Lord Valance stared at the Clan Lord Ranth, a short and stubby Zoen man, who frantically paddled his squatty little legs to keep up with the group. Valance hated the man; he hated how much influence he had over the greater House of Clans; he hated that he had to invite him here to his largest, most profitable, orchard just to gain audience with his more powerful friends. It was insulting.
"Arrg!" The Clan Lord cried as he stumbled over a dead branch. Lord Valance wanted to laugh but kept it in. The sight of the man rolling around on the ground, trying to pick himself up, suddenly made his presence more tolerable.
An entourage of horticulturists, administrators, and security stopped to wait for the distinguished guest. The grey of broken, rotting branches had smothered what was left of a pleasant green grass. It was impossible to walk through it without keeping a constant eye on the ground.
"Why don't you have someone clear these out?" The Clan Lord demanded.
"We do." Lord Valance answered. "Almost every day."
After crossing through several rows of perfectly lined trees, the group approached a middle-aged botan woman in a red robe and her zoen assistant standing next to the trunk of a gnarled old tree. Its branches twisted into a dense canopy over them.
The woman walked around the wide trunk and placed her green hand gently on the bark. Her fingers and palm trembled then sank a few millimeters into the hard surface.
Lord Valance waited patiently as the woman stood with her eyes closed.
After a brief moment she turned to her assistant. “She’s hungry. Low on magnates, triphan and sodiphan. Hydration level is sufficient.”
The assistant flipped through his papers. “A32H10? She…
“Her name is Andreth.”
“Sorry. It says Andreth just had her soil replenished last week.”
“It’s OK. Do it again.” She turned and acknowledged the group for the first time. “My apologies.”
Lord Valance extended a hand towards the woman. “Clansman, this is Doctor Bihinlem, our chief horticulturist and head Phi of the Sacrificial Order. She’s been leading our alternatives research.”
The Clansman smiled and nodded.
Lord Valance wasn’t fond of the Sacrificial Order. They tried to exert control over things that didn’t need to be controlled. As part of Order of the Red, they were specifically set apart to oversee the creation of Manea seedlings. If a Bota wanted to participate they had to go through the order, there was almost no alternative. That made it hard to negotiate with them.
“And this is our oldest." Lord Valance pointed a furry hand towards the canopy. "She produces more fruit than almost ten younger trees."
The Clan Lord gazed up into the fruit laden branches above them. The coverage was thin compared to the younger trees they'd just passed. The tree could easily have held two or three times the count.
"How quickly is she declining?" Lord Valance asked Doctor Bihinlem.
“Twenty percent per year now."
“Twenty percent?" The rate had increased since he'd last reviewed the numbers. "And this is the highest rate?"
"Yes. She's the worst case scenario. She was the first to show the decline and has so far contracted the farthest."
The Clan Lord stared at the old tree then redirected his gaze to the Doctor. "OK. So what are we saying? The rest of the trees are going to hit a twenty percent decline rate when they get as old as this tree?"
"With some margin of error, yes, we believe so."
"So you have to tear these out and plant new trees? I'm not sure I understand..."
"The life cycle of the trees isn't the concern. The distribution of our production load across the age range of our trees is what concerns us. These relatively few older trees produce almost half of our total yield. As Lord Valance said, one produces as much as ten younger trees."
"OK. I'm still not sure I see the problem. Won't all your young trees grow into large, high producing, old trees?"
"Yes, naturally that should occur..."
"What do you mean, should?"
"It'd be better if we showed you." Lord Valance motioned for the Clansman to follow him, as he carefully stepped over the fallen dead branches from the giant tree.
He led the group through more rows of the massive old growth trees. It seemed so strange to him; they were such immense creatures; they looked so healthy and strong. In many ways, they were the symbol of his vast empire, his power and vitality.
The change was abrupt as they crossed over into the younger section of the orchard. From one row to the next, the young trees were nearly a quarter the size of the older. Their branches weren't even tall enough to step under.
"These are the oldest of the next expansion of trees. They were planted a decade or so after the older ones." Lord Valance explained.
"Only ten years younger? They can grow that much in ten years?" The Clan Lord asked.
