After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1) (32 page)

“Careful with that,” Arsha snapped.

I looked closely at it. It was a little polyethylene pipe. “Irrigation?” I said, impressed.

She nodded. “Yeah, kinda. Just a little backyard sprinkler system, really.” She pointed back toward the house where a corrugated water tank rose up almost as high as the roof. “That’s the other reason I chose this place. It has a nice big reservoir.”

“How many days’ supply does it hold?”

“We’ve had some good rains lately, but not enough to supply as much water as I’d like, unfortunately. Not for all these.” She swept her arm across to indicate the other garden beds. “That’s why I have to supplement it with water from the stream now and again.” She glanced around wistfully at the yards either side. “I’d love to be able to fit more tanks in here and hook them up somehow. That would really help.”

“I’m sure it’s something we can work on.”

“Yeah,” she said absently, her mouth a thin line of concentration. I could tell she was already mentally going through plans for making it happen.

“What else is there?” I said, glancing around.

Moving to the next garden, she began to point again at some tiny saplings.  “An apple tree, a grape vine.  Tomatoes.”  She shook her head.  “They’re growing
so
slow.”

Further on there was another garden devoted entirely to what looked like soybeans, and beyond I caught sight of something else.  I pointed toward the back of the yard. 

“You’re growing wheat, too?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. We went and stood before it and watched the golden stems ripple in the breeze. “There was a spare lot at the back of this place, which gave me room to expand. It’s a very small crop right now, but enough for me to harvest a few grains for storage.”

Reaching out with my hand, I allowed the wheat to flutter back and forth across my fingertips.  There was only a few square metres of it, but it was a start. 

“It’s amazing,” I said earnestly, and I had to admit to myself that this was too much work to be done in a single year.  Maybe I
had
lost track of time out there in the desert, although I couldn’t explain why.

“But it’s not enough,” she said ruefully. “Not nearly enough.”

“For what?”

“To feed people,” she said pointedly.  “Look around you, Brant. 
This is it
. This, and one like it, are all we have. That’s why I brought you here, so you could see for yourself how tenuous this situation really is.”

I surveyed the plot and tried to weigh things up in my mind. “This looks promising, though, Arsha. We’re not feeding an army. I think it’s adequate.”

“Yeah, there might be enough here to feed one or two people, Brant.” Her eyes flicked from one garden to the next as she tallied up the resources in her head. “
Might
be.  But you have one lean year, just
one
year where temperatures drop and there’s a marginal decrease in yield..
..”  She spread her hands horizontally, palms down.  “It’s over.  You get me?  One tough season and it’s
over
.”

“So meanwhile we do what?”  My voice was starting to rise to match hers.  “Just sit around watching the sky while we wait for the city to be populated by vast fields of fresh produce?” 

“If waiting longer means a greater chance of success then yes, that’s what I’ll do.”

“And how long do you expect to wait around? The clock’s ticking, right? The embryos won’t last forever. They could suffer irreparable damage by the time you’re ready.”

She glared at me. “I’d still prefer that than to bring them out early and watch them starve to death because I was in a hurry.”

I grunted and threw my hands in the air and began to walk away. Then, thinking better of it, I rounded on her again.

“So what’s your plan, then?” I wanted to know. “Enlighten me.”

Looking cool and composed, she folded her arms and said evenly, “We stay as synthetics.”

I gave her a sceptical look. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I said.” She stepped closer to me, imposing herself through those eyes of cobalt blue, her voice clear and measured. “We stay just the way we are.”

Grasping at the meaning of her suggestion, I struggled to demonstrate the same composure.  “Stay the way we are...
forever?
”

She shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”

My mouth dropped, incredulous.  “That was
never
the plan.”  I swung my arm in the direction of the skyscrapers in the distance.  “Those embryos, those little dots sitting in a freezer who will one day be children need people to raise them. 
People
, Arsha, not machines. That was the whole point of using the Displacers, to bring humans back into the world to shape the future.”

“Okay, I agree with that,” she said more calmly. “Yes, we need to bring people back. That’s what we’re here to do. But it needs to be done right, first time. We don’t get another shot at this.”

“Exactly, and that doesn’t mean-”

“Listen, Brant,” she cut in, starting to lose that aura of self-control again, “I don’t care that you were gone all that time, or even that you weren’t around to help.  Okay?  I’m happy to wipe the slate clean.  It’s done.  It’s over.”  She waved her hand as if brushing away the past.  Then she stepped up close.   “But the time for screwing around has long gone.  You need to stop looking at your own needs and focus on what’s best for
us
.  Both of us need to work together, now.  We need to look at our options and very, very carefully choose the right ones.  Because if we screw this up, we lose
everything
.  You got it? 
Everything
.” Those eyes made me feel like I was pinned against a wall. “Am I starting to make sense here?”

Reluctantly, I nodded, dropping my eyes.  What she was saying
did
make sense.  “Of course.  I want to do the right thing.”  I met her eyes again and her posture relaxed.  “What do you suggest?”

She tapped her index finger thoughtfully on her chin. “We wait it out for now, concentrate on the crops, on building what we have.” She knelt at the garden bed and lightly touched a tiny green tomato. “They’ll get stronger, I know they will. In time, the offspring of these plants will feed the world. But right now, we focus on making them stronger, on storing away resources for the hard times. Then, we assess it again. Maybe in months, or even years. I’m not sure. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I sighed, grimaced.  It sounded like such a long time, when all I wanted was to be out of this cage. 

