FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Francesco LeClair tossed his duffle bag gently onto the bed and took the moment to look over his motel room. Pretty good, all in all -- king-sized bed (expertly made), comfortable work desk, a couple of chairs, the usual vid options. The bathroom was a little larger than many he'd been familiar with in his years. Everything was neat and clean, very well-maintained. If he checked the bedside tables, he might even have found Gideon's bible, just to fulfill the old song lyric. There, the similarity ended. He wasn't here to settle some old score; he was here to discover if he could reconnect after all this time.

The lobo got the minicomp from his duffel, sat at the work desk, and unfolded it into its full size. He preferred the screen to a HUD, since he had a large one on the wall. The proper passcodes, provided on his arrival, linked the two securely; his onboard security systems would prevent eavesdropping from all sources. He had been hiding in plain sight for years, his deepest secrets known only to a few. In a time when all was presumably transparent, the idea of keeping oneself to oneself was an increasingly difficult task to accomplish. The average citizen could always find some tidbits of gossip or scandal on the nets and data oceans; they were always delighted to find out something about someone else that they would be mightily offended to have disclosed about themselves. Each thought himself the exception to the rules of prurience, and each thought himself protected from prying eyes and ears. Somewhere, however, someone knew everything about everyone. It's just too easy to succumb to the idea that knowledge is power, and that power meant control.

Not everyone wanted to be controlled.

Francesco knew that a wholly secured line would be suspicious. His minicomp supplied a signal that provided an electronic trench coat for his connection. Anyone sniffing would find a combination of banal searches for entertainment and local information to a few discreet enquiries for sexual hookups, paid or otherwise. If he felt puckish, he would change the trench coat into a slimy coverall, showing searches for some particularly unusual pornography. If he were being watched, he would provide his watcher with interesting material to look over. Make your peeper happy by giving him something fappy. It kept him from looking any deeper.

The minicomp sniffed the room screen, found no independent means for recording the images displayed, and played its simple, melodious chime of confirmation. The lobo's tail offered a self-satisfied swish as he entered the link for his lovers' text app. His fingers danced across the alphanum, composing a message quickly for the four of them: Arrived. Room good. Miss you all already. All clearances for the compound in place. Will go tomorrow. Should find them, as discussed. Still not sure this will work, gotta try. Some science says no, some yes, anecdotes abound. Thank you for letting me find out. I love you. Frankie

Given the differences in time zones and schedules, he didn't expect a response anytime soon. Each would respond when he could. Francesco closed the app and, as an indulgence, he brought up the picture of his lovers and coddled himself in sentimentalism for a few minutes. Red wolf, twin-tailed white fox, cream and beige folf, bright-eyed young Husky, all grinning warmly at him, with just the right touches of affection, humor, and barely-restrained lust. Hector, Reginald, Morley, Kallik... his beloved pack. Each had taken a turn behind the camera to snap the other four. Being part of a pentad created interesting adjustments. The love they shared burned hotter than any he'd ever known, and it pained any of them to be away from the rest for any length of time. This shouldn't take long, depending on what happened tomorrow. It was just something he had to do. He had to know.

He had given himself the luxury of a particularly good dinner at a local buffet and, with the hour growing slowly later, he pampered himself with a long soak in the large tub. He mentally added "never-ending hot water" to his list of thing to like about this motel. A snort escaped his nose as he thought of Hec's other ideas for the use of this tub; for him, marking territory could be a sort of tag-team sport, and there was enough room here for the five of them to enjoy the game. He breathed in slowly, letting the unscented steam relax him, breathing out, in and out, in rhythm with the tickings of his heart, the calming of his mind. He had no idea how long it might be until he would have this much luxury.

Drying himself with a combination of towels and wall blowers, he let his mind settle further, wrestling gently with the occasional twitching in his belly, the remnants of fear, the tatters of uncertainty. It was time to sleep; he would need the rest.

"Lupeto," he addressed the air.

"Preta," his minicomp answered.

"Muzikserioj dormas."

The room shimmered softly with the ethereal drone sounds of ambient music, chosen at random from a huge store available to Francesco's personal links. He finished his grooming on the bed, sprawling himself at last, furclad, onto the comfortable expanse. His little wolf would sense his sleep pattern, then ease off the music into ocean sounds from a recording made from one of the seaside enclaves in the northwest. Without the physical comfort of his lovers around him, he called upon his memory, wrapped the feeling around him, and let himself drift off. He would not remember his dreams upon waking and, in the circumstances, that was probably for the best.

