President Tanaka was not happy; the meeting with the board did not go well at all. After news of the waste from their electronic factories winding up in the Udono Harbor the company was being investigated. He had spent the last two hours calming the board down and promising them that there was no way the dumping could be tracked back to them. The waste disposal company that did it was convinced to do it with a few threats and some blackmail. The owner Kenzo Yoshida had a young daughter who got frigged and had photos taken. The board even thought that Yoshida was actually getting bribe money for the dumping. Tanaka didn’t see the need to bribe him when threats would do instead.
Tanaka didn’t know how they managed to trace what was dumped as coming from his factory but he could just deny knowing about Yoshida’s company dumping it. Still now he had government investigators and the press all over the factory. If Yoshida had a change of hart and came clean Tanaka was screwed. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry Tanaka decided to get Sasaki involved. Normally his hatchet man Sasaki didn’t deal with public messes. His skills were better served in the shadows but this time it was necessary. Tanaka decided to have Sasaki arrange a suicide to Kenzo Yoshida after leaving a note taking full responsibility for the dumping.
Tanaka smiled, with a little luck things would be back to normal in a month. Just then Tanaka’s secretary came running in shouting to look as she rushed to the tv to turned it on. Tanaka watched the news horrified as Kenzo Yoshida gave testimony that Tanaka’s company forced him to do the dumping. He then played a recording of Sasaki threatening the man’s wife and children if he didn’t do the dumping.
* * * * *
It was time to check on Tawny again. Every month for the past year Daniel had been taking atmospheric samples for testing. With Hawk refusing to say exactly when the atmosphere conversion would be complete Daniel was limited to charting it himself. Looking at the tank filled with Tawny’s air he was happy to no longer see signs of the yellow brown color it had to start with. The pressure gage on the vacuum tank was now happily showing a touch over 300 millibars. That was more than twice what it had started off at last year. Tawny now had almost the same air pressure as that of the top of Mount Everest. Still to thin even for Sherpas to breath but at this rate a livable number could be reached within a year.
Looking at the thermometer log for the past 24 hours it looked like the range was dropping. It seemed the thicker air was now stabilizing the temperature changes between night and day. With these numbers it looks like it was time to start thinking about the water. The planet was still to dry and dusty, the little moister contained in the copied air was quickly turning into night frost or soaking into the ground during the day. Tawny needed oceans, rivers and lakes but most of all rain.
Daniel tightly sealed the atmospheric sample, Putting a labeled on it he then used a portal to send it to the testing clerk’s desk at the Tawny Company. Originally Daniel had arranged the testing himself switching from one testing service to another to them from getting suspicious. A few months ago he realized that the Tanya Company had a perfectly good excuse to have samples tested. Pollution and environmental contamination was what the company worked on. A quick call to Jane got a new hire to handle testing.
Daniel made it a point to send normal samples from pollution sites to them for testing regularly but every month a Tawny sample was also included. When testing was completed the lab report would be entered by the testing clerk into the company’s data server. Daniel could then look and see the results. Looking at the most recent numbers he saw the water vapor and oxygen had increased even more while the methane level dropped. Still a long ways to go before it became breathable but it was getting there. He was also happy to see no smog or other modern pollutants had gotten in. Hawk was connecting the portals for air with Earth’s from several hundred years ago before the industrial age to take care of that.
Daniel showed Sammy the numbers when she got home. It brighten her whole day when she saw the progress they were making. As the Tawny world got closer and closer to being habitable they were both becoming more anxious. Both of them were planning and re-planning how to do the next few steps. As Doctor Lester got more and more suspicious of the questions Daniel had been asking him he was forced to find other sources for answers. Sammy’s veterinarian school was a good source for things dealing with animals but Daniel was still searching for a source of assistance for the plants. Sammy had even proposed a class project to one of her instructors on researching altitude sickness for animals. The professor didn’t understand why she was interested in something so odd but did concede there was some validity to doing it.
