Avek

The avek (pronounced /ˈævɪk/) is a common pest found in the cities of the onirarchies of Avelax. Bipedal, and with an overall body shape not unlike that of a tiny human, aveks nest in large colonies within the walls and tunnels of the onirarchies, venturing out under cover of darkness to find food.

Description

Aveks are about fifteen to eighteen centimeters tall, and have a roughly humanoid body plan, standing and walking upright on their hind limbs. Their bodies are not fully human, however; they have a stocky build and two rows of nipples down their abdomens, they have tiny but noticeable tail nubs, and and they walk on the pads of their feet; moreover, their forepaws, while somewhat resembling chubby human hands with short claws, do not seem to be prehensile. An avek's head is triangular in shape, with its mouth on the underside; at the apex of the triangle is the avek's dark, moist snout. Two triangular ears are positioned at the back of the head. The avek's whole body is covered in fine fur, usually gray.

Habitat

Aveks are seldom found outside the cities, having discovered there a habitat that suits them better than the natural areas where they presumably evolved. Within the cities of Avelax, aveks are nearly ubiquitous, found in sewers and tunnels and lurking inside hollow walls and in any other dark place they can lair unseen. Aveks are almost universally considered pests, and when an avek infestation is discovered in a building steps are frequently taken to eradicate them.

Aveks seem to be tolerant of a wide range of temperatures; they are most comfortable with warmer temperatures of about 30 degrees Celsius, but can still get by reasonably well even when the temperature dips below freezing. They seem to be less able to cope with moisture; in very wet areas, aveks are prone to a disease called blue drip that keeps down their numbers. Unfortunately, the amount of humidity necessarily to effectively control the aveks' population this way would also be very unpleasant to humans, so this isn't a practical means of keeping their numbers in check.

Lifestyle

Aveks are gregarious creatures, forming colonies that may include dozens or even hundreds of the creatures. These colonies live in large nests are built of whatever scraps the avek can find, stuck together with a mixture of dirt and mud and pulp and the aveks' saliva. The colony has a single leader, whichever individual is strong enough to best any challengers in a fight—curiously, this leader is as often male as female, the two genders being more or less physical equals in the avek genus.

Aveks are prolific creatures that produce large numbers of more or less self-sufficient young that after their births are more or less left to fend for themselves. Both males and females go through cycles of fertility, roughly twenty days long but varying slightly by the individual; aveks in heat may fight over mates, and will stay with the same mate until the next fertility cycle, but in the next cycle may couple with a different mate. An avek's gestation period is roughly sixty days; a typical litter of young numbers between five and twelve, though most don't survive to adulthood.

Intelligence

The intelligence of the avek is under considerable dispute. The majority opinion among biologists is that the intelligence of the avek is comparable to that of other small mammals such as rats and shrews, and that any behavior that seems indicative of higher intelligence is a result of instinct, of coincidence, or of complex group behavior. This last explanation is perhaps the most interesting, positing that although aveks individually have little intelligence, their communities give rise to some hathroic intelligence which may be formidable in large colonies. If this is true, then even if solitary aveks may be stupid beasts, their colonies may collectively rival humans in intelligence.

Not all biologists, however, are certain that aveks, even as individuals, aren't more intelligent than they're generally given credit for. There have been some times documented when aveks have exhibited seemingly intelligent behavior that's hard to ascribe to chance or instinct, enough so that some biologists wonder whether aveks may in fact be ellogous creatures. Some people claim to have discerned a language in the aveks' barking calls, and even to have attained a limited mastery of it and been able to communicate simple concepts with the creatures. Critics accuse the biologists of being taken in by the avek's humanoid appearance, and dismiss the linguistic claims as colored by wishful thinking.

Varieties

Four species of avek have been described. By far the most common is the gray avek, Mysandrus oecon. Other species include the black avek, Mysandrus coros, a slightly smaller but faster-moving species; and the great avek, Mysandrus major, a larger species about twice the size of the gray avek. Considered particularly annoying is the musky avek, or skunk avek, Micromephitis dysodes, which marks its territory with a foul-smelling secretion.

The onirarchs have made use of the avek's ubiquity to mold some of them into a tool for their cause. Now among the normal avek are some dreambuilt specimens that relay back to the onirarchs' agents what they see, and if necessary can take certain actions to aid them.

Taxonomy

Despite their vaguely humanoid form, aveks are not primates. They are mammals, but don't seem to be closely related to any other genera on Dadauar. Some biologists have argued that they may be related to certain creatures found on other worlds, but the evidence for this is not compelling. For now, aveks have been placed in an order of their own, Muripedes, pending any discoveries that would shed further illumination on their kinships.

Some celemologists have raised the possibility that aveks may not be natural creatures at all, pointing to their location in Avelax as suggestive that their origin may be tied in with the poorly understood Avelachian Pall. Aveks may be the result of rats or other common creatures somehow twisted by the forces of the Pall into humanoid form—or vice versa, the descendents of former humans whom the Pall has stunted and distorted into their current lowly shape. If this is true, they would be properly taxonomically classified either according to their original species, or somewhere in the universe of Tropobiota; most biologists, however, regard this idea as speculative at best.