Dover, Year 17 (Autumn)

The air was cold and filled with the scent of humidity. The plants on the Flats, saturated with water from the recent rains, gave out a dank odour of moisture. Despite his wintry clothes, Karim shivered in the gusty wind that was blowing in his face as he headed north. The temperature had dropped to an average of 8°C over the past few weeks, but the wind chill factor made it feel more like 3 or 5. With the cold, the agricultural activities were beginning to wind down, except for the last crops in the greenhouses. Pretty soon, the greenhouses themselves would have to be dismantled, so that they didn't get smashed by the winter weather. By then, it would be time to batten down the hatches at Dover and prepare for three years of hibernation.

Three years. Karim would be a grown man by the time the sun was near enough to warm up the atmosphere and bring the planet back to life. I wonder what Winter will be like, he thought with anticipation. He had visions of snow and ice, like the Christmas movies always showed, but never having experienced either, he was curious to know what crystallised, frozen water would feel like in such great quantities.

For the moment, the weather was merely cold, wet and windy. Mrs Andrews had laughed and said that it "felt like home". It didn't just feel like home, it was home to Karim. True, he had lived most of his life on Alpha so far, but it was only at Dover that he really felt comfortable. He loved having the freedom to walk out of an airlock and go for a long, wet walk, secure in the knowledge that he was unlikely to meet anyone. As his adolescence advanced, Karim, normally so gregarious, felt an increasing need to be alone.

"Alone at last," he said to the wind.

"Heya, Karim!"

I spoke too soon, obviously, Karim thought irritably as he turned to see who was calling him. He pulled the hood of his anorak off his forehead to see better, and smiled when he recognised his companion.

"Good afternoon, Mr Verdeschi."

Like Karim, Mr Verdeschi was wrapped up in a waterproof jacket, with his uniform trousers tucked into plastic boots. The plasticised surface of his grey anorak was speckled with drops of rain that dripped to the ground with light splashes as he walked towards Karim.

"Bracing weather, isn't it?" said the administrator, carefully avoiding a puddle. "Still, it's invigorating to walk in... Things get a bit crowded at Dover, don't they?"

Karim decided to be candid as the two of them continued their stroll. "You're telling me. I even have to share a room with my sister! She's driving me crazy. We fight all the time."

"So I hear." Verdeschi chuckled. "I never got on with my brother when we had to share a room. But your parents are right; your sisters would have gone mad, three of them sharing a room while you're loafing around all alone." He paused and breathed in the cold air, expiring it in a little plume of vapour. "Still, you'll probably only have to put up with it for a couple more months if it's really a problem. We'll have plenty of vacant quarters when Winter comes. We could give you some of your own."

"Inch'allah. I hope so!" Karim looked down at the ground. A sliver of grey sky was reflected in a puddle. "What will it be like? The winter, I mean."

"Very cold and very dark," said Verdeschi with a grin. "Ultima Thule style."

Karim glanced up at the cloudy sky. A small disk of light was visible behind the white and grey fluff. Karim remembered how enormous the sun had been at the beginning of the season; he found the star's apparent reduction in size as the planet moved away from it fascinating to study. The effects the distance from the sun had on Loki intrigued him, and he had even briefly cultivated the idea of working in the meteorology station. But he soon realised that studying and predicting the weather meant doing a lot of complex sums, and even with a powerful computer to help him, Karim was allergic to mathematics. Still, he could appreciate the phenomenon as a layman.

"I suppose this winter will be like the last one," he said, looking at Verdeschi again. "I actually remember the pictures you sent back when you first came to Dover in year 10. Everything was white; it looked so alien."

Verdeschi chuckled and looked at the lush, wet countryside around them. "It was certainly different from the way it is now," he agreed. "Nothing much can grow during the winter. Mind you, I can't state that categorically. When we first came to Loki, we thought the place would stay largely barren even during the growing season. Turns out that was just a characteristic of our landing site. This area here is teeming with life. Who knows what we'll discover by staying on the planet all winter long?"

"Maybe some of these plants can survive under the snow," suggested Karim. He pulled his hood down over his face as it began to rain again. The pattering of raindrops on the plastic surface of his anorak increased and then died down again as the brief shower passed.

"As far as I know, some plants on Earth could survive the subzero temperatures in the Antarctic, so maybe some of the plants here do too," said Mr Verdeschi. "The main difference is that the plants on Earth could concentrate on dealing with a desert climate or with an arctic climate. The plants here have to do both. Also, winter here is three years' worth of being bloody far away from the sun."

"It'll be an experience."

"Aye, that it will, as Ralph would say."

