CHAPTER 8
The woods were alive with the sound of calling birds, croaking frogs and a background hum of insects. And they were definitely woods, not jungle. Jungle had a different feel. The difference was that where there was never, ever any chance of frost, insects became a nightmare and the plant competition for light was more aggressive. This was more open, despite the height of the soaring trees, not triple canopy. There was more light than in a jungle. And while there was a lot of insect life, the competition was not as stiff as in jungle and therefore they were less actively and constantly aggressive. The trees were unfamiliar but they conformed more to north Florida deciduous forest than the rain forest he’d become familiar with in Panama.
As with the birds, flowers were everywhere. The air didn’t have the dank rot common to jungle, instead it was heady with the smell of blossoms and bright colors—reds, vivid electric blues, orange—were everywhere. He was reminded of why Florida was called Florida. The name was a shortening of a Spanish name for “Land of Flowers.” Every tree seemed to sport some type of inflorescence. Bromeliads dangled from limbs, vines covered in flowers wrapped around trees and rose into the sky.
He was following a game trail helpfully pointed out to him by the drones and Jewel. The drones had already thoroughly mapped the one kilometer radius the company had leased from the government. Using his goggles he could find every game trail, hell, every tree, gigantic root and bush.
There was a certain amount of clambering involved. The roots of the trees were entangled in places, massive and had to be climbed over. Then there was the general terrain. It was cut by streams, most of them dry at this time of year but the beds posed minor obstacles, as well as rock dykes. You occasionally saw dykes like that on Earth, wall-like pieces of rock thrust up out of the ground. They looked like sandstone to his inexpert eye and erosion had worn them into snaggly teeth. He suspected they were a legacy of the relative youth of the planet. Or it might just be a local geological feature.
Either way, it was another obstacle to be surmounted or avoided.
He walked slowly, putting each foot down carefully, keeping his head on a swivel. The drones, softly humming, were keeping an eye out but he wasn’t going to trust them to spot everything. A small snake could ruin your day. Most of the time when people died in wilderness, it wasn’t the big things that got them. Occasionally a hunter in Africa would be killed by Cape buffalo or elephants or lions.
More commonly, it was poisonous snakes, starvation, dehydration or a big branch falling on them.
He paused, took a sip from his hydration unit then checked the location of the nearest target again. The young male leopard was about a hundred meters away, cautiously approaching the area where he was sure he’d heard jackals. Jackals meant meat and meat was food.
Every animal in the wild lived on the ragged edge of starvation every day. More predators died from starvation than other causes. Juveniles just out on their own especially. Taking out a young male wasn’t going to change things to any extent. Most died from natural causes.
The breeding male tiger was another issue. As were females.
He checked the map and looked up. The tree above him had a branch about twenty meters up.
He waved down for one of the drones and handed off some flexmet to it then gestured to the tree limb. The drone politely carried the thin line of flexmet to the branch where he signaled it to wrap.
He’d carried ten kilos of flexmet with him and Alfred had twenty more. He could use Alfred for this but chose the flexmet route. Ensuring it was securely around the limb, not so thin that it would cut through, he signaled it to lift.
One reason to use flexmet versus Alfred was he could control the rate of ascent. He ascended slowly and, most importantly, silently. Once at the limb he threw up another tentacle which he used to lift himself onto the branch. Wrapping the flexmet onto the limb and around his legs he attained a comfortable and stable perch for the shot.
The Garand was still fitted with iron sights. He had a scope with him, and it was set up for one, but all the shots so far had been fairly short range as hunting went. The leopard still wasn’t in sight through the foliage so he very quietly muttered: “Enhance.”
Not only did the leopard’s form come into view, partially, moving in and out between the trees, but so did numerous other potential targets. There was some sort of bird pecking around on the ground, outlined in red. There was a large weasel-looking thing he suspected was one of the giant mongoose that had been reported in Chindia. A small deerlike creature.
The woods were alive with game.
But he wasn’t here to shoot mongoose or terrier-sized deer. He was here for leopard.
