Everyone nodded. They’d expected something like this, Basil knew. It’s the end of travel season, at least until the rain shifts to snow.
“However, in light of some news from New Benin and other places, I want to change what we are doing.” He raised one hand, “We will be skirting the edges of the corporation’s regulations. I know, believe me, I know. I like their visits as much as you do. But survival is more important than paperwork.”
David leaned forward. “Survival, Da?”
“There’s been another solar storm. It caught the southern hemisphere last night. Not as strong as the one this summer, but they lost more equipment.”
John, a male copy of his mother, Karina, grunted. “Not good, Da. Especially since, from what I hear, we’ve only gotten two thirds of the equipment back up since midsummer. Do you know how much warning they got down there?”
“No precise numbers yet, but rumor says less than we had back in the summer, when all the satellites still worked.”
Basil blinked and glanced at Tildie, hesitating before asking, “I thought there were spares in orbit, powered down, just in case? Communications, weather, defense, navigation, all of them had pre-orbited replacements.”
Kos and David both shrugged. “Not all the spares survived. Navigation’s already tricky,” David said. “Heard that from Sabrina’s daughter, Molly, the sea pilot. Air pilots having the same trouble. That’s why shipping’s gotten slow—can’t fly some places in low weather because the nav signals can’t be trusted and the Company doesn’t have enough land units in place yet. Some of the programmable harvesters went wonky, too, up in the northern plains.”
“Timber cutters, too.” John added.
Kos raised his hand, taking over the discussion. “This matters to us for two reasons. One, because it means prices for some things will go up, delivery will take longer, and may be less reliable. Second, and more important, without the satellites we lose solar weather observations and we won’t know when the next storm will hit. And there will be one.”
Karina paused as she switched yarn colors, then resumed knitting. “Kos, what makes you certain?”
“I just am.” Basil knew that tone and shivered a little. He’d had a vision of some kind. “Without warning, we won’t have time to protect the tech. And what does get protected, just like now, will wear out faster and we’ll have a hard time getting parts until the Corporation sends more.” He turned off the screen and tapped the printouts. “While we still have machinery, we are going to start making tools that do not need electricity. And we are going to get more livestock, horses, and mules, and geld some of the calves to raise as oxen. The Krehbiel family is willing to trade animals and instruction for labor and fleeces. And some of Tildie’s seed cakes,” he smiled.
Considering what some people have offered to do in exchange for Tildie’s cakes, let alone for the recipe, it sounds fair to me, Basil smiled to herself. She’d waxed the entire restaurant kitchen floor by hand for half a seed cake.
Then she realized what else would fail. “Kos, do you think we’ll lose all the domestic tech as well?” Her voice quavered and she swallowed hard, suddenly scared.
“I do. And we—that is, all of us—may well lose the industrial tech, including things like the big looms and extruders, the food processors and tool makers.”
Basil felt faint and sick both. No more clothes? No more mixing machines, or floor cleaners, or carpet scrubbers? No more clothes washers to do the hard work? And how would they save food, or grind grain, or preserve meat and fruit without the vacuum packing equipment? She’d escaped the slums of Deepak’s Planet for this? The knitting click stopped, and she felt Karina and Tildie taking her hands. Kos got up and walked around the table, resting his own calloused, warm hands on her shoulders.
“We’re a family,” Karina reminded them all. “We’ll work together and with the Lord’s help we’ll get through. The next storm might not be as intense as the first one, Baa.”
“And we’re already throwing breakers and pulling plugs every time we shut down, Mom Baa,” David reminded her. “Maybe the first storm was a warning, the Lord’s way of telling us that we needed to start taking care of ourselves more.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, moving to rest one hand on Karina’s shoulder. “Plus, the less tech we use, the better off we are if those damned Gormies come snooping around. Because we all know just how fast the Planetary Union’s defense troops will come out.”
Basil started feeling herself turning green. Not the Gormonigons, holy Lord, Lord of Hosts, please, please, pleasepleaseplease, she begged, imagining what could happen. Not again, Lord, I beg.
