Yet a planet could keep presenting a person astonishments throughout his lifetime. The trick was to avoid any that were lethal. “It were wise to make sure you twain know what to expect when we arrive,” he declared. “Daedalus has its uniquenesses. Diana, I would have to crawl over our friend to reach the cooler. Will you open it and serve us? You’ll find meat, beer, cold tea, bread for yourself and for the Reverend if he wishes.”
“I wish you’d remembered to stow some fruit,” she complained mildly. “I do love frostberries, and promised F. X. a taste.”
“There may be some in Aurea, imported.” Targovi bounded to the table and curled up near the girl. He could do things like that in a low gee-field, and was so used to the gill that it was no nuisance. But he did need to keep active, lest his flesh go slack. He braced himself against what was going to hurt. “Let me not forget to supply you with money, unless Axor has more left him than I believe. You’ll be buying all your food, as well as most other things. Food can get expensive on Daedalus, and you may be faring for many a day.”
“Ah … I have heard, yes, I have heard that the native life is inedible by us,” Axor said.
Diana, busy improvising a sandwich, nodded. “None is known that’s poisonous, nor any disease we can catch,” she told him, “but the flip side of this is that we get nothin’ out of whatever we eat. Plant and animal kingdoms evolved there too, but not like yours or mine or Targovi’s. Proteins with d-amino acids, for instance. Here.” She handed him the sandwich. It was hefty, but vanished in his maw as a drop of water vanishes on a red-hot skillet. She whistled and set herself to carve him a piece of the roast—about half.
“Thus it was necessary to introduce Terran and similar plants, later animals?” he inquired.
“Aye,” Targovi said, “the which wasn’t easy. Plants need their microbes, their worms, a whole ecology ere they can flourish. And the native life wants not to be displaced. And it is adapted to the environment. Every patch of soil to be cultivated must first be sterilized down to bedrock—radiation or chemicals—and then the new organisms patiently nurtured. And meanwhile the old ones keep trying to reconquer it. Aquaculture is harder still.”
“Why did the settlers make the effort?”
“It was cheaper than depending on synthetics. Also safer, in the long run. Industries can be shattered more readily than farms.”
“You misapprehend, my son. I meant that I cannot see why humans chose to invade a planet like that in the first place.”
“Oh, my, you are unworldly, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Diana said while she fed him. “But you Wodenites never have been hell-bent to colonize like us. Is that because you don’t breed so crazily? Anyhow, planets where humans can live without a lot of fancy gear aren’t that common. Artificial miniworlds are fine … if you don’t mind scanty elbow room, strict laws, dependency on outside resources, and vulnerability to attack. Else you take what you can get. By the time David Jones discovered Daedalus, the best places in known space were already claimed, and goin’ into unknown space meant such a long haul that settlers would be cut off from their civilizations.”
” ‘Civilizations,’ plural,” Targovi pointed out. “It wasn’t only humans who arrived. Members of several races with more or less the same requirements came too. Some wanted simply to homestead, or to make a living by serving the homesteaders. But some had their special interests. Weird is the patchwork you’ll find on Daedalus.”
“Fascinating,” said Axor. “I daresay that, as a political necessity, these communities enjoy basic local autonomy.”
“Aye. Most won it in early days, negotiating with a weak planetary authority. Certain regions on Daedalus did have much potential. Islands especially; those were easiest to defend against the encroachments of native life. This happened in the Commonwealth era, you realize, when government was loose everywhere. After the Empire took over, the greatest of the baronies were rich enough to buy an Imperial pledge that they would be left alone as long as they paid their tribute and caused no trouble.”