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__________________________________ Lagomorphs Copyright © August, 2015, FurryWurry All rights reserved

Chapter 32 -- Musings __________________________________

Teeth brushed and mouth rinsed, exhausted but refusing to sleep, Jeff could only stare at the dark ceiling, ugly thoughts chasing one another through his head.

He hadn't wanted it to be true, but the suspicion had been there for a while. Now he was quite certain what the physical and psychological traits he'd noticed in the Rabs really meant. What little Sunny had told him of their myths about the Makers had been an unnecessary confirmation. It certainly wasn't just a vague hypothesis any more. He'd convinced himself beyond all reasonable doubt. His subconscious had forced it on him, making it blatant in his dreams.

His beloved Rabs were someone's domesticated livestock.

Mesomorphs, the Rabs tended to be muscular, some more than others, but they didn't have to work hard at it. Exercise for its own sake seemed to be unknown, although they certainly enjoyed running around outside. With minimal fat, their physiques made them a prime source of high-grade protein, as the Dire Wolves knew very well.

Their fur was amazingly soft, too, even the guard hairs, much finer than what most animals had. It was far too fine to provide more than nominal protection against the elements; for the Rabs, anyhow. Lining someone's else's clothing, though, that was another matter entirely.

Both characteristics seemed very unlikely to occur naturally if they didn't provide some advantage to the Rabs: something to help them survive, or something to persuade someone else to help them survive. Like being some farmer's living produce.

The Rabs' situation was almost identical to that of the four-footed rabbits of his own world, extrapolated only a few generations farther. Almost two thousand years of domestication had made Earth's rabbits into a source of quality meat and fur. In the past couple of centuries, some strains had been developed into pets and show animals. Larger and larger variants were being produced, too. Some were already as big as small children and known for their placidity. Continentals, he thought he remembered them being called. (For some reason that made him think of "suave" and "dapper," although he wasn't sure those were good descriptions of Sky.) There was no question but that modern geneticists could introduce whatever additional traits seemed desirable. Or marketable. There was no longer a need to wait for multi-generation breeding programs to produce results, short though they were in rabbits.

But could that mean he actually might have traveled in time? Could he somehow have been in suspended animation, sleeping through a century of corruption, war and nuclear winter? Or were those tunnels direct passageways to different times? Then why had the weather been the same when he came out of the tunnel, with a storm that had just finished? And surely all signs of the roads and pipeline wouldn't have vanished that quickly. There would have been some kind of remains left behind, wouldn't there? No, travel between adjacent branes seemed to explain it more simply. The closer the brane, the more like his own home it would be, just with some minor differences. Minor to some point of view, perhaps, but major to his.

So why were the Rabs so smart, able to speak English so fluently? From what Sunny had said, the Makers had liked their singing, so maybe that was some of it. They'd been selected for verbal and musical acuity. He could think of another reason to produce Rabs with large brains, though: encephalophagy. Of course, if that was the only explanation, intelligence would have been an annoying side effect. Their ability to comprehend what was wanted of them had to have been an attractive feature in some of their markets. They must have been sold as pets and companions, much like rabbits back home, but ever so much more sophisticated. Having hands instead of paws and being able to communicate would have provided substantial benefits in that market. Being optimized for that type of audience would explain how expressive their faces were, too. Four-footed rabbits didn't have the facial muscles necessary to communicate that way. Combined, all those features would make Rabs both useful and fun to have around. They certainly were fun. Jeff managed a wan smile at that thought.

They were pacifists, too, making any thought of revolt against their Makers that much less likely. They wouldn't, couldn't, use weapons. The idea of fighting other species seemed to be literally unthinkable. They couldn't even throw rocks: all they could do was cower. So, of course, they needed some kind of protection, whether it was Sheps patrolling or their Makers providing safe housing.

Their unjustified trust of humans, well, of one individual anyhow, was indisputable. Once they came into close contact with him, they tended to become docile and cooperative, eager to please, affectionate, even amorous. Sometimes very amorous. He wasn't sure than being an aphrodisiac had been one of the Makers' intents, despite the hint in what Sunny had said. Could it be an enhancement resulting from genetic drift? Even without taking that into account, Rabs who had asserted dominance seemed willing to let him do just about anything to them. Sometimes they might protest a little, but they could easily be persuaded to acquiesce. Sky certainly seemed to be a pushover, anyhow. That complacency would have made them easy to handle, a characteristic highly desirable in potentially dangerous animals. It must have been designed into them.

Designing and constructing the necessary genes and chromosomes from scratch must have been expensive. Determining which genes combined to produce what results would have involved tremendous databases and extensive simulations, with detailed records to keep track of which combinations actually produced the appropriate traits. Highly sophisticated equipment would have been needed to assemble base pairs at the molecular level. Hybridization would surely have been cheaper, though. Inserting genetic sequences that already were known to produce desirable results would have been very tempting. Would the Makers have encountered or cared about the kind of public outcry that had happened on Earth when the DARPA experiments with Splices had been exposed?

And how would they have brought to term and raised the results? If they used ectogenesis extensively, that would have been costly: not just to design and implement the equipment, but its ongoing upkeep. Proper sanitation would have been critical. The expense of such technological solutions surely couldn't compete with the cost of implanting embryos into appropriate hosts, hosts with protective immune systems. Then they'd just have to raise product until it reached an appropriate age to breed. That would have taken time, though. Biological development did tend to be rather slow. Maybe too slow during the initial design stages? Or maybe even later?

