Read The Menagerie 2 (Eden) for Free Online

This entire ship is a marvel of engineering miracles beyond our comprehension.” 
    “Ms. Moore, they’re biological matter. And biological matter does not live forever. They eventually break down.”
    “I was just saying.”
    “Ms. Moore, my team has been stonewalled. But we believe that your abilities can open up gates here and there for my team to at least be able to piece together a theory of understanding as to the fundamentals of this ship.”
    “All I can do is give my best. So keep in mind that the language may not be the same, the text indecipherable.”
    He nodded. “We have the collected records of the ship’s writings down below, on the third level. So if you and Mr. Savage will follow me, then we can begin—” 
    The hull once again began to shake, the tremors far more than the mild aftershocks O’Connell had led them to believe.
    When the tremors subsided, Savage shot an unyielding look to O’Connell. “What aren’t you telling us about these tremors?” he asked.
    “Aftershocks are not an abnormality, Mr. Savage. We’ll be fine.”
    But John Savage was a seasoned soldier whose life was balanced with good reasoning and common sense, whereas O’Connell was a black-op spook who would kill in order to keep secrets safe. And the fact was that aftershocks ebb with time, not heighten in activity. There was no doubt in Savage’s mind that the region was highly unstable. “This far along after the initial quake,” he offered as more of a statement rather than a question. “After two weeks?” And then: “The crater’s resettling, isn’t it? The surrounding walls weakening.”
    “Mr. Savage, this isn’t the time or place—” he cut himself off. “We’re safe,” he concluded edgily. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
    If John Savage learned anything at all as a Navy SEAL, it’s whenever a government spook says ‘there’s nothing to worry about,’ then there’s something to worry about.
    Savage pressed him with a hard look and O’Connell pressed back, the two men sharing a tie with Intelligence by trying to absorb the secrets of the other, both failing.
    “Since time is of the essence,” O’Connell finally said, “we need to move on.”
    Mexican and American nationals—the biophysicists and the biotechnologists, the scientific geneticists and evolutionary biologists, physiologists, mathematicians and statisticians, astrophysicists and astrobiologists—were all moving about as a grouping of scientists thrown together in a playpen of strange wonders to seek the answers within.
    For as far as they could see there were more enclosures containing inexplicable life forms with each container specifically built to suit its inhabitant. Whereas some stasis chambers were built to hold some type of colossus, others were created to maintain something as miniscule as a virus or bacteria inside a glass tube.
    In one setting stood a massive sea creature, the beast having a segmented body and multiple legs, much like a centipede’s, but more powerful, more muscular. Its head was a crown of tentacles that seemed to flow with soft fluidity as if wavering peacefully with the course of a gentle sea current. And its eyes, separate of the tentacles, stood upon stalks capable of maneuvering independently, its eyes at any given time having the advantage of 360-degree vision.
    In another bin were dual mates—one male, one female—resembling the velociraptor. There were, however, marginal differences. Its tail was longer and whip-like with sharp, serrated ridges running along the appendage that was engineered to rip its opponent apart with a swipe of its tail. Its neck was longer, thinner, the skeleton of its throat more like cartilage than bone to give it flexibility, that option of telescoping its head and jaws outward in a savage thrust, like the spring of a snake.
    In the bin next to it, which almost reached the ship’s ceiling, was a behemoth similar to the T-Rex—although this version was