A Civil Campaign

Enrique looked indignant, but refrained from denying this last statement out loud.

'Its great value lies in its efficiency,' Mark went on. It was a good thing they hadn't started out by showing Miles a whole colony of butter bugs. Or worse, a queen butter bug. They could work up to the queen butter bugs much later, once they'd dragged their prospective patron over the first few psychological humps. 'These things eat almost any kind of low-grade organic feedstocks. Corn stalks, grass clippings, seaweed, you name it. Then, inside their gut, the organic matter is processed by a carefully-orchestrated array of symbiotic bacteria into . . . bug butter curds. Which the butter bugs regur—return through their mouths and pack into special cells, in their hive, all ready for humans to harvest. The raw butter curds—'

Enrique, unnecessarily, pointed to the last fragment still sitting on the foil.

'Are perfectly edible at this point,' Mark went on more loudly, 'though they can be flavored or processed further. We're considering more sophisticated product development by adding bacteria to provide desirable flavors to the curds right in the bug's guts, so even that processing step won't be necessary.'

'Bug vomit,' said Miles, working through the implications. 'You fed me bug vomit.' He touched his hand to his lips, and hastily poured himself some wine. He looked at the butter bug, looked at the remaining fragment of curd, and drank deeply. 'You're insane,' he said with conviction. He drank once more, carefully swishing the wine around in his mouth for a long time before swallowing.

'It's just like honey,' Mark said valiantly, 'only different.'

Miles's brow wrinkled, as he considered this argument. 'Very different. Wait. Is that what was in that crate you brought in, these vomit bugs?'

'Butter bugs,' Enrique corrected frostily. 'They pack most efficiently—'

'How many . . . butter bugs?'

'We rescued twenty queen-lines in various stages of development before we left Escobar, each supported by about two hundred worker bugs,' Enrique explained. 'They did very well on the trip—I was so proud of the girls—they more than doubled their numbers en route. Busy, busy! Ha, ha!'

Miles's lips moved in calculation. 'You've carted upwards of eight thousand of those revolting things into my house ?'

'I can see what you're worried about,' Mark cut in quickly, 'and I assure you, it won't be a problem.'

'I don't think you can, but what won't be a problem?'

'Butter bugs are highly controllable, ecologically speaking. The worker bugs are sterile; only the queens can reproduce, and they're parthenogenetic—they don't become fertile till treated with special hormones. Mature queens can't even move, unless their human keeper moves them. Any worker bug that might chance to get out would just wander about till it died, end of story.'

Enrique made a face of distress at this sad vision. 'Poor thing,' he muttered.

'The sooner, the better,' said Miles coldly. 'Yuk!'

Enrique looked reproachfully at Mark, and began in a low voice, 'You promised he'd help us. But he's just like all the others. Short-sighted, emotional, unreasoning—'

Mark held up a restraining hand. 'Calm down. We haven't even gotten to the main part yet.' He turned to Miles. 'Here's the real pitch. We think Enrique can develop a strain of butter bugs to eat native Barrayaran vegetation, and convert it into humanly-digestible food.'

Miles's mouth opened, then shut again. His gaze sharpened. 'Go on . . .'

'Picture it. Every farmer or settler out in the backcountry could keep a hive of these butter bugs, which would crawl around eating all that free alien food that you folks go to so much trouble to eradicate with all the burning and terraforming treatments. And not only would the farmers get free food, they would get free fertilizer as well. Butter bug guano is terrific for plants—they just sop it up, and grow like crazy.'

'Oh.' Miles sat back, an arrested look in his eyes. 'I know someone who is very interested in fertilizers . . .'

Mark went on, 'I want to put together a development company, here on Barrayar, to both market the existing butter bugs, and create the new strains. I figure with a science genius like Enrique and a business genius like me,' and let us not get the two mixed up , 'well, there's no limit to what we can get.'

Miles frowned thoughtfully. 'And what did you get on Escobar, if I may ask? Why bring this genius and his product all the way here?'

Enrique would have got about ten years in jail, if I hadn't come along, but let's not go into that . 'He didn't have me to handle the business, then. And the Barrayaran application is just absolutely compelling, don't you think?'

'If it can be made to work.'

'The bugs can work to process Earth-descended organic matter right now. We'll market that as soon as we can, and use the proceeds to finance the basic research on the other. I can't set a timetable for that till Enrique has had more time to study Barrayaran biochemistry. Maybe a year or two, to, ah, get all the bugs out.' Mark grinned briefly.

'Mark . . .' Miles frowned at the butter bug box, now sitting closed on the table. Tiny scratching noises arose from it. 'It sounds logical, but I don't know if logic is going to sell to the proles. Nobody will want to eat food that comes out of something that looks like that . Hell, they won't want to eat anything it touches .'

'People eat honey,' argued Mark. 'And that comes out of bugs.'

'Honeybees are . . . sort of cute. They're furry, and they have those classy striped uniforms. And they're armed with their stings, just like little swords, which makes people respect them.'

'Ah, I see—the insect version of the Vor class,' Mark murmured sweetly. He and Miles exchanged edged smiles.

Enrique said, in a bewildered tone, 'So do you think if I put stings on my butter bugs, Barrayarans would like them better?'

'No!' said Miles and Mark together.

Enrique sat back, looking rather hurt.

'So.' Mark cleared his throat. 'That's the plan. I'll be setting up Enrique in a proper facility as soon as I have time to find something suitable. I'm not sure whether here in Vorbarr Sultana or out in Hassadar would be better—if this takes off, it could bring in a lot of business, which you might like for the District.'

'True . . .' allowed Miles. 'Talk to Tsipis.'

'I plan to. Do you begin to see why I think of them as money bugs? And do you think you might want to invest? Nothing like getting in on the ground floor, and all that.'

'Not . . . at this time. Thanks all the same,' said Miles neutrally.

'We, ah, do appreciate the temporary space, you know.'

'No problem. Or at least . . .' his eye chilled, 'it had better not be.'

In the conversational lull that followed, Miles was apparently recalled to his place as a host, and he offered up the food and drinks. Enrique chose beer, and treated them to a dissertation on the history of yeast in human food production, going back to Louis Pasteur, with side comments on parallels between yeast organisms and the butter bugs' symbiotes. Miles drank more wine and didn't say much. Mark nibbled