A Matter for Men, page 26
part #1 of War Against the Chtorr Series
"I do wish to alarm you about this—because this may be the single most threatening aspect of the infestation. So far, the sludge has resisted most of our attempts to control it. It does not seem to be temperature sensitive, and it can survive a wide range of water conditions. We've had some success at inhibiting the growth of the sludge with tailored bacteria, but it is a limited success. To date, our best results have been obtained by pouring crude oil on the water and setting it on fire. I'm sure I don't have to say much about the unacceptability of that solution."
She stopped to take a drink of water, checked her notes, then brought up another series of pictures on the screen—some kind of insect-looking bug; but it stood on two legs. Its front four legs were very short, they looked atrophied, except that each terminated in a very strong-looking claw. The grasshopper in its mandibles established a sense of scale. The bug was the size of a sparrow. "This is not an insect," Dr. Zymph said. "Do not fall into the trap of thinking that it is an insect, because to do that is to wear blinders to the possibilities that the creature has some very un-insect-like capabilities."
The next picture showed the creature standing—almost lurking—in a dark corner. It stood erect, and its long black shell-casing enveloped it like a cape. The shape of its head as well as its posture made me think of Jack the Ripper. "We call this fellow the night-stalker," Dr. Zymph said. "He's a comparatively recent discovery, so we can't tell you too much about him. He eats most kinds of terrestrial insects, and is not averse to the occasional mouse, bird or frog. This is a small one. We've found them as big as twenty centimeters. We hope that's as big as they get. We're not sure. They are not poisonous, but the bite is painful. An interesting thing about that bite—most predatory insects liquify their food to eat it; this fellow is large enough, he doesn't have to bother. He uses his mandibles like teeth. We believe that his digestion is something like a bird's in that he may have to swallow small pebbles to help grind the food in his stomach. This is a good place to note that he is a serious competitor for the birds' place in the ecology. He has a voracious appetite and will undoubtedly provide some very powerful competition to all of our smaller predators."
Another set of pictures—this time, it was a pink puffball thing. "We're still not sure if this one is plant or animal. We call it the cotton candy bug. It's as light as a dandelion, and it's as easily spread. It is nontoxic, it is edible and, as far as we have been able to determine, it does not appear to endanger its surroundings. What that means is that we still haven't determined what kind of a danger it is—and I'll touch on that point in a minute too.
"First, I want to show you this cute little fellow—" There was polite laughter as the slide came up on the screen. "We call him the pipe cleaner bug, because he looks like he's made out of pipe cleaners. Again, do not be misled by the fact that he looks like an insect. That's just the ecological niche he lives in. He does not have a segmented body, and his exo-skeleton is covered with a thick skin and that soft white fur that you see. That fur is actually a very sensitive olfactory organ. The creature smells the air with his whole body. Now note the bunny feet: those pads are also sensory organs, even more sensitive. He's not just standing on that leaf, he's tasting it as well. The creature's eyes are on the tip of those two antennae, and they are regenerative. This fellow eats the cotton candy bugs; he is eaten by the night-stalker. I can't tell you much more than that. We know nothing about his breeding habits. We can tell you that he moves very fast and can eat twice his own weight in leaves every day. We expect to be seeing a lot more of him next summer. Or even sooner."
The next picture was of a scarlet-leafed field of ivy. "We call this one red kudzu for obvious reasons. The leaves are bright red and veined with white. It likes marshes and shallow water, and it breeds like madness, advancing at the rate of two meters per week. So far, we've only found it in the Louisiana bayous, but we expect to see it spread throughout the entire Gulf Coast if it isn't controlled."
The audience was beginning to get uneasy. There were too many of these creatures.
"Now this one—looks like an Earth millipede, except for the hump across its, ah, shoulders—we're not even sure it belongs here in this catalog. There's some evidence to suggest that it may be a terrestrial creature; we know that there were several of them under study at the African Ecology Center in Nairobi more than twenty years ago, but they were lost in the firestorm that destroyed the city. These creatures are omnivorous, and they're capable of short bursts of speed across open territory. We think they serve primarily as scavengers in the Chtorran ecology. We've not seen a lot of them. Now, this next one—"
Huh? Was that it? She hadn't said anything about the millipedes! And why did the Chtorrans have a corral full of them?
"—looks like the anopheles mosquito, but again, please do not be fooled by the resemblance. It's only superficial. There are significant internal differences. We call this a stingfly. It feeds on blood—human blood is fine, but it's just as happy with cats, dogs, cattle, horses—anything else it can find. It's not choosy, and for that reason we suspect it to be a primary vector for disease . . ."
She had to pause here; there was an excited hubbub in the audience. After a moment, she raised her voice and continued over it. "We suspect it; we are not yet certain. There are too many questions still unanswered. But"—and she leaned forward on the podium now, steepling her hands in front of her—"we are looking at it as the most likely mechanism for introducing the plagues into the human population." She was well aware of the ramifications of that statement. And so was her audience.
