A Planet with No Name

by Alan Black

  Eustace looked like he was actually thinking. “Maybe it was kids or something. Shooting them instead of rustling doesn’t sound smart though.”

  Imitating Eustace, she shrugged, “That depends on what your end game is. Theft is usually about money. This shooting wasn’t kids, it was personal and aimed at me, whether I was the target or not.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Auggie called through the open front door. “Hey, boss lady, you got a second for Mags and me?”

  Veronica got up early this morning and was ready for her day, looking forward to another morning of playing school. She still had plenty of time. “Come on in. Would you like coffee or tea?”

  Mags said, “Neither for us thanks.” She placed a glass on the table and gestured for Veronica to drink. “Here take a taste of this.”

  Veronica picked up the glass and sniffed its contents. The liquid was clear, but it was not water. There were flecks of an unidentified pulp floating in it. “What is it?”

  Auggie laughed and poked Mags in the ribs. “I told you she’d be too paranoid to taste it.”

  Mags grabbed the glass, drank a quarter of the liquid, and handed it back. “It’s good, boss. Honest. Poison is not really my thing. I would rather…um…never mind…”

  Veronica decided to ignore what Mags would rather do. She tasted the liquid. It was a juice having a vague hint of pineapple taste. It was a bit more syrupy tasting than it looked. She finished the glass and smacked her lips. She noticed Auggie and Mags trying to suppress smiles.

  “Okay,” Veronica said, “This is good. I deduce that you two have found a local plant?”

  Auggie said, “Actually, Veronica, you found the plant, which is both good news and bad news. The bad news is we can’t use those bamboo trees you spotted. No, that’s wrong. I guess we could use them, but we shouldn’t do any wholesale lumberjacking, even to get as much conduit as we need for irrigation. The good news is that those bamboo trees are a treasure, not only for this juice, but for a whole bunch of edible foodstuffs.”

  “This is their sap?”

  “Not exactly like maple tree sap, but sort of.”

  Veronica said, “I can see where it wouldn’t be prudent to move into an area full of maple trees, just to cut the trees down to supply the lumber to build a processing plant to make maple syrup. Did you get this drink by tapping the sap of the bamboo trees?”

  Auggie replied, “No. We cut a tree down at ground level to avoid leaving a stump. Like you suggested, those plants are a lot like bamboo. They’re segmented and very easy to hollow out. They are perfect for making conduit and sluices. There’s a hard gel in the interior of the plant near the base.” He removed a small envelope from his pocket and dumped a dozen pieces of candy on the table. He popped one into his mouth and smiled.

  Veronica picked one up. It looked exactly like the hard candies found in her grandmother’s candy dish. It was amber colored and not sticky to the touch. She cautiously placed it in her mouth. It tasted like fresh pineapple.

  “Is this made from boiling down the hard gel of the bamboo?”

  “Nope, that’s the raw interior of the plant’s base. We just cut some bite-sized pieces out. It’s liquid inside the top segment of the tree. Each section of the tree becomes progressively thinner from the base to the top.”

  Mags tapped the empty glass. “We haven’t actually done it yet, but I bet we can distill this down and draw out sugar.”

  Veronica said, “Distill might be a good word. Somewhere I have diagrams for a moonshine still. It should be easy enough to find a fermenting agent to start our own distillery. On Earth, they make sugar and rum from sugar cane. Can we tap the bamboo trees, no…plants, no…trees? Anyway, can we tap them like maple trees without killing the plants?”

  Auggie said, “We don’t know. We only have the one plant we cut down to experiment on. We hollowed out a hundred and fifty feet of the plant and the outside is setting up rock hard. It gave us a three-foot diameter pipe. We found a few dead plants on the ground and discovered they’re already hollow. Their insides may have fertilized the soil, dried to dust, or turned to seed. We don’t know yet. But we know we can use the dead logs as solid, empty tubes.”

