Phytosphere

by Scott Mackay

  “You know this… this Kafis on a fairly personal level, don’t you?” asked the president.

  “He’s one of their senior scientists. I’ve had him as a guest to Marblehill, my home in northern Georgia, numerous times. He’s also one of their junior negotiators, and is responsible for establishing diplomatic relations with the inhabited moons and the inner planets.”

  “Is there anything you’ve learned from him that might help us in this particular situation?”

  “Only that the shroud fits right in with the teacher-student emphasis of their whole culture. They don’t want to punish us into accepting what they want. They want to teach us that, ultimately, Tarsalan immigration to Earth is the only logical and acceptable proposition. It’s a known fact that Tarsalans have two brains. Many tests have been performed on them, in particular the Cameron Chess Study, and in terms of intelligence quotient it’s been shown that they far outstrip even the most brilliant human being.

  They’ve come to the Earth with the notion that they can teach us quite a lot because they’re more advanced than we are.”

  “I find that presumptuous as hell,” said Sidower.

  “Nonetheless, the teacher-student aspect of their culture, developed over a million years, is hardwired into the way they think about everything. Kafis has a phrase he uses sometimes: Instruction through discipline. They have an instrument on their home planet. It’s called a cinerthax. On Earth we’d consider it an instrument of torture. Tarsalan students purposely tie themselves to the cinerthax while they study, and the cinerthax twists and turns their bodies in the most painful ways. It doesn’t injure them. But it certainly motivates them to learn. That’s their way. And that is, I think, one of the guiding principles behind their decision to mount this shroud around the Earth.”

  The president stared at his desk blotter, thinking. “What about the shroud itself, Neil? If we get rid of it, then the pressure’s off, and we can turn the whole thing around.”

  Neil didn’t hesitate. He never hesitated, always showing everybody, especially the president, that he belonged in the Oval Office. “If we take an aggressive scientific approach to the shroud, I think we can destroy it in as little as two weeks.” Neil looked around, gauging reaction to this can-do proclamation—and saw hope. Now it was time to cash in. “But Mr. President, I’m going to need resources.”

  “Neil, you can have whatever you want. Make a list.”

  “For starters, I need a sizable sample of the shroud. We have to get a piece of it into the lab. We have to see what it is, and analyze it on a molecular level. Bob and I have talked about it, and we’ve decided that this is the way to go. You don’t know what something is until you’ve looked at it under a microscope. I’m sure that once we examine it microscopically and analyze it in a number of different ways, we’ll see that it’s an extremely simple compound. I believe the Tarsalans are going to have to do things on the cheap because they don’t have the resources to do things otherwise. And that means simple. Which means there should be an equally simple solution as well, perhaps a chemical one, something that will break the bonds that hold the shroud together. But as I say, in order to arrive at any solution, I need samples. And substantial samples.”

  “Any ideas on how we’re going to get these samples?” asked the president.

  “We get our friends at the National Center for Atmospheric Research involved. We ask them to loan us three of their HIAPER aircraft.”

  Everyone paused.

  “And what exactly is a HIAPER aircraft?” asked Julia Petrov.

  “HIAPER is an acronym.” Yes, he had it all at his fingertips. Six hours between Trunk Bay and the White House, and he was formidably prepared. “It stands for High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research. They’re great little jets with suborbital capability, the best of their kind in the world. We usually use them for tracking pollution plumes, or collecting data from the tops of storms, or monitoring the lower edges of the stratosphere. They can attain altitudes most research aircraft can’t—even spend brief periods in space—which makes them ideal for reaching the shroud. They’re easily equipped with the kinds of scoops and intakes necessary for gathering our sample. They fly out of Colorado, and I think it would be a good idea to have them fly with military cover. Joe, what’s the Air Force base in Colorado?”

  Sidower squinted as he thought about it. “That would be Peterson,” said the secretary of defense. “And come to think of it, Peterson’s also home to the First Space Wing, so if the HIAPERs need any space support, they’ve got it.”

