“Actually, only a few members of Dominion were invited to be here,” I whispered. “However, if we are very quiet, and if you keep your cloak around you and your hood shadowing your face, they may not notice us.”
She giggled. If she removed the cloak, both of us knew very well they would notice her, whether they noticed me or not.
The Gentheran laboratory representative was as Gentherans always are, fully suited and helmed. He spoke Earthian, as any Gentheran did who had anything to do with humans. “Out of respect,” the Gardener had said, though she had not explained respect for what.
He introduced himself as Prrr (rolled r’s) Tgrr (a great many more rolled r’s.) “Our cooperating contractors and researchers have asked us for an update on the Earth rehabilitation situation. You will recall that during the first Earth-year after the sterilant was applied, the population, exclusive of those outshipped, dropped by slightly over one-point-one-nine percent. It was predicted that between point-nine and one-point-two percent of the population would die naturally in that time, so we are well within the estimates.
“The task of consolidating the population into smaller areas met resistance only during the fifth and sixth year, when the first consolidations took place. There is still some complaint, but it is generally pro forma griping that precedes orderly acquiescence. We make no attempt to remove outlying population centers until the nearest city has lost at least five percent of its population. Only then are outlying populations moved into the vacated housing and the empty nonurban communities razed. Though the process is slow, it is happening everywhere, which makes it an enormous undertaking. We have enlisted all human construction industries to help us in rehabilitation, and all children over the age of ten are required to assist in restoration of grasslands and forests.
“We have replanted five percent of the Brazilian desert where at one time jungles grew in leaf mold containing thousands of microorganisms atop hard, infertile soil. When the trees were burned, so was the leaf mold, along with the microorganisms. The stony, sterile ground was barren. On these barrens we have planted hardy ‘starvation’-type coverage: many thorns, few leaves. When these have had a few decades to accumulate organic detritus, we will plant slightly less hardy things at their roots. After another few decades, we can plant the next generation, and so on. It will take over two hundred years for each acre to achieve fifteen percent of the organic mass it once held. It will take a millennium or more for each acre to achieve anything approaching the fertile growth that was its glory as one of Earth’s chief oxygenators.”
The listeners murmured at this.
“I have said nothing about fauna. Earth fauna was almost totally destroyed long before the sterilant was applied. We have genetic materials from the creatures that were typed before the forests were destroyed, but the typed ones were mostly larger animals that made up only a tiny percentage of the total life-forms. Many bacteria, for example, were never collected, never known to exist. The people of Earth did not understand that humans were part of a worldwide organism, that something as tiny as a cluster of bacteria could mean the difference between life and death for every living thing, the difference between a functioning, flourishing planet and a desolation. We Gentherans believe, as did the Pthas, that this is also true on a galactic scale: Very small things make very large differences, and we must be careful about destruction, even of things that seem useless or evil. We are experimenting with biotic clusters that are functionally parallel to the lost ones, but we cannot expect to achieve a total replication unless we find a pocket, somewhere, of the original forest. Such miraculous finds have happened during reconstructions of other planets, in the mouths of caves or in narrow canyons. We might be lucky enough to find one.
“It is too early to discuss any rehabilitation of the oceans. Perhaps in three or four hundred years, that process may be begun. Are there any questions?”
We listened to the ensuing discussion, some of which reminded me quite a bit of conversations I’d heard on Phobos, as a child. It was concerned with rehabilitation contracts and with the imposition of sustainable economic models. Earth had always operated on a continuous-growth model that requires a poverty class. Sustainable models require productive work by all members and are quite different.
When all the talk was over, the Gentheran thanked them for their attention and the audience, chattering, rose and dispersed. In the doorway, Sophia and I lingered.
Sophia said, “Why didn’t the Gardener tell us about planetary economics? I shall have to read up on it. To tell the truth, Gretamara, I’m a little frightened of going on to Bray.”
“I know, dear. The unknown is frightening, but you have always known it was what you had to do.”
“Yes, but it was always some time in the future. Now it’s immediate, isn’t it. If it were not to be today, surely I would not be here, arranging all the legalities.”
I grinned at her. “Oh, that’s true enough, Lady. If it were not today, you would not be here, nor would I. I hope you feel the Gardener has taught you well.”
“Both of you have taught me to hold my tongue,” said Sophia meaningfully. “I have given you my oath to do so.”
Most of those who had attended the brief meeting had gone even as other delegates to Dominion began to arrive. Two Gentherans came toward us and introduced themselves as Mwrrr Lrrrpa and Prrr Prrrpm. I identified them to myself as smaller one and larger one.
Smaller one of them said, “Von Goldereau d’Lornschilde has just arrived. He’s over there by the door. He’s been badgering us for years to find the heiress of Bray, and we’re told she is here.” She turned her mirrored helmet toward Sophia. “We are told you have grown up in a little town on Chottem,
