Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) by Michael R. Hicks Read Free Book Online

dwindle.”
    “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would you want the Russians to win? You’re one of them! ”
    With a frown, the Vijay-thing came and sat at the table beside him. “Kiran,” it said in a gentle voice, “those like me are in as great a danger as you of being exterminated. You see, some few of us, very few, are different. Of the adults spawned by the larvae, the vast majority will never be more than mindless animals in adult harvester form. They are mere breeding and killing machines that will never achieve sentience or even the ability to mimic other forms of life. They will prey on anything other than the larval forms, which can kill us as easily as they can kill you, and they can live for hundreds of years doing so.” The thing leaned closer. “And when I say they will prey on anything , I mean that they will also kill us, those few of our kind that rise to achieve full sentience. In particular, those of us who achieve sentience and also stop replicating.”  
    “I don’t think I see the problem,” Kiran said.
    “I am not surprised, nor do I expect your sympathy. But it is necessary that you understand if you are to carry out the task we have for you, which is your only chance of survival.” It gestured to the others in the room. “We were born in a laboratory in southern Russia and are among the first to have achieved full sentience. We fled that region as the infestation spiraled out of control and came here, hoping that this barren land would afford us some protection through isolation. But we have come to realize that nowhere on the planet will be safe for us in the long term if a solution is not found.”
    “A solution?” Kiran leaned forward, not sure he was hearing correctly. “As in a way to kill them?”
    “Nothing quite so drastic as that, my friend.” The thing smiled. “More precisely, we need a way to control their spread. I do not think you really understand what your people are facing, Kiran. Unless they are stopped, the entire planet will be overwhelmed by our, ah, lower castes, you might call them. Our creators, the harvesters that your cousin Vijay and the others eradicated, must have had a vision for us far different from what we have for ourselves. We know nothing about them, of course, as the last died before the first of us was spawned. But it is clear that the lower castes are entirely out of control, and if their unrestrained propagation is not contained, Earth will no longer be a home for humanity, nor for us. Everything down to the bacteria in the soil will eventually be consumed, and someday our progeny will be all that remains in the biosphere, with nothing left to eat but one another. Everything else will become extinct.”
    “I do not believe it. Something would survive. People would survive.”
    The thing shook its head, an expression of sadness on its face that twisted Kiran’s guts, for he had to force himself to remember that it wasn’t Vijay, but the monster that murdered him. “Look at what has happened across the world in the short time since the first larvae were spawned. What do you think the world will look like a year from now? Ten years? You could launch all the nuclear weapons that remain in the world’s arsenals, and it would barely make a dent in the epidemic, while killing your own people and rendering some of your most fertile lands useless.”  
    The thing leaned closer to him, and Kiran flinched away.  
    “The larvae will spread like a virus,” Vijay went on, “consuming everything in their path. As things stand now, humanity has no future. Nor do we.” It put a hand on his, and Kiran wanted to recoil from its touch, which felt so real, so human. “But together, perhaps we can survive.”
    Pulling his hand away, trying to keep his food down as his stomach churned, Kiran said, “What do you want of me?”
    “We want you to deliver a message, offering our cooperation in developing a solution to the danger that