CHAPTER 45

MOTIVE: RARE BIOLOIGICAL COMPOUNDS

This is a good time to bring up some individuals who had a good motive for coming to Earth. But they acted a lot differently from you guys.

First up is Ag-Re-Nom, a Zogorian physician and bio chemist.

The good doctor took a big risk by coming to Earth. It wouldn’t be easy for him to escape detection, and he wasn’t combat trained. If the Earthlings discovered him, it would have gone badly for Ag-Re-Nom. So why did he do it?

Time for another lesson. This one is about science. Quit your bitching back there!

Life is complicated. No, I’m not talking about juggling your wives and mistresses. I’m talking about life: biochemical compounds that make up living things. To put it simply, they can be combined in millions of ways. Any planet with a developed biosphere is going to have an abundance of different life forms. And most of these, while similar, will be unique to the planet. Many of them will produce compounds that are unique. That can equal a lot of money. But not always. First off, there’s a huge difference between being rare, and actually being valuable. The crap from a terran lemur is rare. That doesn’t mean it’s worth anything.

But as it happens, Earth lemur poop cures Zogorian cancer, for some reason. So that meant there was something both rare and valuable on Earth.

Ag-Re-Nom, being a scientist, had no intention of harvesting whole life forms. That may sound like a logical step to you, but you’re not scientists.

Nom knew that he needed to be cautious. Had he hired a mercenary army and come in guns ablaze he would have made the lemurs crap themselves for certain. And probably would have wiped out the entire species.

Nom knew that if any part of the planet’s biosphere was valuable, the last thing he wanted was a hard military incursion. Instead, he went for a stealth incursion to collect samples, and then got the hell out.

And he really only needed a few samples. That’s because biology ain’t magic. Biological compounds, lemur poop, cobra venom, blue whale semen – none of these are magic potions. They are secreted by organisms, not brewed in a sorcerer’s pot. It’s biology. And biology is, at its basic level, chemistry. If smearing lemur crap over your face removes your tumors, it’s because there’s a chemical compound in the feces that’s reacting with your system. Once Nom isolated the compound, he didn’t need the lemur. He was able to mass produce the cancer cure in a lab.

Now Ag-Re-Nom is fabulously wealthy, all thanks to a little Earth creature. Nom got what he wanted from the Earth, and he didn’t have to invade the place.