  “So we do have some conduit?” Veronica asked.

  Mags said, “Yes ma’am, but not enough. Auggie and I think it’d be wasteful to cut down enough of these plants to cover the field until we know more about what we’re cutting down.”

  Veronica said, “That’s like cutting off your nose…well, you know what I mean.”

  Auggie nodded. “There are times when cutting off noses serves a good purpose, but I don’t see how that applies here. These are your plants. We’ll cut them down if you want, but we thought it made sense to see what other uses these plants may have as we harvest them.”

  Veronica rolled the pineapple-flavored candy around with her tongue. “How much of this did you get from the plant you cut down?”

  “I don’t know,” Auggie replied, “a bunch. I mean it was a big plant and this candy is only in the first segment. Each segment gets thinner and thinner the higher up the tree you go. I guess we have pretty close to a fifty-five gallon drum of hard candy, just from that one bottom section.”

  Mags agreed. “That sounds about right. We have another dozen barrels of pulp in various stages of liquidity. We managed to get them packed into the drums and sealed with stasis lids because we don’t know how long it’ll take to spoil. I do know I’ll get tired of the taste of pineapple before it’s all gone. We lost a lot of liquid bamboo pulp before we realized what it was. That’s why we decided to talk to you before we began wholesale cutting.”

  Veronica smiled. “Good work. We need to market the pulp if we do any more cutting. Chuck and Sherry Reynolds, as well as Tucker and Karen Guirard will be here this evening for a barbecue. I’m tempted to talk to them about it, but let’s keep this under our hats for the time being. Maybe later we can introduce the pulp to them and see if they can help identify potential markets.”

  “I know they’re your friends, but should we trust them with where the pulp comes from?” Auggie asked.

  “Not at first, no—not at all. When the time comes, we’ll only sell the pulp. Let’s keep the existence of these bamboo plants among our farm staff, at least until we learn a lot more about using the plants,” Veronica replied.

  “You mean like if we can tap them like a maple tree without killing the plant?” Auggie asked.

  Veronica nodded. “That, plus I’d like to know what conditions are required to make them grow: water, soil, sunlight, altitude, etc. How widespread are these plants? How fast do they grow? I don’t want to cut these plants down willy-nilly if it takes them ten thousand years to reach this stage. Can we harvest them year round? Can we domesticate them and turn them into a farm crop? What uses can we get from the pulp besides sugar, candy, fruit juice, and booze? I mean that’s enough, but what if this stuff is good for making rubber-like gaskets, or we can distill the juice for a plastic substitute?”

  “That’s a lot of questions to learn the answers to,” Mags said. “You’re already busy running the farm and teaching school. Are you going to have time to study the bamboo plants, too?”

  Veronica replied, “Not me. You two are now the farm’s experts on these plants. Let’s work out a course of action before we get ahead of ourselves, even if the first thing we do is find a botany expert to help.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Veronica mashed the call termination button. The call to her closest neighbor to the south, Candor Vandersleuu, went straight to a request refused message. The robo-voice announced it was automatically rejecting all messages from her. She never had any dealings with Vandersleuu, either good or bad. She had no expectations her neighbors would welcome a call from her with open arms, but refusing to answer her vidcall felt like a personal insult.

  She sighed. This was not the first time she was insulted personally, professionally, or even privately. She placed
a checkmark on her data-patch screen next to the vidphone number and dialed the number for her neighbor to the southwest.

  “Hello?” a pleasant-faced woman answered.

  “Hello,” Veronica said. “I am—”

  A man pushed the woman away from the screen.

  Veronica watched her crash to the floor. The woman started to rise, only to shrink back down at a gesture from the man Veronica assumed was her husband. Damn him, he shoved her hard enough to rattle her teeth.

  “I know who you are,” the man interrupted. “You got a lot of nerve calling here.”

  “Excuse me?” Veronica said.

  “Tatum told us what you did and I don’t like getting stabbed in the back. If you were a man we’d already have had it out.”

