“All ours now! Phrocking magi, mano! Beautiful, beautiful stuff! No way we’re sharin’ with those krigs over the other side of the river. Ours, mano! We’ll live happy here, keep those things seeding and planting, just like the man said. It all made sense, mano, apart from that sharin’ thing. Vin don’t share with nobody! Just his friend, Levo, mano, just his friend Levo. You saved my phrocking life, now I’m savin’ yours. Enough here for two, oh yeah, plenty to go around without those Olds here. I’ve taken care of them for you, mano. Didn’t want you to have to do that.” He was closer to me now. “With that Pharma, enough in this garden to eat, enough in that Pharma to keep us happy — it’s perfect, mano, just perfect. Just you and me!” Closer again.
It wasn’t fruit around his mouth. His pointed teeth were covered in blood. I looked around. At the bodies sprawled across the red-stained garden. Then back at Vin, eyes rolling with drug-induced frenzy. This was what I’d saved him for.
All I had left was the garden. I’d look after it as best I could — do what I’d seen the Olds doing. Stroking the plants, talking to them, just watching them. I could survive for years. Let Vin have the run of the Pharma, keep him calm and happy, if he’d just let me take care of the plants.
I gazed around. The Olds — I’d look after them too. Find a Disposal centre. I’d clean up the mess here; wash the grass clean. There was plenty of water for that. I could make it clean. Afterwards, I wouldn’t need much water, just enough for me and Vin. I could make it last a long time. They had so much, for so few Olds. I wondered what they were collecting the water for.
It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t need water. All I needed was the garden.
~~~
SHONA SNOWDEN writes fantasy and horror for adults and young adults. Many of her short stories have been published online and in print. Originally from Scotland, Shona has also lived in the US and Europe. She is currently based in Australia where she lives with her husband and children, and with the constant fear of finding a red-bellied black snake in her backyard.
Website: http://www.shonasnowden.com/Shona_Snowden/Welcome.html
TRANSCENDING
Because humor lurks even in our darkest hours
When a newly bio-engineered weapon in the wars on drugs and terror gets out of control, can the supplier really be held responsible?
A THORNY DILEMMA
by Rory Steves
“It wasn’t our fault,” I explained. “Not really.”
The tribunal was silent.
“At Bio*Verdant, we engineer seeds for agricultural use; in fact, our products have revolutionized the industry.”
Silence.
“We’ve produced tomatoes and peppers that grow in Alaska. A fescue hybrid that’s helping reclaim the sub-Sahara savanna. Even most of the bio-fuels come from the saw grass and soybeans we developed.”
Not so much as a nod from our judges.
“Putting us on trial for crimes against humanity — it isn’t right or just. We only produced the seeds.”
One of the tribunal coughed, quite rudely.
“It’s the DEA and the military who should shoulder the blame.”
~~~
The problem really started when a senior DEA agent and an air force general showed up at the Bio*Verdant research facility.
First, they wanted the red-carpet tour of our facility, which we gave them. We’re not crazy; what the government wants, the government gets.
Then they wanted a complete rundown on what we did and how we did it.
We gave them the abridged version. They huddled together in a mini-conference, talking in hushed tones.
We tried hard not to laugh; we could hear every word.
“We need you,” the DEA agent told us, “to create a poppy whose pollen will sterilize opium-producing varieties.”
“We plan to drop the seed from Stealth bombers,” the air force general informed us.
“We need the same solution for coca and marijuana plants as well,” the DEA guy continued. “We want to wipe out the drug problem once and for all.”
“We also need,” the general said, “a fast-growing vine that can be dropped from our bombers that will act like barbed wire to entangle enemy infantry.”
“While we respect your intentions,” I said, “that isn’t the kind of work we do here at Bio*Verdant. We develop crop seed for farmers around the world. We don’t do any pollen-antagonist work here or military applications.”
Then Nelson, our resident nut case, had to open his big, dumb mouth.
“We could weaponize kudzu,” he told our guests. “We can’t neutralize the drug-producing plants, but we could overwhelm them with a competitive, even aggressive, vine.”
“Kudzu?” the general asked. “Isn’t that the stuff they planted along rivers in the south? The stuff that is slowly,” he emphasized the slowly, “slowly taking over the local vegetation?”
He seemed less than impressed.
Had it ended there, where it should have, life would now be much simpler for us.
But Nelson didn’t seem to possess the “shut-up” gene.
“The city of Atlanta employs a crew of twenty-five people whose only job is combating the kudzu that would otherwise, eventually, engulf the city,” Nelson told them. “The kudzu vine grows at a rate of up to a foot per week. Its roots grow up to seventeen feet deep.”
He paused for effect. “Speeding up the growth rate is child’s play.”
“But will it grow in the different climates we need to control?” the DEA guy asked.
“Gentlemen,” I cut in, “we specialize in manipulating the climate needs of crops around the world. Producing different strains of kudzu is doable — but expensive.” Hey, I wasn’t changing sides, but these guys not only had deep pockets but a noble cause. My conscience agreed with the idea of being involved with the destruction of the drug trade.
