Resurrection

I

Our mother ship’s initial pass around the planet had revealed no cities, no centers of habitation, nor any of the other usual signs of civilization. To every inquiring sense the planet appeared Earth-like, as these distant places go, and therefore a ripe candidate for exploitation—another victim in humanity’s insatiable cry for living space.

Ten of us were deposited on the planet to verify these preliminary findings and discover more about the life that filled this place that was so distant from Earth.

After our team had been dropped from orbit, our mother ship departed to examine the next system’s prospects. It would be two years before she returned. In that brief time our team had to assess this planet’s treasures and dangers. We had to ensure that she was ripe for settlement.

I was the team’s botanist. Since botany is not a field that can keep one productively employed during the long silences between the stars, I had spent much of my copious spare time assisting the ship’s chaplains.

The Jesuits on Earth had trained me to be one of their own, so I was familiar with all forms of religion around the world and off it.

The botany and biology courses I had taken as an avocation, discovering a facility with the subject that led to no little expertise and, eventually, to a role as professor. When I began my ministry I little suspected that teaching would be a way of supplementing the pittance that supported my woefully small congregation, a post I had abandoned when I secured a post on Hercules’s outward voyage of discovery.

I helped the ship’s chaplains as they attended to the ships’ weak religious needs. This took no great art on my part, for most of the crew were of lukewarm faith. They followed the religious rituals while their minds were, no doubt, preoccupied with temporal thoughts. Form, not substance, was the watchword.

On different days and occasions I assisted the priests, rabbis, mullahs, lamas, brahmins, and the lone archimandrite. Each chaplain praised me for my faithful rendition of their rites, sometimes remarking on some fine point of ritualistic precision and faithfulness where I had done well. There were no complaints.

Yet I wondered if any of these religious people sensed the black hole in my soul; the absence of that core of faith that was the center of the religious experience. I was a sham. Yet, helping them and observing the rituals helped to pass the time.

It made me feel useful.

Our survey party had selected a dry peninsula within the temperate region for our base camp. We’d had to build pads under the ship to keep it from sinking into the soft, moist soil.

Our chosen site was surrounded with low-growing plant life. I immediately noted that some of the brush appeared littoral in aspect, as if it had evolved from living ever on the barrier between dry and wet. What periodic flooding could give rise to this characteristic was something I promised to research when I had time. All evidence suggested that the nearby placid sea was not always at its current level.

Hidden among the alien plants was an amazing collection of animate life. Every ecological niche seemed so loaded with competing species that scarcely a square meter of the terrain lacked its own teeming population of flora and fauna.

The curious thing about most of the motile life was its dependence upon armor. The most extravagant array of plate, shell, horn, and scale was employed by every animalcule or in-sectoid to protect all their vulnerable parts.The local life had no reluctance to try to see if we were as edible as their local prey. To protect ourselves against their sharp array of pincers, claws, teeth, and proboscises we erected a dome about the ship and carefully sterilized every square centimeter within it to create a cordon sanitaire. In this limited area we could squish about in relative security. Walking unencumbered on the muddy soils inside the dome was a welcome relief after spending a week cramped either two to the bunk in our small lander or encased in our hard suits when outside.

Only after we were certain that our dome was secure against the sharp biting, cutting, and tearing appendages of the local pests did we set up our instruments and begin to work in earnest.

I remarked upon the excess of the indigenous life’s protective strategies on one of our first outings as I snipped leaves and stems from some promising specimens of X-Gramen secundus, following the conventional genera naming with the necessary “X,” for extraterrestrial.

“The Earth had a similar proliferation of armor during the late Cambrian period,” Ed replied as he gleefully swept the nearby brush with a vacuum pump and gathered a collection jar full of angry specimens. “Shows the principle of parallel evolution— similar problems lead to similar solutions.”

“But why didn’t that persist?” Els-beth asked as she scooped dollops of lime-green mud into her own sample tray.

Ed chuckled. “Ought to study your biology instead of geology. Most of Earth’s armored forms disappeared in the first Great Extinction, the one long before the dinosaurs arose. We only know about them because of the evidence in Earth’s fossil record, and the horseshoe crab—one of the last survivors. If it wasn’t for that extinction, all of Earth’s creatures would probably be wearing a natural coat of armor instead of soft and”—he added with a grinning leer at Elsbeth—“their sometimes very appealing skins.” Elsbeth blushed and quickly glanced away. I wondered at her reaction; everyone knew about the two of them.

