Growth-Engineer Pesh

Pesh was lead growth-engineer on the Lungwhale Project at the Verdant Office, a planned diplomat-class for living in atmospheric cloud. The seed-chart called for cathedral lungs, gas-bladder ribbing, and soft skin. What grew was teeth. A ring of them where the bladders should have been, then three rings by the second molt.

By the time the review committee arrived to kill the project, the diplomat was a predator, and Pesh had already ridden it through a hunt-trial and decided they liked it. The Office stripped the research caste. It could not take the ship. A hunted creature has rights under the breeding accords. They renamed it the Mistake Returning after the hearing. They are still curious whether a fourth ring of teeth would have come in, if the Office had not interrupted.