Wave
two of the transportation of the chosen human population to Catus, this new
world, had brought the family here to lower South Island, to a four bedroomed
home almost identical to its nearest neighbours, to all of the ranch homes on
the planet. Each home had an acre of land.
The first thing they were told when taking possession of their home,
‘the planet will give you a gift, and until it does, the land must not be
touched’.
It
had been ten cycles of the green sun before the first tree appeared nothing
more than a sapling sprouting from the purple soil. Ten cycles of the sun, six months on Earth,
but here it seemed an eternity. White
stems appeared, first one, then another and by nightfall a field of widely
spaced shoots filled their land. Water
had to be pumped from the well, and so they pumped bucket after bucket. All the time struggling to carry the metal
like buckets with their vine covered handles, but they had known that each
plant needed a nourishing drink. By nightfall,
exhausted, they retired to their beds, they had jobs to go to the next day, all
except the mother, who would tend the field and feed the others when they
returned.
At
first everything was provided for them from the company stores, their wages for
the work they did, clothes to cover and protect their skin from the harsh winds
and high temperatures during the morning, and cold of the night. Groceries to feed them, rationed out each
week, marked off the sheet. The meat was
in short supply, animals proved hard to hunt, and even harder to domesticate. Powdered milk was transported in twice a
year, vegetables strange yet pleasant tasting made up the bulk of the
diets. The furniture given to them was
basic, functional, and bland.
There
was no electricity; no way to ensure their towns were always well lit after
night fell. A dam was almost finished,
which would provide for the future. Wind
turbines were being erected, huge farms of them to take advantage of the
morning winds. Each day some new
discovery was announced, from fabulous minerals and ores in the mines of the
North Island, to new plants and animals that would support and sustain them in
their new life.
All new discoveries had to be tested and
explored; what properties did the minerals have? Could they be used to make equipment, aid with
transport, or developed into weapons?
Were the plants edible or poisonous? If they were poisonous, could they be used to
make drugs, or for protection?
THE MOTHER.
“The
saying ‘money is the root of all evil’, you know they could be right, that
person who first said it. The human
condition I call it, the more money you have, the more you spend, the more you
spend, the more you need. The people who
don’t have money, well it’s twice as bad for them. They can’t feed themselves, pay bills, keep a
roof over their heads, so what do they do? They steal what they need, then what
they want, and eventually more than they would ever use. Money is a drug, an evil addictive drug.”
When
I found the trees growing in my garden, well at first I didn’t know what they
were. They looked like just another
beautiful alien plant. My son, daughter and
her husband all helped to tend those new shoots on that first day.
Small
white fragile shoots sprouting from the purple soil, tiny black wart like
growths along the stems. When darkness
fell we went inside and ate our meal, tired after the work of the day, we
retired, readying ourselves for an early start the next morning, when everyone
but me would leave for the jobs allotted to us.
My
daughter Margaret went to the scientific research labs, chemistry is her field
of expertise. She came here to help test
the new ores and chemicals and minerals brought up from the mines.
“It’s okay Mum” she
told me that first day “I’m not expected
to experiment on any live creatures”.
Jon,
my son, went off to the wind farm, his job to help wire in the turbines, get
the pumps and alternators up and running, work on the mechanical side of
things. He loved working with his hands,
was good at it, but he was lazy too, if he could get away with not working he
would. Then there was Daniel, my
son-in-law. He had worked at the
armoury, a job he had enjoyed on Earth, logging in and out all the guns and
knives and tasers for the police. Here
he did a similar job, issued ammunition each day to the armed guards, the
troops on patrol along this stretch of the island. As well as working with the guns, the
ammunition and other equipment he was trained to take each weapon apart, clean
it, repair it, rebuild and enhance it.
He issued replacement weapons where needed. He did all of this and keep records, much
easier on Earth with computers, he had said, but on Catus he had done all the
logs and records on paper.
“Someone has to do it I suppose,
they say we need to make sure the wild creatures don’t bother us, but me, I
think it’s about control, making sure we don’t destroy this place like we did
Earth”.
With
each day that had passed I saw the trees grow bigger until after a month they
reached knee high, when they stopped growing in height. From then on they grew thicker, their trunks
filled out; black buds got bigger, branches grew fuller. The black buds changed colour, before
developing into either leaves or flowers.
A week later they started to wither.
“I didn’t know what was wrong? I
had tended them every day, making sure to water them but not over water, giving them liquid fertilisers made from
recycling our waste and left overs. I made
sure all the damaged leaves and branches were pruned away. Soon though a ring of cracked earth formed
around each plant, and all I knew to do was uproot the trees and put them in
pots of fresh soil and compost”.
