Lisa thought it ironic that they had killed a forest to save one. It had worked! Much of Home’s forests were still untouched to this day. She reflected on this week’s class work as she helped to clear brush from the forest floor.
###
Jill was sitting with her parents and Aggie in the family room after dinner. The Queen often joined the when she didn’t have anything going on. She lived alone, with only her servants as company. Occasionally one of her ministers would dine with her. Before the evacuation she might go out to dinner with either a couple of friends, or an eligible bachelor. Since the evacuation notice, a lot of her friends were scarce, mostly because she would not pull strings to get them evacuated. As for dating she just wasn’t interested. Most of her energies were devoted to making the evacuation happen. Opening doors, and soothing rumpled feathers. A day hardly went by that she wasn’t meeting some noble who was upset about something she or Michael had or hadn’t done. It was unusual for both the Queen, and Marshal Wilson to be finished with their day by the early evening. Often one or the other of them had meeting late into the evening. Agatha loved hanging at the Wilson‘s. Here she didn’t have to be Queen Agatha; she was just Aggie. Michael and Lisa had made her part of their family. Since her parents had died ten years before she really didn’t have a family. Lord and Lady Mercer had been her guardians and regents. They had tried; but the elderly couple just took care of her. She never felt as welcomed in their home as she did the Wilson’s. She was becoming quite close to Lisa. Tonight she sat with her adopted family sharing the comradery she couldn’t find anywhere else.
They were watching a popular holo show about the early founding of Trena. It showed how the queen’s ancestors had found the planet and how it had been four hundred years ago. It was lush. The first setters were astonished to find no sentient or pre sentient life. There were no animals small or large that exhibited that they used tools, communicated either verbally, with sign language, or by telepathy. They found no evidence of communal living. The only difference between Home and Trena was that it had never been occupied.
“Much like Home,” Jill commented. “I have been impressed on how well you and your family tried to prevent large scale clear cutting on Trena.”
“We’ve always wanted to be ecologically sound,” Aggie said, “that is why most of our industry is off world.”
“How do we prevent large scale eco damage to Home,” Jill asked, “I am not even certain how much authority I have on Home. I mean, it is my world and all; but in allowing it to become a refuge for the people of Trena, I just don’t know what I can tell them. I don’t know if they will even listen to me!”
“I would think that anything that you wanted, we would have to abide by.” Aggie replied, “After all you own the world! Like you, I don’t want that planet harmed. Harmed any more than we have to!”
“Aggie,” Jill said suddenly, “would I be out of line to meet with General Langtree and Jonesy, to see if they can help us get our people under roof without killing Home’s forests?”
“No,” Aggie replied, “they should have some ideas.”
“What are you two talking about?” her father asked turning from the holo, that was showing an advertisement, to the two young women.
“Is there some way Dad, to not plunder those forests on Home?” Jill asked, “I just don’t think we should harm that planet any more than we have to!”
“I agree with her, Michael,” Aggie said, “We have to find some way to help our people make a home on Home without tearing up the planet.”
“We have been talking about this, Your Majesty,” Her father said, “Bob from Boeing space works has designed a container that can be expanded into a shelter. But that is all we have come up with, that and spreading people out so they are not all on top of each other. We are locating towns all over the planet. We’re planning to place a major town on each continent. The plan also calls for a midsize town to in the districts to be a district capital, and a scattering of smaller towns and villages in the districts. But even to site them we’ll have to clear some of the forests. We can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
“I know that Dad,” Jill replied, “but can that omelet be made with one egg instead of a dozen?”
“That doesn’t seem out of line,” Aggie chimed in. “Please arrange a meeting between the three of us and general Langtree, and Jonesy. I have an idea that I won’t like but it could solve the problem. Oh make sure Lord Mercer is present.”
“Yes majesty,” her father replied and turned back to the program he was watching. This was the first time in over a week he had been home to spend some time with the family before they were all in bed.
###
The next morning Jill, General Langtree, Marshal Wilson, Princess Carroll, Larry Mercer, and Jonesy, the Boeing Space Works Artificial Intelligence, met in the Queen’s office. She didn’t waste any time coming to the point of the meeting.
“We can’t allow the refugees to trash Home as they try to build settlements.” Aggie said, “I know it is not my world and Jill owns it; but we both feel that we have to provide housing on Home without clear cutting the forests. What can we do to build homes on
Home without wrecking the planet?”
“Well we have been building the containers in such a way that they will hold the average family’s belongings. They are being designed so that they can be expanded to twice their size. They won’t be comfortable; but they’ll be warm and secure.” Jonesy said, “They are self-contained with solar power and a small fuel cell. We have been producing them for a month now and have about two thousand. A couple of more factories are coming on line and some of the orbital industries will be building them also.”
“So your plan is to transport my people’s goods to Home and then let them live in the containers until their homes are built.” The queen asked.
“That is essentially the plan,” Michael commented, “why?”
“Are they going to be secure and safe for people to live in?” Aggie asked.
