Worms

I'm a miner, not a biologist, so it never occurred to me to try to figure out how the worms did what they did. We were just glad for whatever it was. And it wasn't the worms themselves, it was Mother. I called it Mother not because, as I said, I understood the biology, it just seemed to be a safe haven for the worms. It provided protection of sorts. Orifices dotted its surface and whenever there was a threat, from outside worms say, Mother's worms would slither inside while the warrior worms did battle.

But the main reason I called it Mother was that it was the mother load. Its excreta was a highly refined mix of very valuable compounds, very valuable indeed. While our traditional mining operations provided an array of in-demand substances, dollar for dollar Mother outperformed them ten to one.

I also felt a bit of sentiment towards Mother. It's my pet project of sorts.

Near as I could figure back then, it was a symbiotic relationship. The worms ate what they could, their excreta nourished Mother, and it provided them with safe haven.

There were other creatures in the caverns, seven at last count. Often, worms would go on raids, sometimes successful, sometimes not. We would see an increase in the quality of the victor's excreta, but never made the biological connection until they got Mag.

Mag was a big man, the kind of guy who flouted the rules. Mag didn't need no stinkin' safety gear. One day he got up close and personal with Mother. We never found him, just his gear and shreds of cloth.

Mother's productivity went up, way up. Stayed there for over a week. It didn't take a biologist to figure out that fresh, organic matter was what it craved.

I was crunching numbers one night when I noted for the hundredth time that we were spending a lot of money recycling waste. Not the usual metals and plastics and such. There was very little variety in the content of our daily lives. And so recycling was a no brainer. But the garbage, the human waste. There wasn't a whole lot we could do with it, not even compost it since everything we grew was hydroponic.

But there before me, or more accurately below me was the solution. We began feeding the creatures. Immediately the cost of recycling went down and quality of the excreted compounds went up. We were now part of the creature's food chain - and getting rich to boot.

But then I lost Lista.

Lista had been my personal assistant for only a week when I decided to introduce her to Mother.

"Is it safe?"

"Should be. Just been fed. When they're eating they pretty much tend to ignore us. We'll keep our distance, though, stay by the cart."

Lista was fascinated by the worms and asked me to take her down there several times. We would stay by the cart and watch them do whatever it is worms do. Once we saw a battle. A group of foreign worms entered the chamber. Mother's worms were on them in a flash. I pushed Lista into the cart and we watched it from the safety within. The interlopers got the worst of it, but Mother lost a few of her own. I noticed that the Eaters, as I called them, didn't discriminate between the enemy or their siblings.

One day, just after feeding time, we had been watching the worms finish their meal. Several minutes passed when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a worm. A big one.

Worms range in size from little, ropey things a foot or so long, to thirty foot monsters as thick as your thigh.

This one was a big one, biggest I'd ever seen. I nudged Lista. We edged our way toward the cart.

I never saw it coming, never heard it either until Lista screamed. She was on the ground writhing in the grasp of half a dozen worms. It took me a moment to realize that we had been herded into a trap.

The coiling mass dragged Lista toward Mother. Her screams echoed in the chamber. I have to admit I was shocked, motionless. I didn't have a weapon. Wouldn't know what to do with it against the worms if I had.

Rooted to the spot, I watched her clothes ripped from her body. Leaving a trail of tattered cloth and a pair of shoes, Lista was naked by the time the mass reached Mother.

The worms swarmed over her, for how long? I don't know. Finally one reared up and plunged into the girl's gaping mouth. In an instant Lista ceased her struggles. Had it killed her? I couldn't tell. All I know is that an opening appeared on Mother's side. Lista's limp body was propelled through the opening, which promptly closed.

I looked around. The monster worm was nowhere to be seen. Most of the smaller worms had disappeared into Mother. I stepped forward, retrieved Lista's clothing, her watch, her ID card. I went back to the cart.

It was a hellish night. As Director I was ultimately responsible for the safety of everybody on the planet. And to have a girl, my personal assistant no less, killed while I watched helplessly, well, there would be hell to pay.

