The Seeds of Man Read online

  But according to her father, the overriding concern was to supply the starving populace with cold-tolerant seeds, regardless of the dangers. To hear him tell it, the Sanctuary should transform itself into what amounted to a factory—and distribute seeds far and wide. And to hell with the consequences.

  As Lora arrived in Section 4, her thoughts turned to the task at hand. Having removed the soil from the planter boxes, the students were installing a new irrigation system to replace one that was twenty years old. Since Lora liked to work with her hands, she delighted in laying tubing, hooking it up to the misters, and testing each run to make sure that it was working properly.

  So she was already engrossed in her work by the time class started. Mr. Teal was there to offer advice when required but was willing to let his students make mistakes as part of the learning process. And he was willing to tolerate some horseplay as well, which typically resulted in one or more people getting wet.

  The class was over before Lora knew it. She was down on her knees working on a water manifold when Mr. Teal appeared beside her. “We made good progress today . . . It’s time to wrap it up.”

  “Okay, Mr. T. All I need is another ten minutes. I’ll put the tools away.”

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Lora heard the crunch of gravel as the instructor walked away—and was busy tightening a hose clamp when she heard the same sound again. Five minutes had passed by then, but she was expecting to see Mr. T as she turned to look. Only it wasn’t Mr. T. Becky’s brother Luke was big, strong, and nineteen years old.

  The kick was already on the way and, if Lora hadn’t been in motion by then, would have connected with her head. As it was, Luke’s boot grazed her temple. She fell sideways and tried to roll away. But Luke followed, kicking where he could and connecting with various parts of her anatomy. Her right shoulder, arm, and ribs all took hits.

  The pain was intense, and all Lora could do was roll up into a ball and wrap her arms around her head. A blow hit one of her thighs, and Lora figured that Luke was going to beat her to death; then he stopped. She couldn’t see, but the voice was clear enough. “That’s for Becky . . . Don’t go near her again.”

  There was a crunching sound as Luke walked away. Lora hadn’t cried until then, but suddenly tears came. A deep sob rocked her body, but it made her injuries hurt even more, so she stopped. That was when Lora moved—or tried to. But the pain was so intense that she couldn’t get up. So she lay there, staring at the level above, careful not to move. At some point she fell asleep, something that became apparent when she awoke to her father’s voice. “Oh, Lora,” George Larsy said sadly as he knelt next to her. “What have they done to you?“

  Lora felt a profound sense of gratitude as her father scooped her up and carried her to the elevators. The hospital was on Level 18, and she heard her father tell someone, “Please let me by,” as they crossed a narrow sky bridge. Then there were lights, doctors, and tests. “Nothing is broken,” she heard someone say. “Give her one of these every four hours and let her rest. She’ll be sore for the next few days.”

  “Okay, let’s see if you can stand,” a female voice said. Lora sat up, winced, and swung her feet off the examining table. Her father was there to help her down. The doctor had a kindly face and wore a stethoscope around her neck. “Call me if she feels dizzy or nauseous.”

  George promised that he would and assisted his daughter out through a sliding door. It was dark by that time. A Toshiba microreactor supplied almost all the Sanctuary’s power; the habitat’s citizens could have kept the lights on twenty-four hours a day had they desired to.

  But most people preferred the traditional diurnal cycle—so the lights began to fade around six o’clock. And now it was at least two hours later than that. As George and Lora crossed a sky bridge, the transparent elevator tubes glowed in front of them. They entered a capsule and rode it down. The car came to a smooth stop, and Lora was grateful for the relative darkness as her father escorted her home. If there was anything worse than getting beaten up, it was being stared at. It felt good to enter their tiny apartment and collapse on the couch.

  That was when Lora saw the items laid out on the floor. She looked at her father. He had a shock of gray hair, a long face, and sallow skin. “What is this stuff?”

  “Things we’re going to need,” George replied vaguely. “We’ll get into that—but first I want to know what happened today. And don’t leave anything out. The hospital has notified the protectors by now, and they will want to speak with you.”

  So Lora told him, starting with Matt, followed by the run-in with Becky and Luke’s sudden appearance. As she told the story, her father’s face began to darken and she could see the anger in his eyes. “The bastard! I would press assault charges if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re leaving.”

  Lora sat up. “We’re what?”

  “I was going to tell you when you came home from school,” George explained as he took a seat in his favorite chair. “And when you failed to arrive, I went looking. Anyway, there was a council meeting last night, and I was there.”

  “They threw you out. Matt told me.”

  George winced. “Yes. My friends and I made a last-ditch attempt to convince the council that it should carry out the mission the Canadian government had in mind back when the seed bank was constructed.”

  “Right,” Lora said sarcastically. “And how did that go?”

  “You know the answer. They said no. That’s why we’re leaving. We’re going to take some seeds and deliver them to the right people. Then we’re going to teach them how to propagate more seeds. And eventually it will make a difference.”

  Lora was shocked, dismayed, and frightened. “You’re serious? The leavers are going to leave?”

  “Yes,” George said, “that’s the plan.”

