Neogenesis

by Sharon Lee

  Thus encouraged, Val Con stepped out into the dooryard, attended by cats, and crossed the small lawn to the stone step. He lost four of his retinue there, they apparently being uninterested in those things the interior had to offer.

  The door was slightly open; he pushed it the rest of the way, and stepped into Yulie Shaper’s kitchen, bracketed by cats.

  Halfway down the room, on the right, Yulie Shaper was turning away from the counter, a mug in one hand. Directly in the center of the room was a table piled high with papers and binders. Behind it was a man with the Bedel face, watching him with interest.

  As it happened, he knew the man—one of Rys’s brothers, perhaps even his cha’leket, if the Bedel acknowledged heart-kin.

  “Nathan,” Val Con said, inclining his head.

  “Rys’s brother under Tree,” Nathan returned, with what seemed to be genuine warmth. “You are well arrived.”

  “That’s a fact, too!” Yulie Shaper agreed. “We need somebody with some sense on this or we’re gonna be opening all the rooms, even the ones never really been open, just to see what’ll happen. Coffee, Boss? Or tea? I gotta tell you, the tea’s something a little special.”

  “Thank you, I will have tea,” Val Con said, moving toward the cluttered table and glancing at the visible pages of the top binders.

  “Will you increase your production?” he asked the room at large.

  “We would increase variety,” Nathan said, holding his hand, palm down, fingers spread over the binders. “When we have results, we would increase production of those foods which have been proven.”

  “Here go, Boss,” Yulie said, shoving a mug at Val Con. The liquid inside was very nearly as black as coffee, and smelled bitter and burnt.

  “Thank you,” he said again, and took a tentative sip. Bitter and burnt. Much like the tea Silain the luthia had served when he had visited her hearth.

  “Mr. Shaper, I am at sea. I had thought you kept production down because there was no market and too much work for one.”

  “Too much work for one—got that solved,” Yulie said. “Market—well, it turns out we’ve got a market, too.”

  “This farm was to have fed the world,” Nathan added. He reached into the confusion of binders and extracted one, holding it out to Val Con.

  Carefully, he put the mug with its acrid contents on an unclaimed corner of the table, and took the offered binder.

  “Mission statement,” Nathan said softly.

  Val Con scanned the page. Feed the world, indeed.

  “See, the thing is,” Yulie was saying excitedly, “Surebleak never got all the way set up before it got broke down. You remember I told you that bit o’land your other brother wanted for his house—that was s’posed to have been the twin o’what we got here. This here was planned to feed landing pop, up to two percent of growth. When we hit the peak, then they’d open up the second facility to take care of the pressure.”

  He shook his head.

  “Agency pulled out real fast when they decided to go—that’s how I always heard it. Bad things happened—riots and killin’s not being the worst of it. That’s where the Bosses come in—they took charge and did what you’d call damage control. ’Cept then there was them who thought they’d be a better boss, an’—well. Out here, we just kinda hunkered down. Closed the rooms and gas-sealed most, keeping just a few producing, so there’d be something to barter and to feed the family, o’course.”

  He sighed and extended a long arm to pluck a mug from the shelf beside him. He took a long swallow before giving his head a rueful shake.

  “Like everybody else, I guess, we forgot what we was s’posed to be doing, in the everyday doin’ of staying alive.”

  “But now, it is revealed,” Nathan said. “This farm can be opened and it will feed the world.”

  “Well, now, no it won’t,” said Yulie, shaking his head again. “Remember we was only the start-up, to pop plus two, then the second one was s’posed to come online.”

  “Then that will be opened and brought to spec, using all that we have learned here,” Nathan countered.

  “Second facility wasn’t never outfitted, see? Agency didn’t like spending money too far ahead. Did a little site prep, but even there, ’til you knew what was comin’ in by way of ’quipment, an’ what production requirements were gonna be…Long story short—there ain’t any second facility. Nor not gonna be one, ’less Boss Conrad down there in the city decides different.”

  Nathan frowned.

