Greed Leaf Farm

Krandermore, Survivor’s Refuge

4453.2.17 Interstellar

It took an hour and a half for Janus and Ryler to finish stabilizing the last surviving villagers for transport back to Hayyam.

“Tell me something,” Janus asked Ryler as he sterilized his equipment.

“What?”

“Hayyam, the Pugarians, the spire… it all looks different than Cofan did.”

Ryler looked up at him. “I have a lot of information stored up here, Janus. What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m just trying to understand why we’re so different, Ryler. Why are the Pugarians different from the Motragi or Verazlan?”

“You mean aside from several thousand years of history?”

“Yeah,” Janus said, looking at his friend with interest. “Aside from that.” Janus already knew the easy answer: there had been some kind of event when the Splinter Fleet landed on Krandermore. A plague. It killed so many people so quickly that the ships in orbit decided to quarantine the colonists, and the people of Krandermore’s cultures developed based on that initial struggle to survive. “I recognize some of it from Old Earth history. The Verazlans patterned themselves after the Aztecs and the Motragi after the Anasazi. Both ancient peoples of the Northern Stars bloc of Old Earth. I would have thought the Pugarians would have picked the Mayans or the Inca.”

“You want to know why the Pugarians have different-looking buildings?”

“Sure,” Janus said. “Or any of them. It’s not often I have a Cult librarian around to ask.”

Ryler nodded. “The Pugarians modeled their culture after the Phoenicians. They were a trading culture of the ancient world, even before Old Earth as we think of it. They were traders.”

“Okay, but why them?”

Ryler smiled. “It’s hard to imagine what our ancestors were like sometimes, but they were a people of almost unlimited means. They had all the knowledge we’ve lost, disastrous and miraculous, and yet they couldn’t keep themselves alive. They were dying gods. The chief supply officer chose Phoenician architecture because it made her happy.”

Janus laughed. “An entire people’s culture hung on one woman’s whim?”

This time, it was Ryler’s turn to shrug. “We all come from the same place, Janus. What you think of as the Cult are just the people who chose to stay on the ships.”

***

The team regrouped around the buggies, which had been pulled up close but not too close to the farm building. Armed villagers guarded the only entrance to the white, blocky drug lab. One of them pointed to Janus and the others, and the elder started walking toward them.

“We’re pulling a Mercuria, right?” Mick asked.

“More of a Survivor’s Grace,” Janus said. “But a little bit of Mercuria, yes.”

Lira and Ryler nodded.

“What are you talking about?” Koni asked.

“A truly profitable day, Emissary!” the elder said, beaming. “Thank you for saving our shipment and, of course, for attending to our wounded!”

“Any signs of the farm workers?” Janus asked.

The elder scowled. “Yes. They’ve been trickling back in ones and twos from where they were hiding from the emberthorn. The wretches didn’t even try to fight it off or come back to the village for help.”

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“It’s hard to find good staff,” Janus said sympathetically while doing his best not to show how angry he was. “I saw a body by the side of the road.”

“Yes,” the elder said. “We lost three, including the foreman, but no one from the lab, thank goodness. But I wanted to talk to you about what you did—that emberthorn stuck its snout into refined powder. It was enraged—the farmers call it the Greed Leaf rush. It should have been unstoppable.”

“Librarian Abraxxis and I synthesized an antidote when Fury was exposed.”

The elder smiled. “We’d deeply appreciate it if you would share the formula with us.”

Janus smiled back and looked at Lira, who’d walked up to join him.

“Surely you’re not suggesting, Elder Hiram, that Janus should hand it over for free,” Lira said.

“It would save lives!” the elder protested.

“It wouldn’t be profitable,” Janus replied cooly.

Lira’s expression was downright predatory. “We just want the value of what you’re asking for to be recognized. You could offer the Motragi and Verazlan rangers the possibility of short bursts of performance without the lingering side effects. More importantly, a reliable antidote, developed by a winner of the Trials and a librarian of the Cult would allow wealthy clients to enjoy Greed Leaf without the risk.”

