Species

Za cast a single thought to the negative energy drive, the field folded back on itself and reality returned.

While in the drive, everything always appeared to be just there, there was no sense of motion, nothing.

It took forever, yet only a moment as spacetime ahead got smaller and spacetime behind grew to encompass nearly everything.

Once complete, the vast distances between worlds became nothing more than a short hop. It all took thousands and thousands of years, yet moments all at once.

The return process simply reversed space and time.

Within the warp, they simply were.

Doe was then by his side. She had been there the entire trip of course but there was no way to comunicate when within the warp.

There was a slight jarring as the ship settled into reality, the shuddering was normal, something Za had sensed so many thousands of times before.

This world was very productive, Za knew that.

The last harvest had gone well, the species came readily to the thoughts. They were so stupid, caring only for the material.

"Jhawa!" Slipped into Za's mind as Doe envoked the name of the one.

Za realized suddenly that they were not alone.

He cast a thought to the ship, slipping it into a full cloak.

This was the second time he had made that mistake. It was not a good thing to be seen too soon in case a species was war like.

But most being's development with tools had only evolved to using them to capture nutrients.

This species was past that, they now actually looked outwards and wondered. So uncloaked, they and the carrier ship they towed could be seen.

The species were so incredibly lacking in intelligence though, still utilizing vibrations to communicate.

Others had done that, actually progressed beyond simple tools use, but never past the use of sound waves to each other. This silly species actually incorporated that into mechanical means.

This of course meant they could never fully develop, vibrations were so extemely slow and inefficient. The last trip had been almost confusing, the beings were building machines, propelled by heat energy.

Smelly, slow, so terribly inefficient. Filling the very air they needed to breathe with their own wastes. No way could they ever reach other worlds, other places, or even travel in the spacetime between the worlds of their own miniscule system.

Such a minor species, perfect for the harvest. Full of nutrients.

They certainly bred, though. That was amazing in itself. Rather than blend the thoughts periodically to create a split, they embedded themselves in each other, then the females carried

the result.

That all took so very long, plus it was also messy and often resulted in waste of protein.

Forcing a partially developed replacement from a living body was a risk of loss. Fertilizing the egg and tending it with workers was much more efficient and resulted in 100% productivity.

Far better to blend and form the egg, tend that with the workers designed for it leaving the others to produce.

Of course only Jhawa, the One was allowed to blend and produce the eggs, it was the way. Being chosen to fertilize was the greatest honor of all, Za desired that more than anything.

That thought made Za feel sensations, he turned and looked at Doe.

She instantly blocked.

"Think not of that, it is forbidden!" She thought to him.

Of course it was, the One did not allow a blending and split while on a harvest. It would be a distraction, thus dangerous. While forbidden, the thought was always there though. Some would be allowed to fertilize, Za as yet had never been chosen.

Those urges were always with him, repressed.

When the ceremony of fertilization at the hive began, it affected all, including the workers.

The entire hive felt the experience, as the sensations were cast to all within range.

Now Za and Doe were far out of range, just the two of them sent to collect.

Doe was female, even though it was forbidden, Za felt that.

Her block was very strong though, so Za returned his mind to the task at hand.

+++

As Za returned his thoughts to the carrier, he felt the problem.

Something was not quite correct. The panel showed the carrier as a physical object.

It should be...cloaked? Za cast a thought at it, Doe realized and joined in.

Nothing happened.

+++

"I have a bogie!" Stan carter looked at the screen.

"A what?" His co-pilot Miriam asked. She was busy preparing to drop the pods that would hold more of the first human beings on Mars. Years had gone into this, the Oxygen generators had been pumping for nearly a generation.

Mars now had an almost livable atmosphere, enough so that a few times it had actually rained there.

"Bogie!" Stan said again.

Miriam glanced over.

"Oh my God!" She uttered.

"Whatever it is, it's about 5 miles long!"

The thing on the screen shuddered and faded for a few seconds, then came right back.

Whatever it was, it was real.

"Man. It looks like we ain't alone after all!" Stan managed, his voice in awe.

They both knew that of course, the statues built by the former inhabitants of Mars showed a tall ant like creature, assumed to be their God.

But no one had ever seen them, no signals, no evidence at all other than the drawings and statues left behind.

+++

Za sensed the ship making note of the metallic object, it was way too close for comfort. He cast a thought to it, there were just two beings on board. He instantly realized they were the species, one male and one female.

How in the universe could they even be there? No longer planet bound? And how did they get so close without Za sensing?

He probed, but found he was only getting tiny bits of information. Something was blocking, but what? Had this species learned to use thought instead of vibration?

That would be amazing, an evolutionary leap like that. The last harvest Za was here on, this species actually had to think of the sound they wished to make, then vibrate their flesh using the air around them to create a sound. Then they had to wait while the other creature did the same in response.

They had no way at all to blend their minds and think, create as one.

Za tried again, then he understood. The two had some kind of covering over their craniums, it blocked the thoughts partially. Rather than live in the open section of their ship, they both wore sustenance suits of some kind.

The material it was made of blocked portions of their thoughts.

