Daily Story Seeds by Scott Walker

Author:Scott Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firefly Tales, LLC

The money for this job will keep me stocked in Macallan 25 for a long time.

ARBOREAL AUTOPHAGY

Inspired by a post about the possible discovery of why octopi suddenly start eating themselves and a post about an octopus-shaped tree in Oregon.

## BEGIN DATABURST TRANSMISSION

## DATELINE: UNI-330108-13:49SOL

## SLUG: Mars Colonists in Jeopardy As Food and Oxygen Levels Slide

## STORY CAP: Earth can do little but watch and wait with a collective holding of its breath as its thoughts, hopes, and prayers are directed towards its sister planet, Mars, and the brave colonists carving out a new home in the stars.

##

## The fruit-bearing Asian paduak “cannibal” trees being grown at the colony are dying, and no one is quite sure why. The trees got their name as a result of the genetic modifications made to them in preparation for their use on the mission. They were designed for unnaturally fast growth and meant to serve many purposes: convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, provide food for the colonists, and reduce resource restraints by receiving most of their nutrients from themselves. Through a process commonly referred to as autophagy, which refers to the act of consuming part of one's self, the trees were meant to literally eat themselves.

##

## For months, the trees have grown and were on track to boost oxygen levels so power demands of the atmosphere converters could be minimized, and the dwindling dehydrated rations could be replaced with home-grown food. The trees' limbs had been grown sufficiently long and were shunted back into the hydroponics system, where the tree roots began to breakdown the ends of the limbs and extract the crucial nutrients needed to live.

##

## Then, for a still as-yet unknown reason, the cannibal trees began dying off.

##

## Help remains agonizingly far away, as Mars begins its orbital march away from Earth. More troubling than the loss of fruit is the impact to the oxygen level in the colony. Bringing extra converters online would hamper the power demands, which are already stretched thin.

##

## An unmanned emergency supply ship has already been launched to provide additional power modules and food rations, though it will take roughly fifteen weeks to arrive. And more drastic measures will be needed if the colonists cannot solve their arboreal mystery.

##

## END DATABURST TRANSMISSION

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.