An Ecology of MInd (27 page)

That whatever killed them would also die was small comfort. Losing their lives to advance the spread of the species was expected and acceptable. The crew
would do what was required regardless and then hopefully would still be alive to be able to move on to new assignments.

Those were the most common results when other intelligent species were encountered. Another possibility was one, which had only occurred three other times
with their race so far. That was the possibility of encountering a race that was more powerful and a definite danger to Leader *'s species. Species like
that had to be eliminated at all costs.

Leader * was aware of no other options. Dominate and use, or destroy. Those were the possibilities and Leader * did not think to question beyond what were
to him, self-evident truths.

The survey ship had landed on the planet most of the way through the planet's lighted rotation. It should be night before too long and they would send out
the scouts.

One of the units that was working on the external sensors approached Leader *. Observations were conveyed, and the unit returned to the sensors. Some sort
of spherical barrier had just formed enclosing the ship and a segment of the surrounding planet.

The exact nature of the barrier was not understood yet, but it did not seem to be an immediate threat. Much more than the ship was enclosed, and the
distance that the barrier was from the ship did not suggest an imminent attack. Perhaps it was some sort of containment or quarantine measure.

As far as the sensors could tell, the barrier was a perfect sphere, and it extended underground as well. Half of the volume of the sphere enclosed the
atmosphere, and half enclosed the ground below the ship. Part of a large lake nearby was included in the enclosure. The sphere was quite sizable and also
enclosed a fair number of the neighboring artificial structures.

There seemed to be no action from the barrier. It was just there. However, it seemed that they no longer had free movement. They would not know for sure
until more tests were made on the barrier.

One of the analysts came to report. "Sir, we have discovered that the barrier is not totally inactive as we had first thought. It is emitting radiation in
a pattern that simulates that of the star for this system, including the movement of the star relative to this location. This simulates day and night
within the barrier. There are other radiation emissions of much lower intensity, which simulate the appearance of the sky. Electromagnetic radiation does
not seem to be passing through the barrier, the appearance that light is coming from outside the barrier is an illusion."

Leader * thought that was interesting and considered some of the possible implications. It further reinforced the idea that the barrier was not meant as
some form of attack, but some of the other implications were disturbing enough, that he ordered the preparation of an emergency courier pod. It could be
sent using a small star drive and so would not have to pass through the barrier, but rather bypass it in multidimensional space. They were not usually sent
from the surface of a planet, but they could be. Hopefully, whatever the barrier was would not be able to block a star drive.

On further reflection, Leader * ordered that the emergency message pod be readied but not sent yet. He had the thought that if the star drive worked, the
ship could jump out as well. He did not want to give any warning of that possibility to the entities controlling the barrier.

They might be able to make alterations in the barrier or take some other actions to block even a star drive. There were too many unknowns about the
abilities they were facing, other than the fact that they seemed extensive enough to be potentially very dangerous. It was starting to look like this
planet, and the species on it had the potential to be a problem.

Leader * still planned to send out a number of survey scouts as soon as it was dark. He also ordered the hatching of several more combat units. He wanted
to get a specimen of the local dominant species for analysis.

The bodies of Leader *'s species were an incredible factory for the production of chemicals. They also had extremely precise sensory organs for detecting
and decoding chemical compounds. DNA despite being the code for life was a chemical. It is not even that complex. Its complexity comes in the extremely
large variety of sequences that can be made from the four chemical building blocks. The actual building blocks are relatively simple chemical structures.
Their sensors could decode DNA, and their bodies could create it, just as any other chemical compound.

With a specimen, they could analyze its DNA and create a compound to act as a virus. The virus would spread throughout the local species and genetically
alter it to be docile with respect to Leader *'s people and obedient to their commands. The altered species would not just be responsive to commands; its
new genes would make it want to please. It would be able to act independently and make advances as a species, but all as a way to be better at serving
Leader *'s people. It was how they had risen to dominance on their home planet. It was a method they had repeated with any useful species they had
encountered during their expansion into space.

KIM HAD ARRIVED UNDER THE LANDING site and was analyzing the ship and the surrounding area. As soon as she got there, she stored an entire scan of the
starship and all of its contents. She included the alien crew and everything else, right down to any micro-organisms. After that she created two drones and
one of them had thrown up the barrier around the area to enforce quarantine.

Analysis did not show any alien organisms outside the confines of the ship. There were a number of organic chemicals that seemed to be of biologic origins
being released from the ship into the surrounding air. These did not seem to have escaped beyond the limits of the barrier, either in the air or in the
water of Lake St. Clair located nearby. This was good as some form of a contaminant in the Great Lakes system could potentially be catastrophic.

The risk of any immediate threat seemed to be contained to within the barrier so far, and Kim was focusing intensely on studying the ship and its crew
while the two drones kept a close eye, so to speak, on what was happening, both within, and beyond the outside edges of the barrier. Possible threats from
outside the barrier were far more likely to be familiar in nature, in the short run anyway. The ship and its crew were a total unknown, but not for long.

