Chapter 13: Awakening of fur

Aboard the ship, Bets fought valiantly to control the massive sobs that threatened to overcome her, as she thought of never seeing her first born again.

"I didn't realize it would be this ha ... hard T ... Tom," she gasped out, fighting for control of her emotions.

Tom pulled his sobbing wife into his arms, quietly, and just held her. He too felt the pain in his heart, as a flood of memories ran through his mind. The first time he had held his baby girl in the hospital, and played the song he had written for her on the guitar he managed to sneak into the maternity ward.

The tiny hand held his as he led her to the first day of kindergarten, right before he shipped off of another secret mission. There were hundreds of such memories that brought a smile to his face, and lightened his heart as he thought of them. Soon the feeling of loss seemed to pass, and Tom wondered about that also.

'I have given each of you a mild sedative, in gaseous form, while in the transport beam. It will help you to calm down a little, before going into your transport pods, ' Dregg's mind said to each of them.

'Thanks, Dregg. I didn't count on such mental anguish being involved in this little scheme of ours, ' Tom thought back.

The humans and the two dogs followed Dregg to the regeneration chambers, where Dregg got each of them to lay down in the enhancement chambers they had used before. The two dogs would not be separated, and ended up inside a single enhancement chamber.

Hugo was a handful for the skinny alien to pick up off of the floor, leaving Dregg wheezing from his exertions before giving up. He finally went ahead and put CJ onto the bed, while he recovered his strength. Much to his astonishment, the big German Shepherd jumped up into the chamber, to be by his little hairy girlfriend.

"Thank you for you help, Miss CJ. The big fellow was too much for me to handle," he said to the smaller dog and received a bark/gruff and a wink, for an answer.

The first thing Tom saw, was Dregg's big black eyes staring down at him.

"Are we there, yet?" Tom asked.

Dregg nodded and said, "Yes, we are in orbit around your new home as we speak, my friend. Now it is time for you to get up, and awaken your family and pets."

Tom sat up, and swung his legs off of the enhancement bed. He felt a little foggy, but nothing too bad. Standing carefully, he looked over at the beds that held his wife and son. A smile crossed his face, when he saw both of the family dogs in a single bed curled up against each other.

"Oh, by the way, Tom; I took the opportunity to do some work on both your pets, since they seem to mean so much to your family," Dregg said smiling. "I didn't do anything too dramatic to them," he said quickly, as Tom's eyebrows raised in a questioning manner.

"I simply enhanced their bone structure and life expectancy, as well as their mental capacity. I put a homing beacon inside their bodies, so that if they ever stray too far, you can locate them," Dregg explained, grinning.

Tom rolled his eyes at the skinny grayling.

"Awww, you mean you didn't make them so they can talk with us? Damn, brother, you're falling down on the job some, aren't you?" Tom said, needling the alien.

Dregg's thin lips raised in a slight smile.

"Well, I couldn't do much with canine vocal cords, or their limited speech patterns. But I did manage to unlock their mental blocks, and activate their minds enough to communicate with the three of you, telepathically," he answered his human friend.

Tom stopped in mid-stride as his jaw hit the floor, "You did what!"

Dregg slight smile grew to a full-blown smile displaying his sharp green tooth.

"Well, yes, Tom. It was a first for me, too. I didn't see the harm in you having a little company that could help you better. The animals both have a better senses of smell and hearing than you, even after your enhancements, so they will be a major advantage in your survival," he said, pointing out a porthole window at the blue planet below.

This was the first time Tom had noticed the window. He walked over to look out it, at the new home where his family would be living.

'From this distance, it looks exactly like Earth, even the same continents seemed to be the correct shapes and sizes below, ' he thought, as what he would have considered North America passed came into his view.

"Dregg, just how many Mags are living down there right now?" Tom asked softly.

"Well, our scans show a little over 1,000,000 humans living down there, right now. Of course, they are scattered across the continents. No single group is larger than about 100 members in a tribe," Dregg explained, and then added, "You have to remember, Tom, that the current life expectancy for the people below, is about 30 of your years. The live birth rate of a child is only about 2 out of 10. Then add in the fact that 5 out of 10 mothers die after giving birth, and it tends to keep the population down."

"Fifty percent die giving birth, that's insane Dregg!" Bets said as she walked over where the two were looking out the porthole. "Why is the death rate so bad, down there?" She asked.

Dregg frowned at the redheaded female's question.

"I'm sorry to say, my friend, that they know nothing about cleanliness or even basic hygiene. It affects their lives so much and so many die from diseases that are easy to avoid in your world. Every thing from diphtheria to malaria kills them by the hundreds everyday. And that does not even take into account, how many are killed in their little battles over hunting territory, or the actual hunts, themselves."

Bets frowned at the thought of so many lives vanishing from lack of education in the simplest of common sense ideas.

'Don't eat where you crap, ' she thought.

"Yuck! Who's doing that, here?" Tommy asked as he opened the dogs' bed and started petting his furry friends.

"Apparently, everyone down below is, my sweet boy," Bets answered out loud.

She hadn't realized she was mentally broadcasting her thoughts at the time.

"Well, I hope we aren't gonna have to do that, too! That's just ... well, nasty, Mom," Tommy said as the two dogs jumped down off the bed and barked at the boy, wagging their tails for all they were worth.

Bets nodded and said, "I agree son, it will be one of the first lessons we teach those we help ... that is, if we can talk to them of course," she said, looking at Dregg.

Dregg's green toothy smile made Bets a little uneasy. It was the natural color of his teeth but it still looked like a mouth full of spinach, and she really did not like spinach.

"I know you will find this hard to believe my lady, but right now all three of you are already speaking Mag, as you call it, every time you open your mouths. Your thoughts are still in English but you will have to concentrate, to speak in English again, other wise the words coming out will be in Mag," Dregg said smugly.

"Well, that seems impossible, Dregg," Tom felt his mouth moving as he spoke and realized that the movements did not feel like the words he was saying. "Im poss ible" he said again slowly, sure enough his lips moved at least three different extra movements than he had expected!

Tommy had seen what his dad was doing and figured out what he was trying to do. "That is sooo weiiirrrddddd. I can feel my lips making funny words, but they sound right to my ears," he said softly, holding his mouth with his fingers as his lips moved.

Dregg watched in amusement, as the three humans played with the new speech, trying to make themselves mess up on the Mag speech.

"Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious!" Bets said quickly, feeling her mouth move long after is should have. "Ok bucko! Now ... how do we talk in English, if we want to just talk between ourselves, without the Mags knowing what we are saying?"

"Practice," Dregg informed them.

"That's it? Just practice? But I've talked in English my entire life!" Tommy said, feeling a little out of sorts with the idea that he would have to learn his native tongue all over again.

Tom had figured out the reasoning behind the new language and speech enhancements.

"I know it seems odd and might feel like Dregg is playing a sick joke on us; but the truth is, down there (he said pointing at the planet below), no one would understand us if we spoke in English. If we are to help make a new civilization, we can't be seen as so different that we are considered demons, or something like that, to these people. We have to fit in as much as we can, guys."

Bets nodded in agreement with her husband.

"That's true, Honey, but speech is as far as we are going to go, to fitting in like them. I plan to take a bath, daily, and run a clean ship, bucko. So don't get any ideas about dragging a bloody carcass into my living room, anytime in the future," she added vehemently.