* * * * ** * * * * *

Francesco woke near enough to his usual time as made no odds. It was, he figured, engrained in him sufficiently to continue working even when no longer in the clutches of what was called "civilization." The lobo felt the sensation peculiar to all who stand upon the threshold of the unknown, that mixture of wanting to delay and wanting to plunge ahead. A strange referee held him to the middle ground of procedure and preparedness. He left most of his clothes neatly in drawers and on hangers; the minicomp, folded to its smallest rectangle, rested inside the room safe. Arrangements had been made with the motel staff to keep his room waiting for him. After one last good breakfast, he drove to the compound, readied his gear, and made his way to the ranger station.

The formalities were completed with surprising ease. Francesco's coded clearances were not questioned. He caught a few sideways glances from other visitors. It was one thing to look at non-sapient wolves from inside an enclosure, another to meet an "ambassador wolf" who was tame enough to withstand being around sapients for brief periods. Ordinarily, no one was allowed to enter the main sanctuary at all, much less be able to camp there. The carefully-contained thousand-hectare preserve was not to be interfered with by those who walked only on hindpaws. Francesco noted the disapproval, but he did not rise to it. This was no one's affair but his own.

One of the rangers -- a wiry yet solid Dalmatian bearing the embroidered name patch of MCBRIDE on his uniform jacket -- drove the ATV to a corner of the enclosure away from prying eyes. Only as Francesco was shouldering his pack, preparing to go in, did he speak.

"Make your way here or to the front, when you're ready to leave. Keep the HelpMe around your neck at all times. Tracking?"

Francesco patted one corner of his pack. "I'll activate it if I need help getting back."

The Dalmatian nodded once. "Off grid."

"That's the idea."

Considering a moment, the dog offered only, "Hope you find what you're looking for."

Francesco did not rise to the bait. He crossed to the double-gated entrance and, with no further commentary from McBride, he was let into the compound proper. He waited until the ATV was out of sight before letting himself relax and get his bearings.

Breathing came first, to relax, to enjoy, to get a direction. The woods were as untouched by sapient paws as could be maintained. Autumn had not yet laid claim to the weather; the sun still dominated the day cycle, although it did not penetrate all areas of the habitat. He let the clean air clear out his nose, throat, lungs, mind. Scents here were of pine, earth, stone, lichen. Something in him stirred, deeper than that "get back to nature" feeling reported by ordinary furs who dared to be without their comms and safety nets for a few hours at a time. It had been some years since the first injections, the first trials, the first tries. Perhaps it really was still there.

Padding deeper into the woods, Francesco made mental notes of landmarks while looking for a good place to set up his small camp. No rain was forecast for several days, and he had little intention of making use of the tent and equipment in his pack. They were here as his trench coat for looky-loos. The nutripacks were necessary; the rest of it, not so much.

Some twenty minutes at a modest pace took him to a point above a jut of rock that might or might not cover an entrance to a small cave. He sniffed more carefully, and his nerves gave forth the signal he had been waiting for. He looked around himself and, not far from this spot, found a tree that would serve his needs. Most of the gear that he brought in with him would be safe enough in the branches of this ancient pine. His nutripacks should be safe even from the small animals that darted in the underbrush and around the tree trunks about him. Time to pack up the rest.

In moments, Francesco stood furclad, his clothes rolled carefully into the pack. Only the HelpMe stayed with him. He would have preferred leaving it off as well, but it was a necessary evil. Nature could still be red in tooth and claw; he was strong, but not invulnerable.

Padding back to the point overlooking the rock formation he had seen before, the lobo crouched low, squatting on his haunches, his forepaws between his hind, watching, smelling whatever scents might carry up to him. It would take time, and he had to make himself remember patience. How his lovers might chuckle, softly, kindly, at the thought of him being patient. He had the ability, but not the facility. His impulsiveness often got the better of him, especially in lovemaking and his passion for reading. He would be teased about wanting to "rush to the end" in the latter more than the former. In both cases, his beloveds guided and taught him, showing him that it can be just as rewarding to wait. He still reserved the right to grumble about it.

He had no chronometer, and he was a poor judge of time by the movement of the sun. He did have some sense of it being the "right" time in some visceral sense, and he had to trust that. It was this, more than anything else, that paid off. He smelled something change, or that's how it seemed, and then his eyes caught movement near where he thought they would. Moments later, he confirmed his intuition.

