Food for Thought

Steve dangled several shiny lures at me in our previous RP, Coffee and Convictions. It was only a matter of time before I gave in and started speculating. Here's what I came up with... AND Steve actually answered back in-character as Sonia. So I had to add that conversation below. Thanks, Steve!—Maer

Excerpts from the private journal of Viktoria Tikhonova and phone communications file #099123764-095987246xtd029341857fsa-p2027ws07

December, 2524
Capital City Spaceport, Ariel
White Sun (Bai Hu) system
08:00 local time

I walked home from the coffee shop despite the snow. I needed to think. Meetings with Sonia always offered plenty of food for thought but I needed time to digest it.

AgriCorp has a new strain of wheat modified for the desert conditions they're pushing toward. What was it she said? 'Hoping to increase competition for trade.' Competition against whom? For which market? The Core market share? Or the market on the Rim? Are they looking to make life better for everyone? Or to just line their pockets regardless of those suffering?

The war had shattered supply lines and production infrastructures. Hunger and want crossed Core socioeconomic lines as it had not done before. Those with money suffered less, those with less suffered more, but nevertheless, everyone was hurting. It wasn't hard to figure out. One need only look to history to understand why. After the Black Death on Old Earth had reduced Europe by half, the surviving peasants suddenly had worth. The scarcity of their skills gave them the leverage to break the grip of Feudalism and pave the way for the modern era that followed. If one multiplied that effect today by the dozens of worlds and scores of moons on the Border and the Rim...After generations of being exploited as a cheap source of food and labor, the Rim and the Border refused to continue the practice after winning their independence. With the depletion of workers due to the war and the plague, possessing the skill to grow food and the land on which to grow it translated into powerful leverage. The math was brutal. The equation favored the Rim and the Border. The advantages the Core had enjoyed—fairly or unfairly—no longer applied.

I waited at a corner for the light to change, my thoughts coming fast like the snowflakes swirling past the streetlamps.

The Second U-War had burned itself out on the Mutagenic Plague. Humanity stepped back from the fighting to save itself from extinction, producing a cure in record time. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was over. It wasn't. The food shortages in the Core were a symptom of an underlying condition, one that presaged another kind of war that even now gathered steam. I wondered how many were aware of it.

Apparently AgriCorp was. Wheat for bread and noodles was in short enough supply that growing it in the middle of a desert was an attractive option, prompting the development of a strain that would do well in the arid conditions of the Rim. Common sense insisted that AgriCorp would not be the only one to capitalize on opportunities spawned by scarcity and war. Who were the other players and what did they bring to the game? Just as important, what did they have in reserve?

Sonia was tracking Sorghum futures. I knew sorghum was a grain used as a food product, livestock fodder, and biofuel. It could even be made into alcohol. Perhaps not so coincidentally, sorghum was a desert-growing grain as well. Anyone who controlled sorghum would have leverage against AgriCorp's new strain of wheat. Sorghum was clearly another piece in the game. It would be interesting to find out who currently controlled the shares in either crop, if there any new developments were attached to them, and if there were plans to buy up property on which to grow them. Any one of those elements by itself would be sufficient to spark commodities speculation, let alone all three. Were that to happen, it would push the price of food higher than it already was. Scarcity and hoarding would make the prices skyrocket. Unless strong measures were taken, and soon, the bottom line would drive the market and humanitarian ethics would lose to profit. One only had to look to history to predict the outcome.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Sonia's number.

"Sonia, it's Vikki. I know it's late but …" I paused as she greeted me and when that was out of the way, I told her my thoughts on the matter of sorghum and wheat. It took a few minutes.

"Wheat versus Sorghum, what are you talking about?" Sonia replied after a moment's puzzled silence and on my phone's screen her expression made it clear she thought I'd gone off the deep end of the conspiracy theory pool. I got that a lot from her. "No, they are trying to grow some new fangled grain out there, it's called Sorghum.... isn't that a kind of wheat?"

"Well, it's a kind of wheat in that it's a kind of grain," I replied. "That much I remember from biology class. But I think they've got different properties in protein or gluten or something. One makes it easier to do some things with it, and the other for other things. But yeah, both are edible." I sighed. Dammit, I thought I was on to something. Sonia's hardly an expert. Neither are you. But maybe it's something worth watching anyway. I ducked into the overhang of an apartment building's front entrance, seeking shelter from the snow as well as a modicum of privacy. I kept my voice low as I continued. "Of course, if I were to try to solve the food shortages, I'd start making astral-stationary algae farms, growing it under domes on parabolic structures positioned to make the best use of the solar energy they're orbiting. You could grow a metric ass-ton of food that way."

"They could do that, but that costs real money, and puts all the risk in the hands of the agro-business." Ever the practical one, Sonia immediately put me straight. "You put seeds in the hands of farmers, and the risk rests with them. Not to mention of course, that since that TSE outbreak a few years ago there's been a greater demand for real grains. Real protein." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then made eye contact through the screen. "I think you're in the wrong business, Mei Mei, you could make some boring story about moderately novel grain developments into a serial about a secret conspiracy to destroy the Independents and restore the Alliance." She smiled over the screen. "What annoys me is that my editor put me on this Yong Chwen Mien (plain, bland) story, only after I pitched him a story about some of the mega-corps getting involved in local rim politics: haciendas, banana republics, juicy stuff. That might be a real story, but he was worried that I was getting too political. He said he was grooming me for big things and had to keep my record clean until I was ready. Feh Feh Pi Goh."(Baboon's Ass Crack)

"They are? Which ones? What places? How much?" I pounced on the shiny lure she dangled in front of me. Pavlov had his dogs, I had my mental cats and right now they were jumping. Good manners and faith in my friend prompted me to add, "And congratulations on the grooming for the bigs. I know you'll run with it all the way to the Pulitzer. If anyone could do it, it would be you."

