"Good evening, Dr. Manville," said Prometheus.
Lance opened his eyes. Prometheus was clothed again, and Lance was still not.
"What have you done to Dana?"
"Dr. Lindstrom is fine. Athena is taking good care of her. Congratulations on your accomplishment. You are the first humans to have survived breeding."
Breeding?
"Yes, Dr. Manville," said Prometheus. "I hope this has become more clear to you now. Tell me something — is it true you had never met Dr. Lindstrom before three days ago? That is remarkable."
"Why is that remarkable?"
"Look between your legs," said Prometheus.
Lance looked down to see that his penis had grown and was semi-erect.
"Your body is responding to Dr. Lindstrom's presence ... even though she's not within your presence," said Prometheus. "Each of you produces certain hormones as part of your reproductive drives. As part of this ... experiment, I made you sensitive to hers, and she is now sensitive to yours. I merely mention her name, and see how you react. I suspect Dr. Lindstrom is having a similar physical reaction to you right now, where she is."
"Where is the real Socrates Prometheus?"
Prometheus responded with a look of mock indignation. "What do you think I am? A body-snatcher?" Then he laughed. "I am Socrates Prometheus. I have not assumed anyone's identity. ... At least, for your purposes I am Socrates Prometheus."
"Clearly, you're not human."
"On that, you are correct," said Prometheus, bowing slightly. "My race comes from ... a planet ... many of your light-years from your Earth. Suffice to say you are unlikely to find it in your lifetime."
"What are you doing on Earth?"
"Well, there are few explanations that would make sense, are there?" said Prometheus. "I must say that this is one of the facets of these bodies that I truly enjoy. You humans question everything. You debate incessantly. It is, I must say, a mentally stimulating exercise. Our race is more ... complaisant."
Manville stared at Prometheus. Had it not been for the previous two days, the conversation would have been something created under the influence of some kind of drug.
"We are actually not dissimilar to yourselves," said Prometheus. "Our planet has similar environmental conditions to this one. Nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. We are both carbon-based lifeforms.
"You could live on our planet ... except that you cannot. And we cannot. Our sun is dying, and with that our own planet. It won't happen immediately, but it is happening. When our sun dies, our planet will die, and most of us will die.
"But not our race. I was charged by our leaders with finding an alternative world for our people. And I have found it."
"You plan on taking over the Earth?"
"In a manner of speaking ... but not perhaps as you think. I found this planet, and this is now my home. The technology you see here came from the ship that transported me here. It was ... how do you humans put it ... a one-way trip.
"I lost contact with my home planet once my ship left our solar system. When I left, my planet was building more ships. I have waited for their signal. So far, there is none. As far as I know, I am alone here on Earth."
Prometheus leaned back. "I have had to find ... other means to propagate our species."
"You're shape-shifters. You can't just wave a magic wand and create another version of yourself?"
"We have limited shape-shifting ability. It was necessary to take a human form for obvious reasons."
"Is Athena one of your kind?"
"No, she is a human," said Prometheus. "She was part of our earlier breeding experiments. Those failed, but I decided she could be useful in ... other ways, which I believe you and Dr. Lindstrom have experienced. She has the ability to stimulate males and females of your species, which was necessary to begin the breeding process."
"So I noticed," said Lance. "You said we're 'not dissimilar' to yourself."
"Correct. And that's where you and Dr. Lindstrom come in. ... We can assume other forms. But we cannot reproduce in a form other than our own. And we ... I have discovered that we cannot reproduce in our own form on this planet. As ... interesting as your reproductive methods are, they do not succeed in reproduction in this form. We need ... surrogates ... to pass on our genetic material and allow us to reproduce.
"I injected you with our genetic material. You injected Dr. Lindstrom so she could, as you would put it, 'give birth.' And Aithousa is the result. The two of you are the first to have successfully reproduced us. You have ensured our survival on this planet."
"So how did Dana and I get to have this honor?"
Prometheus smiled. "Given what I've learned about humans, I surmised that creating a mystery would make humans seek out that mystery to solve it. I orbited your planet for several months before I chose this location for landing. Our metal makes our ships undetectable when we want them to be undetectable.
"Once my island was activated, you Americans became curious. That was my, how do you put it, 'bait.' I have been experimenting with breeding since I arrived here nearly eight of your years ago. Some of the incidents you attribute to what you call the Bermuda Triangle were my selecting participants."
Lance was stunned.
"You have what you call your 'scientific method.' That well describes what finding the right formula for reproduction required. I discovered I could not reproduce here myself, so I had to find alternate methods for reproduction. I had to find appropriate candidates, and I had to determine the correct genetic adjustments. This took considerable time."
"Yeah, when your subjects keep dying on you, that has to slow things down."
"When one's survival is at stake, one does what one must do."
"How many people have you killed?"
