Another thirty crew landed at lunchtime. Now the camp was really starting to feel like a proper establishment. But even with an army of bots moving the containers and crates, the process was still exhausting even for a crew who’d adjusted to higher gravity. Around mid-afternoon, Ingram went out front to relax with a coffee and marvel at how quickly Pascoe’s Star had simply become the sun. She was feeling enthusiastic again, keen to see what else was out there, and the years ahead seemed more full of potential than uncertainty.
She was sitting on a packing crate about twenty yards from the admin building, lost in thought, when she spotted two of the big avians flapping slowly towards her, the kind she’d seen in transmissions from the surface. They landed on the other side of the flagpoles and began walking with a crow-like swagger, using the forward tips of their wings almost as front legs. Solomon had seemed very taken with them. Now she understood why. They were quite a spectacle.
In this light, their plumage was a striking iridescent navy blue. She didn’t know whether they were dangerous, so she decided to just sit and watch, safe in the knowledge that she had her sidearm ready on her belt.
Which might not be much use if I haven’t put in some range time in this gravity.
The birds paused in front of the flagpoles and looked up, wings at their sides. They seemed to be fascinated by the flapping fabric. Every so often they would turn and look straight at Ingram, stare for a while, and then go back to looking at the flags. It was almost comical. But they were obviously curious, and that normally indicated intelligence.
She resisted the temptation to call them over as if they were pigeons expecting crumbs. For all she knew, they were predators considering her for lunch. They stood there going through that ritual for at least ten minutes, looking from her to the flags and back again.
Then another shape flashed in the corner of her eye. She jumped up, startled, and went for her sidearm as a much bigger blue-black bird shot past her like an RPG about six feet off the ground. She felt the rush of air on her face. The two smaller birds cowered, then took off just as the big one reached them and brought its wings together in front with a massive clap, almost as if it was trying to swat them like flies. For a moment Ingram thought she was watching a raptor at work. But the larger bird caught up with the two smaller ones, snatched them up them up with its hind claws, and flew away with them.
Ingram wasn’t sure what she’d just witnessed. She realised how close the creature had come to her and reminded herself that not being afraid of wildlife was a bad idea when you knew almost nothing about it.
“It looks like Mother wasn’t very happy about her children wandering off,” Solomon said in Ingram’s ear. “Or at least that’s what it looked like to me.”
“That was big. And fast.”
“You need to be careful. I can go out in the quad frame quite safely, but flesh and blood is a lot more vulnerable.”
“Worth the trip,” she said, wondering if she’d had a lucky escape.
“Isn’t it.”
Ingram holstered her weapon, made a mental note to set up a firing range, and finished her coffee. She hoped the angry parent — if that was what it was — hadn’t scared the kids and told them never to go near the bipedal invaders again. She wanted to know what had fascinated them about the flags.
They really did look like they wanted to ask her why humans had put so much effort into hanging pieces of fabric on top of metal poles so far from home.
* * *
Dogwood Farm, Kill Line:
Late May
The world had changed forever that month, but for Doug the farming year went on as it always had for men like him for centuries. Nature wouldn’t wait. It could be slowed and sped up in labs, but out in the fields, the cycle of seasons and weather still dictated his schedule.
He walked between the rows of crops, occasionally stopping to examine individual plants. The corn was making good progress. He squatted on his heels, considering that this really would be the last maize he’d ever grow on Earth. It was the kind of finality he’d never considered. He knew he’d be too old one day and realise that the previous year’s planting had been his last, but this final crop was already marked on the calendar, tied to an event he knew was coming. He was leaving in Shackleton by the end of the year.
Now he wasn’t sure what would happen to the last harvest. Liam Dale was still holding out because he wouldn’t leave his animals. Others might lose their nerve and decide to stay as well. Okay, they could have this land and everything growing in it, then, and nobody would go hungry.
Doug straightened up an inch at a time, grumbling at his stiff back, and carried on. It was a beautiful morning. Birdsong, the drone of a tractor, and the scent of moist soil took him back to his childhood, much of it here in this very field. Three deer in the paddock on the far side of the track watched him approach, then trotted away towards the woods. It was timeless.
If only we could transplant all this to Opis. Just dig it up and load it.
For all the dangers that lay beyond the boundary, it broke his heart to leave. He thought that every morning. Then, minutes later, he’d remind himself that he was only here because someone much like him had made a decision centuries ago to embark on a risky voyage with no guaranteed outcome of survival, let alone success, a man probably just as scared and upset at leaving the old country as he was now.
He could do this. He had to do it for his grandchildren.
There, his resolve was back again. Taking on new challenges in old age was a new lease of life, not recklessness. He now kept pictures of Opis on his pocket screen so that he could study them until they seemed familiar. He was sure that he could lie to himself often enough to make the illusion stick, and then his first step onto alien soil might feel like coming home after an absence long enough to make it a hazy memory. The Opis landscape was starting to look normal to him, even if he couldn’t visualise it cultivated yet. If it hadn’t been for the odd trees and that off-colour grass, he could have taken it for somewhere in America.
