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CHAPTER 19

“Free at last, free at last,” Jason said.

“Glad to be headed back to the planet, huh?” Tom said as they entered the access tunnel.

The bay was busy with ships, a sure sign that the economy was starting to get into gear.

“Administrative trivia is a necessity of business,” Jason said. “It’s also close to my least favorite thing in the world.”

It had only taken three days of training for the teams. It took five days to complete all the discussions, start developing SOPs and develop a business structure, most of the ovals unfilled, for the expansion. Capital had to come from sales; there was nowhere else to get it. Even then, Richard could only loan them money for more equipment if he had money flowing into the bank. And staying there.

Banks taking money from individuals and businesses could only loan twelve times the amount of money they had in the bank. That was a fairly standard rule and it still applied in Pegasus.

Richard had to have Brandywine leave as much capital in the bank as possible to make the loans that Brandywine, in turn, needed to buy equipment.

Everybody was bootstrapping.

A lease had to have something to harvest to make it really worthwhile. Desert areas, interesting as they might be, weren’t going to be producing much in the way of protein. Game meat in temperate areas was best in fall when the animals had had a summer to pack on fats. That ruled out Europa and America Nova for game; they were in spring.

So, the majority of the teams were going into Chindia for the time being. But teams were being dispersed into limited areas on those two continents as well. Fungi were a year-round thing, with the exception of winter, and spring meant the potential for spring greens. It also gave an idea what might be available in fall in different biomes. As long as the lease made its nut, finding what might be a big earner was worthwhile. Were there wild apples in a particular zone?

In the tropical areas it was monsoonal oriented. The end of the wet season was the best time to harvest.

Until they had at least a year and a half of data on leases, many questions would remain unanswered. To that end, Jason researched power technology. He’d already determined that Cyber energy storage was insanely efficient. That an Alfred could run for twelve hours, flying, with half its maximum carriage weight, was insane. It would be the equivalent of a Tesla being able to drive around the world a dozen times on one charge.

And there were industrial batteries held by the government.

The decision was made to leave ten drones and an Alfred in each lease area for the entire year along with a conex and a coffin of batteries. Batteries were cheap and the lease on the conexes was doable. If the drones detected anything that was viable for harvest a team could be returned. In the meantime, the drones and Alfred would slowly collect whatever was saleable in the lease and get a full ecological and marketability profile. Pickups would happen as conexes filled.

Commercial fishing, which was still where the majority of the protein came from, was a different matter. Different species ran at different times and it wasn’t a good idea to take species when breeding. Jason was thinking about short term but also long term for the planet. The exception was salmon. Most salmon harvesting was done when they were on a breeding run. It was just how it worked.

And Jason was focused like a laser on salmon. The annual salmon runs on Earth involved tons of protein; here that would mean protein to feed the station and get money moving around in the economy. With enough trapping it would be a matter of having enough lift.

The question was, did the planet even have salmon? There had been human attempts to introduce salmon in half a dozen biomes where they should have survived: New Zealand, Chile and South Africa were just three. Jason was assuming the Cybers had overcome that issue. If salmon did run here, where would they run?

Though there was no reason they wouldn’t run in Chindia, it was a different world after all, the sunken continent between Europa and America Nova had perfect conditions for salmon offshore. And Europa and America Nova were biomes that supported salmon on Earth; there were no natural trout species found on the other continents and salmon was a variant of trout.

The target was a large bay on the western shores of America Nova. The bay was the terminus of a major river that ran from America Mons to the Beringia Sea. The river had a wide delta where it reached the bay, not as extensive as the Mississippi Delta but spreading from about fifty miles upstream. The river entered the bay on the south end, directly across from the larger opening to the sea.

There were steep hills, some reaching the size of small mountains, on the seaward side. It was impossible to determine the hydrographic profile from the satellite images but given there was a large island in the middle of the entrance to the bay, an obvious extension of the range of hills, the entrance was probably relatively shallow. Probably deep enough to take any Earth ship, but not hundreds of feet deep. There were obviously more subsurface rocks based on what he’d been able to glean of the currents around the entrance. The waves of the Beringia Sea pounded both the capes as well as the outer face of the central island.

