Probe

(continued)

By John C. Weil

Del and other scientists loaded one-hundred more Projectors and fired almost fifty thousand pellets. They re-loaded every twenty minutes. Within a day they had fired more than a million pellets.

Del then invited the High Command to review progress of Project Make Contact. In the streets, hundreds of thousands of his fellow beings were lined up, watching the spray of pellets hurtling into space. Citizens cheered, hugged one another or cried.

Back on Earth panic ensued. Millions of Americans rushed the grocery shelves to buy bottled water. Riots started as mobs raided stores and stole water. Shootings. Lootings. Some downtown cities were on fire. The military and the National Guard had occupied city streets to keep order.

The lead technician told Bruckman over the phone that he had a new discovery. They met privately in the dark lab. They did not turn on the lights, except for a small overhanging lamp. Bruckman reviewed the results, spending thirty minutes looking through a microscope. "So, it's true?" he asked wearily. "What you told me?"

"Yes," he said. "The pellets were not sent by aliens. The pellets are aliens."

Bruckman sighed. The lead technician explained, "As you can see by the two sample drops, the chemicals reconstitute. Some pellets hold different chemicals. The chemicals find one another. Then the water hardens like a womb. It's as if the aliens are reborn in the blue gel."

"They have the technology to completely break down their bodies and reform?"

"Yes."

"The question is, are they explorers, or invaders?"

"Sir, there are millions of them forming in our lakes and aqueducts. Usually, when you explore, you send a small team, or a probe..."

"Are there... weapons?"

"When one of my men accidentally touched a microscopic sample of chemical from our two seeds, it burned his finger completely off at the knuckle. I think they know they are the weapon."

Bruckman had always believed in the better nature of men. Therefore, he naturally believed that aliens who finally arrived on Earth would be benign creatures, opening their hearts to intergalactic friendship. In his heart, he still assumed that was the case when frogs began dying by the thousands. He believed in the little boy in everyone's heart, even aliens. Little boys do not want to kill. But they are curious and sometimes accidentally inflict unintended suffering. Little boys grow up to be men, who if they lead a good life, will make up for their early mistakes with frogs.

But now across the world, while Bruckman called the president, then pondered the fate of the world, millions of aliens formed from jellyfish shapes to almost human form. They waded out of the water to be met by a barrage of military firepower that had no effect on them. They wiped out full battalions of humans in short order. Then they began to raid towns and cities.

Outside an enormous science center on Del's planet a million more aliens lined up to be broken down, then sent hurtling though space to Earth for Project Make Contact. Many on the line were joyous. Others made small talk about a strange species they had heard about, called, "frog." They were curious about them, because most of the species they had killed over many generations of invasions of other planets were not so defenseless, or simple-minded, so playful. Most were killers just like them. Just not as good at it. Wiping out the human race, whom they considered a predator, was of no consequence, of no importance. Inhabiting a new planet was all that mattered. Perhaps they would spare the frogs so their children could play with them, as pets.