Yes, that’s what he’d do. He’d see it as another state he hadn’t visited before. It would have been just as much of an upheaval uprooting to New Mexico or Colorado. He’d be asleep in cryo for the journey and this would feel no worse than getting on a flight and landing a few hours later. He’d have the people he knew and loved with him, and that was what counted.
Doug thought he wasn’t paying attention to what was on the ground, but his peripheral vision was attuned to the small detail of the land that he walked every day, and something made him stop. A block of corn seedlings — about twelve plants, ten days after germination, a few leaves high — looked like they were yellowing. Diseased plants always made his heart skip a beat. There were scores of rusts, pests, blights, moulds, and viruses that attacked crops, but he always erred on the side of caution, and Ainatio encouraged farmers to report every sign of disease. He took a picture of the plants with his screen and called Colin.
“Hey Col, I’ve got a few sick-looking corn plants,” he said. “Mind if I send you an image?”
“Sure,” Col said. “Wait there and I’ll come over and bag them.”
“Take a look first. I don’t want to drag you out for nothing again. I know it’s not nitrogen, because I tested this soil a couple of weeks ago.”
“Mosaic virus?”
“Maybe nematodes.”
“I’ll be right over. I’ve got your location.”
Doug passed the time leaning on the fence while he studied the pictures of Opis again, superimposing pasture on it in his mind’s eye. Ainatio was going to invite the farmers in for an open day to look at some of the crops it had been developing for Nomad. Doug felt a momentary twinge of conscience about introducing Earth species to Opis, and wondered if he was getting like his grandfather, outraged by foreign snowdrops that had no right to spread in wild America. The feeling p
assed quickly. Sure, Earth had a history of problems caused by introducing non-native species to new territories, but sometimes it just came down to staying alive. That was the way the world worked. That was how species spread, man included.
He looked up when he heard Col’s pick-up coming down the road. It parked at the edge of the field and Col got out, carrying his test toolbox, and began picking his way between the rows.
“Keeps you fit, this,” he said, pulling on plastic gloves. “Okay, let’s see what’s happening here. Mind if I pull up a few?”
“Be my guest. Plenty more where they came from.”
While Col got out his test kits and started snipping pieces of leaf and root, Doug wandered off so as not to bother him. There was nothing worse than someone breathing down your neck while you were trying to work. He was studying his screen, reading one of Ainatio’s information documents about the effect of twenty-six-hour days on Earth crops, when Col called out.
“Doug, we’ve got a problem. I need to put us both through decontamination and quarantine this field.”
Doug’s stomach twisted itself in knots. “Damn, Col, tell me it’s not die-back. It can’t be. We’re miles from the zone.”
“I’m going to get a decon unit out here. It’s not a conclusive result.”
Doug watched Col while he called Ainatio, feeling sick with dread, although his common sense told him this wasn’t the end of the world. They’d be leaving in a matter of months, and they weren’t short of food. There were plenty of other crops that had never been affected by die-back that they could switch to, so this wouldn’t be as disastrous for them as it had been for an industrialised farming system. But he was still scared, ashamed, and racked with guilt. How the hell had this field gotten contaminated? He hadn’t been outside the cordon for years. There were any number of ways that a virus could be transmitted to plants, but he felt the blame rested squarely with him.
The decontamination unit arrived within ten minutes. Everyone would have seen it driving north through the town, as conspicuous and shaming as ringing a leper’s bell. Doug started rehearsing his apologies as he took off his clothes in the back of the decon truck and braced himself to be doused with sterilising spray. He felt like a new prisoner being de-loused. After the liquid had dried, he dressed in the blue laboratory clothes handed to him by the technician and collected his sterilised pocket screen.
“It’s not your fault, Doug,” Col said, adjusting his own blue coveralls. “It could have been anything. Birds, even. This stuff’s been mutating over the years, and if it was easy to tackle, Ainatio would have found a way to fix it by now, believe me. Besides, we might be jumping the gun. My test was inconclusive. For all we know, it really might be a mosaic virus.”
“I know what mosaic virus looks like, Col,” Doug said. “Don’t try to make me feel better.”
“Okay. So... we’re going to have to burn the crop if it’s positive.”
“Do whatever you have to. I’m just worried for the people who thought they might be able to stay here.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a disaster.”
But it was certainly mortifying for all kinds of reasons, from the acceptance that he was abandoning his family’s land to the knowledge that he might be the vector for the final destruction of the town that he had sworn to protect as mayor. It was a sorry end of his term of office.
He waited for the technicians to finish hosing down his quad bike and rode back into the town centre, conscious of people staring at him as he went past in unfamiliar blue coveralls. He couldn’t bear it. He had to pull over and explain himself. David, the brewer, was standing on the porch of his store, arms folded.
“Might be bad news, Dave,” Doug said. “They’re testing for die-back on my land. They sterilised everything. We’re waiting for the results from the lab.”