And yet, I couldn't help but wonder about the mega-corps insinuating themselves into the political scene. Like the zaibatsu of Old Earth, it could foster prosperity or disaster. It was times like these when I wondered if it were ever possible to escape the weight of history, especially as we seemed to be repeating it. Perhaps history was simply the story of human nature and therefore inescapable, as we would never escape being human.

Which begged the question—would history unfold differently if we were no longer human? Would we be better off? Or would we be worse?

---

Sonya laughed. What was I thinking saying something like that to Vikki? She composed herself and tried to think of an answer that wouldn't require her to resort to booting up her Encyclopedia. Then she employed the wits that let her keep up with the frenetic engineer. "You know Vik, you might be able to help me with that. I've been officially told not to investigate it. But you haven't. When you are out on the Rim, keep your eyes open, And if you know where you are going to be, wave me the location, and I'll see if I have any leads. You can be my 'man' on the inside."

---

"Absolutna," I said, my mental cats already going nuts with the possibilities. I put my back to the wall of the entrance so no one could look over my shoulder at our conversation. "Do you have a secure dropbox? Will we need one?"

---

"You can use my whispernet account," she responded, "though I doubt there will be anyone monitoring your or my waves. Especially once I get tarred as the "'food features columnist of the inner core'." She snarled the last bit. Then she added, "This is not asking you to do poking around where there is danger. These guys are probably in charge of everything in a hundred klik radius, so just let me know they're there, and what the locals think of them. I don't want you trying to bring down the man, and getting yourself strung up as a carpetbagging interloper. Dong la mah?"

---

"Wǒ míngbáile," I agreed. I understand. Strung up? Lynched? For telling the truth? Suddenly everything became hyper-real, no longer a game. But that didn't mean I couldn't shoulder the risk. It was dangerous, yes, but it was also necessary.Sonia reported for the Yì Jǐngtì. The name of the paper meant "Righteous Vigilance". Perhaps had more people been vigilant, the disasters of Miranda, TSE, and the Plague would have been prevented. "I'll be careful."

---

Sonya looked skeptically at her friend. She knew that Vikki was going into the Black, out to the Rim with more enthusiasm than caution, but it was something about her she loved. Vikki would be okay, she willed herself to believe, she had the luck of the innocent or something.

"Listen Vikki, I don't want to be stuck having coffee with lame VPs of marketing instead of my best friend, or ending up spending all my days doing research for stories that get censored anyway, instead of debating the justice of the Alliance until 3 in the morning. You have a responsibility to me, I am your best friend. So… come back. Okay?" She looked beseechingly into screen.

---

"I will." Touched, I smiled to quell the trembling of my lip. On no account would I break down and cry. It would only fuel my best friend's worry. More than your best friend. The older sister you never had. "I'll be all right. I promise, Jei jei."

How like her. From the first day we met, she always looked out for me. Can't she see I need to strike out on my own? I would never say it to her face, but many were the occasions I thought it. Not for the first time I wondered if she would miss having me to look after … and if I would miss her looking after me. We would both find out, starting tomorrow.

"Sonia, I'll be fine," I said, meaning it. "I should go. It's late and I need to get back. I'll call you when I'm about to board, all right? That way you'll know I got on safe." It was a lame reassurance given her opinion of the ship in question, but I had to say something. Otherwise, she'd find a way to fill my silence with her fears.

---

"Alright... damn... my train is here. Gotta go. Listen Vikki seriously, take care, and if someone tries to kill you...you kill'em right back."

---

"Bùyào dānxīn," I said. "I will. You, too. Love you." I waved my fingers at her image but Sonia had already turned away and the screen went dark in my hand. A shiver ran down my spine. It had nothing to do with the cold and the snow. If someone tries to kill you … you kill'em right back. The gun lay heavy in my pocket and heavier still on my conscience. Could I kill someone if I had to? Was I capable of pulling the trigger? What could possibly be dire enough to make me do such a horrible thing? There was no telling. I pushed off into the night and turned my steps for home … and tried not to dwell on the possibilities implied by that gun.

HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE

Mèi Mei =妹妹= May may = Sister, younger sister Sound clip
Feh Feh Pi Goh (alt. sp.: Fèifèi de pìgu) = 狒狒的屁股 = Fay-fay duh pee-goo = Baboon ass Sound clip
Wǒ míngbáile = 我明白了 = Woah ming-bai-luh = I understand. Sound clip
Yì Jǐngtì = 義警惕 = Eee jee-eng-tee = Righteous Vigilance Sound clip
Jie jie = 姐姐 = Jieh jieh = sister, older sister, elder sister Sound clip
Bùyào dānxīn = 不要擔心 = Boo-yow dahn-sheen = Don't worry. Sound clip

HOW TO SPEAK JAPANESE

zaibatsu = 財閥 = Zai-baht-zuh= (lit.) financial clique Sound clip, also go here for more definitions

HOW TO SPEAK RUSSIAN

Absolutna = абсолютно = ahb-so-loot-nah = Absolutely Sound clip

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