Once the primary characteristics were realized, selective breeding obviously would have been a relatively inexpensive way to maintain quality. Before the Time, at least, that breeding would have been directed, giving priority to the Makers' wishes. The Rabs had to have been designed to defer to them in that, even seeking out their approval, just as they did in other circumstances. Without the Makers to guide them, though, inbreeding among their small population obviously was taking its toll. Even with guidance, a limited gene pool must have been risky. Surely it had been augmented by technological methods.

Jeff really didn't like where his thoughts had dragged him. The Makers had to have been humans, or so similar an analog that there was no meaningful difference, despite what Sunny seemed to believe. "A difference that makes no difference is no difference." He'd forgotten who'd said that. Those who had been involved in developing and raising Rabs must have been quite callous, too. Like Earth's industrial farmers, they couldn't have afforded to get emotionally invested in their products. Especially at the beginning, many would have been failures to be discarded. Later, though, many, perhaps most, of their successes would have been slaughtered for food and garments. He'd never understood farmers who claimed to be fond of their animals, but then had no qualms about butchering them for the table.

Surely, the songs about the Rabs' relationships with the Makers must have distorted quickly, apparently to the Makers' advantage. Both Cloudy and Sky seemed to have remembered very recent events the way they wanted them to have been, different from what Jeff recalled. Maybe the songs had been authored to be worshipful from the beginning, though. Even so, being Taken up to a great reward, never to return, obviously had more than one interpretation. It was propaganda to hide a cruel truth.

And what about the warren? Why provide something like this? Its design was highly sophisticated and warmly comfortable, much more expensive than simple pens would have been. Wouldn't hutches have been adequate confinement? Still, although the Rabs seemed quite capable of digging their own burrows, a home like this gave them no incentive to go elsewhere. Until it became overpopulated, anyhow. Given the Rabs' potential fecundity, why wasn't that happening? Why was Flower's snugrow so empty? Were other snugrows similarly unoccupied? It would have been understandable in the Before Time when they were being harvested frequently. But now? Where was happening to all the kits? Why weren't more of them surviving to become adults? Was inbreeding and the accumulation of fatal recessive genes the primary explanation?

The past morning's bloody event was anguishing, but surely the Rabs weren't so foolhardy as to be easily taken by predators, not after generations of that type of culling, of both natural selection and parental warnings. But some must still be foolhardy or forced into dangerous situations, like Sky and his cousins. Then, too, the Dire Wolves had looked gaunt, almost starving. That meant they hadn't been eating much recently, certainly not Rabs. Had they just escaped from somewhere? From some place where there no longer was any food?

But how could an attack like that even have happened? Why was there no protection against it? Where had the Sheps gone? And wouldn't the original farmers, the Makers, have provided some other means to protect their products from vandalism? Not to mention keeping their Rabs from wandering off. Fencing must have failed somewhere, maybe long ago. He hadn't seen any, but that didn't mean much. Invisible fences were common back home, probably here, too. If they had existed, though, they were no longer keeping unwanted visitors away, and Rabs were traveling far and wide, hunting for, of all things, strawberries.

If it was anything like the farming warrens of medieval Europe, this warren must have features besides just providing protection from the elements and wildlife. It surely included conveniences for the farmers, not just for the Rabs. At the very least, there must be accesses throughout the warren so Rabs could be harvested conveniently and quietly. Openings in the ceilings? Jeff eyed the walls of his snug. Were doorways hidden there?

It'd be catastrophic if those ways provided a secret way in for predatory animals. Or were they already getting in? Was that another explanation for the low population? Kits would certainly be easy prey, and doubtless the automated cleaning provided by the floors would quickly remove any evidence. Maybe he should try to persuade the Rabs to search for hidden passageways, and barricade their entrances if they weren't blocked already. Or could it be that Makers weren't actually gone? Were they still harvesting their herd of furry hybrids? Would his own intrusion soon be detected and dealt with?

The way the lights and other facilities reacted to the warren's inhabitants meant there must be sensors everywhere. The warren seemed to have a rather sophisticated stimulus-response mechanism. Surely there were video and audio pickups, too. Wouldn't the Makers have wanted to keep track of their Rabs and what they were doing? Chipping or some other tagging of their livestock must have been used originally, but even so, there had to be a central observation room in the warren. It would have to be close so they could react quickly to any problems. Might that provide another salable product, too? An unscripted reality show: you too can watch Rabs in their most intimate moments, follow the life of your favorite subject, decide on the ideal purchase!

What other types of services might be hidden nearby? Eugenics and ectogenesis facilities for when natural breeding was inadequate? Rooms for sorting and temporary storage? Freezers? A slaughterhouse? Obviously his subconscious thought so. That last idea had been the source of the worst nightmares Jeff had ever had. He'd watched his new friends, no, his new family, brutally killed and butchered. Dreams should fade, though, shouldn't they? These hadn't. He could still see it happening.

Transportation was another question. How had the Makers gotten product to market? Was there an underground rail system? Might there still be open routes to the remnants of a civilization somewhere? Paths for an invasion? Or had the commodities they were offering been too few to need a mass transport system? Perhaps they were rare and expensive enough to justify airborne shipments. Direct from the source to the customer. Rare. Tartare. His stomach churned.

Just how many warrens were there? And how populous were they? There must be at least three more warrens from what Singer's friends had said. The Rab who'd sired Sunny and her sibs obviously had come from a place where Rabs were larger and darker, a slightly different breed. Palominos, if he'd understood the kids correctly. But were the warrens interconnected below ground or had the visitor come overland? In either case, that warren couldn't be too far away. Maybe they could visit it during their search for missing Rabs. Maybe some Rabs had gone there just to get away from Gran'Sir.

Maybe.

There were just too many unanswered questions.

Even the green elephant in the corner seemed puzzled as the grey clouds moved in. Jeff dozed off again, anyhow.