“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” I said, dejected.

“There's something else.”

“What?”

“I've been studying cell degeneration over extended cryosleep back at the lab, and I think there's a very high chance that by now there would be irreversible damage to our bodies. A very high chance.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying that if we tried using the Displacer, we might actually destroy ourselves. We'd be potentially returning to uninhabitable vessels.”

I thought of the cryotanks in the military base outside of Perish, how the rotting flesh had crumbled and spilled out onto the floor. I didn't want to even consider the possibility that something similar had happened here.

“If the transfer fails, then we stay as synthetics,” I said.

“But what if something happens during the process that damages our neural cores? We'd be condemning the embryos to death as well. There would be no one left to preserve them. We'd lose them all.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, rubbed my face. “I can't even contemplate that.”

“All I'm saying is, these are all things we need to think about.  Okay?  We need to plan how we're going to proceed, and we need to be prepared for every eventuality.  To be safe, I would
even consider raising a generation of embryos before we transfer back.
  Make sure the humans are self-
sustaining to minimise the risk.”

Waiting months to return to my body was a demoralising scenario, but the possibility of waiting twenty or thirty years, or never returning at all was simply horrifying. To even consider it twisted my insides and made my skin crawl. Grudgingly, however, I had to admit that she was making sense. To rush into a decision would be irresponsible, given what was at stake. I had to act in a more circumspect manner to ensure the right outcome, as painful and as it might be.

I felt as though my dream was drifting away from me, like an untethered life raft at sea slowly bobbing out of sight, and that I was powerless to stop it. It made me feel empty inside.

“All right.” I shrugged. “It doesn't seem like I have a choice.”

She stood and returned to my side, put a hand on my arm in empathy. “I know you can do it, Brant. You have to.”

She brushed past me and started rattling around with a little gardening fork and a watering can, already returning to her work. I watched her and once again wished I could somehow harness her composure, her focus.

“Did you ever have moments where you doubted yourself, Arsha?” I said suddenly.

She paused, straightening her back, studying me thoughtfully as if measuring her response. Then she looked me square in the eye.

“No.”

35

Arsha was busy early the next morning. She made preparations to head out for her rounds, watering, inspecting and cleaning her various plantations. Menial stuff, according to her. I offered to tag along to help out, but she suggested I hang around the workshop to get myself reacquainted with the equipment.

“You have a lot of catching up to do,” she said, “and not much time to do it. Go through the data on the flip and we’ll talk about it when I get back.” She pointed to the device sitting on the bench nearby as she headed out the door.

I gathered up the flip as her footsteps receded down the hallway and into the stairwell.  With a swipe of my fingers it came to life, glowing softly.  Powered by solar charged batteries like the ones I’d used in my flashlight, it was still capable of running autonomously from the defunct Grid in stand-alone mode.  The edges of it were discoloured and worn from years of use, and the display was weak, appearing on the verge of cutting out more often than not, but it was readable.  In the end that was all that mattered. 

I began to investigate some of the data Arsha had collated over the years. There were pages and pages of statistics on a whole range of topics: soil analysis from a number of locations around the city, daily temperature readings, precipitation. There was data on local freshwater samples as well: chemical composition, microbiological and pathogen content, radiological measurements. Air quality monitoring for radon gas and dust, light filtration. It went on and on.

This seemed more like the work of ten people, not just one. But that was Arsha. She’d always been driven, always pushing ahead. She knew how to get things done.

After a few hours of trawling through the flip I decided I needed a rest, so I placed it carefully back on the bench and rubbed at my neck, manipulating it back and forth. Over by the windows I realised that the day was already winding down. I’d been ensconced in Arsha’s data for longer than I thought. Out toward the cemetery a curtain of rain was spreading across the hillside, the sunshower glittering red and gold in the glow of late afternoon. I felt the breeze on my face, caught the scent of ozone and dust stirred up the by the storm. There was something else there too. Smoke, perhaps? The perpetual haze above the city, the legacy of those fires that sprung up so frequently seemed to be caught in the wind, shepherded along by the arrival of the storm.

I decided to head out for a look around before night fell. Arsha would be back soon, I imagined, and we’d have more to discuss tonight. This would be my last opportunity today to get out and stretch my legs.

I made my way down the stairwell and passed through the door on the ground floor to see that there were a few spits of rain already tumbling out of the sky and dotting the alleyway. I stepped up into the loading dock and stood with my back to the wall, watching while I decided whether to brave the elements or just go back inside and wait. Most likely a small dose of rain wouldn’t do me any harm, but if it got any heavier it might work its way into the resin and loosen up the patches on my neck and leg. Then I’d have some explaining to do with Arsha.

As I stood there, I heard the hatch of the dumpster open and close, and rapid footsteps flowing down the alleyway. Arsha appeared in view, in a rush as usual. Instead of stopping at the steel door as I expected, she hastened past it and across to the other side of the alleyway. As of yet she hadn’t noticed me standing here in the gloom of the loading dock.

I was about to call out to her, but decided to wait and see what she was up to. Rummaging amongst a pile of wooden crates, she pulled out a rag and began to scrub at a dark powdery substance that was coating her hands.