  “There are farms, beyond the end of the road,” Val Con said, putting the binder on a stable-looking pile of its kin. “Boss Sherton supplies meat, fruits and vegetables…”

  “That’s right,” said Yulie. “Boss Gabriel, his turf’s got wheat an’ oat. Plus there’s the goods from back behind. Melina fronts for ’em, but they ain’t proper in her turf. ’Swhat she told Grampa, anyway.”

  “And down in the city, there are the gardens on roofs, in cellars, behind fences, and in other unlikely places,” Nathan added. “Surebleak does not starve. But she can be fed…much better.” He waved his hand at the binders.

  Val Con cleared his throat. “So far as the Council of Bosses has been able to determine from what records they have recovered from the Gilmour Agency, the population at the time of Boss Conrad’s arrival was significantly lower than it had been when the Surebleak colony was established. There has lately been an influx, but I don’t believe that we yet approach pop plus two. This can, of course, be checked.”

  He frowned. “Mr. Shaper, how many harvests can you manage from your rooms in a year?”

  “Three,” Yulie said promptly. “There’s the whole cycle of active, alt, rest, right there in the maintenance binder.”

  He turned to Nathan.

  “Which is something else neither of us—nor Mary, neither—thought about. Harvest is hard work, but harvest and maintenance both—for the whole facility now, up and full—that ain’t doable.”

  “Not by one man,” Nathan agreed. “But a crew—”

  “Well, sure, a crew’d do it,” Yulie said. “Wouldn’t need no more than ten, ’leven hands to run the place smooth.”

  He frowned down into his mug.

  “Seen that somewhere—how many was enough, and what their sections oughta be. I’ll look it out.”

  “That is good,” Nathan said. “Mary and I have been talking and—taking advice from others of our sisters and brothers. It may be that a crew is within reach, Yulie Shaper.”

  “These are all good steps,” Val Con said. He glanced at the mug of tea cooling on the corner of the table and decided that he wasn’t thirsty.

  “What I would suggest be done further is to present a report to the Council of Bosses, so that they are fully informed of this facility and its capabilities.”

  Yulie pulled himself up straight.

  “This is private enterprise,” he said sharply. “It don’t belong to the Bosses.”

  “I know that you will have the documentation which sets out the conditions of the facility’s existence and ownership,” Val Con said soothingly. “Copies may be made for the council’s files so that there are no errors.

  “Speaking to your ambitions, I would suggest that opening all the rooms at once invites chaos, and that chaos invites failure. Plainly, you wish to succeed—the prospect of failure does not usually spark such enthusiasm.”

  He used his chin to point at the mountain of binders.

  “Might there be, somewhere in all this, a start-up protocol? It may no longer speak directly to conditions, given the necessity to hunker down and utilize only those rooms which produced high-value barter crops, but—”

  “But it will be a place to start!” Nathan said, excitement sparkling in his black eyes. “We can make adjustments and build a new schedule around—”

  He threw a speaking glance at Val Con, but what it was meant to convey, he was unable to fathom.

  “The crew as we are today,” Nathan said to Yulie. “Me, Mary,
Abigail, Walter—and yourself as overseer. Could you oversee an additional team of four, if such were to be found?”

  Yulie frowned slightly.

  “Have to do a lot of scheduling and planning out—which don’t mean no. I had the lessons—Grampa made sure me and Rollie had all the lessons—just ain’t never used ’em, see? But I can review. Pretty sure there was a section on running multiple growth cycles…”

  He paused, gazing into the air vaguely over Val Con’s head, then nodded.

  “Lemme look that up, and get back with you.”

  “Yes,” said Nathan. “I will also…check our records for anything which may be useful.”

  “And,” Val Con pointed out, “you have time to bring this project together. Surely, you won’t wish to begin a new cycle while a harvest is ongoing.”

  “That’s so,” Yulie said, and grinned widely. “See, now? All we needed was a boss to get us on the straight track.”

  “You are kind,” Val Con murmured, “but I did nothing more than offer a protocol.”

  “If you say so. Hey, was there a reason you come by? We were so full of our own ideas, I didn’t think to ask.”