“Enough Baa,” Kos growled. “Calm down. Sufficient unto the day is the evil therein,” he quoted. “The floor cleaners and laundry machines will run tomorrow, and the next day. But perhaps not forever. We’ll start learning how to work around them now, so it will not be an emergency the next time we have to shut everything down. And we will start gathering the thin-husked nuts that the children found and add them to our stores.”
The news from the south confirmed Kos’s wisdom and Baa’s fears. They’d gotten less warning, and although the storm had been weaker than the midsummer event, people still lost equipment. Several air transports crash-landed when the storm shorted out their computer-controlled power systems, scattering cargo and delaying shipments from the spaceport depots, or so reports claimed and gossip confirmed. The best estimate, according to the news bulletins, was that a third of the big machines had been rendered unusable, either entirely or in part, and half the domestic tech. Carl shuddered with mock-horror as he read a message from one of the dairy operations down there. “Milking four hundred cows by hand! And every cow wants to be first!”
Bethany, Karina’s oldest daughter, crossed two fingers in a warding-off sign. “Worse than that, Carl, how about churning four hundred cows’ worth of milk by hand twice a day! Or making cheese and working separators for all that milk! That’s what should scare you out of your shoes.”
“Speaking of shoes,” Tildie interrupted. “How are yours?” They all looked down at their feet. Basil’s house slippers, made of tough boiled and felted shahma wool, had lots of service left in them. Bethany’s boots needed some attention, however. Carl’s shoes appeared fine. “We need to start stocking up on children’s shoes,” Tildie decided. “And work shoes. No more fancy little flats or sandals.” Carl looked smug until Tildie shook her finger, “Or tooled leather boots with flowers on the heels, young man. I saw those.” Basil made a note to look at Miriam’s shoes, and Tim’s as well.
Over the next week, the women of the Peilov household drew up an inventory. They started in the cellars and worked their way up to the drying loft and attics, tallying everything they had, all the spares, and what they might need. “How did we end up with four rolls of synth-tarp?” Basil asked as she wrestled the fourth one back into the pile at the far end of the last attic.
Tildie sneezed, then waved her hands in a “don’t look at me” gesture. “I want to know what it’s doing up here. This is supposed to be house storage, not farm.” They logged their finds and returned to the lower level. “And who needed the extra-extra-extra large winter coat? I’ve seen smaller field shelters.”
Basil giggled. She’d tried the coat on and had vanished inside it. “But the material is lovely thick and soft. We could take it apart and see if Mrs. Krehbiel could make two smaller coats out of it.”
“True.” Tildie tapped the stylus against her teeth. “No, I think we keep it. Someone who needs one of those will trade or pay very, very well for that. And who knows, one of the boys might turn out that big.”
Oh I hope not. David, John, and Carl, and now Michael, eat so much as it is—a boy that size would devour a cow at every meal. Basil thought for a moment, flipping through the pages of inventory. “Tildie, when is Kos bringing the flocks back?”
“Hmm? After the next Sabbath. He wanted to get all the tubers and roots harvested, so we don
’t have to worry about the sheep eating the tops and us not being able to find the roots.”
“Thank you.” Basil liked the sheep and shahma, the sheep-llama chimera. She’d never seen live animals, let alone come close to one, until she’d come to ColPlat XI and Kos brought her to his farms. The sheep had terrified her the first time she saw them, and her face burned a little as she remembered how Kos and Karina had laughed themselves sick as she cowered in the corner of the sheep pen, trying to escape the curious noses sniffing her pockets for treats. It had taken a week before she spoke to either her spouse or his first wife again. Now nothing except the two bulls bothered her, although she had a wary respect for the neighbor’s mules. She’d seen them kick down a gate to get through. I like the shahma. They’re quiet, and combing them is so relaxing. And most of the time they are not as stupid as the sheep can be.
