The incredible gravitational forces tore at our continents, ripping them apart as if they were nothing but tissue-paper. Our sea floor and dry land were pockmarked by countless volcanic eruptions.” The girl paused in her narrative, only to pick it up with a flutter of her big eyes. “Now that it had encircled our equator, the Devourer stopped, perfectly matching our planet in its orbit around our Sun. Our world was right in its maw.
“When the plunder of a world commences, countless cables thousands of miles long are lowered from the Devourer’s inside wall to the planet’s surface below. An entire world is trapped, like a fly in the web of a cosmic spider. Giant transport modules are then sent back and forth between planet and Devourer, taking with them the planet’s oceans and atmosphere. As they shuttle to and fro, other titanic machines begin to drill deep into the planet’s crust, frenziedly extracting minerals to satisfy the Devourer’s hunger.” The girl again paused, her eyes staring intensely into the distance. She continued as abruptly as she had stopped. “Devourer and planet cancel out each other’s gravity, creating a low-gravity zone between this tire-like entity and the planet. This zone makes it that much easier to bring the planet’s resources to the Devourer. The epic plunder is extremely efficient.
Expressed in Earth time, the Devourer only needs to chew on a world for a century or so. After it is done, all of the planet’s water and atmosphere will have been picked to nothing. As the Devourer ravages, its gravity will also come to deform the planet, slowly stretching it along its equator. In the end, it will become…” the girl paused a third time, this time struggling for words rather than effect, “how would you call it? Yes, discus-shaped. The Devourer, having sucked the planet completely dry, will move on, spitting out the planet. When it leaves, the planet will return to its round shape. As it reforms, the entire world will suffer an ultimate global catastrophe; its surface coming to resemble the molten sea of magma that heralded its birth many billion years ago. Much like then, no trace of life will remain in this inferno.”
“How far is the Devourer from our solar system?” the Captain immediately asked as she finished.
“It is just behind me!” she warned urgently. “In your reckoning, it will arrive in a mere century! Alert! The Devourer approaches! The Devourer approaches!”
CHAPTER 2
Emissary Fangs
Just as the debate over the crystal’s credibility began to rage in earnest, the first small Devourer ship entered the solar system. It was heading straight toward Earth.
The first contact was again initiated by the space patrol led by the Captain. The mood of this contact could not have been more different than the last and mood was by far not the only contrast. The exquisitely-wrought structure of the Eridanus Crystal bore all the hallmarks of the ethereal technology of a delicate civilization. The Devourer’s ship represented the polar opposite. Its exterior appeared exceedingly crude and ungainly, somewhat like a frying pan that had spent the better part of a century forgotten in the wilderness. It immediately reminded onlookers of a giant steampunk machine.
The envoy of the Devourer Empire was his vehicle’s equal, a massive, ungraceful lizard covered in huge slabs of scale. Erect, he stood nearly 30 feet tall. He introduced himself as “Faingsh,” but his appearance and later behavior quickly led to him being called “Fangs” instead.
When Fangs landed before the United Nation’s Building, his craft’s engines blasted a large crater, the splattering concrete leaving the surrounding buildings scarred and battered. As the alien emissary’s massive size made entry into the Assembly Hall impossible, the world’s heads of state had gathered on the United Nations Plaza in front of the UN Building to meet him. Some among them now covered their faces with bloody handkerchiefs, staunching foreheads gashed open by flying glass and concrete.
The ground shook with every step Fangs took toward them and when the alien spoke, his voice roared. It was a sound like the screaming horns of a dozen train engines and it left the hair standing on end of all who heard it. Fangs spoke through an unwieldy translator hanging around his neck. The device repeated his words back in English; he, too, had learned the language in transit. The rough male voice his translator produced, despite being much less in volume than Fangs’ real voice, nonetheless made his listeners’ flesh creep.
“Ha! Ha! You white and tender worms, you fascinating little worms,” Fangs jovially began.
All around people covered their ears until the thunderous roar had ended and only removed their hands slightly to hear the translation.
“You and I will live together for a century and I believe that we shall come to like each other,” Fangs continued.
“Your honor, you must know that we are very concerned as to the purpose of your great mother ship’s arrival in our solar system!” the Secretary General stated, raising his head to address Fangs. Even though he was shouting at the top of his lungs, he still managed to sound no louder than a mosquito’s buzz.
Fangs adopted a human-like posture, raising himself on his hind legs. As he shifted his weight, the Earth trembled. “The great Devourer Empire will consume the Earth so that it may continue its epic journey!” he proclaimed. “This is inevitable!”
“What, then, of humanity?” the Secretary General asked, his voice quivering ever so slightly.
“That is something I will assuredly determine this very day,” Fangs replied.
In the pause that followed, the heads of state exchanged meaningful glances. The Secretary General finally nodded and said, “This definitely requires that we enter into private consultations with one another.”
Fangs shook his massive head, interrupting before they could speak further. “It is a very simple matter; I must merely have a taste…”
And with that, his giant claw reached into the gathered crowd and snatched up a European head of state. He gracefully tossed the man, a throw of 20-odd feet, straight into his mouth. Then he carefully began to chew. From the first crunch to last, his victim remained completely mute; it was impossible to tell whether it was dignity or terror that stayed his screams.
In the terrible moments that followed, the only sound was that of the man’s skeleton snapping and cracking between Fangs’ giant, dagger-like teeth. After about half a minute, Fangs spat out the man’s suit and shoes, much as a human might spit out watermelon seeds. Even though the clothes were covered in oozing blood, they remained horrifyingly intact.
All the world seemed to have fallen completely silent, a deathly quiet seeming to be without beginning or end; without end, that is, until a human voice broke it.
“How, sir, could you just pick him up and eat him?” the Captain asked as he stood amongst the crowd.
Fangs walked toward him with colossal, thundering steps. The crowd scattered in his wake. He stood before the Captain and lowered his gaze of pitch black, basketball-sized eyes until he was staring right at him. He asked, “I shouldn’t have?”
“Sir, how could you have known that you can eat him?” the Captain asked flatly. “From a biochemical perspective it is almost impossible that a being from such a distant world should be edible.”
Fangs nodded, his large maw almost seeming to grin. “I have had my eye on you. You watched me with cool detachment, lost in thought. What is it that you were contemplating?”
The Captain returned his smile and replied, “Sir, you breathe our air and speak using sound waves. You have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. You have four limbs arranged along a bilateral symmetry…” He let his thought drift off into silence.