King of All I Survey

The team went about their work efficiently cataloguing sample from every plant and every part of every plant. A leaf might have a different chemical composition or different concentrations of compounds than the stem. The inner part of the stem might differ from the outer part. Each plant, therefore required several samples and each sampler had to look at each plant and try to determine how many different areas needed to be chosen from each plant. Even the soil adjacent to the roots was sampled in case the plant was either exuding some compound into the soil or supporting some symbiotic microbes underground.

"Hey, look at this," someone called out from the back of the group near the entrance. The others finished the sample they were working on, then came over to check it out. Celina, the researcher who had called them over, pointed to the ground where the sap had fallen from the cut tree fronds. Each one had a slug-like creature eating it. Exactly one slug per glob of sap. As the expedition member watched, the slugs ate and ballooned in size, their baggy outer skin stretching as they doubled, tripled, then quadrupled in size as they consumed the jelly-like globs that were several times their original volume. One of the researchers recorded the action from every angle.

One finally finished eating, leaving no trace of the sticky sap behind. It turned and retreated of the path into the thick underbrush of the forest edge. Then another finished. "Look, it's following the exact same path as the first one." Celina, the researcher who originally spotted them, noted. "Like ants following a trail."

The slugs glided along the ground with little wave-like motions. The motions were more obvious before they fed and their bodies were much flatter, almost like a sea slug on Earth. After filling themselves full of the thick sap, they were rounded and bulbous, more like a sea cucumber and the movements that propelled them along were largely hidden by their bulk.

"Should I follow and see where it goes?" she asked.

"Not today," Rafael decided. "Everyone stays on the path until we have the samples analyzed for harmful compounds."

"We're all shielded. Nothing can get through to our skin," Celina argued.

"I gave an order, Celina." Rafael met her gaze with an intensity that made her blink and look away.

"Yes, sir." She replied meekly.

Rafael's gaze swept through the others. No one met his eyes. Good. I'm the fucking boss, here. They'd better fucking remember it. Celina will remember. The others are just going along with it, trying to stay out of the line of fire. Fine, I'll start with her. Reward her obedience with approval.

"Celina?"

She looked up, hesitantly. "Yes, sir?"

"That was a good suggestion. I'm just trying to be extra cautious until we know more. Tomorrow, after we've had a chance to run through the results of today's samples, you and I will follow them back to wherever they go after they eat. I'm putting you in charge of finding out everything there is to know about the life cycle of the Sap Slugs." Rafael nodded to her and gave her the smile that he knew made people feel as though he liked them, as though he valued them.

Celina's face brightened instantly, she smiled unconsciously. "Yes, sir. Thank you! For today, I just want to see if we can figure out what kind of trail their laying down for the others to follow."

Rafael nodded and smiled his approval, "Good thinking, Celina." The others will notice that obedience is rewarded, but Celina will seek out my approval and do everything she can to impress me, he thought, good. I'll build my cult of personality one at a time. There are few enough here that everybody can get special attention from either me or Maribel. He feigned interest in her efforts to sample the track the slugs followed. It was tiring to watch her little scrabbling, but he needed to remember every detail. Later when he recalled some triviality or asked a detailed question about what she'd done, it would give the impression that he cared about her work. A necessary part of the job. After a minute, he'd had enough. He glanced around at the others to dismiss them back to their other assigned tasks.

"Celina, learn what you can from them on the path today. Take one as sample in a containment vessel, and we'll put it through one of the bigger analyzers back in the lab. I've got to get back to the site survey work." She looked up and smiled.

"Yes, sir."

"Please, just Rafael…" He told her in a low voice that no one else was close enough to hear. His smile was warm and familiar, one meant for those he considered close friends it seemed to Celina. She nodded and turned back to her portable analyzer hoping he wouldn't see her blush.

He walked back to the bulldozer at the far end of the path. "Dozer One, clear out a building site for a domicile building. Receive coordinates." He pictured the location and sent it to the machine which was keyed to the 'Receive' command to scan his thoughts for the information he was projecting. A momentary scan that would end as soon as it had the needed information. He pondered instructions he might give to perform continuous scans of the thoughts of others and prepare reports for his eyes only, just to make sure no one was plotting against him, and weighed the benefit against alerting the machines that he was planning a more complete control of the colony than originally planned. Not yet, he decided.

Nima's bulk stepped up beside him. "You going to build one today?"

"Not today. I want to see how aggressively the forest tries to take back the space overnight. I'll have the fabricator coat it, then we'll check it tomorrow to see what we're up against."

The big man nodded, "Smart, boss."

Nima was the kind of man Rafael understood. He was the type he had sought in building his trafficking network, just smart enough to know that he's not smart enough to run the show, and that his best choice is to prove his loyalty to someone who's better equipped for the Boss role. A man who knew his only value was in his strength and the boss's faith in him to do whatever he was told to do, nothing else.

Rafael nodded. "Keep your eyes open, I'm going to send the drown out for a little scouting around the area."

"You got it, Boss."

"Drone 1: area sensor sweep, 300 feet radius from my position inside the forest. Threat analysis to me, complete results to lab monitors."

The drone rotated in place above Rafael's head, sending out invisible scanning beams. When it's finished, the drone sent a focused audio beam toward Rafael. Even Nima, standing right beside him heard nothing. "No aggressive threats approaching, some venomous small animals, uninterested or unaware of the expedition. Some mildly poisonous plants. Current precautions adequate. A number of small creatures watching the expedition from visually hidden locations. No immediate threats perceived."

"Drone 1, expand search radius, 500 feet."

This time the drone flew out about fifty feet then slowly moved in a circle, always facing outward. "Six additional species detected, no change in threat summary."

"It's all clear, mostly. Some of the little bugs have a sting, but they don't seem to care about us," Rafael shared to Nima. "At least for five hundred feet out."

Nima looked down at his feet as if looking for stinging bugs that might decide to crawl up his pant leg.

Rafael noticed and closed his eyes with a sigh. "You're shielded Nima… Nothing's going to crawl up your pantleg and sting your balls."

Nima's eyes went momentarily wide with fright as if he hadn't even considered exactly where he might be stung. Then he calms as the part about the shielding sinks in. He lets out a deep breath of relief. He chuckles, "I was worried for a minute…"

A few hours later, Rafael gave the order for the team to wrap up and prepare to leave. Hundreds of samples have been run through the hand-held analyzers, the data sent back to the labs for full analysis and cross-referencing.

"OK, set the traps on the edges of the pathway." Rafael called out, the team pulled the little filed traps off the top of the bull dozers and placed them all around the edges of the cut path, and pressed a button to activate them. The traps would sense whenever any creature is within their boundary and create a shield wall around them, all four sides, top, and bottom. Whatever is caught would be held fast until the team comes to pick them up the next day. The bulldozers withdrew back down the path they created to get here, which now had several rows of carbon nanotube 'paving'. The little fabricator unit stopped its work on the road and moved into the opening in the forest canopy to pave the building site that Rafael specified, before resuming its work on the road.

Once everybody is finished and out of the canopy, they began the trek back. At the halfway point, Rafael instructed them all to use the repel setting on their shields to clean off any shit they picked up, then stay on the paved part of the path for the rest of trip back. It was still early enough in the afternoon that things hadn't started settling from the sky in large numbers, so the pathway was relatively clear.

Rafael gave the repel field order to the bulldozers as well, and the mess that they picked up as they flattened the terrain, dropped off, completely unable to adhere to the shields. Once cleaned, they rolled back toward the camp and parked themselves in the storage warehouse.

The team did one last repel cycle on their shields before stepping into the building through the filtering shield that keeps the outside air outside.