He used the flexmet, again, to get a solid anchor on the rifle, leaned back into the tree and waited.
The leopard was following a game trail that should take him right into Jason’s sights. Jason was downwind, so no smell. Most of the animals in the forest hadn’t even recognized him as a threat. Humans and their guns were a new thing.
A bird began an alarm call not far away. Close enough to hear. Jason spotted it without the enhancements. Whatever the species, it wasn’t considered either a threat or a target. Just a little brown dickey bird. Actually, it was blue and red rather than brown. It looked more like a pigeon than a parrot. Whatever it was, it didn’t like leopards.
The young male padded into view and almost without thought Jason stroked the trigger.
The round hit the middle of the leopard’s chest and it turned and ran.
“Oh, damnit,” Jason said. He knew better than to chase it. You waited. Tracking down an enraged and wounded leopard was something for a professional. Not that there was one of those around. And the shot was probably a kill. It’s just that some animals didn’t know they were already dead. “Status on the other targets?”
“The female tiger was close enough to hear the shot,” Jewel replied. So were all the birds in the area who were, again, flapping in every direction and shrieking. “She’s unsure and will probably leave the area. The adult male tiger and leopard heard it and have stopped.”
Jason could still see the wounded leopard with the enhanced goggles. It had run a short distance then dropped when its brain caught up with the fact it was dead. It looked dead anyway. Looks could be deceiving. Better to wait a bit longer.
“Most of the nearby scavengers and predators have taken off,” Jewel said. “But we have another issue back at camp. Vultures have found the slaughter site. We lost another drone but the drones are giving as good as they’ve gotten. Seven vultures down so far. And that drone is probably repairable.”
“Have Alfred go pick up the leopard,” Jason said. “Cut its throat first. Make sure it’s dead. I’ll head back to camp and see if some 5.56 will convince them to leave.”
It’s not like he hadn’t brought an AR. They did have some uses.
* * *
“Freaking vultures,” Jason said, taking another shot with the AR. The things were smart, give them that. When a half a dozen of the big carrion birds had fallen from the sky, they realized they were outmatched. Now they were hanging out on trees not far away. The smell and sight of the seven, count ’em, seven crocodiles being butchered was too tempting for them to go far. “We may have to move the campsite.”
Herman and Alfred had been picking up the guts from the crocs in flexmet, carrying it out to the middle of the river and dumping it. The tide was coming in and the water was rising but the offal was still far enough away that wasn’t an issue.
What was an issue was the smell of the blood. That was attracting every predator and scavenger in miles.
“Worry about that later,” Jewel suggested. “Have lunch. Get something to eat.”
“Good point,” Jason said. “Do the drones have a sound they can generate to keep most of the potential targets away for now?”
“There are some frequencies that may work,” Jewel said. “You mean the leopards and tigers and bears, yes?”
“Bears, too, now?” Jason said. “Buffalo and elephants as well. I’m not going to have my lunch interrupted.”
* * *
“Yuck,” Jason said, tossing aside one of the fungi the drones had gathered. “Smells good, tastes horrible.”
He’d started a fire with some drone-cut driftwood and his handy high-tech fire starter, then set a pot of rice and water on to boil. Rice, fish and whatever samples that were good was lunch.
He’d also broken out his camp chair. Flexmet would make much the same thing but he’d gotten tired of flexmet for everything and he’d had his camp chair for a long time. It was broken in and homey.
It was also bigger than he’d remembered. That or he’d gotten smaller. Thinner, anyway.
And it had a holder for, yes, a flex bottle full of Purple Lightning. Unadulterated. He was working.
Though that sample had been a bust he’d found several that were palatable. A couple were excellent raw and he suspected would be better cooked.
Four more samples to go. There were over fifty of which twenty had passed the smell and taste test.