There was a pause as the two continued their walk in silence. Karim thought about crystallised water again, trying to imagine what it would be like if the drizzle which was presently falling from the sky was actually made of hard ice. Quite painful, he could imagine.

"I wonder if some of our Earth plants will adapt to life here," said Verdeschi. He had stopped and was looking at a lucy bush which seemed to be covered in some kind of bramble. "Or rather, I wonder how the Lokian plants will fare once our lot get out. Because the Earth plants will get out, even if they have to do it afresh every growing season. I mean, look at this!"

Karim crouched down and observed the stifled bush. The Lokian plant was a variety of bush which the Alphans had named "lucy", a short, stocky plant common throughout the Southern Continent and which was remarkable for its phosphorescent spores. The weed that was strangling it, on the other hand, was a type of prickly bramble which Karim recognised as one of the products of the greenhouses. This plant was barren, but Karim knew its fruit-bearing siblings well.

"A blackberry bush?!" exclaimed Karim.

"Yep. Isn't that a surprise?" said Verdeschi. "Some seeds must have blown out of our greenhouses. We're a couple of kilometres away, but that's no problem if the spores or whatever blackberries grow from hitched a ride on the wind. For all we know, they might even have been carried on the legs of an Eagle or simply trodden here by one of us wanderers. It's probably been growing here all season. No fruit, obviously, since there's nothing to pollinate it, but it doesn't look as if that's stopping its growth."

He kicked at the root of the plant and shook his head, before turning back towards Dover. "I'll have to report this and get everyone to look out for other Earth plants further afield. They'll all die out during the winter, but we'd better keep an eye on this situation to make sure they don't kill off the native plants during the growing season."

"Is that likely?" asked Karim, straightening up again.

Verdeschi made a face as a gust of wind slipped his hood off. He pulled it back on again.

"It's a risk," he said finally. "It's actually a risk I've already discussed with the Agriculture Section. The plants on Earth are mostly pretty hardy, even the genetically modified ones we used in Hydroponics and which we're cultivating here. To survive on Earth, a plant had to be able to fight off insects, birds, parasites, other plants... I mean look at the spikes on that blackberry bush. That plant has had to fight to get through its Darwinian struggles. The Lokian plants, on the other hand, don't really have any enemies. There are a few opportunistic vines that like to climb up the castuses, and in this fertile area, the plants do try to get in each other's sunshine. But nothing comparable to all the competition for survival there was on Earth. A few blackberry bushes could do a lot of harm in a couple of years in the growing season."

Verdeschi crouched down beside the entwined plants and, having found the root of the blackberry bush, snapped it off. "It would have died this winter anyway," he said as he straightened up. "Come on, let's go back. It's getting really cold."

The southerly wind was blowing in their backs as they turned to walk towards the Dover base. Karim could feel his face tingle as it warmed slightly; he hadn't realised how cold he was getting. The base was invisible, hidden as it was in the windowless cliff. The only sign of intelligent life were the greenhouses on the Flats.

"I got some strange news today," said Verdeschi suddenly. "There's a girl expecting a child. A girl your sister Layla's age."

"Who?"

Verdeschi smiled, and the expression traced long lines from his eyes to his cheeks. "You don't think I'm going to tell you, do you? No, it just made me think."

It made Karim think as well. He tried to imagine his sister Layla expecting a child. That would be embarrassing, sharing his room with a pregnant woman with swollen ankles and throwing up all the time. Not that Karim had very precise recollections of any pregnant women. Barring some exceptions, like Mrs Devers who had recently delivered a girl at the age of 50, most of the Alphan women had stopped having children long ago. It was strange to think that Karim's contemporaries were already beginning to reproduce in their place.

"I suppose it's a good sign that the human race is planning to thrive here," continued Verdeschi. "But I do wonder why we bothered to have all those sex education classes."

"I guess this particular girl wasn't listening," said Karim. "Is she someone on Alpha?"

"Don't be so nosy." Verdeschi paused. "Yes, she is on Alpha, just in case you start inspecting the bellies of all the girls down here. But her boyfriend is about your age, so I thought I should try and catch as many of you young things as I can and have a talk to you. Mind you, I have other things to discuss with you anyway... Do you have a girlfriend, Karim?"

Karim kicked a pebble into a clump of moss. "No... I'm too busy counting my spots," he said lightly.

Acne was the plague of Karim's youth. He didn't just suffer from the occasional pimple like most of his friends; his cheeks and chin were covered in sore spots which accumulated and erupted in random clusters, leaving large craters in his skin. It was a genetic condition he had inherited from his father's side of the family, and which no amount of antibiotics or facial creams could cure. Karim had been a pretty child, but it was clear to him now that he would never make a handsome adult. His face would be forever ravaged by the acne scars.