“No they can't. The size difference between these and the older represents what would typically be fifty years of growth.”
“I don't follow.”
“These trees, for all intents and purposes, are as large as they'll ever be.” Lord Valance explained.
“But that's...”
"The simple matter is this," he paused, "For some reason that we cannot explain, our younger trees are not growing to what we would consider a mature size."
"Has this ever happened before?"
"Not that we're aware."
“Have other orchards been affected in this way?”
Lord Valance took a moment before he answered. "There are no orchards that have escaped this problem."
"All of your orchards? That’s more than half of our supply of Manea!"
He cleared his throat. "Not all of our orchards. All of the world's orchards. All Manea orchards have been affected.”
"What?" the Clan Lord stammered. "How could that be?"
"We're trying to understand that."
"So what does all this mean? Have you planted enough new trees to make up for the fact that they don't make as much as they used to? Is that what we're up against? Planting a lot more trees?”
“Well, planting more trees isn’t that simple. Each new seedling requires a bota donor. The supply of donors is limited.”
The Sacrificial Order either kept the numbers down on purpose or honestly had a hard time attracting them. The process was intense. A donor had to be willing to graft a seedling onto one of their tendrils and then carry it for the first ten years of its life. Once ready, the seedling and tendril had to be removed and planted.
“For those who are willing, it is an honor.” Dr Bihinlem interjected. “But yes the Order takes the preparation involved very seriously. It takes time.”
Lord Valance smiled, then continued. “More trees also mean more maintenance, more Zo laborers and more soil imports from the Petra.” His Zoen teams had to dig up and replace the soil around each tree once a month. They also had to pollinate each flower by hand.
“As the problem progresses, we’re getting less and less Manea for the same input. At a certain point, that becomes economically unsustainable.”
“Right. Right.” The Clan Lord nodded.
“To further compound the problem, Manea trees do not grow everywhere. They’re strangely fickle. We’ve been unable to discover any substantial new land that will support an orchard. We’ve pursued this avenue vigorously, I assure you. And if we had missed anything our competitors would surely have found it.”
“So as the older, higher producing, trees reach the end of their lifespan, not only are the younger trees too small to make up the difference but you can't plant any more of them?” the Clan Lord asked.
“Yes.”
"But what about grafting the plants or cross breeding. Can't something else be done?"
"Yes. We've made some progress in that area,” Doctor Bihinlem answered. "That's my area of specialty, alternate breeds."
"And?"
"The grafts have potential, but even
if we had a perfect tree now, it would take twenty years to wipe the land and grow a mature orchard.”
"But we don't have twenty years, right? Is that where this is going? How long do we have? Five years?” the Clan Lord asked.
"Six months to a year,” Lord Valance answered. "Before the decline in the old trees causes major disruptions in supply."
"Your business will be ruined!"
"If the decline continues at that pace, there won't be anyone left to sell to.”
"Lets not be overly dramatic. Besides, what do you expect me to do about any of this?" the Clan Lord spat, not making any effort to hide his outrage.
"Talk to the other Clan Lords. We have a plan." Lord Valance replied calmly.
-
Emret heard the click of the door that signaled someone was coming in. He wiggled and pushed himself up to a sitting position in time to see Moslin shut the door behind her.
“How we doing today?” she asked.
“Same as yesterday..." he adjusted his blankets, “…and the day before, and you know… the day before.”
Moslin smiled and sat down on the bed next to him. She set the large green book down beside her. “Do you want to read a little today?”
He let out a depressed sigh. “No, not really.”
“No?” she said in surprise. “You’ve been hounding me for the last two weeks to read at every available moment. Now suddenly you don’t want to read?”
“Sorry. I don’t feel like it today.”
“I sense a little discouragement,” she said sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood.
“No, I’m fine,” he answered, not catching the sarcasm. “Maybe we could read this one for a bit.” He leaned over to the side table and tried to grab a smaller red book.
She turned and picked it up for him. “Ah, we’re finally getting around to reading one of the books your dad bought for you. He’ll be happy his effort didn’t go to waste.”
He forced a smile and nodded his head.
“You don’t seem that excited about this book either.”
"What's to be excited about? It's just something somebody else made up.”