“They won’t be the greatest thing in the world to live in; but they’ll be dry, safe and secure.” General Langtree spoke up. “They will be ugly and we will need to do something with them when we build homes for people; but they’ll do until we get them built.” “What are your plans to replace the containers,” Jill asked.
“We haven’t thought that far ahead,” Jill’s father answered.
“I see,” Aggie took a deep breath and continued, “General Langtree, Jonesy, in about five months or so this world will be destroyed. That we can’t help; but we will not destroy Home in the process of saving our people from this disaster. Therefore I am directing you to use whatever it takes to bring housing supplies to Home. I authorize the wholesale harvesting of forests and natural resources from the Planet of Trena! I want you to build prefab homes and such that will be transported from Trena to Home.”
“Dad, General Langtree,” Jill chimed in, “I want those containers to be removed as quickly as possible. I want them off my planet or to be used in the building of homes, buildings and other facilities.”
Princess Carroll looked at the two younger women and then to Jill in particular and said, “Gentlemen I will have a codicil added to the contract in a while. I have to go with the wishes of my ward in this matter.”
“Jonesy,” Langtree turned to the logistic coordinator, “Well where, do we start?”
“On the other side of the planet where it is still mostly virgin forest,” the fortyish appearing artificial intelligence responded, “We’ll need to build a saw mill and production line. I have nothing on my ways right now so we could use Boeing.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense to take one of the attack carriers and turn it into a space going saw mill and factory,” General Langtree asked, “Cut the trees down, ship them to the carrier load it to the gunnels with the forest products and launch to it to Home? Have it building the homes in transit. It could be most
ly automated.”
“General,” Michael spoke up, “Jonesy, I see you have the task.”
“Aye sir,” Langtree replied turning to the AIs holographic image, “Jonesy I will give you Hooper and his sergeant. Will that work?”
“Yes sir,” Jonesy replied. “Miss Wilson, Your Majesty I will make this happen!” They nodded as Artificial Sentient disappeared.
“Thank you General,” Aggie spoke to the general.
“Your welcomed your majesty,” General Langtree answered, “I hate to deforest this world; but it really doesn’t matter does it? It does make more sense to destroy Trena’s forests to save Home’s. I am sorry your majesty. I don’t think any us of wanted to harm
Trena any more than we had to.”
The young queen nodded in agreement. The general and his people, using school parking lots when the school was being used as a staging are. Shopping center parking lots, as well as abandoned apartment building lots and the container yards at the main and smaller space ports were going to be used to stage loaded containers. Langtree and his people from long pre evacuation experience were trying to not impact Trena any more than they had to.
“I know General.” The Queen responded, “I know.”
Jill saw the tears on her friends face and gently reach for her hand and squeezed it. She didn’t know what to say to the monarch. Every time she turned around it was brought to Aggie’s attention that her world was being destroyed. Sometimes it was more than Aggie could handle. Sometimes Jill, who felt overwhelmed by everything that was going on, hated to think how overwhelming it might be for the Queen. “Come on let’s get out of here for a while.”
Aggie just nodded and left with the young woman who was becoming a friend.
###
A few days later Aggie came into the residence mid-morning and sought out Lisa and Jill.
“What are you guys doing today,” Aggie asked.
“Nothing much,” Jill answered, “This my study at home day. Why?” “How about you, Lisa,” the Queen asked the older woman.
“Nothing much,” Lisa answered, “Why?”
“I want you two go with me to the North Coast, General Langtree and that Lieutenant Hooper have been working the housing problem on Home. They have been harvesting the forest along North Coast.” The Queen replied, “I want to see it.”
“Okay,” Lisa spoke softly she suspected that the real reason that the Queen wanted Lisa to go with her. She wanted Lisa to photograph the damage being done to her forest.
“I’ll grab my camera!”
“Thank you,” Aggie returned. She wanted to see the destruction of her forest that she had ordered; but she didn’t want to do it alone. She was having a difficult time dealing with everything that was going on. Especially the wanton destruction of her planet. It went against everything she held dear and sacred to her and her family.
“Don’t harm the planet,” her father had said worriedly every time he had to authorize a road or something else that would impact Trena. He had instilled in her, that it was a sacred trust to preserve Trena for future generations. Although she owned the planet she was really just a care taker. Now she was destroying it. It was gnawing at her soul, which Lady Wilson seemed to get. She was a calming influence on her at times like this. It didn’t seem to her that much bothered her Marshal’s wife. She had been a great comfort after the bombing incident. She seemed to bounce back after being shot at too. She didn’t understand. It had taken her more than a couple of days to get over being almost killed at the convention center. Lady Wilson bounced back by the next day after someone had tried to kill her!
