Sometimes a “pimple” would form in the crust and cause a hot swelling of magma to raise a dome. Occasionally, a rip would make its way from the mantle to the outer surface of its crust and vent plumes of poisonous gases and volcanic ash. If the pressure built up too high and remained too long without fissuring the tissues of the planet’s crust of rock to vent the gases, the pimple would explode, leaving an acne-like crater in its skin. Older planets didn’t suffer from the problem of planetary acne. But then Earth was an adolescent planet of only five billion years of age and the irritations of its parasites worried it intensely. Like any adolescent, mental stain caused its skin to break out. Volcanologists called it a renewed period of seismic activity.

 

The planet shifted its upper level jet streams and sulked in exasperation at the huge amount of electromagnetic energy the little entities were creating. The EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) that the creatures made were disturbing its ability to think clearly. In one region of the northern hemisphere the little beggars were using a two hundred mile square of the planet’s skin as an antenna for extremely low wavelength (ELF) radio transmissions to exercise command and control of the region’s nuclear submarines. ELF transmissions gave Earth a headache as the waves traveled downward to its core. The inventive pests had even set up an experiment code-named “HAARP” (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project) that raised the temperature of the upper atmosphere. In the initial stages of the project they agitated the upper atmosphere with megawatts of shortwave radiation. As the experiment progressed, they gradually increased the frequencies to the microwave region and boosted the magnitude of the output of their transmitters until the emissions were in the gigawatt range. The military project had originally been conceived as long term research to discover new techniques of global warfare. They hoped to use the techniques to permit earth-penetrating tomography over most of the Northern Hemisphere by bouncing deep penetrating waves from the ionosphere into the surface of the Earth’s crust. With later refinements, they hoped to destroy enemy missiles, disrupt communications or (at higher energies) control weather patterns over the entire surface of the Earth. Every time their quasi-secret site in Alaska emitted high energy electromagnetic waves in one of their experiments, the Earth wanted to “sneeze” or “cough” from the irritation.

 

Moreover, the gestalt formed by the collective mind of humanity was getting on the planet’s nerves. If only the irritating mites that inhabited its surface would learn to settle down and behave themselves. In the blink of the Earth’s figurative eye, the nice, quiet, little population of Gaia-worshipping, naked simians had turned into a raging infestation that was driving Earth absolutely nuts with their ill-planned activities. Earth wanted to take a nice, relaxing nap and let its skin begin to heal. If it couldn’t get some rest, the planet had every intention of getting really nasty and destroying the majority of the little beasts. It didn’t care if a few thousand of them survived and regressed culturally into the Stone Age. They would reproduce and recreate their culture in ten thousand years or so. A human aeon of ten thousand years was only an eyeblink to the planet. The pyramids would be gone in a moment of its time. In a million years or so, the greatest structures that man had ever built would be gone, reduced to sand by solar heating and the etching of desert winds. The planet had seen the granite mountains it had raised over millennia become the clay of its crust and the sand of its oceans. The planet knew that everything dies in its time, even the stars themselves, just as itself would die one day when the star it orbited became a Red Giant. It could wait. Sooner or later the little bastards were going to annihilate themselves if left to their own devices. If only the little buggers weren’t so irritating! Of course the planet could implant thoughts in certain individuals who were receptive. Shamans of primitive cultures could easily read the thoughts of the planet’s mind. While Earth had no intention of changing its plans for the immediate future, their was nothing wrong with giving a few of its more perceptive inhabitants a clue to the solution to the problem, was there? With that in mind, it sent out some answers to a few members of the more discriminating human population. Somebody had to get the message! Earth wanted a rest!