She readjusted her position to face him more directly. “Books aren’t just something somebody made up.” She paused. “Well, maybe some of them are but not all of them.”
He looked up at her, the first sign of life showing on his face since she arrived. “So how do you tell if the book you’re reading wasn’t just made up by whoever wrote it?”
“Well…” she took a moment. “There are some books that are based on researched fact. Schoolbooks, for example, they show you at the end of the chapter where they got their information, so that you can double-check it.
“Biographies, for another example, are about certain people’s lives. Usually based on interviews with the person or people who knew him or her. Then there are historians who study records of events in the past and write about them.
“And then, of course, there are books like this one..." She held up the smaller red book, “...that are stories based on someone’s thoughts and experiences, and even though they may not be something that actually happened, they can still be terribly meaningful.”
He squinted at her skeptically.
“The people that write them do so in a way to express something that they’ve found to be real and meaningful to them. But instead of just telling you in a text book way that a+b=c, they take you through a life experience with them and show you what it’s like to have that happen. You get to draw your own meaning from sharing that experience.”
He furrowed his brow, trying to grasp the idea.
“Say I were to ask you what it would be like to raise two twin boys. What would you say?”
He looked up at her, then glanced away. “I don’t know.”
“Well, if you wanted to know what it’d be like to be a parent of two little babies at once you could read someone’s story about it. They would take you through the experience of childbirth, staying up all night with them, and trying to figure out how to feed them when both were hungry at the same time. The parents could share how much fun they had watching them both learn to hold their heads up, and then sit up by themselves, and eventually crawl. Even though you’re just a boy yourself, when you read the story you get a sense of what its like to be a parent.”
He nodded his head. “I think that makes sense.”
She put the red book aside and picked up the larger tattered green book. “But it’s my guess that you’re not talking about books in general. I’m guessing that you want to know about this book in particular. Whether or not this book is actual fact or simply made up.”
He stared back at her, waiting patiently for her to continue.
“Are there sources of information in this book that can be verified? Possibly. Are there historical records that could be cross-referenced? It would take a little work. It's possible. Are there scholars who could tell us if the book is consistent with what they believe the historical facts are? Maybe.
“But really, your concerns and questions aren’t actually about this book either.”
They aren’t? He blinked in surprise. He was pretty sure they were.
“This is about you trying to wrap your head around what’s happening to you. This is about you being thrown towards the edge of a cliff, and you not knowing why, or who's doing it. This is about you wanting this all to make sense.
“This book has some ideas about all that. Can they be proven, cross-referenced and verified? No. That makes your dad uncomfortable. He doesn't want you to get wrapped up in something that isn't true. I can understand that.”
She put the green book down on the side table. “So it’s your choice. The book offers the idea that the world is not lost in chaos; that we haven't simply been thrown into the wind, waiting to see where we might land; that there is order in everything; that there are patterns that extend beyond this world and this life, though we may not see or understand them; that we are not just on a globe, hurtling through space at a million miles per hour, completely out of control, waiting to crash into the next immovable object in our path.
“If those ideas appeal to you, then read the book. No one can tell you if it’s right or wrong. You have to decide that for yourself. It's up to you to find the meaning in the book by experiencing the stories as you read them.”
He tilted his head to the side, then asked, “The story about the boy who fights the monster?”
“Yes?”
“How was that story about life being full of order and purpose?”
“Very good question,” she admitted. “How does your own life fit into that order and purpose? How can that story help you understand your own relationship to this life? The story is a repeating pattern. Not a historical account of something that happened just once. It explains a pattern that we may fit into, in one way or another, and in different ways at different times. The structure of that pattern may help us to understand the structure of our own life, the choices that are available to us. Sometimes we are not even aware of them until they are pointed out.”
“This boy, who’s called up to fight the monster, what choice does that represent? What great order does reading that give to my life?”
“I can't answer that question for you,” she said quietly.
He looked down, not happy with her answer
“When you were excited about reading it, what was it that you liked so much?”
He looked at her firmly, moisture forming in his eyes. “The boy wins! Everybody says he’ll die, but he doesn’t. He wins.”
“Well, there you go.” She patted his leg. “That pattern has meaning to you.”