The menace of the Scythians hangs heavy over Concordia, the site of humanity’s first deep-space colony. The colonists fear the hostile aliens have discovered the location of the home planet, Earth, and are on their way there to wreak destruction.
Find out what happens next in the seventh installment of the space colonisation epic adventure, Space Colony One, Restitution. Missed part one? Click here.
Chapter Four
Cherry dug her hand into the wheat she’d harvested prior to her accident, scooped up a portion, and allowed it to run through her fingers. The grains weren’t the plumpest she’d ever seen, but they were dry. It was the rest of the crop she was worried about. Stepping out of the grain store, she surveyed her field. The downpour that had started while she was speaking with Kes had soaked the remaining three-quarters of the field. Other farmers were in a similar position. There were things they could do to mitigate the problem, but basically the harvest would be a disappointment again this year, and unless the weather turned dry again soon, it could be a disaster.
The destruction caused by the Scythians’ biocide seemed to have even affected the climate. She’d never known the season to be so wet and humid. If they didn’t get a break of a few days’ sunshine, the cereals and other crops could become infested with mold. Mold spores were one of the few things to survive the deadly virus, naturally. They were not technically alive, Kes had explained, so the biocide hadn’t affected them.
Something buzzed near her ear, and before she could react a sharp pain lanced from her neck. She slapped the spot. Another of those biting insects had attempted to feed on her. She trotted to her autocar and climbed in. The insects had followed her. They hung around outside, attracted to the carbon dioxide in exhaled breath.
Oh, well. The fields were too wet to work today anyway.
A comm arrived. “Hello?”
“Cherry,” said Kes, “can you come to the Annwn Town Hall right away? The Leader wants to hold an emergency meeting.”
“Sure. I’m not exactly busy. What’s it about?”
“Just come.” The comm went dead.
***
Barker, the Leader elected shortly after the successful vaccination of the colony against the biocide was a short, tubby man in late middle age. He was about as boring an individual as Cherry had ever met. He was always so calm. He didn’t seem to experience strong emotions or hold any firm opinions. But perhaps that was what the colonists needed right now—someone who would listen and react rather than force his will on everyone.
Barker’s usually mild expression was full of worry. That, in turn, worried her. Whatever the problem was, it had to be bad if it was provoking a reaction in the unflappable man. Had Kes told him about the inbreeding in the population? Was that what this was about?
Wilder was also attending the meeting, along with the two engineers she worked with, and Aubriot.
“Thank you for coming at such short notice,” said Barker. “I’d appreciate it if you were to keep to yourselves whatever is said in this room today. No minutes will be taken, and if I am challenged about what we’re about to discuss, I will deny all knowledge of it. So should you. When you hear the subject matter, you will understand why. Kes, please go ahead and explain what you told me this morning.”
Kes’s face was grim. “As Cherry already knows, I’ve been conducting a survey of the human gene pool, and the results aren’t good. I’ll tell you more about that later. But first, I want to tell you about another survey I’ve been undertaking. I dispatched drones to collect soil samples from all over Lyonesse and Suddene to find out as much as I can about the pitiful remnants of life on this planet. It’s taken many months, but the results are in. I’m sure we’re all aware how bad the situation is. Well, it’s worse than I thought, much worse. The lack of biodiversity extends to all parts of the ecosystem I’ve surveyed. In many areas the land is simply dead, entirely devoid of any life. In others, one microorganism has filled the niche and is reproducing exponentially. We’ve already seen the effects. Crops are struggling to grow. Single species dominate hundreds of square kilometers.”
He rubbed his temples and then stared at each of them in turn. “I’ve never heard of or read about a situation exactly like this, but in similar examples in Earth history, where a non-native species was introduced to an ecosystem without its natural predators, the results were damned disasters. Plagues of mice, rabbits, toads…” He shook his head. “From what I can tell, the situation on Concordia is going to get a hell of a lot worse before it can get better. It will be thousands—possibly tens of thousands of years—before life reaches equilibrium and harmony once more.”
“So what?” Aubriot challenged. “As long as we can grow enough food to survive, it doesn’t really matter. Who cares if we never see another sluglimpet? I certainly don’t.”
“Of course it matters,” said Niall. “Millions of species have become extinct. The planet is like a biological experiment gone wrong. It’s a disaster.”
