The Skinner: The
Art of Plausible Aliens
by Neal Asher
 If
you want to find a plausible alien, go turn over the nearest rock and
see what wriggles out, but to that I'll add the proviso that you need
to have some idea as to what put that squirmy thing there in the first
place. Create an alien and you must have some conception of the ecology
it arose from. It's no good imagining some flesh-eating monster on some
barren planet with nothing for it to eat but the human explorers who
have just arrived (the get-out in the film that comes to mind is that
the monsters were brought to the barren planet in a spaceship). However,
that's easily said and not so easily done.
"Gerrit off! Gerrit off!"
A four-foot long leech had attached itself to his hip. He fell
in the sand and grabbed hold of the horrible thing in both hands to
try and prevent it boring in even further. Jane grabbed up the line
and began hauling in the rhinoworm while Ambel tended to Peck. He
did the only thing that was possible in the circumstances: he grabbed
hold of the leech in both hands, put his foot against Peck's leg,
and hauled with all his might. Peck let out a scream as the leech
pulled away with a fist-sized plug of his flesh in its circular mouth.
Ambel bashed the creature against a rock until the lump came free,
then after trampling the creature to slurry he handed the piece of
flesh back to Peck. Peck screwed it back into his leg, then wrapped
a bandage from his pack round it to hold it in place.
Two of my favourite subjects are combined by the ecology of Spatterjay:
immortality and flesh-eating monsters. The idea for this life-system
was conceived in the short story (excerpt above and below) of the same
name in my collection The Engineer (Tanjen) and there was fairly
simplistic, but complete -- skeletal. The story, along with another
from the same collection (Snairls) formed the basis of what became The
Skinner.
What's in a name?
Names given to life forms can be misleading, and equivalent characteristics
identified by untrained observers have led many to be misapplied. In
America a hemlock is a tree whilst here in Britain it is a poisonous
herb, so how the hell did that come about? How much more might be people's
misapprehension of alien life? Take leeches. These creatures are pretty
horrible here on Earth, and when seeing something of similar habit and
appearance oozing along a stream bed on an alien world it would be easy
to reapply the name. Unfortunate then to discover their feeding habit
is to take out lumps of flesh, that they can grow to the size of a hippopotamus
on land and that of a whale in the sea, and that they can make you immortal.
"How old are you, Ambel?"
"Oh, a bit."
Ambel rolled down his shirt sleeve and looked shifty.
"Come on. This is really important."
"Don't rightly know. Been on the ships for a while."
Erlin wasn't having that. "You do know. Don't fob me off!"
Ambel looked uncomfortable.
"No one believes me," he complained.
"I will."
Ambel got up and headed for the door, as he opened it he mumbled,
"Spatterjay Hoop was a crazy git." He went out onto the deck.
Erlin sat down on the chair and shook her head. They were all
crazy gits, and Ambel was no better. If he thought she was going to
believe he knew Spatterjay Hoop, the man after whom this strange little
world had been named a thousand solstan years ago, then he was probably
worse. Ridiculous idea. Wasn't it?
Erlin's discovery that the bite of a Spatterjay leech transmitted a
form of viral immortality, made that world a definite place to head
for once the Zimmer frame was imminent. However, those seekers after
eternal life became less enthusiastic upon discovering a world not cosseted
by the Human Polity, where the incredibly tough and ancient hoopers
might inadvertently tear off your arm, and where the leeches would continue
to feed upon the hosts of the viral fibres -- who were to them a reusable
food resource.
Implausible?
Not really: why kill the whole animal when you can regularly harvest
its flesh?
Oh come on ...
Here on Earth, under that rock, you'll find similar strategies. Pick
up a veterinary book on helminthology (the study of parasitic worms)
if you want to find some real horrors. One parasite's cycle includes
both sheep and ants. Inside the ant it alters the function of that insect's
brain so it climbs to the top of a grass stalk and there clings with
its pincers, waiting for a sheep to come along and eat it. There's another
that gets inside a snail and so adjusts that creature's physiology that
it grows a thicker shell, thus protecting both parasite and snail. The
downside being that the snail no longer has the resources to breed,
whilst the parasite breeds inside it. There's always a downside:
She had nothing left to throw up when she followed them into the
basin in the top of the hill. She just retched a little. The rest
of Peck was jammed, writhing about and making horrible noises, between
two rocks. Erlin followed them down and watched in horror as they
dragged him out and dropped him on the ground. All his muscles she
could see, all his veins. His lidless eye-balls glared up at the sky.
She advanced with her laser switched on. It was the only merciful
thing to do.
"No!" Ambel knocked the laser from her hand. "Don't you think
he's got enough problems? Find his clothes."
Erlin dropped to her knees, not sure if she wanted to cry or laugh.
No, this was not happening ... but it was. When she looked up, Ambel
and Boris were putting Peck's skin back on him, tugging the wrinkles
up his legs and pressing the air bubbles out ... and Peck was helping
them.
Do you wanna live forever?
Of course you do, but not if it hurts.
And what do you reckon is the most valuable thing on a world where
money is worth buggerall, and life might be eternal?
Death.
The small leeches hang in the peartrunk trees and drop on any who might
brush against the those fat trunks. Larger leeches squelch along the
ground and sometimes take to the water where they wait with thread-cutting
mouths agape for an unwary foot. On land they can grow as large as a
hippo and taking a chunk, with a mouth the size of a bucket, from a
hooper human can have some untoward effects unless that individual gets
plenty of dome-grown food. It wouldn't be much fun to have another skinner
running about ...
Reaching the size at which they can no longer support the weight of
their slimy bodies the leeches take to the sea and grow ever larger.
There the hoopers must hunt them for the treasure their bodies contain
because, out of necessity, it is there that the oceanic leeches change
in a very particular way. It's the mouth, you see, when it finally becomes
so large that harvesting flesh is no longer an option, the leech has
to eat its prey whole, and obviously there are dangers in swallowing
something in no particular hurry to die. Oceanic leeches begin to produce
in themselves, in their bile, a poison that kills the immortality-imparting
virus, and thus their prey. From this bile, by centrifuge and crystallisation,
is refined a pure poison called sprine, which is worth more to hoopers
than gold or gems.
Death.
All treasures are difficult to obtain -- that's the nature of the beast.
Ambel turned toward the rail just as the spout-like head of the
leech lifted into sight. This head was just a long tube with a metre-wide
mouth at the end. Inside the mouth was a red hell of revolving rings
of teeth and reels of bone cutting-disks.
"Oh bugger," said Ambel as the top half of the leech oozed over
the rail and went after Anne. Anne leapt back and the leech cornered
her against the wall of the fore cabin. There was real fear on her
face. This was something no hooper could survive. With her automatic
held out in both hands, she emptied the weapon's magazine into the
leech's mouth, shell cases clattering to the deck around her feet.
Shortly after the empty magazine hit the deck and she was groping
at her belt for another one, sure she would have no chance to reload.
The thing about death is that you want it when you want it, and not
before. The thing about sprine is that it is nice for a hooper to have
that option. The thing about having such an option is that you always
use it too late, and that on a world like Spatterjay the need for such
is frequent. The leeches are bad enough, of course, but then there are
the rider prill with their sickle legs, the glisters, the frog and hammer
whelks, and did I neglect to mention the mercenaries and their psychotic
leader, or the homicidal aliens and war drones?
Come pay a visit ...
© Neal Asher 2005.
The Skinner was published in the UK by Tor UK in March 2002. An
extract from The Skinner is available elsewhere on this site.
Order The Skinner online
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