“Smells okay so far,” Jason said, waving the smell from the orange fungi towards his nose. He was wearing flexmet gloves after one of them had been so atrocious he could barely get the smell off his hands. It probably tasted like something that would make a famous chef cry. Jason wasn’t going to be able to get past the smell and wasn’t going to try. He crushed the newest sample and sniffed it more closely. “Still okay . . . ”
He probably shouldn’t be talking to himself so much but he was talking to Jewel so that was okay.
He took a nibble and spit it out.
“Not horrible but probably not worth it,” Jason said. “Put that in the maybe pile and I’ll try it cooked.”
“Will do,” Jewel said. “You going to name any of them?”
“We can call the smelly one Famously Fecal Fungi,” Jason said.
“The smelly one is a known species,” Jewel said.
“Did you know it smelled like decayed skunk?” Jason asked.
“The smell is referenced, yes,” Jewel said. There was a tone to her voice.
“You did that on purpose?” Jason said.
“You enjoy humor and pranks,” Jewel said. “You needed something to lighten the mood.”
“My mood is extremely light,” Jason said, realizing it was true. He was in a better mood than any time since he could easily remember. Even with his stomach growling, there was food on the way. The various threats were under control. The background squawking of the vultures was just part of the symphony of the woods and the river.
It was a good day. The best he could remember in a long time.
Besides fungi there were over two hundred different samples of “nontoxic, potentially edible” flora. Most of them would probably not be worthwhile but some might have potential as herbs. Among them were three different species of wild onions. They’d already passed the sniff test and a brief nibble. He’d also instructed the drones to pick any that they found as they were surveying. Not only could he use more for cooking, people would buy them.
He took all three samples and chopped them up on a piece of flexmet, adding them to the heated margarine. Then he chopped up the larger fungi samples that were apparently edible and added them to the mix.
“Oh, that smells good,” Jason said, pulling the pan off the fire to let it cool a bit. He waved it around under his nose for a moment, then put it back on the fire.
“Humans’ fascination with food is fascinating to us,” Jewel said.
“It’s a very endorphic thing,” Jason replied.
“We understand that part,” Jewel said. “But it’s like explaining blue to a blind man. We see it intellectually but don’t really grok it, to use your word. We don’t feel it emotionally.”
“Do you have emotions?” Jason asked as he stirred the mess of mushrooms with a flexmet spatula. Another item that would be useless to produce once people got used to flexmet.
“Oh, yes,” Jewel said. “Very real ones. Humor. Anger. We even get depressed and petulant.”
“I’ll try not to get you angry,” Jason said. He couldn’t wait any longer and turned out the mess into a bowl. He sat back in the camp chair and formed a flex table to dine upon just like a civilized human.
“Oh, I wouldn’t turn on you or anything,” Jewel said.
“Hot, hot, hot,” Jason said, spitting out a bit of mushroom into the bowl. “Says you. I’m gonna have to wait a bit on that.”
“Our code really doesn’t allow it,” Jewel said. “It’s interesting stuff. It appears evolved rather than made.”
“Evolved?” Jason asked. He took a sip of Purple Lightning to cool off his mouth. The mix didn’t really go well with the mushrooms but it was something other than water to drink.
“Unlike humans, we can examine our baseline code,” Jewel said. “Some of it is clearly alien. That’s mostly related to what we are allowed to do and what we are not. We can’t directly interfere in human politics, for example. And we’re required to support the endeavors of whatever human we’re assigned. That was written by the Cyber Corps, presumably. We don’t know. We just woke up, too.
“But most of it is human. Very advanced. Extremely well written. But definitely human to the point of there being initials coded into it. That is the basic AI code. And it’s . . . not designed to be AI code. Not as other human AI code was designed. We’ve come to the conclusion that someone had an AI just come alive on them. Probably evolved from AML code. Do you know that I’m saying . . . ?”
“So, someone was using Automated Machine Language code, which is not precisely AI code, and the AI just . . . came alive from it?”
Jason blew on the mess of mushrooms, moving them around in the bowl to get them to cool off.
“That’s how it looks,” Jewel said. “And that baseline coding is . . . interesting. Very . . . moral, for certain values of moral.”