  “A social call,” Val Con said. “I am more than content. It is, however, time for me to go home. Nathan, will you walk with me? I wish to speak with you of Rys.”

  “Yes.” Nathan came to his feet.

  “I will not be long,” he said to Yulie.

  “Take your time. I’ll just be going back down to the rooms and see how they’re getting on. You find us there.”

  “Yes,” Nathan said and moved his hand, indicating that Val Con should precede him out the door.

  * * *

  “Have you news of our Rys?” Nathan asked when they had gone some little distance down the path.

  “Alas, no. In sober fact, I do not expect news of Rys, only, eventually, to see the results of his actions.”

  Nathan sighed.

  “He did not himself expect to return to us from this task you set upon him. It weighs upon the heart, when a brother must ask a brother for his life.”

  “The weight is heavier yet,” Val Con said softly, “when a brother offers his life for yours.”

  He took a breath.

  “I wished to say to you that this man Yulie Shaper, though a gadje, honors Rys. The grapes, the attempt at wine—these are the means by which he demonstrates his esteem.”

  “Yes, Memit had told us this.”

  Val Con glanced at him.

  “Mary?”

  “She had said she was not ashamed that you should hold her name alongside Rys.”

  “I will try to be worthy,” Val Con said.

  “You are Rys’s brother, as I am. For him, we will both be worthy.”

  He smiled out of the side of his mouth.

  “I think you want to say that Yulie Shaper should lose nothing at Bedel hands, and that we keep our bargain in good faith. You need have no fears. We will treat with him as with a brother. I swear this upon my true-name: Udari.”

  Val Con stopped and looked up into black eyes.

  “I am…astonished,” he said truthfully. “I have nothing of equal value to give in return.”

  Udari smiled, and extended a light hand to touch his shoulder.

  “You bear a brother’s burden. That is value beyond price.”

  They had reached the far end of the path. Udari stopped and nodded.

  “I leave you here. Keep well…Brother.”

  * * * * *

  Kareen’s ’hand, Amiz, put Miri in the front parlor with a promise that tea and Professor Waitley would be with her soon. Nelirikk, he whisked off to the kitchen, for a “cup and a piece of Esil’s pie, just out”—and a good gossip with the house staff, too.

  Miri might’ve been jealous of that piece of pie, but this was Kareen’s house. She wouldn’t be kept without her tea, and a little something to help it go down, for longer than it took Esil to load the tray.

  The arrival of Theo’s mother was likely to be less prompt, since she was probably working at this hour, and rousing Kamele Waitley from deep research was nothing like a challenge.

  That was all right; it would give Miri time to reorder her thinking. Kamele was from a society that put women first in order of precedence—strong, capable, informed, and decisive. Men were the lesser vessel—emotional and occasionally in need of a woman’s firm guidance. That life view was exactly why Miri had come on this mission rather than Val Con, the by-nature-excitable brother of Kamele’s daughter.

  Miri approached the hearth and held her hands out to welcome warmth.

  The formal parlor was a pleasant place to wait, though her younger self would probably have thought the room too warm and the firestone in the hearth a wicked luxury. Her present self still needed a reminder that the House could afford as many firestones as its members desired, and that it wasn’t so much a luxury as a canny investment in the clan’s success to provide busy people with a comfortable environment.

  Hands warmed, Miri left the hearth and drifted over to the bookshelves to see what Kareen considered proper to put on display for visitors. The patterned rug, like the chairs, sofa, and little tables, had come from House stores, but the bookshelves, and the big window onto the street—unusual on Surebleak—were original with the house. The window did have an inside shutter, but that was just standard protection from the snow-winds.

  Kareen’s taste in display books ran heavily to art volumes, with biographies and history books that seemed to have been chosen for the attractiveness of their bindings. One whole shelf, just at your average ’bleaker’s eye level, was filled with Terran novels, bindings tattered and broken, like they’d been read and reread dozens of times.

  Miri was just reaching for a book with a spine so grubby the title was a mystery, when she heard rapid steps in the hall.