“Still,” Aubriot countered, “as long as we’re okay, we shouldn’t sweat it. Species go extinct all the time. That’s how evolution works.”
“What happened here wasn’t evolution!” Niall’s face had turned pale. “It was a crime against nature.”
Barker asked, “Can we put the philosophical discussion to one side for a moment? Kes hasn’t finished.”
“Thanks,” said Kes. “I do have more to say. The fact is the state of the planet’s ecosystem does matter to us. Cherry will vouch for the fact that the harvests since the biocide attack have been the worst in Concordian history. Right?”
She nodded, guessing what was coming next.
“Put simply,” he went on, “the best we can expect is for yields to continue to diminish. That’s if we’re lucky. What’s more likely is we’ll see entire crops regularly wiped out by swarms of insects or pathogens.”
“Bullshit,” said Aubriot. “I know you’ve had a hard time, Kes, but don’t drag us all down into your private hell. You’re scaremongering. We can spray insecticides and pesticides or find other ways to protect the crops.”
“Yes, we can, but it’s a stopgap measure. Over the long term, that’s only going to make things worse.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well,” said Kes, his jaw tightening, “go and get your PhD in bio sciences, then come and talk to me about it.”
“The crops won’t grow well in dead soil?” asked Niall.
Kes replied, “They won’t thrive, but more importantly, this problem with single micro-organism species proliferating will spell disaster for them, and we’ll see more and more cases as life re-establishes on Concordia.”
“The colony will starve,” said the other engineer.
“Exactly,” said Kes heavily.
This new information put his earlier pronouncement about inbreeding in a distant second place. Cherry said, “There has to be something we can do. Otherwise, why are we having this meeting?” She addressed Barker. “You called us here for a reason, right?”
“I did. I especially wanted Wilder and her team to attend because Kes has proposed a solution.”
For a man who apparently had the answer to their woes, Kes didn’t look very happy about it. “The only answer I can think of is to seed the planet with as many other species as possible. It will result in environmental chaos for I don’t know how long, but that’s a better scenario than the one we currently face.”
“Species from where?” asked Wilder.
“Earth,” Aubriot answered. “He means Earth species. It’s the only place humans co-inhabit with other species.”
Kes nodded.
“So what’s the problem?” Wilder asked. “We’ll be going there in a year.”
“We need to go there sooner,” said Barker, “if the colony is going to stand a chance of survival. As I understand it, even if we began to seed Concordia tomorrow it would be touch and go.”
Kes sighed and nodded again. “We desperately need other life forms, other food sources. The situation is more dire than I imagined, and the only possible solution is the last thing that was ever supposed to happen. The Mandate stated we were to preserve existing life on the colony planet wherever possible. We can’t do that now. We have to turn Concordia into another Earth.”
“The Mandate?” asked Niall.
A bittersweet sadness hit Cherry. How ironic it was that something Ethan, Garwin, and she had fought the Woken about so viciously in the early days of colonization was now entirely forgotten. How many Gens had lost their lives fighting for their freedom from Woken and Guardian tyranny? Their names were ancient history.
“It’s just an old book,” Aubriot explained. “It isn’t important. And it wasn’t us who killed Concordia, it was the Scythians, so let’s forget the guilty tears. I say we go to Earth and bring back everything we can.”
“We don’t have a choice, unfortunately,” said Kes. “Wilder, as well as the jump ship, we’ll also need a vast storage container, somewhere to put everything we want to bring back. Soil, seeds, plants, insects, perhaps even larger life forms.”
The young woman’s brows furrowed. “We have enough to do already, just constructing the ship. And now you say we need the ship earlier, and on top of that, you also want us to build something that can support a huge range of life forms?”
“All the colony’s resources will be at your disposal,” said Barker. “Manpower, materials, you name it. This project is our absolute number one priority.”
“What about the Scythians?” asked Niall. “I thought we were going to Earth to help protect the planet against them.”
“We can do that too,” Aubriot replied. “I don’t see a problem.”
“I’m glad you don’t,” Wilder commented, “because I see plenty.” She asked Barker, “How much time do we have?”
“Can you do it in three months?”
“No,” said Niall. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Three months?!” Wilder exclaimed. Then she said resignedly, “We’ll do what we can.”
I hope you enjoyed this final Saturday Snippet of Restitution, currently available at most online bookstores.