Hella

by David Gerrold

  “So what’s the Encyclopedia Problem?”

  “Well, the thing is—all those big heavy books, they were expensive to produce. You had to hire a lot of people to do a lot of research, a lot of writers to write the essays, a lot of editors to decide what was important and what wasn’t, and then you had to print the books, so it was all very expensive. You could spend thousands of dollars for a set of encyclopedias. But lots of people bought them. Schools and libraries, of course, but also people who wanted to have lots of reference materials. So encyclopedias were a big industry for over two hundred years—at least until wikis. Because if you had a question—like who discovered Sedna or what’s a Stirling engine—an encyclopedia was the fastest way to find the answer. Just pull out the “S” volume and look it up. But if you bought an encyclopedia, you were probably never going to read the whole thing. It could take years to read a whole encyclopedia, and most people didn’t. And even those who tried, they said a lot of the stuff in the encyclopedia wasn’t worth remembering.”

  Jeremy nodded. “That’s understandable.”

  “Anyway, after you looked up who discovered Sedna and what’s a Stirling engine, you might have read only two or three pages in the volume and there were all those other pages and articles that you hadn’t read. So you’re buying a whole big expensive set of books even though you’re only going to read a few pages here and there—and that’s the problem: Why are you buying the whole encyclopedia if you’re only going to use a few little bits?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I would guess the answer to that is obvious. You don’t know ahead of time which bits of information you’re going to need. So you’re not paying for the encyclopedia, you’re paying for the access to the information you want. You’d need to have all the information available, because you don’t know what parts you might eventually need.”

  “Just like your genetic database, right?”

  “Well, yeah. We have to have it all because the genes are important. We just don’t know which ones we’re going to need.”

  “Uh-huh. But that’s not the problem part of the Encyclopedia Problem.”

  Jeremy frowned. “What is?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Uh-huh. If you don’t tell me,” he said, “I’ll be up all night wondering.”

  “Okay. Um. See, we have all these records. We have all of our own records of Hella, plus all the records from Earth and Luna and Mars, the asteroids, the settlements of Titan and Europa, and what we’ve gotten from the other starside colonies too. We have hella-hellabytes. Everybody does. And we get more and more data every minute. We have so much information, we don’t even know what we have. It’s too much to assimilate—and whatever is there that we need to know, it’s buried under all the other stuff that nobody will never need, except nobody will ever know what part they don’t need until after they don’t need it. We end up being ignorant of our own wealth which is even worse than just being ignorant. It’s not about what we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s what we don’t know that we do know, but can’t find it.”

  Jeremy considered it, still frowning. “Yeah, I get it. I think you just identified our problem here. We’ve got a dozen sealed test farms in a lava tube on the west side. We’ve been running viability tests in those farms almost since forever. Figure a hundred generations with at least a hundred different variables, the only thing we’re certain of is the scale of the problem. We’ve got an index, but it’s not enough. We need a full-time intelligence engine to look for patterns.”

  “Um—”

  “Um, what?”

  “Um, I’m thinking about something.”

  “What?”

  “HARLIE.”

  “Who’s HARLIE?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention to the news?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. I’ve been paying attention to the problem of feeding twelve hundred people who are going to start arriving in four months—and we’ve only got one growing season before they start lining up at the caf.”

  “HARLIE is a super-smart intelligence engine. Maybe even sentient, only nobody knows for sure. He came on the Cascade. He’s supposed to be good at super-complicated logistics problems, even including the effect of his own suggestions. I wonder if he could find things in your farm records.”

  “Kyle, I’m not kidding. It’s hella-hellabytes.”

  “But maybe he could help. We could ask him.”

  After we finished in the fields, we took a shower together. We washed ourselves, then we washed each other. Not a lot. Just a little and then we both stepped back. Giggling a little. And maybe even embarrassed a little. But it was enough. Enough to know that we could. And maybe more later.