Or not.

The morning reports came in. Mother's output had changed. I had expected that. Change what goes in, you change what comes out. It had happened when we began feeding Mother. The composition went from purely alien to mostly earth-like, with a purity I've never seen come out of the ground.

That day Mother's composition changed again. There was a high percentage of compounds that not only were human-specific, but extremely rare. And extremely valuable. And hard as it was to believe, the rarest elements were present in the greatest percentages!

***

It was about three years later when Mother's numbers started to drop. I had been amazed that that one "meal" had sustained it for so long, but month in, month out, Mother's numbers stayed strong. Fact is, I had to fudge the numbers to draw attention away from the disparity between Mother and the others.

But it came to an end one day. The numbers dwindled, dropped to its pre-meal levels, spiked for a few days, then settled back down.

Questions were asked. I countered them with vague answers about unknown alien biology.

I knew the answer of course. It was just a matter of selling my soul.

I had reasoned that the creature was attracted to human females. Why? No clue. I also reasoned that on our visits to the chamber we were being analyzed. The creature was familiar with human males, but Lista was the first female it had encountered. And there was just something about her Mother wanted.

Mag was killed and devoured on the spot. Yet Mother's worms didn't touch me. Fact is, I've been down in the chamber countless times over the past three years and witnessed no aggressive behavior whatsoever. Well, at least not from Mother. We lost another worker to another creature when his cart broke down and he decided to pop the hood. Nothing left but tattered rags and a large blood stain.

But there's something to be said for greed - none of it good. I had become wealthy. I never expected to. As Director I made good money, didn't have any place to spend it out here, I figured I'd retire comfortably. But now?

The girl said her name was Ali. I knew that wasn't true, of course. But I went along with it.

I paid top dollar for her. One of the house girls would have been cheaper, but she'd no doubt have been missed. Ali worked solo, catered to an elite clientele. Now that Mother was making us rich, we'd spruced up the place, created several resorts, that kind of thing. We started getting wealthy visitors. The kind of thing that would make a girl like Ali want to settle here.

I had placed the call through one of my dummy accounts, people who didn't exist except in my computer files. I paid up front and made arrangements to fetch her. She may have been surprised to find her client was the director, or not. Discretion is key in her business and aliases and whatnot not uncommon.

Her perfume nearly knocked me off my feet. My cock went instantly hard. It wasn't just the fact that she was beautiful. Oh she was, for sure. And she kept up with all the latest trends. For instance, her hair and eyes actually changed color, almost like one of those two-dimensional holograms. Every time she moved her head things changed. I had the feeling I was in the company of four different girls.

Fighting the urge in my loins, I drove the cart into the cavern.

"Have you ever seen the creatures?"

"No. No, I haven't. I've heard about them, of course."

"Well, I'll introduce you to Mother, from whom all good things come."

"Mother?"

"A nickname. Kind of my personal pet project."

"Are we, uh, going to do it down here?"

"Why? Does it bother you?"

"Kind of creepy."

"Not to worry, I'm a twisted s.o.b., but not that twisted." I chuckled.

In Mother's chamber, we stood by the cart. Ali shivered.

"Okay, this is definitely creepy."

She gave me her best look. "Could we find some place a bit more, er, private?"

"In a minute. I think something's about to happen." I gestured toward Mother.

What was happening was several worms had worked their way behind Ali. I got to watch it this time.

Two of the worms shot out and encircled her ankles.

"What-"

She landed with a thud. Two more worms wrapped themselves around her chest. Other worms appeared, knotted themselves to the former, and began pulling the girl toward Mother. Ali struggled, boy did she ever! She was a very strong girl. Kind of glad I hadn't slept with her. She might have hurt me.

She didn't scream like Lista, just made a lot of oofing and grunting noises. But, then again, she was expending a lot more effort.

As she was dragged across the chamber, a third set of worms appeared and Ali's clothes disappeared. By the time she reached Mother's mouth she was naked.

Again the thick shaft down the throat, again the almost instant collapse, again the pushing and pulling as the girl disappeared into the maw.

