It is hypothesied that the alien creature that manifested itself
in Brazil at Midnight last night is in fact a form of "virus"
from Jupiter. In the 9 hours since it appeared it has consumed
or killed everyone in São Paulo and grown to a breadth of
9 kilometers. All efforts to stop it have failed: it absorbs
projectiles into its mushy body; it melts before fire, then
reforms unharmed; is immune to poisons; and any parts cut off
continue to live and begin operating independantly.
The Solar Rangers are ready with a nuclear missile, but it is
feared that if it is blown into pieces, each piece will become a
creature like the one we already can't deal with. However, it is
growing at such a rate that it will consume or smother all life
on Earth within 6 weeks.
Lt R. Sheckley of the Solar Rangers, who was among the
Jupiter Return team, has this to say: "We feared something like
this when we
knew how the child was conceived on Jupiter, and we had decided
to keep it in isolation on Callisto Base, but your god-damned
civilian "Popular Opinion" took the authority out of our hands
and you got your Jupiter baby down to Earth after all.
"Now we have to figure out what to do if it DOES kill all
life on Earth. Can it leave Earth? It hovers, it may have MEST
capabilities. Will it visit all of our colonies one by one? Is
it a bomb the Jupiterians have dropped on us, or is it an
accidental virus, like when the Spaniards wiped out the Aztec
with smallpox? Do we go to war with Jupiter? Can we win
a war against Jupiter?
"If you ask 'Do we have the resources to war against Jupiter?',
the answer is obvious: they have two-thirds of all the resources
there are in the Solar System, and we have about one millionth,
if we even have the Earth any more; they gave us MEST, so if they
attacked us they probably have something bigger and better. No,
I don't think we'll even bother attacking a Gas Giant."