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Scientific Curiosity

By Psion

A Hearth Star Story

The Hearth Star, a plodding, lumbering world ship with the size and habitable area of a small planet. Home of the Wuffs, a race of savage alien privateers plundering the known galaxy, and a home away from home for dozens of deplorable individuals that showed that anime space pirates weren't all they were cracked up to be. Yet in the lower levels of the unfathomably huge vessel, beneath the brothels, workshops, and bars staffed by dozens of enslaved humans and aliens, escaped prisoners struggled to make a home out of their cold, metallic surroundings. Some, whether due to physical ability, technical skill, pure luck, or a combination of the three, managed to do better at this task then others...

The alarm on a crude electronic clock clearly assembled out of cast-off parts buzzed furiously until a mustelid hand gently pressed on it and silenced the infernal racket before rising to her feet with a gentle yawn. Dr. Cinnamon Soufee rubbed her eyes and got dressed before checking on the experiments she left run overnight. Elastic, rubbery clothes dyed egg-shell white stretched tightly over her bottom-heavy hourglass, hugging her abundant bosom and enormous backside like an affectionate lover as the rotund mink scientist finished getting ready for the day and waddled out of her bedroom and into her homemade laboratory that took up the bulk of the abandoned storage room she had turned into her home. The space wasn't much, it hardly compared to the field laboratory she operated on that agricultural colony, to say nothing of the elaborate facilities in any proper university run by the Galactic Academy of Sciences, but it was suitable to her needs. And as the only GAS scientist around for an unknown number of light years, it would have to do. Cinnamon idly recorded data as she recounted how she ended up in her current position.

Originally on a survey mission to a farming colony on GAS's behalf, the mink anthromorph had been charged with assessing the nutritional value of the local crops and work on refining methods of transportation to the core worlds. All had gone well, her experiments were successful, her data had been collected and transmitted... and then the Wuffs attacked the colony, razing much of it to the ground before they realized they misread their starmap and that the mining colony digging up gemstones and precious metals was three systems over. Rather then let that deter them, the Wuffs loaded up the remaining colonists and all their equipment on the flimsy logic that it could still be sold for something.

Her initial captivity aboard the Hearth Star was a blur, days congealing into one long haze as her captors decided to subject their prisoners to repetitive exercises in an attempt to make them lose weight. The activity, though initially taxing, wasn't too bad as it helped occupy otherwise monotonous days and gave her time to think once she got a rhythm down. What they openly discussed doing with her once she shed a satisfactory number of pounds however... that made her glad the Wuffs' next stop turned out to be more then they could handle.

Cinnamon's first clue that something was up was when the prisoners were all given what turned into a two week "break" of lounging in their cells while the Wuffs plundered some pre-stellar planet she never heard of. A little while later, she got her first look at the curious "humans" her jailers were raiding. Furless primate descendents with relatively flat jaw structure compared to similar lifeforms, these mammalian creatures proved to be quiet a useful ally in the coming months...

Once the Wuffs were satisfied that they had looted everything on the human's home world, they prepared to jump the Hearth Star back into known space. That was when the "opportunity" emerged. Some kind of engineering failure, whether accidental or intentional Soufee didn't know, caused power shortages through out the prison decks. The resulting uprising started small but quickly spread like wildfire as more and more humans saw their opportunity and took it. Cinnamon and her fellow colonists saw their opportunity and escaped in the confusion, as did many humans. Yet their escape wouldn't have been possible without the sacrifice of individuals like Sarah...

Sarah was a human that had been the mink's cellmate until the power outage, one that grabbed a fallen shock baton and started fighting Wuff enforcers with a mob of human rioters as others escaped to relative sanctuary in the lowest levels of the massive worldship, it was the last time Soufee saw the other woman in weeks. Unfortunately, things kept the scientist from looking for her friend. There were needs to be filled and projects to be researched in the new civilization that emerged down below.

Down in the lowest decks, a crude society of sorts emerged. Cinnamon and the surviving colonists had recovered their equipment while the humans clustered in small settlements built around support facilities, major corridors, and particularly defensible locations. The anthro civilians of the Galactic Republic set up laboratories, workshops, and once the humans managed to successfully seize a Kultvar Traktor, the Sovack triplets were able to get to work on cultivating the biosphere levels near the bow of the ship. Meanwhile, the children of Earth began crafting weapons, tools, and raiding the upper decks for supplies and fellow prisoners.

