“On my last visit, the program of ecological engineering I initiated produced dramatic increases in your food supply, through relatively conventional means, to wit, the introduction of new plant and animal species designed to maximize your agricultural productivity without seriously altering your ecology. Further efforts in this direction are undoubtedly possible, but I fear that the point of diminishing returns has long been passed, and such schemes would avail you little. Accordingly, this time I have accepted as fundamental the need to make radical alterations in your ecosystem and food chain. Some of you will find my suggestions unpleasant. I assure you that the other options you face—to wit, famine, plague, and war—are even more disagreeable.
“The choice, of course, remains yours, and I would not dream of making it for you.”
The room was as cold as a cryonic storage facility, and deathly silent but for the whirring of the massed third eyes. Haviland Tuf raised a finger. “First,” he said. Behind him an image filled the telescreen, broadcast directly from the Ark’s computers—the image of a swollen monstrosity as big as a hill, its skin oily and glistening, its bulk shimmering like opaque pink gelatin. “The meatbeast,” said Haviland Tuf. “A significant portion of your agricultural land is devoted to the raising of herds of meat animals of various sorts, whose flesh is the delectation of a very small, wealthy minority of S’uthlamese who can afford such luxury and enjoy eating cooked animal matter. This is extremely inefficient. These beasts consume far more calories than they yield after slaughter, and being themselves the product of natural evolution, much of their body mass is inedible. I therefore suggest you eliminate these species from your world’s ecosystem immediately.
“The meatbeasts, as depicted, are among the most notable triumphs of genetic tailoring; except for a small nucleus, these creatures are ever-replicating masses of undifferentiated cells, with no body mass wasted on nonessentials like sensory organs, nerves, or mobility. If one chose to employ metaphor, one might liken them to giant edible cancers. The flesh of the meatbeast contains all essential human nutrients and is high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. One adult meatbeast, growing in the basement of a S’uthlamese apartment tower, will yield as much edible flesh in a standard year as two of your present herds, and the grasslands now employed to raise these herds would be freed for agricultural cultivation.”
“How do the damn things taste?” someone shouted out from the back of the room.
Haviland Tuf’s head moved slightly, and he looked directly at the speaker. “As I am not myself an eater of animal flesh, I cannot answer that question from personal authority. I imagine, however, that meatbeast would taste very good to any starving man.” He raised a hand, palm outward. “Let us proceed,” he said, and the picture behind him changed. Now the telescreen showed an endless flat plain under a double sun. The plain was filled from horizon to horizon with plants—ugly looking things as tall as Tuf himself, their stalks and leaves an oily black, their heads drooping beneath the weight of swollen whitish pods that dripped a pale thick fluid.
“These, for reasons unknown to me, are called jersee-pods,” said Tuf. “Five years ago, I gave you omni-grain, whose caloric yield per square meter is dramatically higher than that of nanowheat, neograss, and the other grains you had hitherto been planting. I note that you have sowed omni-grain extensively and reaped the benefits thereof. I also note that you have continued to plant nanowheat, neograss, spicepods, smackles, and numerous other types of fruit and vegetables, no doubt for the sake of variety and culinary pleasure. This must cease. Culinary variety is a luxury the S’uthlamese can no longer afford. Caloric efficiency alone must henceforth be your byword. Every square meter of agricultural land on S’uthlam and your so-called Larder asteroids must immediately be turned over to jersee-pods.”
“What kind of gunk is that dripping there?” someone called.
“Is that thing a fruit or a vegetable?” a newspeep demanded to know.
“Can you make bread from it?” another asked.
“The jersee-pod,” said Tuf, “is inedible.”
A sudden clamorous uproar swept over the room, as a hundred people shouted and waved and threw questions and began speeches.