The lobster-like creatures started showing up a few days after we completed the dome. We dubbed them lobsters only because of their huge strength claws and the array of feelers, eyes, and other sensory apparatuses projecting from the front end of their long bodies.

There the resemblance to Earth’s lobsters ended. The aliens’ bodies more closely resembled an armor-plated dog, who just happened to have six legs and a wide, flat tail. The front end of the creatures rose above the rest of the body and provided the perch for a cluster of sensory organs that stuck out in all directions.

The largest of the first group was hardly a meter high and weighed under ten kilos, according to Ed’s careful measurements. The smallest was half that size.

Despite their frightening appearance, they did not appear to be menacing, or even express an interest in us as a possible food source. Instead they followed us everywhere, like curious monkeys encountering explorers for the first time. Ed Corson, head of the biology crew, modestly bestowed the onerous name of X-Crustacea Decopeda Homarus corsonni upon them, adapting our initial nickname and appending his own. We simply called them homaroids, tor they rapidly became a pain in the you-know-where.

Within a matter of days there was a considerable crowd of the homaroids pressed hard against the unyielding surface of the dome. They appeared to be observing us as we moved around the dome, hard at work at our tasks, ululating the whole while in their gurgling, fluid voices. We set Ajita, the closest thing we had to a psychologist, to studying their actions.

On my second trip outside, one of the homaroids proceeded ahead of me, snipping samples exactly as I had done the previous day. To my wondering eyes it began laying them on the ground: root, leaf, stem, fruit, pod, or flower intact—the perfect specimen presentation each time. Just as I had done.

Curious at its seeming ability to so faithfully mimic my actions, I made sure that it watched me carefully uproot an entire plant. I wanted to see what parasites or symbiotes might be attached and was curious as to what my companion would make of this. The homaroid watched me carefully.

After I dug up two more plants, taking care not to vary my actions, the homaroid began to do likewise with another plant nearby, carefully trimming the loose soil away with that huge claw, much as I had done with my spade.

Ajita became very excited when I told her what had happened and immediately set up a testing program. She started running a few specimens through mazes and quickly graduated them to more complex tests when they showed increasing levels of sophistication with the test protocols. Her small collection of homaroids were seemingly able to learn in instants and retain it long term—or so she believed. The difficulty she faced was that her subjects tended to die just as she thought they were making headway.

“Their bodies decay rapidly in this heat,” she told me. “They start to smell, the shells fall off, and the bugs start eating them right away. I watched a swarm clean out the entire shell in a matter of hours after the subject died. It was horrible to watch.”

Death was only one of the problems with the homaroids. Many of the other lobsters tended to suddenly disappear. We suspected that the larger homaroids that had started arriving were responsible for these disappearances since, by that time we had become aware of their cannibalistic practices—preying upon their own kind.

These late arrivals were much the same in appearance as the earlier ones, but had different shell markings and were a quarter size larger. Ed playfully and provisionally named these X-Homarus evenlarger, asserting them to be another variant.

None of the smaller homaroids ventured close to the larger ones, apparently anxious to avoid coming in reach of their claws. As a result, each evenlarger was surrounded by an open area. When they moved, the smaller ones parted to each side as waves in a chitinous sea.

Ajita reported that the larger ones tested as more intelligent than the others. Ed borrowed a few for closer examination, ruining Ajita’s carefully planned testing regime.

Ed dissected his captives with great care and confirmed his earlier suppositions—the organ that the homaroids used as a brain was not localized, like ours, but was an evenly distributed extension of their central notochord. This latter structure, what we would term a spine, lacked our familiar surrounding bony structure. A little reflection revealed that they had little need for such protection since their entire body was encased within a hard exoskeleton and needed no extra protection.

The notochord ran the length their body, with sites of the higher functions located more toward the center, close to the cluster of sensory organs that projected from the top, while the motor functions lay nearest the extremities. It was a most efficient design.

What was significant was that the “brains” of the larger species were significantly more complex than their smaller cousins.

Ed’s heated arguments with Ajita about the impact of this discovery on the possible intelligence of the homaroids led to an amazing discovery: that the homaroids were able to grow additional brain mass, which provided growing room for additional dendritic nerves, the connectors between active sites.

Both the homaroids’ increase in mass and accompanying dendritic growth appeared to occur in response to learning pressures, as Ed and Ajita learned through ruthless experimentation and dissection.

Ed explained the meaning of this to the rest of us during one of our periodic review sessions. “The same sort of growth of dendritic nerves occurs in humans of all ages whenever they learn new tasks, but not at the rate of growth we’ve found here.”

“But humans just expand the number of dendrites in their brains, not expand the brain itself,” Ajita corrected.

