Tre’neih answered the summoning bell. The viewer depicted a waiting figure matching the description of his expected guest. He opened the portal and waived the visitor through the opening.
“Should I take off the outerwear?” The visitor of course was following the polite norm when arriving at another’s dwelling.
“Please, if you wouldn’t mind.” Tre’neih felt a compulsive need to explain the situation, “If it was still myself on my own I wouldn’t care either way, but since my mate joined me and we had the younglings…well you know how it is.”
“I do, it’s no trouble. My own mates are paranoid about the imperceptible things that get dragged in with us, particularly with my line of work. Makes the flesh crawl.” The visitor stripped off the outer forms and deposited them in the usual receptacle.
“It’s Ston’olfe right?” Tre’neih found himself, as ever, nervous when dealing with a worker, “Can I get you a refreshment, a nourishment even?”
“No, that’s very kind of you, but I never eat on a job, my mates are keen to control my diet,” the visiting worker kept the tone polite but friendly, “ and it’s Stonolf, but don’t worry.”
Tre’neih felt his social anxiety begin to rise, along with unbidden thoughts of frustration. Why can’t Alu’sru sort these things for once? Just because I work from the dwelling!
“By the Great One I’m so sorry!” Hearing the angst evident in his own voice the dwelling owner felt his internal torment climb further.
Stonolf reached out to placate his worries, “Like I said, not to worry. My people and our language are ancient, not many folks would understand how to pronounce it. Even our own young ones have trouble with it these days.”
Tre’neih appreciated the disarming candour and forced himself to slow his circulation. Remember the mantra the therapist taught you. Slow to action, slow to disaster.
“Thank you for coming at such short notice,” the delivery was tremble free this time, “I know it’s not easy to come down here, down to this level.”
“All part of the service Tre’neih. I may call you Tre’neih right?” Having received a nonverbal consent from the dwelling owner, Stonolf made a show of glancing around the dwelling, “Now what seems to be the problem?”
“Well its not within the dwelling as such, its actually in the outside domain. It might be easier if I show you.” Tre’neih indicated another, more informal looking portal off to one side, as he did so a thought struck him, “Oh darn, you’ll need to put your outers back on, right?”
“It’s OK, I keep a lighter set on me in case I have to go to the outer domains, or deeper down into the depths.” He indicated a few sets of outers stacked by the lesser portal, “Much like the ones your family use by the looks of things.”
“Oh yes, of course.” A relived Tre’neih picked up his own gardening outers, “So let’s get them on and I’ll show you what we have out there.”
In no time at all they were both outside absorbing the sheer beauty of Tre’neih’s domain.
“If you don’t mind me saying it’s quite a range you have here, a lot of space, and I like how you’ve kept it. Very natural looking.” From the tone of Stonolf’s voice even Tre’neih could tell the admiration was genuine.
“I’ve always liked the untamed look,” gushed Tre’neih,” I used to be a naturalist in my spare time, used to leave it a lot rougher, so I could see how the various little fauna and flora interacted with each other.”
“I prefer it that way myself, more organic, less sculpted say.” Stonolf’s rapport with the natural universe seemed at odds with his profession, at least to Tre’neih.
“I used to derive a lot of pleasure watching the little critters at play, how they went about their brief little lives, barely aware of us even.” The dwelling owner felt a little guilty over what he had called Stonolf here to do, and he had to force himself to be rational, to move forward with the request.
“But now,” he continued, “it’s different with the younglings. We use this as an outer nursery and they’re at the stage where they’ve started poking into everything.”
“We’ve all been through that stage.” Stonolf laughed, before turning more whimsical with his next musing, “Being in touch with nature, is gift not all get to experience, to see the beauty of the Great Old Ones’ design.”
The lyrical depiction threatened to bring Tre’neih’s doubts to the fore once more, but with an effort of will that Alu’sru would have been proud of, he smothered them, “True and the younglings will benefit from that in time. Right now, though, my mate fears they will come to some harm, or worse, bring something back through the portal!”
Stonolf grunted, “So what is it that got you to call out a certified exterminator then?”
“I kind of feel sorry for the things, but there seems to be an infestation of these minute quadrupedal critters, they seemed quite localised at first, but now they’re spreading like wildfire across that spiral there.”
Tre’neih sighed, they had seemed quite fascinating at first, but that was before all the damage they had spread, even wrecking some of his prize installations that he spent aeons working on.
“That spiral there?” The exterminator doubled checked the location with his client, “Quadrupeds you say? Hmmm had some experience with that kind of thing before, breed faster than a gravity well gulps a rogue comet.”
“I’ve tried removing them myself, but they seem quite persistent, I’m afraid there might be a nest.” Tre’neih felt the existential angst of an amateur prostrating himself before a professional.
“What did you use on them?”
“I used a naturally occurring gamma radiation emitter, and it seemed to work, briefly. Then they were back, worse.”
Stonolf snorted, “Look as much as I admire nature, I can tell you now, don’t bother with that organic rubbish.” Seeing some lingering doubt in his client’s eyes the exterminator pressed on, “The gamma waves can keep them pegged back for a little while, but they can weather it and be back within a few generations.”
“I guess that’s what happened here then. Do they learn how to avoid it, do you think?” The last part had only occurred to Tre’neih as he spoke, but then he wasn’t an exterminator.
“Uh-huh, exactly. They learn from the experience, quite something for beings that aren’t fully evolved, not even sentient really.” Stonolf paused for a few moments, gazing at the spiral as he did so. “For a hardcore infestation like this, I recommended a full-scale bombardment of galactic cosmic rays, now that will pretty much kill anything in that zone.”
“Oh. Will it be safe for the younglings to play in afterwards?” Anything that kept the young from enjoying the beautiful domain was missing the point of the exercise as far as Tre’neih was concerned.
