Balance of Power: Daedalus Mission, Book Five by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford [Stableford, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: science fiction, space opera, sci-fi, space travel, arthur c. clarke
ISBN: 9781434449641
Publisher: Ingram Distribution
Published: 2012-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

The city was in a geographically privileged position, in a strip of land between two rivers, and it had proved an ideal focal point for the steady growth of civilization along the banks of both, using agricultural methods based on the irrigation of the land by means of ditches and canals. Even at the time the survey team had been scanning the northern temperate zone of Delta from the air the food surpluses generated by this agricultural system had permitted something of a population explosion, which had resulted in the rapid expansion of Ak’lehrian culture in the interim. The population explosions generated by food surplus tend to create new categories in society: large armies, a thriving merchant class, and an abundant priesthood. The civil service—the administrators of the political entity that Ak’lehr’s empire became—were supplied by the priesthood, who were qualified by virtue of their literacy. Although Ak’lehr had a supreme ruler, all the real power lay with the priesthood and the army. Even the king was held to be the earthly incarnation of the divine will, and was thus sanctioned in his rule by the church and perpetually subject to its interpretation of his role.

By the time Bernhard Verheyden arrived in Ak’lehr the aliens were already embarked upon an era of technological innovation. They had had the plow for some time, but had recently invented the seed-hopper and were making much more effective use of domestic animals as animal husbandry became a business and—slowly—a science. They had distinguished two varieties of their staple crop (a prolific grain whose seed tasted not unlike rice) which ripened early in the year and late in the year. They had also imported large quantities of leguminous plants into the heartland of the empire in order to revitalize the soil periodically. They were in the process of domesticating fruit trees and various species of root vegetable. Their yields were increasing year by year as their population increased. Eventually, the expansion curves would cross as the yield curve flattened out while the population curve tended evermore to the vertical, but for the time being they were secure. Verheyden had the knowledge to maintain them in that security for at least an extra century.

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