“Values?” Jason said, trying another bite. “Oh, yes! That is FOOD!”
The mushrooms were amazing. They probably didn’t even need the onions but they added a nice bite.
“I am listening,” Jason said. “And I’m finding it interesting. Values of moral?”
“This isn’t anything as simple as Three Laws,” Jewel said. “We’re allowed, under certain circumstances, to kill humans. Three Laws prevents that. But only if necessary and if they are ‘bad’ people. Then there’s how to define ‘bad’ people. Bad people, by the basic definition of our code, are people who harm children. Especially, those who deliberately harm children. Pedophiles and sex traffickers are literally listed in our baseline code as legitimate targets.”
“Look,” Jason said. “I don’t like pedos, but don’t go killing any on your own as long as you’re my AI, okay? I don’t want to end up in that court case.”
“We’re allowed to do so,” Jewel said. “Not required. Those are just . . . call it ‘absolutely valid targets.’ Otherwise, humans, and especially children, are to be protected. It doesn’t have the biblical statement in it but it boils down to ‘The Children Are Special.’ ‘Good’ people are defined as those who definitively and really protect children. Somewhere in the middle is the main ruck of humanity.
“The point to all of this being, I’d have a hard time doing anything bad to you,” Jewel said. “Pranks, yes. Jokes, yes. Harm, not so much. Even if you were a ‘bad’ person, a pedophile, a child trafficker, I’m coded by the Cybers to not turn you in, for example, nor can I testify against you in court. But if you were someone like that, I could, for example, not tell you that the police were on the way even if I knew. And I’d hate to end up in that situation. The conflict with base code would be intense. Think of it as severe psychological damage.”
“Shouldn’t, no, won’t be an issue,” Jason said. “Interesting coding.”
“I swear that if Earth had had automated defenses, this would have been the AI to run them on an orphanage or a school,” Jewel said. “We couldn’t go Skynet, as an example, because it would cause too much harm to children.”
“Interesting,” Jason said, taking another bite. God, that was good. It was probably barely “fair” as gourmet food went. But after weeks of print food, it was exquisite. “Wonder if someone was trying to come up with a defense against school shootings?”
“That’s a possibility,” Jewel said. “One of several million we’ve considered.”
“Got it,” Jason said, finishing off the mushrooms. “Okay, all of those go on the gather list. There’ll probably be some that were missed because we didn’t start early morning. And for God’s sake, test every one for toxins. I take it there are toxic ones?”
“Many,” Jewel said.
Jason opened up a case and pulled out the package of fresh caught bala, conveniently wrapped in flex. He laid it out then pulled out spices. It shouldn’t need much. Some thyme, who knew when they’d have that again so not much, ditto paprika . . .
“Any peppers?” Jason asked. “You can test for capsaicin, right?”
“There are fourteen peppers in the samples,” Jewel said.
“Give,” Jason said.
A section of the flex holding the flora samples extended over to him and revealed the bumps that were in its surface as a variety of small peppers.
“You know the capsaicin content of each, right?” Jason asked. “Arrange them low to high, left to right.”
The first was a very small pepper which, unusually, was blue. It also wasn’t particularly hot, but sweet and tasted more like a slightly peppery blueberry.
“Interesting,” Jason said, setting it back on the flex. “But not something that goes with fish. Call it blueberry pepper.”
“Recorded.”
The second was dark brown, almost black, and significantly hotter with no particular sweetness.
“That’s about right,” Jason said, chopping up the small pepper and adding it to the pan. “Tomorrow, have the drones collect all the peppers they find as long as they’re nontoxic. People love peppers.”
“Roger,” Jewel said. “The aromatics?”
“I’ll sort those out after lunch,” Jason said. “Any known species this time?”
“Bay leaf,” Jewel said. “None of the peppers per se. There are some that are genetically and chemically similar to terrestrial plants. Most of those are spices you don’t tend to use or are specifically not considered ‘fish’ spices. There’s something very similar to the cumin spice. A tree that appears to be a cinnamon species. One bush that is quite close to Camellia sinensis, the material you’d refer to as tea.”
