attempting to save some of the precious disks, but if they were some sort of mushroom that grew during the night, then they wouldn't keep. Besides, she intended to start searching the island for a more sustainable food source within the hour. Also, even after devouring all she could find of the widely scattered disks, at least another two dozen, the caps had only taken the edge of her hunger; she needed more filling food if she were to last here.

When she started pacing towards the lab, she was aiming to give the wretched, and still smelly, mutt a good kick to start his day, but he heard her in time and rolled over onto his feet before she could say 'good-morning.' She observed that here too, the "mushrooms" had scattered around where the lab had slept.

He yawned widely, but hurried to the tigress's side as she walked by him. "What are the plans for t- What all these white things?" He asked.

The tigress rolled her eyes as the lab waggled his thick tail and sniffed excitedly at the nearest one. She would have met his question with cold silence... but this was a unique situation. "I don't know." She said, "But they're edible."

Before the lab had even tasted one, he concluded his own olfactory examination with a snort, "Smells just like my favorite kibble mixed with gravy!" He virtually inhaled the thing; the tigress counted one bite, two, then it was gone. The lab woofed happily and the tigress could not help but snort in amusement at his simple bliss. "Oh, I haven't had anything to eat in forever!" said the lab as he went on a beeline for the next white disk.

As the lab went merrily from one disk to the next, apparently without a single thought of where they came from, she could not stop herself from asking, "So, do they really taste like... kibble?" The last word even left a sour taste on her tongue.

The lab lifted his head in puzzlement. "Yes they do, very fresh kibble..." His ears folded down as he seemed to think for the first time; the tigress was almost surprised the canine's small brain didn't overheat, "Do you suppose it's odd... that these things taste like kibble that is."

"Oh no," said the tigress sarcastically, "Of course not." Her little friend with the floppy ears took her words as encouragement and shrugged before setting out to find the remaining disks. The tigress, meanwhile, plucked a crisp from where it had apparently landed on a large leaf growing from a vine choking the base of the nearby tree. She placed it in her mouth: salmon. The strong fishy flavor exploded in her mouth, her second favorite food; certainly, there was no hint of "kibble."

When the lab was finished browsing about his nest the tigress got up and started heading back to the meadow, the lab came running on her heels. "So what is the plan for today?" asked the lab.

"A hunt." The she-tiger said simply.

The tigress was pleased to see that the canines had not dissolved again into their previous clicks during the night; even better, the sleeping arrangements made by the lab yesterday did not seem substantially altered. This boded well for the lab's long term ability to lead in her opinion. Apparently, the strange white disks had shown up here too. Most of them were already gone, no doubt the early risers had gotten the lion's share of the weird harvest, but there was evidence remaining in the forms of white crumbs here and there on the ground, and also in the corners of many mouths. The tigress felt no need at all to explain that this bountiful new food source might be some sort of fungus. In fact, she felt no true need to speak at all to the motley assembly, she had the lab for that, and he was supposed to be the one "in charge" around here. The tigress simply chose a nice grassy spot in the meadow and let her body fold it down into a comfortable mat while the new Alpha went ahead of her to greet the others and discuss the strange disks; she was comfortable letting the others talk and forming her own more enlightened opinion later.

In the first hour, however, the tigress noted the obvious success of her stooge all on his own. What the lab lacked in fighting prowess, he made up for in sociability and general likableness. He always greeted with tail wagging, listened to questions and replied honestly as far as he knew and even solved minor disturbances and in-fighting with a minimum of altercation. He also always let others sniff his own rear before sniffing back in return; the tigress could not help but chuckle at the strange canine ritual. Naturally, when it came to the larger males, especially the small population of unneutereds, the lab wasn't quite able to hold his own against physical intimidation. However, a passing gesture to the nearby tiger - and she dutifully raised her head and glared in these instances - usually diffused the situation. Of course, the major topic of discussion for the day was the appearance of the strange disks. And more and more, the tigress found her ear drawn to a particular group talking animatedly in a cluster of palm trunks that had fallen into the meadow during some long ago hurricane.

"It smells like mostly lipids." Said a black and white border collie.

"Actually, they're high density, long chained lipids." Corrected a blood hound with an abnormally bulbous nose and especially droopy jowls. The tan furred hound drew another long sniff over the broken halves of the disk they were studying, "Protein content is less than 10%."

"But it is organic?" asked the largest member of the three membered study group, a black faced German shepherd.

"Of course, it's organic, just look at it!" The collie pointed out with a single digit of a paw with unusually elongated and flexible pads.

"You know, if you look at the bottom here where it's thicker." Said the German shepherd without irritation at the collie's more than a little rude comment, "There are striations in the white flesh that remind me of the gills on a mushroom."

The blood hound leaned down and sniffed again, "In the 'shell,' the protein content is around 60%. I think there is a significant amount of what might signaling ligands, or even hormones."

"Bullshit," said the shepherd, "Plant hormones don't have an odor."

The collie interjected, "But they do have pheromones, and those can have just as potent an effect."

"I don't think they're pheromones, I could have smelled those a mile away. This is subtle" said the hound.

