Robert Chase: The Wellness Plague

The cordon gave way raggedly to groucuh, which extended itself like grasping fingers into the surrounding sterility. Rey frowned and bent down to pull up a clump. Groucuh was only a contraction of “ground cover,” an all-purpose term for the smaller sort of natural flora; that is, what should be easily killed by the cordon poisons. Like most of his fellow humans, Rey had little idea what it was like. The one thing he did know, however, was that it was substantially different from Terrestrial grasses and grains.

In his hand he held a coiled mass of vegetation, in more shades of yellow and purple than he could count. It seemed to grow like an insane slinky toy. As far as he knew, it was like nothing which came from Earth.

Yet, inextricably tangled in this mass, were grass blades identical to those which grew in the inner quadrangle of the College of Apollo. They should not be able to grow in the same soils. They certainly should not be so intertwined as, say, lichen.

Bhagwati was waiting for him patiently. Rey dropped the clump, filing it away as a mystery to be examined if he ever had time.

Ahead of them rose what was, at this distance, clearly an artificial embankment. It was high enough to shield whatever was behind it from the view of anyone walking the cordon. Hearing the almost soporific bleating punctuated by a few barks, Rey realized he had no need to see what lay beyond.

Nonetheless, they both crested the rise and paused while Rey assessed the view. The ridge widened to the size of a small meadow. Low fences marked the beginning of the steep incline. A dog ran along one of the fences, yapping excitedly at sheep careless enough to wander too close.

“How many are there?” Rey asked.

“About five hundred in this meadow,” Bhagwati said. “Nearly four hundred each in the two beyond. You can’t see them from here because they are about fifty meters lower.”

Rey looked down at his feet. The grass-groucuh was thick and springy, coiling up above his ankles. “It’s amazing that the groucuh doesn’t just crowd out the grass. And that you can feed this many sheep on what grass manages to survive.”

Naturalers to the contrary, the first generation had conclusively demonstrated that Skylandia’s biochemistry was too different for it to be nourishing to anything which had evolved on Earth.

Bhagwati shrugged. “I did not have nukes,” he said, almost apologetically. “At first, I feared my incomplete clearing would doom my efforts. As you see, they did not. I am told the fleece of these animals makes wool cloth especially prized, even on the Terraces.”

Rey looked around at the meadow and beyond. It was such a clear day that he would have been able to see all the way down to the world jungle, had advancing night not already cloaked it in shadow. On the far horizon, a line of clouds was growing that looked as dark and solid as the planet’s crust.

“Why?”

It was really two questions. Bhag-wati answered the first.

“Far Edge was cleared because there were getting to be too many people in the other colonies. The Terraces took nearly a decade to establish the colony, pleading lack of resources. By the time it was declared safe for habitation, the number of those who had signed up for emigration had nearly doubled. It seemed good politics to accommodate all. Only, the size of the plots was then too small for economic viability. Many failed, like the Murchisons. Most others, like the Karatnycky-Sullums, have no realistic chance of success.

“I did not want to fail. I saw this land, just beyond the cordon. I thought, if I had just a little more, I would be able to survive. So I planted grasses, and moved sheep across the cordon. Some went hungry, and I was very afraid. But then others started to thrive, and soon the whole herd was doing well.”

“Nobody has noticed this from the air?” Rey asked.

“The airfield is at the opposite end of Far Edge,” Bhagwati answered, “and much of the time fog covers the land.”

“But the satellite photographs!” Rey insisted.

Bhagwati shrugged. “They do not look so different from the surrounding lands. In the Terraces, where they study those pictures, they know nothing can lie out here, so they do not look closely.”

“Why are you showing me this?” Rey asked. He was acutely conscious that there were only the two of them out there, that only one other person knew where he was. He knew enough to ruin Bhagwati, both legally and financially. If he were to be pushed over the side, he would probably never be found.

Bhagwati nodded, as if aware of his thoughts. He stood apart from Rey, hands down at his side, as if trying to demonstrate his harmlessness.

“You were asking intelligent questions,” Bhagwati said. “If I did not answer them, you might raise them with your friends on the Terraces. The government might feel forced to do something were this brought to its attention.”

“They can run the numbers as well as I can,” Rey objected.

“They have chosen not to,” Bhagwati answered. “Or if they have, they have dismissed the result as business puffery.”

“It would have been much simpler if you had reported only your herds within the cordon,” Rey said, exasperation giving an edge to his voice.

“That would have been a lie,” Bhagwati said simply. “I owe the taxes on my true wealth. Anything else would cheat my neighbors and my friends. Also, I think that at some point, someone would wonder how I could maintain my cash flow from such a small resource base. I have broken one law. That is enough.”

The wind freshened. Even through his allergy mask, it seemed to bring up scents from the jungle far below, odors at once disturbing and enticing.

Bhagwati waited patiently.

“All right,” Rey said at last. “I am not going to turn you in to the proctos.” And that may be the end of any hope of ever obtaining a doctorate, if they ever catch you and decide that I was a co-conspirator.

“As far as I can tell, what you are doing has resulted in no damage to the agriculture or the health of the colony. I suppose if this violation is considered serious, it is a matter for Mr. Ryn-Rosenbeiger and his superiors.”

Bhagwati flashed a smile as dazzling as the setting sun. “Thank you,” he said, bobbing his head slightly. “Let us go back now. I believe a storm is coming.”

The storm swept over Far Edge during the night. Lying in his bed, it seemed to Rey that the whole building swayed under the hammer blows of the wind. The next morning he was awakened by the sound of all the VTOLs in Far Edge chopping the sky in a search pattern. O’Donnel Buergher-Murchison and four friends had flown out to a mountain called the Claw for a day of hunting bloodbirds and rock climbing. Their VTOL had not returned before the storm’s onset. There were no distress calls.

O’Donnel’s mother maintained a ghastly cheerfulness which Rey found more distressing than hysterics. She was sure the boy and his companions had suffered only a minor mishap, and that they would be found in a matter of hours. As the hours became a day, two days, and then a week, Rey felt the tension building to a breaking point.

Marty agreed. “None of the families are in what you’d call good shape, but Juanita is probably under the most strain. First her husband dies, then they lose all their freehold lands and manage to retain their home only by turning it into a boarding house. Nothing against Katarina, but all her mother’s hopes were on that boy. I don’t know how she’d be able to live with his loss.”

Given the contrary winds, there was little the other colonies could do to help with the search. Not that they seemed over-inclined to be of aid. There was almost a querulousness to the messages from the Terraces, a sense that the unauthorized flight beyond the cordon was of more concern than the possible loss of lives.