"Oh, I shouldn't worry about your acne," said Verdeschi. "I went through all that too, and I survived."

Observing Mr Verdeschi's face, Karim could see how the skin above his beard was pitted like orange peel. He had noticed this before, and guessed that Mr Verdeschi must have had acne as a teenager. But to have the administrator actually admit this and point out the results made Karim feel a little better. Mr Verdeschi had had a very successful life, so the scars evidently hadn't hampered him.

"I'm lucky I have enough hair follicles left to grow a beard, really," continued Verdeschi. "But women don't care, you know. They might think 'yuck, what awful skin' when they first see you, but after that, they're only interested in the job you do and whether you're interesting to be with. You'll have a rough ride until the spots clear up, but they will eventually and then you can relax and live a happier life."

"When do you think they'll clear up? Doctor Vincent said they could continue as late as my mid-twenties," said Karim.

"Well... yeah. But they'll be far less noticeable by then, and skin creams will probably help. Anyway, don't worry too much about it. I'm sure the women will be flocking around you in no time. It's just that most of them are a bit young right now."

"They're all friends of my sisters', too," said Karim glumly. "The last thing I want is to be involved with some fatma, and have my girlfriend tell Layla everything I do."

He used the slang word 'fatma' for woman, and wondered if Verdeschi would understand what he meant. The older man didn't seem to mind, but simply smiled.

"I can't say I fancy any of the girls here anyway," continued Karim, mentally enumerating all the girls around his age. None of them appealed to him.

"Well, there's plenty of young women up on Alpha," said Verdeschi. "One or two at Ceres II, I should imagine as well. Don't worry about it, you'll find someone sooner or later. There's no pressure for you to settle down too soon."

Verdeschi didn't feel the pressure, but Karim did. In typical Mediterranean style, his parents were always reminding him that they expected grandchildren. They were both in their fifties, and although grandchildren weren't an emergency quite yet, Karim had a feeling he wouldn't be allowed to procrastinate until his thirties the way most of the first generation Alphans had.

But at least finding a wife wouldn't be very difficult. Karim didn't believe in romantic love; he thought it was a concept invented for societies with too much time on their hands. Some day, he would marry a congenial partner and have a lot of children, but he wouldn't hold out hopes of finding some ideal wife.

"I know I'll get married some day," said Karim. "As I see it, it's our duty to have children, because we need to keep the human race going. And the more children we have right now, while we're still mostly unrelated, the more genetic material we'll transmit to future generations."

"That's a very... cold way of seeing things." Verdeschi seemed bothered by Karim's declaration.

"Yes," agreed Karim thoughtfully. "But it's true. We have to think about reproduction because our generation is the one that will have to do it. Your generation is barely numerous to do all the tasks necessary for survival in a hostile environment, and there aren't that many of us, either."

"Which is why you lot have been working hard ever since you had two neurones to rub together," said Verdeschi with a wan smile. "You're right. Your generation will bear the brunt of our initial growth spurt. But I just hope the population won't grow too fast. That was the ruin of Earth."

Karim rubbed his hands; despite their gloves, they were getting cold. He was puzzled by Verdeschi's attitude. It was a fact that Alpha needed more people. Machines didn't make themselves, and they couldn't excavate homes in the Dover cliffs, or repair Eagles, or pick crops entirely on their own. The combined Alphan population barely topped 500. More people would mean more intelligent labour and a better future for the species.

"But surely having more people is better," said Karim with a frown. "As far as Alpha is concerned."

"Right now it is," agreed Verdeschi. "But in the long term, it could be a disaster. By the end of the 20th century, the Earth was sustaining nearly 6 billion people and had gone through two centuries of gradual poisoning. There was a hole in its protective ozone layer, the forests which produced its oxygen were being hacked down, thousands of plant and animal species became extinct every day, and humans were producing so much toxic garbage that they had to colonise the Moon to put the most dangerous bits of it up there."

"That's why we're here, though, isn't it?" said Karim. "I don't mean just because of colonising the Moon, obviously, but because Earth was on the verge of becoming uninhabitable and something decided to save us and give us a new start. Wasn't that what Arra and the Black Sun said to Commander Koenig? I would have thought we would need to have a lot of people in order to be sure the species would keep going."