  Then we put on clean longshirts and shorts, Jeremy had a closet full and some of his older clothes fit me very well. Then we went upstairs to one of the cafs for dinner. Not the big one though. One of the ones near the loading docks, set aside for the truck crews.

  I knew a few of the teamsters from the migration. Jeremy knew most of them because they often delivered pallets of soil from the processing stations. He always had fresh fruit for them, so they liked him a lot. They waved when we came in, they were sharing a pitcher of beer at a large round table. After we got our food, we joined them. Quick introductions were made, but so fast I couldn’t remember all the names and which one went with which face. A man named Quinn asked how the crops were growing and if Jeremy had enough soil for the new cavern.

  Jeremy said, “I can always use more. Next week, I’ll probably have an extra crate of apples, if someone wants to take it off my hands.”

  One of the other truckers grinned. “We’re always happy to help.”

  Jeremy said to me, “We don’t send food from the test farm up to the cafeterias. Technically, it’s waste and I’m supposed to compost it. But it’s still good food, and it’s stupid to waste it. And the truckers work harder than anybody. At least, that’s what it looks like to me.”

  One of the women asked, “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Kyle. Doctor Martin’s son.”

  “Oh, yeah—” someone else said. “You’re the kid doing the videos. Nice job on the migration.”

  The woman whispered something to the man sitting next to her. He looked startled. He looked back to me. “Oh, yeah, hey. Listen, we were all real sorry to hear about your brother. Jamie. When the weather eases up we’ll send out a team to recover—a recovery team. We’ll bring him back for you.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I just nodded my head and said, “Thank you.” Beneath the table, Jeremy patted my knee and whispered, “They mean well.”

  “I know.” I chewed my sandwich silently. I didn’t have anything else to say. Everybody was being nice to both of us, and I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Sitting next to Jeremy and listening to everybody laugh and talk about their day was nice. I felt included. Some of the truckers were from Summerland, others had been permanently stationed at Winterland, so they had a lot of catching up to do, sharing their separate experiences. Every trip was different. The great machines rumbled along hard bulldozed roads, they rolled across crackling salt flats, and they pushed out across high deserts. The most rigorous jobs were deep in the forests. The lumbermen had some of the most interesting stories. Even after fifty years, they were still encountering new creatures of all kinds—things that looked like insects, lizards, worms, butterflies, frogs, snakes, slugs, ants, termites, bees, but really weren’t any of those things—and a lot of things that defied description or comparison, and all of them bigger than their Terran counterparts. Two of the walls of this caf were covered with glass specimen cases, each one sealed and filled with nitrogen—and this was only a small fraction of the creatures the teamsters had collected. I couldn’t help but stare.

  It’s one thing to go on an occasional ride-along. It’s something else entirely
to be a driver or a navigator, to be responsible for a giant Rollagon or even a whole convoy. A lot of people think driving is easy—just point the truck and go—but it’s not. You’re always watching the condition of the ground ahead. If it’s too soft you risk bogging down, if it’s too rocky you can break an axle. There are always obstacles—sometimes the obstacles are leviathans or carnosaurs. Truckers have to find the route that’s both safe and fast. And then there’s the weather. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, it’s still going to be there. On Earth, a ride in the country is a good time. On Hella, it’s an adventure.

  * * *

  —

  I woke up before dawn, my usual time. I padded barefoot into the galley and began fixing breakfast for Jeremy and myself. There were several cold-boxes, each one with its own label. I avoided the ones that warned “TEST SAMPLES” and went to the one that said, “EAT HERE NOW.”

  I squeezed some fresh orange juice, cut up some fruit, and scrambled some eggs in butter. The Dairy Section had grown udders for milk, ovaries for eggs, and tanks of ham and bacon as well. We did have some real animals in the zoo, but they were for genetic stock—a control for the protein farms. We grew almost all of our protein in tanks. We fabbed collagen webs, sprayed stem cells on the webs, ran them through a series of nutrient tanks where the cells reproduced and grew, layer after layer, then we ran the tissues through fattening tanks where the flesh was exercised and marbled, and when it finally rolled out the other end a few weeks later, we sliced off what we needed. We had almost perfect control over the production. We had consistency in the flavor, texture, and nutrition value of each portion.