“How long?” DEA asked.
“Eighteen to twenty-four months,” I replied. “We’ll need to follow fail-safe protocols, and double-check to be sure we deliver a safe product.”
“Fail-safe?”
“We need to check for climate tolerance, reproductive purity, lifespan and a long list of biological markers. Plus, it seems, an enhanced tolerance for being dropped from bombers.”
“How about the barbed wire?” the general asked.
“Challenging but possible,” I said.
“How much?” DEA asked.
I nodded over to Silvia, our chief accountant and office manager.
She nodded back and spent a few minutes with her ever-present calculator, her fingers a blur.
Finished, she showed the total to the DEA agent and the general.
“Agreed,” said the DEA agent. “Have it ready for deployment in six months and we double the amount.”
“Agreed,” Silvia and I said in unison. I knew full well Silvia would have padded the numbers to give us room to negotiate; now the inflated amount would be doubled.
Deep pockets hardly described it.
~~~
Thankfully, it was the start of our slow season, so most of us could devote all of our time to the project.
We grafted DNA from dune grass to extend the kudzu’s normal deep-root system to twenty to thirty feet deep.
Shrub roses and Hawthorne trees provided the DNA for a wicked set of thorns.
The humble dandelion gave us an efficient seed distribution system. Plus regenerative roots.
All we had to do for the barbed wire variant was to punch the growth rate sky high.
Encouraging growth in various climates required nothing more than the same techniques we had mastered years ago.
~~~
Our first test crop was a dismal failure. The kudzu seeds took too long to germinate, and the seedlings grew faster than the roots could provide nourishment.
Both problems proved remarkably easy to fix.
~~~
“Big seeds,” the DEA guy commented as he hefted a handful of the gol
f ball-sized seed packs. “Heavy, too.”
“Our first batch had germination problems,” I told him as forklifts loaded bags of seed into trucks for delivery to the general’s bombers. “We solved the problem by first making the seeds larger. This provided more nourishment to the seedlings. Then we pre-germinated the seed and packaged it in a water-soluble fertilizer sphere.”
The agent quickly dropped the seeds back into the sample bucket.
“These are the seeds for the central Asian poppy fields. They are engineered for the dry, mountainous regions where the opium poppy is cultivated. The seeds for the central American cocaine and marijuana will be ready by week’s end.”
“Very good,” he said, handing Silvia a check. “Good doing business with you; we’ll be in touch.”
“How about the barbed wire?” the general demanded.
“We’ve nicknamed it Strangleweed. We have four varieties to cope with most climates you might need them for. They’re bagged and ready.”
“Excellent,” he said, pumping my hand and grinning. “I have a couple of terrorist training camps I want to try them out on.”
“If you drop them during a rainstorm, they’ll never know what hit them.”
“Perfect,” he said.
~~~
“You must admit,” I told the tribunal, “our products worked exactly the way we said they would, with remarkable success.”
~~~
It was raining the night the general seeded the two training camps, and by morning both camps were knee-deep in the thorny, tangling vines. By the next day the vines where taller than the tents. In three days, the vines were impenetrable, and most of the tents had collapsed.
Then the sun baked the vines, reducing them to dust.
The perfect weapon.
When another batch of terrorists occupied the camps, they were amused by how fast weeds grew any place they drained their bladders.
Then it rained.
Did I mention the advanced root system?
The terrorists tried to fight their way out with machetes and flamethrowers, but were buried alive under the vegetation.
~~~
The poppy growers were located in the same region. Poppy farmers looked out their windows in horror as our kudzu engulfed their fields.
Ever resourceful, the farmers sprayed the vines with petrol and set them ablaze. Once the vines were burned down to the ground, they reseeded their fields.
The next morning they were horrified to see new vines poking up through the soil.
They sprayed the vines with potent weed killers and plowed them under.
The kudzu kept growing.
World prices for heroin skyrocketed due to the shrinking supply.
The cocaine and marijuana cartels were just as strangled by our kudzu vines.
And neighboring narcotics growers were dismayed to see the kudzu seeds floating into their fields like giant dandelion puffs.
~~~
“Terrorist camps and training bases have been pretty much eradicated,” I pointed out. “Same with almost every drug-producing region around the world.”
Our judges were impassive.
“China’s planned invasion of Taiwan was forestalled indefinitely due to our kudzu.”
The air force had seeded the Chinese Army’s marshaling areas with a mix of leftover seed.
Taiwan remained free.
The tribunal remained sullen.
“We informed both the DEA and the air force about the advanced root system and seed propagation,” I said. “There was full disclosure on our part.”
No response.
“We only delivered the seeds.” My voice crept up an octave. “They were the ones who used them.”
The problem developed from the vine’s extraordinary root system and how easily the seeds drifted on the slightest breeze. The various strains of kudzu had cross-pollinated, and the hybrids were even nastier than our original batches. The roots were quite adept at finding underground sources of water. Natural aquifers, modern freshwater and sewer systems were sucked dry.
“They only spread the seed three months ago,” I said, sweat beading on my forehead. “We could still find a solution.”
