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What I said?
That we should have the soil analyzed. Pelly had some clods on the cryonics
capsules he was bringing back, so I asked my school to take it on as part of
their project.
What project? Viktor demanded.
They ve taken on Newmanhome as a project, Balit explained. Not just the
soil that s only part of it. But they had it tested to see what it needed, and
then they added things. Look at the difference now!
Viktor stared at him, incredulous. One little class of kids did that?
They re not just kids, Viktor they re as old as I am. Besides, Grimler
helped.
Grimler? Markety s wife?
Yes, of course. She s there, too; you ll see her in a minute. And it wasn t
just my class, anyway, Balit declared. All over the habitats there are
schools that have Newmanhome projects. You wanted to know what I was doing
with all the pictures I took? Half the schools in the orbits have been
watching them. All the kids are getting into it, Viktor and, look, there s
Grimler now!
Indeed, there she was, slim as ever, looking radiant. Pelly s going to bring
two tons of the fertilizer stuff on his next trip, Balit. And, oh, has
Markety told you the good news? He s a boy, she said, glowing with pleasure.
Perfectly healthy, and he is going to have Markety s hair and eyes. Isn t it
wonderful?
Well, I ll have to congratulate Markety, Viktor said with warmth. I m
delighted, only He was staring at the woman on the screen. Had she had the
baby already? he asked, gazing at Grimler s flat midsection. I didn t think
there was time
Oh, Balit said, looking faintly repelled, it isn t born yet. I mean,
honestly, Markety and
Grimler certainly wanted to go back to the old ways, up to a point, but not
for Grimler to have to bear it. No, the reason Grimler went back was so dear
Nrina could remove it and check it for defects and so on, and then let it come
to term properly; it ll be a season or two yet before they have it.
The boy turned off the picture. Aren t you pleased about all this, Viktor?
he asked anxiously.
Viktor thought about it. Of course I am, he said, when he was sure he meant
it. Only
Only what, Viktor? Is something wrong? And when Viktor didn t answer Balit
sighed.
Never mind. But, honestly, I think things are going to go a lot better now.
As a matter of fact, they did. Not well enough to lift Viktor out of the
shadowy depression that hung over him; well enough so that there was,
actually, progress in the things that mattered to the community.
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As soon as the ground was dry enough Viktor and Jeren found a spot that was
level enough to suit Viktor s strictures. It was protected by a rise just
above it, which, he thought, would divert any future floods; and the gillies
began grading it for planting at once.
Viktor was on the scene every day, prowling around worriedly when he wasn t
manning a shovel himself, trying to remember what things had been like. It was
Viktor who decided they needed to heap up a berm of earth around the farm
plot, to retain rainfall when it came, but needed also to gate it, so that if
the rains were too heavy they could drain standing water off the
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THE WORLD AT THE END OF TIME
Frederik Pohi
279
plots. It was Viktor who demanded a catalogue of every decipherable label of
stored genetic materials in the freezer, poring over them to see if he could
figure out which might be plants they could use and which would turn out to be
merely some peculiar subspecies of cactus or jungle creeper or moss that
someone once had thought might sometime be useful, or at least desirable,
somewhere under some conditions but could do nothing to feed them now.
Viktor kept himself busy. Harshly he told himself that the absence of hope was
no reason at all to stop trying.
Funnily, it seemed to work.
Whenever there was some good development, whenever Viktor found himself
tempted to optimism again, he tried his best to quell the feeling. He didn t
want hope. He didn t want the disappointment that hope would bring. He was
often the only dour face in an assembly of smiles.
Jeren, Balit, Korelto even Manett and Markety, in their own very different
ways they were all charged up with the excitement of bringing a whole planet
to a new birth. Viktor tried not to be.
After all, he knew exactly what that was like, for he had lived through it
once already, in those first frontier days, thousands of Newmanhome years
before.
But don t you see, Viktor? Balit said reasonably, in a break between work
sessions.
That just means that you, of all people, ought to know that everything we re
hoping for can really happen!
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