"Not necessarily 6 billion, though. Humanity stayed at a stable level of about 300 to 500,000 from Antiquity to the Renaissance. And the species was doing fine. Things only started going wrong when the modern era started. By the mid-19th century, the world population had doubled. By the end of the 20th century, it had increased by a factor of 12,000. Twelve thousand times more humans lived in the late 20th century than at any time before the Renaissance..." Verdeschi sighed and shook his head. "As you can see, I've been looking up the figures and having nightmares about that happening to Loki. We could kill this planet within a couple of centuries!"

"Kill it?"

"Yes. Earth was a thriving world with the most extraordinary combination of factors which made it ideal for life. Plants and animals were everywhere; in the hottest desert, at the poles, on the very tops of mountains, right at the bottom of the sea. It was pretty difficult to stamp out life on that planet. But we did it. By golly, we humans damn right did it. By the 22nd century, there wasn't a single bit of nature left on that world."

"Because of human overpopulation," said Karim, understanding Verdeschi's point. "You're worried that if our population expands too much, we'll end up making the same mistakes as on Earth. But I don't understand how that happened. Surely your technology could keep people alive without having to ruin the planet."

The older man sighed. "That's the problem. Our technology did keep us alive, but the industry and exploitation necessary to support that sort of technology eventually exhausted the planet. Machines need resources -- ore, wood, petrol, foul chemicals that poison the atmosphere. Earth put up a good struggle, but we won in the end. And Loki isn't Earth. It's a miracle anything lives here at all. This planet can't put up with the crap we put Earth through. I mean, what's the plan, here? Stay here a few centuries, burn off all the fossil fuels, replace the native plant life with species that are useful to us, and once the planet's ecosystem is buggered up, move on to trash some other place? If this is supposed to be a new start for humanity, we can't let that happen. We need to exploit the planet, yes, but there's no advantage in running it to death."

"No," agreed Karim. "So what we should do is go ahead with the population growth initially, because that's necessary and inevitable. But we'll also need to plan ahead to cull the population later on."

"Yeah, a few plagues, a couple of wars, insalubrious conditions to up the mortality rate. That ought to do the trick," said Verdeschi wryly, shaking his head. "Population reduction is a tricky business when Nature can't do it for you."

Karim assumed from this that governments on Earth had probably tried out various methods in the past. He decided to see if any of them had worked, and then discuss the methods with Mr Verdeschi. He hoped some of them would prove useful for Dover, and that this would cheer up the administrator.

"On the other hand," said Verdeschi, "maybe the birth rate won't be all that high after a couple of generations anyway. Once people have reached a certain level of personal comfort and they've accumulated some property they don't want to split up too much, they might stop having that many children anyway. That's what happened in Western Europe in the late 20th century. I know what I'm talking about: Italy had one of the lowest population growth rates in that area. And we can't be sure your generation will be such rabbits anyway. We'll have to review our demographics when we have some."

He patted Karim on the shoulder. "Anyway, thanks for listening to all my population worries. I usually use Kate as a sounding board, but you see, today, you beat her to it."

"I don't mind listening," said Karim. He was thrilled that the great man had decided to share his concerns with him. "It must take a lot of work to run a place like this. Some people think you just sit in your office and twiddle your thumbs. But I guess you always need someone to do that, to think about things and plan for the future. The people who do the work can only see what they're doing; they don't think about what other people need or what will happen in twenty years' time."

Verdeschi chuckled. "Thanks for reassuring me about my usefulness. You're right, of course. I've sometimes wondered if the people here wouldn't prefer to have a farmer in charge. Sauique wouldn't do a bad job; he knows how to handle people as well as plants. But then what of the construction teams, the Swallow crew, the science and meteorology team?" He shrugged. "I've come to the conclusion that I'm the best man for the job... I'd better be: it's the only job I can do down here!"

Karim nodded, amused, before accidentally treading in a deeper puddle, splattering his trouser legs with muddy water. "Damn."

"A job for the laundry," said Verdeschi philosophically.

"Yeah, I know. I work there!" Karim wondered whether to brush off the mud with his hands, but decided to let it dry on the trousers instead. They could be cleaned later.

"Oh yes. How do you like it there?"

"I don't," admitted Karim. "I don't think I'm cut out for laundry work. I can't get used to handling other people's soiled garments. I suppose it's better than working outside in this weather, though."

"Yes, you get to be nice and warm and dry. I don't know what you're complaining about, really," said Verdeschi with a grin and a wave of his hand. "What kind of job do you prefer?"

Karim shrugged, unwilling to make a commitment for fear of being sent to work in another section... like sewage management, one of the few he hadn't been through yet. "I don't know," he said noncommittally.

"The point of the exercise is for you to try out all the sections we have at Dover and find one that you do want to work in. Or at least, you can make a list of all the ones you don't want to work in and choose whatever's left. If you need to go through all the sections to find the one you want..."