“Not to worry, bounces off our kind, I’d keep them out of that area for a short while to be on the safe side, say around…a galactic rotation.” Stonolf’s demeanour and delivery were both relaxed enough to put the dwelling owner at ease.
“Well that doesn’t sound too bad, at all.”
“Good, in that case do I have your permission to get started?” Stonolf received the assent he required, then relayed a few final instructions to the client, “As I said the bombardment will eradicate most life in that part of the spiral, so if there’s anything you want to save, I’d do it now whilst I get my equipment. Once I get started, don’t come out here until I beckon you.”
The exterminator exited after that, leaving Tre’neih to ponder what, if anything, was worth saving.
#
Less than a millionth of a galactic rotation later Stonolf was beckoning Tre’neih from the outer domain. After slipping his gardening outers back on he stepped through the portal to receive the update.
“That got most of them, but as we suspected there’s definitely a nest.” Stonolf indicated that Tre’neih should follow him and together they ambulated over to a far corner of the spiral arm.
“Can you see there, right there, a little yellow stellar mass?” Stonolf indicated with one of his pseudopod spores, “the damn things are hold up on the third orbiting body.”
“By the Great Old Ones, that is so hard to find. I would have missed that myself.” Tre’neih own tentacles writhed in agitated sympathy with his shocked brain.
“There’s a few ways we could proceed from here if you want me to lay out the options?” Stonolf’s professionalism was exactly as advertised.
“Please, none too expensive I hope?”
“Nothing too prohibitive,” Stonolf sucked in his breath as he spoke, in a universally recognised cue between worker and client, “the cheapest, most organic alternative, would be some gravitational adjustments to send a bombardment of meteors and comets from that cloud of planetary debris orbiting the outer reaches of the system. I wouldn’t recommended it though.”
“Why not?”
“Several reasons, it will be a slow death for most of the species in that habitat, cruel if you ask me. Not to mention, it’s the least effective, there’s a high chance that one species or phylum could survive and eventually thrive again.”
“How high a chance?”
“Around twenty percent, and that’s far too high in this case, in my professional opinion anyway.”
Tre’neih was both shocked and intrigued, “Why in this case?”
“The orbiting body is in, what we in the business call, the hot zone, a perfect place around a perfect star for promoting growth,” Stonolf sounded excited by the discovery, “couldn’t have built it better yourself if you’d tried.”
“So, that makes it easier for them to survive?”
Stonolf sucked his breath in again, “Makes it easier for something to survive, and with those conditions you could be looking at another infestation within a few galactic rotations.
“Oh, Great Old Ones no. My mate would not be happy with that.”
“Then I recommend we try option two. This particular solar system has almost neared the dark matter accretion disk at this stage of the galactic rotation, it should be a simple operation with the right skill set, to redirect some of the matter at the third body.” Confidence exuded from Stonolf as he outlined the option.
“Forgive me but what would that achieve?” Alu’sru would have known, but it wasn’t in Tre’neih’s area of expertise.
“The dark matter would lodge in the planetary core, causing massive surges of energy and a resultant firestorm of geothermic activity across the sphere. Few places a lifeform could shelter under those conditions.”
“That’s one hundred per cent lethal?”
“Close, but even with that solution I can’t guarantee that something won’t arise again eventually, particularly considering the hot zone effect. That said you would be looking at a much longer interval before any further infestation.” The exterminator had a reputation for honesty that Tre’neih was coming to appreciate.
“Is there anything that would guarantee one hundred per cent elimination?”
“Of course, just cause the stellar mass to supernovae.” Stonolf’s reply was simple.
“You wouldn’t recommend that though?”
“No, that hot zone there is really almost unique, you never know when it might come in handy. You might even be able to rent it out to interested parties.” Stonolf sounded as if he might know of some parties.
“OK, thank you for the assessment, I’d like to proceed with the second option. So how much will it cost?” Relief filled Tre’neih as he neared the end of the experience and was proud that he had kept his social anxiety, for the most part, under control, “Could you also tell me what you know about renting it out?”
“What if I take up that offer of refreshment now? After all it’s a long way back to my home plane. We can discuss both points inside.”
“Excellent, I hope you like homemade gargle blaster.”
#
Many, many, galactic rotations later, the younglings had grown enough that Alu’sru was more relaxed about critters in the outer domain, and the familial unit spent much time there. On one lazy family relaxation period Tre’neih was secretly delighted to see that another species had indeed arisen from the old nest.
After the initial emotional kerfuffle Tre’neih was able to convince Alu’sru that keeping the colony was would be good for the younglings’ academic studies, given that they had reached the point where they were learning alien physiology.
Alu’sru had of course pointed to the colony that Tre’neih had kept inside the dwelling all this time, but he had countered that those were tame, and this new species were wild, perfect for study.
The new colony was composed of hardy hexapods with tough outer carapaces, different to their predecessors with the soft fleshy exteriors.
Tre’neih had decided to save some of the earlier occupants from the edges of their territory before Stonolf had begun the cosmic ray bombardment. Somehow, he’d managed to persuade Alu’sru to let him keep them in a controlled environment within the domicile, and over the years it had become a family pastime to watch the little civilization in action.
Periodically he had to extend the ecology as the quadrupeds underwent periods of rapid reproduction and expansion. Over time one of the younglings pointed out that the species was in fact bipedal, though they had four appendages, they only used two for locomotion.
Sometimes when he stopped and stared too long at the artificial ecosystem Tre’neih would wonder if they were aware of the synthetic nature of their surroundings, and sometimes he would give himself a panic attack as he began to wonder the same about his own environment.
After all who knew what the nature of reality truly was?
THE END