She said loudly, "I want you to get this—it's still only a theory! We do know that two of the plagues appeared in more than one form—like the bubonic and pneumonic forms of the Black Death. And most of them can be spread by a sneeze, or by touching a contaminated cup or blanket. So what we're looking at here—this stingfly—is not a primary vector, merely a method of introduction. If that. But this does lead right into the next point . . . the plagues themselves.
"We are now operating on the theory that the seven major infections and nine minor ones that have decimated the human species must also be considered as part of the overall pattern of ecological infestation. I want you to know that we came to this realization slowly. When you look at the overlapping patterns of disease and infestation, the relationship is obvious; but even as recently as several months ago, when most of us were still reeling from the initial impact of the disaster, we simply did not have enough reliable information to establish the correlation.
"Um, I'm not going to go into the political and psychological arenas here, but I do want to point out the reasons why conclusive identification of the diseases as extraterrestrial was delayed until the early part of this year. Convincing our respective governments—and I do not mean this as criticism—that there was a very real presence on this planet was, under the circumstances, the hardest part of the job. We had very little hard evidence, and it was difficult to have our voices heard during the, ah, worst of the hysteria. We cannot afford to let confusion like that happen again!" She stopped herself. Apparently, she realized she was getting angry. She took a sip of water and looked at her notes. She seemed to do that a lot when she was dealing with an uncomfortable subject. Was that for herself or her audience? I wasn't sure. When she was ready, she looked out over the room again.
"I want to say something here. I want to deal with certain avenues of speculation. During the early days of the plagues, there were a number of accusations—on all sides—that they were a weapon of war. At that time, it was assumed that there was a human agency responsible. We know that not to be the case now. The devastation has touched all of us equally, and no nation on this planet has profited by the plagues. And, of course, now the biological evidence is also falling into place—so we must put our distrust and our suspicion behind us. Now! The situation is too urgent for us to have our energies divided."
She placed her hands on both sides of the podium. She looked around the room, as if she were looking into the eyes of each and every one of us in the auditorium. She said, "The accusation that the plagues are a weapon of war is not entirely accurate—because it's too shortsighted! They are actually a tool of ecological engineering. We as humans may be somewhat biased about the application of such a devastating tool, but as scientists we cannot help but admire the skill with which this particular tool was applied. Almost eighty percent of the members of the dominant species of this planet have been excised as neatly as a surgeon cutting out a cancer with a laser. If that is how they see us, then they should have no problem with the subsequent applications of—continuing with the same metaphor—chemotherapy. We shall see. But if that was their goal, then they have accomplished most of their objective in a very short time. Less than two years." She stopped and wiped her forehead with her handkerchief. She took another drink of water.
When she spoke again, her voice was lower, slower and steadier. The gravelly quality was muted somehow, and she seemed suddenly very serious. "We have been speaking of this as an ecological infestation, because we can't prove that it's anything more. We have specifically not called this an invasion, because we have not been able to find an invading force. We have no evidence of extraterrestrial landings, no sightings of ships, no evidence of advanced technology of any kind. If we are being invaded, then where are the invaders?
"For a while, we suspected that the large purple and red creatures that we have been calling Chtorrans were our alien visitors, but this theory is rapidly falling into disrepute, because we have not been able to prove that these creatures even have the potential for intelligence—let alone the capabilities necessary to mount such an invasion across the vast distances of space. We are assuming, of course, that this ecological infestation has as its source a planet in another star system—it could not possibly have originated on any of the planets in our own solar system. I refer you to Dr. Swale's analysis for the reasons why we have come to that position. So the question remains: where are the invaders?
"I'm actually going to answer that—in a way. But it's a circuitous route. You'll have to bear with me a bit, because in order to find out who the culprit is, we have to take a good long look at the evidence.
"When we look at the overall pattern—the stingflies, the night-stalkers, the red kudzu, the sea sludge, the bacteria that caused the plagues, even the, ah, Chtorrans themselves—we find that there is a pronounced tendency toward voraciousness, as if all of these life forms have evolved in a much more competitive ecology, not only surviving, but succeeding in that environment. Here on Earth, without their natural predators—all the checks and balances of a stable ecology—these life forms cannot help but run wild. We're seeing it happen all over the planet.
"We expect to find that none of these creatures are harmless to the Terran ecology—especially not the ones that look harmless. They're the ones that represent the biggest danger, because they're the ones we're most likely to underestimate. We have one hundred and fifty-four new species identified, and there are probably a lot more that we haven't yet discovered. And that's because we don't have the people. For all practical purposes, most of the world's ecological maintenance agencies have ceased to exist. And that leaves us particularly vulnerable to this kind of ecological infestation—twice over. Once because we don't know all of what's happening out there, and twice because even where we do have monitors in the field, we do not have the resources to respond. We need to rebuild those agencies—without delay! If we mobilize now, there is still the chance that we can create a strong response to the threat. If not, then the pressure on our ecology of those hundred and fifty-four various and voracious new species will surely shatter what remains of life as we know it on this planet.