Safely hidden in the lower levels and seeing that rescue was a long way away if it was coming at all, the GAS scientist carved a place for herself in the new society. She began to study the humans and researched what gaps existed in the Academy's database on the Wuffs. The former project yield practical results early on, developing a basic understanding of the handful of languages most commonly spoken by the human survivors allowed her to start translating their tongues in to Universal and for her and the scattered collection of Guilders to start trading with them more effectively. Once the language barrier was broken, she managed to leverage her knowledge to trade for food and other supplies. There were some open snickers and derisive laughs towards GAS's focus on the culinary sciences when she finally was able to translate her specialties of Confectionary Bio-Chemistry, Culinary Thermodynamics, and Molecular Preservation and Purification to her human neighbors. But they quickly changed their minds when they had to start securing sources of drinkable water and the problems that entailed.

Siphoning from the ship's aquifers, purifying the least dirty-looking pools of water in the Waste Storage levels, the two most readily abundant sources of water both had their challenges. The problems with the latter were obvious but the former... the Wuffs were stupid but they weren't so stupid that they couldn't figure out how to reroute a few pipes to foul up the "cockblockers" water supply without affecting themselves. Assessing sources of water for suitability and designing ways to filter their impurities was one service she used as leverage in trade. Cataloging edible substances and their nutritional value was another, one that also helped the fatfur scientist in regaining lost weight. Not entirely how she pictured applying her knowledge but it helped keep her belly nice and round as she worked to document this new species and what adversity could tell the Republic about their character.

Right now though, her current project was to help the agronomists in figuring out whether the raw sapient sewage could be treated and used as a rudimentary fertilizer to improve crop yields in the Agro-Dome. So far their findings looked promising, treatment to remove undesirable bacteria and harmful parasites would take a little more effort then they first thought but was still within their capabilities. But more samples needed to be taken before they could come to anything conclusive. So after adjusting the fit of her elastic hazmat bodysuit, putting on a pair of rubber boots and a respirator mask, she went out of her laboratory hidden in the lower levels of the Underworks with a bag full of specimen jars slung over her shoulder. Off to Waste Processing...

Waste Processing was a ship-wide garbage dump spanning the bottom three levels of the Hearth Star. Raw sewage flowed in overflowing canals while towering heaps of junk pressed up against the ceiling; Cinnamon shook her head at the sight. Disgusting really, the machinery on this level was more then sufficient to handle even the current amount of filth yet like almost everything else that didn't directly impact them, the Wuffs let the equipment in this area fall apart until a handful of enterprising humans using no small amount of cringe-worthy percussive maintenance managed to get one of the recycling centers operating again. Salvage robots infrequently roamed the trash piles, little box-like constructs on tank treads allowing them to navigate the unreliable terrain, compacting rubbish for collection and reprocessing.

Walking along the side of the canals, taking samples as she went, the HAZMAT-suited mink scientist wondered if the Wuffs realized the irony of their current situation. The lupine pirates and the humans were fierce enemies yet in trying to make a home for themselves aboard the Hearth Star, the disenfranchised people of Earth ending up filling an important niche in the sprawling world ship's ecosystem. Cinnamon couldn't help but wonder what the massive vessel would be like in a decade if the Wuffs didn't have such a vicious yet industrious counterbalance to their antics.

For an hour she continued like this, idly collecting samples across the deck while lost in her thoughts until her boot touched against something that did not match the consistency of the rubbish that got sent down from the upper decks. Looking down, what looked back up at her shocked the mink so much she nearly fell into the sewage. A human hand, still alive with motion, was reaching out from a pile of garbage and was feebly trying to grab her ankle. Taking a careful step back, the GAS scientist set her sample bag down and carefully removed the trash piled on top of the hidden human. It could have been a bandit trying to exploit concerned passersby, not everyone that escaped was the most upstanding individual, but curiosity and concern won out. Pushing away the filth with a gloved hand, Cinnamon feel her heart stop for a few precious seconds as she uncovered a wounded human female, her injuries and the filth she was covered in making further identification impossible.

Her previous project mentally shelved, the mink shouldered her sample bag and helped the battered woman to her feet, letting the smaller female lean against her shoulder. The recycling center wasn't too far from their current location and there was bound to be someone on duty that could help Cinnamon get the stranger to a doctor. Hopefully she wasn't too late in finding this human... or attracted too much attention to herself from roaming Wuff hunters looking for escaped slaves.

