Contagious

And that was important when you wanted slave labor to build your colonies for you.

Colonies, like exploration, are prohibitively expensive operations. Enslaving a native population provides a low-cost solution. It also helps cut off a potential interstellar rival.

If all went well, if the planet had suitable gravity and atmosphere, the object could get cracking. It would seed the planet with machines that could build a portal, a portal that connected two places so far apart that no living thing, nor the children of that living thing, nor the great-greMargaret, Amos and Clarence sat in the MargoMobile’s at-great-grandchildren of that living thing, could survive the trip by any other means. With the portal, however, such a trip took place instantly. Hundreds of light-years traversed in the blink of an eye.

This object, this...o...b..tal, had arrived in Earth’s solar system some twenty years ago after detecting multiple signals: radio, television, microwaves. It approached slowly, cautiously, because there was always the possibility sentient life was too advanced and would see it coming. So the Orbital watched for a few years. It a.n.a.lyzed, eventually reaching the conclusion it could move into a low, stationary orbit without being detected.

Once the Orbital drew to the operating range, it spent more years watching. While there were multiple shapes and forms in the signals, the dominant species was almost always present. Suffice it to say that thanks to repeated image a.n.a.lysis, the Orbital knew a human when it saw one.

After seven years the Orbital knew humanity’s technological capabilities. It could identify major population centers and, more significantly, areas of little or no population. It could not understand any languages, but it didn’t need to—it would acc.u.mulate language once the probes were successfully deployed.

The Orbital carried eighteen of the small, soda-can-size probes, each of which could cast over a billion tiny seeds adrift on the winds. Each seed contained two main elements. The first was the microscopic machinery needed to a.n.a.lyze potential hosts and hijack their biological processes. The second was a tiny, submicroscopic chunk of crystal. This chunk

The first probe had been a total failure. Bad luck with the weather. The second probe actually produced several connections, but, unfortunately, they were all with nonsentient animals. When that happened, the seeds simply shut off—a half-formed triangle on a caged or penned domesticated animal could potentially alert humanity to the hovering threat. The seeds also needed sentient hosts to develop workers that could communicate and work together, could use tools and vehicles, could learn about the area and potential dangers.

It wasn’t until the sixth probe that seeds latched onto a sentient being. Although those seeds died early, the Orbital was able to gather some biofeedback. It a.n.a.lyzed the data, identified key problems, then modified the next batch accordingly.

The seventh probe proved closer still. More development, including successful creation of the biological material needed for worker construction. These were the strange red, blue and black fibers that would come to be a.s.sociated with Morgellons disease.

Batches eight through ten were each more successful than the last, creating firm connections that flooded the Orbital with valuable biofeedback. It learned much about the structure of host-species DNA, refining the self-a.s.sembly process to a highly functional level. It gathered data about brain composition and chemical structure, enough to manipulate host behaviors, to steer them away from a.s.sociating with noninfected hosts.

Batch eleven was a landmark achievement—access to the higher levels of a host’s brain, including memory and language processing. The Orbital began to build a vocabulary of images, concepts and words. One host even found a suitable portal location. This host, Alida Garcia, died soon after, but the primary obstacles had been overcome.

That should have made batch twelve the one.

Batch twelve produced five hosts. A change in the language, from some Spanish to English. The Orbital’s vocabulary grew. It understood more and more of the broadcast signals pouring off the planet. The workers incubated well and almost made it to the hatching phase before unexpected complications resulted in the deaths of the hosts—including Blaine Tanarive, Gary Leeland, Charlotte Wilson and Judy Was.h.i.+ngton. Martin Brewbaker’s triangles activated a few days after the others, but he died just the same.

More data. More modifications.

Probability tables indicated that batch thirteen had an 82 percent chance of success. Multiple seeds implanted in eleven hosts for a total of seventy-two potential workers. Fifty-six of those actually hatched and made it to the location identified by Alida Garcia.

The workers started to build the gate. Success seemed inevitable.

But then the rogue host appeared. A host that fought back, that killed embryonic workers and brought the human military. The workers had a name for this host. They called it the sonofab.i.t.c.h.

The Orbital tried again. Aside from some minor biological upgrades, batch fourteen used the same strategy as batch thirteen. Probes went out, seeds landed, embryos germinated, workers hatched. Everything went fine, until the Orbital learned of yet another unantic.i.p.ated fact.

The rogue host could still hear.

Structures grown in host brains acted like antennae, connecting embryos and hosts, allowing the Orbital to direct them, to guide them, helping them find each other so they could work together to reach the gate locations. The rogue host remained tapped into this communication grid.