West of Eden. Chapter 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alpèasak grew—and healed its wounds at the same time. For days Vanalpè and her assistants had clambered about the city making careful records of the damage done by the storm. Hormone applications speeded the new growth until the roofing leaves spread their overlapping patterns anew, while additional tree trunks and aerial roots strengthened the walls. But simple rebuilding was not enough for Vanalpè. Sturdy vines, tough and elastic, now twined up through the walls and across the roofing.
Not only was the city stronger, but it was growing safer with every passing day as the cleared fields bit into the surrounding jungle. This expansion, although it looked haphazard, was silent and efficient, carefully planned. The most dangerous part, the spreading of the larvae in wild jungle, was done by the Daughters of Death. Though they were protected from most of the wild creatures by armed fargi, there was no protection from bruises and accidents, wounds from the thorns—or snakebite from the serpents hidden there. Many were injured, some radically, a few died. The city was as uncaring as Vaintè at their fate. The city came first.
Once the larvae had been sown the death of the jungle was certain. The voracious caterpillars that emerged had been crafted for this single purpose. Birds and animals found their taste bitter and repellent; the caterpillars found all vegetable matter to their liking. Blind and insatiable they crawled up the tree trunks and through the grass, destroying everything in their path. Only the skeletons of trees remained after they had passed while the ground was foul with their droppings. As they ate they grew until the repulsive, bristle-covered creatures were as long as a Yilanè arm.
And then they died, for death was there waiting in their genes, carefully planted to assure that these creatures did not devour the world. They died and rotted into the bed of their own excreta. The cunning design of Vanalpè and the other gene engineers was evident even here. Nematode worms were already turning the repulsive mass into fertilized soil, aided by the bacteria in their gut. Even before the beetles had devoured the dead trees, grass had been sown and the thorn barriers planted. A new field had been eaten from the jungle, pushing it further away from the city, forming yet another barrier to the dangers hidden there.
Yet there was nothing unnatural or harsh about this slow advance. The Yilanè lived as one with their surroundings, were part of the environment and inextricably entwined with it: anything else would have been unthinkable. The fields themselves had no regularity of plan or design. Their shapes and sizes depended only upon the resistance of the foliage and the appetite of the caterpillars. The thornbushes formed a protecting barrier of varying thickness while many patches of the original jungle still remained to add variety to the landscape.
The grazing herds were just as varied. Each time the uruketo returned from Inegban* it brought fertilized eggs or newly born young. The more defenseless species were in the fields nearest the city center, the original fields where the urukub and onetsensast had grown to maturity. These armored—but placid—omnivores now grazed in mindless security at the jungle’s edge, twice the size of a mammoth and still growing, their great horns and armored hides rendering them immune to all dangers.
Vaintè was pleased with the progress that had been made. When she went daily to the ambesed she went with the security that no problems would arise that she could not solve. But this morning she had a hint that all was not well when the fargi hurried up to her with a message, pushing others aside rudely to indicate the importance of the tidings she bore.
“Eistaa, the uruketo has returned. I was in a fishing boat, I saw it myself…”
Vaintè silenced the stupid creature with a curt signal, then signaled to her aides. “We meet them at the pier. I want the news of Inegban*.”
She walked in stately silence down the path, her friends and aides behind her, a rabble of fargi bringing up the rear. Though it was never cold in Alpèasak, there was much rain and dampness at this time of year so that she, like many of the others, walked with a cloak draped about her both for warmth and protection from the drizzling rain.