Ed considered, “Well, yes. But we have a lot of excess room in our brains. I also think our dendritic density is higher because of the differences in cell size. I found that the cells of most of the homaroids are on a grosser level than ours—ten to twenty times larger. You can even see some of the larger cells with your naked eye. This means that they have to increase volume to compensate for the lower density.”

Al waved his hands, as if trying to diagram the problem he saw in the air. “It scares me when you contend that they can grow the equivalent of a second brain. Where will it stop? If their environment puts enough pressure on them won’t they eventually become intelligent? Maybe even to the point of sapience!”

The remark sent a challenging and exciting thought through me. I wondered if they would develop a soul along with their intelligence, since they would necessarily understand guilt and consequences.

“I doubt that could happen,” Ed said, dismissing Al’s idea with a wave of his hand. “Unless they are more like Earth’s crustaceans than evidence seems to indicate, the inflexible exoskeleton that protects them prevents any great amount of expansion. Once a homaroid grows enough to fill its body cavity it can’t expand any more. That’s a natural limit.”

“And if it can’t grow then it can’t learn beyond a certain point,” Ajita responded on cue. So much for my dreams of an alien dialogue.

Or the existence of their souls.

As time went on even bigger members of the homaroids began gathering around the dome. Ed assured everyone that these were simply variants of the originals whose difference in size was the result of environmental conditions. He further stated that the bigger ones probably lived farther away, where a more plentiful supply of food was readily available. We all debated continually about the evolutionary mechanisms that would allow such variations in dimensions.

Perhaps, some of our crew concluded, it had taken these later arrivals longer to reach us from their distant feeding grounds.

So it seemed to me as well.

Eventually we had a broad range of homaroid sizes outside the dome. The crowd ranged from the original one-meter X-Homarus corsonni to the X-Homarus evenlarger, some of whom equaled the mass of a small human.

Not a few of the largest ones had imprinted on specific members of our crew. Even Ed, the chief homaroid dissector had his claque of devoted followers as he went about his grisly business. Often he had to shove them away to prevent them from reaching out to grab a snack from the exposed meat.

“Damn homaroids are omnivores,” he remarked proudly. “True survivors. Just as soon eat their own flesh as anything else.”

I despaired for the existence of any semblance of a soul in such animals.

The homaroids followed us every time we ventured from the dome. Since each had striations on its carapace, with unique variations in color and form, we found that we could easily identify individuals. A few of us even gave certain ones endearing names, much as you would a pet.

My own followers were headed by Julius, a medium-sized evenlarger with worn green and brown markings, and a dozen or so smaller corsonni of assorted sizes. I myself noted further correlations between intelligence and size as they mimicked my actions. Ajita had been right, the bigger ones were definitely quicker to learn new things and could handle complex tasks with ease.

On each new plant I discovered I bestowed a provisional Latinate name, for I fancied myself as an alien Linnaeus come to classify and order their world. To amuse myself I began to speak in my native Italian, conversing endlessly about my activities to my alien audience while I gathered my samples.

I often mused, as they repeated the liquid phrases of Italian that I had taught them, just how well they would learn the beautiful language of Dante Alighieri. It should not be difficult, given the fluid nature of their vocal apparatus. Were they as primitive natives of Italia, to observe our alien selves much as his fictional protagonist had observed the demons and devils?

At a deeper level I wondered if we could stay humanity’s colonization to permit these creatures to one day evolve their own version of a political Rome, an artistic Venice, or a Florence brimming with intellectual ferment? I tried to imagine tables full of homaroids sitting on some damp Via di Vita, sipping espresso, and discoursing on the state of the government, perhaps even discussing philosophy … and Med. Creatures without a soul cannot aspire to civilization.

An evenlarger joined my group a week or two after Julius had suddenly disappeared. “Mi chiamo Jhl*kuh” he said to me with a surprisingly flawless Italian accent, rapping himself on his shell with his claw by way of greeting one morning a few days after his first appearance.

Perhaps it was merely because I had been speaking that tongue so much lately that my new companion had picked up the Italian, surpassing even the more senior ones of the troop in his facility with the tongue. It showed surprisingly good mimicking abilities, much as the original had done with my actions regarding the plant.

“It’s just natural mimicry,” Ajita remarked when I related this to her. “It simply copies what you do and say. Don’t read too much into it.”

Still I wondered at the similarity of his name to that of my former follower; had I been using that form of address on him by habit? I dubbed him Julius II and he quickly became the new leader of my flock.

