Greenflies Read online

  “They were tool-users, like us, and they were far more technologically advanced than we are today. They developed teleportation technology and an array of self-replicating biological tools, such as the Greenflies, the Whaleships, the plasma cutters, and a race known as the Harvesters, whose functions include everything from refining ore to healing the other species. There were many other synthetic creatures, but those four are the only to survive today, according to Greenbeard. They were meant for asteroid mining and exploration of neighboring star systems to the creator’s home system. They happily did their jobs, the Whaleships finding asteroids, the Greenflies leaping across to them and blasting them apart with plasma weapons, and the Harvesters picking through the rubble and extracting and refining ore. They returned minerals in this way for some time, only to find on one return trip that their creators had destroyed themselves through war.

  “Synthetic as they were, they were obligatory creatures of habit. They continued to explore new systems and harvest mineral resources, returning them to a dead world. They could not evolve, as the reproduction, or more appropriately ‘construction,’ of their kind was governed by a series of fail-safes such as humans might include if we were to construct a race of self-replicating robots. Any change in gene sequences was rooted out, not just by a creature’s own body, but by the other sentient species. A mutant Whaleship would find itself culled by its Greenfly crew. A mutant Greenfly would be killed, and the biological apparatus on the Whaleship which constructed it would be sterilized. Harvesters could dig not just through rock, but through living things, monitoring for imperfections.

  “A list of explicit orders in their genes, the binary code found in the second nucleus of each cell, prevents them from using or even understanding simple tools. They are not permitted to alter their own genes or physiology. Their numbers are strictly regulated based upon the territory they mine, and their expansion is interrupted periodically because they are forced to return to the homeworld of a dead race. How can a race like this, barely even definable as a race, advance in any way?”

  The alien creator species vanished from the left display and was replaced with another slide show in series, that of the domesticated species of the Greenflies.

  “We may never know what the first domesticated species was. Maybe it was a survivor from their creators’ homeworld. But the Greenflies knew how to work with other animals. It made sense to them in a way that tool use never could. They possessed the tools to alter them, as well, in the form of the biological detectors used by the Greenflies to check for genetic anomalies in the other Greenfly species. Somehow they made the leap of inspiration to begin finding, taming, and changing alien species on living planets wherever they could find them. I suspect it was a Whaleship that made this leap; from Greenbeard’s stories, they appear more intelligent and flexible than the underclasses.

  “But, there were very few living worlds four billion years ago. If they were to expedite their technological advancement, they needed a more fertile universe. They began to seed every world they could find with bacteria. It took on some, and on others it did not. The net result, though, was the millions of life-bearing worlds in the galaxy we now have, nearly all of which with life based upon the same biochemical reactions as we ourselves possess.

  “But such a garden requires tending, and that is where the morality of the Greenflies comes into question. If life is left on a stable planet, the diversity of that life will eventually diminish. Those species that are ideally suited for the environment will become the only species present, even if there are other species with great potential for the Greenflies. So, it is in their best interest for the Greenflies to periodically cull the life on an inhabited planet or change the planetary conditions away from the comfort zone of the dominant species.”

  The images switched to an image of Earth on the right side and a picture of a plain interspersed by trees on the left. The Earth was different, the continents in a strange formation and the northern hemisphere dominated by cyclonic storm fronts. There was no trace of these storms in the image on the left, as the day was sunny and beautiful. It might have been a Summer day in rural Ohio, for all anyone could tell. Then, it became clear that the image was a memory, a memory from long ago.

  The view shifted as the past Greenbeard looked down to his plasma weapon. The back of the weapon showed a large, moving dot, a signature of a creature that the Whaleship had specifically requested. The viewpoint began to move rapidly, as Greenbeard bounded across the prairie, presumably on four legs. He approached the origin of the signal, a stand of trees which clearly cloaked some massive struggle. He bounded up to a tree, then hopped to another and another until he had a good view. The audience watching the display stared slack jawed.

  Three Greenflies, their weapons stuck to their backs, were clambering across a Tyrannosaurus Rex, their claws drawing blood but causing little damage. The Rex was snapping like mad, but it was simply not built to tackle animals as nimble and persistent as the Greenflies. With every awkward snapping of its jaws at the aliens, it looked like it was about to topple over. The audience knew how the conflict would end when the plasma weapon lined up with the viewpoint. Millions of years ago, Greenbeard had blown the left leg off of a Tyrannosaur, and he was alive to tell the tale today.

  “The first thing we learned was how close Steven Spielberg was, even in the color. As for the event itself, yes, it appears Greenflies hunted dinosaurs during the end of the Cretaceous. They were then responsible for the asteroid impact which finished off the dinosaurs. This planned mass extinction made the rise of mammals possible, and we would not be here without it.”

