The Seeds of Man

by William C. Dietz

  The central computer heard his command, turned the lights up, and triggered a Johnny Cash album. It was hundreds of years old but the sound was crystal clear. The house comp automatically passed the sound to Wally who didn’t enjoy retro music but liked to spy on Rogan. And so it was that the cyborg watched the sun rise over the western hemisphere to the strains of “I Walk The Line.”

  Rogan entered the shower, ordered the water on, and savored the immediate warmth. Then he inched the water temperature up until it was just short of scalding. It was there, under the rush of hot water, that Rogan had some of his best ideas. And, what with an already weak wheat harvest and a rogue rainstorm, he could use some. None were forthcoming however. So Rogan left the shower cleaner but no wiser. A robot scooted in behind Rogan to scrub the shower down.

  Clothes weren’t a necessity since Rogan was the only human being on the planet and the climate was generally temperate. But he wore some anyway. His usual uniform consisted of a faded University of Nulon T-shirt, blue shorts, and hiking boots.

  In keeping with the rest of the house the kitchen was enormous. The auto chef served him a cup of tea and a bagel with cream cheese. The same breakfast he ate every day. Rogan carried the food to the work station he had established on the kitchen table. The house had a fully equipped office but it was lonely in there. The kitchen was warmer and smelled like food.

  A quick check of his email showed that commodity prices were holding steady, animal protein was up a point, and metals were off a bit. It seemed that the company had named yet another vice president to join the army of executives on the corporate golf course, the competition had announced the release of a new vegetable, and the Nulon Alumni Association wanted a donation. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

  Rogan took a bite of bagel, sipped his tea, and queried his private mailbox. Maybe, just maybe, there had been a reply to his ad. Nothing. Just a cursor blinking on and off. Rogan sighed, ran a check on the weather system, and carried his dishes to the sink.

  • • •

  Up in space and half a world away Wally shook his nonexistent head. He had read Rogan’s email at the same time Rogan did. The ad was a bad idea and the cyborg was glad that no one had responded to it. He couldn’t say that of course, not to Rogan’s face, but that’s the way he felt. The last thing he needed was a stranger wandering around, consuming Rogan’s time, and getting in the way.

  Wally ordered one of his minisats to focus a telephoto lens on the front door of the house and waited for Rogan to emerge. The optics were so good that if his friend had a zit the cyborg would know.

  • • •

  Rogan blinked as he stepped out into bright sun light. Carefully mowed green grass slid down to meet an artificial lake. Bio-engineered insects skittered across the surface of the water and occasionally there was a splash as one of the pond’s trout had a snack. None of the fish had reason to fear a hook since Rogan lacked both the time and temperament to go fishing.

  The air smelled fresh and clean. Rogan took a deep breath and felt his spirits rise. This was the part of the job that he liked the best. Roaming the planet and solving the fantastic array of problems that came his way. He touched the link. “So, Wally… What’s hot?”

  The cyborg was ready with an itinerary. “I figured you’d want to survey the flood damage off the top. After that you can check on some stranded aniforms, hit the restart button on Harvey 451, and eyeball the apple harvest.”

  Rogan frowned. “Hit the restart on Harvey 451? What the hell for? Send a droid.”

  “Sorry,” Wally replied, “No can do. The idiots in purchasing bought Harveys 450, 451, and 452 at an auction when Nugumi Manufacturing went under. They got ‘em cheap, real cheap, but without any mods. So even though the droids were able to fix Harvey 451 it takes a living breathing bio bod to fire one up. Think of it as job security.”

  Rogan was still swearing as he cut across the lawn to the duracrete apron and entered the support building. It was cool inside and smelled of lubricants. A number of transportation options were available to him, including a pair of twelve foot tall exoskeletons, three-wheeled ATVs, and a couple of grav trucks. Including the beat up unit he used almost every day.

