“
Admiral Koffield?
”
“
Hmm?
”
Koffield blinked and looked toward Marquez.
“
Oh. Yes. Sorry.
”
He let out a weary sigh.
“
Very much as I expected, I
’
m afraid. We
’
re just getting rough data here, of course, and obviously I don
’
t have access to my data or my models, but yes. This is what my research predicted.
”
Marquez looked back toward the main screen. He thought back to the last time he had been to Solace, and the time before that. How long had it been, in his own personal bio-chron time? How much time had passed in his life then? Six years since that visit, nine or ten since the one before that? How could so much have happened to the planet in that short a space of time? But then he remembered.
The centuries and the light-years had come back at him, with all the sharp suddenness of a slap in the face. Since he had last been here, millions had lived out their whole lives. Species had been created in the lab, then gone extinct in the wild, while he had sat in his temporal-confinement chamber.
Time had gone past, and he was part of that past.
‘
He forced such thoughts from himself. There was too much else to do, too many decisions to make. Standard system-arrival procedure said they should send a hail to Solace Central Orbital Station, assuming it was still there. But it might not be wise to advertise the presence of the
DP-IV
just yet. Not until they knew a lot more.
“
Now what do we do?
”
he asked Koffield. In theory, and indeed in practice, as captain he was the absolute master of the
Dom Pedro IV.
But he would be a fool not to seek advice from such a source as Koffield, at such a time as this.
“
I don
’
t know,
”
Koffield said.
“
You and I both need time to think.
”
He smiled grimly.
“
We
’
ve lost so much time already it can
’
t do any harm to spend a little more.
”
“
One thing I know for sure,
”
Marquez said.
“
We don
’
t let them
”
—he stabbed a finger at the image of Solace—
“
know we
’
re here until we know more. Places in as bad a shape as that aren
’
t always the healthiest places to visit.
”
“
You
’
re right as far as that goes,
”
Koffield said.
“
At the very least, we should listen in on whatever radio traffic we can pick up.
”
“
But before we start in on that,
”
Marquez said,
“
I
’
m going to put on the brakes and slow us down. Until we know more, and we decide what to do, let
’
s stay out here, where it
’
s nice and dark and lonely and no one
’
s going to notice us.
”
“
Do it,
”
Koffield said.
“
Let
’
s park this ship right where she is until we
’
ve had a good long look at the situation.
”
“
Right,
”
said Marquez.
“
And as soon as we
’
ve done the braking burn, you
’
re going to help me get the rest of the crew revived.
”
He gestured once more toward the image of Solace on the screen and shook his head mournfully.
“
That
’
s one dark mess out there,
”
he said.
“
We
’
re going to need all the help we can get finding out about it.
”
Neshobe Kalzant knelt in the sparse shade of the brown and dying trees and scooped up a handful of the near-lifeless soil. She ignored the cockroaches that scuttled over her hand and dropped away, back onto the ground. The roaches were everywhere, after all. Any squeamishness she felt about them had long since been worn away. What disturbed her far more than the live roaches were the corpses of the dead ones. It was hard to pick up a handful of earth that did not contain at least a few of them.
“
It looks extremely bad,
”
she said, standing up, the handful of the dried-out soil still in her hand. The country residence of the Planetary Executive shouldn
’
t be in this bad a shape.
No
place on the planet should be in this bad a shape. What was it like in places where they didn
’
t try to coddle and cosset the plant life? She looked toward her companion.
“
How bad is it?
”
“
I assume you want to know about the report on the overall climate and not about conditions here in your own garden,
”
Parrige said.
Neshobe allowed herself a small smile.
“
Both, actually. You
’
re a real gardener. I could obviously use some advice.
”
“
My first piece of advice would be to fire whoever is looking after the place,
”
Parrige said, looking around unhappily.
“
Plainly that person is not doing a good job.
”
Neshobe laughed sadly.
“
Are you talking about the gardener in charge of this estate or the politician in charge of the planet?
”
Parrige stiffened for a moment, then shook his head.
“
I was of course referring to the gardener, Madam. But it occurs to me that he might well be in the same position as the politician—as yourself, ma
’
am. Relatively new in the job, and having inherited a disastrous situation.
”
“
Quite diplomatic,
”
she said.
“
But what of the commission report?
”
she asked.
“
What will it say?
”
“
That the underlying ecostructure is in worse shape than it looks, in some ways, and better than it seems in others. However, how things are now is almost immaterial. It is the direction of the trend line that is worrisome, not our present position on that line.
”
Neshobe looked up at Parrige. Such a dignified, serious man. Put him in a plain brown robe and a skullcap, and he would be the perfect archetype for—for—what the devil was the name? Monk, or friar, or pope. Something like that. Whatever name it was the near ancients had given to their religious isolates, Parrige looked the part.
