The Endangered Species

                                           THE ENDANGERED SPECIES

         Tom Palatnik, chief engineer of the Marvel Mining Ship, Conquistador, surveyed the desolation surrounding him.  From his vantage point at the top of the scout ship's observation platform, thirty feet above the planet's surface, there was no evidence of the great wealth hidden beneath the planet's rugged exterior.

         Just another space cinder, he thought.  A worthless chunk of rock streaking through space, not attracting the slightest bit of attention from anybody.  Not, at least, until now.

         Pete Krough, the ship's ecologic specialist -- a government appointee, not a company man  -- passed through the air lock in a hurry, as usual.  And, as usual, he didn't give the lock the time required for full pressure equalization before he unlatched the outer hatch.  It popped open into the rarefied outside atmosphere with a muffled bang, scattering his armload of papers onto the platform.

           Tom's expression hardened when he saw Pete coming.  Pivoting to face him, Tom leaned against the railing, both hands pinned safely behind his back.  In his fluorescent safety suit, he looked like an oversized canary -- or a humongous banana -- wearing a helmet and rebreather apparatus. 

         But nobody made light of Tom's appearance no matter what he was wearing.

           Pete picked up and, with endless enthusiasm, waved a handful of computer tracings in front of Tom's face shield.  "Take a look at these.  I'd say ... some pretty compelling evidence that Cagliolo may be inhabited."  Pete possessed a remarkably high-pitched, grating voice -- especially on the radio -- and always talked in rapid, staccato sentences.

         Tom didn't try to hide his irritation.  "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm sick and tired of hearing about your 'creature theories’, Pete?"  He sucked in a deep breath, trying to control his temper, then continued, "I've seen those tracings.  I do take an interest in anything that might affect our ability to mine, you know.  But, it seems to me all they show is that there have been no signs of life -- animal or vegetable -- on this planet's surface for hundreds and hundreds of years.  I think that new life scanner of yours is being spooked by ancient history."

           "But, we don't want to inadvertently destroy any life-forms as we trip around the galaxy searching for ...  what is it this time?  Zanthracyte?  Isn't that fertilizer, Tom?  Think about it.  Don't you think Marvel Mining's methods are a little extreme to use for ... fertilizer?"

         "Are you kidding me?  That 'fertilizer’, as you call it, is the key ingredient of a genuine miracle compound that can make things grow where nothing has before.  It can turn uninhabitable worlds green.  Hell, that kind of miracle can turn miner's pockets green, especially when there's an obscene amount of it up for grabs, like there is here on Cagliolo." 

         Pete looked stunned; the expression on his face clouded over, if only briefly, then cleared again.  "Even so, using nuclear fusion is damned risky business ....  I think it's irresponsible to use it on a planet that has any chance at all of harboring life."

         "Dammit," Tom snorted.  "You pull this 'life form' crap every time I start to set up camp.  I'm getting awfully tired of you trying to derail my operation.  You almost cost me my job the last time out, and for what?  There wasn't life-form one on that rock, was there?"

         "Yeah, right.  After you finished with it ... that would have been pretty hard for me to prove, one way or the other."  Pete pointed an accusing mitten at Tom's helmet.  "What you're planning to do may very well blow Cagliolo -- Zanthracyte, resident and visiting life-forms -- to smithereens.  Using a nuclear force on an asteroid is one thing, but -- Tom, this is a planet!"

         Tom grabbed the railing with all his strength, giving his hands something constructive to do.  He had this overpowering urge to rip Pete's helmet off and strangle him right then and there.  He glowered at the small man before him, then moved toward him menacingly.  Towering a foot above Pete's head, he dwarfed him; even his shadow, as black as space, seemed to swallow Pete's whole.

         "Old nuclear weapons are plentiful -- and plenty cheap, too, I might add.  My aim is to soften Cagliolo up a bit, that's all.  To make it quicker and easier to extract the Zanthracyte."

         Trying to put an end to the conversation, Tom bounced down the ladder leading to the surface, stepping on every second or third rung on the way down.  He landed with a quiet "poof" in a several inch thick blanket of dust that seemed to be covering the entire valley floor.  "Where did all this dust come from anyway?"

         Undeterred, Pete followed, not bothering to use the ladder rungs at all.  He floated down to the surface, checking his momentum with his mittened hands, landing so light on his feet that he scarcely added to the cloud that enveloped Tom.

         The two men stood glaring at each other for a long moment.  Then Tom peered up at the rest of the landing crew that was just straggling out onto the platform.  "Hey!  Get a move on up there.  What do you think, I'm paying you by the hour or something?"

         An electronic chorus of dissension and grumbling ensued, drilling into Tom's ears, further irritating him.  "All right, you shitheads!  If I have to go back up there and get you, you'll be breaking into the surface of this rock with a hand pick and shovel.  Get down here and help set up base camp, now!"

         The crew members bounced and slid unenthusiastically down the ladder into the awaiting dust.

         Glancing back at Pete again, "Okay, wise-ass I'll tell you what I'll do.  You take another crewman with you and reconnoiter the area while I set up here. You find me one tangible piece of evidence that there's life on this rock ...."

         "Then will you ...?"

         But Tom wasn't talking anymore.  He wasn't listening, either.  A thick cloud of dust rose behind him as he plodded toward the point he had determined to be the best position to place the largest charge.  Like a dark specter behind him, the rooster tail of his wake shielded him from the ship's light, plunged him into nearly complete darkness.  He paused for a moment as a fleeting feeling of foreboding raised gooseflesh all over his body.

           He knew as well as Pete did that Cagliolo was in real jeopardy.  But it wasn't his fault.  Chief Engineer Tom Palatnik had his orders.

         Arching his back, he looked up at several tiny points of light in space that were diverging from a central light cluster.  The modules were disengaging from the mother ship and awaited his signal to descend to the surface.