Scientists and experts continued to debate the hierarchy of feral wolf packs. Some still point to the original observations, using the terms Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omega, each presumably with functions and roles within the pack. Others say that packs are made from a key mating pair, whose offspring make up the pack, much like sapients do. The debate has never fully been won, and arguments give the professionals and academics something to do to feel smarter than everyone else. Francesco had always known the instinctual sense, even before the medical trials; now, it was stronger. Whatever others might call him, the Alpha of this pack had come out of his den to look around.

He was big for his breed, a good 40kg at a guess. Overall smaller than his gray wolf cousins (this one perhaps only 1.6m, tip to tail), his larger head, lush tail, oversized paws, and longer legs distinguished his breed. Hunted almost to extinction because of the livestock interests of the past few centuries, the non-sapient lobo was being rescued in centers and compounds like this one, which were working to bring the breed back from the brink. It's one of the reasons that the experiments were begun -- covertly, of course, for any number of reasons. Francesco had been a participant in one of those. He gazed down upon the powerful figure below him, hardly daring to breathe. He wanted to speak the words aloud, but he could only guess how acute was the Alpha's hearing. He thought them, almost strongly enough to be an invocation.

Hello, Father.

* * * * * * * * * *

The idea was metaphorical and inaccurate. Given the average lifespan of the Mexican wolf, this was more likely to be a great-grandpup of the original donor. Francesco was sure that this wolf, this pack, was descended from the wolf he romantically called his sire. Those in charge of the original experiments had not been allowed to pursue the matter further than the original donor. That wolf was part of this preserve, and he was not reintroduced to the wild during his lifetime. His own pups were kept here, and their offspring, and down the line. The preserve was ridiculously small; an area three times its size would barely sustain a single pack properly, given their usual roaming range. Rescued lobos were introduced carefully, here or in other preserves. As younger males found mates, creating rivalries in the pack, pairs would be repopulated into protected wild areas that previously had been devastated by hunting. It was an imperfect system, but it helped to bring the numbers of lobos up, slowly.

The experiments were small, extremely low profile, highly controversial. The idea itself had a great many positive possible outcomes, none negative that anyone could reasonably foresee. Francesco had the correct genetic makeup and psychological stability that suited the experimenters; his consent was as informed as far as it was possible, and he gave it. The usual effects of second-level messenger RNA therapies included days of illness afterward -- the effects of the body attempting to reconcile what was, essentially, a viral attack. This was generally true of informational transfers, such as language. In those instances, the fluency and recall were astonishingly good for a time, yet tended to fade away over the course of two or three years. This transfer was, as the experimenters called it, instinctual. Since it was so new, no one knew how long the results might last, or how they might manifest. That was part of why he was here.

As he crouched there on the rise above the rock formation, Francesco remembered all too well, the hue and cry when the experimenters' project had been brought to the public's attention. Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after. Some of those who had participated in the project became pariahs for having "drunk the blood" and "eaten the raw organs" of their feral cousins. The ignorant, proud of their ignorance, exulted in their lies, with social media having surpassed torches and pitchforks. Eventually, the masses found some other lie more interesting, the truth became more pedestrian, and the urban mythological status of the experiments were tossed up as being merely that. Even so, those like himself, who had taken part in the various RNA experiments, were not eager to have everyone know it. There were, after all, repercussions after the innocuously-called "leak." The source of the information theft was never proven. Only two on the stolen list had been murdered; others were persecuted, harassed, shunned. The single blessing in the affair was that the list was incomplete. Those not on it kept their maws shut.

Watching silently, Francesco had the sense of the Alpha being uneasy, wary. The best course seemed to be waiting for the Alpha to move out of visual range. It was a long wait. The wind was variable but lazy, almost absent entirely. Ferals lived and died by their sense of smell. Francesco was related, but distantly; civilization had decreed that scent was unseemly, should be dimmed, eliminated, or covered over, resulting in an overall diminishing of facility. It was one of the things that he had told the experimenters: The RNA course had a bolstering effect upon his physical senses, particularly that of smell. It was a mixed blessing, as the "clean" scents of so many surfactants and sterilizing chemicals felt as if they clawed at his brain. Natural scents, even those thought repugnant to the civilized world, were at least acceptable. His lovers were amused by his susceptibility to their musk; he wasn't driven mad by it, but his ardor of their odor increased his passion exponentially. He also could tell each, even when he was blindfolded -- an interesting trick, since two of the four had wolf blood, and a third was canine. Even in a furpile, he could tell each from the others using just his nose.