"It is this simple: our ecology is under attack by a far more successful ecology. The home planet may be half a billion—I said billion—years older than the Earth—with all the corresponding advantages of extended evolution that implies for the member species of that planet's ecology. The implied age of the ecology and its host planet may also be a clue to why this infestation is occurring at all. The host planet may be wearing out. Or its sun may be going cold. What we are seeing may very well be an attempt by an intelligent species to—outlive the death of its home system.
"And—if we are correct about the age of the Chtorran ecology, that is also why we will not be able to use terrestrial microorganisms against the Chtorran life forms. If the Chtorran life forms that we have seen are the products of an extra umpteen million years of evolution, then that implies that they would also have the cumulative immunities against every mutation of every germ that has evolved on their home planet. And that suggests that they would therefore have a greater spectrum of resistance to unknown microorganisms. Our germs are going to be no threat to them, because to them, our ecology is simpler—much simpler. We are the great reptiles looking at the appearance of grass and blossoming flowers and therapsids in our ecology and wondering what the hell is happening to our world. We have no natural defenses here."
She leaned out across the podium as if to look into the face of every one of us in that auditorium. "If we accept this hypothesis—and I do not see how we can avoid it—then the motive of the initiating agency is no longer in question. There is only one possible interpretation of the situation: we are at war! A war unlike anything ever experienced or even conceived in the history of this planet!" She stopped herself, as if she were embarrassed at her own intensity. She covered it with a drink of water, just a sip, then continued. "The problem is that we have no evidence of the agency behind this invasion. It has to be there, but where is it? Again we come back to the question: where are the real Chtorrans?" Dr. Zymph let the question hang there in the air for a moment. She looked over her notes and rubbed the bridge of her thick nose between thumb and forefinger.
She looked up again, and when she spoke, it was like a burst of gunfire. "Actually, we might be asking the wrong question. We have to look at the situation from an invader's point of view. I refer you now to the Skotak-Alderson studies on how to colonize a planet. In those papers, of course, the authors were talking about Venus and Mars, but the general principles they laid down are extensible to any world.
"Briefly, Skotak and Alderson broke the colonization process down into sections. Part One is Terraforming and Phase One involves producing an atmosphere that Terran organisms can survive in. Phase Two begins with the introduction of selected life forms to create a favorable protoecology on the world to be colonized.
"Now, applying that to our own situation, obviously some intelligence somewhere is working its own Phase Two here on Earth. They are Chtorra-forming the planet, if you will.
"Just as we would need to establish grasslands to feed our cattle, cornfields to feed our chickens, forests to provide our paper and lumber and plastics, bees to pollinate the blossoms of our plants so we can have fruits and vegetables, so must our unknown Chtorran planners need to establish the equivalent support species necessary to the survival of their civilization. That is precisely what is happening now. And will continue to happen.
"Based on a weighted Skotak-Alderson simulation, the infestation of the Earth will occur in three, perhaps four, distinct stages. Each stage will see a specific level of species support established before the next level appears. In other words, they won't bring in the Chtorran equivalent of coyotes until the Chtorran rabbits are fat, and they won't bring in the Chtorran rabbits until the Chtorran pastures are green—Or in this case, purple—and they won't plant the pastures until the Chtorran earthworms have softened the ground. That puts us at a disadvantage, because we'll be seeing each species out of context, not knowing where each one fits in the larger pattern. It'll be as difficult as trying to extrapolate the rest of the symphony, when all you have is the sheet music for the tympanist and the third trombone.
"That's why we can't give you the hard answers yet. What facts we do have are still unconnected. We can only give you the larger pattern that all the facts point to. This infestation of the Earth is their way of clearing the land. It's the easiest way to deal with the local residents—clear them out before you move in. We're supposed to be long gone before the new tenants arrive. If you'll pardon an unpleasant metaphor, what we are experiencing is the Chtorran version of a slum clearance. A neighborhood improvement project—"
She pointed to the screen behind her. It lit up with slides of the night-stalker, the millipedes, the sea sludge, the red kudzu, the stingfly, the puffball creature, the pipe cleaner bug and a whole bunch of other things I didn't recognize. Dr. Zymph said, "—and these are the shock troops—the advance men for a highly competitive ecology; these are the bugs and beasties that are intended to soften up this planet for the rest of the ecology to follow. Let me say it again: the present infestation is only the first wave of a much larger and meaner infestation still to come. What comes next are the creatures that eat these!"
She bent to her notes for a moment, frowning, then looked up at us again. Her expression was grim. "Don't be misled by those who would minimize the situation. We are not going to find any easy controls for this or later infestations. We do not have the necessary competition on this planet. We human beings may not even be competitive enough, ruthless and vicious enough, to muster the necessary effort. I hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am." She paused a moment to let that sink in.
"We must recognize from the very beginning that our natural defenses are not going to work. Our only possible countermeasures will be developed by finding the weaknesses within the Chtorran ecology. We must discover the interrelationships of these creatures and sabotage them in any way we can. We must use this invading ecology against itself! We must start today! It will not be an easy task! It will require a massive mobilization—the complete and total mobilization of every human being on this planet! And we must begin it immediately!"
