Chapter 4: The People of the Jaguar

Two weeks of intensive physical conditioning with nights spent in sleep learners prepared me for a non-standard extraction in South America, somewhere in the Amazon basin.

"Your mission, like it or not," smirked the operations officer, "is collecting an isolated group of people living in the Amazon rain forest."

It seems that our esteemed colleges from the stars bought the hype that stone age tribes were 'gentle' and 'non-violent.' I expressed my reservations to multiple Artificial Intellegences--futile on my part. Hubris isn't limited to humans. I wonder how the AI manage.

Speaking of managing, my physical conditioning was accellerated so that I achieved in two painful weeks what would have taken two years. Medical tubes could build a 'perfect body' almost overnight, provided that the body was in good health. Even with medical tubes and sleep learning, old-fashioned physical exertion was still needed to develop coordination and to become used to a level of discomfort. I believe that tolerating discomfort is a large part of being 'in shape.' I hope that I'm wrong--but experiments between former couch potatoes and athletes the latter still had an edge even when the medical tubes produced "identical" bodies that were in "peak physical condition." Much of physical fitness for humans takes place between the ears.

There was a mission-specific requirement that I operate alone--and naked. Completely naked. Much of my physical conditioning was unarmed combat. Climbing trees, leaping from one tree to another, swimming--all that was simulated in fake trees and in different kinds of training pools. The first week I worked out six hours every day--increased to ten hours the second week. I spent ten hours in sleep learning--those machines have limited theraputic value. And during the remaining four hours of the second week I was cramming something like 10,000 calories down my throat. The calories were converted into body tissue.

Total immersion language training occurred around the clock. Within days I was thinking in the language of the People of the Jaguar, an 'uncontacted tribe' of about 120 humans--who happened to live in close proxiemity to the tiger of South America, the jaguar. I had been 'volunteered' for a contact mission because I generally do well with wild animals. My mission was to ask the tribe if they would accept being moved to the stars. The reason was to preserve their unique genetic heritage.

Don't ask me which world, but a place was being readied for them on a far-off planet somewhere in the Confederation--somewhere out of the path of the Sa'arm. The tribe would have a sponsor, a protector, and that entity would safeguard the tribe in isolation.

"Your comments about human contracts with other species got the AI thinking," I was told. No good deed goes unpunished! "When that tribe is moved, so will everything within a five kilometer radius."

I knew better than to ask why the Confederacy didn't just move the tribe and not bother telling them. Human history includes multiple legends of entire cities being taken "to the heavens" by the gods. The Confederacy wasn't admitting that we humans were second-class Confederacy citizens--if I haven't overstated humanity's position in the universe. None would admit to that, and perhaps those old stories about gods collecting humans were just trash talk. I have no way to tell. Simply saying "no" to my tasking wasn't an option. I pushed myself hard so that I was ready--if one can be ready for such a mission.

The standard Confederation Human Marine package is a mesomorph body two meters tall and one hundred kilos mass. When I finished my training I was my normal height of 1.9 meters and my weight was a hefty 90 kilograms--but I had a gymnist's body. That body had a deep tan--and was free of body hair. Speaking of hair, only my eyelashes, eyebrows, and scalp had hair. My scalp hair grew in the pattern favored by that tribe for males--thinned bald in front, bunched up in a bun on the back of my head. The rest of my "uniform" was a string around my waist that held my penis by its foreskin so that I was sort of erect at all times. I had the appropriate tattoos an three needles in each side of my nose much like a cat's whiskers. The People of the Jaguar massed about 60 kilos and the males averaged 1.6 meters, the females two centimeters shorter. I was going to be a giant.

Part of my training was wearing my 'uniform' in front of others so that I was comfortable in just my skin. Part of my training was interacting with some of the animals that had been rescued from Earth, horses and dogs. The AI had been impressed by the empathic link I had with other species. I had been selected for this solo mission primarily because I had that empathy. Given that my equipment would be nothing I would rely upon my physical capabilities and how well I could get along with hungry wild animals.

Speaking of wild animals, I spent time with the orphans. Signifier Tess had me show up in my uniform--bare skin. Why not? At first, the orphans giggled--normal human reaction to something that was both out-of-place and non-threatening. At least I hope I was non-threatening. Okay, the imitation cat whiskers out of my nose did upset the dogs and horses a bit until I told them that I was in disguise.

On the day before I departed back to Earth Signifier Tess and Operations Officer Popov led me back to the orphanage to say goodbye to everybody. First thing was Mary Popov removing my kynodesme--that string thing holding up my penis. Or perhaps that was thing string? I expected that I'd be the only naked human in the place. Only Tess and Mary wore anything--everybody else, concubines and children, were naked. One by one I hugged each orphan and each unattached concubine. Then I was in the staging area waiting for the signal to step on the transporter disk.

"You disappoint me," Tess admitted after she had hugged me. "I expected that you'd find someone that you had uncontrolled lust for."

"Don't be a poor sport, Tess," Mary quipped. "She lost a bet. You have good control over your erection. Why don't you get it up for us and prove it. No hands, just think yourself stiff."

Truthfully, I am compartmentalized. Men are like that--keeping things in context, seperating business and pleasure. Women generally don't. The difference is small, but this difference makes women superior at multi-tasking and men superior at single-minded concentration on one item. Don't ask me if this difference is due to nature or nurture--I don't have enough data to determine that. It took less than a minute for me to go completely hard, thanks to the nanites and sleep training.

"See?" Mary crowed. "He has discipline. Okay, get dressed again."

Tess giggled as I put my kynodesme back on. I went flaccid enough to slip my enlarged foreskin over my glans and knot the leather string around the bunched up skin. Better than Viagra! I got the green light and stepped on the disk--and kept moving. The abrupt change from well-lit gray room to dark jungle should have been jarring. Rain forest noises (don't call it "jungle" because the political left has eliminated jungles) and the high humidity were not distressing because of my training. Left out was this one thing--stinking wetlands (the political left wiped out "swamps" too--and at this rate there won't be any environment!) reek! It's the smell of Life. I'm neither country bumkin nor city slicker, but I do know the difference between theme part and howling wilderness! The many animals reacted to my presence.