Exiled to the Stars (53 page)

Lee Jenson fidgeted uncomfortably. "Uh, sire, there are already rumors that there are problems with the food supply."

Ken's expression was grim. "Anything that's liable to cause us problems?"

Lee shook his head. "Not immediately, sire. Actually, I'd guess the rumors are being caused by the food poisoning cases."

Ken nodded. "Which gives us another deadline; and this one's pretty short. It won't take Kerry long to catch the scent of a story. If we're lucky, she'll come to you or me for verification, and we'll at least have some warning. And if we're
very
lucky, all the excitement of the 'revolution' will distract Kerry long enough for us to figure something out. Anyone have any other ideas?"

Lee smiled. "I'll do my best to keep Kerry distracted." The smile wavered as he continued, "but I haven't had a lot of luck doing that recently."

Michiko giggled. "It seems that men aren't as interesting as newsies," she said. "But don't quit trying, Lee. When she
does
raise her eyes from her vocoder, it's your face that makes her smile."

Lee's smile turned to a genuine grin. "Really?" He said, and then, glancing at Ken and Susan, "Are you trying to tell me I'm funny-looking?" he demanded with mock ferocity.

Ken waved dismissively. "All right, all right. I'm afraid I have other things to worry about than the course of true love among the Planetborns. Now, we've all got a lot to do, and I guess we'd better get to it."

He watched the two women leave and cursed. Things had just begun settling down after the 'revolution', and he'd been looking forward to a period of peaceful acclimation to the changes. He sighed.

"Susan was right," he said, shaking his head. "This could be the deadliest threat we've faced since the plague. It could set the colony back three generations."

Lee nodded soberly. "I know." He straightened. "Well, I guess I'd better check the comp inventory for ship-stock seeds." He reached for his tablet, the reports they'd been studying forgotten.

Ken nodded. "I'm going to call in the heavy artillery." He called Tara Creding's tablet code. "Tara," he asked when she answered, "Would you come see me as soon as possible? I have a very serious and urgent manner to discuss with you."

The smile with which Tara had answered the call faded as she took in Ken's serious manner. "Of course, Ken. Give me an hour to clear my desk of train wrecks."

Ken smiled Tara's image faded from his tablet. Tara had such a quiet, unassuming manner that it was easy to underestimate her. In fact Vlad had told him how for a long time after the crash, he hadn't understood why Cesar thought so highly of her. He'd shrugged and shook his head. "It just shows how smart ol' Cesar was – or how dumb I was!"

Privately, Ken thought it was mostly her sheer determination. If Tara decided something was worthwhile, she would spare no effort to pursue it. She'd grown up on a farm, hated it, and had run away as soon as she could. But when Cesar had appealed to her to take charge of teaching third-world peasant farmers modern farming techniques, she'd attacked it like a bulldog, reasoning, pleading and haranguing the farmers until they began to learn the new ways.

She'd found two others with western farm backgrounds, and bullied them into becoming agriculture teachers, as well. Then, in her spare time, she'd proceeded to complete nearly every agriculture and agronomy course the comp contained. Amazing that she'd once been a Nawlins…No. That was the one thing Cesar had insisted upon, and all her Earthborn acquaintances had agreed. One did not mention the reason for Tara's expulsion. Besides being mean-spirited, it would be cruel to her son.

Tara came in, wearing a yellow dress that accentuated her red hair. No jeans or shipsuits for her! She was a medium-tall woman who
had
to be in her late 40's, though the symbiont's intervention rendered that figure almost unbelievable. Most who knew her agreed that she and her son could pass for brother and sister. She was a striking woman, and Ken felt stirrings he hadn't felt in years.

The symbiont's greenish tinge was even more prominent against her normally pale complexion, and only emphasized her luxuriant red hair. White teeth flashed as she smiled. "Hello, Ken," she said. "I haven't seen you much the last few months. I guess revolutionaries get busy, huh?"

Ken grinned and shook his head, waving her to a chair. "Revolutionaries hide out a lot, to avoid those the revolution runs over."

"Well, hang in there; they're sure to run out of assassins one of these days," she replied. "So, what can I do for you? But before you ask, I can't get you tomatoes wholesale."

