Down on the Farm by Julie E. Czerneda

Author:Julie E. Czerneda [harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“What makes you ask?”

She bent over the nearest row of plants. “They’re farther apart. There are gaps-here—and over there. Some of them,” her voice came up muffled because she had gone on all fours to better inspect her suspects. “Yes, some have leaves just on the outside.”

Deighton was delighted, but kept his face skeptical. “So?”

“Well, that’s not right,” she insisted. The others, sensing something going on, started to gather around, nets in hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Check the nets,” someone suggested. The recruits hurried to do their counts, inputting the numbers. A quick stat analysis found no difference in the numbers of insects. A similar check of soil content found only minor fluctuations. Deighton settled himself to wait. Either they would care enough to find out, or they would give up.

Although there was no place to sit down without crushing the barley plants, the recruits managed to squat in a rough semicircle. Suggestions, some valid and several that made Deighton roll his eyes, flew back and forth.

The ideas slowed, then stopped. They called up last years’ harvest map and found a slight decrease in yield, but no other clues. Flasks of water were shared in glum silence. The rustle of the grain was the only movement. Thunder grumbled, safely distant.

Deighton thumped his stick on the ground. Fifteen sets of eyes leaped to him as though they’d forgotten he was there. He thumped the ground a second time. Ms. Peirez shook her head.

“We tested the soil.”

He smiled. “But you didn’t stick your nose in it.”

She looked quizzical, then got it with an answering grin that showed startling white teeth in the mask of dust. “Who’s got the shovel?”

Twenty centimeters down were the culprits. The recruits stared in awe at the dozens of small yellow larvae squirming on the sieve.

One looked to the horizon, frowning as though it helped her see farther. “Are they native?” she asked nervously.

Before Deighton could form a reply, Ms. Peirez retorted scathingly: “Honestly, Iris. You sound like some tourist. The sentry fields have been in place for fifty years. The terran biomes were sterilized and seeded before you were born.”

“Demeter’s wildlife is closely monitored,” Deighton said more gently. “As is ours. You are all aware of The Plan.”

They nodded, several impatiently. Deighton wasn’t surprised. It rarely mattered to recruits or, frankly, to politicians on either world that all of the Earth-species so carefully installed on Demeter were being very gradually bioingeneered to fit in with the native life-forms already successful here, a deliberate convergent evolution. The Plan was not part of the colony’s present; it belonged to the futures of their progenies’ progeny. Fair enough, Deighton thought, since their willing ignorance simply made it easier for those in charge of The Plan.

The Plan’s intent was simple: to ultimately blend what humanity had brought-and what humanity was-with Demeter’s own. The Plan’s purpose was equally plain, if less broadly announced: to ensure both would survive when, not if, the sentry fields dropped.

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