Kudzu had no known predators. Animals and insects did not feed on it, nor bacteria. Weed killers were impotent; even Agent Orange was useless.
As a result, the stuff was spreading — fast. We had, after all, engineered the rapid growth rate. Most of Asia, from the Middle East to the Pacific, now lay buried under a heaving mass of the thorny vines, nearly thirty feet thick.
Ditto South and Central Americas.
The only continent free of the kudzu was Antarctica. However, our kudzu had shown its ability to adapt to various climates and was already being battled in Siberia and Alaska.
“It isn’t our fault,” I repeated.
~~~
The judges conferred.
One spoke.
“You have thirty days to find a way to kill this stuff. Failing that, we’ll put you in a helicopter ourselves and throw you nude into the nearest mass of vines available.”
It wasn’t our fault.
It wasn’t.
And thirty days to save the world, and our own butts, wasn’t much time.
~~~
RORY STEVES is just an old has-been who never was.
Capturing mammoths was all in a day’s work for Deke Atwood. A saber-tooth tiger, on the other hand, was a problem that would require a solution bigger than an elephant gun…
INVOICE H10901: 3 WOOLY MAMMOTHS
by Robert J. Sullivan
Every now and then it’s a good idea to review your career choices. Sitting in a Model T Ford at midnight guarding a baby wooly mammoth from a saber-tooth tiger is a better time than most.
I’m Deke Atwood and I run the Inter-World Trading Company in Manhattan. That’s on Delta Earth. Here, it’s 1921, and in some respects it’s only a little different from the one in your history books. President Cox is in office and Roosevelt is his vice president. Two weeks ago I saw Babe Ruth hit two home runs against the Washington Senators and I’ve got tickets to see Dempsey fight Charpentier in Jersey City in a few weeks, if I live that long. The work isn’t hard, I set my own hours, I meet interesting people, and there are always new challenges. Like collecting wooly mammoths. From other worlds.
My boss called me a week ago and asked if I’d like to pick up a few extra bucks. He had a client who wanted three wooly mammoths and would I mind a side trip to one of the worlds where they’re still alive, pick them out, pack them up, and send them to him? I agreed.
There was a circus playing at Madison Square Garden. I headed that way, asked a few questions and recruited some cowboys who had been wrangling elephants, figuring that was as close to an expert as I was likely to find. With Steve Bremmer’s help, I bought camping supplies, cages, chains, rope, guns, food and transportation. We made the transfer and there we were.
“There” was Zeta Earth. Jumping between parallel worlds is more like time travel since the worlds don’t run at the same speed. On Zeta Earth, for instance, there are no people – at least I never saw any — and critters that died out after the Ice Age on Earth Prime are still running around.
Like wooly mammoths.
And the beasts that eat them.
There was a noise in the darkness. There had been noises in the dark for three hours since I started keeping watch. I took one hand off the .600 Nitro Express rifle I was holding and wiped it on my shirt, then did the other hand. Anything I hit with this was going down. But I’d never shot anything live in my life.
What you do with an object depends on your training, background and inclination, with a factor for emergencies. Hand a pen to Bill Shakespeare and you get a sonnet or play. With Mozart, you get music to inspire. James Bond might stab you with it.
Whoever developed the technology to move between universes must have thought, “Wow! There must be a way to make a ton of money with this!” Their answer was
trade, moving stuff from where it was cheap and selling it where it was expensive. When the business grows enough so the only thing holding you back from making more money is not enough manpower, you recruit people to run offices on both worlds.
I’m one of the recruits. I don’t think there’s anything special about me; I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and it’s worked out great. I deal mostly in luxury items with a high markup: second-hand junk in 1921 — pistols, swords, books, magazines, scrimshaw and the like — become antiques when shifted 80 or 90 years in the future. I can see myself doing this for a long time.
Except for the part about sitting around waiting for a saber-tooth tiger to show up.
The rest of the camp was quiet. There were eight of us: me and the two truck drivers, two animal handlers, and three cowboys I hired from the circus. They were doing a show at the Garden when I talked them into this expedition as a way to make some extra money. Parked next to me sat one of the trucks, and on the other side was the campfire, burning low now but still giving enough light to see fifty feet in front of the car to the cage with the baby mammoth. His parents were staked down beyond the other truck. The elephant handler told me the ropes would hold a small ocean liner.
Another noise sounded in the night, this time behind me. I turned to look, saw nothing but darkness until I started to imagine things. I turned back — and the tiger stood between me and the cage. There hadn’t been a sound from him. Sweat poured down my sides.
The saber-tooth was wildly over-muscled, like a bodybuilder who’d scored a tanker truck of steroids and had spent years bingeing. He reached out and batted at the cage, and the baby mammoth started bawling, wanting mama to come and get him. There was an answering trumpet from his parents and the tiger snarled like a chainsaw slicing through a trash can.
I was in an awkward position to shoot. I hunched forward and raised the rifle to my shoulder, hoping not to be seen. The barrel smacked into the steering wheel and the animal’s head snapped in my direction.
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