Cranston’s face turned red. “You are not in charge, replicant. We will make our own decisions about what’s best for us. What makes you think you have the right to dictate? Or for that matter, the moral high ground?”
I tilted my head and smiled innocently at the leader of the FAITH colony. “Hmm, I’m trying to remember now. Of all of us here, everyone who didn’t participate in a war that virtually destroyed the human race, please raise your hand.” I raised a hand, and waited a moment to see if anyone else would have the gall to do so. “I’m a neutral party here, Mr. Cranston. Yeah, even with jerks who treat me as a piece of equipment instead of addressing me by name. But I’m also a volunteer. I’ll help who I want, and I’ll leave if I want. As a good leader, you should take that datum into account when deciding how much of an idiot you want to be.”
I glared at the three video windows. No one responded.
After a moment of awkward silence, Valter said, “Very well, we will trade some of our decanted livestock. If necessary, for future considerations. Howard, I am hoping you will act as adjudicator in such cases.”
“Absolutely, Mr. Valter. And thank you. Colonel, some breeding stock now will help you until we’ve finished force-growing the animals in the artificial wombs.” I turned to Cranston. “Minister, your repayment should consist of setting up and running a large batch of artificial wombs to take the pressure off the Spits. The both of you can pay them back with interest once your own stock is high enough.”
I looked around at the various windows. No one commented. With a sigh, I checked my agenda for the next discussion item.
*
“You show a lot more patience than Riker ever did.” Colonel Butterworth raised a glass of Jameson toward me.
“Thanks, Colonel. I think. We Bobs are definitely different as individuals. I wonder why they never picked up on that back on Earth, when they were working on the whole replicant thing.”
Butterworth shrugged. Science-y stuff like that didn’t interest him, except to the extent it affected his job.
He poked at a pile of paper on his desk. “This native vine that I mentioned before is turning into a significant problem. The level of invasiveness puts anything from Earth to shame, except possibly bamboo. If we don’t get ahead of it, we might end up expending all our energy just beating it back.”
“Hmm, the native ecosystem has the home court advantage, unfortunately. Doesn’t it serve as food for any native species?”
“As far as my scientists can tell, it contains a toxin of some kind that the native browsers find disagreeable. Even the brontos won’t eat it, and they are the un-pickiest herbivores I’ve ever seen.”
I laughed. The brontos would eat almost anything that provided net calories. They would eat all the leaves from a tree, then the twigs, then the bark from the main trunk and branches. What they left behind looked very sad. Fortunately, Vulcan trees could survive having their bark stripped.
The brontos had even started munching on the fence, when they could get close enough. A couple of strings of electrified wire had nipped that habit before it could catch on.
“How does it affect people?”
Butterworth shook his head. “The vine is not edible as such. However, the toxin doesn’t seem particularly effective against Terran biology. As soon as we have some livestock, we’ll see if they’ll eat it.”
I nodded silently. Colonizing an alien planet, as with everything else, was more complicated than TV and movies let on. Clearing the land and building houses was just the beginning. We had neither the resources nor the desire to commit planetary ecological genocide, and doing so would doom the colony anyway. But learning to live here was going to be a case of mutual accommodation.
Fortunately, so far no alien diseases had found humans compatible. I wasn’t really surprised. Even Terran viruses were generally specialized for a specific species or lifestyle. Eventually something would make the jump, but by then we would hopefully be ready for it.
The colonel brought up a few more minor items, then we signed off. So far so good, but my movie-conditioned mind was still waiting for the inevitable disaster.
9. Something is Out There
Bob
September 2169
Delta Eridani
Marvin popped in and started to speak several times, without success. I couldn’t identify the expression on his face, but it reminded me of a fish that had just eaten a lemon. Something was definitely up.
I’d been going over the autofactory schedule with Guppy. I turned back to him. “It doesn’t look like there are any surprises. Make the changes I’ve listed, and let me know if anything goes off-schedule.”
[Aye]. Guppy blinked huge fish eyes once and disappeared.
Marvin was still doing a pretty good imitation of a fish himself. I grinned at him. “Come on, Marv, spit it out. You know you wanna…”
He took a deep breath. “Something, and by ‘something’ I mean damned if I know what, hunted the Deltans almost to extinction at their original location.”
“Uh, say what?”
“I found a number of disarticulated Deltan remains. In different places, so it wasn’t just a one-time thing. The damage was not indicative of gorilloids. We’ve seen their work. They’re lazy. They strip the meat, not even thoroughly, then go back for a new victim. Whatever this was, it did the full workup. And chew marks on the bones indicate something much bigger than a gorilloid.”
I sat back and rubbed my chin in thought for a moment. “So there’s another apex predator out there. Great. I may have to break out the exploration drones and put them on a kilometer-by-kilometer survey.”
“I think that would be a good idea, buddy. And if we have the printer cycles to spare, maybe print up a few more sets of drones.”
“Of course. Because screwing with the autofactory schedule is never a problem.” I stood up, stretched, and wandered to the end of the library, gazing at nothing. After a moment’s thought, I pulled up the files from my initial exploration of Delta Eridani 4. I knew that my survey had been less than thorough. But I wasn’t a professional exobiologist, assuming such a job had ever even existed. And once I’d found the Deltans, everything else had taken a back seat.
I replaced the library bookshelves with a blank wall and spread the images of the fauna I’d catalogued across its length. Pacing along the collage of images, I tried to imagine any of them able to take out a full-grown Deltan.
Marvin materialized a La-Z-Boy and settled in with a coffee. Spike immediately assumed an invitation and hopped up to settle in his lap.
The collage offered no inspiration. The leopard analogues and the gorilloids were really the only animals I’d encountered that would prey on Deltans, and they just didn’t fill the bill.