The morning after the next Sabbath, Kos called everyone together again. All twenty-eight members of the extended family squeezed into the big dining room in the main house. After prayer, Kos explained, “I’m taking David, Baa, Saul, Itzak, and Micah to get the flocks tomorrow.” Itzak, married and living with his wife, Gomer, on a smaller farm, nodded. “And we are all taking rifles and bows with us. There’s snow forecast, and the dardogs are moving. There’s also been trouble with some boar and pseudo-boar, and I don’t want to take chances with someone getting hurt.”
“Who will drive the transports?” Saul, Kos’s youngest brother, asked.
“You and David. Only the smallest animals or those that look weak will ride. We’re driving the rest down on the hoof. Matthew Plumber wants a fire line grazed along the power and water right-of-way, and will pay thirty credits a day for each shepherd, plus ten for the sheep. And he’s supplying food.” The younger men exchanged high fives.
Basil smiled as well, since she would not have to be trying to supervise the boys cooking. Kos insisted that his sons learn their way around a kitchen, and his daughters knew how to cook in a camp, but that didn’t mean the boys’ efforts always rose to Basil and Karina’s standards. It didn’t help that pregnancy made Basil’s stomach less tolerant of scorch and char. There’s more to food than meat-on-a-stick and dough-on-a-rock. But I’ll need to see about those work boots, and getting a good stout hiking staff or shepherd’s crook. I wonder if I can borrow Michael’s rucksack? It should fit me. Basil started making her mental list and tuned out the rest of her husband’s words.
They left early the next morning, as soon as they had enough light to see. Thanks to an errant rock, one of the animal transport floats only had one working forward light, and the local Company vehicle inspector had issued Itzak one warning tag already, threatening him with a fine if he drove at night without all the lights repaired. Basil rode in the back of the smaller float, nestled in with the equipment, where she could nap if she needed to.
The trip up to the meadows passed quickly and quietly. Basil stared out the side of the float, between the slats, savoring the rich fall colors. The scarlet, gold, and brown trees glowed in the morning sun, and she caught glimpses of orange and fiery crimson brush splashed along the edges of the stubbly brown, harvested fields. A few of the pastures still sported rich green grass, and the blue sky and thin white streaks of cloud delighted Basil’s eyes. Thank you, Lord, for color. Thank you for making such rich worlds and beautiful. At first ColPlatXI had felt like a dream to her. Now the greys and blacks of the slums on Deepak’s Planet were the bad dream and ColPlatXI was home.
Speaking of home, I wonder if we’ll get the flocks home before the next Sabbath? I know Rabbi Kohl says that the Lord forgives emergency work done on the Sabbath, but would moving sheep and shahmas count? Maybe if the weather is bad, or if there really are dardogs. For the hundredth time Basil wondered why ColPlat Ltd. insisted on letting dangerous native animals stay after the terraforming.
She’d read the reasons as part of her studies prior to immigrating, and again during acclimation in NewCorpTon, but they still made no sense. We don’t need additional dangerous predators if we are the most dangerous predators in the system like that mini-file claimed. We can hunt the pseudo-boar and pseudo-deer and keep their numbers where the xenozoologists think is optimal for species health. Oh well, at least we don’t have to cope with those giant herbivores on the other side of the Dividing Range. According to the data files, they had massive digging claws and stood almost three meters tall at the shoulder, with heavy pelts and poor vision. They reacted to challenges and surprises by charging and smashing into whatever happened to have offended or threatened them. Basil had stared in awe at the holos of the damage they could do.
The sound of the engines shifted, and she felt the float tilt a little. They’d started the climb off the main track and up into the hills proper. As she watched, the trees changed, from leafy to more evergreens and paperbarks. She also caught sight of stumps—not fallen stumps, but cut ones—and tsked. Why would people thin so close to the track? Maybe it was for a firebreak. That made sense. Basil leaned back against the improvised seat and enjoyed the rest of the ride. She looked forward to being with Kos and the boys. She got along well with her sister wives, and Kos did his best to be fair to all three of them, but she wanted a little time alone with her husband, even if they had to be working.