One had a piece of music flowing though it's mind, the other was thinking about standing by flowing water trying to capture something?

A bit like the last time Za had been here. The thoughts came all jumbled up, they seemed to be about everything except the task at hand.

Such a strange species.

+++

The last time they had all been so easy to manipulate, first Za had them build huge piles of stone to their Gods, then as they worked he picked and chose the best protein. The youngest and leanest made the better breeding stock, at least he thought so at first.

Then he discovered that some of the more mature males had abilities to make the females more receptive, and the older females often were far more willing to lay for the younger males?

Such a strange species?

It had taken a long time to understand their process completely. The One had sent many from the hive to inspect the species, easy to do also.

Find a pair and take them to the ship for testing, breed them and then blank their memories. The blanking part became a requirement or they would try to run and hide which made things problematic to try and recapture them.

Then return later and harvest the eggs, see how difficult they were to grow in capitivity.

As things turned out, it really was not that hard at all, it seemed that about the only thing this species ever did do was breed.

That and fight with each other, often resulting in waste of protein.

Unlike the way it worked in the hive, where the one laid all the young and a few of the strongest fertilized.

Za wanted to be chosen, he was sure that his own sperm was very strong.

The farm back on their own planet had produced protein very well until inbreeding became an issue and the One had sent Za and Doe out for renewals.

The carrier would hold literally thousands of them, and they would all enjoy the trip since it was outfitted with everything the species seemed to desire.

The results of plant fermentation was particularly effective in pleasing them, and tended to keep them quiet if allowed enough of it.

Of course some became disruptive during that process, the easy solution was to harvest the disruptive ones to feed on during the transport.

They even had created scenes of breeding to display since the species appeared to like that very much. It kept them occupied during transport, otherwise they could tend to become difficult.

Why they all enjoyed watching the breeding process never made any sense to Za since any of them could just join in at any time.

This really was a very strange species. Yet they were so high in protein that they were extremely valuable.

Long ago, in the beginning, one of the very first tranports had become broken and was lost, due to the animals becoming unmanagable on that trip.

This upset the One since it was very expensive to build a carrier.

Za knew enough to be cautious when dealing with this species, they had a tendency to become violent if upset.

Over time, they had learned how to keep the animals appeased. Finally they became so good at it that only two workers were required to deal with the harvest.

+++

Now the carrier sat there, completely visible in real spacetime. This was going to make the job much harder, if a few thousand of the species became upset, that would be hard to control.

At one of the inspections earlier they had already been firing off small ships at each other on their own planet. That by itself showed clearly that these were not intelligent, simply animals.

But it was clear they now had the beginnings of understanding atomic fission, which was not a good thing.

It was dangerous enough that Za had not really wanted to go, but the One chose. It did help when he met Doe. One glance and he desired to blend although she had resisted.

Za felt that later...perhaps? That meant death if caught but Za knew very well it happened when out of thought range.

+++

The One did also mention there had been budget cutbacks, but this was ridiculous. How were they supposed to do their job with defective equipment?

Za once again cast the thought to the carrier, it blinked a few times, but then settled right back into it's physical form.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to return to their home planet for repairs.

Za began the process to create the negative energy flow. Doe pitched in to assist.

Nothing happened.

It finally dawned on Za that they were stranded.

+++

"Repeat transmission." Ground control finally responded.

The delay in communication was a real pain in the ass, Stan Carter thought. The distance back to Earth meant that if anything did go wrong, they were pretty much on their own.

"Let's go check that fucking thing out!" Stan said to Miriam.

"Sure, why not? The pods are set, so we can settle in later. Let's go do a visible." Miriam was every bit as curious about everything as Stan was, they were the perfect pair to send to Mars.

Back home, the two of them even had to perform the sex act, just to be sure they were completely compatible.

At first that had been difficult for Stan, especially with a few hundred members of ground control watching the entire time.

But then Miriam was an on the sexual side female, and she knew how to tease and play, it didn't take long before Stan had all six inches up and raring to go.

It was nearly a full two hours later when the pair of them emerged to a huge round of applause from the team.

Miriam didn't even blush although Stan did.

Yes, a perfect match, completely compatible.

The entire video of their mating had been broadcast to planet Earth.

That show was now the number one rated reality TV show for the population, it even exceeded the 120th run of the "Survivor" show.

Which was great, the advertising revenue easily covered the cost of sending more colonists to Mars.

The makers of Twinkies had spent billions for the advertising spots.

+++

"Damn that thing is big!" Stan set the ship into a final approach, slowing and then hovering just a few dozen miles away.

"You don't suppose she is armed?" Miriam asked.

"Who knows? Maybe. Control installed the baby nukes on this ship for just in case so probably anything that can build something like that would think of it too."

Stan was suddenly glad that their ship carried six tiny little warheads, each about the size of a soda bottle. Yet each carried roughly the same power as the ones dropped on Hiroshima.

Finding evidence of a completely alien species on Mars had been enough to convince their government that it might be best to be prepared, just in case.

Nine foot tall aliens that looked like a cross between an Ant and a Wasp was somewhat disconcerting.

"I don't know if she is armed, probably." Stan said almost to himself.

