Shine (24 page)

11:06 am October 5th, 2050 from distweet

The food gardens mimic seasons. But if I switch the lights around them to match my shifts, it will confuse the plants. They could die.

11:06 am October 5th, 2050 from distweet

The cyanobacteria tanks are set to maximum output: tropical conditions, with warm water, frequent 'rain' and twelve hours of light.

11:05 am October 5th, 2050 from distweet

They're telling me I'm going to have to switch shifts too, which doesn't work with the garden.

11:05 am October 5th, 2050 from distweet

Just got the info about the shift schedules and ongoing changes. Not happy.

11:04 am October 5th, 2050 from distweet

It's so hard to remember that I'm supposed to be working, not watching the stars. No one on the space stations ever mentioned this.

12:43 pm September 12th, 2050 from distweet

@piehole72 Well, if you're lucky, you'll find out. *waggle eyebrows*

11:58 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@piehole72 Well, you know what they say about missing ex boyfriends out in outer space--actually, what do they say?

11:04 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@piehole72 Heh. Let's leave the orgy chat for later, k?

10:41 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@loucheroo Hey, that's why they're paying us the big bucks.

9:41 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to loucheroo

@piehole72 But you know, sleeping with coworkers and all that. So.

7:05 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@piehole72 I should have guessed that the next thing you'd ask about is my sex life. Well. A couple of the others are hot...

7:04 pm July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@piehole72 Oh, just five others--the two pilots, the doctor, the two engineers. And me the plant goddess.

11:47 am July 16th, 2050 from distweet in reply to piehole72

@the28thkarenbear Heh, if we have a top secret mission, no one's told me. No, I think it's all on the level: lithium and iridium mining.

8:47 PM July 15th, 2050 from distweet in reply to the28thkarenbear

Won't be able to tweet much, though--we're limited to an average of one per day for financial reasons--costs too much from space.

8:30 PM July 15, 2050 from distweet

Just boarded. This is going to be an awesome trip. I feel it in my bones. I feel like singing to the stars.

3:43 PM July 15th, 2050 from distweet

So brave, so nervous. Both of them. Hand in hand, no gloves and no special suits. An unlocked hatch, a step outside. Truth: Earth survived.

--Jacques Barcia--

Seeds

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A
fter the open reading period closed, and I had a good overview of all stories sent my way--both solicited and unsolicited--I saw both certain themes developing and the variety of settings, characters and ideas arising that I was hoping for.

One particular theme is the importance of sustainable farming, be it through soil ("The Earth of Yunhe"), developing better farming methods through online ideas exchange ("Russian Roulette 2020"), adapting consumer patterns to local circumstances ("Summer Ice"), improving local cuisine ("The Solnet Ascendancy," even if that certainly, as with several of the other examples, wasn't the main thrust of the story) and indeed the use of different 'Seeds.'

Since the anthology has a tight focus, I aimed for maximum variety and diversity in locales, characters and writers, while at the same time trying to select (what I thought) were the best stories. The tightrope, I suppose, any well-intended editor tries to walk.

So while I (obviously) leave the question of quality up to the readers, critics and reviewers, I do think
Shine
scores well in terms of character and setting variety: both are literally from all over the globe. As to the writers, while the male/female spread is close to parity (9 man, 8 women), I wish I could have included more writers from different nationalities and races. Yes, Shine debuts a Brazilian native and features a Russian emigrant living in the UK, an Israeli (where he lives at any time is hard to keep up with), a Frenchwoman and Silvia here who is a Mexican emigrant living in Canada (and a Canadian expat living in South Korea who has an Indonesian girlfriend: not sure if that counts, though). Yet I would have liked even more diversity in authors, and will try to do better in a next project.

In the meantime, do enjoy this wry story where corporate goals clash with local needs leading to some unexpected developments...

T
wo teenagers bolted past him, running so fast James almost lost his balance and dropped his multi-text device, which would have been a major problem because he had no idea how to get back to the main road. The paths had twisted and turned a dozen times before he had finally parked his car close to the town square with its double arcades.

James glared at the teenagers but they kept running. He was sure they had bumped into him on purpose. They probably recognize the logo on his suitcase.

He didn't get it. Just on Sunday he watched a group of UNAM students parading around the Angel of Independence, wearing black and white Zapata t-shirts and yelling "
maiz y libertad
." Like a perfect seed and a perfect crop was somehow wrong and Germingen was the devil. It all sounded suspiciously anarchistic to him.

Fine, it was copyrighted technology and the seeds were sterile unless they were treated with Germingen's very own Germingrow. If the user agreement was not followed exactly as intended, Germingen would trigger the Trojan Horse built into the genetic map of the seed, but so what? You got large, perfect crops in return. In the end, they were doing these people a favor.

James shook his head, straightened his clothes and kept on walking until he reached the fountain in the middle of the plaza. Without people wearing a geo-location unit, all he could do was squint and wait under the harsh sun for his contact to arrive, guessing, rather than knowing, if any of the townsfolk headed his way were Mr. Totol.

The wind blew a cloud of dust in James face and he sputtered and swore. His suit was nano-treated, but the dirt was probably pullulating with dog faeces and some nasty germs.

When the cloud dissipated a man wearing white linen pants, a matching shirt and hat approached him and extended his hand.

"I'm Alejandro Totol," he said. "You've got to be from Germingen."

James had all of his data on the multi-text but it was going to do no good if Mr. Totol did not carry his own multi-text. By the looks of it, all the farmer had with him was a crude knapsack. He would have to introduce himself the old-fashioned way.

"James Clark, Customer Satisfaction and Services Representative, Germingen, Mexico and Caribbean division. At Germingen we develop the most resistant, innovative crops to supply the farms of tomorrow--"

"That's nice," said Mr. Totol, interrupting James before he could finish his speech.