  The idea of eating an actual animal was disgusting. It would have felt like cannibalism.

  According to the notes on Jeremy’s wall, the protein farms were increasing their production as fast as they could get the raw nutrients, so they needed Jeremy to increase his production of sugars and starches. More corn, potatoes, rice, beans, just about everything. I could see why he was worried. We had to grow as much as we could and put as much into storage for the spring as fast as we could.

  Jeremy had a small jar of coffee, but I didn’t know if he was saving it for a special occasion, so I brewed tea instead. I buttered some toast to go with. I was spreading jelly on the toast when—

  “Can’t have breakfast without coffee. Real coffee!” J’mee laughed as she bounced in. She held up a small bag. “Fresh from Daddy’s private stash.” She found the coffeemaker and poured the raw beans in. “Thirty seconds to heaven,” she announced and tapped the on button.

  “Aren’t you supposed to knock?” I asked.

  “I did. You didn’t hear me. But I heard you puttering around, so I let myself in. Where’s Jeremy?”

  “Right here.” He came padding barefoot out of his bedroom, wearing nothing but a kilt and a shirt, rubbing his eyes and finger-combing his hair, only to rumple it more. “G’morning, J’mee.” He looked around. “Do I smell coffee?”

  “J’mee brought it. All the way from Earth.”

  “Mmm,” said Jeremy, sniffing near the coffeemaker, waiting for the red light to turn green.

  I started putting plates on the table. There would be enough scrambled eggs and fruit and toast for all three of us. Jeremy smiled. “That looks great, Kyle.”

  “I used to make breakfast for Mom and Jamie all the time. Not so much anymore. Mom eats at the lab now.”

  “Well, you can make breakfast for me anytime. This looks delicious.”

  The green light went on and Jeremy grabbed three mugs from the shelf and poured coffee all around. He sniffed the coffee, nodded, smiled, sipped, and said, “Ahhh. That’s good.”

  As soon as we had settled ourselves at the table, he said to J’mee, “This coffee is wonderful. I hope you brought seeds we could plant.”

  “Of course,” said J’mee. “Daddy’s a caffeine junkie.” She added, “We brought a lot of farm stock. It’s still on the Cascade. We brought cacao seeds too.”

  “Chocolate?” Jeremy’s eyes widened. “You brought chocolate?”

  “Well, of course. The makings for it, anyway. And sugar cane and gene stock for a whole bunch of different dairy cows too. Daddy checked the manifests of all the previous pilgrimages and decided there wasn’t enough genetic diversity, so he bought as many different biodiversity packages as he could afford. He’s got cargo pods full. He had them deliberately mislabeled as life-support machinery—which they are, in a way—and didn’t even inform Captain Boynton about the specifics until we popped out of hyperstate. Captain Boynton didn’t know whether to be pissed off or delighted. Daddy’s got packages from the Benford Mission, from Attenborough Station, from the World Eco-pedia, from Gaia University, from the Beijing Protectorate, from the African Enclave, from the Gates Foundation, from the Russian Genetic Storehouse, from the Biodiversity Recovery Project, from the Earth Heritage Institute—and I don’t know where else. He says it’s the best collection possible, short of dragging what’s left of the whole planet along.”

  Jeremy was so fascinated with what J’mee was saying, he almost forgot to eat. Almost. But not quite. He ate as hard as he listened. He shoveled a last forkful of eggs into his mouth, took a bite of fruit, finished his juice, and returned his attention to his coffee. He sniffed it so hard, he almost drank it through his nose. “Mmm,” he said. “I can’t imagine a better breakfast. Or better people to share it with. Thank you, Kyle. And thank you for the coffee, J’mee. It made everything perfect.”