"It might be best if we don't find out." Miriam laughed nervously.

"Yea, we better get back to Mars, we only have 10 hours left." Stan said. He turned on the negative energy field, swung the ship and settled in for the brief trip back to home.

Back at the pods, the main section had already inflated and was ready. With several hundred of the pods now in place, the station was becoming extremely comfortable.

There were now nearly 50 full time residents, all of them compatible mated pairs.

A few years back Stan had done a two year stint at Mars Base six, back then each dome was only 12' X 12' and it had been miserable.

He was extremely happy when the shuttle showed up that time, all of the crew they sent were male at first.

Mars was now very close to liveable outside, although a trip without a suit had to be brief.

Inside, the gardens were growing nicely, Corn plants were five feet tall, trays of vegetables were there in row after row.

Rabbits helped to maintain temperature, they produced meat, fertilizer and since their body temperatures were high it saved on energy. The Methane from both human and the animals ran generators, the entire system was self contained.

Outside, scrub trees that grew back on Earth at high altitudes were growing openly on the surface, adding even more Oxygen.

The underground wells had been the key, the discovery of those back in the late 21st century had made it all possible.

Then the discovery of the black moss growing in abundance in some of the canyons had helped.

Edible and nutritious, that sped up colonization and assisted in exploration.

When one of the robot voyagers found the remains of what had been a city, the news was amazing.

Soon after that came the news of fossils, and many of those fossils were human. That knowledge changed the entire history of the human race.

Millions of years earlier, Mars had been the home planet. As the planet began to die, people reached out to colonize the Earth.

Barely able to get themselves to the 3rd planet from the Sun alive and with little or no equipment, the people reverted to no more than animals, hunter gathers, and the evolutionary process began all over again.

It took a few centuries for them to wipe out the very large predators, but being highly intelligent they managed to get that under control. Cities followed, society evolved.

Now, in the year 2106, human beings had returned home to the 4th planet. Then deep inside a vault the people of Mars had left, were the details, the plans for producing negative energy.

Humans built the first ship, sent men to the moon again in 2066.

The trip there took 45 seconds, they were gone for eight days in their time but arrived back not even two minutes after leaving.

Next scientists figured out how to make the "time" when within the warp not even exist, that freed mankind to reach any point in the universe.

The understanding that the Universe was little more than the pages of a book and time was just a perception changed everything.

Mars became a short few hours hop, and already plans were being made to explore the Galaxy.

+++

Stan filled out his report, clicked and sent it back to the command base. He sent along the video he had made, let the techs figure that one out.

There wasn't really much that he or Miriam could do about the huge ship out there a few hundred thousand miles away. All it did was sit there, why they had no idea.

The cloaked pod containing Za and Doe they never saw. Stan had a feeling, one he could not quite put his finger on that there was far more there than they saw. It had appeared to be a monstrous yet empty vessel, but why? What was it for?

Once they got their ship fully restored with power, they could go back, perhaps find out more.

But now, having just arrived at the base for their 2 year tour of duty, they had to unpack.

Stan could see the crews tending to the gardens, the rest of the crew were all below maintaining the life support systems.

Stan walked down to Miriam's quarters, pushed the button.

Inside, she sat on the edge of her cot, smiling.

Their personal lives were private now, no cameras, no one watching. Stan liked things better that way.

+++

"We have a full system failure." Za thought to Doe. She knew very well what that meant, the ship had enough oxygen and nutrition for several days, the carrier could sustain them for years if not decades but how were they supposed to get there?

There was no air lock, no way to dock. Because of the budget, they had chosen to land the thing for loading which Za did not like one bit, even though it had worked well in the past.

So they needed to land the carrier on the planet to load it, and with no drive they had no way to do that.

Besides, landing it uncloaked was very likely going to get them an unhappy response, this species appeared to be more advanced than they had thought.

The truth is they were all a bunch of mean little bastards, they seemed to like killing everything they saw, even each other.

Za had mentioned that at the meeting of the council, but the One had simply shrugged and rejected all of Za's ideas for defense.

Then Jhawa had gone off to produce eggs, the fertilization began and all work ceased during that process.

+++

Za had been floored when the tiny ship had approached, and even more floored when it engaged a negative energy field to leave?

If this species had solved the problem of negative energy, if they had learned how to warp spacetime?

It would change everything. The One needed to know about this but Za and Doe had no way to do that.

Thought could not reach the vast distance involved to the home planet, so they were on their own.

"What are we going to do now?" Doe asked, her thoughts showing clearly her fear.

"I think we are going to die." Za thought flatly. He turned to visualize Doe.

She returned his gaze, she was not blocking him.

Za sensed that her fear created a physical need to try and reproduce. Forbidden, yes, but in this situation, overwhelming.

Understanding, he reached for her, she reached back. The blending was allowed by her. Za dropped all of his own blocking, let his physical become a part of the mental.

It was an act of sex, the joining of two completely, taking peace in the moment of what otherwise would be terror, a fear of death.

He dropped all blocking in that moment, lost all sense of control.

+++

Stan lay with Miriam, her body pressed against him. Just at the moment of reaching his own peak, a powerful sensation swept over him.