The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service

by Stephen Benjamin

  She took a deep breath. “I think that the colonization of this northern continent was a deliberate and conscious act. That the entity knew it had filled the available ecosystem on Astrasia and looked to continue its spread north.”

  “Amazing,” Fur said.

  I felt the tension drain out of her.

  “I never had incontrovertible proof of this theory,” she said. “Just suggestions of a preexisting flora in a few places. Others wrote that off.”

  Fur asked, “But how did the...thing, whatever you want to call it, move itself?”

  She stared at him and said, “I believe it grew rafts.”

  It grew rafts? I had trouble getting my mind around that. “A sentient ecosystem, capable of a decision to spread to another landmass. Amazing is right.”

  “Dr. Zeller, you said your evidence is not conclusive,” Fur said, “and the rest of the Ulmians aren’t inclined to believe you.”

  “But you have given me hope that I can prove this.” Her voice projected that hope.

  Fur turned to me. “Are you willing to go out on a limb based on your talent, Cy? Remember what happened on Cennesari. I don’t think even Levi truly believes you have such power. He dismisses your cenoxen claims as prevarication.”

  “I’m not sure how far to take this.” My heart still ached over the cenoxen. “I certainly didn’t receive anything that was conscious thought from the jungle, nothing that communicated with me. But there is definitely something there.” I shook my head in frustration. “Anyway, I don’t see how this applies to the main problem of the hydras, which is confined to this continent. The behavior seems to be spreading, which suggests something infectious, but we’ve come up with zip.”

  Fur stood and stared out the window. Neither Zeller nor I interrupted his thought train. I, too, puzzled over what our next step might be.

  Fur whipped around, his mouth open in an O.

  “What?” I said. His excitement was contagious.

  He leaned toward Zeller and me. “Try this on. Human settlements and agriculture are only significant on this continent. Might the entity be responding to specific human activities?”

  I sat back, perplexed. “What do you mean? They said they were doing nothing different to trigger this.” I turned to Zeller. “Right?”

  She nodded.

  “We saw that the human intrusions on the southern continent were small outposts,” Fur said. “Here, with each passing year, the settlers clear more and more jungle for agriculture and towns. Does the jungle sense this? Could it be responding with its only defense mechanism?”

  Now my mouth hung open. “You think?”

  “It makes sense. Terran plants have defense mechanisms, from toxic chemicals, to mechanical deterrents like thorns, to mimicry and camouflage. Those developed in an evolutionary fashion for each plant. And it’s not just evolutionary. Even individual plants can respond to being munched on by insects and produce deterrent chemicals. Why would this jungle not have its responses to threats, especially if it has some degree of sentience?”

  “I never thought about such a reason,” Zeller said.

  “But why now?” I asked. “Why has it taken hundreds of years to respond? Why didn’t it happen soon after humans got here and started their settlements?”

  “What has changed that wasn’t the case even twenty years ago,” Fur asked.

  “I can evaluate changes that relate directly to the jungle,” Zeller replied. “Changes in agricultural practices and engineering would be in the records.”

  “Let’s follow up on that,” I said.

  ***

  Zeller, Fur, and I pored over the data sheets we had collected. A map of the northern continent laid out all the settlements, and industrial and agricultural areas. A second map pinpointed all known instances of hydra attacks on humans. These, of course, clustered around human-occupied regions.

  Zeller said, “Something is missing.”

  I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know whether there are deranged hydras away from the human-occupied regions. If this is specific aggression directed at humans, rather than random attacks, there shouldn’t be affected hydras out in the wilderness, like there weren’t any on Astrasia.”

  “Good point,” Fur said. “The other thing we don’t know is whether there have been instances of human-directed aggression from the rest of the floral community. Have any of the other dangerous plants responded in a similar manner?”

  I looked at Zeller. “That would give credence to your contention that this is a coordinated, intelligent entity, wouldn’t it?”