  For a moment, we all just sat there feeling good. Smiling. Sharing. Being friends. Then Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair, this time rumpling it properly and turned to face J’mee. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a big favor. You could say no if it’s too big. But . . . do you think I could get a listing of everything your father brought? All the genetic seed stock in particular?”

  J’mee said, “Daddy brought a lot of packages. The index alone—well, there’s a lot of files. Big files. A lot of data. I mean, really. A lot.”

  “I understand.”

  “And Daddy told Captain Boynton that he wouldn’t turn it over to the colony right away.” She lowered her voice. “In case we need something to bargain with. Politically, I mean. Captain Boynton isn’t too happy about . . . some of the stuff that Coordinator Layton wants to do. You probably know better than me, they have a lot of history.”

  Jeremy nodded, “I understand. It’s just that—I was hoping that maybe it would be useful to have because it could help our planning—for future expansion. Well, all right. I guess I’ll just have to wait.”

  That’s when J’mee pushed a tiny black memory card across the table. “Jeremy, would you do me a big favor? Could you find a safe place for this? It’s an off-site backup. I need a really good place to hide it—I mean, keep it.”

  Jeremy looked at the card, looked at her, looked at me, looked at the card again. “I’m sure I could find a safe place for it.”

  “You can look at it, if you want. I wouldn’t mind. It’s just, you know, stuff. Of course, you shouldn’t let anyone know you have it—”

  Jeremy picked up the card carefully. It was as small as a fingernail. He smiled, then walked into his bedroom with it. A moment later, he returned. “It’s in a very safe place. And I’ll move it to an even safer place later.”

  “Thank you,” J’mee said.

  “I’m the one who should thank you,” Jeremy replied. He held up his mug. “For the coffee.”

  J’mee turned to me. “I have something to show you too. Someone you need to meet. Have you got some nice clothes to wear?” She looked to Jeremy. “You should come too.”

  Jeremy said, “I have a lot of work to do, but . . . yeah, sure. Kyle says I need to get out more.” He thought for a moment. “I have some clothes that will fit Kyle. We’ll finish breakfast and hit the show
ers, okay?”

  J’mee joined us in the showers. The suite had been designed for a team of twenty people, so it had a community shower that could hold six at a time. I’d been showering with other people since I got out of diapers. Not everybody uses the community showers, some people have body issues and don’t like to be seen naked, but most people don’t care. I think J’mee only showered with us to be polite, but maybe she wanted to see what we looked like naked too. She was still skinny like a boy, but her breasts were already starting to grow. That was interesting. She was going to be pretty. I noticed Jeremy looking at her too. A lot. We all looked at each other, maybe too much. First it was nervousness, I think, then maybe it was something else, I wasn’t sure. After a bit, it made me uncomfortable. I turned my back and finished washing quickly. Just washing, nothing else.

  We air-blasted dry and Jeremy found some clothes, what he called “executive level costumes.” We wore longshirts and shorts, formal vests and calf-high sock-skins. I would have preferred a kilt, but Jeremy said that shorts or even long pants were traditional. J’mee agreed, so I didn’t argue. Thinking about it, I’d almost never seen Captain Skyler in a kilt, mostly long pants—but I always thought that was because he had to spend a lot of time outside. I used to inherit Jamie’s kilts when he outgrew them, and I liked that because it kind of made me feel like Jamie. That was something else I was going to miss—getting Jamie’s old clothes. But . . . I had Jeremy’s clothes now. And they were nice.

  We rode the farm lift up to the community levels, then down “Broadway”—one of the biggest and brightest of all the lava tubes at Winterland—all the way down to the delta where a half-dozen other tunnels branched out, the ones we’d carved into the mountain. Volcanic rock is soft enough for easy tunneling, but the First Hundred had decided early to install braces and supports in every tunnel and cavern, in case of earthquakes. But the colony had expanded so fast that only thirty percent of all tunnels and caverns were properly braced. That was another issue that the Council fought about every year.