King of All I Survey

Soon, almost every available sap-coated surface was covered. Smaller creatures filled in the tiny spaces between larger bugs. When larger bugs could no longer find a spot to eat, they began trying to dislodge the others. Bumping into them then pushing to try to slide them away from the rich food source.

"See," Rafael pointed to the insects, "The centipede things and the little white circular ones are actually helping each other. Together they grip more surface area and are harder to push away. They seem well-adapted to this kind of feeding. Which again is odd if nothing is eating or damaging the fronds. If the sap is such a rich source of nutrients, something should be trying to eat the fronds directly or at least cut them to access more sap."

One of the other researchers brought an empty trap. Rafael smiled as he saw it. He carefully lifted the machete by its clean handle and held it just over the upturned trap. "Use a knife to pry them off by species into individual traps," he instructed the others. "Be careful not to injure them if you can."

The others moved quickly to bring more empty traps. Soon a dozen different little sap-eating creepy-crawly things were inside the various traps. Someone had the presence of mind to put one over the sap slug at the canopy edge and trigger it manually to seal it inside.

Meanwhile, Celina was watching another of the slugs as it ate the sap that had dripped from the fresh cut. She was using her portable scanner to record it as it ate. The scanner would record in a variety of spectrums including a low infrared as well as the visual spectrum. It also emitted a low -power X-ray using its extremely sensitive receptors to capture that in video as well.

The scan was capturing its internal and external anatomy and even its genetic code. Celina had a puzzled look as she listened to the analysis overview on a tight beam audio transmission from the device that only she could hear. "That's odd," she muttered to herself. She rescanned then tilted her head in confusion when the same result was announced.

The sap slug finished its meal and began slowly sliding away, much bulkier than it had been when it appeared. "Rafael," she called excitedly, "Can I follow the sap slug off the path?"

"Yes, go. Double-check that your shield is on." He called back then handed the machete back to one of the others as he rushed over to Celina's side. "Let's see where it goes." He said grinning, his excitement matching hers. "Is it feeding a nest?"

He called the drone over to assist. "Drone, clear a path for us behind the sap slug." He pointed to the slug in question. As it moved off the paved pathway, the drone's laser burned away vegetation behind it, allowing Celina and Rafael to easily follow it. It moved slowly enough that it wouldn't have been a problem, but it saved them the trouble of fighting through the thick plants on the inside edge of the canopy.

"I think it's going to go use the extra energy and mass to reproduce," Celina suggested.

Rafael raised his eyebrows and grinned. "I guess as the colony leader, I think of taking care of the nest first, while you…" He let the sentence trail off.

Celina blushed furiously and tried to appear very busy studying her scanner as she became acutely aware of just how close she and Rafael were standing next to each other as they took another slow deliberate step behind the slow-moving sap slug.

Rafael laughed quietly, then spoke with a very serious tone. "I'm sorry Celina, that was inappropriate. I just can't resist when the set-up for a good punchline is just right there like that. I didn't intend anything more than to get a laugh. I'm new to this sort of situation, I'm still learning how to behave properly. Please accept my apology."

"Of course, I'm… It was kind of funny. No problem," she said. Her gaze was still focused on the scanner, her cheeks still flushed. A moment later she redirected the conversion back to work, "It looks like it's heading toward the canopy wall."

The sap slug had crawled parallel to the perimeter curtain of fronds until it was at the third frond from the damaged one that Rafael had cut to release the say this morning. Then it took an abrupt left hand turn toward the hanging fronds. It continued until it reach them, then began crawling up the frond along the central frond's central vein.

"Remarkable," Rafael said, "It turned almost exactly ninety degrees right at the spot where the center of the frond was. Was it coincidence or did it choose that spot for a reason?"

"Ans even though it's full of sap, bloated and heavy, it has no problem adhering to the vertical frond surface and climbing. It didn't even slow down from the speed it was traveling on the ground," Celina added.

"If it had slowed down, it would practically be standing still. It's not exactly speedy."

Celina chuckled. "No, but we don't know if that's its only speed. Maybe it can move faster if it senses there's a threat."

Rafael nodded, "Good point. We shouldn't make assumptions. For all we know, it can jump or sprout wings and fly like some of the insect things."

Celina shrugged. The slug continued up the frond. It's clear, transparent shape difficult to spot against the green, backlit frond. Only the slightly darker shadow and the outline of its edges which defined the heavy blurring of the frond visible through it. Rafael frowned and scanned the canopy high overhead. "In its flat form before gorging itself, it would be almost completely invisible, especially at the distance of the canopy roof from here. There could be hundreds or thousands of them right over our heads. Keep a sharp eye on this one, Celina. I'm going to have the drone go up and take a closer look."

"I won't take my eyes off it, Rafael."

"Good. Drone: survey the canopy, ten-meter-wide swath from here to the nearest tree trunk. Locate and count the sap slugs in that area," Rafael verbally commanded. "We don't need the drone to cut us a path anymore, since the slug is moving up the wall. We might as well put it to good use."

The drone faced the canopy wall from a distance of about five meters away, sweeping with its articulated laser lens, sending out a sonar-like beam to detect any slugs as it rose, then rotated its beam to track the vertical surface of the canopy top. Moving slowly toward the tree trunk away from the curtain wall.

As Celina continued to watch the swollen, cucumber-shaped sap slug climb the frond in front of her, the drone finished its survey and reported back in a directed audio beam audible to both her and Rafael. "Only one 'sap slug' detected. Currently climbing the from directly in front of Celina."

Rafael's brow wrinkled. "Drone: scan adjacent ten-meter paths, then the tree trunk, and the ground beneath the searched canopy area. Use detection frequencies that will penetrate the ground vegetation. Did you just scan the fronds at the surface level, or did you search within the interwoven portions for any that might be hidden?"

"The initial scan penetrated the canopy fronds, including the external surface exposed to the outside. Commencing additional surveys as requested."

Celina, her eyes still on the single sap slug as it climbed remarked, "It's inconceivable that there are no more. They appear very quickly as soon as a frond starts dripping sap, more than one at a time. At the pace they move they must be close by to get there that quickly… Unless they really do have a much faster travel speed when needed."

"Could they spread themselves thin and glide through the air from a distant high perch, landing near the sap and then crawling the last few feet? They'd be pretty close to invisible if they were thin enough and just gliding through the air without shadows," Rafael conjectured.

"Maybe, but I think that's a long shot. There must be some simpler explanation. Hopefully we'll figure it out when we see where this one goes."

The observed slug was now higher than Rafael's head and Celina, at just over five feet tall, was looking up at it. Rafael noticed her increasingly uncomfortable posture. "I'll watch it while you move back a bit for a better viewing angle, Celina."

She glanced at him and saw his gaze was fixed on the climbing slug. She turned and moved away from the wall so she wouldn't have to crane her neck upward so much until it got much higher. Eventually it would be nearly forty feet overhead and there would be no comfortable viewing angle. Once in her new position, she followed Rafael's gaze to relocate the slug. "OK, I've got eyes on it."

Rafael moved back from the wall to stand beside her. She was again acutely aware of his nearness, his presence seemingly magnified by the fact that she couldn't turn her gaze away from the slug to see him, except at the edge of her peripheral vision. She found herself breathing faster than normal and consciously willed herself to slow each breath, afraid he would notice.