  “But it’s illegal. The only people who are allowed to go outside are the protectors and maintenance crews.”

  “We’re going anyway,” George said steadfastly. “We’ve been working on it for months, making the gear we’ll need, and gathering information. Now we’re ready. We’ll be gone by this time tomorrow night. Can you imagine? Outside!”

  Lora was momentarily mute in the face of her father’s boyish enthusiasm. Then she found her voice. “What about me? What if I don’t want to leave?”

  “I continue to struggle with that,” George admitted. “At sixteen you aren’t a child anymore. But you aren’t an adult either, and I’m selfish—I can’t bear the thought of leaving you behind. Besides,” he said hopefully, “look at what happened today. Do you really want to stay?”

  Lora had to admit that the thought of being able to leave Kristy, Becky, and algebra behind had a lot of appeal, as did the prospect of experiencing the outside world. But unlike her father, she was a pragmatist, and that meant she could see some problems looming ahead. Big problems. “What will we eat?” she wanted to know.

  “We’ve been stockpiling food for some time,” George replied. “Enough to last for three months. Longer if we can supplement our rations with wild game.”

  “And the barbarians?” Lora asked. “What about them?”

  “We’ll try to avoid contact with the wrong sort of people,” George said. “But if it comes to that, we’ll be ready to defend ourselves.”

  Lora knew next to nothing about weapons and fighting, and her father didn’t either. But she could tell that his mind was made up. “So you’ll force me to go?”

  George shook his head. “No, Lora . . . I won’t make you go. Stay if you must. But I hope you’ll come.”

  Lora didn’t want to leave the Sanctuary for the same reasons other people didn’t, but the prospect of parting company with her father was more than she could bear. “All right,” she said reluctantly, “I’m in.”

  George’s face lit up. “Really? That’s wonderful! Now, remember . . . What we’re going to do is a closely held secret, so don’t tell anyone. And work on getting well. I would delay t
he departure date if I could, but the longer we wait, the more likely a leak becomes, and we’ll only get one opportunity. If we blow that, it’s over for good.

  “Now, take it easy,” George added. “I’ll move this stuff to my bedroom. The protectors could drop by at any moment.”

  “What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them the truth minus the meeting with Matt. It has nothing to do with the beating and there’s no reason to get him in trouble.”

  “Should I go to school in the morning?”

  George grinned. “No, you have the perfect excuse not to. I’ll call Wilkes and tell him that you’re in a lot of pain.”

  Two protectors arrived shortly after that. George let them in and listened while they asked all the obvious questions. Did she recognize her attacker? Did he use a weapon? And so forth. Lora answered honestly and they left.

  After a light dinner, Lora went to bed, but she couldn’t sleep. Not with the day’s events running through her mind—and fears about the future to confront. But after an hour of lying there, she was able to drift off. A jumble of troubled dreams was waiting for her.

  Lora was in pain when she awoke. Everything hurt. So she hobbled into the bathroom, swallowed a pain pill, and began to take inventory. There was a scratch on one cheek, her upper lip was swollen, and an angry-looking bruise appeared as she removed her tee. She touched it, winced, and turned to the shower. Having kicked her panties off, Lora stepped in under the pulsating spray. It hurt like hell. She made the necessary adjustment and uttered a sigh of relief. She knew that soaping herself would be painful, so she let that step go and just stood there, water running down her body, wondering if that was the last hot shower she would ever have.

  After toweling off and getting dressed, Lora listened to see if her father was up and around. He wasn’t, and that was just as well, because there was something she wanted to do—no, had to do. Something he wouldn’t approve of.

  School was going to start in an hour, so when she sent the text message to Matt, she was pretty sure that he would respond; the reply came seconds later. Lora put her comset in her pocket, slipped out of the apartment, and made her way to the central elevators. Each step was painful and made all the more so by her attempts to walk normally. There wasn’t any way to conceal the fat lip, but the last thing she wanted to do was attract attention by limping across the sky bridge.

  However, most of the people she encountered were on their way to work and not inclined to pay much attention to those around them. Still, when Lora got off on Level 7, she took a quick look around to make sure that she wasn’t under observation. As far as she could tell, no one was paying attention to her.

  So she crossed a sky bridge to the east side and followed the circular walkway to the spot where she and the rest of the students in Agro 105 were installing the new irrigation system and where Luke had attacked her. There was one last hose to attach to the manifold, and she was determined to finish the job before leaving the Sanctuary.

  After removing a screwdriver from a plastic toolbox, she went over to the spot where she’d had been working the day before and lowered herself to the ground. Various parts of her body still hurt, but not as badly as before. Maybe a little bit of exercise would be good for her.

  And that’s where she was, making the final connection, when Matt arrived. He was dressed for school and sat down next to her. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. They arrested Luke . . . and a good thing too.”

  Lora completed the hookup and then sat cross-legged. “He deserves it—that’s for sure.” She was silent for a moment. “Matt . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you keep a secret? An important secret?”

  “Sure. How ‘bout that time you cut school? I never told.”