Once Sammy was finished looking over the numbers for the atmosphere Daniel once again tried suggesting they go to the private island for some fun. Sammy got red in the face and started exclaiming No, No, No again. Ever since that boat full of locals caught them sunbathing naked there Sammy had refused to go back. He had even tried suggesting Hawk could keep a lookout and let them know if any locals showed up or maybe just move to a different island. Her response was still the same, a red, embarrassed face and a refusal to go.
A few months later Daniel was looking through a portal at a small inland sea that now existed on Tawny. The sea was only a few thousand acres in size and it was filled with sterile sea water copied from ancient earth. As such it was lifeless and no marine life would survive in it. The sea level was constant now so Daniel decided to have Hawk move some existing ocean water over. Only a few cubic kilometers of it he decided. He didn’t want to reduce earth’s ocean resources any more than he had to. With the small sea now stable it was time to see if life could get started. Daniel knew plankton was the building block for marine life. That was primarily phytoplankton and zooplankton. The Phytoplankton could produce their own food through photosynthesis and the zooplankton would consume the phytoplankton. If both could grow and thrive when the density increased enough he could then add small fish and crustaceans: Such as crabs, lobsters, and shrimp that survive off the zooplankton.
While he waited to see what the plankton would do Daniel started to work on the soil. Sammy was anxious to bring some animals over but they first needed foliage to survive. Deciding to start small again Daniel selected a large valley with a small lake and a couple of streams that had now formed in it. He had Hawk to change the top dozen feet of rock and dust with sterile soil from earth. The plants and roots got copied over as well but they were inert and eventually would dry up. Some day when Fungi and bacteria existed on Tawny they might actually start to decompose but not now.
In his research he had read that before plants could grow they needed beneficial microorganisms and nutrients. The normal source for these would have been compost, aged manure and other organic matter. None of which he could get in large enough quantities to really matter for Tawny although he might be able to for just the valley. Before he did that Daniel decided to check online for alternatives and found a reference to alluvial soil. This was deposited by rivers and was an excellent source of the bacteria. Thinking about it a bit Daniel decided that grabbing some before it got washed out to the ocean should be fine. With that Hawk opened a few portals to transfer the wet silt from the Mississippi delta to a few meters above the valley surface. As the silt fell it spread around covering the sterile topsoil.
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A month later Daniel took a few bore samples a couple below the surface of the valley to be tested. With that positive indication of bacteria Daniel was now ready to move plants into the valley. He initially thought about buying a few thousand trees and plants from nurseries using the last of Hector’s money. But he then realized that he might acquire enough for the valley but nowhere near enough for the rest of Tawny. Even buying them for the valley might setup flags that would get them too much attention. Trying to think of a solution Daniel looked over at the monitors on the wall. Like usual they were showing environmental problems and disasters around the world. On one of them a major forest fire was burning in the northwest and on another part of the Brazilian rain forest was getting bulldozed under for agriculture. Thinking about how he wanted to save those habitats Daniel finally realized what he could do.
Tom McCearly had already been working 10 days straight and the fire was still spreading. Digging lines for 16 hours a day was exhausting and mind-numbing. We had basically created a single-track trail as a fuel break to stop the fire from spreading. So far over 10,000 acrers had been lost and if the wind shifted it would be even worse. As I looked back over the flames the wavering heat waves distorted the view. Looking at some of the trees about to be burned I could swear they actually seemed to flicker a bit right before they caught fire. I must be more tired than I though as I turned and started digging again.
The valley looked a lot better with the trees and bushes around it. You could almost feel you were looking at a spot on earth. I couldn’t wait to show Sammy when she got home from school today. Having Hawk move the trees and bushes to the valley right before they caught fire while simultaneously replacing them from a copy of the tree from a few minutes before worked like a charm. Also including some of the dirt from around the roots also made sure there was plenty of suitable bacterial laced soil for them as well. If anyone did noticed the sterilized spots left behind the forest fire would help explain it. Looking again at the trees I smiled and thought if they are still surviving a month from now Sammy could begin moving some animals in. Looking around some more I decided to try adding some water plants around the lake and maybe spread some wild flower seeds while I was at it. Taking just a few water plants from half a dozen lakes wouldn’t be noticed I was sure and the seeds are sold as bird food so replacing them with inert seeds would be fine. If the wildflowers grew we could also release some bees and butterflies as well.