The landward side was relatively flat, especially around the delta, and the entire eastern shoreline was a tangle of black-mud marshes. There was one large hill, shorter than the hills on the seaward side, defining the north terminus of the delta area. The terrain was fairly flat north of the hill as well. In earlier times, the delta had clearly filled in around the hill. Another, smaller, river emptied into the bay on the north end.

The bay was probably the remnant of an asteroid impact on the pre-terraformed planet. Before the Cybers got to work on the planet, it had probably been a crater. When they added water, the crater had filled in even more with soil sediment carried down by the river. At a guess, the landward hill was probably the remains of the central uplift. There was a series of hills about the same distance inland as the seaward hills that the river had bored a gorge through. Those were probably the eastern side of the crater rim. That point on the river was a series of cataracts and it defined the inland start of the delta.

The weather in the area was rough. It appeared to be similar to the Pacific Northwest or Ireland. Satellite images showed frequent strong storms as well as impenetrable fog. Unlike the Pacific Northwest, the majority of the trees were deciduous, a mix of maple, hickory, birch and oak with a smattering of hemlock and spruce.

If there were salmon, they’d be somewhere in the area and he intended to find them. Salmon weren’t only found offshore. They frequently came into bays to eat. To find them would require angling, fishing with a line and pole, with lures and bait suitable for salmon.

Oh, heaven forbid! It was going to be work, work, work!

His landing target was the island in the center of the bay’s entrance. Though he’d spotted carnivores in the satellite imagery, it should be easy enough to clear and, absent new visitors, that would secure it so he could move around on the ground without fear of being eaten.

It was late spring in the deciduous region of America Nova and the leaves were bright as they descended. Massive waves burst on the seaward side but the coves on the landward side were barely moving. Much of the bay itself was filled with white caps from the high winds but inshore on the east side of the island it was fairly smooth.

“Looks a bit like San Francisco Bay,” Tom said. “Complete with sea lions,” he added, zooming one of the screens. There were sea lion colonies as well as harbor and elephant seals.

“Bit,” Jason said. “Bit less cut up. Could you circle for a while on the bay? I pored over sat images but this is a better view.”

“Not a problem,” Tom said. “That’s what the extra pay is for.”

Jason carefully considered the bay. The water was murky from plankton and input of silt from the river. It was also filled with kelp. Just as in the satellite images, it was impossible to determine the bottom profile. He’d managed to figure out how to hook up a sonar system someone had had in their personal belongings. He was going to have to use that to determine what the hydrography was like.

“Whales,” Tom said, pointing. There was a pod of whales inshore near the delta.

“Probably right whales,” Jason said. “Good sign. Proves the bay is productive which it would essentially have to be with the river input. Can you swing around for a second?” Jason said, pointing to an area on the northeast side of the island where the steep hills ended in cliffs.

“Sure,” Tom replied, dancing the ship in that direction.

“Thought so,” Jason said, pointing to oval shapes on the rocks in the tidal zone.

“Abalone?” Tom asked.

“Probably,” Jason said. “I thought I spotted them but the angle on the sat shots was never great. They’re great for looking down, not so good for sideways on a cliff.”

“Gonna call it Island of the Blue Dolphin?” Tom asked, heading to the landing point.

“No,” Jason said. “It’s not a dry island like the Catalinas. I’ll come up with a name.”

“Ferrell Bay?” Tom suggested.

“I’m actually naming it Wilson Bay after my partner,” Jason admitted, shame faced. “I’ll name something else after you.”

“Got it,” Tom said. “Besides, I’ve already got stuff named after me.”

“There we go,” Jason said, pointing to a school of fish. “Magnify.”

When the camera zoomed in it was apparent that he was looking at salmon.

“Bingo,” Jason said. “Now to the island.”