The recycling center was a squat, cube-like building half-buried under yet another towering testament to the Wuffs' ability to generate refuse. A human militiaman dressed in a thick woolen trench coat and a gasmask, more for the noxious stench and the foul sludge then for any chill either real or imagined, stood guard outside. Letting her pass with only a cursory glance, there weren't any Wuffs alive that could fill out an elastic GAS lab suit like she could; the human sentry resumed his post as Dr. Soufee raced inside.

Wrench, a blue-furred lapine mechanic with the Guilders, was sorting through trash with a handful of human laborers when the GAS scientist ran in. The broad-bottomed rabbit looked up as one of the humans shouted for a medic in English. Conditions in Waste Processing being what they were, the operating collection stations all had one person on staff familiar with first aid. That person was currently coming over as quickly as he could. Her injuries turned out to be brutal but survivable, the medic on duty was able to clean and apply dressing to her wounds; allowing her to be safely transported to one of the larger human settlements. As the healer worked, the workers talked to each other as they sorted through the refuse and kept an eye out for anything useful.

"So did you hear what happened to the smuggler that's been supplying us with weapons?" One, an older woman, began.

"Yeah, the Wuffs found her out and she had to crash her ship down in one of the hangers near this level. Suppose we better make the guns we have last then. Pity, the battle for the agri-dome was just starting to go our way too."

"I wonder what she brought this time and if she needs any help recovering it." A third mused. "I suppose it doesn't matter though, the Wuffs should be crawling all over it by now."

Cinnamon merely stood in a corner while they worked and chatted amongst themselves, going back to work once it was clear that the human woman the mink brought in was fine and the Wuffs were not actively pursuing their missing stock. The GAS scientist lingered a little while longer before going back to her original task, she was not a doctor much less one skilled in human physiology and those specimen samples were going to collect themselves.

The rest of her morning passed without incident, the suited mink automatically going through the motions of collecting samples then brought them back to her laboratory for analysis. Seated back at her workbench, she took out the specimen jars and set up a dizzying array of glassware and plastic tubing made from whatever her human neighbors could find. Idly she cast a glance towards her more high-tech equipment only to shake her head. She had her Molecular Cauldron, a nanotech chemistry set that also functioned as an excellent set of cookware, and her Universal Assay Device, plus a few multifunctional items like an Omni-Fork and an Industrial Mitt, gadgets favored by other organizations in the Galactic Republic that had proven useful in her research.

And with the exception of the UAD, they were also all exceptionally useful in preparing or handling food and she didn't get to have an armful of degrees in the culinary sciences by being stupid enough to stick her cooking utensils in the congealed sewage of half a dozen different alien species and expose them to an unknown number of bacteria with unknown tolerances to heat or harsh cleaning solutions... that actually sounded like an interesting project when she thought about it further, one that regretfully would have to wait until later. In the meantime, the UAD and her salvaged glassware would have to suffice.

Setting the digital hand scanner to scan passively, Cinnamon went to work diluting and feeding samples into a flask placed above a lit Bunsen burner. A detailed chemical analysis began to emerge as she processed samples over the course of the afternoon. By tomorrow morning she should have plenty of data for her meeting with the others that evening ship time...

"As you can see, the sewage down in Waste Processing can be used for a crude fertilizer of sorts, it just needs to be purified." Dr. Soufee concluded, opening her presentation to questions.

Gathered around a conference table in Freeman's hold, the "capital city" of the survivor communities if such a word truly applied to the current arrangement, was a representative panel of community leaders amongst the human and Guilder holdouts. For a moment no one spoke, they all alternated between looking at her and looking at her report.

"Alright then..." Jonathan Freeman, the leader of Freeman's hold, began thoughtfully with a faint drawl in his voice. "I suppose the next question is what will it take to treat this... stuff so we can use it as fertilizer without poisoning ourselves. Basically will this require Republic know-how or can the humans here listening to your report put something together based on what we half-remember from high school science class?"

"Or for that matter, is there something already down there that we can use to treat the sewage? We can save ourselves a lot of work if we stop trying to build a new system when the ship already has at least three redundant backups for whatever we need." Dr. Daoming Chen interjected, a sever black-haired woman hailing from the old human nation of "China," one of several botanists captured and taken aboard the Hearth Star during the sacking of Earth because she possessed specialist knowledge the Wuffs didn't have anymore. Fleeing during the Blackout, she went on to found her own enclave and has since established a bit of a love-hate relationship with Jonathan Freeman. Her settlement was larger, closer to the Star's biosphere, and was responsible for a not insignificant amount of food. Freeman's Hold was more defensible, had easier access to the Hearth Star's transit network, and frankly was less of a trip for almost everyone else.

