Without additional comment, she stepped aside to let us see a wide-angle aerial view of the Japuran infestation. The huge screen showed a two-year time-lapse series of satellite photos. The mandala shape of the infestation was unmistakable. The worms had laid out their largest huts and corrals around a central core; then they had wound their avenues of traffic around and around that core. As the mandala had expanded, new rings of structures had grown up around the perimeter. The result was not quite a spiral and not quite concentric, but somehow both. The effect was eerily beautiful, like the waves of petals in a chrysanthemum. Spaced equally along the various axes, we could see other circular structures: mini-mandalas, that made me think of the eyes in a peacock's feathers. Each of the eyes was clearly a center of activity and growth.
As the time-lapse series progressed, we could see the ebb and flow of movement throbbing throughout the camp. The waves of activity moved across the great settlement like a pulse, as if there were a physical heart beating beneath it. We began to see a rhythmic pattern of growth underlying the movements. The mandala shape of the camp seemed to swirl in and out, and the overall pace of activity rose frenziedly until it seemed that the whole camp must surely burst because it could no longer contain such madness; then there would be a momentary hesitation, a series of throbs, and then a sudden rapid expansion outward, like flames of blood and fire slashing into the dark green forest. They were acrid scarlet waves, encroaching swiftly, curling around and around, encircling each new area, enclosing it to form intricate new patterns; and ultimately overflowing everything green until each last dark island of jungle vegetation winked out of existence.
Then, in the silent aftermath, the new worm huts would begin appearing, popping up like mushrooms, each one taking its mathematically precise position within the expanding mandala. The new structures grew within the curling protection of the outermost waves of expansion; it was clearly an act of deliberate colonization and assimilation of territory. The huts and the clusters of corrals that surrounded them grew slowly at first, as if the sudden thrust of expansion had exhausted the energy of the entire camp; but even as we watched, we could see the pace of activity beginning to pick up again as the cycle turned inexorably toward the next incredible explosion of life.
It went on and on. Swirl, throb, expand. Each expansion was frighteningly larger than the last one-and just as Lizard had said, each expansion seemed to transform the whole camp. With each new incarnation, the patterns of color and movement would become more intricate and complex. They were clearly an evolution of what had gone before, but they Were not predictable evolutions. Perhaps an expert in chaos theory might be able to determine what was happening here. I could see only the patterns. To me, each evolution seemed as baroque and as beautiful as a Mandelbrot[3] zoom, both natural and alien at the same time.
Abruptly the image cleared and Lizard stepped back in front of the screen. "As you can see, we're approaching the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next. We expect to see a new period of expansion starting some time next month. We think it's a function of population density. When the cup gets filled too tightly, it breaks, and the contents spread out in all directions.
"What worries us about this next period of expansion is that the Japuran settlement has reached the limits of what the local geography will allow. It can't get any bigger. It can't support any more Chtorrans. What's going to happen when this settlement hits the limit to its growth? An irresistible force is about to hit an immovable object. We think-and I caution you that this is only a hypothesis-we think that the infestation will adapt to the circumstance in some totally unexpected and unpredictable way. Uh, let me clarify that. What you're not seeing in the aerial views are the intricate patterns of life that are occurring deep within the camp. The visible patterns of the settlement are simply the surface expressions of much deeper forces. Each expansion, each transformation, represents new symbioses, new patterns of cooperation, new behaviors among the Chtorran species never previously observed.
"Right now our best guess is that each expansion represents a critical threshold of density necessary for those behaviors to occur. When a threshold level is reached, the new behaviors begin, the mandala is transformed-raised to the next level of efficiencyand the expansion results.
"We think that what we're seeing now is a penultimate stage where all the separate pieces of the ecology have finally all become active, all in one place, and that the next transformation of behavior will not be simply a physical expansion of the camp, but something much more than that. Perhaps we are going to see a volcanic explosion of Chtorran life, a physical tidal wave of expansion that devours everything before it, as pitilessly and as relentlessly as the spring flooding submerges the delta." She hesitated. "That's our best guess. I hope to God we're wrong. But… the wonderful thing about the Chtorrans is that no matter how bad we think they're going to get, they always manage to get worse. Not just worse than we imagine. Worse than we can imagine."
There was silence in the room for a long long moment. Then Lizard began speaking again. "Our flight path will take us directly across the Carabinani infestation. We're going to use that as a dry run to see how the worms react to our presence in their sky.
"Our past experience with lighter-than-air craft suggests that the gastropedes perceive dirigibles and blimps as some kind of gigantic sky-Chtorran. Perhaps they perceive the craft as an angel, perhaps even a god. Who knows? But if the Japuran worms are anything like their North American counterparts, and we see no reason why they shouldn't be, their initial reaction will be one of frenzy and confusion. After a short period of panic, they'll go into rapid sessions of communion, two, three, four at a time. Later, as they break out of these sessions, we'll see them spending a lot of time focusing their attention upward. An airship seems to have the same effect on them as a hundred-meter vision of the Virgin Mary appearing over Saint Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday would have on the Roman Catholic masses: awe and fear, worship and mass hysteria. You might consider for yourself how you would feel if you were part of the crowd when such an event occurred. Whether you believe or not, you would not be unmoved.
"We're going to take advantage of this phenomenon. As some of you already know, the outer skin of the Hieronymus Bosch is the most extravagant large-scale video-display surface ever assembled. Not even the Matsushita building in New York has this scale of display electronics. We're going to experiment with a variety of different patterns and color combinations across the sides and belly of the ship. We're going to test their responses every way we can. We'll hit them with the colors that their eyes respond to best; we'll project rhythms and sounds; we'll generate intricate cycles of moving patterns to see what kinds of reactions they manifest. We want to see what kinds of behaviors the various displays will trigger in the Chtorran nervous systems. We have a whole program of cyclical displays: fractals, chaotics, mathematical formulas, random harmonies, musically derived images, everything that the Detroit labs could come up with. We're going to see if we can hypnotize the entire camp into some kind of paralysis. The Carabinani infestation will be our first test. It'll be a place where we can allow ourselves to take a few risks without penalizing our later mission over the Japuran camp.
"There are briefing books in the pockets of your chairs. You can take them out now. You'll notice that they're fairly thick documents. And yes, you are expected to be familiar with every single page of these documents."
3
Named after mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the Mandelbrot is a computer-generated fractal image of infinite complexity and beauty. It is created by multiple iterations of a simple equation across a two-dimensional graph. When colors are assigned to the different values produced on the graph, an image is generated. The image is truly infinite because the equation can be recalculated for ever more precise values, each time generating more exquisite detail. The effect is like zooming into a kaleidoscope. It is an extravagant wonderland of intricate swirling shapes and colors.