We landed at the coordinates where the survey team had been, and there was no sign the survey team had ever been there◦— I mean, nothing: No portable buildings, no vehicle tracks or hover pressure damage, no litter. And no bodies. It was as if they simply hadn’t landed. All we saw was a long, rolling plain of what looked like some form of grass. It was very pretty, actually. It was like the universe’s biggest front lawn. It was very peaceful, at least until the worms came out of it.
Have any of you ever seen a blue whale? You’ve seen pictures at least. Imagine something of that size coming up out of the ground right underneath you. We felt a rumbling before they breached the surface◦— but not as much as you might expect◦— and then these huge things were all around us. I remember feeling the ground rumbling and then looking over to see one of my platoonmates fall. As she was trying to stand up, the ground lifted up under her. One of those worms had tunneled under her and had opened its mouth just as it was coming up, so about two or three meters of ground on every side of her was already in the thing’s mouth. She was reaching up as the mouth shut on her. I saw her arm and hand dangling out as the worm slid back into the ground, waving like a parody of Moby Dick.
I and some of my squadmates started running back for the landing craft when one of the worms surfaced behind us and literally jumped into the air to come down on where we were. My friend Alan Rosenthal was directly in front of me, so I shoved him forward as hard as I could. It worked, because the thing missed Alan. But it got me. It was like a big fleshy wall came down on top of my head, and then I was tumbling ass over head◦— excuse the language◦— in this thing’s mouth, along with about a ton of dirt. After a minute of this I felt the dirt clearing behind me. The worm was starting to swallow what was in its mouth, dragging me down its throat.
My Empee◦— that’s the rifle we use◦— was somewhere in the worm’s mouth with me, but I didn’t keep a grip on it and it was pitch black in there, so it was useless to me. I tried grabbing onto the side of the mouth to keep from sliding back but I had no traction. Finally I took the combat knife from my belt and jammed it into what I guessed was its lower jaw. That kept me from sliding long enough for me to get out my multi-purpose tool. I don’t know if any of you know about this; it’s a block of nanobots that can take the form of just about any sort of thing you need. It’s like the Swiss army knife of the gods. I ordered it into a barbed hook and jammed it in right next to the combat knife just as worm jostled the knife free. The knife slipped out of my hand and down the worm’s throat, and I hoped the worm would choke on it. No such luck, though.
I wasn’t in danger of being digested at that minute, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t in trouble. If the worm opened its mouth, there would be a new avalanche of dirt coming in on me, and that could knock me off my hook and down its throat. No matter what, every second I was in the worm was another second I was moving away from my platoonmates. If the worm went deep into the ground, even if I managed to kill it, I would be buried alive. So I had to kill the thing, and kill it fast. I had two grenades on me, so after I got as secure a grip on my hook as I could with my left hand, I activated the grenades and threw them behind me, down the worm’s gullet.
They didn’t go down as far as I hoped◦— I was struck in the foot with shrapnel as they detonated◦— but they did the job, because the worm’s mouth immediately started filling with blood, and the thing stopped moving forward and began twitching. After a few minutes of this the worm stopped moving altogether. I waited a few more minutes to make sure it really was dead, and then I endured the worst part of the whole ordeaclass="underline" I had to actually force myself down the worm’s throat to get my Empee. Because you don’t leave your rifle behind if you can help it.
KULKARNI:
How did you eventually get out of the creature’s mouth?
PERRY:
It involved a lot of digging. (laughter) But my experience explained why this world, which seemed so suitable for intelligent life, was in fact entirely clear of any species we’d met before. Any creatures who landed on its surface were turned into worm food in a matter of hours or even minutes. Those vast plains were the worm’s roaming grounds◦— and not only that, they seemed designed that way. Remember the “grass” I told you about? Within an hour of our worm attacks, that “grass” had completely covered where the worms had come out of the ground. Visually, it was like the attack had never happened. We did sonic tests◦— unmanned tests◦— and the ground underneath the plains was hardly packed at all, even hundreds of feet down. It was like topsoil. Which made it easy for the worms. It was like they were swimming in the earth. And these plains covered almost all of the landmass of the planet. Which our scientists said didn’t make sense, because the planet was tectonically active. It should have had mountains and rock formations like any other planet.
VILLAGER #3:
Could the worms have changed the entire planet to their liking?
PERRY:
See, that’s just it, isn’t it? Did the worms make the planet the way it is, or do the worms exist because the planet is the way it is? And if it’s the first of these, does that mean the worms did it intentionally, and that they’re intelligent? You don’t have to be an intelligent animal to completely change an ecosystem. Back on Earth, animals like sheep or goats could completely strip an area of vegetation, changing the character of the land. Now, they were managed by humans, which means somewhere along the line there was an intelligence at work. But deer, which were not domesticated, could do the same thing: by eating certain young plants, they’d help create forests with only a few plant species in them.
But even then, we’re talking a forest, or part of a grassland. Here, it’s an entire planet, and the ecosystem isn’t being damaged; it’s being managed. The more we looked at it, the more it seems like conscious engineering.
KULKARNI:
Perhaps someone should go back and try to talk to them.
PERRY:
Maybe someone should. Just not me. I’d hate to think what would happen if they carried grudges. Yes, ma’am.
VILLAGER #4:
Yes, Captain Perry, how would you respond if I told you that the current political structure of the Colonial Union was one of imperial colonialism and totalitarianism, and that you yourself represented the racist, colonial impulses of that system of control? (audible groans)
PERRY:
Nice to meet you, too.