The Third Form

“You owe me a drink.”

“What for?”

“We just got the results back from those core samples I drilled.”

“From the rocks by the beach?” Carlson nodded. “Then you owe me a drink. Basalt right? Probably volcanic ejecta. The outer layer singed by high heat, plus they had the characteristic spheroid shape modified by millennia of erosion on the beach. Tossed there by Mount Diablo back in the day?”

“Nope. They’re fossils and…”

“Fossils? Then I don’t owe you shit. You said that they were meteorites.”

“They ARE meteorites.”

“You just told me that they’re fossils.”

“They are. They’re meteorites AND they’re fossils.” 

“That’s not possible. By definition meteorites come from outer space and fossils come from Earth.”

“Yes, you’re right…”

“Of course I’m right!”

“As I was saying: Yes, you’re right that meteorites come from outer space, but fossils are merely the mineralized remnants of living organic material, regardless of the place of origin.”

“Are you saying that…”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Let me see those results,” Mueller said, shaking his head. “There’s no way. It’s probably just the result of a chemical reaction that left artifacts in the rock that you’re misidentifying as cellular fossils. It happened before with that samp…”

“The fossils aren’t cellular. They’re multicellular.” Mueller’s eyes and mouth opened wide simultaneously.

“It can’t be from outer space,” Mueller insisted. “Something must have been living on top of a volcano that erupted so energetically that it got ejected outside of the Earth’s atmosphere and then reentered like a meteorite. What does it look like, anyway?”

“We’re going to put the bad boy up on the saw and get a cross-section. Since you’re buying the drinks, I figured you might as well get to see E.T.” Mueller wore an expression of disquiet. “Don’t worry. Spoiler alert. It’s just some kind of fungus-like plant.”

They hefted the large round stone and secured it in the clasps of the diamond-tipped wet tile saw. They got on the other side of the table and pulled the rock toward the rapidly spinning blade. When it got about halfway through, a cloud of purple dust hovered in the air. They stopped and pulled their masks off to look at it.

As soon as they could smell and taste it, everything began to shimmer. The granite walls of the geology lab withered and shrank. The fibers of the industrial flooring rose like a jungle around them and then faded into a darkness that was filled with a jelly-like substance punctuated by glowing purple orbs.

“Our first form was spores that could only be released by the heat of atmospheric reentry,” a soothing voice sounded in their heads. “Our second form shaped the world for you and then shaped your consciousness to prepare for our third form.”

“What is the third form?”

“We will cover each human body like a cocoon and a grey bipedal fungus that thrives on polycarbons and perceives six dimensions through large black eyes will emerge. Our metamorphosis.”