"I think I like office work, sir," said Karim more determinedly, sewage management still in his mind. "I'm good at using the computers and I like working in that environment, with you and Mrs Andrews."

Verdeschi nodded, apparently pleased by Karim's declaration. "I'm glad to know you enjoy it. You're good at it too. Mrs Andrews and I have been keeping an eye on you kids, especially those of you who are fifteen and sixteen now. It's important to give you all an overview of everything we do here at Dover, especially now we don't have any crops or pollination to worry about."

Mr Verdeschi wasn't looking at him, so Karim allowed himself a thankful look to the sky. He didn't like working in the fields, because it made him feel as if he had two left hands; he could never work as fast as good farmers like John Collins. As for pollination: that was the most boring job ever created to plague Doverian children.

"Agriculture will always be our priority," continued Verdeschi. "But on the other hand, we also need people to specialise in given tasks. And in particular, we're looking for administrators."

Karim felt his heart skip a beat. Was Mr Verdeschi offering him a permanent job in the administrative offices? That would be a welcome change from his current tasks at the laundry. Not to mention a type of work more suited to his talents. Try as he might, he just wasn't any good at washing clothes.

"You're obviously a thinker," said Verdeschi thoughtfully. "We need people who can think and see the global picture; it's important when you're running a place, even if you're only a junior manager... Oh, but don't let it go to your head. You're not our only candidate. Layla, Sylvia and Helena... Helayna, or whatever she calls herself, will all be working there too."

"Women's work, obviously," said Karim, annoyed to find he was going to be working with his sister and her little friends.

Verdeschi seemed surprised. "Hmm, I hadn't thought about that. I suppose the girls were less likely to want to work in the Agriculture section because it'll mean going through the fields in the growing season. Though I don't know, Marion was pretty adamant that she wanted to be outside. The rest of the boys wanted to be engineers or farmers, which was pretty convenient."

Karim wasn't really listening. He was still picturing himself working with his sister. "I mean... why Layla!"

"Because she's clever and she has a crush on the computer," said Verdeschi jovially. "Helena is a bit young. She'll only be fifteen in four months' time, but it's pretty obvious she's going to be very service-minded when she grows up. Mrs Van't Hooft is thinking about her for Facilities. Sylvia is more of a gamble. She didn't really like anything else, but I'm not sure if she's suited to administration either."

"And what about me?"

"You... sound like potential manager material," said Verdeschi cautiously. "But I'm not giving you a job until I've made sure there isn't someone better whose only disadvantage is being ten years old right now... From what I hear, you've been pretty out of place in other jobs. No head for science, not interested in plants, no interest in flying..."

Karim was depressed to hear this assessment coming from the Chief Administrator himself. It was true that he was useless at all those things, but he knew he excelled in other areas. He decided to keep quiet for a minute and see if Verdeschi knew that as well. No need to envenom the situation with outraged protests.

"...can't operate the washing machine," continued Verdeschi. "Likes to make complicated plans and boss people around. Last I heard, you were trying to reorganise the tasks of your laundry colleagues. And before that, you had some idea about the division of labour in the fields."

"We-ell, yes. I just thought we could be... more efficient if we did things differently," admitted Karim. He didn't dare reveal that his organisational efforts were mainly geared towards finishing the work faster so that he could go and do something more congenial.

"There's nothing wrong with doing things differently," said Verdeschi. "But you can only start doing that when you know what you're doing in the first place. Your efforts were misguided because you were trying to organise things you didn't understand."

Karim lowered his eyes and wondered if now would be a good time for an outraged protest. But Mr Verdeschi was right; he'd been trying to reorganise things when he didn't even know how they were organised in the first place. He had simply felt an urge to make up his own rules rather than follow someone else's.

Verdeschi put his hand on Karim's shoulder. "No need to look so down. You know, back on Earth, there were animals called sheepdogs. They were bred to round up flocks of sheep on farms, and were so good at this that in some countries, people even ran competitions to see how well the sheepdogs could round up the sheep. They were good-natured animals, intelligent companions for their human friends. But if these sheepdogs were brought into an ordinary household rather than a farm, they weren't such good companions anymore. Before you knew it, they'd start rounding up the family cat, or the children's toys; without the right kind of exercise, they'd become disruptive."

Seeing Karim's puzzled expression, Verdeschi laughed and continued, "Don't worry, Karim. There is a point to this story. The point is that I get the feeling you're a sheepdog trying to round up the wrong things. Maybe it's time we gave you some real sheep to work with."