Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

meet rugged cliffs. The river, gray with silt,
hugged the canyon’s other wall. Perhaps a half
klick downstream from where they stood, a
small but spectacular cascade burst from the
nearer rock face to crash into the waters far
below. Rikki dubbed the torrent Beagle Falls.
How long ago had this valley silted up? Had
the silt accumulated gradually, or had it settled
out in the aftermath of some terrible flood?
She didn’t know, but an answer to that mystery
could wait.
Craning her neck, peering up and up and
up, Rikki studied the nearer canyon wall. Two
hundred or so meters high. Sedimentary rock.
Barren of life, of course, without even a hint
of greenery. Great crags and brooding hollows
carved as water and wind had patiently eroded
the softest rock. Several dozen strata, of
varying depths, in countless shades of gray.
Subtle, subdued red tones here and there
among the grays.
She took out her camera. With its laser
rangefinder active to capture precise distances
and scales, she started panning.
“Magnificent,” Blake said. “It reminds me of
the Grand Canyon.”
“Then my suggestion was worthwhile?”
“You tell me.”
She couldn’t know without detailed analysis,
but yes, she was sure. “The layering of the
rock embodies sedimentation rates over time.
Those reflect the climate.” And cycles of the
climate, over perhaps millions of years.
“And that’s important?”
She couldn’t know that yet, either. “It might
be.”
The inevitable confrontation began after
dinner, in an impassioned and arcane outpouring
of verbiage from Rikki. Blake, Dana,
and Antonio, looking on approvingly, were
clearly in on it. And the four had waited till
Carlos, Li’s dependable ally (when sober, anyway),
had left for his shift at the childcare center.
Climate. Growing season. Terraform. Blah,
blah, blah.
Rikki finally wound down.
“I don’t know,” Li told the assembled peasants.
The more candid answer would have been I
don’t care. Candor did not suit her purpose.
Nor did the topic matter. It mattered only
that they found something over which to
DARK SECRET
JUNE 2013
rebel. Something other than the manner of
childrearing.
“It’s important,” Rikki insisted. She spoke
too loud and stood too close. Her chin jutted
out and she had crossed her arms across her
chest.
Classic belligerence, Li thought. Excellent.
“Maybe someday.”
“Respectfully,” Blake began, “I disagree. We
shouldn’t wait.”
“Of course you disagree,” Li said. Goading
him by criticizing his woman. Because, as Li
made a point of reinforcing from time to time,
she was never subtle.
“Damn it, Li,” Rikki said, “be reasonable.
We need to understand the climate. Climate
affects our food supply. You must care about
that.”
Li smiled condescendingly: another goad.
“We settled almost inside the tropics. Can you
find us someplace suitable anywhere
warmer?”
“That’s the point,” Antonio said. “If the climate
fails us . . . here, the colony is in trouble.
Let’s find out sooner rather than later. While
maybe there’s still the opportunity to change
things.”
Blake’s turn. “Or we may find we’ve lucked
out. This one set of observations, from this
one canyon, suggests the trend might be to
warmer weather. It would be nice to have an
idea when and how far we can expand into
higher latitudes.”
Li said, “Planning for the long run.”
“Exactly,” Dana said.
In the long run, we’re all dead. Li couldn’t
remember who, other than someone long
dead, had first said that. The provenance
didn’t matter because she wasn’t going to
quote it. She wanted the four of them to prevail.
Convince me, people. Convince yourselves
you convinced me.
“We need to eat,” Rikki said. “The children
need to eat.”
They had an entire world to farm. How
could they ever lack for food? But if she were
wrong, if on occasion they wound up supplementing
crops with a bit of bacterial sludge,
so be it. What mattered was raising obedient,
subservient children to do the colony’s bidding.
To do her bidding.
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