Civilization on Earth was rich, comfortable, satisfying; and crowded, and dull. Forty million university graduates had volunteered for the expedition. The first winnowing had eliminated compulsive volunteers, flakes whose horoscopes had told them to find a different sky, candidates with allergies or other handicaps, geniuses who couldn't tolerate cramped conditions or human company or people who gave orders... Perhaps a hundred thousand had been seriously considered; and two hundred had set forth to conquer Tau Ceti Four. Eight had died along the way.
No world would ever be tamed by robots. It took men, crossing space, some awake, some chilled, a hundred years across space—The early days were good days. We were comrades in an untamed land.
Then we found Paradise, and they don't need me at all. They need Sylvia. They need the engineers, and the tractor drivers, and, God help us, the administrators and bean counters, but never a soldier.
Sheep and calves roamed the pastures now. Colts grazed. Soon the camp would be full of children, alive with their happy wet smells and sounds; and what need had those for Colonel Cadmann Weyland, United Nations Peacekeeping Force (Ret.)?
Animals... a distant lowing snapped Cadmann out of his reverie. They were nearing the rows of moist, furrowed earth. Other crews had burnt the ground, spitting jellied fuel from backpack flame-throwers to clear the soil of underbrush without glazing it into slag. The charred dirt had long since been plowed under to prepare for seeding. The ground was very fertile, needing only minor nitrate supplementation to provide a healthy medium for their crops.
In the distance one of the farmers slowed his tractor to wave to them, and Ernst lifted two samlon in triumphant greeting. Further ahead Cadmann knew that there were colts and calves, still far too young to manage the plows that would be fashioned for them. It was an unusual combination—a meld of high technology and muscle-intensive agriculture. In an emergency, the Colony could fall back on the most ancient and reliable means of production.
There were rows of wheat and spinach and soybeans, and in the mist-filtered glare of Tau Ceti their leaves and stalks glistened healthily. At the base of the rows ran the irrigation ditches, fed by the stream that passed under the low bridge just ahead, flowing past the camp and over the edge of the bluff to join the Miskatonic River.
The sounds of the main camp drifted to them. The hum of light machinery, the crackle of laughter and the whining burr of saws and lathes working wood and metal.
The animal pens were on the outskirts of the main camp. Dogs and pigs had their own pens, the horses a well-fenced running space. The chickens were cooped near the machine shop, closer in to the main compound.
Cadmann stopped to examine the wire surrounding the pens. His face taughtened into a frown. Their "hot wire" wasn't even warm; the power had been switched off months before. The barbed wire beyond that was down in three places that he could see. He scraped at a brownish patch of rust with his thumbnail.
"Let it go," Sylvia chided.
"Look at this." His voice was flat with disgust. "The strands are slack, and the power line is broken. Doesn't anybody give a damn anymore? We haven't been here long enough to get this lazy."
"Cad—" Sylvia's pale slender fingers covered his, prying them away from the strand. She gripped his hand tightly.
"Look, I know I keep getting outvoted, and I can live with that." He was mortified to hear the petulance creeping into his voice, to see the maternal concern softening her eyes. "Listen. You keep telling me that there are things about this island that bother you. We've only got one shot at this. Nobody's going home, and no one's sending any reinforcements. It only makes sense to be a little paranoid. That's why we picked an island, isn't it? To localize the dangers?"
She squeezed his arm. "I can't change your mind, so I'll try not to want to. Listen. Why make a big thing about it? Why not just fix the fence yourself?"
"Sounds good."
"Good. I'll send for you when we're ready for the barbecue."
Just before they took the last turn into town, Cadmann looked back at the farmers and felt a brief pang of jealousy. They, in wresting victory from the soil, were the true hunters, the true warriors. Ultimately their efforts would determine the future of the fledgling community.
The sun was warm, but far warmer was Sylvia's hand against his arm.
The community had grown in a strangely organic manner; the first crewmembers to build their individual prefab huts had built them close together within the defensive perimeter.
Perimeters. Three rings. Electric fence, minefield, barbed wire. It made sense at the time.
Cadmann's folly.
And one of these days they'll make me go dig up the mines. No enemies.
No dangers. Nothing. And all that fucking work to build fences.
Most of the colonists had only been awake for eight months, and already they were beginning to get sloppy.
As they had been awakened and shuttled down, the camp expanded, filling the defensive compound, then spreading outside it. From above, the Colony looked like a spiral nebula or a conch shell sliced sideways. Cadmann's home was at the center.
The colonists outside the fence had more room, larger lots—but their location showed their status. Colonists. They were not among the First Ones. Everyone on Avalon was equal, but some were more equal than others. The First Ones had landed four months earlier and had social status—at least those who hadn't wasted time and effort building needless fences and mine fields had status.
The muffled whirr of a power saw grew louder, and the dry smell of sawdust more distinct, as Cadmann wove his way through the narrow streets that divided off the flat-roofed houses and foam-sprayed prestructured domes. Some of the domes had been left in their original tan. Others were painted, some with a kaleidoscope of colors. Here and there were strikingly realistic murals. We have a lot of talent here. All kinds. Speaking of which—The saw changed pitch as Carlos Martinez spotted Cadmann and lifted a hand in greeting.
Carlos's dark, lean body glistened with perspiration as he glided the saw over the planks. The thorn trees at the perimeter of the clearing provided a generous supply of wood, but it was knotty and coarsely grained. Only a master craftsman like Carlos could have made anything but firewood of it, and the carpenter was deliciously aware of his valued position.
Half the Colony's dwellings had a table or bed frame by Carlos. It was doubtful that he would ever have to take his rotation in the field to earn his share of the crop.
"Cadmann! Mi amigo." Carlos wiped his brow and extended a sweaty palm that Cadmann shook firmly. Carlos was a true mongrel, and gloried in it. Originally from Argentina, his bloodline was predominately black, his cultural leanings anyone's guess. His Spanish was atrocious, but he interjected it into his conversation regardless. "I heard that you had gone off with the lovely Senorita Faulkner."
"Senora," Cadmann corrected. He moved in for a closer look at the woodwork on the bench. It was the beginnings of a headboard for Carlos's bed, and already penciled on it were mermaids cavorting in improbable couplings with virile mermen and grinning sailors. He sighed.
"Senora." Carlos smiled mischievously. "It is true that sometimes I forget."
"It'll get easier to remember." He patted his stomach. "She's got a passenger on board now."
Carlos raised his eyebrows in lecherous speculation. "She is taking on good flesh, no? My people, we appreciate a—" he screwed up his mouth in a dramatic search for the right word—"a substantial woman."
"Substantial."
"Si! A helpmate in the fields, a comfort by the fireside. Ah, the days of old..."
"Cut the crap," Cadmann said without heat. "Your family never got closer to the fields than the handle of a whip. They've had silk on their backs and diplomas in their pockets for six generations. At least." He turned and worked the latch of his own foam-frame igloo.