He shook his head. "No problem. I never eat plants that can't decide whether they're fruits or veggies."

She chuckled. "Well, the results are in. They're fruits. But that doesn't mean you should use them in fruit salads. Now, tell me why you need a worn-out old farmer's daughter."

He snorted in derision and then waved a dismissal. "We have a real problem, Tara, and it falls right in your back yard."

Her eyes widened as he explained the developing emergency. When he finished, she gave a low whistle.

"Lee's looking into the comp's inventory of old-stock seeds," he concluded, "and we've also thought of hydroponics. We're hoping it might be possible to raise new pure-Earth seeds."

Tara nodded, frowning. "Susan's probably right about planting new ship's-stock seeds and 'resetting the clock'. That should give us another 25 years or so. We're bound to run out of seed, though." She paused. "Hydroponics might be the best long-term solution. We may be able to use it to grow pure Earth-stock plants and seeds. But I doubt you'll find anyone with experience at it. There was a guy in Dorm 4 that was growing veggies that way on the voyage, but I think he's dead, now.

"When I was studying growing options, I remember reading that the colony ships had
big
hydroponics installations; they provided fresh fruits and vegetables for food service, as well as recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. I always intended to go check it out, but I was always too busy. Far as I know, nobody's been into the hydroponics installation aboard
our
ship since the crash." She paused, looked interested. "You've aroused my curiosity. I think I'm going to enjoy this!"

"In the meantime," she said, "harvest is only a little over a month away. We might want to wait until we can harvest the crop. There would be a lot less wailing and crying, then. Chances are you could burn off and plow the fields under without more than a few protests." She shrugged. "As Susan says, we already know how to get ship's-stock seed ready to plant." Her frown deepened. "Then there is the livestock problem…Hmm."

Ken shook his head. "I need you to head up our whole response to this crisis. After all, it's your field of expertise, not Susan's. She's a biologist; you're the agronomist. There is nothing on my desk, including the mines, that is more important than this situation. So, I'm going to give you my personal tablet code, and if you need
anything
, anything at all, call me. This thing now has the highest priority. I'll want frequent updates, and of course we need to keep it quiet. Once the news gets out, we have to have a solution in hand if we're to prevent a panic."

Tara nodded. "I'll have some preliminary information for you this evening. Why don't you come over to the house for dinner? You look like you could stand a meal that doesn't involve an autochef."

Ken sighed, and then smiled. "You've got a deal."

Tara and her son, Ron, Junior, still lived in the dome Tara had claimed after the plague. Prominently displayed on the wall facing the door were a holo of Ron Creding, senior, killed in the crash so many years ago, and a beautiful, highly polished old-fashioned rifle, Tara's prized Mannlicher-Schoenauer. A faded belt hung from a peg beneath it, a well-worn knife in a sheath sewn into it.

Dinner was very pleasant. Tara had briefed Ron, of course, so they could discuss the situation freely.

"I think we're all right for the immediate future," Tara reported. "Lee says the ship's stock of seeds will be sufficient for a bit less than two replantings at our current level. So, our next crop can be ship-stock seeds. Michiko says they've been trying to learn which foods are producing the poisonings. If we can isolate them, we can stretch our harvest quite a bit.

"The comp says that the Hydroponics plant is no longer airtight," Tara continued. "It also says that no one has entered the hydroponics plant since the crash. That means that local nasties, both plant and animal, have had 25 years to move in and set up housekeeping."

Ken nodded. "Ron, why don't you take your explorers and take a look? Go armed, of course. As your mother says, we can't even guess what horrors have been living in there."

Ken relaxed. The crisis wasn't as dire as he'd feared. The colony wasn't in danger. With the new harvest so close, burning and plowing under would not be the catastrophe it could have been. The only non-routine action required would be the burn-off. They would simply replant with ship-stock seed. Even the farmer's normal planting schedules would not be affected. Oh, they'd have to be careful to avoid contamination, but he could depend on Tara to be almost obsessive about that.

