The group seemed to look naturally to Kwame to take a lead, and he had a gravitas that lent itself to that assumption. But either he couldn’t speak fast enough to keep up with them, or his leadership skills were damaged along with his brain. He grew irritated, and his only good idea was to vote on it, which of course got nowhere.
Olivia had been snoring away in a fitful doze, and I didn’t notice her wake up and take a desultory look through the seed list. It was only later, when I reviewed the recordings, that I saw her sit bolt upright in her chair as she came to a certain entry; then get to her feet and head over to rifle through the seed bins. Veofol noticed, went over and asked her what she was doing.
“It’s flax mustard!” she exclaimed.
Veofol looked at the listing. “Yellow mustard grass? Are you sure?”
“You can call it what you like, but sniff that!” She held out a handful of seeds. Veofol inhaled their scent, but he had very little sense of smell at the best of times. By this point, I’d made my own way over, and Olivia demanded I take a sniff too. To me, they were pungent and vile. I staggered back, coughing at the stench.
“There might be a problem,” said Veofol. “Look at this.” He gave me the pad, and showed me the warning: while it came up with pretty yellow flowers prized by some garden designers, yellow mustard grass also contained isothiocyanates, which were deadly poison to some human species.
“Olivia, are you intending to grow this for food?” I asked.
“Now there’s an idea…” She took up a lungful of their scent with the greatest pleasure.
“You do know it’s poisonous for some people?”
“That’s fine. I won’t share.” She breathed in the stench once more. “I haven’t had this since we ran out at Tringarrick…”
“I’m serious, Olivia. If there’s anyone in the group who can be hurt by this, I’ll have every seed dug up and destroyed.”
“Yeh. Poisonous. You said.” She looked round at the still-ongoing squabble. “Huh. Right.” She rolled up her sleeves (quite literally) and strode over to the group.
“All right, SHUT UP. Here’s what we’re going to do.” They looked round, surprised to see her on her feet. “We’re going to have a mixed flower and vegetable garden. Flowers on the borders and fruit and veg inside. We’re going to mark out plots and pick what goes in ’em. You,” she said to Liss, “pick five flowers and no more. Got that? Five. You,” she said to Pew, “pick ten fruit and veg. The first one’s yellow mustard grass and then whatever you like. You two,” she said to Iokan and Kwame, “help me get the tools.”
Kwame bristled. “I would like to have some say in the choice of—”
“You had a say, and all you did was talk. Get the bloody tools.”
Kwame looked furious, but the argument was prevented by a soft chime in my ear. “Kwame,” I said, “I think your advocate’s ready. She’s a bit early but would you like to have your meeting?”
“I would,” he said. Veofol accompanied him back to the centre and the remote meeting room.
“Are you going to help?” Olivia demanded of Iokan.
“Sure. Lead the way,” he said, a little amused, and followed her to the floating toolshed.
A couple of hours later, it was clear that Olivia knew what she was doing. She sketched a layout on a pad, and used stakes and twine to mark out flower and vegetable beds with Iokan’s help (though I think she could have done everything herself without taking much longer). She came back to me with questions about the condition of the earth, the local rainfall, the climate in general, and demanded a test for soil pH, which came out at a very promising 6.2. While she waited for that, I made sure none of the group would be likely to die from contact with her precious mustard grass. By that time, the others had picked what else they wanted to plant, and she directed the group to prepare the ground, turning over the sod and exposing fresh soil beneath. It was the first time I’d seen her take pleasure in something that wasn’t vindictive, and it was clear she’d learnt her skills on more than the barren soil of the Tringarrick research station.
Pew tried to show Liss how to dig her allotted section, though she was slow to learn. But Pew’s own work was fast and good. He explained that he’d spent a lot of time in the zoo’s vegetable garden during his childhood, and made excellent time, planting a number of crops before the day was out. Olivia even paid his work a grudging compliment.
Kwame was brought back out by Veofol, looking even more grave than usual. I asked him how his meeting had gone.
“My case has been postponed indefinitely,” he said. “They say there is no body competent to investigate my claims, because the Interversal Criminal Tribunal is not fully convened.”
“I see.”
“This is bureaucracy at work. The only people who can judge me are allowed to judge no one.”
“Well, the ICT is the only body that might be able to look into a genocide. But they’re also supposed to investigate claims of interference between one universe and another, and that’s rather controversial. It’s only there in a shadow capacity until the IU decides whether or not to activate it.”
“And when will that be?”
“It’s a tricky political question,” I said. “Some member species are against it in principle.”
“And how many worlds did they murder?”
“The issues aren’t quite that extreme,” I said. “They’re more worried about what the IU would have to become if we started making judgements, or they’d prefer we didn’t interfere in their affairs. You should probably do your own research on this, or we can discuss it in group if you like.”
“That will change nothing…” He looked back at the main building and said: “How long has she been there?”
I followed his look. Katie stood by the side of the building, watching the others while they worked.
“That’s a good question,” I said. It turned out she had emerged half an hour earlier and moved to a shadow to watch. I called her name and asked if she wanted a chair. She didn’t reply. I sent Veofol. He spoke to her briefly, then came back looking puzzled.
“Rather odd,” he said. “I asked her but she didn’t answer for about a minute. Then she said she didn’t need anything.”
“She is a machine. Why do you keep her here?” asked Kwame.
“She needs help as much as the rest of you.” I turned to Veofol. “Is she all right now?”
“Seems as well as ever,” said Veofol.
“Let me know if she does anything similar,” I said.
Olivia, meanwhile, was losing patience with Liss. With the natural strength of her species and her own clumsiness, she repeatedly made a mess of preparing a plot. After finishing a section of her own, Olivia was incensed to discover that Liss had been digging too deep. Olivia told her she wasn’t supposed to be excavating foundations. Liss protested that she didn’t know how to do this, and why were they doing it themselves anyway when they had all sorts of tools that could float in and do it for them? That made Olivia particularly angry; she told Liss they were doing it because it needed to be done and she wasn’t going to get any of her precious flowers without it. Liss said that was stupid and she was going to go and get mechanical help. Olivia told her exactly what she thought of her — she was lazy, she’d never done a day’s work in her life, she sat on her backside while other people did all the hard work, and so on. Liss responded by calling Olivia a mean old bitch, flinging her tools down and leaving the garden in a huff. I sent Veofol after her, decided a short break was called for, and had a word with Olivia about tact, though I only got muttering and grumbles in reply.