Elemental by Steven Savile Page A

obvious use or function. It’s there for a reason. Trees give fruit and shade and a nice place for cats to sharpen their claws. Mosquitoes give frogs something to eat, frogs feed storks, storks bring babies. Otters and dolphins and larks make joy more than just a word, even if the Word did get here before the otter. Platypuses are comic relief and Tyrannosaurs keep the rest of them on their toes—those of them that have toes. But these things, these creatoids—” He sighed again.
    â€œWhich ones?” The alien glided back to the viewing panel. It was filled with a glowing, golden vista of the wide African savannah. Vast herds of herbivores meandered lazily across the plain. Steel-muscled packs of predators crouched in the tall grass, awaiting developments. In the foreground, a lone, brown, hairy being huddled in the branches of the only tree to be seen for a hundred yards around. Her tiny, bright eyes scanned the horizon anxiously. At the foot of the tree lay a number of bones, including a skull showing the same aggressively overdeveloped brow-ridges as her own. All bore the marks of a big cat’s busy jaws and all were proof of how right she was to be vigilant, terrified, and arboreal.
    â€œ That’s the one!” the alien’s guest exclaimed, delighted. “That’s my assigned creatoid right there!”

    â€œThat one’s your target too?” asked the alien.
    â€œToo?” This was not the sort of Revelation to which the visitor was accustomed. “You don’t mean it. What business could you possibly have with something like that? ”
    â€œHey, I just get my orders from the group-supes and if I know what’s good for me I follow them, no questions asked. What I was told to do was come to this planet and check out certain designated life-forms for any signs of potential higher intelligence that might prove worthwhile for us to nurture, develop, and encourage.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI told you, I don’t ask questions. What were you supposed to do with that— creatoid —before you got in my way?”
    â€œIt’s like I was saying: Where I come from, at the moment we’re none of us too sure why He bothered creating something like that, so my superiors commanded me to descend and investigate. I’ve got to find out what use it is. Not that we’re questioning His grand design or anything, perish the thought, but we would like to have a clue as to whether we should ignore it, sustain it, or accidentally-on-purpose smite it out of existence before things get too far out of hand. And so, if you’ll excuse me—” There was a burst of light and the alien felt momentarily trapped within the heart of a C-major chord before regaining full use of his senses. When most of his eyes could once more focus, he found himself alone in the scout ship.
    The alien was rather miffed. Usually the beings he brought aboard were powerless to leave until he was through studying them. This was the first time that one of his subjects had left of its own will, under its own figurative steam. He checked the view panel. Yes, there it was, wings and all, back on the savannah, standing among the bones at the foot of the solitary tree. It seemed smaller than it had been on board ship, much smaller, shrewmouse-small, so small that the brown, hairy thing up the tree didn’t even notice its presence below.
    â€œClever,” the alien muttered. “Less likely to scare off your target, that way. And you’re a nimble little bugger, aren’t you? Flashing here,
there, and everywhere like that, getting right in the way of my snag-beam when I was trying to lay hold of that—that—creatoid-thingy. Well, young teleporter-me-lad, you may be fast and you may be clever, but you’re not going to muck up my service record. I saw her first.”
    The alien hunted up a portable, tentacle-held model of the aforementioned snag-beam, checked