  “Good. Mr. President, I suggest we get our samples first, before you mount any definitive military action.

  Let’s get that stuff into the lab and analyze it. Once we have samples safely returned to Earth, you can launch whatever strikes are necessary.”

  The president nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He turned to Sidower. “And Joe, I’m glad we can get Colorado in on this. These Western Secessionist states—this is just the kind of thing they’ll capitalize on.

  And it worries me because if things get really bad… they’ve got a real breakaway mentality these past few years, and considering they house some of our largest food-supply depots—anyway, I’m sure you get my drift.”

  “We’ll try to make the bastards feel as if they’re helping.”

  Julia Petrov spoke up. “I should point out that we’ve received a communications drop from the Moon. It parachuted through the shroud without detection, and the Navy recovered it a thousand miles north of Easter Island yesterday. The mayor’s office in Nectaris says the Moon is mounting its own scientific effort to neutralize the shroud.”

  Neil felt some alarm. “The Moon?” he said. “Why’s the Moon getting involved? All they’ve got up there are gambling casinos, strip joints, and cannabis bars.”

  The vice president interjected, “They have some top interplanetary-spacecraft design engineers.”

  “Yes, but… we don’t want them screwing up our own operations. I’m sure their interference is going to be misguided, to say the least. They don’t have nearly the same expertise we do. Nor do they have the resources we have.” Neil turned to Julia Petrov. “Any idea who’s heading the project?”

  “Your brother, as a matter of fact.”

  Neil felt his face warming, and was momentarily disconcerted by this odd juxtaposition; poor old Gerry, as a matter of fact, being spoken about in the Oval Office.

  “My brother?” He shook his head in disbelief. “With all due respect to my brother…” His usual tact seemed to desert him. “They can’t let Gerry take charge up there. I love him dearly, and he’s brilliant in his own way, but he has an uncanny knack for making wrong decisions, and for taking the wildest kind of risks. Mr. President, you have to get the State Department to talk to this mayor in Nectaris and tell him… tell him…” He raised his palms in consternation. “I urge you to have a midlevel diplomat, or even a senior diplomat, send a drop to this mayor in Nectaris and tell him to… to stand down.”

  The president glanced around at his team, hesitant to give an immediate answer.

  It was Chief of Staff Gregory who finally spoke. “But Neil, we can’t dictate to the Moon. They have their own sovereignty up there now. And don’t we need all the help we can get?” The chief of staff gestured out the windows behind the president’s desk. “Look at that thing. All we have left is a bit of open sky far to the east. Don’t you think we could use the Moon’s help?”

  “Yes, but the Moon can’t help us,” said Neil, now exasperated with the thought of his brother balling up the whole effort. “They have no scientific expertise. Mr. President, if you want, I’ll sign a recommendation against their interference, and we can send it to them in the next drop. Who knows?

  They just might end up provoking the Tarsalans. For the sake of their own safety—and ours—we should strongly advise Nectaris and the other CLC communities to butt out. Otherwise I can’t guarantee the success of this thing
.”

  6

  Glenda’s part-time shift ended at one.

  She went out to the parking lot and asked her car to take her to the Stedman’s at Rock Quarry Road and Tarboro Street, on the outskirts of Raleigh.

  She saw only a few other cars on the highway. For the most part driverless transport trucks plied the route, their lights piercing the green gloom. She looked up at the sky as her car went on its way. Now, at midday, the verdurous murk was brighter, but still… still unnatural, not as dark as night, but darker than the darkest storm clouds. What worried her was the trend. It was getting darker every day. How long before it was completely dark?

  She got to Stedman’s and saw that hundreds of cars crowded the parking lot. The big lot lights were on, burning like blue sulfur and, in contrast, the sky looked black. She reluctantly shifted to the driver’s seat and took manual control of the vehicle.