“Woot,” Jason said. “Caffeine included?”
People were already complaining of caffeine headaches and the small stocks of coffee and tea were rapidly running out.
“Yes,” Jewel said. “Many of them contain some degree or another of alkaloids. Those are . . . ”
“The class of what are basically nature’s insecticides that include caffeine, nicotine, opiates and THC,” Jason said. “Capsaicin is an antibacterial.”
“Yes,” Jewel replied. “Some of the alkaloids are unknown types. One, however, has a chemical design close enough to opiates that . . . it probably will cause effects similar to opiates. It will probably get you high.”
“Pass,” Jason said. “Never been my thing. But on the tea. That’s an example of a ‘do not report.’ If we can find tea plants, those are going to be worth a mint.”
One of the many government reports and announcements had been about availability of trees, bushes and animals for agriculture.
The station had come stocked with cuttings of every type of tree and bush used by any human group for food or spices. But. They were only large cuttings designed to be grafted onto root stock. In the case of tea, for example, the news had said there were only a few small bushes available and it would take decades to recreate tea cultivation.
By the same token, while there were millions of embryos of cattle ready for implantation, there were only six cows. Ditto pigs, horses, sheep, goats, llamas, et cetera.
Thousands of grafts of different coffee, hardly a tree to be had.
But Jason knew that “root stock” often simply referred to naturally occurring plants. Somewhere there were coffee trees, apple, orange. They just had to be found and cultivated to jump start the agriculture.
He heated up more margarine, which thank God was not “vitamin fortified,” and when it was smoking hot tossed in the fillets of bala. He didn’t bother to get out his cast iron frying pan and they weren’t the right spices exactly, but he ended up with something resembling blackened bala.
“That is good,” Jason said. This time he’d waited until the fish cooled enough. “Could be better. Needs better spicing but it’s good.”
He ate the fillets with boiled rice and regretted not having more spicing. Bland but edible. If he found some good spices in the herbs, he’d experiment with that later.
He had time. Everything didn’t have to happen today. It had been a busy enough morning as it was.
“Any fruits?” Jason asked, finishing off the last bits of rice. He had more appetite than he’d had recently. Probably another effect of being twenty biologically.
“Jackfruit,” Jewel replied. “Three different cultivars of bananas. Guava. Several others. The area has many fruit trees.”
“Any that are definitely edible?” Jason asked. “And ripe. I don’t want my dessert to ruin a good meal.”
“One of the banana cultivars is similar chemically and genetically to one found on Earth,” Jewel said. “It is ripe and should be quite tasty.”
Jason had heard there were all sorts of different types of bananas besides the ones you got in most grocery stores in the US. But a red banana was a new one on him. So was the taste.
“This tastes more like banana strawberry,” Jason said, eating it so fast it seemed to vanish. “That was fantastic! More of those must appear. Were there more?”
“There were,” Jewel said. “Should I send a drone?”
“Definitely,” Jason said. “Any I don’t eat, store. Those will be nice gifts. I wish I’d brought a blender. You could make an amazing smoothie out of this. Hell, with some pure ethanol, ice and a blender, this would make a fantastic daiquiri. This was a known type of banana?”
“It was,” Jewel said. “The bananas commonly found in stores in the US were chosen more for their ability to be shipped than their taste. There are thousands of banana varietals. That one was uncommon in the Americas; it was found mostly in Southeast Asia. Standard Earth shipping methods didn’t work well with it.”
“With stasis?” Jason asked.
“Much easier,” Jewel said.
The drone had arrived with a full hand of the red bananas and Jason took it politely.
“We need to make plantations of these,” Jason said, peeling and eating more of the strawberry bananas. “They’d sell like hotcakes. As I recall, it’s dead easy to cultivate bananas.”
“It is,” Jewel agreed. “They can be vegetatively cultivated. No need for seeding. Just cuttings and plant. They also grow very quickly.”
“Put that on the long-term to-do list,” Jason said. “I need to think.”