  “But sometimes mass extinctions occur without the influence of the Greenflies. When this occurs, it is important for the Greenflies to arrive quickly and salvage what sample species they can before the biosphere collapses. And then, likely, they would also have a hand in the survivors. For instance, for the past ten thousand years, biodiversity on Earth has been plummeting, and it is doing so now more than ever. That is why the Greenflies are here now, because humans have been raiding the carrot patch, so to speak. The Greenflies will save what samples they can, then do away with us to reset the biosphere for another cycle.

  “This is not the first time Greenflies have encountered an intelligent species, although it is Greenbeard’s first. Their cycle of destruction makes it difficult for intelligence to evolve anywhere, but when it is precocious enough to do so, it usually results in the arrival of Greenflies, and they expunge it as contrary to biodiversity. This is why no intelligent radio signals have ever been received. There is a formula called the Drake Equation which posits a method for calculating the likely number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. The final term of the equation is the duration which that intelligent civilization exists. Sadly, the Greenflies are the terminal solution to that equation, although I believe it is without malice or emotion.”

  There was a murmuring in the audience, particularly among the military personnel.

  “But there is an option which we have not before considered. Greenbeard himself is fairly old and has a savings of rations that will last him decades. The other Greenflies with past experience have simply stopped taking missions down to the earth’s surface as they are too hazardous. They are waiting up in the Trojan asteroids for the Whaleship to move to the next system. As such, the Whaleship has been forced to construct brand new Greenflies that have no existing credit. They have to work here, or they will die. That is why no Greenfly since Greenbeard has survived captivity. They… asphyxiate, without the metabolic gases provided by a continuous blood supply.

  “As most of you are aware, the Greenflies have two storage cavities in their body, one in the upper segment which normally houses the armor bugs, which burst to the surface and protect their host. The one below has always been empty, but its purpose, according to Greenbeard, is for a gas tank of sorts. It’s meant to house a long-term supply of blood and a pump to interface it to the circulatory
system for those instances when teleported blood is unavailable. It is within our power to synthesize artificial Greenfly blood and to build a device which will pump and regulate the blood supply.

  “Thus far, we have considered the Greenflies to be automatons or slaves controlled by a remote blood supply. Now, it is clear they are actually employees, living on the strictest of terms by their employer, the Whaleship. Hence, I advocate we bribe them.”

  Chapter 18: Holding Ground

  The war so far had been an evolution of strategies, of both predators and prey, with neither side certain on which side of the equation it stood. Initially, the rapid deployment of Greenfly forces had taken humanity aback, but it was not long before they had developed theories on where the Greenflies would appear. As such, armed forces were there to meet them at zoos in Australia and China. The Greenflies learned to avoid humanity except when confrontation was essential for their goals, and they began appearing in remote and rural areas to collect their samples. The American interceptor missiles and rapid deployment squads soon made that costly to the Greenflies as well. It became a struggle between lightning-fast raids and rapid interception. To offset the speed-of-light delay from Jupiter, the aliens created a rally point at the moon. To prevent the instantaneous reinforcements of their enemies, the humans learned to seed the clouds and set up particle swarms. Any attempt to teleport in would result in a release of energy to rival an atomic blast. There were a couple, but the Greenflies were less willing to sacrifice than mankind. They reached the eventual conclusion that the best way to deal with humanity was to take and hold ground, ground the humans would be hesitant to obliterate. Their teleporting aircraft flicked through the atmosphere, seeking targets of increased human habitation.

  An alien transport appeared over the water, at the maximum altitude allowed by its repulsion field. The detonation the previous year had not been forgotten, and it had resulted in a surplus of caution among the Greenfly pilots. Even without the risk of matter annihilation, there was an element of danger. The island chain nearby was a political ally of the human nation causing the Greenflies the greatest consternation. As such, it was equipped with the same automated interception technology as the Americans. There could be no doubt that the appearance of the transport had been detected by the humans. Within perhaps two minutes, air-to-ground missiles would pelt the area of ocean where the transport now hovered. The proverbial clock was ticking.

  The flank of the transport yawned open, and a single Greenfly rolled into the water. The transport promptly vanished, and the Greenfly dove deep with the assistance of its aquatic tail. When the missiles arrived, there would be nothing for them to destroy.

  This was not a typical mission nor a typical Greenfly. In addition to the tuna-like tail, the creature had a large hump on the back of its middle segment. It was actually a breed of the many-legged insects seldom used by the Greenflies, one which had been bred to grow a wormhole within its gut and to read signals from the skin on the back of the Greenfly which it resided. Somewhere, on the far side of Troy, near Jupiter, the comm-beetle’s counterpart was relaying a message to another Greenfly. Instantaneous communication was frowned upon by the Whaleship for reasons it chose not to share, but for this mission, it was willing to make an exception.

