Martin Satie and Yeneva Blaylock, the pilot who flew Chopper One, were inundated with flight requests for observation and experiments. There was general outrage that the Shobijin had not yet returned from dropping off Red Team and would additionally need at least a few days for maintenance when it returned. Administration had to step in and take over assigning flight time to keep various science divisions from knifing each other to get priority. They also ended up re-tasking an aerostat to float over the explosion site as a stopgap, to have constant aerial observation, and to allow Satie and Blaylock to sleep and maintain their vehicles.
It was reassigning the aerostat, in fact, that revealed the thing that upset some proposed missions and created others.
“Bella is nesting at the explosion site,” Ion Ardeleanu, a Blue Team biologist, told a meeting of the Tanaka Base scientists and administrators, four days after the explosion. I was there because I was catering for the meeting, which meant I had wheeled in platters of rolls and cookies and jugs of water and tea, along with plates and napkins, and was expected to wheel them out again at the end.
Ardeleanu projected images from his laptop, taken from the aerostat. The image up right now was of Bella wandering through the shattered landscape of the lakeshore and then plopping herself down right at the edge of the small inlet of the lake created by the blast crater.
“That’s not good,” said Angel Ford, a Blue Team physicist.
“Well, that depends,” Ardeleanu said.
“We have a flying kaiju that has decided to make a new home in the one spot where the dimensional barrier between our planets is the thinnest right now,” Ford replied. “This is exactly how we’ve had incursions before. Tell me how this is a good thing.”
“Because she doesn’t want to go over,” Aparna said. She was sitting next to Ardeleanu and was clearly his support team for the meeting.
Ford gave Aparna a once-over. “You’re new,” she said.
“I am new,” Aparna agreed. “We were all new here, once.”
“My point is that maybe you don’t understand how easy it is for this kaiju to breach into our world, and how bad it would be if she did.”
“I do understand it,” Aparna said. “I mean, it’s just physics.” This got a chuckle; it took some nerve for Aparna, who was new, to dunk on Ford like this. She pointed to the screen, which had been looping the video of Bella sitting and making herself comfortable. “This is biology, and there are some things going on here that aren’t obvious.” She paused and looked over to Ardeleanu. “May I?”
Ardeleanu looked tolerantly amused. “By all means,” he said.
“Yes, I’m new, but I can read, and I can research,” Aparna said. “When the mission to get Edward and Bella to mate was a success, I checked the KPS database to find out what we know about their particular species after mating. It turns out that for them, once mating is over, the male of the species is done. He has no additional part. The female, however, immediately selects a nest site. And because this species does some nurturing of their young, which other kaiju will see as snacks, the female becomes intensely territorial. More than they already are, I mean.”
She pointed again. “It makes sense why she picks the explosion site. One, the radiation there won’t hurt her or her offspring. Two, every living thing within a hundred kilometers sensed the explosion and is on its way there to feed on it and the fallout. Any kaiju that come around she’ll fight off, including Edward. She’s over him now.” Chuckles again. “The smaller creatures she’ll want for food, for herself and her brood.” She looked up at Ardeleanu. “Show them the parasite video.”
“This is pretty nasty,” Ardeleanu warned everyone, and pulled up another video. On it, Bella stood motionless like a statue while a swarm of creatures squirmed off her and another swarm squirmed on.
“She’s feeding,” Aparna said.
“I thought kaiju were atomic powered,” I said, before I remembered I was just there for craft services.
“They are, but they have biological components, too,” Aparna said. “They’re too big to hunt most creatures themselves, so their parasites do it for them. They detach, go out and hunt and scavenge, kill and eat their prey, come back and reattach and share nutrients, which Bella is using to create her eggs. They get safety, she gets food for her babies.” She turned her attention back to Ford. “Which is why she’s not going to cross over. She has everything she needs here. She’s staying put, and while she does, she’s not going to let any other kaiju come close to the dimensional barrier.”