“On it,” Tom said, sliding the ship in expertly despite the obvious winds. The day was clear but the trees on the upper slopes of the island were stunted and twisted from the winds off the Beringia. Even then they could be seen waving in the strong wind. “Southeast side.”

“Should be the most protected,” Jason said.

There were no convenient clearings to land the cargo in. There was, however, a large flat area on the southeast side. To its north was a small stream, remnant of the frequent rains in the area. The stream had probably filled in a natural depression over time. It appeared to meander through the trees and the flat area was predominantly birch, beech and poplar, fast growing pioneer trees that indicated the area was relatively recent, geologically.

Now if it was just stable soil.

“You just want it dumped over the water?”

“In close,” Jason said. “As close as you can get it to the trees, right at waterline.”

“Watch your footing on the containers,” Tom said. “The winds are pretty high. Less so in close to the island, but no zephyr.”

“Got it,” Jason said. “I’ll deploy the bots and drones first and tie off to a bot. I’m not going to try to balance on top of the cargo in these winds.”

“Safety first,” Tom said.

“Safety is overrated,” Jason said as they approached the landing point. “There is no adventure with safety. Adventure is something bad that happened to someone else a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. At the time it’s misery and pain and blood. With perfect safety there is no adventure and adventure is underrated.”

The ship clunked mildly as the containers were dumped out the back.

“You’re deployed . . . adventurer,” Tom said.

“Wish me luck,” Jason replied, picking up his Safari.

“Just hope you don’t have to find out how strong a swimmer you are,” Tom replied.

* * *

The wind wasn’t nearly as fierce with the protection of the island and near the water.

Jewel had automatically brought an Alfred up and Jason carefully turned around on the landing platform and gestured for it to come up behind him. When it did, he attached it to his back with flexmet then extended “controls.”

“Have it respond like a jetpack,” Jason said, pushing himself backward off the platform.

“Got it,” Jewel said.

It took a bit to get the ersatz jetpack to work properly and Jason nearly dunked himself once. But after that he had it down.

“All good, Tom,” Jason said, waving. “Fair travels.”

“You just can’t stand being normal, can you?” Tom said as the ship lifted up soundlessly.

“What fun would that be?” Jason replied.

The bots and drones were already well underway clearing a space for the containers.

“Have one of the Alfreds do a soil auger test,” Jason said. One of the teams that had dropped while he was on the station had ended up in a marsh. It had been a simple matter of moving campsites but it gave reason for caution. Soil tests before putting in a camp were now standard SOP.

“Already done,” Jewel said. “Did that first. Soil is stable and the trees indicate no recent flooding in the area.”

When an area flooded, a distinctive ring formed on the trees. No rings, no flooding. Another good sign.

The flat zone was clearing out rapidly. Jason had insisted that a test team had to have additional equipment. So, this time he had one Herman, four Alfreds, two metric tons of flexmet and fifty drones. Ten of the drones were clearing along with the other three Alfreds. The rest of the drones were beginning the survey of not only the island but the surrounding bay.

“Confirmed salmon school,” Jewel said as he waited. “Whether they run is another question. Confirmed abalone. Confirmed right whales. Seventeen bears on the island so far, no tigers or leopards. Red deer. Two other deer species. No hogs. One wolf pack so far. The delta has so many species of migrating waterfowl we’re having a hard time counting them. Not the individuals, the species. Most of them are new. A couple of new bird species on the island as well. Bird evolution on this planet has been crazy.”

“Anything look tasty?” Jason asked.

“Previously identified churken,” Jewel said.

Churken were about the size of chicken but filled the niche that wild turkey inhabited in North America, ground-feeding, tree-nesting omnivores. They mostly fed on insects and seeds.

The major difference was that the males were brightly colored in blue and red. They turned out to be a species of parrot instead of the evolutionary path of turkeys or chickens for that matter. Jason hadn’t eaten one yet, and was looking forward to trying it out. Like any wild fowl it had to be prepared carefully since they were so lean.