Back at the Tawny Company Jane was getting more and more concerned. The frauds, cover-ups and actual crimes being brought to light by their efforts were getting a lot of attention to the company. There were also some questions being raised from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) over the source of funds used by the company. The company was setup as a private business and not a charity organization to keep a higher level of confidentiality and keep questions like that from arising. A few employees have complained about feeling like they were being watched and one of the analyst even claimed her apartment was bugged. Jane herself hadn’t noticed anyone following her but she was getting more worried about the employees. Deciding she needed to talk to someone about it she placed a call to Dan. Surprisingly he answered right away and acted like he expected her call. After saying she needed to discuss some things they arrange another meeting for lunch at the same restaurant.
The lunch meeting started fine with a lot of small talk and a quick update on the company. After the meal while Dan was enjoying a desert and she a coffee the talk turned to the spying issue. After explaining to Dan the complaints the employees had made about being watched Dan nodded his head to a man on a phone seated near the door.
“He’s been watching you carefully every since you came in” Dan said.
As he said it the man quickly put his phone in his pocket, left some money on the table and walked out. Shocked Jane stared after the man as she started to feel scared.
“Don’t worry” Dan said “He and the others are trying to find the source of information you are getting.” He was actually trying to listen in to our conversation to find out about it”.
Jane puzzled asked “How was he hearing us, he’s on the other side of the store?”
“That phone had a special mike and app on it. He could listen to any conversation in the room with it. It was developed for the hearing impaired but anyone can buy and use it nowadays.”
After that revelation Dan calmed her down and gave a few suggestions on how to deal with the situation. One was even more of a shock, Dan suggestion she hire a specific data security company that he said was a front for the CIA. When she asked why Dan explained that it was an open secret about that company. Hiring them would scare off the criminal elements and any other agencies would try to get the information through the CIA. Dan also suggested Jane add a tip form on the company web site offering a small reward for any tips about illegal dumping or environmental damage. Telling her that the more potential sources there were for the information then the harder it would be for anyone to point to one source for any of it. As far as the CRA went Dan just suggested she remind them that the company was funded through their data analysis of environmental crises. For these they were very well paid for by others in particular Mrs. Hilderbran who was a non-Canadian citizen.
As Daniel got up to leave he handed a heavy box to Jane saying “Just a token of Grandma and mind’s appreciation for the hard work you do”
Opening the box up Jane saw a beautiful ceremonial cape of her people the Tlingit tribe. For a moment Jane thought it might actually be a historical relic which would be totally illegal to possess but looking closer she could see it looked to new. It looked like it had just made by the tribesman yesterday. She was very pleased with the thoughtfulness of it and as she headed back to the company she kept thinking about the best place to hang it in her office.
The data security company Dan suggested hiring was very accommodating. They had several suggestions on securing the server and data. They even offered a discount with being asked. Jane had expected the account rep to look like a spy but he actually looked and acted like a geek.
Another six months had gone buy and things kept progressing. Several more areas of Tawny had been setup. The areas were in different zones so the environment would be better matched to different areas of earth. Two more seas had also been created and seeded with plankton. One was an arctic type sea and a second was to be tropical. Sammy and Daniel were now ready for a big milestone. Something they had been dreaming of for the last three years.
Daniel looked at Sammy and said “Are you ready?”
Her response was a big smile and a nod. Holding hands they stepped through the portal into Tawny. They each had wide smiles on their faces as they both looked out over the valley. Seeing the field of wildflowers blooming with butterflies fluttering around Sammy started to laugh. Daniel looked toward the edge of the forest and saw a rabbit nibbling at the plants. He knew there were a few foxes living in the forest to maintain a healthy rabbit population. He knew they had a lot of work to do. This was just a drop in the bucket and they were a long way from making it a safe haven for animals. Looking down at Sammy and her now slightly rounded tummy he thought “and people too”.