"But anyways," stated the collie in a let's-move-on tone of voice, "We all agree that it is some sort of fungus.

"I still think that it could be a kind of fruit." Remarked the German shepherd.

The collie, despite only weighing perhaps half as much as the shepherd looked up and showed his teeth, "That's idiotic! There's no structures, no veins, no segmentation."

"There is segmentation. The capsule and the orange mush inside are separated clearly from each other. What kind of fungus grows to contain something that is obviously meant as a food source for mammals? The structures might have just dried up with the stem."

"Then where are the seeds?" asked the collie triumphantly.

"They could be microscopic. It could even be a form of proto-plant that replicates by sporulation like a fungus." Replied the shepherd holding his head high above the collie's.

The collie looked like he was about to say 'that's ridiculous,' but the hound interjected, "There are no spores as far as I can tell."

That comment sent the entire group into silence but only momentarily. The trio soon delved into a conversation even more incomprehensible to the tigress. The large cat had known, simply by association, that she was one of the highest rungs in the intelligence program at the lab, if not the highest. Now, when she listened to all of these large words and unfamiliar concepts being tossed around between the three obviously altered canines, she wasn't so sure there weren't higher levels beyond even her elevated intelligence. 'Is it possible that the humans engineered something smarter than themselves?' she wondered and then shook the thought aside. She didn't think that these three represented an intelligence greater than the ones responsible for their existence, but they had obviously been coached and educated in a fashion that the tigress evidently hadn't been. 'It might be beneficial to extract what I can from them' the tigress thought as she got up and paced over to the chattering dogs.

The canines were chatting so earnestly that they didn't hear the tigress's quiet footfalls until she was more than halfway towards their little hollow at the foremost end of the meadow closest to the beach. Soil which was more or less pure sand hissed under her paws as she stepped, held together only by the thin fibers of the tall, flat bladed grass' roots. The bloodhound appeared to smell her before anyone heard her coming and he turned his head. The discussion ended abruptly and they were preparing for a hasty retreat when the tigress said in as pleasant a voice as she could muster, "Wait please. I want to talk with you all."

The German Shepherd looked like he might leave anyways, but the other two hesitated and the tigress took a sandy seat at a comfortable ten feet away. "I've been eavesdropping on you, I hope you don't mind." The tigress actually didn't care if they minded but her mother had beat politeness into her at a young age, well necessary politeness anyways. "I couldn't help but notice that you all seem to know a lot about these." The tigress indicated the dissected pieces of the disk laying on assorted leaves between the canines.

The collie, a female the tigress noticed now, cleared her throat loudly, "We have been speculating mostly." The tigress noted the emphasis on "we." The collie continued, "Though Bruce's nose is accurate down to one tenth of one part per million and he's memorized over a thousand different substances by scent."

The tan blood hound huffed a breath that lifted both jowls up before they landed back down with a wet splat. "And even so, I still can't tell what this thing is made out of precisely."

The tigress was afraid that the conversation would turn once again into a heated technical debate so she spoke up before the collie, "But what's your best guess so far?"

The collie said, "Well it seems to be some sort of fungus." The German Shepherd immediately glared at her but didn't say anything. "And as far as Bruce can tell it's composed mostly of amazingly high density lipids... er that is to say fat." The collie added at the blank stare of the great cat towering over her.

"A mushroom made out of fat? That doesn't make sense." Said the tigress.

The shepherd cleared his throat but didn't look at the tigress directly, just down at her toes, "Well it's not all that unusual. Normal mushrooms have lots of fat too, but the fat in these things has some... unusual properties."

The tigress was about to ask what properties, but the collie must have seen the look her face. She said, "Einny, why don't you show her the experiment."

The tigress grinned at the name, the German shepherd was easily the biggest canine of the lot, both deep chested and broad shouldered. He was scooping a pad full of the orange paste out of the center of one of the disks when she asked unavoidably, "Einny?"

The shepherd answered, "Better than 'Einstien.'" Before crushing the paste and breathing hotly on it. The "paste" was actually more like a dry, waxy dough and before long, the shepherd had melted it into a liquid.

"Quickly, watch." The collie almost whispered intently as Einny lowered his paw over a leaf filled with water; there were already several waxy drops at the bottom of it, the tigress saw. At the shepherd's insistence, a single drop fell from his pads and landed in the water. The tigress saw that the clear, dark yellow, almost brown, drop fell immediately to the bottom and quickly re-solidified into a wax. She had been expecting something more... impressive.

"Interesting, yes?" asked the collie as if it had been the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Errr... I'm still not sure I understand." Replied the tigress.

"Didn't you see that-" the collie began, but the shepherd interrupted. "Betsy, she's not going to understand."

shaw!" waved off the collie, "I can speak in layman when I want to." The tigress did not appreciate dumbing down the conversation for her benefit, but also, she had to concede, it might be necessary. The so-called "Betsy" looked straight up at the tigress, in the heat of her passion for science, or perhaps just for talking, her natural fear was forgotten. "You know that oil normally floats on water right?"

"Of course." Said the tigress, hoping she wasn't dumbing down the conversation too far.

