The Helianx Proposition/page 69
Noe was starting to realize that sHe would have to act soon.
SHe knew the window of opportunity signaled by the arrival of the two intraterrestrials would not remain open for very much longer.
In addition, it was becoming disturbingly obvious to hir that the psychic density of the planet
was already wearing down the noble pair's good intentions;
as once it had for so many of the late Prince's Staff and their troubled offspring.
This constant state of worry was only exacerbated by warring tribes of humans,
spurred on by their local deities and their continuing attempts
to invade the sanctuary that the botanists had created for themselves.
An expertise in agronomy and the deep knowledge of the biological sciences that the pair brought with them to the planet had led them to cultivate much of their fertile peninsula. They also carefully studied, named and recorded the native flora and fauna in the sophisticated laboratory they had built in their encampment. Making minor genetic modifications to some of the cereal crops and fruit trees growing naturally all around, they were able to refine them, vastly increasing the yield and making them much more resistant to disease. Their work with animals, Noe had noted, was also producing remarkable results. Whilst many individual humans in the nomadic tribes had formed touchingly close, interdependent relationships with the animals they followed on their migrations, the kinder treatment and the selective breeding programs instituted by the botanists led to both a far higher quality of produce, and much more contented animals.
Creatures that had previously been thought of as wild were tamed, and in some cases even domesticated; others were kept in surprisingly good conditions for their milk and wool. Cattle were no longer slaughtered for their meat, since the scientists were both vegetarians and had demonstrated to their motley little group of followers some of the healthy advantages of not eating animal flesh. Their wide knowledge of terrestrial biology obviated much of the trial-and-error approach that had led to the poisoning of so many hungry, or curious, natives. This had led, in turn, to a far broader and more varied diet.
Anxiously, Noe had watched from a safe distance as the first few buildings rapidly developed into a small village. With the help of some of the Staff's offspring who had remained loyal to MA's local edicts, together with those few humans who had affiliated themselves with both off-planet missions, the botanists had evidently attempted to recreate something of the paradise they had known before they had volunteered for this increasingly difficult mission. The city that had grown up around the site of the first mission had long since disappeared under the waves in one of the warmer periods of the planet's climatic history. Had the city continued to flourish under more normal conditions, and had the Prince and his staff not fallen so thoroughly into feuding, the scientists would have been able to build on the developments introduced by the first mission in its almost half-a-million years on the planet. For the two frustrated off-world scientists, however, it was as though they had to start completely afresh, but with the additional hazards of a fearful and traumatized population, and the persistent hostility of so many rebellious Midwayers.