When at last the Alpha moved from his position on the rock face, Francesco breathed a little more easily. His muscles were sore from holding his position for so long. Rather than standing and walking, it was both simpler and less visible from below to let himself fall over and roll back down the shallow grassy slope to the base of the tree where he had stashed his kit. He moved to a sitting position, his back to the tree, considering his next move. Stretching was the obvious choice, as well as a good pun; he did that while thinking over his options.

Francesco's ever-questing mind was never quiet, but he had managed to learn a method to "go deep," as he called it, closing the eyes, letting the ears go where they would, as his mind listened to the inner workings. Regular breathing, in through the nose, out through the maw, slowly, deeply, and the scents around him began to sharpen, triggering in him precisely the sensations that he was looking for.

He rose to his hindpaws, shook himself once through, then turned to face the tree. He pushed back his sheath to expose enough penis to make the job easier, and he marked his base camp quite thoroughly. It would help to find the tree later, if he wandered any significant distance, and it should keep most of the small animals away from his clothes and food. He would find a place to sleep some little further away, strictly for aesthetic purposes. First, a quiet trek around his newly claimed fiefdom seemed in order.

The hours of the afternoon were spent in an area to the west of the Alpha's immediate pack territory. This was not based upon anything easily measured, so Francesco kept himself quiet, wary, opening his senses to the land around him. He made a conscious effort to compartmentalize his mind, letting language and analysis take up one part of his awareness, letting the more direct sensual input pass into his consciousness without that analytical filter. It was an imperfect process, but one which his enhancement had, well, enhanced.

At sunset, he made his way back to his tree, taking the sustenance of one of the nutripacks. He wouldn't have to worry about his basic nutrition, but his tastebuds weren't the slightest bit happy with him. He promised himself another run at that buffet before leaving town. He had found water easily enough; a creek ran through the entire preserve area. Before embarking on this trip, Francesco had fortified his system against giardia and other parasites, so drinking the water wouldn't be an issue. He had sustenance, water, and his desire to rediscover what he had joined those years ago. He had none of the electronic devices to connect him, entertain him, record him, track him. Ruefully, he admitted that he missed at least some of the distraction.

From his new spot for sleeping, he watched the night sky, cloudless, a billion stars unchallenged by the light pollution of the city. He estimated that he could see stars of fourth, fifth, sixth magnitude without effort. Higher? His night vision had always been good; here, with only the starlight to illumine the land around him, he still was capable of seeing more detail in his surroundings than he would have thought possible. He sat, furclad, unconcerned by the slight chill in the early autumn night, hearing things move and tremble in the foliage around him, unconcerned. This was natural. This was what stirred in his blood. This was part of what he had come to rediscover.

Francesco's head snapped up. He had been dozing, no idea how long. A sound had awakened him, one he had heard before, some years ago. A wolf's cry is unmistakable; even sapient wolves could do it, even in so-called civilization. He couldn't see from this location, but he'd stake his oath it was the Alpha, joined soon after by others of his pack. Four, seven, no nine voices, sometimes together, sometimes separate, softer, louder, barked, prefaced, held short, held long, the choir of the wolves giving their praise to the sky, the unseen moon, the stars.

He bolted upright, then to a crouching position, forepaws between hind, ready to throw back his head and join them... and stopped. Even if he could join the chorus properly, full-throated, genuine, it would only confuse them. It would be a stranger's voice, someone unknown. They could not account for it, might react badly to it. He wondered what happened when the pack was introduced to other wolves, ones rescued from elsewhere. Would a new, lone wolf call out to the pack, _I'm here, I know not how I came to be here, I am one of you, let me come find you._Would it work like that? How would the stranger be greeted, if at all? There is language in the voice, the cry, the body, of fang and claw, if need be.

This was the question that he had to answer.

Francesco made himself lay back upon the ground, fighting every urge within him. He kept silent, aching, wondering, listening to the cries on the night. Not now. Not tonight. It wasn't time. He forced his body to stay still, his ears filled with the song of the wolves, of the pack, of his pack.

Perhaps.

* * * * * * * * * *

Francesco woke with the morning. Without a chronometer, he had no way to tell if it was his usual time or not. He was uncannily aware of his surroundings, and he felt safe here. He yawned luxuriously, uninhibitedly, his maw feeling huge. Smiling at himself as he stretched, he chalked it up to the rare freedom of being furclad in these protected woodlands, of being truly natural in nature. He ruminated briefly on how much furkind had separated itself from its origins, from its world, for good or ill. He still wanted and needed his tech; he was used to it by now. As cliché as it was, the whole getting back to nature thing was important.

