I looked around at the various windows. No one commented. With a sigh, I checked my agenda for the next discussion item.
* * *
“You show a lot more patience than Riker ever did.” Colonel Butterworth raised a glass of Jameson toward me.
“Thanks, Colonel. I think. We Bobs are definitely different as individuals.
I wonder why they never picked up on that back on Earth, when they were working on the whole replicant thing.”
Butterworth shrugged. Science-y stuff like that didn’t interest him, except to the extent it affected his job.
He poked at a pile of paper on his desk. “This native vine that I mentioned before is turning into a significant problem. The level of invasiveness puts anything from Earth to shame, except possibly bamboo. If we don’t get ahead of it, we might end up expending all our energy just beating it back.”
“Hmm, the native ecosystem has the home court advantage, unfortunately.
Doesn’t it serve as food for any native species?”
“As far as my scientists can tell, it contains a toxin of some kind that the native browsers find disagreeable. Even the brontos won’t eat it, and they are the un-pickiest herbivores I’ve ever seen.”
I laughed. The brontos would eat almost anything that provided net calories. They would eat all the leaves from a tree, then the twigs, then the bark from the main trunk and branches. What they left behind looked very sad. Fortunately, Vulcan trees could survive having their bark stripped.
The brontos had even started munching on the fence, when they could get close enough. A couple of strings of electrified wire had nipped that habit before it could catch on.
“How does it affect people?”
Butterworth shook his head. “The vine is not edible as such. However, the toxin doesn’t seem particularly effective against Terran biology. As soon as we have some livestock, we’ll see if they’ll eat it.”
I nodded silently. Colonizing an alien planet, as with everything else, was more complicated than TV and movies let on. Clearing the land and building houses was just the beginning. We had neither the resources nor the desire to commit planetary ecological genocide, and doing so would doom the colony anyway. But learning to live here was going to be a case of mutual accommodation.
Fortunately, so far no alien diseases had found humans compatible. I wasn’t really surprised. Even Terran viruses were generally specialized for a specific species or lifestyle. Eventually something would make the jump, but by then we would hopefully be ready for it.
The colonel brought up a few more minor items, then we signed off. So far so good, but my movie-conditioned mind was still waiting for the inevitable disaster.
9. Something is Out There
Bob
September 2169
Delta Eridani
Marvin popped in and started to speak several times, without success. I couldn’t identify the expression on his face, but it reminded me of a fish that had just eaten a lemon. Something was definitely up.
I’d been going over the autofactory schedule with Guppy. I turned back to him. “It doesn’t look like there are any surprises. Make the changes I’ve listed, and let me know if anything goes off-schedule.”
[Aye]. Guppy blinked huge fish eyes once and disappeared.
Marvin was still doing a pretty good imitation of a fish himself. I grinned at him. “Come on, Marv, spit it out. You know you wanna…”
He took a deep breath. “Something, and by ‘something’ I mean damned if I know what, hunted the Deltans almost to extinction at their original location.”
“Uh, say what?”
“I found a number of disarticulated Deltan remains. In different places, so it wasn’t just a one-time thing. The damage was not indicative of gorilloids.
We’ve seen their work. They’re lazy. They strip the meat, not even thoroughly, then go back for a new victim. Whatever this was, it did the full workup. And chew marks on the bones indicate something much bigger than a gorilloid.”
I sat back and rubbed my chin in thought for a moment. “So there’s another apex predator out there. Great. I may have to break out the exploration drones and put them on a kilometer-by-kilometer survey.”
“I think that would be a good idea, buddy. And if we have the printer cycles to spare, maybe print up a few more sets of drones.”
“Of course. Because screwing with the autofactory schedule is never a problem.” I stood up, stretched, and wandered to the end of the library, gazing at nothing. After a moment’s thought, I pulled up the files from my
initial exploration of Delta Eridani 4. I knew that my survey had been less than thorough. But I wasn’t a professional exobiologist, assuming such a job had ever even existed. And once I’d found the Deltans, everything else had taken a back seat.
I replaced the library bookshelves with a blank wall and spread the images of the fauna I’d catalogued across its length. Pacing along the collage of images, I tried to imagine any of them able to take out a full-grown Deltan.
Marvin materialized a La-Z-Boy and settled in with a coffee. Spike immediately assumed an invitation and hopped up to settle in his lap.
The collage offered no inspiration. The leopard analogues and the gorilloids were really the only animals I’d encountered that would prey on Deltans, and they just didn’t fill the bill.
I waved a hand and killed the collage. In frustration, I cancelled the room VR and activated my Deltan village VR. Marvin jerked in surprise, and Spike leaped up and fled. I felt a moment’s guilt for not warning him.
Marvin gave me the Spock eyebrow, and I answered with an apologetic grimace, then turned and started walking through the village. The recording was incredibly detailed, but still just a recording—no interaction was possible. I wished for the millionth time that I could interact with the Deltans through something a little more immediate than a floating mechanical football.
Finally, I turned back to Marvin, who had refused to give up his La-Z-Boy. He was reclining, drinking a coffee, right in the middle of a group of Deltans who were skinning a pigoid. I laughed and he grinned back.
“Okay, Marvin. Let’s get going on that search. Guppy?”
Guppy popped into existence. [You rang?]
Cute. I suspected that Marvin was feeding lines to Guppy just to bug me.
“Printer schedule change, Guppy. Print up four more complete squads of exploration drones. Looks like we’re going snipe hunting.”
Guppy’s huge fish eyes blinked. [This will result in another delay to the armaments project. I remind you that you have assigned that project high priority]
“That’s fine. I think we’re ahead of the curve with the gorilloids.
Attempted attacks are down to almost zero. We’ve got enough spare busters to bash their heads if they try any kind of large-scale attack.”
Guppy nodded and disappeared.
Marvin stood up and waved the chair away. “I’ll get started on the full survey as soon as they’re ready. Meanwhile, I’ll map out some search strategies.”
We gave each other a wave and he disappeared. I closed the village VR
and brought back my library.
10. Genocide
Mario
November 2176
Zeta Tucanae
It took seven years plus change to get from Beta Hydri to Zeta Tucanae, although less than three years ship’s time. I spent almost the entire voyage going over the records from Beta Hydri 4. I didn’t want to believe that someone could have done that. I wanted so much for it to be a natural disaster of some kind.