“I’m not comfortable attaching the Cult’s name to an addictive psychotic substance,” Ryler said.

“Well, then, it’s a good thing you work for me,” Janus answered.

“Reckon you could sell it to villages that had an addiction problem, too, mate,” Mick added, thumbs hooked into his belt.

Koni frowned at all of them, but she stayed silent.

“What do you want?” Elder Hiram said. “I can’t afford to pay you until we sell that shipment.”

Janus smiled. “Like I said earlier, I’d like to hear about your plans for expansion. I know from experience in the Cofan labs that protecting your intellectual property will be crucial, especially once people realize how lucrative Greed Leaf can be.”

“The hybrids can’t be propagated, as you know,” Hiram said, “so we’re not worried about theft. We cultivate seedlings in the labs, and the towers can be installed anywhere.”

“Are you thinking of a franchise or a licensing model?” Lira asked.

The elder relaxed as he and Lira got into the details of the Greed Leaf go-to-market strategy. Janus used the opportunity to message Mick.

“It sounds like the endorsement of a Trials champion would accelerate your deployment,” Lira said. “What do you think, Janus?”

Janus turned back to look at the elder and said, “This is the only place the mutated Greed Leaf parent lines are stored, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the elder said uncomfortably. “Obviously, after what happened today, we’ll be changing that.”

“I’d like to see the lab. I want to make sure you have the capacity to fulfill the kinds of orders we can bring you.”

“That won’t be possible,” the elder said, any trace of warmth gone from his expression. “Your team is formidable, Emissary. You can understand why letting you into our facility would pose a risk.”

“The others can stay outside. And I assure you, elder,” Janus added, “if we were intent on ‘risk,’ your people couldn’t stop us.”

Elder Hiram swallowed. “I suppose that’s true. A quick visit, then.”

“Lead the way,” Janus said.

***

Half an hour later, Janus got back into his buggy and started strapping in.

“Did you give him the formula?” Koni asked stiffly.

“I did. There are people in Hayyam who need it.”

“I thought you wanted to help people,” Koni said. “That poison will kill thousands.”

“Probably more than that,” Janus said seriously. “According to Mick, the effects of Greed Leaf aren’t that hard to put together from existing drugs, but this stuff is way too easy to grow and process.”

“So, what are we going to do about it?” Koni asked, crossing her arms.

Janus nodded his head toward the farm building. “Take a look.”

Koni twisted in her seat. The farm building’s door was open, and people were spilling out of it, coughing and covering their faces.

“They really should have been wearing respirators in a facility like that,” Janus said, starting the buggy.

Elder Hiram came stumbling out and proceeded to vomit violently.

“I must have misplaced a gas grenade or two while I was visiting,” Janus said.

“That is amusing,” Koni said cautiously, “but I don’t see how it solves the larger problem.”

“It just gets them out of the lab,” Janus said. He pushed the accelerator and steered out to the road.

Lira’s buggy fell in behind him.

“The problem any biologist faces when they discover natural resources is that there is a very low barrier to entry for others to do the same,” Janus continued. “You can patent the formula, of course, but copyright law isn’t as strong as it could be on Krandermore, and we’re talking about a narcotic. The first thing Elder Hiram did was eradicate all the wild Greed Leaf he could find.”

The windows shuddered as the explosives Mick had placed went off.

Villagers by the side of the road started running toward the farm building.

“Gas-fueled generators with underground storage,” Janus said. “It takes a lot of power to run that many grow lights. Good ventilation. It’s going to burn fast.”

Koni looked at him, more relaxed than she’d been when he’d first gotten in the buggy. “I’m surprised you’re not going back there to help the wounded. Not everyone will have gotten out, you know, and the elder will probably order them into the fire to recover their plants.”

“I know,” Janus said through clenched teeth. “And I’ll agonize over it, but Hiram was going to relocate the parent lines, and we just don’t have time to fix this properly. I had to do what I could in the time I had.”

“You didn’t have to, Janus,” Koni said, turning to look out the passenger side window. “But I am glad that you did.”