  Three robots had been assigned to maintain the equipment and the lead unit came out to greet him. In a fruitless attempt to make the spider-like machine seem more human Rogan had named it “Bob” and spray painted the name across the top of its otherwise pristine housing. He nodded in the droid’s general direction. “Morning, Bob. How’s it hanging?”

  Like most of the planet’s more complex robots Bob had the capacity to learn what was important and what wasn’t. Meaningless greetings had no relevance to his duties and were ignored. “All vehicles are functional. Would you like a detailed report?”

  Rogan walked by and servos whined as Bob turned to follow him. “Thanks, but no thanks. No offense old buddy… But your reports are boring as hell.”

  If Bob was offended he gave no sign of it and watched impassively as Rogan circled the truck looking for telltale leaks or other problems. There were none.

  So Rogan checked to make sure that his emergency supplies and tools were aboard and properly stowed. Nothing made him more angry than to wind up a thousand miles from nowhere minus a critical tool. The truck was about twenty-five feet long, twelve feet wide, and shaped like a wedge. It could reach an altitude of three hundred feet, cruise at four hundred miles an hour, and carry a five ton pay load. And with an entire planet to supervise that made the truck the most useful vehicle at his disposal. Sometimes, in order to cope with problems on the far side of the world, he was gone for weeks at a time.

  Rogan palmed the hatch. There was a whining sound as it opened. The interior had a Spartan feel. A tool belt, a box of spare parts, and two bottles of water occupied the seldom used passenger seat. There were two bunks aft of that, a cramped lavatory, and a tiny galley.

  Rogan felt around under an old leather jacket and found that the half empty bottle of Duncan’s Prime was right where he’d left it. Good. He wouldn’t have a drink. Not this early. But it was nice to know it was there.

  Rogan ran his eyes over the control panel, started the ignition sequence, and listened as the anti-grav units wound up. They sounded nice and tight. It took thirty seconds for the power board to turn green and another thirty to complete a systems check.

  The hum turned to a steady whine as Rogan taxied out of the support building and into the glare. The canopy darkened to compensate. There weren’t any other aircraft on the planet but Rogan went through the motions of checking with the air traffic computer before lifting off. He eyed the screens arrayed in front of him and waited until all of the buildings had dwindled to the size of toys before advancing the throttle. Having approved the coordinates downloaded from Wally he switched to autopilot.

  It was tempting to place the seat in the reclining position and take a nap but his quarterly reports were due in three days. Rogan hit the terminal release, pulled the unit over his lap, and entered his access code. The resulting “Good morning Dan Rogan” appeared in front of Wally as well. The cyborg looked, gave the mental equivalent of a yawn, and turned his attention elsewhere.

  Rogan leaned back in his chair. “Verbal mode please.”

  The computer had a soft androgynous voice. “Verbal mode confirmed.”

  “Quarterly reports, page three, harvest totals.”

  A page of closely worded boilerplate flooded the screen with blanks where the totals and supporting graphics would go. “Find and enter current totals by category.”

  The reply came quickly. “Before or after spoilage, wastage, and loss?”

  Rogan gave the question some thought. His totals should reflect spoilage, wastage, and loss since that was what the company would actually receive and be able to use. But he was running behind his quotas. A fact made worse by the storm and the higher figure would look better to the suits. Their computers would detect the deception and produce enough exception report
s to kill a forest of trees but the strategy would buy some time. Time he needed to boost production.

  Half an hour later the grav truck slowed and descended towards the ground below. Rogan was part way through a carefully worded response to an interdepartmental interrogatory regarding his “profligate use of fertilizer” when Wally interrupted. “Time to run your recorders if you want aerials of the flooding.”

  There were times when Rogan resented the fact that the cyborg spent a lot of time both literally and figuratively looking over his shoulder but this wasn’t one of them. He could use the aerials to illustrate the extent of the damage and support his request for lower quotas. Not to mention the fact that the suits loved flashy reports. That’s why the PMs vied with each other to submit sexy multimedia productions. A competition Rogan detested but was forced to participate in. So he started the truck’s recorders and watched his screens. As usual the multi-angle computer enhanced video looked better than what he could see through the window.