  She had to scout fifteen minutes before she finally found a parking spot on a residential street five blocks away. She got out of her car. Not the best neighborhood. Houses were fifty years old, made of preformed Duratex. Most of the Duratex had minute cracks in it. Weeds grew waist-high in some front yards.

  She finally reached the Stedman’s parking lot. Not only was it crowded with cars, but with people as well.

  Glenda walked to the shopping cart corral and discovered that all the shopping carts were gone. She looked around and saw an elderly couple unloading groceries into the back of their car.

  She walked over. “Can I take your cart when you’re through?”

  The lady looked at her in sympathy. “We had to do the same thing. It’s like dollar days.”

  Once the couple was through unloading, Glenda pushed the cart to the store, only to discover that there was a long lineup to get in. People waited with expressions of grumpy impatience on their faces. She peered to the front, where a pair of armed security guards regulated the flow. She looked in through the big front windows and saw that the lines to all the cashiers were backed up. She sighed. This was going to take forever.

  She had to wait forty-five minutes before the security guards finally waved her through.

  Inside the store, she immediately sensed that this wasn’t a regular grocery crowd. There was an undercurrent of desperation, even fear.

  To maneuver up and down the aisles, she had to wait a minute or two for other people to pass. The shelves were all but empty. Especially of canned goods. She got the last two-kilogram bag of rice. Also a nineteen-ounce can of stewed prunes. And some cat food, even though they didn’t have a cat, but if worse came to worst…

  She reached the bottled-water section but there wasn’t any bottled water left. At the meat counter she got some pig’s feet and spiced pork chops, the only things remaining. As for fruit and vegetables, she obtained the last bag of russet apples, two bundles of leeks, a turnip, some garlic, and three onions that were starting to sprout. She wanted cheese because cheese was protein, but there wasn’t any left. She wanted juice because it had vitamins, but the cooler was empty. From the dairy section, she managed to get a jug of soy milk that was leaking. She now felt plugged in to the current of desperation and fear. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the crowd rioted.

  She approached a stocking unit and asked the machine when they were going to get more cheese.

  “Current delivery date undetermined, pending emergency federal legislation, re: FEMA relief contingencies.”

  She grabbed a bag of sugar. A box of salt. Someone had spilled a package of spaghetti all over the floor. She picked up as many strands as she could and stuffed them into a loose plastic bag. She mentally tallied the groceries and knew she had at least a hundred dollars’ worth. Not the two hundred dollars she had hoped for, but maybe it would be better to hold onto the remaining money for emergency backup.

  Who knew what was going to happen in the next week or two?

  She struggled to the drugstore section of Stedman’s.

  As she waited to get Hanna’s prescription filled, hundreds of nervous thoughts rustled through her mind.

  Live a day at a time, she kept telling herself. By tomorrow this whole thing could be over. Tomorrow was Saturday. In the bright sunshine, she and her kids would hike to Jordan Lake and have a picnic, and the Tarsalans would compromise, and so would President Bayard, and maybe they might have a few Tarsalans living in Old Hill, and wouldn’t that be fun and interesting for the kids, having aliens living in the neighborhood? So everything would be all right, and she would live a day at a time, like her mother always told her to.

  Only she couldn’t stop thinking about how all the plants were going to die. What happened when photo-synthesis stopped worldwide? What happened when every tree, flower, and blade of grass croaked?

  She finally got Hanna’s medicine, enough to last her daughter a month, went to a Customer-Assisted Checkout Line, and waited again. That’s when she heard people yelling at the front. Then the smashing of glass. Then gunshots.

  She dropped to the ground. So did everybody around her. But then other people came running down the aisle. And these other people were just normal, everyday Raleigh citizens, yet they had wild looks in their eyes and guns in their hands, and two of them came up to her grocery cart and emptied its contents into garbage bags.

  “Hey! That’s my stuff!”

  “Lady, it’s every man for himself.”

  They took everything.

  But as they ran away, a hole developed in their bag.

