Excerpt: Leonid

The medical building was one of the closer structures to the visitor’s center and the expansive biodome, though it was subtly tucked away, unembellished and subdued. Only a single bright red cross on one of the entrances gave any indication to what it really was, though Sam figured it was intended to tell visitor’s that a first aid station was there, as opposed to a full-scale clinic.

Sam swiped her access card and the automated doors located on the side of the building, which whooshed open with the cool breeze of air condition working overtime. Once inside, she was greeted by a medical attendant she had seen before, but didn’t recall her name. Fortunately, she didn’t have to. Her facility name badge was clearly printed, “Miranda Valdez, R. N.”

“Hello, um… ah, Dr. Hall,” she said, flipping through some pages on her desk. Sam figured that Miranda was about the same age as Dr. Chopra, or perhaps a year or two older, but still younger than herself. Her dark brown hair was cut in a short style, above her shoulders, and she had nearly flawless coffee-brown skin a friendly smile. Sam decided she liked the woman right away.

“Hi, Nurse Valdez?”

“Miranda is fine,” the younger woman smiled pleasantly. “What can we do for you?”

“Oh, I just need some ibuprofen or something. Got a bit of a headache.”

“Ah, no problem. Why don’t you ahead into the exam room?” she said, pointing down the hallway with the pencil in her hand. “Drs. Chopra and Ellis are in there, and Dr. Idakus, too. There are some OTC meds in the white cabinets. Dr. Chopra can point them out if you have trouble finding it.”

“I won’t be interrupting an exam?”

“No, they just started with the final group a few minutes ago. Just tell them I sent you in.”

“Okay, thanks,” she nodded at Miranda, and headed down the hallways as indicated. The exam room door was slightly ajar, which Sam took as a sign that she wouldn’t be barging in unwelcome, so she pulled the door wide enough to walk inside.

“Well, hello, Dr. Hall!” greeted Dr. Leonid enthusiastically. Sam spun to see him seated on an exam room table, flanked to his right by two Licthin that Sam thought must have been Administrator Jackthus’ aids. The two female ones, though she still hard a hard time telling the difference.

“Hello, Dr. Hall,” they said simultaneously, and Dr. Idakus, the Licthin physician, nodded.

“Dr. Hall, a pleasure!” said Dr. Chopra, walking out from an office inside the exam room. “Are you looking for Dr. Ellis? He’s checking on Administrator Jakthus at the moment.”

“No, Miranda sent me back here. I’m just looking for something for my headache,” said Sam.

“Ah. Check that cabinet right behind you. There are single-dose packets, just grab whichever one you prefer,” said Dr. Chopra, pointing over her shoulder with a pen.

“Okay, thanks. Um, don’t mind me,” she said, looking apologetically at the three Licthin ‘patients.’

As Sam turned toward the cabinet, she overheard Dr. Chopra say, “All right, Parslen, Aneda, Dr. Leonid, let’s get started.” Then Sam heard jackets being unzipped and clothing being adjusted.

She intended to walk politely out the door without raising her head, but then Leonid said, “Oh, Dr. Hall!”

Reflexively she turned around, and to her astonishment was greeted by three nearly nude Licthin bodies; all three jackets gone, trousers pulled up to reveal lower legs and turned down over hips to barely cover public bones. If Sam had any doubt of the two female Licthin’s gender before, she didn’t now, since both were every bit as bare-chested as Dr. Leonid. Sam couldn’t help but notice that both young women were practically breastless. The nominal swell that was there could easily have been mistaken for pectoral muscle. Their hips and waists had curve to them, but not nearly pronounced as humans, and they were every inch as toned as the males were.

And speaking of toned males –

“Yes, um, Dr. Leonid?” she said, her voice cracking slightly as she tore her eyes from Leonid’s unexpectedly well-sculpted body to look him in his dark, aqueous eyes.

“I just wanted to tell you that all of the Licthin are very much looking forward to visiting the lake tonight. We’ll all be attending, except for the Administrator.”

“Oh, that’s good. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy it. The lake is fed by an underground spring, and should be very clean. I, um, looked it up,” she added, trying her best to mask her embarrassment. For a moment they two of them just stood looking at each other, Leonid smiling politely, Sam hoping her expression was neutral, but fearing it was idiotic.

“Dr. Hall, you’re an anthropologist, are you not?” asked Dr. Chopra, pausing from his paperwork to look up at her. Sam smiled at him, hoping that he would be allowed to stay as the facility physician, because she instantly liked him much the same way she liked Miranda. He was a young doctor, to be sure, but his eyes sparkled with curious intelligence behind his professional demeanor. She doubted his career had been very long at this point, but surely the opportunity to study new intelligent life up close was a physician’s dream. A lot of doctors were scientists, in their own way.

“I am, sort of,” she answered in the affirmative. “An anthropological archaeologist to be precise. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I of course don’t know your area of expertise, but I have something to show you that I thought you might find interesting. Dr. Leonid, would you step on the scale please?” Dr. Leonid nodded and did as he was bade. Sam tried not to stare as his half-nude body crossed gracefully in front of where she was standing.

“Now, Dr. Hall, Dr. Leonid is exactly six feet tall, medium build but very lean, about eleven percent body fat.”

“Eleven percent? I was eight percent when we left Licthus!” Leonid intoned incredulously. “Idakus?”