  “No, you didn’t. And I appreciate that. Well, here’s the deal. My father and some of his friends are going to leave the hab about nine o’clock tonight. And I’m going with them.”

  “Holy cow! You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope, I’m not kidding. We’re going to take some seeds to people who need them. But I couldn’t leave without telling you. You’re the only friend I have.”

  Matt looked embarrassed. “Yeah, well, that goes for me too. If you leave I’ll be all alone.”

  “You’ll have Cory.”

  “Do me a favor . . . Take him with you.”

  Lora laughed as she stood. “Thanks for everything, Matt. And remember, don’t tell.”

  “I won’t,” Matt promised. “Take care of yourself.”

  Lora turned and walked away. Tears were flowing by then, and she didn’t want him to see.

  The rest of the day passed slowly—from her perspective, at least. Because unlike her father, who had lots of mysterious errands to run, all Lora could do was place some personal items in a case her father gave her and wait. They had dinner at six and tried to take naps, but Lora couldn’t sleep.

  Finally seven forty-five rolled around and George gave Lora a final briefing. “Okay, hon, we’re going to leave at eight o’clock straight up. Bring the case I gave you but nothing else. It would look suspicious if we were seen carrying all sorts of stuff through the habitat. That’s why everything we need was assembled over a period of months and is stored close to our point of departure.”

  “What about clothes?” Lora wanted to know.

  “Like I said, everything you’ll need is waiting for you. Now, when we leave the apartment, we will follow the walkway to Corridor Four, and that will lead us back to the emergency stairwell.” Lora was familiar with the stairwells, having used them for short trips from level to level and during fire drills, so she nodded.

  “We’re going to follow the stairwell all the way down,” her father declared. “I have a key to the door at the bottom. It will allow us to access one of the catwalks that we use to maintain the biofiltration plant.”

  George was a biofiltration engineer, one of a team responsible for the habitat’s septic system and wastewater treatment plant. As such, he had access to the area under the Sanctuary’s lowest level. “Once we reach the central column,” George continued, “we’ll board a service elevator.” That was important because the regular elevators were transparent.

  “Once we reach the very top, one of our people will be there to let us into the A Deck maintenance area,” George continued. “That’s where we’ll gear up prior to opening a hatch and leaving the Sanctuary. Do you have any questions?”

  Lora had questions. Lots of them. Would the leavers be able to leave? Would the barbarians kill them? Would she freeze to death? But Lora couldn’t bring herself to voice her fears, not given the look of bright-eyed excitement on her father’s face. So she shook her head. “No, I don’t have any questions.”

  “Okay,” George said. “Let’s take one last look around. It’s the last time you’ll see this dump.”

  But it wasn’t a dump. It was Lora’s home, the only one she could remember. She knew there had been an upper-level apartment once, back before her father began to express his political views, back when her mother was alive. Lora felt a momentary longing for the mother she had never known, double-checked to make sure that the picture of her was in the case, and wondered if her death had something to do with her father’s radical views.

  But there was no time for further contemplation as George led her out onto the walkway and the door closed behind her. The click seemed unnaturally loud to Lora’s ears as she followed her father to Corridor 4, where they took a left. From that point, everything went just as he said it would. He opened the door marked “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” and led her across a long catwalk. Greenish water swirled below as huge blades kept it moving, just part of the complicated machinery that made the habitat possible.

  Having reached the central platform, they boarded a service elevator, which carried them up to the very top of the structure, where a uniformed protector was waiting for them—one of the same men Lora had spoken with the night before!
Except now he was armed with an assault rifle and a pistol. Lora’s heart nearly stopped, and some of her fear must have been visible on her face, because the protector smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m on your side.”

  George chuckled. “He sure is. Officer Fry has been extremely helpful. In fact, it’s safe to say we wouldn’t be able to carry out our mission without him.”

  Another lift arrived and five people got off. Lora recognized three of them as friends of her father’s, meaning individuals who came to visit once in a while. It wasn’t long before even more leavers arrived—sixteen in all, counting the Larsys. That was when Lora realized something important, to her at least, and that was the fact that there weren’t any other teenagers in the group. She was all alone. That shouldn’t bother you, she told herself, because you were alone at school too. But somehow it did.

  There was a lot of excited chatter, which stopped when George spoke. “Keep it down, everybody—we’ll have plenty of time to talk later on. Larry? Lead the way.”

  Officer Fry opened a door, and one of the leavers held it as the rest of them trooped through and stepped onto a circular road. After following it past a number of alcoves and bays, the group arrived at the point where the path passed between opposing sets of doors.

  The one on the left was labeled “HATCH 5,” and a sign on the one directly across from it said “VEHICLE STORAGE.” Fry slipped a key card into a slot next to the vehicle storage bay. Two vehicles were revealed as a corrugated door rumbled up and out of sight They were orange, boxy, and equipped with four sets of tracks each—two in front and two in back. “They’re Sno-Cats,” George explained. “The keepers haven’t allowed anyone to do anything more than maintain them for the past twenty-five years. Our gear is aboard and they’re ready to go.”