"Bigger, better, stronger crops make a bigger, better, stronger world," James ran his thumb across his multi-text device. "It says here, Mr. Totol, that you are one of our silver maize seed users. Ten-year contract, eight percent copyright and user fee and insured GM seeds, right?"

"It's not my contract."

"Pardon?"

"It's not my contract. The governor got the contract for the whole state and we have to use the seeds. Everyone in Oaxaca has to do it. They have this state levy on us for the stuff."

"Yes, well, I'm talking about your individual sub-agreement, not the state interposed multi-lateral limited-license use agreement," he said cheerfully.

And what an agreement it was. Oaxaca had been one of the states that had resisted the GMO seeds most vigorously--there had been some bullshit about local customs, as if a piece of dough was some sacred artefact--but in the end the governor had signed the contract quickly enough.

Mr. Totol shifted his feet and shrugged.

"Did you know domesticated corn originated in Mexico?"

James tapped his device twice and raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Totol, you placed a call two days ago."

"We're supposed to call you if something goes wrong. That's what they said and we dialled the number."

"Very well, and please explain what went wrong," James said and he grabbed the stylo and flipped it between his fingers. The seeds were damn easy to grow, resistant to pesticides and insects. It wasn't the seeds' fault that some people were stupid. Germingen provided training for the illiterate, low-tech customers teeming throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, but there were some glitches here and there and in Oaxaca, with its Nahuatl population clinging to their dialects, it was sometimes a damned nightmare.

Nevertheless, James had managed to go from step two to step five in less than three years and he was confident that he would reach step six at the end of December. He was aiming for a month-long session of gambling in Macau with the bonus that would net him.

"Well?" James asked.

"I'm not sure something went wrong."

"Mr. Totol, I drove all the way from Mexico City because you said you had an issue with your corn crop. Am I to understand that nothing has happened to it?"

"Something happened," Mr. Totol said with a nod. "There's hundreds of corn varieties in Mexico, did you know that?"

James carefully blotted the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. He put his hands behind his back and stared at Mr. Totol.

"Is there an issue with the corn?" he asked very slowly.

"We thought you might mind. When the Germingen people came they said we had to phone you and they gave us the number," Mr. Totol held up an old-fashioned paper business card. "Right there, see? Customer issues. The governor says we got to use the seeds and we can't use no other seeds. My family's been breeding corn for years but no more. We got to plant your fancy seeds and we've got to use them and they're insured; so if there's any problems we phone you, you figure it out, and it's our money back and we get out of the agreement, right? In short, we don't want the agreement."

"Mr. Totol, we do insure all of our crops, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. We generally solve any customer issues within two weeks and no refunds or termination of agreements are necessary. Now, what is the problem you have been experiencing?"

"There's huitlacoche on the corn."

"Huitlawhat?" James asked. The man was probably speaking Nahuatl.

"Oh, the Mexicas loved it. Absolutely loved it. Moctezuma was crazy over it. Quite the eater he was, that Moctezuma. You know, every morning fish was brought from Veracruz to Mexico City by a system of relay runners. They carried the fish fresh from the coast to the emperor's table in just a few of hours."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The man opened his knapsack. He took out a grey ear of corn with the kernels swollen ten times its normal size. It looked like the corn had a tumor. In truth, it was covered in fungus.

"Dear God!" James yelled and he began to pound frantically on his multi-text device, photos and words plopping from the little pad until it was there in red capital letters:
ustilago maydis.

"It's very good in a quesadilla," Mr. Totol said nonchalantly.

"Where did you find it?" James whispered as he stared at the ugly grey and black monstrosity the man was waving at him.

"Oh, it's all over my field. It's going to fetch a good price in the market."

"You're going to eat it?"

"Sure. Delicious."

"It's a pathogenic fungus. It's a pest. How the hell did it get on our corn?"

"The Mexica ate fly larvae and axolotls."

That was not the answer James was looking for. He jammed his fingers against the screens and screens of information.

He tried to think, to formulate a plan. Evidently the corn smut had mutated and invaded their pristine, perfect corn corp.

James was sweating. He could imagine his clothes sticking to his body, even though this was impossible because they were nano-treated. But it was a day for impossibilities. This was not supposed to happen. The corn was resistant against anything and everything.

You could spray the toughest pesticide on it and it would survive. Well, the toughest Germingen pesticide, anyway. The seed contract also came with a binding, collateral pesticide agreement.

James could just imagine the look his boss would give him if James informed him they had lost a whole crop to a corn smut infestation. And what if it should spread? He could picture rows and rows of grey and black fungus-covered corn against a blue sky.

"We'll have to burn it all. I'll call in a team and we will get rid of the fungus Mr. Totol," James said, flipping through the emergency procedures manual.

"Why'd you want to burn it? It's nice to breed it. It goes well with tamales. Look, you just make a little cut at the base of the corn..."

"Mr. Totol, I don't think you understand the enormity of the issue," James muttered and after drafting a quick message, he punched in the four digit security code necessary to alert his head office of the problem.

James closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. Everything was going to be fine. The team would fly in, burn the whole thing to cinders, stomp every bit of fungus out. Then they would rescind the agreement and forget about this damn town and its rampant fungus. Blot it out. Nothing to see here.

"Bigger, better, stronger crops make a bigger, better, stronger world," James whispered.

It made him feel better. He took a deep breath and let it out.

"It's fine, Mr. Totol. We are going to contain it. After all, its not like the damn thing has legs. It can't spread that far."

"That's the issue," Mr. Totol took off his hat and scratched the back of his neck. "Remember when I told you the runners used to bring fresh fish for Moctezuma every morning?"