SWNOVELS Chapter 25: Surplus
Helix Spideroo opened the bottle of Dabnasi, and took a swig of the purple liquid. Before remembering his manners, and he offered another bottle to Caltrap Maleep who waved it away. “It always gives me gas.” Then Caltrap turned back to the job in hand. “Pass me that net will you?” Helix put the bottle down, and passed Caltrap the small catch net on a two-foot pole. Then he stared out of the window at the brilliant yellow glow, as one of the suns dipped below the wide blue horizon of the ocean.
“I need to do some cleaning up too you know.” Caltrop paused between scoops, as he carefully transferred the tiny Minky Fins to a spare tank, from the main one now too dirty to see through. “Your planet, what do they call it?” “The dominant species refer to it as Earth, at least the dominant species that could cause most trouble. Most of the other successful life forms seem to get on all right, with little impact on the over all environment. But this one, having out evolved all its usual predators has only one now, itself. It’s gone through some of the civilising stages, to fight off diseases and crop failure. And it’s prolific enough to survive an ultimate natural disaster.” Caltrap paused once more between his eviction of the Minky Fins. “You mean the meteor that finished off those big lizardy creatures? I liked them; they really had a flare for cross species dominance. And as I recall they had no problem evolving to a stable population.”
Helix took another swig of the Dabnasi, and wiped the excess off his lips. “Well I sometimes wish there could be another accident like that, to cull these creatures back.” He turned his attention to the tank Caltrap was depopulating. “But they’ve got so spread out and technologically advanced. Even that wouldn’t be the end of it, just a short term solution.” “I think that’s them all.” Caltrap stared intently at the murky liquid in the big tank, for any signs of movement. “I suppose I could just let them pollute the planet up so much, they might finish themselves off.” “I don’t think you would be allowed to do that. It could be seen as a deliberate act of negligence on your part. And I hear the council take a very dim view of negligent cross species genocide. Remember that case of the planet in the horse head nebula; I think Viswal Pooldock cared it for. The whole globe had to be burned clean, after a pandemic wiped out nine tenths of every living thing on it. He had to reseed it from scratch, with no help from the grey workers. I hear he’s still at it after ten thousand millennia, poor chap.” Helix shuddered.
“And if that’s not enough, they can’t stop fighting.” Catrap paused from the filtering he was setting up, to clean the tank’s liquid. “That could be advantage you know, if they could be kept on the planet. What is their population growth at the moment?” Helix consulted a rough notebook he kept in his pocket. “Eighty million per year at the moment, and they’re reaching the upper limit of sustainability.” Caltrap put down the scraper he had been wiping the tank’s walls with. “So a surplus of eighty million a year; only all out war would only keep that in check, according to Mola Nebrix’s rule of perpetual conflict.” Helix blanched at the thought of a perpetual war. The council took a very dim view of anyone resorting to such measures these days. “No that won’t do; not at all, and besides.” Helix glanced out of the window at the setting sun. “They’ve already started using the power of the atom to kill each other. They ended one war with a nuclear bomb, and then set about building many more. They could scorch the surface of their planet many times over, with what they’ve built.”
Caltrap looked up from his cleaning. “Why would anyone want to do that?” “Who knows the fathomless depths of the primitive mind. All we can do is study such madness, and try to incorporate it in to modern theory.” “If they don’t wipe themselves out first.” Helix wrung his hands. “Don’t say that; I need a solution, not portents of doom.” Continuing with the task in hand, Caltrap took on a calm tone. “Well let’s think logically. They’re an intelligent species right?” Helix nodded. “So we can’t just cull the excess; they’d probably think it was an invasion, and go fighting back.” Helix looked aghast at the suggestion. “No, that wouldn’t do. And the expense of such an operation would push me over budget.” “And the Hensilk memorandum forbids you to reveal our presence. So we can’t explain what will happen to them from past mistakes.” Helix looked like he was on the verge of nausea, at this suggestion. So Caltrap swiftly moved on.
“What about giving them some more room?” Desperate for a solution, Helix grabbed at this idea. “Do you mean stepping up the relocation program? Taking individuals from remote locations, and using them to seed a new planet?” But he knew he was clutching willow the wisps. “No, to make that work we’d have to take whole cities full of them. They’d think it was some sort of invasion again. Then we would have all the trouble with that.” Caltrap was intent on the corners of the tank, but he looked up at Helix’s reproof of his idea. “Well what about advancing their space exploration technology? Then they could do it for themselves. Didn’t they get to their Moon a while back? What happened to that?”
