Time and Dirt
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Day 22
Heliopause Colony on Planet Vertumna, Medbay
“Solane, sorry, it took me so long to get back today again. Do you still have a fever? Let me feel you...
...
You don’t seem to anymore... then that salty water you got injected maybe actually helped you. That’s such a relief. Now, please just keep getting better, okay? Please.
Let me hold your hand...
Oh, you’re still pulling it away, with a grunt like a xeno. Normally I’d be upset but in your current state it’s actually a relief, hah... I wish I could understand what you are saying to me, I feel like I can understand the plants and xenos and even the fungi around me more nowadays than the people in my life. At least their actions make sense to me.
You know why I am so late today? And so tired... It feels like I can’t stop yawning, I should really in bed. I had to work all day today because I had been dragged to a council meeting the previous day right after I left medbay and it went on and on until it was dark outside, and somehow it was worse than ever in other ways, too.
As if it wasn’t already bad enough I would be losing the chance to take advantage of the rare sunshine during Wet... and if some fields not being tilled and cultivated leads to food shortage I will probably get the blame...
No, I also had to listen to hours of Governor Lum’s idiotic self-aggrandizing speech that just showed me again how he has no clue about anything. How did that man even get into the position? I always thought governors would have to be really competent and skilled people but he doesn’t even understand that plants need time to grow... Like, he wanted all the fields that *are* already growing crops to be destroyed... to have other crops be planted there, and expected that they could be harvested a day after being sowed.
He thought the reason why we had to ration food was that we just hadn’t bothered to work enough and should just harvest more and sooner! I couldn’t help it, I laughed in his stupid face, not caring that I might hurt his pride. Honestly, I hoped it would. And for the first time I had someone back me up. Aunt Seedent, Chief Steward, chuckled a bit and gave me the warmest smile I had seen coming from her in weeks. But it didn’t end there! Soon the four other council members joined in, even Dr. Instance, *even* Chief Administrator Seeq was barely hiding a slight grin.
A slam of Governor Lum’s fist brought us soon abruptly back to silence, sadly. Visibly shaken, and in fact still shaking, he tried laying out his big ‘agricultural plans’, although lacking his usual arrogance and bravado it was kind of a pathetic display. He demanded all the crops be changed to those that can be used to make shelf-stable, portable military rations, and those that can be used as fuel for their plasma weapons. So, knowing he wouldn’t be able to answer, I asked him which crops those would be, making sure the grin still on my face would be as obnoxiously wide as possible. He... just stared at me, closing and opening his mouth several times.
Chief Administrator Seeq finally put him out of his misery by announcing it would be soy, lupines and lentils, stating that these were all high in protein, could be processed into bars or dried soups easily and stored almost indefinitely.
While Governor Lum looked visibly relieved for a moment, I asked if they were planning to let the floatcows and all other xenos in our car starve, meaning no more milk, eggs or anything. Chief Administrator Seeq immediately retorted that no, of course not, what would give me the idea. I said that none of the xenos eat these plants, and having a pasture would probably not fit into their plants of maximizing protein output. Governor Lum’s most loyal servant looked pained for a moment, before conceding that we would need some space for fodder crops as well. But that got them a dirty look from the governor himself.
There was some back and forth between them, and they managed to present with various new proposals, all of which were easier to find holes in than in a protective crop veil after dorbsmoths were done with it. This went on for hours...
Then, trying to make a show of how bored I was by leaning my chair on the wall and crossing my arms, I asked if they had thought about what amount of the fields would be reserved for plasma rifle fuel. Governor Lum, looking more tired than I had ever seen him before, just snapped at me that it would be for me to figure out. I said I had no idea how many rifles there were even in the colony, or how much fuel they would need. That maybe he could give me some details on that? He screamed at me, much to the shock of everyone else around, that no, he would simply let me know if there’s not enough, flashing some aggressive smile that I could tell was just supposed to cover up that his confidence still hadn’t returned.
I just told him that I won’t do it, that I won’t risk the entire colony’s food supply just to satisfy the ego of someone whose plans make it painfully evident he has never so much looked in the direction of a field. He cried something about insubordination in return and that he could just remove me from my post and give it to someone else. I tasked him who he would even give it to, since it’s not like there are any other people left with any meaningful knowledge of farming, and no one with the time to learn it. He could of course still go ahead if he wanted to have his soldiers starve, but that would be his own responsibility then.
It seemed to get him to shut up for the moment, and there was this weird, embarrassing silence in the air that Aunt Seedent finally broke by quietly stating that at the moment we are only just about getting by, producing about as much food as we eat. Any disruption and we would have to tap into our reserves again, and we might find they are gone quicker than we realize, leaving us with nothing for the coming Glow season, when foraging or anything outside the colony isn’t possible. That having only the same three crops would make for bland, unbalanced meals that she can’t in good conscience serve to everyone every day in the future, and that children and teenagers in particular need the vitamins, minerals and so on from other crops. So, she said, clearly with some reluctance, she can’t support this proposal either.
I added that bad food is also bad for the morale of soldiers, and he might be seeing a mutiny if he keeps it up for too long, not to mention what might happen in case things go worse.
Solane, you should’ve seen Governor Lum’s face at that. It went ashgray, and he lowered his head and announced he would *withdraw* his proposal and present an updated one soon.
Ha, I’m not called Recalcitrance for nothing, you know!
...
Ah... if only I could see the reaction in your eyes or a twitch in your mouth or something... It seems you don’t even open your eyes when I call you by your name anymore? I don’t want to worry about you, but I don’t know how I could not. Please, don’t leave me here hopeless, off to some other world... I believe in you. I need you here.
