Descending Road - SHIXEN by Dana W. Paxson

SHIXEN

I keep the process secret, locked in my lab. I don’t need to await generations of breeding to arrive at my goal; I have the Gengine.

The Gengine is a reality engine, made over fifteen thousand years ago by the spider-limbed Snin. It procreates virtually from a known genestrand, making an entire synthetic world in which its creations live and breed, running thousands of generations in seconds, testing millions of branches of descent, behavior and chemistry in minutes. In a day or two, it pops out the genestrand for the desired end creature, and synthesizes a complete animal, using a vat similar to those now used for making bioandroids here.

My creature gets a name: Shix. I vat-clone it to get others, and they are shixen. They will breed; I have given them fluffy brown fur with gray stripes and mottling, and big startled black eyes, and I have shortened their tails to little wagging nubs. Their claws are tamed as well: no long needles, but tiny retractible pins that only come out for climbing hard surfaces. The fingers and toes are lengthened to compensate, so that they can cling to a child’s arm or leg and ride along.

The shixen sing little musical phrases to each other, and groom together, and breed quickly. They would be no match for their streetrat progenitors in a fight, but they have no need of fighting. Their little demorphin glands solve that problem.

When I created the glands, I made their secretions as sweet as sucre, succulent, fruity and sour, and nothing that tastes the transparent ooze ever wants to stop. The demorphin kicks in later, and it binds the taster permanently to the pet.

Demorphin was my favorite toy in the days of my long-ago freedom. It was Alayre‘s downfall; she had prisoned me in her own drug-laced web, and I was forced to take the extreme measure of feeding my counterattack to her with kisses. Like my shixen, I am immune to demorphin — I always have been — but Alayre was not. She wasted slowly, turning a little grayer beneath her golden tone every day, until at last she knew; and as she knew, she died.

She had warned the City, told them of all my works. They came then for me, and locked me in stone forever. So they believed.

Now I test my shixen against a pack of streetrats, in a small closed room. An observation window gives me a full view. These shixen carry the active glands for demorphin, unlike those in which I will bury the genes for later appearance.

The rats range, climb, hiss, their coats dark and slick, their teeth bared; the shixen huddle at first, then spread out.

A rat approaches a shix, coat bristling; the shix lies down in a submissive grooming posture, and the rat is curious. It scents the secretions at the shix‘s neck, sniffs closer, and licks.

It seems magic. Soon the rats are all lying beside shixen, still licking them at the neck. When the shixen stand up and move away, the rats lie helpless in the thick stupor of opiate intoxication.

I do not sleep. Within a few days, I have folded the expressive genes for this magic away, to activate and express themselves in the creatures’ descendants. I am ready for the children.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	SHIXEN 6303 Arcus I keep the process secret, locked in my lab. I don’t need to await generations of breeding to arrive at my goal; I have the Gengine. The Gengine is a reality engine, made over fifteen thousand years ago by the spider-limbed Snin. It procreates virtually from a known genestrand, making an entire synthetic world in which its creations live and breed, running thousands of generations in seconds, testing millions of branches of descent, behavior and chemistry in minutes. In a day or two, it pops out the genestrand for the desired end creature, and synthesizes a complete animal, using a vat similar to those now used for making bioandroids here. My creature gets a name: Shix. I vat-clone it to get others, and they are shixen. They will breed; I have given them fluffy brown fur with gray stripes and mottling, and big startled black eyes, and I have shortened their tails to little wagging nubs. Their claws are tamed as well: no long needles, but tiny retractible pins that only come out for climbing hard surfaces. The fingers and toes are lengthened to compensate, so that they can cling to a child’s arm or leg and ride along. The shixen sing little musical phrases to each other, and groom together, and breed quickly. They would be no match for their streetrat progenitors in a fight, but they have no need of fighting. Their little demorphin glands solve that problem. When I created the glands, I made their secretions as sweet as sucre, succulent, fruity and sour, and nothing that tastes the transparent ooze ever wants to stop. The demorphin kicks in later, and it binds the taster permanently to the pet. Demorphin was my favorite toy in the days of my long-ago freedom. It was Alayre‘s downfall; she had prisoned me in her own drug-laced web, and I was forced to take the extreme measure of feeding my counterattack to her with kisses. Like my shixen, I am immune to demorphin — I always have been — but Alayre was not. She wasted slowly, turning a little grayer beneath her golden tone every day, until at last she knew; and as she knew, she died. She had warned the City, told them of all my works. They came then for me, and locked me in stone forever. So they believed. Now I test my shixen against a pack of streetrats, in a small closed room. An observation window gives me a full view. These shixen carry the active glands for demorphin, unlike those in which I will bury the genes for later appearance. The rats range, climb, hiss, their coats dark and slick, their teeth bared; the shixen huddle at first, then spread out. A rat approaches a shix, coat bristling; the shix lies down in a submissive grooming posture, and the rat is curious. It scents the secretions at the shix‘s neck, sniffs closer, and licks. It seems magic. Soon the rats are all lying beside shixen, still licking them at the neck. When the shixen stand up and move away, the rats lie helpless in the thick stupor of opiate intoxication. I do not sleep. Within a few days, I have folded the expressive genes for this magic away, to activate and express themselves in the creatures’ descendants. I am ready for the children.