“There are various ducks and geese in the delta as well as some things we can’t quite sort out,” Jewel said. “We’ll have to get samples and genetics to figure out what some of these evolved from. There’s a duck that looks as if it might be another parrot species. But it might just be a duck descendant.”

Any waterfowl that had been around the landing area had taken off when the ship appeared overhead. But Jason could see some bobbing in the water to the north. For that matter, there were sea otters playing in a kelp bed not far away. A sea eagle was squabbling with one over a fish. The otter responded by diving.

The camp was about done. Instead of stripping and topping, smaller trees had been left with their tops intact and used to create an abatis around the camp. Without the massive tree roots it was susceptible to entry but should keep the big creatures out.

He planned to have the apex carnivores cleared. Bad for the ecology, good for survival. The red deer, which were a definite threat, were less likely to try to penetrate the abatis. And he intended to harvest them as well.

He might take the bears himself. At least the ones that were further into the island. The nearest were already being culled. He had no intention of allowing a megagrizzly near his camp. At this rate, bearskin rugs were going to be an absolute glut.

He might need one in his hooch. The high winds were due to a recently passed cold front. It had lived up to its name. He’d dressed for the cooler weather but just hanging over the water was chilling. There was no heat in the camp he’d planned. That might have been a mistake.

“We might need to put a fireplace into the hooch,” Jason said.

“Doable with flexmet,” Jewel said. “I can put in a stove for that matter.”

“Flex doesn’t conduct heat,” Jason said.

“You can create openings for your pans,” Jewel said. “Set it up to let the heat come to them but the smoke go away. Or you can cook over the open fire in a fireplace like a heathen.”

“I’m a heathen,” Jason said as the containers started to move into the cleared ground. There was a view out across the bay on the east side but he didn’t intend to see it. The square fort would have his container on the ground this time to avoid the winds. They’d also planned for drainage when it rained.

He slid forward, keeping high so if he messed up, he wouldn’t get dunked, and settled with a bit of a bobble beside the housing container.

It contained more than just his gear so it was collapsed and unloading as he landed. He dismissed the Alfred to help then climbed up on one of the conexes to survey the scene.

It was a pretty good view. The right whales were in view, apparently hunting something in the water, and sea birds including sea eagles were soaring in the sky. The tree-covered hill that defined the edge of the delta was barely visible in the distance. Given the relative flatness of the eastern shore it was evident. The sky was filled with scudding cumulus clouds, some of them ominously dark.

“There’s rain on the way,” Jewel said.

“I thought it was going to be clear?” Jason said. He’d timed the landing for a day that the forecast was clear.

“Meteorology on this planet is in its infancy,” Jewel pointed out. “A drone just spotted it coming inshore. And one suspects that this is an area where if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.”

“Have a drone stay up at a high point on the island,” Jason said, as a spattering rain started. He hitched his jacket closer and adjusted his hat. “A little rain never killed anybody. Speaking of dying: What’s the status on the bears?”

“All bears in a one-kilometer radius have been culled,” Jewel answered. “The bots are starting on cleaning and butchering. There remain other potential threats. There’s a wild cat the size of a lynx, though it’s probably related to the bobcat. And the red deer and other herbivores that can be territorial.”

“They’ll probably stay away from the fort,” Jason said.

“And the wolf pack,” Jewel added. “It’s on the north end of the island at the moment but the entire island is probably its territory.”

“Eliminate if it comes close,” Jason said. “I hate just wiping out the apex predators, but more game for people and I don’t have to worry about being eaten myself. Especially when I’m fishing.”

The housing container had been set up to his liking. His camp chair and table were by the already formed fireplace. There was a pile of firewood next to it as well as some dry wood already stacked in it. Where the bots had found dry wood was anyone’s guess.

A flex air mattress had been formed and was covered with his poncho liners as well as spare poly blankets and pillow.

It was nice to have robotic servants on safari.

He started the fire then opened up his personal gear coffin and considered the contents. Raining or not, he was going fishing. He might catch, he might not, but fishing was going to occur.