         He wouldn't keep them waiting. 

         Tom switched on the directional beacon that would guide the modules containing the drilling equipment -- and the explosive devices -- from the orbiting mother ship to the surface.  A familiar squeal filled his ears, the audible tone warning that the beacon's powerful microwave signal had been activated, setting the automated landing sequence into motion.
                                                 *          *          *          
         Gargoth had neither eyes nor ears, but it sensed that many strange creatures were invading the planet.  Under different circumstances this might have been somewhat unsettling, but in this instance the invasion was not unwelcome at all, for Gargoth was exceedingly hungry.  At least a millennium had passed since it had had a meal.

         The emaciated being rolled over sluggishly and stretched, trying to be as noiseless as possible, to work out the kinks brought on by centuries of hibernation.  It had been in a deep slumber for so long it was only with great difficulty that it was able to get its flaccid sack of a body moving again.

         It thrust at the cave floor, poking out stubby protrusions to serve as legs.  Then pushing hard, front to back, it propelled itself forward on undulating pseudopods.  This wasn't a particularly efficient method of locomotion, but then, the species Gargoth was not designed to be agile.  It didn't have to be.

         In this manner it pulled itself from its lair, one of thousands of such holes to be found scattered around the planet, holes that had been hollowed into the sides of the hills by its predecessors, yielding millions of tons of excess dirt and dust.

           Gargoth's dark gray, wrinkled skin pulled and sagged as it inched toward the mouth of its gigantic lair where it stopped, then waited for a moment before venturing outside. 

         These creatures were unlike anything Gargoth had ever encountered before.  For one thing, they were tiny compared to it.  In that way they were a lot like the last group.  For another -- and this really intrigued him -- their body temperatures were not the ambient subzero of their surroundings.  They were warm!
                                                 *          *          *
         Tom monitored the computer-driven movements of the mining modules as they pushed away from the mother ship and dropped one by one out of orbit. 

         The first five of the six burrowing modules had already landed, precisely at their predetermined positions around the valley that was to be home, at least for the short-term.  Now the last one was coming down, this one close to Tom, adjacent to the beacon itself.

            The ship was a hundred meters up, but there was enough light coming from the scout ship that he could make out its hexagon shaped hull.  Its two slender main engines jutted out from either side and were shooting long, bluish-white, flaming tails as they checked its descent.  Tom backed away, still looking up, as the ship neared the surface.

         Then, as expected, a thick cloud of dust billowed higher and higher until the ship itself was concealed.  Tom let out with a nervous sigh.  There was something about this dust that made him nervous, like some critical factor had been left out of the equation.

         The irritating whine of Pete's voice shattered Tom's musing.  With his helmet radio, he could never get far enough away from Pete.

         "Pete to Tom.  We found it.  Have we ever found it!  You won't be able to ignore this."

         "This is Tom.  What the hell are you talking about, Pete?  You aren't making a whole lot of sense, you know."

         "Tom, we have all the evidence we need…to prove there is life on Cagliolo."

         "Look, we've been through all this."

           "Wait a second, there's more.  A lot more.  We've found a burrow, an inhabited burrow.  I mean, it was inhabited until recently.  I'm not talking about some tiny lichen or fungus or anything like that.  I'm talking about some real…live… life-form.  And it must be gargantuan."

         "Pete…."

         "Listen to me!  It looks like its last meal is scattered all around the outside of the cave…and on the inside, too.  Some alien species -- hundreds of them -- not local, that's for sure.  And since there's no atmosphere to speak of, no microbes, there hasn't been any decomposition.  It's really quite gruesome.  It looks like they were sucked inside out…then freeze-dried!"

         "All right.  Don't panic.  Let me have a look.  Give me your coordinates and I'll be there as soon as all the modules have been put down safe and sound."

           Tom had never fathered a child, but if he had he would want him to be just like Pete, at least until he was three or four years old.  Then he would expect him to grow up.

         Tom turned his attention back toward camp.  The dust the module had kicked up was finally settling and his view was beginning to clear again.  The harsh glare of floodlights bathed the area immediately surrounding the scout ship.  Long shadows meandered over the uneven landscape, seeming to recline on the soft mounds of dust that, bleached by the intensity of the light, looked a lot like snow.

           He managed a wan smile.  For some reason he really missed Earth right now.

         "Tom!"

         "What now, Pete?"

           "These remains.  My God ... if my guess as to the purpose of these tools…."

         "Yes?"

         "I know this is going to sound bizarre, but I think these aliens were…miners."
                                                 *          *          *
           At one time there had been many Gargoths on Cagliolo, but that was ages ago.  It seems that they were adept at eating and little else, not much more than high-performance stomachs -- or perhaps superior organic garbage disposals.  There was nothing they couldn't eat and there was nothing that didn't agree with them.

           The Gargoths literally ate themselves out of house and home.  In fact, they fed on each other until there was only one left.  And by the time the last one had eaten all the others, there was nothing else left to eat at all; the survivor was forced into an extended hibernation.  That was the Gargoth way:  from one, many; from many, one.  Asexual reproduction in times of plenty; the ultimate omnivore when food was scarce.


         Gargoth sneaked with deliberate slowness toward the mining camp, anticipation beginning to build, as it mentally savored the upcoming meal.  Its rounded, gray body moved stealth like through the blackness.  To the aliens, if they noticed it at all, it was just another hill in the dark shadows, nothing more.          

         Once again there were many little invaders all over the tiny planet.  Gargoth couldn't imagine the attraction this barren place held for aliens, but it was thankful that they continued to come.  Someday, though, it was going to have to figure out a way to hitch a ride off this rock, but not today; Gargoth was too hungry.

         Mealtimes were just too far apart.