Again, I collected what was left of a girl's personal items.

The night was hellish for a different reason. Not from the horror of watching Ali killed, but from the fact that I'd killed her - or at least was an accomplice.

But the next morning Mother's numbers were back up and greed trumped conscience.

And, as it turned out, Ali wasn't dead.

I borrowed the hospital's portable scanner saying, honestly enough, that I wanted to get a look inside Mother. The worms ignored me as I set it up in the chamber. I pushed the ON button.

It took a while to dial it in, but eventually I managed to peel the outer layers off and see inside the creature.

There was Ali - and she was alive!

A worm was in her mouth. Ali's cheeks concave, moving in rhythm with her throat. Swallowing clearly swallowing. I adjusted the machine, looked into her mouth. Yes. The worm was excreting something into her mouth and she was swallowing.

There were two worms affixed to Ali's nipples, but other than a bit of writhing, I couldn't tell what they were doing.

Further down another worm had worked its way into Ali's sex. I redialed the machine. This worm was different. From the tip were several tendrils moving inside her like seaweed in a current.

Presently the worm extracted itself and I saw there was yet a third worm inside her, in her ass. Another adjustment to the scanner and I saw a worm similar to the one that had been in her sex, except the tendrils had worked their way deep into her colon.

I made a final adjustment, pulled the scan back for the big picture.

Ali reclined on what looked like mucous covered pillows. Her body was covered in a thick layer of slime. Worms slithered over her in seemingly random fashion. One worm in her mouth, two on her nipples, a fourth, a new worm, had entered her sex, and the fifth busied itself in her ass.

And Ali sucked and she swallowed and, I just noticed, she was moving, writhing slightly as if in response to the assault on her sex. Maybe it was sex, or maybe it was some kind of drug. But the answer was clear. The worms fed Ali and she fed other worms that in turn fed Mother. And I was the ultimate pimp.

I got an answer to a question when I checked Ali's purse. The perfume. It was called, honestly enough, Pheromones. That explained my reaction to her. That also explained Mother's, why it had all but ignored me. Mother could smell women. Men, too, probably. It clearly preferred the former.

A week went by. Then two. I noticed that Ali's already ample breasts appeared larger. Sure enough, the constant sucking of the worms had got her to lactating. The worms rotated, took turns in and on her. And when one left her nipple there was a drizzle of milk.

A month passed. Two. Three. I returned the scanner to the hospital after risking life and limb getting a peak into one of the other creatures. Not nearly as entertaining as a naked Ali, impaled and squirming in a goo-filled Mother.

***

Timing is everything, but some things you can't control. I'd assumed that Ali would last as long as Lista. She didn't.

I had made arrangements six months prior. A freshly minted PhD student looking for adventure and a free ride in space.

Britt Sorenson was cute in a college girl sort of way. Fresh scrubbed, no makeup, hair in a ponytail. Average height, average body, kind of a piggy face with a pushed up nose and chubby cheeks. Like I said, cute, if you like them that way. I do.

The trip would take three months and two years and eight months later she was aboard ship and headed this way.

But Mother's numbers started to drop, not off the chart, but the decline was obvious. Then they tanked. In fact all the numbers were down. In the chamber the worms were less friendly. They would slither around, looking for fresh food. And they slithered closer and closer to me. Perhaps in desperation, Mother sent out raiding parties. Her worms were clearly superior, but there were casualties on all sides and, as I said, production dropped.

So it was with a sense of relieve that I watched the hobo peel off the ship. In a couple of days it would be reloaded and make its way back into space. We called it a hobo because it was, well, like a hobo, riding the rails, waiting for the train to slow so he could jump off, running along side and jumping on before the train gained speed. It was the same with the ship as it slowed near the planet, the shuttle detached, then reattached itself.

The computer confirmed Britt had disembarked. The camera showed her leaving the terminal. She approached one of the monocarts, opened the door, tossed her duffle bag behind the single seat, climbed in.

I hit UPDATE on the computer.