But Parrige was dressed in a sensible white tunic and an entirely conventional, even conservative, pair of full-length trousers. No knee breeches for him, no matter what fashion dictated. Parrige was what he was, and he wore what he wore, and he did not care what the world thought of him. Neshobe envied him that.
“
In other words, your commissioners are past caring if it
’
s bad now. The problem is that it
’
s getting worse.
”
She looked around herself at the parched landscape. Bone dry, all of it. Solace City Spaceport, the scene of the hell-storm rain and riot not so long ago, was only two thousand kilometers to the east. Why in chaos couldn
’
t they tempt some of the endless Solace City rain to this place, where it might actually do some good?
“
It
is
still getting worse, isn
’
t it?
”
she asked.
“
Yes, ma
’
am. The ecostructure is collapsing at a faster and faster rate. The commission will recommend that we now divert all the resources directed at renewing and reviving the ecosystem toward an effort to conserve what remains. Given such a redirection of resources, the commission planning staff thinks we can stabilize the situation in the short term, but—
”
“
Stabilize it?
”
she asked, holding up her handful of dead soil.
“
What
’
s the point of that, when even the cockroaches are starving to death? If all we do is stabilize the situation, sooner or later we all die.
”
There was a moment of eloquent silence. Her companion needed to say nothing at all in order to make a full response. Neshobe sighed wearily, dropped her handful of soil, wiped each hand on the other, and then stood up. She began to walk back toward the main house, Parrige falling into step beside her.
“
I know,
”
she said.
“
In the long run, we
’
re all dead. And I suppose if repairing the planetary climate is not currently possible, stabilization at least buys us time. Go on with what you were saying, Parrige.
”
“
Yes, ma
’
am. You are quite right—judged on any long-term time scale, mere stabilization is futile. The planet, in its current state, cannot permanently support human life. And renewing the ecostructure is beyond our current capacity. Propping it up, trying to get it to hold together a while longer, is all we can do. Doing so could buy us enough time until we have greater resources and can work toward actual recovery. That, in sum, is the view of the commission.
”
Neshobe looked to Parrige, and then back down at the dying soil, and the wretched insects scuttling about on it. Humanity had made a mess of this world. Humanity had to at least try to set things right.
There was a low bench at the side of the path. Once it had stood in the shade of an elm tree, but now the tree was dead. Its trunk had been snapped in half about two meters off the ground, no doubt the work of some windstorm or another. Some termites had found enough water to survive and they were at work on it now, by the looks of it. The exposed wood was riddled with boreholes and looked soft and crumbly. There were puddles of sawdust nestled here and there at the base of the tree.
Neshobe sat down on the bench and looked back the way they had come. Once upon a time, there had been a fine view from this vantage point. Back in her predecessor
’
s time, it had no doubt been quite pleasant to sit in this place and admire the rolling hills of lush green meadow and the small stands of trees, the blue-purple skies of Solace and the dramatic banks of clouds that rolled across them. But now the green was brown, and the parched sky was grey with dust and robbed of its clouds, and all was dead or dying.
It was quiet enough that Neshobe fancied she could hear the termites gnawing at the vitals of the dead tree, even if she could not see them.
But no, that was only her imagination. There was nothing of the termites themselves that she could hear or see. There was no sound. The planet
’
s enemies were like that too—invisible, all but undetectable, but unquestionably there, and unquestionably impossible to root out, because they had burrowed their way too deep into the life they were destroying.
What were humans to this planet? Were they cockroaches, unwholesome interlopers, with individuals struggling to survive, but the species itself perfectly capable of adapting and surviving? Or were humans the termites here, still gnawing on the corpse of this world long after they had killed the body?
We are neither,
she silently told herself, as forcefully as she could.
We are not noisome scavengers or murderous parasites. We tried to plant a garden, tried to bring life to a world, and failed. Surely that is not the same as killing the world outright.
She forced her mind back to the issues at hand and looked back toward Parrige.
“
All right,
”
she said.
“
We
’
ll refocus our efforts on stabilization. But not exclusively. If we concern ourselves solely with the short term, we
’
re not going to have a long term. I want people working on how we can develop the industrial capacity, and especially bioindustrial capacity, so we can go back over to the offensive. I want to rebuild Solace, not just keep more of it from falling to pieces.
”
“
You bring us back to Greenhouse, then,
”
Parrige said.
“
Exactly. We
’
ve settled for a stabilized decline
there
for
entirely too long. I don
’
t think we
’
d be in as bad a shape as we are now if it had been maintained properly. We need it revived, upgraded, better than it ever was.
”
“
That may be impossible,
”
Parrige replied.
“
It would require a new SunSpot, and igniting a new SunSpot would produce a pulse of radiation powerful enough to kill everything on Greenhouse—and wouldn
’
t do the living things in the rest of the planetary system a great deal of good either.
”
“
Then we find another way,
”
Neshobe said.
“
Otherwise, when the current SunSpot finally gives out, Greenhouse dies. And if Greenhouse dies—
”