  The alien was also cloaked in a thick layer of armor bugs, clinging to it for dear life as it beat its way through the water. While normally the Greenfly would only release the bugs when under threat, this one anticipated a lengthy stay in the oxygen atmosphere of earth, in large part soaked in salt water. The armor bugs would provide some relief from the oxidation, though not much.

  In its forelimbs, it wielded the underwater tether weapon its fellows had used to hunt the giant squid. In its mid-limbs, it held a plasma weapon for later use, and in its hind limbs, it held a pair of insectoids, much like the one on its back. Like that one, these were capable of instantaneous communication with counterparts on the Whaleship, but these creatures also possessed great compound eyes, with optical characteristics derived from several species from several worlds. Beneath the waves, the Greenfly could sense the insectoids’ sending out waves of sound as well, a form of sonar. The Greenflies and the Whaleship doubted the humans had the capacity to detect the noise, but they had been surprised before. This particular Greenfly was more concerned that the low frequency noise would summon the ancient enemy of the Greenfly, the chondrychthians. Though they had changed little in the millennia since the Greenflies had last been to this world, they were still a threat to every Greenfly aquatic mission. It was a sad coincidence of nature that the electrical impulses given up by the Greenflies’ teleportation organs triggered a feeding response in sharks. The Greenfly operative hastened his progress towards shore.

  Feeling a safe distance from the insertion point, the alien felt safe to breach the surface. The night was free of clouds, and, this far from land, the delicately twinkling stars were many. The Greenfly marveled at the sight, for while he had seen far more stars standing on the outer surface of the Whaleship, seeing them through an atmosphere added a whole new element to the experience. Off to the west, the stars faded into the glare of a human habitat. Even miles distant out to sea, the spires could be seen, providing their own blinking, colored stars on the horizon. His target sighted, the Greenfly descended so that only his eyes breached the surface, and he made a beeline.

  The Greenfly felt a dim rumble through the pylae on its skin, no doubt the explosion from human interceptor missiles at the insertion point. The Greenfly felt a sense of satisfaction that it had evaded the primary defense of the continually irritating human species.

  The human city was of great size with an expansive seaport. It had been selected, as with a half dozen others across the globe, based on its population and the ease with which a single agent might infiltrate. The Greenfly’s tuna-like tail swept back and forth, propelling it into the harbor. Had it any chemical sensation such as the terrestrial senses of taste or smell, it would have sensed the chemistry of the water changing as it moved towards civilization. As it was, it could feel the temperature of the water creep upward, and it felt numerous small hums and thrums of smaller boats. While it possessed no sense of hearing per se, its sensitive touch helped it in sensing approaching vehicles that it could not immediately see. When it sensed something close, it would dive down immediately, before even taking the time to direct its eyes in the right direction.

  The sea floor was littered with garbage from the human city, from bits of plastic to intact cars. The Greenfly had little idea what to make of any of it, save that it was an indicator that it was approaching the port. It now spent the entirety of its time at depth with only the scant light filtering from the surface to guide it. Now and again, it saw oval shapes on the surface, the portion of ships beneath the waterline. One such vessel approached the size of a Whaleship, and the Greenfly half-expected to see others of its kind scuttling across the surface, patching holes and engaging in conversation.

  The pier appeared before it as forest of vertical pilings stretching as far as its vision would permit. Piled around it were bicycles, aluminum cans, and a thousand other things which the Greenfly could not understand. It cruised in between the pilings, following them like a road to its source. When it reached it, it was not disappointed.

  Beneath the water line was a pipe, large enough for the Greenfly to pass, but covered by a metal cage. The Greenfly operative approached, discarding the tether-weapon and prying at the cage with its claws. The plasma weapon could not be fired underwater, and the Greenfly itself had no concept of how to use a lever, so if its raw strength could not open the cage, it very simply would not be opened. In the end, it had to deposit all of its equipment on the sea floor to pull with three arms while planting three others. The bolts gave way with a loud pop and a dance of rust in the water. The Greenfly jettisoned its tail, retrieved its plasma cannon and sensor beetles, and clambered into the pipeline.

  It crept through the pipeline rapidly, its si
x limbs perfectly designed for maneuvering in a small tube. In time, it found itself climbing above the waterline into a storm drainage system. Here, the tunnel widened into a box, with walkways on either side of a central ditch, where the water flowed with some current. The tunnel here was still narrow, but the Greenfly chose to test it with the sensor beetles.

  It moved up one of the walls, its hands adhering firmly despite the layer of slime, and it planted one beetle on the surface. It bounded across the small tunnel to the opposite wall and planted the other beetle there. The two beetles began adjusting their position, little red lights emerging from their complex eyes and striking the opposite walls. They maneuvered until the beams struck each other in a different region of the eyes. The beetles immediately turned a shade of blue, indicative that the area did not meet the minimum dimension requirements.