  “Perhaps.” Her caution was perceptible. I could sense her fear of ridicule, but when we looked at the map overlays on the computer screen, she became excited. “Look. There’s no question. All the activity is around the agricultural sections. Surveys have shown no aberrant hydra activity away from those. Furthermore, there have been increased attacks on humans from other plants. These are far fewer than the hydras and have been ignored in the uproar over the bigger creatures. They are also clustered around human agricultural areas, but not around any technical facilities without agriculture.”

  Zeller looked at me. “With this information, I’m willing to stick my neck out and go public. At the least, I think that it’s hard to refute that this is a defense mechanism of the jungle. It still does not explain why it has taken this long for the entity to respond, or what we can do to stop the attacks, short of destroying the entire jungle and creating a wasteland.”

  “Let’s lay this out to the community and then we can brainstorm about the next step,” I said.

  “Agreed. And thank you,” Zeller added. Then she smiled. “I don’t think we need to invoke our attempts at communication with the jungle. To just prove a coordinated effort will be enough.”

  I nodded, relieved.

  ***

  Military brass, politicians, and people representing scientific, medical, agricultural, and industrial interests filled the room large room. Fur and I sat on a stage and Zeller stood behind a podium and explained our theory. The responses ranged from incredulous to ecstatic. Several scientific types jabbered about the possibility that another intelligence inhabited their planet; others were resistant to the concept. A couple of beefy types in coveralls demanded that the military destroy the jungle to protect their farms and families. The room quieted when a military official with lots of stars on his hat stepped to the podium.

  “Atten-shun.” His voice boomed over the loudspeakers. His rather expansive abdomen made it difficult for him to bend over the microphone. In frustration, he wrenched it off its stand. “These discoveries put a new light on what has occurred. We can’t decide what to do until we have made a full study, looked at strategic options, and determined the necessary course of action. Be assured you that your government will consider the good of all of Ulm. If you have concerns, please direct them to Councilman Richter here in Stannispoort. The High Command will issue a directive immediately on completion of its deliberations. Thank you.”

  He stood down from the podium and swept out of the room, flanked by a couple of soldiers bearing military lasers. I looked at Fur and shrugged. That performance gave me as much comfort as crawling into bed with a hydra.

  Petor sidled over to me afterwards and said, “That is my wife’s, um, father.”

  Ah. A bit more of Petor’s background revealed. That’s why the brass at the hydra necropsy had listened to him.

  Fur and I strolled back to our quarters and talked.

  “I’m not encouraged by the generalissimo in there. His kind of mentality is more likely to blast opposition than try to solve the problem.” I saw too many similarities with the Test-Lit government.

  “Can’t argue with you on that,” Fur said. “I hope there’s someone in those ‘deliberations’ that recognizes the significance of the sentience in the jungle. There will be more than those few farmers who will want a ‘Final Solution.’”

  I didn�
�t respond. No Jew anywhere in the galaxy would ever forget the twentieth century’s Nazi Germany and the Final Solution, its plan for the systematic genocide of our people that ended in the Holocaust. The Hunter episode on Cennesari had sensitized me to that even more than usual.

  I was silent through dinner, despite Fur’s attempts to draw me out, and he gave up. I could not allow any government to destroy a sentient species, plant or otherwise. We had to do something.

  ***

  A week later, we had accomplished nothing. We had gone over our data again and again, but could not see how to connect the attacks, other than our theory that the jungle protected itself.

  The sentiment for wiping the continent clean of the native flora was overwhelming. Some pled for a lesser option, creation of a “kill zone” of up to fifty kilometers around every settlement. While not genocide per se, it was still murder of millions of the individuals that made up the whole of Ulm’s native intelligence.

  Fur and I argued in support of Dr. Zeller and a bloc of Ulmians who wanted to spare the Ulmian sentience. To my great surprise, we had an unexpected ally: Belinka Steckel. Perhaps she felt obligated to me in some way for the debacle with Punkums, but she interceded and pressured her father. I imagined the form that pressure might take and would not want to be the general. This helped, and they adopted a “kill zone” approach to begin with. Broader destruction was still under consideration, but tabled for now.

