I was almost doubled over with nausea, but it was logical to find out what they had to say. “Put it on, Guppy.”
You have proven to be more than food. You are pests. We will harvest this system, despite your pathetic attempts at defense. Then we will harvest your Sol and Epsilon Eridani systems. And your species will end its existence in our larders.
Fuck.
I tried to open a chat with Jacques, but got nothing. I pinged Andrew instead.
“Hey Andrew. Any idea where Jacques is?”
“Hey, Bill. Sorry, Jacques was killed during his group’s attack. We have a differential up to the last few minutes, so we’ll be restoring him as soon as we have a new vessel.”
“Crap.” I rubbed my forehead. We had some spare matrices, but it could still be days before we were able to get that done.
Andrew interrupted my train of thought. “Did he ever follow through on that plan to kidnap some Pav?”
“Yeah. Kind of a worst-case response. I’ve triggered implementation already. We’ll get twenty thousand Pav off-planet before the Others get there. We’re not going to be gentle about it, though. We can’t afford to have a discussion and ask for volunteers.”
The Pav were now an endangered species. I just hoped that Jacques had taken plant and animal specimens and such.
73. Collection
Phineas
February 2217
Delta Pavonis
I closed the connection with Bill, and turned to Ferb. The defense of Delta Pavonis had failed, and we now had to compound the karmic deficit by ripping up to twenty thousand people from their homes by force.
Jacques had put a lot of thought into the problem, and Ferb and I had expanded on the plan once we’d come online. It wasn’t going to be pretty. But there simply wasn’t time for explanation and debate. It should have helped that the people we were going to snatch would otherwise die. It didn’t.
Jacques had selected two towns of the right size, in different parts of the target country, to maximize genetic diversity while still retaining community. We carried specialist drones in our holds, ready to do the deed.
I hovered over my town, Mheijr, in the dead of night. If this was Earth, it would be about 3 a.m. A dog barked—well, the local equivalent of a dog did the equivalent of barking—but otherwise, there was no movement. Without an electrical grid, most places still went totally dark once everyone went to bed.
I sent out the first wave of drones. These were equipped with canisters of a heavy, odorless gas that we’d developed. It would render the victims unconscious for up to four hours. By then, hopefully, we’d have them all in stasis.
The drones performed their task, then headed back to the cargo hold, and the second wave of drones exited to collect bodies. Each drone could hold two adult Pav. It would take about fifty trips per drone to collect the full ten thousand people.
I hoped that we would come up under ten thousand in total rather than have to leave people behind. I dreaded what anyone would have to go through, waking up to find that almost everyone in their town had disappeared. It would be devastating, even without the inevitable suspicion that would fall on them.
The operation completed flawlessly.
Some comments over the SCUT from Ferb indicated that his end wasn’t going quite so swimmingly. I smiled, thinking of the ribbing I’d give him. Then I lost the smile when I realized neither of us would be in the mood.
I’d emptied the town, with a count of 9,273. I checked with Ferb, to see what his head count would be like. His town was coming in under as well, so I implemented one of our contingency plans. There were a number of bases within a few hundred miles that housed either standing armies or perhaps some version of peacekeeping forces. I raided three of them, and brought my total up to within a hundred of my maximum capacity. Some military personnel would be worth having.
The gas we had used would biodegrade within hours. By the time investigators were brought in, there wouldn’t even be an odor. Assuming they had time to do that before the Others got here.
I pinged Ferb. “Ready to go?”
He didn’t answer for a few milliseconds. I was just opening my mouth to repeat the question when he responded.
“Yeah, looks like it. Woo hoo…”
I nodded to myself. Yeah, woo hoo, indeed.
74. Observing the Process
Bill
May 2217
Delta Pavonis
The Others ignored us.
I wasn’t sure if they knew we had nothing left, or if they were simply not interested unless we attacked again. But either way, they didn’t chase us out of the system or attempt to sweep it for drones.
We had a dozen or so stealth drones still in service, so we deployed them to record the harvesting process. This would be the hardest thing I’d ever done, but we needed as much information as possible.
The Others took a week to set up around Delta Pavonis 4. Then the death asteroids started a series of sweeps that eventually covered the entire planet. We couldn’t get close enough for a visual, but we knew what was happening. Up to a billion sentient beings were being slaughtered, to serve as food and to clear the way for efficient mining operations.
Over the next several weeks the Others deployed massive printer operations. It was too early to tell for sure, but it looked like at least some of them would be building new cargo vessels.
I closed the windows and instructed Guppy to let me know if anything needed my attention. I pinged Jacques, and received an invitation to visit.
Jacques had had ten years to prepare for the arrival of the Others, and he’d planned accordingly. He had built two colony ships adapted for Pav passengers. They now contained twenty thousand Pav in stasis. We could keep them in that state for as long as necessary. Eventually, the Others would leave. We would attempt to restart the ecology, then we’d decant the Pav. I didn’t look forward to that conversation.
Jacques had also built several spare matrices and housed them in the colony ships, ready for any casualties of the attack. He probably hadn’t counted on being one of those. Now he was a passenger, with no ship of his own.
Still, with the state of our VR tech and SCUT communications, it wasn’t a huge disability. More of an inconvenience.
I popped in. “Hi Jacques. How’s the life of a passenger?”
He shrugged. “Meh. I’m more of an administrator right now. Trying to clean up and organize the surviving Bobs and equipment, and do inventory. Nothing unaccounted for, so we don’t have to worry about the Others getting SCUT or something similar.”
I waved that away. “I already checked up on that. I’m more worried about the Pav. Should we consider moving them to another system?”
“I know what you mean, Bill. Here, they’ll be going back to a dead planet. Psychologically, that’s going to be devastating. I’ve got enough seed stock and such to rebuild a basic ecology, but ninety percent of the planetary diversity is gone for good.”