“My friends,” her voice boomed through the crowd. I don’t know where she found it but my wife always managed to get herself together when it mattered. “First let me apologize profusely for your hearing this news from any other source but me. I want to assure you, our teams have been working tirelessly since this infection was discovered and we have a plan.” Eliza looked over her shoulder and I took that as my queue to step forward.
“The infection appears to be a mutated form of P. infestans, or common potato blight. It is most likely harmless to humans as a whole, but we are recommending that if you encounter a potato with discolored flesh that you cut it out and sanitize your tools and hands. The real danger here is spreading the fungus to healthy plants, not spreading it among humans.” I paused for a breath and noticed that the crowd had calmed down considerably. The science talk always helped, but it was the reassurance that their food wouldn’t kill them that took away most of the vitriol. “I have some strangely good news for you, though. The first step in combating this infection is for us to harvest each and every potato plant. There will be teams coming around to instruct you on the best way to do this. The upside of this is that for the next few days, there will be no restricted access to food.” Small cheers could be heard from a few of the heavier colonists. “We encourage you to stuff your faces as much as humanly possible. Fiona and her team will be freezing a minimum calorie count for the entire colony that will last a few days. Everything else is up for grabs.”
The crowd had gone silent. I expect that they were a little confused. The conflicting messages of eminent starvation with the news of untold amounts of food was strange. The outcries had turned into snippets of conversation. I even saw a few hesitant smiles.
“You will be relieved from all other non-essential duties until the task is completed.” Eliza took over again. “Any questions or concerns can be directed to myself, Fiona, Alexander Fang, or Marcus. Complaints can be submitted to the latrine. This is not something we’re doing for fun or because we think it’s a good idea. This is about survival.” The crowd didn’t move, seemingly waiting for more information.
“Get going!” Eliza shouted, and they scattered. She turned to me and yanked her sleeves up to her elbow.
“Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Six
We ended up with a veritable mountain of spuds, fit for a king. The blight wasn’t as widespread as I had feared, affecting about forty percent of the crop. As we harvested I took ample soil samples from random spots throughout the fields to take down to the lab later. It was more important to focus on the victories and boost morale for now. In addition to the fire at the center of camp several more were built with the express purpose of roasting and many potatoes as possible. A few enterprising individuals managed to scare up some jugs and threw together the ingredients for potato vodka. Having grown up on shitty shelter wine, my mouth watered at the prospect of drinking real bonafide vodka. Whoever managed to brew it was about to become very popular.
I took my third potato out of the fire and split it open, basking in the heat from the steam that warmed my face in the cooling evening light. Salting the next piece of my feast I sunk my teeth into the hot potato and groaned. I wasn’t one to take things for granted but knowing that I could eat as much as my stomach could hold was heaven. I took another bite and shut my eyes, laying back onto the cool grass. The stars were peeking out of the sky, a constellation of paint scattered among the heavens by a cosmic painter. I had seen the sky a million times in simulations but nothing compared to the real thing. It was easy to see how early mankind had cast their gaze upwards and decreed that they were seeing God. Swallowing the last of the potato I let my eyes slide shut. A cool breeze floated over me and I listened to the noises of a thousand other people as they stuffed themselves. We were facing a crisis, of course, but this was a moment of peace that I wished I could hold on to forever.
I squinted my eyes as a light shone in my face. Somebody with a flashlight…? I pushed myself up from the ground to yell at the person interrupting my reverie but no one was there. Instead a bright blue light had appeared on the horizon, shining so brightly that I could barely look at it directly without my eyes hurting. The beam stretched far into the sky like a kind of celestial laser beam. I wasn’t the only one whose eating had been interrupted by the appearance of the light, everywhere you looked people are gathering and talking. The light didn’t seem to be doing anything other than shining; I didn’t hear anything or see any movement, so it was unlikely to be any kind of weapon. Eliza jogged over to me.
“What the hell is that?” She pointed toward the light as if it was possible that I had missed it.
“Honey, what makes you think I have any idea? We haven’t been incinerated so I’m not too worried about it. It’s pretty.”
“Still, it’s the first sign of anyone else we’ve seen out here. It’s obviously not natural, it looks like its coming