Just after noon, the floats slowed and stopped at the edge of a huge meadow well up in the hills. Basil waited until the engine sounds faded away and the hiss of the hover pads dwindled into silence before getting out and dragging her rucksack out with her. She took a deep breath of the crisp, cool air, savoring the sharp tang of evergreen and crushed grass. She heard the men talking, and the dull clangs and lighter jingles of the sheep and shahma bells from the flocks. Basil slipped away out of sight and emptied her bladder, then returned to see what needed to be done.
Kos gave the orders. “David, Itzak, Saul, Micah, get the floats ready for the animals. Baa, come with me. We’re going to double-check the animals and help the shepherds sort them, then start drifting the flock down here to the floats. Keep them calm.”
“Yes, dear.” Basil walked slowly and steadily up the slope to the spill of grey fleece and brown eyes waiting at the top of the meadow. I had no idea we had so many, she gasped, blinking in wonder. She thought she remembered Kos saying in the spring that they’d sheared two hundred animals, but she could barely see the sward for the sheep and shahmas. Right, quit dawdling. I need to look for the weak, the late lambs, and any that might be sick. Rory and Ted, the senior shepherds, had sorted the animals already, but it never hurt to have additional eyes. At Kos’s signal, the men and their dogs began urging the animals to walk down slope, in the direction of the floats, and Basil spotted three more stragglers. She cut them out of the flock and nudged them to the men waiting by the floats. David marked them with dark chalk and then chivvied them into the transports.
By the time they finished, she could have sworn that more sheep appeared out of thin air. “I don’t understand,” she complained, looking from the grazing animals to the loaded floats. “That has to be at least a hundred beasts there, but the flock doesn’t seem any smaller.”
With a straight face Rory explained, “Oh, that’s easy, Mrs. Peilov. As you spread them out, their fleeces expand so they look like more animals.”
David laughed. “Nah, Mom Baa, it’s the shahma. Once you let the flock spread out, they bud and divide. ‘Pop’ and now there’s two shahma. One of those strange side effects of creating the chimera.”
She shook her stick at him. “David Saul Peilov, even I know enough reproductive science to know that multicellular animals do not bud under reduced atmospheric pressure. Otherwise every time we have a big storm, we’d have more shahma.”
“May the good Lord forefend,” Ted intoned. “Next you’ll be saying that sheep shrink in the rain.”
“No, they stink in the rain,” David corrected.
That’s certainly true, Basil thought, wrinkling her nose.
Kos called in the two-
footed strays. “Itzak, you and David take the floats back to the farm and doctor whatever needs it. We’ll be down when we get there.”
“Right, Da. You have the extra energy packs for the rifles and short-out guns?” Kos pointed to a heavy-looking sack. David nodded. “Lord be with you and see you at home.”
Once the floats trundled off, Kos and the other men set up shelters for the night. Micah got the camp stove running and Basil heated supper. They’d start their “catered” meals the next day, so she’d only brought a few things, foods they could heat quickly. She also boiled water for tea. The Company’s environmental specialists swore that humans could drink all the water in the hills without suffering internal distress, but Basil doubted that they’d ever tasted the water. Besides, animals are not fussy about peeing in what they drink from.
“Baa, you get first watch,” Kos told her after supper. “And be careful.”
“Yes, dear. Um, are there dardogs in the area?”
He shook his head and played with the end of his beard. “No, at least not that Ted and Rory have heard or seen fresh sign of. There are,” he paused as if looking for words. “There are people who think scaring sheep is fun. If you hear or see anyone, blow your whistle.”
Basil tried not to shake. “Ye—yes dear.” How could they? That’s mean! What kind of sick person comes all the way out here just to scare sheep? How can the Company allow that to happen? She set out not long after the sun set, walking around the edge of the flock, keeping her eyes on the edge of the trees around the meadow. Once she thought she saw motion, and she turned on her night-vision scope, but saw only pseudo-deer trotting through the browse at the edge of the forest.
Fountains of Mercy Page 4
