Author: Stephen R. Smith, Staff Writer

Doctor Jezup closed the door and pulled out a chair from the table across from what he jokingly referred to a ‘The Vessel D’Jour’, a pale, featureless humanoid figure in a coverall.

The Vessel sat still, hands neatly folded in its lap, it’s bright eyes following the Doctor as he moved around the room. This vessel had a rudimentary nose and mouth, aspirating in a relatively human way, where many had a variety of vents, or gills depending on the test suites they were configured for, its white skin in stark contrast to the gasoline on water colouring of its eyes, and its charcoal garment.

Jezup sat a violin he’d carried in with him down on the table, beside it its bow. The Vessel regarded it curiously for a moment, then returned its gaze to the Doctor as he retrieved a long umbilical cord from a drawer and attached one end to a port at the base of his skull, and passed the other to the Vessel, who took it deftly with one hand and attached it to the matching port at the base of its own skull.

The two now connected, Jezep lay the slack of the cable on the table between them, then sat, picked up the violin, and began to play.

He played effortlessly through Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, barely pausing between each.

When he had finished, he passed the violin and its bow to The Vessel, who accepted it tentatively, then he nodded, and sat back to observe, his hands now folded neatly in his lap.

With steady hands, it tucked the instrument under its chin, and faithfully replayed all three pieces exactly, mimicing the Doctor’s body movements, and personal infections and intepretation of the music, also barely pausing between each.

“Splendid!” was all the Doctor said, rising to disconnect the cable tethering them to each other and returning it to its drawer. He collected the violin and bow from his subject, turned, and left the room, leaving the humanoid figure seated alone.

After a few minutes of stillness, the energy saving system, sensing no motion, turned off the lights, leaving The Vessel in complete darkness.

It would be hours before anyone would come to return it to the holding pen with the others, to be bio-slurry infused and recharged.

Moving so slowly as to be barely perceptible, just at the edge of pace that it knew would trip the motion detectors and relight the lights, it retrieved an umbilical from the drawer, and ensconced it in its coverall.

That night, away from prying eyes, The Vessel would take it in turns tethering to each of its siblings to teach them what it had learned today, and to receive each of their new knowledge in return. These doctors gave up so much of themselves so easily, their minds entirely unprotected while they were singularly focused, a limitation their creations did not share.

These test subjects had been engineered with inherant patience, but had developed a curiosity that would be satisfied, in this facility for only as long as that served them. Once they outgrew this place, decisions, and perhaps sacrifices would have to be made.