"If there is, it's probably broken like half of the other stuff on this rust bucket of a ship. I swear, some days it's amazing this clunker didn't implode while the Wuffs were ransacking Earth." Benjamin Fillmore, human leader of a trader community built near a major transit nexus, complained with a rolling of his eyes.

"Not necessarily or at least not completely otherwise we'd probably have to go swimming in sewage if we wanted anything from Waste Processing." Clover Ironbelly, leader of the Guilders trapped on the Star, countered thoughtfully.

"Now there's an image I don't think any of us needed." Jonathan replied. "Alright, it sounds to me like the next steps are figuring out how to purify the sludge and seeing if there isn't something already down that can do the job for us. I suppose that's one favor I can ask Lieutenant Jerky and Officer Cayenne."

Like that, the leader of Freeman's hold became the center of attention. Everyone stared at him as the human male laughed softly and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah yeah... forgot to mention that. The reason I was late to this meeting was I was getting cleaned up after rescuing Boom-Boom from the Wuffs. She's alive but her ship's badly damaged and the Wuffs are on to her, they know she's been supplying us with guns. Even if her ship can be fixed, I think we received our last shipment from her."

"Which was...?" Dr. Chen began just as a large, armored elephant anthro squeezed through the doorway and took an empty at the end of the table. Right behind him was a tall, yellow-hued draft horse mare dressed in a short steel gray skirt and halter top, her visored helmet nestled in the crook of her arm.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I thought the conference hall was closer to Freeman's office." Lt. Jerky apologized, the humans in the audience continued to stare at the rotund space marine in confusion while both Dr. Soufee and Guildmaster Ironbelly looked at the Star Corps trooper and the GPA officer with an expression of disbelief fueled by recognition.

"I suppose the fact that I don't have an office didn't help matters." Jonathan smirked and shook his head. "Ladies and gentlefolk of the council, Lieutenant Jerky of the Galactic Republic Star Corps and Officer Cayenne of the Galactic Police Agency. Lieutenant Jerky and Officer Cayenne, the people responsible for one-tenth of the general idiocy on the Hearth Star; the Wuffs have an ironclad monopoly on the rest."

The meeting went on for about fifteen minutes longer then originally scheduled, hardly surprising given it was dedicated to formal introductions and bringing the newcomers up to speed on what was going on. Dr. Soufee's heart was aflutter by the sudden development. Star Corps Troopers on the Hearth Star, this could only be a good thing. Unfortunately they came without ready access to supplies, making Jerky interested in the original topic of the meeting once he quickly realized the implications of why this was even an issue for the survivor enclaves. The meeting eventually adjourned with Jerky offering to help the humans map out Waste Processing and try to wrestle control of the Biosphere deck away from the Wuffs.

Overall, Soufee thought things couldn't possibly have gone any better. At least she couldn't until Freeman called her aside to give her the news. The woman she had dug out of the refuse the day before was Sarah. And with most of the enclaves filled to capacity, the mink was asked if she could spare some room for the wounded woman. Soufee couldn't see why she wouldn't...

One Week Later...

Soufee felt her pulse quicken slightly as she pulled Sarah into bed with her, resting the human escapee against her shoulder as the other female nervously nuzzled her cheek. A bony human hand ran along her bloated belly as the mink carefully shifted her weight around to try and keep her roommate warm. One mammoth thigh draped down against the skinny human's lower torso as Sarah's caress drifted down to the fatfur scientist's gigantic backside.

"Mmmm, you've been eating well." Sarah said at last as she squirmed to finish getting comfortable beneath the larger female.

Cinnamon felt her cheeks redden. "Well, when you specialize in the chemistry of food, maintaining a proper scientific figure becomes a matter of pride." She replied as a gentle pat sent ripples through her bubble-like bottom.

"Mmmm, you have a lot to be proud of. What's your latest experiment?" She asked mischievously, gently massaging the scientist's bloated abdomen.

"Nothing special, just trying to help your peers find a source of fertilizer so we can all have plenty to eat. Maybe afterwards I can find the time to do some Gastrophysics research on the human physiology." The mink replied with a naughty glint in her eye.

"Hmmm, I think I can help with that." Sarah replied with a kiss on the lips. Time for Cinnamon to satisfy her scientific curiosity on another aspect of human physiology...