After the council meeting took all of the previous day, today I could finally look at all the weeds that still needed to be pulled, the seeds that need to be sown and the... uhh, ugh, fertilizer that needs to be applied... You know I’m normally really happy to do this, but we’ve fallen back so much now it feels like we won’t be able to get it done in time this year, and then... Solane, spending time with you is my favorite part of the day every day, despite everything. But I’m starting to worry I can’t afford to do it anymore. Even today I had to come so late when I should actually be sleeping already... I don’t want to choose between being there for you and for the colony. Why should I have to? It’s just ... not fair.
I thought that I should at least try to fix the dustmole problem, that that would go a long way to help us make sure we don’t see our work on the fields destroyed over and over again, leaving me and the aides still with me to constantly redo everything. The few aides that were not drawn into Governor Lum’s personal guard that he transformed our group of lookouts into ... So just before I got here I actually tried finding out where they were coming from, if there was a way of making them stop burrowing beneath the walls. I was really tired already, the suns were both already setting, but I felt I couldn’t visit you until I had at least checked on it so I could mull it over with you.
When I went outside the colony to look at their tunnels, I saw Dys again. Standing outside nearby, some distance away, looking towards the suns. I thought about talking to him, but then, admittedly kind of reluctantly, decided to leave him be... and approached the walls instead. They are already showing some minor crumbling at the base where the holes dug by the xenos were. So many holes. I’m not sure the walls will do much to stop whoever wants to come, just like they didn’t almost two years ago... And tracks were leading up to all those holes in them, left in the soft soil from not too long ago, before the rain had a chance to wash them away.
All the digging had made the ground instable in some places, and several times a step I took made the ceiling of a tunnel collapse... making me sink into the mud halfway to my knees. It made me notice how much more grayish and some shades of yellow lighter it is, compared to the dirty yellow ground inside the walls or the dark red of our fields that now in Wet is so shiny. The soil near the walls must be a lot sandier, your parents picked a great spot for the crops! And of course all the compost we have added to the fields must have helped a lot, too.
But like, uh, back to the tunnels. Everywhere near these burrow entrances I saw a huge amount of trampled semi-gooey weeds, and even some escaped taraxacum and crushed mushrooms. Also *huge* numbers of mounds of soil to the sides of each! They must have been piled up by the digging dustmoles, piled up in an irregular line alongside the walls that stretched on for almost as long as I could see. There were clearly so many, so many of them active, even more than I had thought. It seemed really hopeless to try to fight this in any way. But it was also not possible to just let them be, as much as I would have wanted to...
I was still lost in thought, although also almost falling asleep while kneeling in the mud, examining the burrows, when I heard a voice behind me say ‘I heard you made Governor Lum look like a fool in front of the whole council. Made everyone laugh at him.’ I didn’t even turn around at first, you know, not trying to be distracted. I was having trouble staying awake and focused on one thing already.
Uhhhh... I actually still do, but I really have to tell you what happened after that. Waiting for me to answer, and me not doing that, made the voice continue ‘Always thought you’d be too much of an easily scared pushover.’
It really was the last straw for me on that day, I felt some shudder run down my spine that turned into anger halfway through that I actually turned around and snapped ‘WHO...’ and then I realized it was Dys.
‘Good luck dealing with that *infestation* of yours.’ He spat the word out like a spoiled onion before breaking out into the dirtiest little smirk I had ever seen anyone make.
I opened my mouth to reply, but then closed it again. You know, I realized in that moment that he was right, of course. I thought I’d always side with the xenos, but here he had proven the opposite after watching me for less than five minutes, before I had even said a single word. With a single sentence.
And then he was like ‘they perform an important ecological function, you know. As ecosystem engineers.’, kicking at a taraxacum, then uprooting it with his fingers and looking at it with a mixture of boredom and disgust while saying ‘Unlike us and what we brought here...’
He then talked about how the burrowing helps form new soil by bringing up rock from deep in the ground and aerates it, which lets roots reach nutrients and water in it more easily. How it also buries old vegetation and fungi *and* helps spread the tiny fungi and microbes living underground, both of which helps with decomposing and so makes the soil more fertile. All things that help guard against erosion and soil exhaustion... we’d need to carry so much less dirt, compost and, uh, fertilizer...
But still, dustmoles *do* eat our root vegetables, carrots, turnips and beets, their mounds can make planting and growing any crops difficult, and their burrows can cause small landslides on our fields... so as much as I’d want to I can’t entirely leave them be either, right? I wanted to ask him how we could live side by side better, but something... something made me uneasy, like I could sense that the plants and everything around me were telling me that I wouldn’t want to hear the answer he’d give me.
And before I could change my mind, he told me how he’s surprised to see the dustmoles here at all, given all the noise and many strong smells their sensitive ears and noses would be assaulted by. That they must be desperately hungry, or maybe they seek safety from those preying on them. And that this is probably a reason why their numbers are so much higher now and how it’s another example of humans upsetting the balance of ecosystems.
I left him be after that and didn’t say anything, but now I’m wondering... maybe during planting and growing times we could deter them with some particularly obnoxious smells, like old garlic and onions, or mint, placed alongside the wall and their burrows, and leave them be during the remainder of the year? Maybe that could help... both of us.
But, ugh, it will have to wait until tomorrow... or is it already tomorrow? I feel almost too tired to move. Might as well sleep on the chair here, maybe...”