  Acid rose to my throat as I watched military drones sweep over the jungle around the settlement we inhabited. A red cloud of defoliant resembling a blood bath submerged the spectacular colors of the foliage. I turned away, determined that I would not give up.

  ***

  Fur was ready for bed when I burst into his quarters. We had opted to sleep in the GCVS after my hydra incident.

  “Get dressed.”

  “What for?”

  “Come on. Be quick.”

  Fur pulled on clothing and shoes and followed me.

  “The tissue samples, I want you to look at them.”

  “We’ve been over those data a dozen times. There’s nothing that explains the change in the hydras. Everything looks the same in all of them.”

  “Not quite.” I waved my hand. “Just wait.”

  Fur shrugged and gave me a look that promised revenge if I had ruined his sleep for nothing.

  In the lab I said, “Look at the trace mineral readouts for the different groups of hydras.”

  He fixed me with a steely glare, on the verge of losing his temper. “We’ve done this already.”

  “Humor me. Just look.”

  He did. “So? It’s the same in all the groups.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “Shit. Do you mean the fact that the hydras here on the northern continent are marginally lower in some of the trace elements? That is not statistically significant. We agreed on that already. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Think about it. I agree it’s not statistically significant, but let’s forget statistics and think biologically significant. What do crops do when grown on the same fields repeatedly? They deplete the soil of minerals and nutrients. Farmers replace the nutrients, the carbon and nitrogen. Sometimes they worry about the trace minerals, but often they don’t. Micronutrients like boron, molybdenum, cobalt, and nickel are just as critical as carbon and nitrogen.”

  “We looked at those. There’s just not enough difference there to be important.” He rubbed his hands across his eyes. “Is this going anywhere new? I’m exhausted.”

  “Yeah, I’m going somewhere new. Look at this.” I handed him a new sheet.

  His eyes flew open. His fatigue melted away.

  “Good lord. How did you—?”

  “I don’t know how we missed this for so long. I couldn’t get these trace elements out of my mind, even though we agreed there was no difference. Then it hit me that some elements would be below detection levels of our instruments in all of the hydras, normal and abnormal.”

  “So, if there were differences, we would never see them,” he continued.

  “Right. But if I used radioactive tracers, we should be able to detect differences, no matter how small.” I held out my open hand toward the data sheet.

  ***

  I explained to a group of scientists, including Anna Zeller. She beamed with my news.

  “The trace elements that are depleted by farming have affected the health of the plants in the surrounding jungle. Although we saw negligible differences between the hydras here and on Astrasia, we couldn’t pick up trace amounts of elements like the rare earths cerium and lanthanum. They’re below the detection limit of our equipment. But they’re important even to Terran plant growth.”

  “Then how did you evaluate that?” a short, balding agronomist asked.

  “You know that many elements have a tiny fraction that is radioactive. Carbon is a well-known example. We use the amount of radioactive carbon to date archeological specimens. The amount of decay tells us how long it has been since integration of the chemical into the organism. I used the same concept. Both cerium and lanthanum have radioactive isotopes, so I looked for those. We can detect minute amounts that way. And we found what you see.”

  “So there’s a difference in cerium and lanthanum levels in the northern and southern hydras. So what?” This came from a thin crops specialist. “I can’t see how this would cause the beasts to attack people and animals. Even if there is rudimentary intelligence, and I wonder about that.” He sent a belligerent glance toward Zeller. “It wouldn’t be enough to direct those things to attack specific targets.”

  I responded without rancor to his contentiousness. “I agree with you that any normal plant defense mechanism would be pretty diffuse, but there’s a very good reason for the attacks on humans and our animals. Our tissues contain the very trace elements depleted in the jungle, including the rare earths like cerium and lanthanum. Our studies of the hydras show that they have very sensitive chemoreceptors. I think the attacks are because the hydras sense that they can get the needed elements from mammalian tissues. That also explains why the hydras become sessile and die after consuming mammalian tissue. It has nothing to do with toxicity of mammalian tissues to them. The hydras die and decompose on a signal from the jungle, so the critical elements get back into the soil.”

