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A little while after breakfast, Robin pokes her head into the garage.
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Ax is hanging out, one his hooves in a water dish, and apparently someone has procured him a book, although whether his translation module is good enough to actually read it or if he's just inspecting the alphabet is not immediately plain. His stalk eyes look at Robin. <Hello.>
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"Hi," says Robin. "So - that thing you did, combining different members of a species to make a blended morph. How does it work? I mean, how'd you do it?"
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<It requires more concentration, the first time a new combined morph is assumed. On multiple target patterns instead of one. The blending can be controlled, a little, although I do not have very much fine control.>
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"Hmm. All right," says Robin.
She sits down on the floor of the garage, in a spot with plenty of room, and thinks about the Panthera genus. Lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard. Leopard, lion, tiger, jaguar. Jaguar, tiger, leopard, lion. Tigers and jaguars leopards with their camouflage patterns, and lions with their tufted tails; jaguars with their incredibly strong jaws; leopards with their stealth and speed and climbing prowess; tigers and jaguars with their willingness to swim; lions with their companionable nature and their height; tigers with their massive builds.
She keeps thinking until she's sure she has it, something more than just a daydream of a four-way Panthera hybrid: the sense in her mind of a huge feline with a short amber coat, lightly spotted with darker rosettes, built to run and climb and swim and bite and play.
Then she morphs.
She sits down on the floor of the garage, in a spot with plenty of room, and thinks about the Panthera genus. Lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard. Leopard, lion, tiger, jaguar. Jaguar, tiger, leopard, lion. Tigers and jaguars leopards with their camouflage patterns, and lions with their tufted tails; jaguars with their incredibly strong jaws; leopards with their stealth and speed and climbing prowess; tigers and jaguars with their willingness to swim; lions with their companionable nature and their height; tigers with their massive builds.
She keeps thinking until she's sure she has it, something more than just a daydream of a four-way Panthera hybrid: the sense in her mind of a huge feline with a short amber coat, lightly spotted with darker rosettes, built to run and climb and swim and bite and play.
Then she morphs.
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<Yep,> she says smugly. <This is a hybrid of four different closely related species. Nice, isn't it?>
She curls up to inspect her own tail, which is very faintly striped. No tuft. Nicely fluffy, though.
Then she pauses, tail flicking, and stretches up on her hind legs to reach her paws toward the ceiling.
<Wow. I'm bigger than I expected,> she says as she drops down to put all four paws back on the concrete. <It must be something about the hybrid genetics. I knew some lion/tiger hybrids got pretty big, but I think I might be even bigger. This morph could be really, really useful.>
She curls up to inspect her own tail, which is very faintly striped. No tuft. Nicely fluffy, though.
Then she pauses, tail flicking, and stretches up on her hind legs to reach her paws toward the ceiling.
<Wow. I'm bigger than I expected,> she says as she drops down to put all four paws back on the concrete. <It must be something about the hybrid genetics. I knew some lion/tiger hybrids got pretty big, but I think I might be even bigger. This morph could be really, really useful.>
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<You have certainly become very large, more than any of the specimens in the zoo,> agrees Ax. <It will be a good combat morph.>
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Robin giggles. Not out loud. Her current vocal equipment is not really giggle-enabled.
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Ax lifts his hoof out of the water dish, which is empty now. <Assuming that it has good endurance. Some predators do not, at least on my world.>
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<It should. The Panthera cats aren't like cheetahs - those are fast, the fastest land animal on the planet, but they're sprinters. One good run and that's all you get out of them for the next hour. Lions and tigers and so forth are a little more balanced, I think.>
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Robin stretches. Tail included, and not very much tail at that, she can reach from one side of the garage to the other.
<I find it just as incredible that the rest of the universe apparently has so few.>
<I find it just as incredible that the rest of the universe apparently has so few.>
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<I didn't think the diversity of my homeworld, or any other world, was particularly limited until I learned about Earth. I cannot even remember the order of magnitude my teacher quoted for the number of distinct kinds of "beetles" you have.>
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<About four hundred thousand species,> says Robin. <Which is about a third of all the species in the world. I looked it up once.>
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<One third of the species on this ridiculously assorted biosphere are beetles?> asks Ax incredulously.
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<There are forty-six species of the small exoskeletal crawling variety on my world and that has always seemed more than enough.>
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She glances at him in startlement, flicking her tail again. <Only forty-six?>
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<Yes. A much easier number to remember than the quantity of Earthly beetles. And far more than we have of birds.>
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<I don't understand why Earth would be this different,> she says. <Are we the only ones with hundreds of thousands of species?>
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Ax starts tapping his fingers together in what may be a thoughtful gesture. <As far as I know. I don't remember the total number from my home, and at any rate a new bacterium was discovered only fifteen years ago, so perhaps my knowledge is out of date, but Earth distinctly stands out in this respect.>
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<Fifteen years? We get new species of microbes - much faster than that. Well, that makes sense. Actually, come to think of it, beetles might just be a third of all animals and not a third of all species generally.>