“Oh, don’t you blame me, my boy. It’s not my fault you didn’t keep up with the fitness schedule I gave you.” replied Dr. Idakus wryly. Dr. Leonid uttered a few words that Sam didn’t understand and Dr. Idakus’ translator didn’t decode. Not that Sam really needed a translation, she had a feeling he had said something impudent, and Dr. Idakus had chosen to ignore it.

“Uh, moving on,” said Dr. Chopra. “Based on his height and build, how much would you expect Dr. Leonid to weigh, Dr. Hall?”

Fantastic, now you’re inviting me to ogle. At least the Licthin don’t appear to have problems with self-consciousness, thought Sam as she gave the alien man a quick once-over.

“Well, he’s pretty fit, so I’d guess maybe one-seventy, one-seventy-five?”

Dr. Chopra nodded. “That would be just about right, if Dr.Leonid was human. This scale,” Dr. Chopra said, walking over next to it so that he was beside the scale and facing toward Dr. Leonid and Sam both, “is perfectly calibrated. I thought it was an error at first, but it isn’t. He weighs two-hundred-and-thirty pounds.”

“Two-hundred-and thirty? My word,” said Sam, forgetting Dr. Leonid’s physique long enough to walk over to Dr. Chopra’s vantage point and verify the alien man’s weight for herself. Sure enough, it was as he had said. “How is that possible?”

Dr. Chopra looked over at Dr. Idakus, but she nodded at him to explain. “Well, I had a hypothesis, based on the fact that the average Licthin male happens to be about one-and-a-half times stronger than the average male, and twice as strong as a human female.”

“Do they have stronger muscle tissue? I mean, there’s a relative strength differential between human men and women. Maybe it’s the same with the Licthin?”

“You’re on track with the first part, but I have to correct you on the second. Men – human men, that is – are stronger on average that human women, but when you compare pound-for-pound of muscle, there is no difference between male and female muscle tissue. Strength is the same, independent of gender, and men are stronger on average simply because we have more muscle tissue on average.

“With the Licthin, however, it’s not that they have more muscle tissue persay, but rather that the actual tissue is about fifty-percent more dense, right down to the individual fibers,” continued Dr. Chopra, signaling that Dr. Leonid could now step off the scale. “I’ve had a chance to examine a tissue sample under microscope courtesy of Administrator Jakthus, and the structure of muscle fibers is much more dense than in humans. I could get into more clinical terms, but I’d probably bore you, and honestly I need to study it more before I can better explain.”

“So their actual muscle fibers are stronger than humans’? Huh, that’s interesting, I hope you’ll share your findings with me later on,” said Sam, looking thoughtfully at Dr. Chopra. She could tell that this was all immensely fascinating to him, and privately wondered if that old Air Force doctor whose post the young doctor had filled would have found all of this remotely so engaging. Dr. Chopra grinned back, then turned to one of the female Licthin, inviting her to also take the scale.

For a moment Sam didn’t move, staring at her own hands as she absentmindedly fingered the duo of medicine packets that she’d obtained from the cabinet.

“Dr. Hall?” said Dr. Idakus through her translation device, snapping Sam back into the moment. “Is there something else you need?”

“Huh? Oh, no,” she said, holding up the little packet of headache medicine. “I’m all set. Um, see you at dinner.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Hall,” said the two Licthin administrators, again in unison.

“Later,” said Dr. Leonid, grinning at her, looking pleased with himself for properly utilizing the colloquialism.

“Later,” she replied, giving them – but mostly Dr. Leonid – a little wave goodbye, and exiting from the exam room as quickly as she could without causing herself further embarrassment.

Sam walked down the clinic hallway toward the front doors. “Find what you need?” asked Miranda as Sam strode passed her desk.

“That and then some,” replied Sam, noting Miranda’s eyebrows creep up a bit on her forehead.

“Let me guess, you saw one of them in the nude?” she asked with an all-too-knowing expression.

“Three of them, and only partly, thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled much more than that,” said Sam with perfect honesty. Miranda immediately verbalized what Sam was thinking.

“They’re a beautiful species, aren’t they? Naturally fit and toned, every last one of them. Even Administrator Jakthus. He’s a big man compared to the rest, but it’s all muscle.”

“Yes, I suppose they are, for all the spots and webbed appendages, they’re not hard on the eyes,” agreed Sam, nodding. She pursed her lips thoughtfully for a moment. “And honestly, I think it’s a good thing that they look so much like us – or we like them, whichever. I doubt the powers that be would have been even this accommodating had they appeared any more alien than they do.”

Miranda nodded gravely. “I think you’re right, Dr. Hall. But still, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Definitive proof that we’re not the only intelligent species in the universe, and it’s right here, sitting in that room! I never really believed in aliens, but I never disbelieved it, either. Amazing that something like this can happen in our lifetime, and that we get to be part of it.”

“And take a few unwary folks along for the ride,” Sam smirked, thinking about her interns, Dr. Chopra, and all those young men and women from the New Mexico National Guard. She didn’t know how long the Licthin’s presence would remain secret, or even if it could be kept secret for long with so many people in-the-know, but still, Sam now had an idea of how awed and amazed her forebears must have been at the moment of the world’s most significant discoveries – such as Howard Carter must had been when he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, or Hiram Bingham when he stumbled upon Machu Picchu.

Only this world-altering discovery wasn’t leftover relics of some long-extinct culture. These were real, living, breathing, thinking, creative people. Intelligent people. Amazing people.

And Sam smiled to herself, knowing how many of her contemporaries – both within and outside of her field – would kill to be in her shoes.