Haviland Tuf waited calmly until there was silence. “Each year,” he said, “as your First Councillor could tell you, were he only so inclined, your agricultural lands yield an ever-diminishing percentage of the caloric needs of the swelling S’uthlamese population, the difference being made up by increased production from your food factories, where petrochemicals are processed into nutritious wafers and paste and clever synthetic edibles. Alas, however, petroleum is a nonrenewable resource, and you are running out. This process may be delayed, but ultimately it is inexorable. No doubt you are importing some from other worlds, but that interstellar pipeline can yield you only so much. Five years ago, I introduced into your seas a plankton of a variety called neptune’s shawl, colonies of which now creep up your beaches and float upon the waves above your continental shelves. When dead and decayed, neptune’s shawl can serve as a substitute for petrochemicals in your food factories.
“Jersee-pods might be looked upon as a nonaquatic analogue to neptune’s shawl. The pods produce a fluid with certain biochemical similarities to raw crude oil. It is similar enough so that your food factories, after a minimal retooling easily accomplished by a world of your undoubted technological expertise, can make efficient use of it for processing into foodstuffs. Yet I must stress that you cannot simply plant these pods here and there as a supplement to your present crops. For maximum benefit, they must be planted universally, entirely supplanting the omni-grain, neograss, and other flora on which you have become accustomed to rely for provender.”
A slender woman in the back stood up on her chair to be seen above the throng. “Tuf, who are you to tell us that we have to give up real food?” she screamed, anger in her tone.
“I, madam? I am but a humble ecological engineer engaged in the practice of his profession. It is not for me to make your decisions. My task, so obviously thankless, consists of presenting you with the facts and suggesting certain possible remedies which might be efficacious, however unpleasant. Thereafter, the government and people of S’uthlam must make the ultimate determination as to what course to follow.” The audience was getting unruly again. Tuf raised a finger. “Quiet, please. I will soon conclude my presentation.”
The picture on the telescreen changed once more. “Certain species and ecological strategies that I introduced five years ago, when first employed by S’uthlam, can and should remain in place. The mushroom and fungus farms beneath your undercities should be maintained and expanded. I have several new varieties of fungus to demonstrate to you. More efficient methods of farming the seas are certainly possible, methods which include use of the ocean floor as well as its watery ceiling. The growth of neptune’s shawl can be stimulated and encouraged until it covers every square meter of S’uthlam’s salt-water surface. The snow-oats and tunnel-tubers you have in place remain optimal food species for your frigid arctic regions. Your deserts have been made to bloom, your swamps have been drained and made productive. All that might be done on land or sea is being attempted. There remains only the air. I therefore propose the introduction of a complete living ecosystem into your upper atmosphere.
“Behind me, upon the screen, you see the final link in this new food chain I propose to forge for you. This huge dark creature with the black triangular wings is a Claremontine wind-rider, also called the ororo, a distant analogue to better-known species such as the black banshee of High Kavalaan and the lashtail manta of Hemador. It is a predator of the upper atmosphere, a glider and hunter, born aloft, a creature of the winds that lives and dies in flight, never touching land or sea. Indeed, once having landed, such wind-riders soon perish, as it is impossible for them to go aloft again. On Claremont, the species is small and lightweight, its flesh reported to be tough and leathery. It consumes any birds with the misfortune to venture into the
altitudes it hunts, and also several varieties of airborne microorganisms, flying fungi, and windborne slime-molds that I also propose to introduce into your upper atmosphere. I have produced a genetically tailored wind-rider for S’uthlam, with a wing-span of some twenty meters, the ability to descend almost to treetop level, and nearly six times the body mass of the original. A small hydrogen sac behind the sensory organs will enable the beast to maintain flight despite this greater body weight. With your aircars and fliers, you will have no difficulty hunting and killing the wind-riders, and you will find them an excellent source of protein.
“In the interests of full and complete honesty, I must add that this ecological modification will not be without cost. The microorganisms, fungus, and slime-molds will reproduce very quickly in your skies, having no natural enemies. The upper stories of your taller residential towers will be covered with mold and fungus, and more frequent cleaning will be required. Most of the native S’uthlamese birds and those species you brought to this world from Tara and Old Earth will die out, displaced by this new aerial ecosystem. Ultimately, the skies themselves will darken, you will receive significantly less sunlight, and your climate will undergo a permanent change. I do not project this happening for some three hundred years, however. Since you face disaster in a far shorter time if nothing is done, I continue to recommend the course of action I have outlined.”