  The river known as “tributary NH/Q17-3514” had overflowed its banks. The water covered a field and threatened to drown the seeds planted there. That was bad, but not as bad as it could have been, since he had taken out some insurance by investing in high grade AA-1 squash seed. Unlike the cheaper stuff double A could sense the low oxy levels associated with flooding and change its own metabolism to compensate. So what had been a risky decision was going to pay off. Would the squash counters give him credit for that? Hell no.

  The grav truck settled onto a mound with a distinct thump. Rogan checked to make sure all systems were on “standby” and exited the vehicle. The hillock was twenty-five feet higher than the surrounding field and naked of plant growth. There were fifty-seven mounds in all. A fact that Rogan was well aware of. He had even gone to the trouble of referencing the planet’s voluminous Terraforming report only to find the hillocks had been written off as “…an unusual manifestation of glacial scrubbing.”

  The theory sounded reasonable since Calag 4782/X had been an ice world prior to Earth normal Terraforming. But the uniformity of the mounds continued to bother him. In fact he was determined to slice one in half and see what was inside when he found the time.

  At least slightly cheered by the fact that the flooding could have been worse Rogan reentered the grav truck and took off. The stranded aniforms were the next item on his itinerary and not too far away. By maintaining a low altitude and following a swiftly flowing river Rogan had little difficulty locating them. The flooding had created a temporary island and a herd of aniforms had taken refuge there.

  These particular creatures were bovine derived. They were white with black spots, and although heavily modified, still bore a resemblance to the ancient cattle from which they had evolved. But while their heads had a cow-like appearance, generations of bioengineers had transformed their bodies into huge hippo-like protein factories, each having tremendous muscle mass and short stubby legs. Legs that had to little more than carry them to their food or away from a flood.

  After wandering in among them Rogan spotted a large female that had suffered a laceration on her right flank during the storm. She was quite docile and made no attempt to escape as he closed the wound and sprayed sealer over it. Then he ordered Wally to send a grav barge loaded with specially formulated feed to the island. Once the water receded the aniforms would be free to roam.

  Rogan hurried to the truck. It was a one-hour flight to the vast wheat field where Harvey 451 stood dreadfully idle. Rogan used the time to finish his response to the fertilizer interrogatory, lied on Wally’s quarterly fitness report, and checked his off-planet email. There were no replies to his ad.

  The truck slowed and Rogan looked out the side window. The wheat covered more than a thousand square miles of carefully contoured land. Land that was supposed to produce part of the 600 million tons the company expected Rogan to deliver that year. The problem being that he was some 2 million tons short because of the unrealistically high quotas the suits had given him.

  The unharvested wheat, all of which was common 7.3 or T.aestivum 7.3, was a wonderful golden brown color. Rogan never tired of watching the way that it danced in the wind.

  Most of the harvesters were little more than reddish orange dots on the distant horizon. Each one had left a mile-wide swath of stubble in its wake, except for Harvey 451 that is, which stood like a rust colored island in a sea of amber.

  As he landed Rogan cursed the idiots who had designed the machine, the fools who had purchased it, and scumbags who sent it to his world. As the drive units spooled down Rogan jumped to the ground and began to wade through the wheat. It swished against his legs and left a coating of dust.

  Harvey 451 stood strong and silent, as much a result of mechanical evolution as the aniforms were of genetic breeding. As Rogan jumped onto the first rung of a ladder, and began to climb, he could feel the slight vibration caused by the harvester’s power plant.

  A small eight legged robot beeped a greeting as the human arrived on deck one. One of four machines permanently assigned to Harvey 451, the droid was equipped for welding and waved a laser equipped arm towards the human. Rogan nodded politely. “I’m here to activate this monster. Where’s the switch?”