A couple of hours later, they boarded a landing craft. As they flew to the North
Coast. Jill, who had been out of the city only as far as Lady Hawthorne’s Estate and the Queen’s Summer Residence, a few weeks before, had no idea that Trena was so lush. She remembered her conversation with the IRS captain. He had mentioned a couple of the more spectacular sights on Trena, but not its natural beauty. She had never seen farm land like she was seeing as they over flew the prairies of Trena’s main continent. Working in a couple of fields they were flying over, were harvesting machines, big box like vehicles that were taking wide cuts of ripe grain as they trundled over the field. There were long swathes of fields that were golden brown on one side and a darker brown from the stubble left behind by the harvester.
As they approached the coast they began to see an immense forest. The lush forest was like a green carpet. There was little evidence of people having set foot on the lands below them. There were a couple narrow roads through the forest; but there were no wide highways. Where the roads crossed, a village or small town had grown up, the road became a little wider, and quickly shrinking again as it left civilization. In remote parts of the forest there were small homesteads carved out of the forest. The homestead consisting of a few buildings with the forest seemingly ready to take back what been taken from it.
As they got closer to the coast the landing craft swung out over the ocean and came in a few hundred feet above tree top level. The scar was evident from several miles out. It looked like someone had taken a giant bite out of the forest. There wasn’t much evidence that there had been a forest along the north coast. Only a few trees that looked as they had been left behind. But that was all as even the tree stumps were gone. As they watched they saw several large tracked vehicles working site over.
The Queen didn’t recognized them immediately. They were large bulky low profile vehicles with a large turret. Their turret swinging left to right then right to left. Their main guns firing a laser that acting like a scythe. It was as if the forest was a weed patch the giant needed to get the patch under control. It was then that the Queen realized that the large tracked vehicles were two of her militia’s main battle tanks. She had taken a ride in one a few years back, when she was reviewing one of Trena’s two armored units. She had been allowed to fire its main weapon and had been impressed by the shear destructiveness of the vehicle. Watching it work now she was torn between being proud her militia owned something like the tanks, and saddened by the shear destructiveness of a device she owned as it took down her forest.
As they continued to circle the clear cutting the tanks ceased their scythe like cutting down of the trees and shut their weapons down. Two tracked vehicles moved into position to harvest the felled. As if by magic the trees were bundled and then floated and stacked in piles four times the height of the stacker that bundled them.
As soon as the stack was several hundred feet long, and forty feet high a landing tug, hovering over a large pile of trees. The landing tug had no cargo bay. It was designed to carry odd shape cargos that couldn’t fit into an LC-10, the largest landing craft anyone flew. The Hercules, as it was called, could sling cargo under it, or if the cargo was a collection of containers, by either pulling the containers behind it, or pushing it ahead of it. Its small size belied the fact that it could lift nearly a thousand tons from ground to orbit. Within seconds it had collected all the trees in the pile. The entire pile of trees were picked up. As it hovered in place, adjusting the load, a few the trees fell to the ground.
Once the Hercules had left the area, the large stacker approached where the pile had been and started to make a new pile. Adding whole trees to the pile including the couple of trees that had dropped from the Hercules load. It made no effort to trim branches to make a more compact easier to handle load. Soon it had a new pile of trees where the previous pile had been. There were several such piles spotted along the ground. They could several landing tugs staging to pick up the piles of trees.
“Do you want to land and see it from the ground,” Jill asked and got a horrified look from the Queen. Jill caught the subtle shake of her mother’s head and asked, “Want to see where this stuff is going?”
The Queen nodded and excused herself. Lisa gave her cameras to Georgia and went to the Queen. The Queen was sitting in the rear most seat, crying
into her hands. Lisa held her until they began to approach the orbiting factory ship. Brushing the tears out of her eyes she walked to the ramp where a force field held the atmosphere of the executive space air mission in so they could look out the still open hatch.
“That’s not an Attack Carrier,” Lisa commented as she snapped a few pictures.
“No, it’s one of the orbital factories,” Aggie replied, “It was lying idle. From what Jonesy said it was only a matter turning it on. I guess it will chew up the trees and put out a composite product.”
As they watched a landing tug released its load of trees. They sailed into the open maul of the factory. Soon another replaced it and they could see that there were several landing tugs lining up to deliver their loads.
The landing craft turned so as to make its docking. When it was docked they were met by a young lieutenant in the militia. Jill remembered him as the young lieutenant whose office her father had first met her in. With him was middle aged woman wearing the insignia of a Master Sergeant. They both stood at attention until Aggie acknowledged them.
“Welcome aboard Majesty,” the young officer greeted them, “Lady Wilson, Miss
Wilson.”
“Thank you,” The Queen returned the greeting, “You guys worked fast.” “Well the General was planning on using this beast to make some of the containers. At least the interior fittings,” the lieutenant replied, “We were going to recycle some of the cars left behind, Thought that was a win-win proposition. The Marshal is concerned about all the vehicles left behind. We thought this might solve some issues.”
“So my order to cut the trees down was not needed,” Aggie asked.
“May I, your majesty,” Sergeant Erickson asked, seeing the young woman’s distress. The Queen nodded.