The newsfeed reporters leaped to their feet and began shouting questions. Tolly Mune was slumped and scowling. First Councillor Cregor Blaxon was sitting quite still, staring straight ahead with a fixed smile on his sharp, thin face, his eyes glassy.
“A moment, if you will,” Haviland Tuf said to the turmoil. “I am about to conclude. You have heard my recommendations and seen the species with which I intend to redesign your ecology. Now, attend. Assuming your High Council does indeed opt to deploy the meatbeast, the jersee-pod, and the ororo in the ways that I have outlined, the Ark’s computers project a significant improvement in your food crisis. Observe.”
All eyes went to the telescreen. Even Tolly Mune craned her head around, and First Councillor Cregor Blaxon, smile still firmly in place, rose from his seat and faced the screen boldly, his thumbs hooked into his pockets. A grid flashed into place, a red line chased a green line across the display, and dates lined up along one axis, population figures along the other.
The noise died.
The silence lingered.
Even way to the back, they heard Cregor Blaxon when he cleared his throat. “Ah, Tuf,” he said, “this must be wrong.”
“Sir,” said Haviland Tuf, “I assure you, it is not.”
“It’s, ah, the before, isn’t it? Not the after.” He pointed. “I mean, look, all that eco-engineering, growing nothing but these pods, our seas covered with neptune’s shawl, the skies growing darker with flying food, meat-mountains in every cellar.”
“Meatbeasts,” Tuf corrected, “although I concede that ‘meat mountains’ has a certain flair. You have a gift for colorful language and memorable terminology, First Councillor.”
“All this,” Blaxon said doggedly, “is pretty radical, Tuf. We have a right to expect radical improvement, I’d say.”
A few loyalists began cheering him on.
“But this,” the First Councillor concluded, “this projection says, ah, maybe I’m reading it wrong.”
“First Councillor,” said Haviland Tuf, “and people of S’uthlam, you are reading it correctly. If you adopt every one of my suggestions, you will indeed postpone your day of catastrophic reckoning. Postpone, sir, not forestall. You will have mass famine in eighteen years, as per your current projection, or in one hundred nine, as this projection indicates, but you will most certainly have mass famine.” He raised a finger. “The only true and permanent solution is to be found not aboard my Ark, but in the minds and loins of each individual S’uthlamese citizen. You must practice restraint and implement immediate birth control. You must stop your indiscriminate procreation at once!”
“Oh, no,” groaned Tolly Mune. But she had seen it coming, and she was on her feet, moving toward him and shouting for a security cordon, well before all hell broke loose.
“Rescuing you is getting to be a puling habit,” Tolly Mune said, much later, when they had returned to the safety of Tuf’s shuttle Phoenix, in its berth way out along spur six. Two whole squads of security, armed with nerveguns and tanglers, stood outside the ship, keeping the growing and unruly crowd at bay. “You have any beer?” she asked. “I could use one. Puling hell.” It had been a harrowing run back to the ship, even with guards flanking them to either side. Tuf ran with a strange awkward lope, but he had surprising speed, she had to admit. “How are you doing, anyway?” she asked him.
“A thorough scrubbing has removed most of the spittle from my person,” Haviland Tuf said, folding himself into his seat with dignity. “You will find beer in the refrigerated compartment under the gaming-board. Make free with it, if you will.” Dax began to scale Tuf’s leg, digging tiny claws into the fabric of the pale blue jumpsuit into which he had changed. Tuf reached down with a large hand and helped him up. “In the future,” he said to the cat, “you shall accompany me at all times, so that I will have ample warning of the onset of such demonstrations.”
“You’d have had ample goddamned warning this time,” said Tolly Mune, pulling out a beer, “if you’d told me that you intended to condemn our beliefs, our church, and our whole puling way of life. Did you expect they’d give you a medal?”
