Breathing in the fresh air, Troy said, ‘I can see the attraction for the patients, Avril Smallcross and Huw.’
‘Yeah. Nature — and doing nothing — is great for fifteen minutes. Then you’d get bored and want some life.’
‘I suppose. Anyway, I’ve got batteries to recharge. I’m going home for a bit. Back to Grandma’s.’
Lexi glanced at her partner. ‘You live with your grandmother, not your parents?’
Troy brought the shutter down on the topic abruptly. ‘Yes.’
‘Okay. I’ll go and hang out with friends. I’d ask you along but …’
Troy smiled. ‘I wouldn’t mix.’
‘Some of them think majors have only just crawled out of the swamps.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll keep a good distance between you and Grandma as well, because it’s not the done thing to mix with those awful outers.’
Lexi laughed.
Both of their life-loggers vibrated at the same time. ‘Put that on hold,’ Lexi said as she read the message. ‘Looks like we’ve got another job.’
‘Together. Someone on high must think we did all right as a team.’
‘It’s a high-security lab full of dead scientists in Shallow End.’
‘Sounds gruesome,’ Troy said. ‘And obviously not as high security as they thought.’
Lexi stood up and brushed the soil away from her elbows. ‘Charge your batteries some other time. This’ll be good. It’s the unit that handles all the science for The National Space Centre. Perhaps we’ll get a ride into space. I’ve always fancied being an astronaut.’
The real science behind the story
The crimes in all of The Outer Reaches books are inspired by genuine scientific issues and events. Here are a few details of the science that lies behind Body Harvest. Two species
The presence on Earth of two human species is not fantasy. Tens of thousands of years ago, Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans were all alive. There was even a bit of interbreeding going on. Neanderthals and Denisovans became extinct and Homo sapiens (that’s us) continued. In The Outer Reaches, I imagine that one of the other humanoid races did not die out and evolved into outers. Homo sapiens became majors. The outers’ diet
While I have imagined a second human race called outers, I have not made up their diet. All of their meals are genuine bug-based food from around the world. Eating insects and arachnids is called entomophagy. It is much better for the Earth’s resources to eat insects instead of meat. It takes 10 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef but only 1.7 kg of feed to make 1 kg of edible crickets. Weight-for-weight, insect farming releases only 1 per cent of the greenhouse gases emitted by raising sheep and cows and it uses far less water.Trade in body parts
There is an illegal trade in body parts. It is driven by a shortage of organs donated on death. Gangs harvest organs from vulnerable and desperate people, and sometimes from executed prisoners and murder victims. In 2012, the World Health Organisation estimated that 10,000 black-market operations involving bought human organs happen every year, earning fortunes for the traffickers and surgeons.
About the Author
Malcolm Rose is an established, award-winning author, noted for his gripping crime/thriller stories — all with a solid scientific basis.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Malcolm was a university lecturer and researcher in chemistry.
He says that chemistry and writing are not so different. ‘In one life, I mix chemicals, stew them for a while and observe the reaction. In the other, I mix characters, stir in a bit of conflict and, again, observe the outcome.’