Britt slid her ID into the scanner. A moment later it popped out. In that moment Britt Sorenson ceased to exist. The code was simple: If so and so, replace data with such and such. I selected the line of code and keyed DELETE. I did the same with the 14 seconds of video. It wasn't perfect, but if there was an investigation it wouldn't come for several months, and who do you think would be in charge?

The mono pulled into my private parking area. Britt grabbed her bag, walked up to the door, rang the bell.

"Hello, Director," she said offering her hand. "I'm Britt Sorenson."

"Raul, Raul Pitt."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was ra-ool."

"No, Raul as in Paul."

I led her through the apartment, opened a door.

"These are the guest quarters. You would think we'd have gotten your quarters set up, but I'm afraid you're stuck here for a while. I hope you don't mind."

"Heck no! Compared to that closet I lived in for the last three months, this is a palace."

"Good. Good. So I could probably interest you in a bath? A real bath, not sonic."

I led her into the bathroom.

"Water is at a premium, not as bad as aboard ship, but still ... Most folks use the sonics and treat themselves to the public baths once a week."

I gestured toward the tub.

"Shower off, then have a nice long soak. When you're ready I'll arrange lunch. Oh, by the way, please wear only these clothes," I said gesturing at the jumpsuit and slippers on the counter. "You're things will have to be checked. You understand."

"But they checked them at the terminal."

"Yes, but you'll be having contact with the worms, so we have to be a bit extra careful."

"Sure."

Back in my office I brought the video up just in time to watch her toss her underwear aside. She stepped over to the shower. She was brown, with dark curly hair. Not what I expected from a Sorenson. I was thinking blonde and blue eyed. Still it worked for her. She had a compact body, brown nipples, bald sex as was the fashion. I wouldn't have minded keeping her a while. If Mother hadn't finished with Ali ...

She turned off the shower and settled herself in the tub. The aromatic salts would cling to her skin. I had done a  bit of research on female hormones, pheromones, and such. The bath salts were laced with a female cocktail that I hoped Mother would find irresistible. As I said, the worms had been very testy lately and I didn't want them coming after me before getting a sniff of Britt.

And because I'm a belt and suspenders type, Britt's food was laced with a similar mix of essence of girl.

The jumpsuit was paper. All of our disposable clothing was. She wore no underwear and everything jiggled nicely.

The meal went as these things normally do. A bit of chit chat, some sharing of on-planet and off-planet news, a bit of flirting. Whether she was, in fact, flirting or just sucking up to the director, I didn't care.

After lunch we climbed into my cart and headed down. In Mother's chamber I rolled down the window, drove close by, hoping to give Mother a good whiff of Britt. I needn't have worried. As I pointed out this or that feature, several worms made their way behind us. Either I'm a fast learner or they are, because no sooner had we stepped around the cart, than they grabbed her.

Britt, like Ali, struggled so hard she didn't have the breath to scream, and like Lista before, she was soon stripped naked and dragged, unconscious, into Mother.

There was nothing left, even the paper clothes were eaten by the worms. I'd recycle her personal things.

***

I'll be retiring soon, decades earlier than I'd thought possible, and stinking rich. The population is growing and I'm not a people puppy. Give me space - literally. The plans are complete, construction is underway, the ship should be finished in a year. They've made some serious breakthroughs in engine technology recently. I'll be able to explore to my heart's content. Have to find just the right planet, though.

You see, Mother gave me a gift - or maybe I stole it. Anyway, it was there. A mini Mother. Complete with a colony of worms. How it got into an adjacent cavern I don't know. But the only way in was past Mother and nothing got past Mother, well, except me now that she'd been fed.

It'll take some adjustment for Mother, I know. There'll be no fresh girls to nurture and feed on. But the population is growing so much that garbage is getting to be a real problem. Mother won't starve.

And I'm in the cat bird's seat. Right now all the orders for ships are from the, shall I say, lazy rich. Me? I'm headed out, get myself right on the edge, stake a claim. Me and mini Mother.

Okay, so maybe I won't retire. Did I mention Greed?

 

24.02.11