Helix sighed. “It all fell through; they’ve sent robots off in to space, but as far as actual population expansion, it all turned out to be a dead loss.” “You could give them a push in the right direction; feed the right inventions to the right people. Even pull the odd political string. Is that Raygun still running the planet?” “Reagan” Helix corrected him. “No he only ran one bit, and he doesn’t any more. Anyway we don’t want anyone spreading out, that can’t be trusted with nuclear power, remember? I think this species has a lot of growing up to do, before it can be allowed out of its Solar system.” “You could give them enough to populate just the system, and see if they are mature enough after that to go further.”
Helix pondered Caltrap’s compromise, as he peered at the Minky Fins crowded in to their holding tank. “It’s an idea, but if we let them out so far, they might be harder to contain. If they proved not ready for the next step.” He looked up at Caltrap. “Any other ideas?” Caltrap put down the vacuum hose, and began checking the defunct filter, that had caused the tank to get so polluted in the first place. “Perhaps it’s not big enough.” “What the planet?” “No the filter. Have you thought about some sort of plague?” Helix let out a derisive laugh. “I told you before, they’ve gone past the phase where that kind of culling would do any good.” But Caltrap fixed Helix’s gaze with a determined look. “No I was thinking more at the other end of life. If you could introduce some none life threatening disease, or even one that doesn’t kill directly; that gets passed on during reproduction, to deter that sort of thing. You did say they weren’t asexual?” “Not for reproduction” Helix blushed. “But they have a number of those diseses already.” “Well you could work on the existing ones couldn’t you; to make them more virrulent.”
Caltrap beamed through the now clear liquid of the tank, as he tinkered with the fliter. Trying to get more out of it, than even he hoped for. Helix looked down hearted again. “The trouble is that when any one of these ailments, that should dissuade them from reproducing gets too prevalent. They go and start up a campaign, to stamp it out by social means.” “They can do that can they?” “Oh yes, they can be very organised in some ways. It’s just a pity they can’t direct their energy, to create a balance on the planet. It’s as if they think they have carte blanche, to deal with any other species as they think fit. Or even their own. I blame their inability to shake off their belief in a higher power.”
Caltrap put the adjusted filter down. “You don’t think they’re on to us do you?” But Helix shook his head. “No they’ve passed through the unexplained phenomena, being down to powers beyond them. To the belief in a single power, that requires no real proof to rule over them. Like a figurehead, that’s given them a set of rules to follow. I think it’s all down to a basic desire to not to want to think about their place in the ecosystem.” “Are you sure it’s not a basic desire not to think at all. I’ve seen that on a world or two, mind you the species on those planets usually don’t develop any form of technology.” “It’s probably the opposable thumbs. It does make it so easy to handle tools, and as you know the rest is history.” Helix looked at his waving digits, before he continued. “Anyway, this monotheism, or monomania as I would call it, causes a lot of trouble.” Caltrap placed the filter back in to the tank.
“But surly you could play on that, and use the head of the order to sway their ever faithful masses.” “No good, the trouble is that there are more than one monotheistic sect. In fact even those who believe in the same deity, disagree on what they want the masses to do. And do you know the worst of it?” Caltrap’s attention was grabbed by this strange example of society. “They actually promote reproduction; just to increase the numbers of people who follow their particular set of rules; I know.” Helix had spotted the look of incredulity on Caltrap’s face. “There is a plus side to the equation, that each sect tries to cull as many of the other groups at times. I think they call it holy war. But of course if we managed to play this side of their activities up, we’d still have trouble with Nebrix’s calculations.”
Caltrap flicked the switch, to set the filter going. And he smiled as the device sprang in to action. “So we’re back to square one with that train of thought; any chance of spurring on the evolution?” But a withering look from Helix, shot that idea down. “The D.N.A. wouldn’t stand it I suppose. So that leave only a clandestine education program; slow but effective in the long run.” Helix breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes I’d hoped you’d come to that conclusion too. Which is why I’ve been trying to raise the basic level of education, in the general populace. But it’s an upstream battle.” And he turned to leave, as Caltrap returned the Minky Fins to their tank.