“Nuovo! Nuovo!” Jhl*kuh said one morning as I exited the dome with my sample kit, ready for another day of searching and classification.

“A new plant?” I’d replied in surprise. The initiative, intelligence, and memory displayed by his remark was quite startling. It indicated that these evenlarger might not be so lacking in intelligence as Ajita supposed. Perhaps we should bestow on them the as yet unclaimed X-Homerus sapiens designation.

“Dove…” I began in Italian and then switched to the hideously harsh vulgar tongue that was our lingua franca, knowing that it could not comprehend either way. “Well, let us see it,” I barked slowly. Into the brush we plunged, with the rest of my claque behind us. I wondered what the day would bring as I trudged along behind Jhl*kuh in my hard suit.

Our troop’s trek to the center of the broad peninsula from the dome took most of the morning and, at the end of it, I discovered not one, but a dozen new specimens. These appeared to be a new order, one closer to the seaweeds of tropical seas than the land based ones I had seen so far. I named them X-Aquaia fortejulii, in honor of my new guide. The plants’ presence this far from the water was an indication that the sea had only recently receded, in geological terms, and that their recognizably acquatic features were residual attributes.

Again I considered writing a paper on the possible evolution of these plants and then reconsidered: better, more learned scientists than I would theorize and develop a history of this planet. My present role was merely to catalog the items for an initial survey, not try to unravel the story of this planet’s evolutionary history.

I even doubted that the provisional names I gave to this plant would withstand the erosion of time. This I took as further evidence of the transience of man’s activities and of my own in particular.

By the end of the fifth month Ed finally found out how the homaroids got around their growth limitations and why there was such a variation in their size. He informed us of his findings over our simple evening meal of bread and cheese, smiling broadly as if he were the proverbial cat that caught the mouse.

“They do grow very much like the crustaceans of our mother planet,” he explained patiently. “As we know, periodically their growth reaches the limits of the volume inside of their exoskeleton.”

“Yes, and that was why you and Ajita said they couldn’t be too smart,” Al remarked with a worried frown, as if he still feared that our pets would suddenly become sapient and declare us persona non grata on their planet.

Ed frowned, as if he had been caught in a lie. “Well, yes. I did. But that was only a preliminary thought— a theory—nothing more. Now I have rather more convincing evidence to the contrary.” He took a sip of tea and then continued.

“As I was saying, rather than stop at the point where they reach the limits of their shells, these creatures seem to be able to grow a new exoskeleton with more room to replace the constricting old one.”

“Wait a minute,” Ch’ou, our atmospheric specialist said, interrupting Ed. “Don’t you have that backwards? Shouldn’t it be that they shed and then grow a new shell? It isn’t reasonable that you could get a larger shell inside a smaller one. That’s just a mite impossible.”

Ed smiled as if he had anticipated the question. “Not impossible if you understand the process. The new chitinous shell is soft and pliable and somewhat compressed; all folded underneath the exoskeleton. It is only when the old shell is shucked and it becomes exposed that the new chitin expands and hardens to become a solid exoskeleton. Crabs on Earth do this every year.”

I thought of what he said and wondered out loud, “How long does it take for the new shell to harden? Wouldn’t that make them vulnerable?

I mean, during the period they are without armor they must be quite defenseless against all of the bugs and things that prey on them.”

“Quite right,” he snapped back instantly. “I expect that it would take three to four days for the chitin to harden to the point where it would be effective as armor.”

“Now wait a minute. If their shell is so soft then how could they move? And no, I don’t mean the obvious,” Elsbeth said smartly as Ch’ou started to interrupt her. “Ed told us earlier that the homaroids’ muscles are anchored to their shell. How do they prevent their muscles from tearing the soft shell apart when they rid themselves of the old?”

Ed explained, “The dormant one I dissected seemed to be in a hibernation state. I guess some internal process paralyzes their muscles during the period it takes for the hardening to complete. I would suppose that they sleep through the process as well.”

“Oh my God,” Ajita shrieked. “My specimens weren’t dead! They were just shedding their shells!” With that she raced outside, no doubt to throw some protective coverings over the pens to prevent further losses.

“I still don’t understand how they protect themselves during this vulnerable period,” I said aloud. “And another thing; why don’t we recognize the newly sloughed, or vice versa?”

Ed smiled. “Oh, we don’t? What about that Julius one that dotes on you?”

Wait a minute! I rocked back on my heels with the dawning realization of what he had just said. Julius must have been the reincarnation of my former follower. The revelation must have shown on my face.

“Exactly,” said Ed, smiling broadly.