The question was what sort of gear? He’d brought two coffins of personal gear, one with guns and ammo, the other with fishing gear. And he’d brought all the fishing gear he’d built up over a lifetime. There were surf-casting rods, fly rods, bass rods, not to mention three tackle boxes. There were even a couple of heavy rods with large reels for offshore trolling.

There was very little indication of types of fish in the area. Satellites had spotted shoals of herring and he’d confirmed salmon. Neither was normally caught from shore and his experience of inshore in these sorts of conditions was minimal.

In the end, he just brought the whole thing.

The camp was on a cove. Two fingers of rock extended out into the bay to the north and south of the camp with the north tongue right by the edge of the camp wall. He’d placed the camp where it was specifically to take advantage of that tongue of rock. It appeared to be above the high-tide line on the top. He’d have to watch his footing on the edges. They’d be covered in algae and slippery.

He rode the coffin over the perimeter fence then down onto the rock before setting it down. He considered the images from the drones but all he could spot was the occasional flash of fish in the cove. There were, however, abalone and it made sense to start there.

He used the flexmet bracelet to form an abalone knife and levered one of the large mollusks off the rock. He wasn’t sure what the minimum size for abalone on Earth might be, but whatever species this was he was pretty sure it was above minimum.

He cut out the meat of the abalone then tossed the shell and guts back into the cove. It was immediately assailed by fish. Good sign.

He extracted a large surf-fishing rod from the coffin and assembled it with a Carolina bottom rig then cut off a strip of abalone, baited the hook and tossed the combination into the water about thirty meters out.

The heavy bottom rig never made it to the bottom before there was a strong strike.

“There is no sport,” he muttered, setting the hook.

Whatever the fish was, it was a fighter. The rod was rigged with fifty-pound mono, brand new courtesy of their Cyber Overlords, with a one-hundred-pound mono leader. And he wasn’t sure if the fish wasn’t going to break it a few times. The fish quickly found cover in the kelp but the leader managed to cut right through it.

After about a twenty-minute fight he got the fish into the shallows and brought it up into a sea pool.

“Species?” Jason asked.

“It appears to be a type of sea bass,” Jewel said musingly. “But that term is used for a variety of species on Earth. To be more precise, it appears to be something similar to a striped sea bass or striper colloquially. But there are differences. We’d have to do a genetic test to determine.”

“Later,” Jason said, tossing the thirty-pound fish into a stasis case. “We can collect abalone for sure. As soon as the drones and bots are done clearing the area, have the Alfreds get down here to start on boats.”

“Will do,” Jewel said.

He looked around at the abalone. There was about one per two square meters at a guess. They were all over the tide line.

“Abalone will definitely sell,” Jason said. “Bring down a drone.”

Jason hooked the flexmet to the drone and replicated prying the abalone up, this time using a bed of flexmet. Then he had the drone pick it up and put it in the stasis case. Last, he had the flexmet crawl to another abalone and pry it up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

“Is that enough of an algorithm?” Jason asked.

“It’s workable,” Jewel said. “With some tweaks.”

“When there’s time and available bots, have one take a stasis case up to the north cliffs,” Jason said. “Don’t take any more abalone from around here. Set out some cases and have one or two drones collect them until the case is full then replace it with one of the available bots.”

“Without the necessity to keep a flexmet defense net going, Herman is freed up,” Jewel pointed out.

“Whichever,” Jason said.

“The flexmet can clean the abalone as well,” Jewel pointed out. “Do we load complete or clean them?”

“Clean them,” Jason said.

“Keep the shells or discard?” Jewel asked.

“Discard,” Jason said after a moment’s thought. “There’s probably a minor market for mother of pearl, but not enough to bother with lift. I want to see if I can get one of those salmon,” Jason said, rerigging. Given that the hit had been near the surface of the water, and he seemed to remember that striper sometimes went for plugs, he rigged a plug instead of a bottom line and tossed out the rig.

“No sport,” Jason muttered a moment later as another fight started. “I don’t think it’s even feeding time . . . ”


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