listen. Go out there and listen, and tell me if the voices start making sense.”
Anselmi gave a slow nod.
“All right, let’s move,” Trace said.
With a dispirited mutter, his team got up and filed out the door.
Trace sank into his chair, elbows on the table, face in his hands. Two days. How would he save them all in two days?
His father’s voice broke his reverie. “Your friends don’t respect you.”
He groaned. “What are you doing here, Dad?”
“This is my colony. I have every right to attend a meeting if—”
“No, I mean here.” He looked up. “On this world.”
“Ah.” Aldus nodded. His face split in a slow grin. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Trace sealed his mask as he followed his father out of the dome. Dawn glowed behind the mist and gave a surreal quality to the silent camp. He looked toward the jungle. He should hear sounds of animals waking. He should hear birds calling from the trees—not this weighty stillness, as if the jungle were preparing to pounce.
Aldus led him to the warehouse sector. They walked down a road scarred with tread marks. Prefab structures rose to either side. Trace noted the garages that Natica mentioned. Their barn-like doors stood six meters high. Inside the buildings, huge plows and tillers sat unused.
Ahead, he saw a greenhouse. The transparent walls appeared dull and cloudy, dotted with rings of mold. It was the first place in camp with indigenous growth.
“Go on in.” Aldus parted a heavy drape of vertical straps. “We need to disinfect our boots. I don’t want to track in any uncontrolled substances.”
Trace ducked beneath the curtain and entered a dank vestibule. Following his father’s example, he sprayed his boots with foam from a canister. Then he pushed through a second curtain and into the main house.
Table after table stretched before him, each laden with seedling beds. Blue grow lamps perched above half of them. Shadow shrouded the rest. Downy mildew furred the table legs. The greenhouse was grubby but artificially so, as if his father monitored even the amount of grime.
“This is my test lab,” Aldus said.
Trace walked among the tables. The seedlings ranged from a few centimeters high to half a meter. Each bed was neatly labeled—but he didn’t need to read the signs to recognize the varieties of wheat and rye. Squash hung from hydro-baskets, their exposed roots dripping with mineral-laden solution.
“There are a few hybrids here that I don’t know,” Trace said, “but for the most part, this is pretty standard. Everything looks healthy.”
Aldus nodded. “Off-world crops grow fine on this planet, but only at a normal rate. Oddly, the local fungi also grow slowly when taken from their surroundings.”
He led Trace to a bed of mushrooms growing in rows. Their fist-sized caps were ribbed and pitted like honeycombs.
“When were these planted?” Trace asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
Trace frowned. Considering the rest of the planet, he would have expected these mushrooms to be at least a meter tall.
“Something wrong with the soil?”
“Identical to the last microbe. The air is different, of course, so I introduced mold spores.” Aldus pointed at the purple rings upon the walls. “But even mold doesn’t breed in here the way it does outdoors. The only thing that grows in abundance is this.” He walked to a wheelbarrow filled with clumps of thick moss.
Trace crushed a bit of it between his fingers. “In a bio-dome at the old camp, there are beds of this stuff. I took a cutting.”
“You needn’t have bothered. It’s in every soil sample we take. At first, I thought it formed mycorrhizae, increasing the nutrient absorbing capacity of the plants. But if left unchecked, it will take over, snuff out anything trying to grow. We have to scrape it from our seed beds every other day.”
Trace brushed off his gloves. “What you’re saying is you’re no further along than the scientists who were here ten years
Anselmi gave a slow nod.
“All right, let’s move,” Trace said.
With a dispirited mutter, his team got up and filed out the door.
Trace sank into his chair, elbows on the table, face in his hands. Two days. How would he save them all in two days?
His father’s voice broke his reverie. “Your friends don’t respect you.”
He groaned. “What are you doing here, Dad?”
“This is my colony. I have every right to attend a meeting if—”
“No, I mean here.” He looked up. “On this world.”
“Ah.” Aldus nodded. His face split in a slow grin. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Trace sealed his mask as he followed his father out of the dome. Dawn glowed behind the mist and gave a surreal quality to the silent camp. He looked toward the jungle. He should hear sounds of animals waking. He should hear birds calling from the trees—not this weighty stillness, as if the jungle were preparing to pounce.
Aldus led him to the warehouse sector. They walked down a road scarred with tread marks. Prefab structures rose to either side. Trace noted the garages that Natica mentioned. Their barn-like doors stood six meters high. Inside the buildings, huge plows and tillers sat unused.
Ahead, he saw a greenhouse. The transparent walls appeared dull and cloudy, dotted with rings of mold. It was the first place in camp with indigenous growth.
“Go on in.” Aldus parted a heavy drape of vertical straps. “We need to disinfect our boots. I don’t want to track in any uncontrolled substances.”
Trace ducked beneath the curtain and entered a dank vestibule. Following his father’s example, he sprayed his boots with foam from a canister. Then he pushed through a second curtain and into the main house.
Table after table stretched before him, each laden with seedling beds. Blue grow lamps perched above half of them. Shadow shrouded the rest. Downy mildew furred the table legs. The greenhouse was grubby but artificially so, as if his father monitored even the amount of grime.
“This is my test lab,” Aldus said.
Trace walked among the tables. The seedlings ranged from a few centimeters high to half a meter. Each bed was neatly labeled—but he didn’t need to read the signs to recognize the varieties of wheat and rye. Squash hung from hydro-baskets, their exposed roots dripping with mineral-laden solution.
“There are a few hybrids here that I don’t know,” Trace said, “but for the most part, this is pretty standard. Everything looks healthy.”
Aldus nodded. “Off-world crops grow fine on this planet, but only at a normal rate. Oddly, the local fungi also grow slowly when taken from their surroundings.”
He led Trace to a bed of mushrooms growing in rows. Their fist-sized caps were ribbed and pitted like honeycombs.
“When were these planted?” Trace asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
Trace frowned. Considering the rest of the planet, he would have expected these mushrooms to be at least a meter tall.
“Something wrong with the soil?”
“Identical to the last microbe. The air is different, of course, so I introduced mold spores.” Aldus pointed at the purple rings upon the walls. “But even mold doesn’t breed in here the way it does outdoors. The only thing that grows in abundance is this.” He walked to a wheelbarrow filled with clumps of thick moss.
Trace crushed a bit of it between his fingers. “In a bio-dome at the old camp, there are beds of this stuff. I took a cutting.”
“You needn’t have bothered. It’s in every soil sample we take. At first, I thought it formed mycorrhizae, increasing the nutrient absorbing capacity of the plants. But if left unchecked, it will take over, snuff out anything trying to grow. We have to scrape it from our seed beds every other day.”
Trace brushed off his gloves. “What you’re saying is you’re no further along than the scientists who were here ten years
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