Predator

“This could take time,” I say. “Need to see interaction between—whoa!”

I shove my face back to the microscope to get a better look. It only took seconds before the Astrophage fell under attack. Am I incredibly lucky, or is this life-form just that aggressive?

Rocky skittered back and forth above me. “What, question? What happen, question?”

The monster lurches toward the clump of Astrophage. It’s an amorphous blob, like an amoeba. It presses itself against its much-smaller prey and begins to envelop the entire clump of them by oozing around both sides.

The Astrophage wriggle. They know something is wrong. They try to escape but it’s too late. They can only sputter a short distance before they stop. Normally, Astrophage can accelerate to near light speed in seconds, but these can’t. Maybe a chemical excretion by the monster that disables them somehow?

The encirclement completes, and the Astrophage are surrounded. A few seconds later, the Astrophage become cell-like in appearance. No longer featureless black, their organelles and membranes are starkly visible in the microscope’s light. They have lost their ability to absorb heat and light energy.

They’re dead.

“Got it!” I say. “I found the predator! It ate Astrophage right in front of me!”

“Found!” Rocky cheers. “Isolate.”

“Yes, I’ll isolate it!” I say.

“Happy happy happy!” he says. “Now you name.”

I grab a nano-pipette from the supply. “I don’t follow.”

“Earth culture. You find. You name. What is name of predator, question?”

“Oh,” I say. I’m not feeling creative at the moment. This is too exciting to take my attention away from. It’s an amoeba from Tau Ceti. “Taumoeba, I guess.”

***

Chapter 21