He rose, adjusted his priorities to include his bladder, and made his way back to his gear for his not-so-natural sustenance. It was a toss-up as to whether the ill-feeling in his stomach came from the food or from the realization of what he was to do next.

Reconnoitering a circuitous path down the slopes, Francesco let himself stay bipedal for a time. His forepaws hadn't been used for locomotion since he was a young pup, and he wasn't sure how long he could maintain it. Come to that, he wasn't sure that he should try to pass himself as quadrupedal, since his overall build was different from his feral family. Two-leggeds had visited inside the sanctuary from time to time, but they were infrequent and not entirely welcomed.

Coming closer to the rock that he had seen from above, he now moved to approach it from below. He saw the cave opening from this angle, although he saw no movement there. Stop, crouch, sniff. His mind sorted much of the information; his hindbrain took in the rest, responding with feelings. Sensations tried on words, ill-fitting clothes, approximations of familiar, familial, original. There was more, much more, lurking somewhere within. He remembered his brief time with the donor wolf and his mate. It was enough.

He rose, moved slowly toward the cave opening, the mid-morning sun warming his fur, adding to the sweat that his nerves had begun for him. He was well aware of his own scent by this time, and he felt sure that the others would know him soon enough. He stopped a respectful distance from the cave mouth, sitting upon the ground to wait.

Time passed, as it does, and he had little means of counting it. A few fluffy white clouds passed slowly overhead in an otherwise clear sky. The breeze was light, and he was upwind from the cave, even though below it by perhaps five vertical meters. The sun continued its meandering trek, and Francesco did what he could to let himself be relaxed.

The sound of snarling, a half-dozen meters to his right, broke his reverie. A Mexican gray wolf stood proper, ears back, tail bushy and extended behind him, some fang showing but not open-mawed. Not the Alpha; this one was smaller. An advance guard, someone to face the interloper, see what sort of threat it might pose.

Francesco did not move, did not make himself threatening. His blood quickened. A whine came from his throat -- not fear, something between submission and disappointment. He did not know its origin, but he saw its effect. The guardian had not moved, but his lips had closed, no fang showing. The snarl had become a low growl, deep in the chest. He was brave, this one; Francesco was larger by a third, in height and mass. If sufficiently threatened, this protector might run back to the pack, to warn them, get reinforcements.

The scout took a cautious pawstep closer, head down, eyes glued to the stranger in his lands. Francesco obeyed the impulse signaled from somewhere inside, falling onto his side, exposing his throat and belly to the scout, the whine soft, short, not quite barking.

If he decides I'm kin and not food, I might get passage to his den.

More sniffing than growling. Messages were being received, perhaps not wholly understood. As the scout padded closer, Francesco braced himself emotionally while doing his best to let his body be as relaxed as possible. He let his eyes avoid the wolf's eyes, trying for a non-challenging attitude. His behavior came partly from his encounter with his donor, partly from what his donor had given him. Any other sapient fur, this close to a feral wolf, would (quite rightly) be pissing himself by this time. Francesco waited.

Sniffing, an occasional rumble from his chest, the scout advanced upon the intruder, his body language, even the language of his scent, changing even as Francesco waited. The wolf's smell was stronger now, astonishingly near to his own, and the wolf clearly was trying to reconcile the truth of scent with the reality of this strangely-formed creature at his paws. Cautiously, the scout sniffed, closer, closer still, his muzzle to the trespasser's own, until a rough licking seemed to break some ice. Even then, Francesco didn't move except to use his own tongue, cautiously, to lick the wolf's muzzle in return. It was a ritual of recognition, at this point, not quite welcoming, but closer. The wolf pawed at the gatecrasher, a rough sort of affection, very rough, reinforcing just who was in charge in this territory.

Keeping his fingers and thumbs tucked in as best he could, Francesco began returning the pawing, meekly but not weakly. He knew this language, and he could respond in kind. He had been able to explain some of this to the experimenters. In the same way that the messenger RNA spoken language courses created vocabulary, fluency, articulation, the "instinctual" messenger RNA had added something to the neural networks of the sapients of the same species. His meeting with his donor wolf had begun similarly, and he had simply known what to do. He even had a rudimentary spoken "language" -- the whines, arfs, barks, whimpers, expressions of emotions so similar to sapientkind as to be words, if only one had ears to hear.