I
remember how as I gently pulled them from the now pale purple soil the roots
were exposed, red as blood, running sap where they had ripped or been cut by
the spade. Margaret brought home a
bucket of powder, bright yellow with the consistency of the softest
talcum. A substance she had helped to develop
from the minerals brought up from the mines. Mixed with rich purple soil, and a little of
the compost we made, it had been used to plant the trees into.
The
planet had provided the answer; it had given us the right tool to save our
gift. When the trees first produced
fruit, we were stunned. This gift from the planet wasn’t food, or fuel for the
transport, or even fibres for materials to make clothes. The fruit was hard, small, and unlike
anything yet seen. The flowers had grown and unravelled into one single petal,
not unlike the appearance of the now extinct Calla Lillies from Earth. Each petal had inside it a fruit. Some were
big single lobed fruit, others clusters of smaller lobes, like huge
blackberries, wrapped inside the one single petal. Each tree produced just one type of petal and
fruit; yet all were the same genus.
As
a family we had soon realised what the gift was. On Earth people had dreamt
about having one, just one. Here on this planet, the authorities had been
waiting, who would get the gift of all gifts. Who would control this commodity
which had led to the downfall of Earth?
So this was our gift, our burden, our
Saviour and destroyer.
JON
As
far as Jon was concerned, the tree was the worst thing that happened to
them. It was a terrible burden,
especially for a family with an obsessive personality like his in it. Jon had always been a gambler, he took
chances others wouldn’t, oh he knew it was silly, but even knowing the dangers
of an action, he still had to do it.
“I
live for today, tomorrow will take care of itself” his
mantra.
Money
was something to be spent, cars to be driven to their limits, in love he gave
everything, in friendship he was always available, and he could be relied
on. Why?
“Because if I don’t try to help a friend out
when they need me, what sort of friend does that make me?”
He lived by this rule; he didn’t always
make good choices, and had learnt the hard way that he had only a few true
friends.
He had been unlucky in love. Rejected twice, though he never cheated, never
abused them, was totally committed to them, they had both gone off with someone
else. He fathered two children though,
grown now, a son, Samuel, and a daughter Faith.
He loved them and missed them terribly.
Both were living on the second moon, they had been brought to the planet
as part of the gifted children program, each had unique talents that the
authorities had felt were needed. Two
thousand children ripped away from their families. Most of the families had perished when the
Earth finally died. His children’s Mum
amongst them. Faith and Samuel had
excelled, become respected members of the planet and its moon colonies. When time allowed they visited their family here
on Catus, worked the trees, helped Jon with whatever he had found to keep his
mind busy. He was so proud that they had
managed to use their gifts for the good of all.
At fifty five Jon had been on the planet
now for nearly thirty Earth years, six hundred times round this sun. When the significance of the trees had
finally been realised, we had been here just one Earth year. The trees had grown and matured.
Jon’s job has now been given to a
younger person, after Jon had trained them.
Our family has moved on with our lives, Margaret controls investments, she
was chosen to decide what was good to invest in on this planet, what should be
avoided. She helped to set up the first
‘bank’. It had been her scientific
investigations into the plants which had led to the discovery of the exact
properties the trees possessed. This had
meant that the government now knew how to use them. Margaret had not realised that her
discoveries would one day rip this family apart.
“I
still tend the crop; at 80 I’m still strong, yet I can feel time slowing me
down. My bones ache by nightfall, and my
eyes are failing. Oh I have help now, a
work force more like an army, and I’m the general”.
The trees would not grow for anyone
else, just the family. But the more
trees we had the more help I needed, and so I got to handpick my workers, that
way I trust the people who help me.
Every day they take me from one tree to the next, from one plot of land
to the next. They carry the buckets full
of water. They shovel the compost and nutrients, but I still have to talk to
the trees, tend their leaves, and give each a drink and food. When I had tried to delegate these jobs,
bring in others to do some of the jobs for me, the trees had died, when we gave
friends their own tree, strong and full of life, within days they had
withered. So I continue, teaching my
replacement now, Gabriella, tall and strong, bright as a button, but with a
quiet, thoughtful nature; the youngest of my grandchildren, learning how to
handle the army, mix the compost and nutrients.
For the last 5 years Gabriella and Jon
have sat and watched the trees grow;
“They’re
close those two, more like father and daughter than uncle and niece”.
They have watched the human condition
return, and now it begins all over again.
Greed is a cancer, a human disease, Jon should know, it is a cancer he suffers
from.
“We
called our gift The Marteen Plant. Back
on Earth everyone always dreamt of having one, only there it would have been
called THE MONEY TREE”.
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Count: 2,276.