Even in the worst case, with the hydroponics idea not working out, they had another 25 years to work on a permanent solution. So, he was able to permit himself to shelve colony problems and politics, and simply enjoy the evening. And enjoy it he did. Tara was an excellent hostess, and Ron excused himself, suddenly remembering something he had to discuss with Elaine Renko.

They talked until he suddenly realized that it was after midnight. It was the most enjoyable evening he'd spent in years, and he suddenly wished he were even 30 years younger. He suppressed a regretful shake of his head. Tara Creding was an attractive, intelligent, and thoroughly delightful woman. But her suitors, and there had been many at first, soon realized they could not compete with her idealized memory of her shipboard love. Ken couldn't remember seeing her in the company of a man, socially, for years. A pity.

The hydroponics plant was a huge space that occupied nearly all of Deck 10. When Ron and the Explorers tried to enter, the comp informed them that the door appeared non-functional, though it could detect no problems in the operating circuits.

Finally the Explorers levered the large sliding door open enough to see the problem. The space on the other side was virtually solid with dead plants. While Ron and Elaine guarded the opening, Denis Chu and Vito Carelli went in search of jacks to force the door open.

Finally, the door snapped open the final few cems, and the Explorers were faced with a virtual wall of brown, shriveled plants, and assaulted by the stench of decay. Apparently, with the people who tended and maintained the system dead, the comp had continued to operate the growth lights and nutrient flow, and the plants had grown wildly until they over-grew the nutrients. Then they had died, of course, but not before choking the entire installation with their growth.

In fact, the growth lights were mostly still operating, responding to programs set in operation over a quarter-century before.

"Elaine," Ron said, surveying the choked entrance. "You come with me. We have to see Messer Terhoe. The rest of you stay here and make sure nothing comes
out
of that mess. Keep your lasers in your hands, and your minds on the job."

Tran bowed deeply. "Yes, Master. We hear and obey."

Ron struggled to scowl. "You'd better. If you let a bunch of plains rats loose on the ship, you'd better make sure you're their first victims!"

Ron and Elaine hurried to Ken's office. They explained the situation. "Lasers are no good in there, sire," Ron said. "Anything we encounter will be less than a meter away. We need blasters, at least. And something to hack through all that stuff would be nice, too."

"What about a disrupter?" Elaine asked. "Maybe we could blast all those plants out of the way."

Ron shook his head. "Won't work. Disruptors vaporize the water in living tissue. These things have been drying for twenty-five years. I think we're going to need old-fashioned chain saws and bolos. And a lot of muscle," he concluded.

"I'm sorry," Ken said, "but we have to know that place isn't full of plains rats or jelly monsters, or some other threat before we can send in people to clean it up. I know it's going to be a dirty job, but that's part of being an intrepid explorer of the unknown."

It
was
a dirty job, but with the chainsaws, it was at least possible. In addition to the chainsaws and blasters, they also wore respirators; the stench was overwhelming. They spent an entire day chopping paths through the mess, while carefully scrutinizing every inch for possible invaders. Luckily, the contents of the hydroponics plant were crop plants. They were cutting through brittle and often hollow stems, not woody branches.

They finally reached the control center, and found the terminal there still active. The comp requested readings from various gauges and indicators, and then informed them that the readings indicated that plugged lines had shut off the flow of nutrients.

Ron called Tara. "Mom, the comp says we have enough nutrients in the tanks for almost ten years at standard use rates. It also has recipes for the nutrients, so we can try to make them ourselves. I think you can tell Messer Terhoe he can send in a cleaning team. It's not too hard to cut through the stuff, but they'll need respirators. It
stinks
in here!"

It took a six-person crew almost a week to clear out the dead vegetation. The huge debris pile in the middle of the Castle courtyard naturally generated a lot of comment, and set Kerry on the trail of the story. But Tara and Ken had had time to prepare for the inevitable, and insisted on briefing the Council before talking to the Newsie.

"So you can see," Tara concluded her report to the Council, "It's a problem, not a crisis. Oh, we'll have to deal with it, of course, but I'm confident that a simple burnoff and replant will 'reset the clock' and take care for the problem for another 25 years."

"If it's that easy," a Councilor asked, "what's all that garbage in the square? Why do you have teams cleaning up the old hydroponics plant?"