SUMMER OF XERCES
by Charles M. Saplak
art by Noel Bebee
One day in June of 2007, UFOs were reported over San Francisco. Several dozen shaky videodiscs were made, which was dutifully run on the cable channels, some webcasts, and The Ricki Lake Show. Dozens of eyewitnesses were interviewed, including a Roman Catholic Cardinal and a retired major league shortstop.
The UFOs were quite unlike the traditional cigars, spheres, and discs. They looked like huge manta rays made of some mercury-like substance which shimmered in the sunlight.
The focus on the UFOs quickly faded. They looked enough like possible atmospheric effects to be forgotten. Besides, with the World Economy still riding the crests of the prosperity of the New Millennium, who had time to worry?
Approximately one month later, at 0734 Greenwich Mean Time the ninth of July, 2007, seven more UFOs arrived, all at once. They took up positions over the Equator, at intervals of approximately fifty-two degrees of angular separation. They commenced weaving a complex pattern over the surface of the Earth. Every single living thing beneath the track of their pattern was simply ... discorporated. It was a great deal like the 1953 film War of the Worlds; except these machines were so efficient the news didn't spread quickly enough for many people to panic before they became water and protein spots.
A few fighter intercepts were brushed aside, their human crews dissolved. Although the space program was financially healthy, the seven alien spacecraft had arrived during a period of no human presence in orbit, on the moon, or en route to Mars.
Their mission apparently completed, the seven UFOs disappeared.
After six rotations of the dead Earth, a final spacecraft arrived, near the spot which had been the human community of Flagstaff, Arizona.
Two aliens stepped out. The first said to the second, "Okay, Freyannis, release the specimen."
The second opened up a shiny little sphere. A xerces butterfly flew out. It fluttered its black, white, and gray spotty-patterned wings, circled for a few minutes, then disappeared into the clear sky.
The two aliens stepped back into their craft, and flew to the place which had been San Francisco. After a day or so of waiting, they watched the xerces flutter down to the exact same spot where they had captured it during their visit in June.
"Ha!" Freyannis told Norrin. "I told you the existence of a biosphere wouldn't have any effect on its navigational capability. I win the bet, and I now officially have one-decimal-three times the amount of prestige you have."
"You win," Norrin said, shrugging. They climbed back into their craft, and left.
The butterfly quickly starved.
* * *
Writer's apology:
I'd like to apologize for two flaws in the above story:* * *
1) Philosophically sophisticated SF readers dislike the hackneyed plot device of technologically superior aliens off-handedly destroying humanity. After all, superior intelligence and technology would tend to go hand-in-hand with superior ethics and awareness, wouldn't they?
2) Lepidopterists will undoubtedly object to my use of the xerces butterfly. The last confirmed specimen was captured in San Francisco on 23 March 1943. They have been extinct for years, due to destruction of habitat.