  Prunes. Salt. Pork chops. They were hers, but the people in front of her snatched them up. More gunshots. Some screaming. And sirens outside.

  At least she still had Hanna’s drugs—and that’s what she had really come for anyway.

  Glenda got home halfway through the president’s speech—she didn’t tell the kids about the looting because she didn’t want to upset them—and caught bits and pieces of it as she got supper started in the kitchen.

  “The United States and its allies view the shroud as a blatant act of aggression,” Bayard was saying.

  “Despite our repeated attempts to open high-level diplomatic channels with the Tarsalan delegation to protest the shroud, all such attempts have failed. The Tarsalans say through their junior staff that until their immigration demands are met the shroud will remain in place. A lot of you have come to the conclusion that, should the shroud block out the light of the sun, it might have a direct and drastic effect, in the short term, on food supply, in particular on our crops next year. This is an unreasonable fear, and I can assure the American people that we have the situation well in hand. In spite of this, some of our citizens feel they must resort to civil disorder.”

  Glenda listened more closely.

  “We’ve already seen numerous instances of looting. Let me assure you, my fellow Americans, and especially those of you who feel you must participate in this unlawfulness, there’s absolutely no call for criminal activity. I warn you now—looters will be dealt with harshly.” He raised his hands in a calming manner. “I can only say this to people who feel they must loot—everyone will be fed. Our response to this emergency has been quick and appropriate. What have we done? For starters, I’ve asked state governors to mobilize and make ready their various relief agencies. I’ve ordered my chief administrators at FEMA to study the feasibility of implementing contingency rationing plans on a nationwide basis, and have empowered the military to take control of and administer the commercial food-distribution system when and if it is deemed necessary. I’ve asked the National Science Foundation to make a full and complete study of the shroud. If we can dismantle the shroud in any reasonable time frame, my experts in the Department of Agriculture believe we’ll still have our crops next year, and the food pressure will be off. So while we might have to tighten our belts in the short term, I believe in the long term we don’t face any real, serious food shortage. I urge calm, and vow to you that your government, and governments all over the world, are working hard to solve this problem. I urge
civic responsibility. I urge you to support your government—and your neighbor—any way you can.”

  Bayard gripped both sides of the lectern, and a conciliatory smile came to his face.

  “And I especially appeal to those of you who are Secessionist Movement supporters, and I know there are a good many of you. Now is not the time to think of splitting up the country. Now is the time to show solidarity in the face of what is turning into a considerable national emergency. I know that in at least three states, Secessionist referendums have been proposed for the November election period. I would ask that supporters of these referendums put any and all such campaigns on hold for the time being. I would ask that we pull together and beat this thing as fellow countrymen. The color of your vote doesn’t matter. Red or blue, we all have to stand together.”

  He let go of the lectern and squared his shoulders.

  “In the meantime, the toughest decision your president faces is how to respond to this blatant act of aggression by the Tarsalans. Right from the start, we knew they were asking for immigration rights. They told us that they were a peaceful people and that they desired to conduct senior negotiations with us in regard to the possibility of immigration. This was reasonable. It was practical. And it promised mutual betterment to both our peoples. We in the United States have always understood immigration. We all come from immigrant ancestry. But we also understand that an immigration policy must be managed. It has to be based on common sense and sustainability. We know that to flood our shores with an uncontrolled influx of immigrants would not only be detrimental to the existing inhabitants, but also to the immigrants themselves. So we offered controlled immigration to selected islands in the South Pacific, with strict quotas on reproduction. That’s when we learned their demands were unreasonable. They requested unlimited immigration anywhere in the world, with the right to decide their own birth policies. In the last nine years there have been a series of offers and counteroffers, and still the two sides remain significantly polarized. Now the Tarsalans have withdrawn from negotiations, and have mounted this shroud around the Earth. They’ve given us an ultimatum. Let me make this clear. The United States won’t tolerate ultimatums, and will never give in to blackmail.