Francesco knew when to begin getting up on his knees, when his greater size would not be perceived as a threat, when he could begin using his fingers to pet and caress, when he could gain his hindpaws and be considered strange but not dangerous. There came the moment when sound and movement began leading him toward the cave, and he knew his meeting with the Alpha was at paw. He followed carefully, not too eager, not too timid, pacing the scout as a good guest would do.

Closer to the cave, the scout -- a Beta, perhaps -- gave a signal that was alerting to his pack, cautionary to the visitor. Francesco squatted again, sitting properly, answering that sense of simply knowing what needed to be done.

In moments, the Alpha made his appearance at the cave mouth. There was no calculated effect, no majesty other than what Francesco accorded him in his own mind. The wolf greeted his scout with a nuzzling and licking of muzzles, which probably gave the Alpha more sensory information about the stranger in their midst. The Beta's calm demeanor spoke more than words, and his actions were commended by the Alpha. All this came to Francesco through the reading of actions, mannerisms, interactions. He could almost assign language to it now.

Other members of the pack made cautious appearances at the cave mouth. Francesco made observations about age and gender, noting four males (one of "adolescence," for lack of a term) and three females (again, one of adolescent years, closely resembling her brother). If his count of voices was correct, that left one still in the cave, for whatever reason. Perhaps he would find out, if he were allowed into that sanctuary.

Coolly, the Alpha padded forward to Francesco, stopping a pawful of meters in front of him. It felt time for another declaration of non-aggression, so Francesco again fell softly to one side, offering his belly and throat, whining softly. It was time for the leader's inspection of the auslander and, as discreetly as possible, vice versa.

What struck Francesco first was the Alpha's scent, powerful, so much like his own, and with the addition of something entirely female. His mate must be in season, which would explain why the Alpha's cock still hung out of its sheath. The smell of sexuality was potent, especially this near, and it struck Francesco on several levels. His mind threatened to leave him for just a moment, but he righted it when the Alpha began his own close inspections of the stranger in his territory. He was sniffed thoroughly, muzzle last. He tried offering licks to the Alpha, but he wasn't having any of that. Francesco found his muzzle grabbed firmly by the Alpha's teeth, a warning growl telling him not to move. That message would have been clear to anyone.

After a moment, the Alpha released him. Francesco remained in his submissive position, unsure if the whimpering sounds he made were proper vocabulary or the vocalizations of his first genuine fright. Using rough paws and shoving his body against the larger male, the Alpha maneuvered Francesco onto his knees and forepaws, going around to sniff and growl at the trespasser's tailhole. With a pouncing jump, he landed bodily onto Francesco's back and, with the help of the baculum, he pushed his way inside quickly, harshly. Francesco shouted, tried to throw the wolf off of him, found his neck grabbed by powerful jaws and sharp teeth. It took little time for rapid, insistent thrusting to make the wolf's penis swell, his knot along with it, and in short order, the two were tied.

Francesco's mind tried again to swim away from him, from the shock, from the pain at his neck and in his tailhole. The experience was nothing like that of his lovers; even at their most lusty, they had reign over the brutality of mere instinct. They had language, cooperation, mutuality. This was...

Return.

He was certain that it was hallucination. The feeling of the wolf tied inside him had made him...

You return.

Words. The words were inside his mind, because feral wolves didn't have them, not even the donor wolf of those years ago. There was something, though, something that he never told the experimenters, because it was too powerful to describe.

Remember.

At the Alpha's command, it returned, the meeting, the first time in this compound, those nights that he had spent alone here. He had been accepted, taken into a shelter dozens of hectares from here, there to learn all that he could, to discover if the communication barrier could be breached, overcome, giving the curators of preserves like this a way to explain their intentions, prove their benevolence. Failing that, perhaps a curator could become welcome sufficiently that he could enter the compound at will, understand better the needs of those being cared for. Understanding, greater understanding, greater good, good for all.

Closer to nature, to the primal nature, the essence. The messenger RNA bound firm, bound deep, closed the gap between feral and sapient. Words, Francesco discovered, and what lay beneath words, what communicated even more directly. Sounds, movement, scent, pheromones. The messages that commanded, regardless of the wholeness of one's mind, regardless of civilization, of predilection, of taboo. Those nights, those seasonal nights, the primal rush of the new treatments, those first injections, those first trials, and the time spent with the Alpha and his mate, and the scent, the command, nature's first command, and how he had obeyed...

The Alpha above him, inside him, within his mind, transferred words.

Hello... Father...