Copyright - Alan Conrad - 2009
Between 1969 and 1995 I completed about twenty stories, most of
them science fiction. I'm going to put some of them on this site, one
at a time, starting with my daughter's favorite - The Dairy Farm.
Though it was written about 1993, given the financial fiasco we've
gotten ourselves into recently, with the giant tasks presented by
global warming, habitat destruction, over-population, and the need
for some kind of global government/world order facing us just as
we decided to squander half the money in the world, I think the
story has a lot to say now.
THE DAIRY FARM
“Let us all die, isn’t that it?”
Senator Russell Pike, the North American representative on the
World Committee for Genetic Recovery, stood in the grey light of
dawn on the deck of his friend Guy Magnuson-Hart’s Adirondack
cabin facing a black inscrutable creature perched on the cedar
railing. With a body two meters long and great transparent wings
protruding from its back, it watched them both with enormous
compound eyes. It was a consultant from the Galactic Bank,
Biological Services Division.
Throughout the night, in the cabin while rain fell heavily out-side,
they had debated the future of Earth’s struggle to renovate
humanity. Now they were out on the deck, the banker’s departure
near at hand.
The rain had stopped, but a low grey blanket of cloud still rolled
silently over the lake and the mountains. A gentle breeze brought
with it the fresh scent of the forests and made the long wings of the
visitor rustle softly, like the thinnest paper.
“You won’t all die Senator,” it said, “but you might just learn to live
with some of your problems.”
“Here on Earth,” Pike continued grimly, “life is considered sacred.
People won’t accept death as some kind of new medicine.”
He talked in his natural voice, while the banker spoke through a
small black box on its back that translated both ways.
“But,” it replied, “they will still complain about their illnesses, their
lung filters, the immunal stabilizers that make them sick, the
allergies that plague them anyway, and the artificial sex that has
been such a waste of time. Just let them know there is a solution
that won’t bankrupt your world.”
“Solution!” Pike snorted.
Beside them Doctor Magnuson-Hart, a research director in the
World Biological Institute, remained quiet. He watched a slender
belt of mist that hung ghost-like on the dark green forested slope
across the lake and wondered if the banker was not right after all.
Almost a quarter of the world’s twelve billion people were
hospitalized with genetic disabilities, while most of the remainder
suffered from less serious physical impairments, chronic allergies
and declining vigour. Even the more robust gene pools in the
slums and rural villages of the Third World had been eroded badly
when the planet’s more affluent inhabitants flocked to them looking
for healthier partners. The few valuable pools left, in remote parts of
Asia, Africa and South America, were protected now, their genes, in
sperm or egg form, available only through the World Health
Pharmacy. But it was not enough. The overall genetic condition of
the race was still declining.
The problem, according to the banker, was that humanity had
lived too long in comfort and safety. The very bacteria and viruses
that had helped it evolve over millions of years, culling out the
weaker members, were now treated as enemies and this, it said,
had to stop. Antibiotics would have to be banned for at least a
century and the most virulent diseases released again to do their
work.
That the laws of Nature should be restored and the human race
left to her cruel justice again had shocked the scientist when he
heard it the previous evening, but now he found himself silently
arguing for the banker in the face of Pike’s resistance. He tried to
remember the words of Tolstoy – something to the effect that if it
were not for suffering humanity would never know itself.
“Well, I can tell you one thing my friend,” Pike said to the banker,
“high infant mortality is out of the question.”
“It serves others well enough,” she said.
Magnuson-Hart, watching the creature all night, had come to the
conclusion that its species had some sort of sexual dichotomy and
that this was a mother. Now she flexed her long delicate wings,
made them hum a moment, and watched the sky overhead.
“Politically, it will never float,” Pike said.
“Senator,” she replied, “we made those first loans to you because
it is the policy of the bank to encourage client worlds to solve their
own problems. But no race in the galaxy has ever made a success
of genetic engineering on this scale.”
A dragonfly landed on the railing, its body black and light blue, it's
wings clear except for large black spots on each one. The banker
lowered her basketball-sized head and tilted one eye until it was
almost touching the insect.
“If we have to, we’ll go it alone,” Pike said.
"Wasting more money that you don’t have,” she replied, still
examining the dragonfly.
“We’ve got trillions invested in this project. You can’t expect us to
abandon it now!”
“Listen,” she said, turning her attention back to the two men,
“nothing you’ve learned has to be abandoned. We’re just asking for
common sense, that you put back into the equation some of the
factors you’ve taken out. For example, I forgot to mention macro-
predators. Besides acting as another natural culling mechanism,
large hunting animals would add a zest to life in your cities that is
missing now. If you don’t have enough suitable species left, we
could provide some.”
“You’d have us throw our children to the wolves would you?”
Pike’s face was red.
The banker turned to Magnuson-Hart.
“You’ve been very kind doctor, but I have no more time.”
Still deep in his own thoughts, Magnuson-Hart just nodded his
head, aware that her machine could translate gestures too.
“No more time for us, that is,” said Pike.
The visitor made her wings hum, warming her internal body with
that muscular action, preparing for flight. She turned back to Pike.
“Senator, do you remember that dairy farm we toured last week?
One did not have to be a geneticist to see that those wretched
creatures you call Holsteins, those dull flabby cattle, must have
once been magnificent wild animals. My assistant tells me that a
cow needs only a half gallon of milk a day to feed her calf, yet she
has to drag around bloated breasts bursting with milk so you can
extract thirty gallons a day. And your breeders are trying for still
higher yields. Believe me, if they had a choice, there are many
citizens of the galaxy who would prefer to see your next loan spent
on restoring those unfortunate animals.”
With that, the banker rose into the air, her wings humming, but
Pike shouted after her:
“Maybe if you’d taken the trouble to research the benefits human
children receive from that milk, you could talk sensibly about it! I
happen to know there isn’t a more nutritious food in the galaxy
than mammalian milk!”
The banker had started rising, but she stopped about three
hundred feet above them in a shaft of sunlight, her wings like
flickering prisms. She called back:
“Yes, milk, milk, milk, that’s all that counts isn’t it Senator? I’ve
heard it said here that your race has been ‘milking’ this planet far
too long!”
Then she rose swiftly, disappearing into the layer of cloud above
them. She was on her way to a rendezvous with a ship that had
been waiting for several hours. The Senator and the scientist stood
looking at each other, until Magnuson-Hart finally spoke.
“Well Russ,” he said, “do we still want the money?”
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