  Veronica smiled, but not in a friendly manner. Many an educated man shriveled at this particular smile. She cultivated it specifically for that purpose. The man on the other end of the vidphone was not educated and did not recognize her look, perhaps because he had beaten it out of his wife.

  “Please, don’t allow my gender to hold you back,” Veronica said. “I don’t know what Mr. Tatum told you. Please, speak freely.”

  “First you lie to get in the Compact—”

  “Stop right there you ignorant wife-beating moron! This planet would be better off without the likes of you. I did not lie and if you had the intelligence God gave a gnat you’d be able to read the transcripts for yourself.”

  The man appeared to have stopped listening after the words “wife-beating”. He started to say something, then clamped his mouth shut.

  Veronica lowered her voice, forcing the man to lean closer to the vidscreen to hear. “I won’t hold your gender against you the next time I see you, so come loaded for bear. Do you like to beat women? Come on over and try it with me.” Her eyes spit fire. Her tight grin peeled away from her teeth. Her jaw clenched in harmony with her fists.

  “My relations with my wife are none of your business.” The man backpedaled, obviously recognizing Veronica’s mounting anger.

  “It becomes my business when you shove your wife and threaten her in front of me. Anytime your wife wants to get away from you, she has a safe place with me.”

  The man puffed up, throwing out his chest. “You stay away from me and mine if you know what’s good for you.” He terminated the call.

  She was angry with herself, not for losing her temper, shouting at a neighbor, or threatening the man. She was angry for not having pressed for a well-written Pioneer Compact. The original committee was only concerned about people having a marriage certificate, not the state of those marriages. She should not have been in such a rush to leave Earth. She should have investigated what the committee was actually doing. Did they fill positions with anyone who could pay the fees or were they striving to accept competent pioneers? Eustace was a prime example of someone not qualified for the position he held. Tatum may have been an experienced produce buyer on Earth, but she wondered if anyone checked to see what kind of a human being he was.

  She was not returning to Earth, even if there was a way to go. She liked her new home world except for the instances of human suffering brought to it from Earth. She still had little tolerance for child abuse, wife beating, theft, and murder. No one else was going to bring sanity and morality to her little corner of this new planet, so she would do it herself.

  Sighing, she dialed the next number on her list. She planned to call all her neighbors between her property and town. The Halberds could wait.

  She dialed four numbers before someone answered. This number must have failed to set the machine to reject her calls.

  “Hello, Mrs. Smith,” the man said. “I wondered when you were going to get around to calling me.”

  “Oh? How did you know I would call?” she asked.

  “Tatum said you’d call. He’s telling everyone not to listen to your lies.”

  Veronica nodded and smiled, “You think I’m calling to lie to you?”

  “It seems logical that you would—considering your history. But, I don’t figure I have enough entertainment in my life to pass up a good vidcall. So if you have something to say, go ahead and say it.”

  “I was wondering if you had any cattle you might be interested in selling.”

  “Tatum said you dumped your herd to drive the price down so you could pick up our cattle cheap.”

  Veronica laughed. “You figure four cows and four calves will drive the market down?”

  The man scratched his head. “Well, that doesn’t seem likely, but Tatum showed me the market numbers before and after your sale. Then he showed me the numbers after your wheat harvest.”

  Veronica nodded, “Did you compare those numbers to any actual market data?”

  The man shook his head, “Tatum’s been good to me and mine. He even doubled the last contract on my crops, taking money out of his own pocket to balance what you’re doing.”

  “I suggest you check with an independent source. I can assure you that my wheat is still in the field. It won’t be ready to harvest for another two months.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you say. Tatum is taking care of us just fine. I do have cattle, but I’m not in the market to sell, even if you had the money.”

  Veronica sighed. “Thank you for the time.”

