Leo Frankowski

closer.

Chapter Nine
    JUNE 20, 2003
     
    M AINTENANCE of a proper
resource allocation scheme will require a continuously updated local
census of the humans and other bioforms under our jurisdiction.
    Local
ganglia are therefore instructed to inform me of all human activities within
their assigned areas.
    —Central Coordination Unit
     
    “I’m sorry that
it had to be you, George,” General Powers said. “You were right in doing
what you did, and it certainly wasn’t your fault that the bomber crashed. But political realities force me to
relieve you of your command.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Officially, our position is that you
went insane be cause of the death of your
family some years ago. You will be assigned to a psychiatric ward under
sedation for about a month. By that time we
should have a final solution to this
bioengineering problem, and your name can be cleared,” Powers said.
    “A month or so in the funny farm
won’t kill me, sir.”
    “No point in that. I said
‘officially.’ Actually, I’d just like you to
go away for a while. Take a vacation some where. You’ll know when you
should come back.”
    “Thank you,
sir.”
    “And have a good time.”
    Hastings cut himself a set of orders
assigning himself to the 315th
Fighter-Bomber Squadron at Westover Field, Massachusetts. Then he cut a
second set reassign ing himself, his plane,
and one atomic bomb to the Naval Testing
Lab in San Diego.
    Eight hours after
leaving General Powers’ office, Hastings was flying his F-38 Penetrator at
forty thousand feet over the Utah desert. Death Valley was thirty minutes away.
    “Like the man
said, if you want something done right, you’d better do it yourself,” Hastings
said aloud to himself.
    Directly below him,
a single mindless larva was sinking its solid diamond teeth into a contact pin of an electrical
connector. This connector was mounted directly to the solid-fuel rocket that powered the F-38’s ejection seat. The contact tasted bad, like gold, so the
larva crawled to the next pin to see if it was aluminum. In the process, its aluminum body touched both contacts
simul taneously and the resulting electrical current killed it. It also
ignited the solid fuel rocket, which blasted Hastings out through the F-38’s
plastic canopy.
    Hastings was
unconscious, but his flight suit had been designed for use at L-5. It protected him from
the cold and
near vacuum. At five thousand feet, his parachute opened automatically.
    The plane had been set
on full automatic and programmed to fly to San Diego, so that its transponder could assure Ground
Control that the aircraft’s flight plan was being followed. It continued the
journey without
pilot or canopy, made a perfect landing on its assigned runway, and stopped, awaiting
further instructions. Within minutes it was visited by an egg-laying mosquito.
    The crash truck was
unable to go out to the plane to investigate. A larva had eaten a hole in the
truck’s fuel pump.
     
    The swans looked like ordinary birds, and
so attracted lit tle attention. Bored radar
operators noticed unusual migration
patterns, and properly logged them. But the logs were not due to reach the scientific community for months, and
actually would never be examined at all.
    Each swan died and
fell in the center of its assigned area. Copernick had decided that the food
trees, and thus the population, should be scattered as far as possible, to limit the
possibility of riots and plagues and to keep them isolated when they occurred.
    But if the scientific
community failed to notice the swans, the animal community did not. Over half the fallen swans were
eaten by animals or other birds. This possibility had been taken into account. The
seeds were hard, small, and indigestible. They sprouted, absorbing the flesh around
them. The scavengers died, and provided additional fertilizer.
    Less than a hundred
swans were eaten by people, and cooking destroyed most of the seeds. In eleven
cases the swans were not properly cooked, and the people died.
    But people who eat
raw carrion do not notify authorities when a death occurs. Nor do they
perform autopsies or embalm their dead. The trees grew.
     
    Two hundred and
eighteen professional biologists across the world found first-generation
larvae and excitedly took them into labs to study. Incredible! An insect with a biochemistry
different from anything previously known. They hurriedly prepared preliminary
reports, each
expecting to be the first to