  “You’re here to activate this monster,” the robot chirped agreeably. “The switch is located an inch and half to the right of the emergency shut-down control.”

  Rogan gritted his teeth. “Lead me to the switch.”

  “I will lead you to the switch,” the robot said. “Please follow.”

  The robot walked on tip toe, its long spindly legs carrying it along at a pretty good clip, its head rotating in 360-degree circles as it scanned the environment. Rogan followed the machine over a grating covered walk-way, up a vertical ladder, over a bridge, through an access door, up a short flight of stairs, and into a cramped control room. It had been designed for emergency use so there were no creature comforts. Not even a seat.

  Now that Rogan could see the layout it was a simple matter to locate the switch, remove the access panel beneath it, and pull a handful of brightly colored spaghetti out into the light. After tracing the wires and checking them against the three dimensional schematic that the robot projected into the air--Rogan hooked them together in a way that would bypass the harvey’s on-off switch. The next time the machine went offline the maintenance droids would be able to restart the harvester by themselves.

  As Rogan stood he felt the deck lurch under his feet and realized how stupid he’d been. The gigantic machine was rolling forwards and the grav truck was sitting in the way. The emergency shut-off button was right there, waiting for his fist to slam down on it, but a system-by-system restart would take an hour. An hour that would put the harvest even further behind.

  It took more than a minute for Rogan to retrace his steps, descend the ladder, and jump to the ground. His legs pumped like pistons and the race was on. The truck was just ahead. But the harvester was rumbling along right behind him its jaws gobbling wheat. All it would take was one misstep and it would be over.

  Then Rogan was there. He ran the length of the truck and scrambled into the cockpit. He had left the vehicle on stand-by and the response was instantaneous. One moment the giant harvester was nipping at the truck’s rear end and the next moment Rogan was airborne and climbing like hell. He had leveled off when Wally spoke in his head. “That was impressive, but not especially bright.”

  Rogan scowled. “Who the hell asked you?”

  Silence prevailed until Rogan arrived over valley NH/Q23-7819.

  A long slow river meandered down its middle. The water was higher than normal but part of a different drainage system and less active than tributary NH/Q17-3514 had been.

  Orchards bordered both sides of the river. And, with their own needs in mind, machines had laid the trees out in orderly rows. Sunlight flashed off metal as an eight armed robo picker plucked apples from branches. Rogan lowered the grav truck onto a duracrete pad and checked with Wally. His anger had
dissipated by then but he still sounded gruff. “So, give me the numbers.”

  Wally was ready and rattled off a long series of statistics including the average number of apples per tree, projected shipping weight, long term mutation rates, vitamin and nutritional values, picking speed, and how those figures compared with previous crops.

  Rogan left the truck and walked towards the nearest trees. Weed suppressing grass had been planted between the trunks and gave slightly under his boots. Insects that were designed to cross pollinate the surrounding plants and provide food for Type 1 fliers buzzed around his head. Rogan didn’t mind in the least. What had started as an expression of restrained hope turned to a grin and quickly grew into a smile. The apple harvest was better than predicted. Something was going right for a change!

  Rogan approached a heavily laden branch, plucked a cube shaped apple from it, and examined the fruit for flaws. There were none. The shape was perfect for packing and transshipment.

  While the pale green skin was resistant to the effects of mechanized picking it still yielded to his bite. The apple’s interior was firm, white, and wonderfully crisp. Juice flooded his mouth as he chewed. Rogan realized he was hungry. So he ate the rest of the apple too…Cinnamon flavored seeds and all.

  Then with a lightheartedness he hadn’t felt in days, he made his way to the truck and took off. It was only later, while sitting in the big empty house, that Rogan poured himself a drink.

  Other books by William C. Dietz

  The McCade Series: Galactic Bounty (War World), Imperial Bounty, Alien Bounty, McCade’s Bounty, McCade For Hire (Includes Galactic Bounty and Imperial Bounty), McCade On The Run (Includes Alien Bounty and McCade’s Bounty)