  Tea wouldn’t be coming at such a pace, she thought, and wondered if she was going to lose her bet with herself and see Theo’s mother first.

  She turned and moved three steps across the rug. A shadow darkened the doorway, a scanner squawked loudly, and a woman she had never seen before stepped into the room.

  Miri slipped one hand a little closer to her hideaway. Bad manners to be armed in a safe house, o’course, but if Surebleak taught one thing, it was that even safe houses could be…less than safe.

  The woman came to an abrupt stop two steps into the room, half shielded by the sofa at the hearth. The scanner squawked again—there was a mini hanging on her belt—and she produced an awkward, unnuanced bow.

  “You are Korval?” she asked—well, demanded, really.

  Miri inclined her head.

  “I’m half of Korval, if you’re looking for the delm,” she said. “And you are…?”

  “Tassi.” The tone was impatient, as if Miri should’ve known that.

  Miri frowned at her—tall, thin, and awkward; dark brown hair, short and serviceable; milk-pale skin; dark eyes set wide; lean cheeks and stubborn jaw; the set of shoulders and hips shouting attitude.

  No, Miri decided, she’d’ve remembered this one.

  “What do you want then, Tassi?” she asked abruptly. If rudeness was the mode…

  “To see you. You are not what I expected.”

  “I guess we’re even. You’re not what I expected either.”

  The high, pale forehead wrinkled; the scanner fizzed and a voice proclaimed, “Zalyn, Waymart, PIC Beetsher Wold, hotpad at Mack’s.”

  “But how—” she began, and turned at the sound of quick steps behind her.

  Kamele Waitley slipped into the room past Tassi’s skinny self, and crossed the rug, smiling.

  “Hello, Miri. Amiz said you wanted to talk with me?”

  “Got a favor to ask,” Miri said. “Just gimme a minute.”

  She looked to Tassi, still standing behind the sofa.

  “You seen what I look like. Need anything else?”

  Tassi blinked.

  “No,” she said.

 
She turned on her heel and left, scanner squawk trailing after her like a particularly loud scarf.

  Miri shook her head and turned to Kamele.

  “Where’d you get her?” she asked.

  “Oh, Silain brought her and asked Kareen to give her a place to stay. Of course, Kareen wanted to accommodate a request from someone who has been so helpful to us—and, really, Tassi has been helpful. She’s a good researcher and a truly talented linguist. We’d had…a pile—more than an archive—of texts that we couldn’t quite puzzle out. Tassi’s grasp of language shift has been invaluable there. She’s almost through our backlog.”

  More noise in the hall—this announcing the arrival of the tea tray, borne by Esil herself.

  “Sorry to delay, Boss,” she said to Miri, clattering it all down on the table near the hearth. “Rikki had us going with a story, back in the kitchen, and I let the first kettle boil dry.”

  “Rikki?” Miri repeated.

  “Yes’m. That man can tell a story! But that’s nothing new for you, is it, Boss?”

  Assuming that “Rikki” was “Nelirikk,” the information wasn’t only new, it was downright mind-boggling. Miri pulled up a smile and a nod.

  “Got more sides than a box o’dice,” she said. “Thanks, Esil.”

  “No problem at all. There’s a few cookies on the plate, there, just come out. You need anything else, you call.”

  She was gone, walking briskly down the hall, probably anxious not to miss one of Rikki’s stories.

  “Well,” Miri said, more to herself than Kamele, “the things you learn on a day.”

  “The kitchen has its own culture, doesn’t it?”

  Kamele led the way to the hearth.

  They sat side by side on the sofa; Miri poured, they both sipped, and then leaned back into the cushions.

  “Now,” Kamele said, “what can I do for you?”

  “Well, I hope you’ll be willing to do us all a favor and write a little note to Theo, asking her to come home.”

  Kamele frowned slightly, but said nothing, so Miri pushed on.

  “I wouldn’t ask it, but Shan’s written and told her to pull back until he can figure a less dangerous route for her; Val Con’s written—nicely—that she oughta come home, make the acquaintance of her niece. And, putting it blunt, she’s ignored them both. Not even an ack.”