Mik are you not participating in the Breeding program??
Mik removed his goggles and rubbed his eyes. He’d been staring at the data for hours now trying to find patterns or abnormalities, anything that would help his team back on Irk further understand the growth of a natural born smeet.
Studying the Tallest’s smeet was fascinating, but he didn’t have enough time with the smeet to do true observations. He only had the data from the routine medical checks and while that data was valuable he was unable to observe the smeet in a more natural setting. He doubted the Tallest would let him into their chambers to observe. There had to be some way he could spend more time with the smeet. Maybe he would talk to Tallest Red about it. He was going to have to talk to him anyway. The Control Brains recently sent him a message telling him to deal with Tallest Purple.
Since his last meeting with the Control Brains, Tallest Purple gained awareness as a Tallest… maybe a little too much. Besides the planet jacker incident, Tallest Purple had ordered the destruction of seven more ships, some of them their own! Anyone who even mentioned something besides praise about his smeet in his presence was promptly destroyed.
Mik was now receiving hundreds of messages from other Irkens asking why their previously passive leader was suddenly so pissed off all the time. They all wanted to know how to approach the Tallest without signing their own death warrants, or if the rage disease Tallest Purple seemed to have was contagious.
In all honesty he couldn’t understand why Tallest Purple was so aggressive. Against other species he could see how their comments would be seen as threatening or insulting to the Irken race, but when other Irkens commented on how tiny the smeet was there was no disproval in their voices. If anything the smeet seemed to trigger the happy sensors in their brains into an overload. He had received several worried messages from Irkens on the Massive about their uncontrollable and sometimes Pak-overloading emotions when seeing pictures of the smeet.
Along with the side effects a natural born smeet seemed to have on others, the side effects he had on his parental units was concerning. And Mik had no idea how to improve the situation.
Mik rubbed his eyes once more and messaged the skin around his antennae. He needed to take a break from smeet and Tallest data. He’d look into his inbox from his fellow medical scientists on Irk and see if there was something he could distract himself with.
Opening one of the messages he read it and asked himself aloud the question, “why am I not participating in the breeding program?”
Mik scoffed at the question. If he had a nose he would have snorted like he had seen his informant, the Dib-human, do. “Why indeed,” he shook his head at the question.
Admittedly, In the beginning he was disappointed that the Control Brains had not chosen him to participate in the program, though he was pleased that several members of his lab had been. However, after witnessing the results and side effects that the reproductive functioning of their Paks produced, he was not jealous at all. The emotions somehow necessary in choosing a mate seemed exhausting and unnecessarily complicated. He understood why the Control Brains did not activate that function in himself, it could very well interfere with his work.
He was still slightly curious about what the act of mating felt like. While he had first hand accounts of what the sensations felt like and he did have a mental memory of that demonstration, he’d never seen an actual mating. So the scientist in him wanted to discover first hand what it was like. However, the scientist in him also knew it was important to stay objective. Besides after experiencing what Tallest Purple was like while smeeting Mik had no desire to go through that again. If he were to take a mate he would have to be able to keep his mate calm and content, and he doubted he could do as good a job as Tallest Red did.
“No,” Mik responded to the message. “As an overseer of the Breeding Project I will not be an active participant.” Mik paused and then added out loud to himself, “Thank Irk for the wisdom of the Control Brains.”