"And do you know why it floats?"

"Be-because it's lighter than water?" the tigress vaguely recalled a conversation about "densities" between two lab techs near her cage.

"Yes! Exactly!" said Betsy and wagged her bushy tail hyperactively. The tigress could not help but share in her enthusiasm at least a little, it was infectious. "Yes, or more precisely, it is less dense than water; which means that there's less... stuff in it in a particular volume. Why do you think that this oil sunk in the water?"

"...Because it's heav-, er, more dense than water?" ventured the tigress.

"Precisely, because there is more stuff in it. So much that it weighs more than water, even though water is pretty heavy by itself. It is important that even as a liquid it is heavier than water before it solidifies back into a fat. I didn't even think it could be a long chained lipid when I first saw it myself, but Bruce assures us that it is indeed a lipid, or a fat, of some variety."

The larger bloodhound simply nodded to the tigress.

She thought she understood at least the gist of it, but she hadn't yet connected the fascination the dogs obviously shared in this "discovery." She asked, "So why is this important?"

The collie began energetically, "Well, you see, the longer the chain of hydro-carbons, the more energy they contain and of course the more dense-"

The shepherd thankfully placed a big paw gently over Betsy's running snout and said, "We think the Manna contains an abnormally high level of Calories. You know what a Calorie is right?"

"Of course, I know what a Calorie is - How could she forget? Her diet of normally 23,000 Calories a day in fresh meat was cut down to 11,000 after she had been conditioned (or rather over-conditioned) for a pregnancy and then subsequently dropped out of the program before she even met her chosen male partner (She had been assured, though, that he was of premium genetic stock). She was still on the diet by the time of the shipment to California and in fact was still a tad over weight for her size; at least as far as her human caretakers were concerned - But what did you just call it? Manna? What is that."

The collie piped up, "Oh stop calling it that, Einny. The last thing we need here are religious connotations."

"I think it's just as good a name as any and besides we need to call it something other than the "disks" or "crisps" or whatever."

Bruce spoke for the first time in the bantering between the collie and shepherd, "Not everything needs a name."

"Exactly." Agreed the collie.

The tigress, however, was curious, "But what is Manna? How did you think of that name?"

"Well..." said the shepherd much more shyly this time as he rubbed the back of his head with a paw, "Manna is the food that appeared for the Jews when they were wandering the desert for forty years. It was said to have appeared on the ground with the dew every morning and the Jews made bread and stuff out of it to eat. It was a gift from God."

The tigress, who had little direct personal contact with her human caretakers wasn't sure what a "Jew" was, but the rest of the description was apt considering the circumstances. "I like the name, Manna." She said and the German Shepherd visibly brightened. "And furthermore, I think this stuff does need a name. It's the only food source we've come across so far, and if it has a lot of Calories, then that's even better. It'll keep us going longer."

"We're still not so sure we can live on this stuff though. Not to mention we don't know if any will grow back." Said Einny

"We've buried a couple pieces to see if we could cultivate it a little." Added the collie. "But at any rate, the hunters should still go out and try to find something in the jungle. Oh I do hope they share. Not everyone around here can hunt for themselves..."

That reminded the tigress of her original plans for today. She was feeling enlightened and more in control of the situation after the conversation so she added hospitably, "I'm sure our new Alpha won't forget you all here in the meadow."

The collie brightened, but the shepherd frowned in a thought that he didn't share immediately. The tigress was about to leave when she remembered the reason why she had come in the first place, the burning question that seemed the most critical and obvious and yet had been lost in the examination of the Manna's physical properties. She asked, "By the way, have... have any of you noticed anything strange about the way the Manna tastes and smells?"

Betsy answered nonchalantly, "Oh you mean the way it tastes and smells different to different people."

The tigress was momentarily dumbfounded, "Well yes! How is that possible? Haven't you three been talking about it?"

Bruce, the hound spoke again in his steady but commanding tone, "We actually have no idea about that."

The Border Collie shrugged, "Yeah, we don't have one single coherent hypothesis. But I think it might be due to some psychoactive component in the disks."

"Speculation only, my dear." Dismissed the shepherd, "We put it on our ever lengthening To-Do list. I'm sure we'll come up with something once we have more information."

"Yes! I'm sure. We used to work closely with the science team back at the lab, you know. Too bad we lost Duke after the ship went down... I do hope he landed somewhere safe..."

"Indeed." Muttered Bruce.

The collie perked up though, "It is very strange about the way it tastes though. So far the only thing we can agree on is that the taste and smell both resemble some of our favorite foods. I plan on interviewing more people later today."

The tigress silently considered everything she had been told by the three scientifically minded canines. Only a precious little bit made any real sense, but that was more than before she had got there. After a moment, as the tigress was getting up to go, the shepherd finally asked what was on his mind, "Why are you friends with him, the lab I mean? Why do you protect him?"

The tigress was prepared to become immediately hostile at such questions, but the shepherd had asked it in a tone of pure curiosity rather than sedition. "Aw, now that would be telling, now wouldn't it?" She said lightly instead and left the trio to their chattering and their experiments.