“A rousing hand of applause would have been sufficient.”
“I warned you a long time ago, Tuf. On S’uthlam, it’s not popular to be anti-life.”
“I decline to be thus labeled,” said Tuf. “I stand squarely in favor of life. Indeed, daily I create life in my cloning vats. I have a decided personal aversion to death, I find entropy distasteful, and if invited to the heat death of the universe, I would most certainly make other plans.” He raised a finger. “Nonetheless, Portmaster Mune, I said what had to be said. Unlimited procreation as taught by your Church of Life Evolving and practiced by the majority of S’uthlamese, yourself and your fellow zeros excluded, is irresponsible and foolish, producing as it does a geometric population increase that will most assuredly pull down your proud civilization.”
“Haviland Tuf, prophet of doom,” the Portmaster said with a sigh. “They liked you better as a rogue ecologist and a lover.”
“Everywhere I visit, I find heroes to be an endangered species. Perhaps I am more aesthetically pleasing when mouthing reassuring falsehoods through a filter of facial hair in melodramatic vidshows reeking of false optimism and post-coital complacency. This is a symptom of a great S’uthlamese affliction, your blind preference for things as you would have them rather than as they are. It is time that your world looked upon naked truth, be it my hairless face or the near certainty of famine in your future.”
Tolly Mune swallowed some beer and stared at him. “Tuf,” she said, “you remember what I said five years ago?”
“As I recall, you said a great many things.”
“At the end,” she said impatiently, “when I decided to help you escape with the Ark instead of helping Josen Rael take it from you. You asked me why, and I explained my reasons.”
“You said,” Tuf stated, “that power corrupts, that absolute power corrupts absolutely, that the Ark had already corrupted First Councillor Josen Rael and his associates, and that I was better fitted to retain possession of the seedship because I was an incorruptible man.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Not quite, Tuf. I said I didn’t think there was such a thing as an incorruptible man, but if there was, you were the item.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf, stroking Dax. “I stand corrected.”
“Now you’re making me wonder,” she said. “You know what you just did, back there? For starters, you toppled another government. Creg can’t survive this. You told the whole world he’s a liar. Maybe that’s fair enough; you made him,
now you unmade him. First Councillors don’t seem to last long when you come calling, do they? But never mind that. You also told, oh, some thirty-odd billion members of the Church of Life Evolving that their most deeply held religious beliefs are so much bladder bloat. You as much as said that the entire basis of the technocratic philosophy that has dominated council policy for centuries is mistaken. We’ll be lucky if the next damned election doesn’t bring the expansionists back in, and if that happens, it means war. Vandeen and Jazbo and the other allies will not tolerate another expansionist government. You probably ruined me, too. Again. Unless I’m even faster on my goddamned feet than I was last time around. Instead of a star-crossed lover, I’m now the sort of gnarly old bureaucrat who likes to lie about her sexual escapades, and I helped Citizen Anti-Life, too.” She sighed. “You seem determined to see me in disgrace. But that’s nothing, Tuf. I can take care of myself. The main thing is, you took it upon yourself to dictate policy to forty-plus billion people, with only the vaguest conception of the consequences. By what authority? Who gave you the right?”
“I would maintain that any human has the right to speak the truth.”
“And the right to demand a worldwide all-net newsfeed to speak it on? Where did that puling right come from?” she said. “There are several million people on S’uthlam who belong to the zero faction, me included. You didn’t say much that we haven’t said for years. You just said it louder.”
“I am aware of this. It is my hope that the words spoken this evening, no matter how bitterly they were received, will ultimately have a beneficial effect upon S’uthlamese politics and society. Perhaps Cregor Blaxon and his technocrats will grasp the truth that no true salvation can be found in what he calls Tuf’s Flowering and what you once referred to as ‘the miracle of loaves and fishes’. Perhaps from this point on, policies and opinions will be changed. Perhaps your zero faction may even triumph in the next election.”