Kim observed and analyzed for now. Soon, she would start adding a variety of stimulus to the mix so that she could analyze reactions and get more
information. For right now though, she focused on what she could learn by passive observation.

Even by only observing she could learn a lot. Kim and her other incarnations had identical abilities. She was part of a group of organisms that shared a
single mind. Since that day several thousand years ago when she had duplicated herself, she had slowly grown in power and complexity.

She had been a he then and the vast majority of her extensions were still male. A few like herself had human shape and engaged in human activities. Most
though, she thought of as drones. They were fully functional extensions of her/him that could if she/he chose, assume any shape, but for the functions,
they carried out, human form was not needed so she/he did not bother with it.

She/he could not make an unlimited number of copies of herself, there were limits. She had to have absorbed a certain amount of energy in some form before
she could create another copy. She had reserves for a few more copies, but she liked to keep some room for emergencies.

Her abilities had grown over the years to the point that now she, and each of her other extensions could if she chose, control all matter down to the
subatomic level. Her range for this was now about a 5-mile radius. She could move things and sense them farther out than that but full control of matter
was limited to about 5 miles.

A number of her extensions were linked to large quantum computers which she had used her abilities with matter to assemble. This gave her mind access to
incredibly massive information processing and storage capabilities.

Kim had led Wendy to information about quantum computers and the example given had been the idea of using hydrogen to act as the chip. The easiest quantum
computer that current human technology could start with would use hydrogen in a liquid form as the “chip” and use the eleven distinctive wave forms or
phases of the single electron to process and store data. The ability to use eleven different states instead of the two states of traditional computer
offered computing and data-storage abilities far beyond even the currently fastest, most powerful super computers.

Kim, however, could control matter down to the subatomic level with her mind and this opened up possibilities way beyond what current technology could do.
Kim had taken the ideas and theories of human researchers and then used her abilities to apply those theories in ways further than they could imagine.

Kim could use all matter. Hydrogen atoms have one electron. Gold atoms have 79 electrons. Each of these electrons has multiple wave states and the possible
combinations of states available in a single gold atom went several orders of magnitude beyond what could be done with hydrogen. Kim also went farther than
using only electrons.

Atoms were made up of tinier subatomic particles. When you got smaller than the protons, neutrons and electrons that most people were familiar with, the
particles had properties other than charge. The properties were assigned names like spin, flavor, strangeness and charm. These could all be used by Kim to
process and store data.

The type of quantum computers that Kim was using were farther beyond the quantum computer the Chinese were developing than their computer was beyond
counting on your fingers and toes. Kim had several linked to the minds of drone versions of her extensions in hidden locations. In addition to being
extremely powerful, they were very large, about a four-mile diameter each.

She did not create those initially. It was a process of creating a simple quantum computer first and then using the computing ability of it to design the
hardware and software of more complicated versions. Each new improved quantum computer had been used to design the next more advanced one, until she had
reached the current models.

Kim used them for simpler things like analyzing brain function to read minds and memories. She also had a number of drones recording and mapping Earth,
including living creatures, down to the atomic level and storing the data. If some disaster occurred, she would be able to recreate those portions of the
planet, including the life in those areas, plant, animal and human. She had other projects that her quantum computers were working on as well.

Kim had already mapped and recorded the alien ship, and its crew down to their subatomic structures in her quantum memory storage so hopefully no matter
what happened with the ship; she would be able to recreate it if need be. She had analyzed the materials and machines of the ship and most she could
understand right away. Some she couldn't and would take further study. A number of the materials were organic in nature.

The crew was an insect-like creature that reminded Kim of the small oval bugs that scurried away when you turned over a rock. While they looked like large
insects and shared some properties and characteristics, there were differences in how the bodies functioned. The analogy that came to mind for Kim was that
dolphins looked like fish in many ways, but internally were quite different.

There were limits to how large an Earth insect could grow. One limitation was the respiratory system of Earth insects. It did not allow for really large
insects. The aliens' internal systems were very different than our insects, and they were larger in size than humans, being similar in size to a small
horse.

One thing that confirmed what Kim had suspected about possible life on other planets was that the aliens and all the life on their ship, down to the
microscopic organisms, was DNA based. There were many differences from the DNA from Earth organisms, but it was still DNA.

While Kim could “view” the aliens right down to the subatomic level, much more analysis would be needed to understand the connections between stimulus and
response to allow her to understand the thoughts of the aliens or even just their method of communication and language. With the quantum, computers linked
to several of her minds she had the information-processing abilities to do it. It would still take time.

The star drive of the ship was of immense interest to Kim. She had copied it, and had stored it in her memories. The understanding of how it worked and how
to control it would have to wait until she knew a lot more. She could make a physical copy and start performing random tests of her own, but without
knowing the possible dangers, she preferred to leave that as a last resort and to wait for what she could learn from the aliens.