Going Interstellar (collection)

Harrod decided it was best to change the topic swiftly. He thumbed his control unit: charts, graphs, and progress tables sprang up on the smaller monitors behind him. “As you can see, much of the local flora and fauna is ultimately edible, but—as our first samplers’ deaths revealed—very little of it can be consumed without prior processing. Mostly, this means leaching it with common organic acids to break down a variety of mild toxins. Also, in addition to standard collagen, there are a variety of related substances which cause most of the vegetable matter to pass through our tracts too quickly. Leaching dissolves these more troublesome fibrous substances; boiling allows them to be stripped out.”

“And how are the first test settlers doing, otherwise?”

“Quite well, actually, although they had some initial difficulty adapting to the gravity. This suggests that before anyone goes planetside, they should spend three, rather than two, weeks in the rotating habitation pods, which we now have operating full time at one-gee equivalent centrifugal force.”

“And have you identified our landing site?”

Harrod hesitated. “Yes, my Overlord, I have. Or rather, ‘we’ have. But I find myself to be the sole dissenting voice in the study group.”

“Explain.”

Harrod called up a rotating image of the moon on one of the monitors. “As you will note, slightly less than five percent of the satellite’s surface is land, and most of that is clustered in what we have arbitrarily designated as the northern hemisphere. Its many islands are all surface-breaking crests of steep sea-mounts. Their terrain is comprised of forbidding mountains, most rising up along what one might call the ‘spine’ of each separate island. At sea-level, however, most have a tidal shelf and skirt of land that ascends into a fringe of upland forest. There seems to be a reasonable diversity of biota throughout these archipelagos, and initial surveys suggest that while there is little iron, copper and tin deposits are not uncommon.”

“And the other site?”

Harrod slowed and then stopped the globe’s rotation as it centered on a discernible dot in the middle of the huge and unremarked ocean expanses of the southern hemisphere. “This landmass is, you might say, the top of a seamount ‘mesa’ of immense proportions. It is approximately 900 by 600 kilometers in size. Much of its land is flat, and it seems to boast the deepest soils on the satellite. It is a natural site for large-scale agriculture, and its eastern half has a fairly extensive network of rivers, comprised of three separate watersheds, two of which could—one day—be connected by canals, even using primitive construction methods.”

“And so that is the site you recommend, Intendant?”

“No, my Overlord. That is the site uniformly recommended by the rest of the research group.”

“And you choose the scattered islands and archipelagos of the north? Why?”

“My Overlord, the southern continent lies astride a weather belt which, while generally favorable, experiences some considerable meteorological extremes. Also, it has almost no other landmasses nearby. Except for a handful of small, scattered seamount atolls, it is alone in the southern hemisphere.

“In contrast, the islands of the north lay scattered across the many weather bands of that more moderate hemisphere. If we discover that our first site there is not optimal, relocation is quite feasible, using local means. Also, since there are many separate islands, it will be possible to establish widely-separated communities and so ensure that they could not all fall victim to any one disastrous event, such as a tidal wave or sequence of hurricanes. In establishing multiple, smaller communities, we ensure the survival of our race.”

And as he said it, he knew the Evolved executive collective before him had already dismissed his concerns. They would no doubt tell themselves that Intendant Harrod was unduly obsessed with mishaps, was prone to worrying about risks that were phantoms of his imagination, rather than actual dangers.

But the real reason they dismissed his analysis was because Evolveds were not merely given to contention, but sought it out. It was how they exhibited and lived their mandate to dominate. Set down in small, separated settlements, they would have no arena in which to highlight their personal prowess, no neighbors against which to pit their wills. In short, they would insist upon settling together: an eternally bickering pack of would-be tyrants.

Bikrut raised his chin. “A most adequate presentation, Intendant. We will not detain you from your preparation of the next wave of helot settlers. The landing craft are nearing readiness?”

“They are all fully operational, my Overlord. Several are already shuttling down advance supplies for the settlement. Intendant Ackley is organizing that labor most effectively.”