  “That the best call you got? Tatum said you might beg a little bit. He told me you’re going under soon and was going to be desperate for help. He said your next stop was Tiffany Eustace’s brothel. Can’t say I’ve ever been there, but it seems like a fitting place for you.”

  “Mr. Tatum has a vivid imagination.”

  “Well, whatever the outcome, I figure once you go under I can pick up some of the pieces from your place. I don’t need your property. I have good land and plenty of water, but I suppose you have some equipment I can use if I get it cheap enough.”

  “Thank you again for your time.” She terminated the call.

  She made nine more calls before she got anything more than a robo-voice rejected response.

  “Hello?” Veronica said.

  “Too late,” a woman said. “We’ve already taken an offer from Tatum on our place. You want anything you’ll have to talk to him.” The woman terminated the connection.

  The last two calls were to the owners of land immediately north of Peaceful Junction.

  Mr. Wiggins answered the second call. Veronica had spoken to the man a few times before. Over this first year on the planet, Veronica had walked, hovered over, or been carried by Cal, past his place. She never saw any indication of farming or ranch activity though she was willing to admit she had not seen his whole property. It was evident he was not a farmer and had no interest in agribusiness unless golf clubs were farming tools. If they were farm tools, their use was a technique she had not studied. She remembered that Wiggins and his neighbor Lamont were friendly with Manning Tatum on board the colony ship.

  Wiggins smiled, “I don’t have anything for you, Smith. Even if you had the money, both Lamont and I have already sold out to Tatum. Call him.” He terminated the call abruptly.

  I wonder how far north Manning Tatum plans to buy. Surely, as a produce buyer, he understands water rights. I’m sure he’s aware our Pioneer Compact does not mention water rights. Maybe that’s why he’s pushing so hard to run me off my land.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  She fumed the rest of the day. She succeeded in finally putting her anger away when Auggie, in a whirl of destructive genius, blasted into the canyon walls. Small dabs of explosives dropped a curtain of rock and dirt across the stream in such a precise fall that it saved them days of work.

  The dam would probably require a brace of rocks on the backside slope. Immediately the water began to back up with a muddy swirl. It retreated and pushed forward as if waiting for enough reinforcements to force a breach or flow over the top.

  Maslow joined Auggie and Mags to work on a spillway. Its design allowed the water to escape, but not to erode the earth
en dam.

  Rather than cut a tree for support, Auggie packed thumbnail sizes of explosives into a tree. The tree fell into place when the explosives detonated. Then, from their seemingly inexhaustible supply, Mags laid a pencil-line thin strip of explosives along the trunk of the tree. When she detonated the explosives, the downed tree split neatly into two equal halves. The winch was barely necessary to move the spillway braces into place.

  Veronica applauded when both Auggie and Mags dropped the second curtain of rocks from an outcropping of stone. It fell neatly into the exact spot with such accuracy that Mags stood inches from the last falling rock. The woman did not flinch as a huge boulder slammed down next to her.

  Maslow shouted from the top of the dam. “This ain’t going to hold long.”

  Auggie, offended at the criticism of his work, shouted back. “This dam will hold longer than the canyon walls surrounding it.”

  Maslow waived his hands in surrender. “That is not what I meant, my friend. I mean, the water will not be held back long. It is rising fast. We will hold it back for a while, but the pond forming back here will not spread beyond these canyons. It will overflow the top quickly.”

  Veronica said, “Our goal was to get water into the wheat field. I think you people have succeeded in doing that.”

  Mags shook her head. “That was goal one. I know, like everyone else here knows, our secondary goal was to shut the water off to the Halberds. I think Maslow is saying that this won’t stop much water from reaching their place.”

  Veronica was curious about Auggie and Mags. They were good at farm work, once someone explained the need, but neither was a farmer. Their skill set was—to say the least—unusual. It was helpful—but odd.

  “Well, I guess that’s no secret. I have maps in the truck. Mags and I can walk downstream and see where else we can dam and divert this flow,” Veronica said.