Dave was remarkably calm. He pulled a resigned face, like he’d been told the movie channel was down for maintenance. “I suppose it was only a matter of time. But don’t you go giving yourself a heart attack over it, hear? At least we’ve got somewhere else to go.”
Doug didn’t stop to speak to anyone else. There was a procedure for notifying the town about emergencies, and this definitely qualified as one. When he reached his office, he asked the clerk to make a strong pot of coffee, then started drafting the message that would go to the personal screens of everyone in Kill Line. As soon as he sent it, he’d be inundated with questions to which he’d have no satisfactory answers. He felt like he ought to hold a meeting and show his face, but he was waiting on Ainatio’s labs, and if they confirmed die-back, they’d be the ones deciding what happened next, not him. All he wanted to do now was go home and surround himself with his family. And it was all he could do.
Joanne pounced on him as soon as he walked down the path. “I heard from Liam.” Word had already gotten around. “I wish you’d called me.”
“Sorry, honey. But it’s just upended me. Look, I’d really like to have everybody around for a family dinner tonight. Can you do that for me? I know I’m pathetic, but I’d kind of hoped to see out my time here without being responsible for killing off the whole damn town.”
Joanne grabbed his hand, almost pulling him into the house. “I know you think you’re responsible for the whole world’s welfare, but you can’t claim any responsibility for die-back. And what if it isn’t? Come on, get some proper clothes on and dump those coveralls. You look like you’re going to a fancy dress party as a plumber.”
Doug went up to the attic and pulled out the family photo archive again to remind himself what the world had been like before so many problems had woven themselves into a carpet of disaster. He thought of Chris Montello, worrying about what would happen to Jamie’s grave after everyone had left for Opis, and then wondered about his own family’s plots. He still wasn’t sure how much people would be allowed to take with them on the ship, but it certainly wouldn’t include headstones or coffins. His forebears probably wouldn’t have wanted to leave Kill Line anyway. He allowed himself a short wallow in nostalgia before going downstairs again to check on Joanne. She was peeling vegetables.
“Everyone’s coming,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Kind of. I think it’s just everything that’s happened in the last few weeks. It’s been one round of shocks after the other. I should be made of sterner stuff.”
It was hours before dinner, but Doug set the dining room table anyway, moving in more chairs to accommodate twelve people — two sons, one daughter, two daughters-in-law, one son-in-law, and four grandchildren. He even wrote out little name tags on cards left over from a civic function years ago: Callum, Sarah, Patrick, Moira, Beth, Barry, Becky, Elliott, Matthew, and Ruth. Joanne could have the head of the table tonight.
Some civic leader I am.
While he was polishing the silver cutlery, which he was determined to take with him to Opis, his screen chirped with an incoming call. It was Col. That was quick: the tests had only taken a couple of hours.
“So is it as bad as we thought it was?” Doug asked.
“Yeah, sorry, it’s die-back,” Col said. “But I don’t want you blaming yourself. You didn’t bring it in.”
“That’s kind of you, Col, but unless it’s a bird dropping something it picked up outside, then it’s still down to me.”
“You know that’s not true. Let’s assume it’s animal-borne for the meantime. We’ll contact everyone.”
“Already have.”
“Good. I’ll arrange for the crop to be destroyed. We’ll be testing the rest of the farms over the next few days.”
“Sorry, Col.”
“Hey, we knew it might reach us one day. At least we can relocate now.”
Over dinner that evening, Doug’s kids still tried to protect him from reality, pointing out the alternative crops that the town could still grow if anyone wanted
to stay.
“It’s really cool that we’ve got somewhere else to go to just when we need it,” Elliott said. He was always an upbeat kid. “You always say things are meant to be, Grandpa, so I don’t know why you’re so upset about this.”
“You need to let Chris know, too, honey.” Joanne passed around more roast potatoes. “I don’t think Ainatio remembers to keep the camp informed.”
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that Solomon has a hotline to them, but I’ll call anyway.”
“You don’t suppose the infection was brought in by them, do you?” Callum asked. “I mean, they’ve been outside the safety zone recently.”
“Yeah, and they always go through decontamination.” Doug wanted to quash rumours right away. “Let’s not start blaming them. The die-back was found on our land. Chris’s people have never been near that field.”
“Sure, Dad. Just asking.”
“They’re good people. They’re our neighbours. I don’t want anyone pointing fingers, okay?”
Perhaps Elliott was right that it was meant to be. This would make up a few minds, and soften some of the regret at leaving. It was just a matter of timing, that was all.
Only one thing mattered: Kill Line would live. It would be transplanted to another planet, but everyone would survive, and that was more important than the buildings they’d leave behind, however irreplaceable the town itself seemed, however attached folks were to the stone and brick and wood that seemed like it had been there forever and always would be.
They’d built the place. They’d build it again. And the land — yeah, land stirred strong emotions, but it wasn’t permanent either. The Brandts and every other family would carry on long after the land was dead.
Doug reached for the dish of potatoes. What he felt right now was painful optimism, like leaving home for the first time.
“Okay,” he said. “Anyone else for second helpings?”
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