  This pronouncement caused quite a stir.

  A man in back called out, “Why did it take so long for this to happen? We’ve been farming here for hundreds of years.”

  Zeller answered. “Remember we are dealing with plants here, not animals. My guess is that the jungle perceived this for decades before it could conceive and implement a plan. Then, even that might take decades to bring about. The jungle may be sentient, but its mind is not centralized. It is likely distributed throughout the entire ecology.”

  I added, “More important, if the response of the jungle is to a depletion of such elements in the soil, we can reverse that. By being careful to replenish farmlands, you can live in peace with your neighbors.” I sent a lidded glare around the table. “This creature has as much right to life as you do. Maybe more on this planet.”

  Zeller broke in before I could antagonize my audience any more. I tended to be good at that.

  “Dr. Berger, Mr. Cohen, what you have done is nothing short of amazing, and we can’t thank you enough. For now, what we need to do is test your hypothesis. That shouldn’t be difficult. We can seed a trial area as you suggest. The response of the hydras and other plants should give us our answer.”

  ***

  Our hypothesis proved correct. When trace elements, particularly the rare earths cerium, lanthanum, and praseodymium, were added back to the farmlands bordering the jungle, the hydras dropped back to their normal behavior, and the attacks stopped. I wished there were some way to communicate with the jungle entity, but maybe that would come with time. I knew that Anna Zeller would never give up on that. She now stood at the top of the scientific hierarchy on Ulm. She deserve
d it. Without her insights, we would never have solved the mystery of the hydras.

  I took the time to get a message off to Roxanne and my folks, but I started to worry a bit since I had not heard from mom and dad for a while. That concern stuck with me as we prepared to depart Ulm.

  We were the guests-of-honor at a huge celebration. I was annoyed no small amount that Levi thrust himself into the midst of the congratulatory events. He had spent the majority of his time holed up in GCVS, afraid of the hydras and anything that remotely resembled a daisy. I made a mental note to present him with a Venus flytrap at some time in the future.

  Other than that, he had gone off and done his spy thing. There were no Jews to harass on Ulm, but he did his best with the military. Part way through the evening, I noticed that he was face-to-face with one of the generals. Both were red-faced and animated. I moved over to where I saw Steckel and pulled him aside.

  I motioned to Levi and the general. “What in hell is going on over there?”

  He laughed. “Your Mr. Schvartz is quite a, um, character. I have trouble believing that he is a veterinary assistant.”

  I had to laugh, myself. “Pretty obvious, eh? He’s more of a watchdog, sicced on us by our government at home.” I gave Steckel a short version of Dovid’s World and its problems.

  Steckel nodded. “His intrusions into military matters here on Ulm have not been received well. His bull-in-a-china shop approach to military intelligence has rather, um, angered a number of the Ulm brass.”

  So be it, I thought. While I had no love for either side in that conflict, such a well-developed military might be useful in opposing the Test-Lits. Perhaps a few words with Petor and Belinka might be in order.

  I found a chair to rest my bad leg, and listened to overblown politicians and military types praise Zeller and the GCVS crew. I reflected I would be happier if one of their scientists would come up with an antihistamine that worked against the allergic effects of the damn hydra toxin as I scratched at the ankle I had propped on my knee.

  CHAPTER 18

  Our final scheduled contract planet, a small agricultural world where we supplied routine veterinary services, was a welcome departure from our previous experiences. Nothing weird, thank God. I did get a message from Roxanne that brightened the stop even further, but the lack of contact from my parents continued to worry me. Approaching Levi about that would not help much; I did not trust him to give me an honest answer. I broached the subject with Fur. It bothered him, too, but he had no better suggestion than to give it some time.