[She took What?] - Chapter 102: ORIGINS: I’ll believe it when I see it.
“Some things only become real when witnessed.”
Recounting his father’s quote, John Peters
| Location: The Peter's Farm, Crystal World |
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River emptied the bag out on the dinner table. His mum was about to complain but when she saw all the crystals her mouth dropped open. She sat down at the table, reached out and picked up one of the crystals.
“John,” his mother called out, “John, come and see.”
River’s father joined them and paused as he saw the crystals spread across the table.
“Where did you find those?”
“Let me show you.”
“First,” his father left and was back in no time with a scanner. He put one of the crystals in and whistled when he saw the results. He did it again, and again testing crystals at random. “These are good. All of them. Very good…”
Before he could say more, River cut across him, “There are more, lots more. And these grew in no time. Come I’ll show you. Mum, get Curly. I want us all to see this.”
The four of them set off, their excitement palpable. River in the lead, he brought his backpack and took the route via the river.
As they walked, he explained that he had found broken blooms, damaged Old Ladies spread across the ground. But deep in the craters, protected from the elements he’d found growths. He explained how he had broken up some of the growths and replanted them in other craters.
They arrived at the first field, his father rushed ahead but there was nothing to see. River called him over and showed him where he’d planted broken shards of mature blooms in amongst the Old Ladies. Some of the shards were still visible. None of them had grown.
“That’s what I’d expect,” his father said. “I remember my grand-dad, your great grand-dad saying that when they were young, they just pushed bits of the plants in the ground and they grew. Simple as that, but not anymore.”
River smiled, his father saw it. “I know. But I’ll believe it when I see it.”
When they got to the field with the craters they didn’t need to rush forward. Tall blooms extended above the edges of the craters.
River’s Dad walked around them, just staring. Shaking his head, “How? These were craters only a while ago.”
“Don’t know. But we’ll be mega-rich with just these. Imagine if we can grow whole fields of them.”
But instead of looking happy, River’s dad looked worried. He called the family around.
“Slow down. We tell no-one about this. Absolutely no-one. And we don’t suddenly have lots more crystals to sell either.” He paused, “The RG would stop at nothing; AT NOTHING! To get their hands on this.” He pointed to the stand of large lightning crystal blooms growing in the craters.
He then spoke with River, “So you used the same crystals in the two fields but only here did they grow?”
River nodded. “I also tried it with crystal shards from the other field and they didn’t work. Just the ones from here, and only in these craters.”
“Oh. Ok. Good.”
Before he could say more River burst out laughing.
“What?” asked his father.
“It’s something Feebee says a lot. ‘Oh. Ok. Good’.”
“You think about her a lot.”
“Yes.” Was all River said as he walked off.
“Get some soil samples from the other field on your way home. I’ll get some from here.”
They met back at the farm; River’s dad had got his lattice scanner out.
River handed over the soil he’d collected from the field that hadn’t grown new plants from the shards. It was a rich brown colour, a good mix of sand and clay with silt from when the river that regularly flooded it. His father carefully closed the cover on the sample and started the process.
Nothing happened. The screen remained dark, nothing.
River grabbed the power cord and started laughing, “I’ve got this?” he plugged it in.
This time, when the buttons were pressed the process started and the screen lit up.
The assays came back as normal, nothing special other than being excellent for agriculture.
His Dad smiled, “Always knew that was good soil.”
He then put the soil samples from the craters into the scanner.
It was rusty soil, red, iron-rich with little in the way of goodness in it. Very powdery. As the scanner worked through its assays they waited, then an alert popped up, followed by a second bio-hazard alert.
The two of them watched as the scanner alerted them to “OUTLAWED AGRI-TECH NANITES”.
They drilled into the alert. Apparently, in the early days of terraforming the RG had liberally sprayed planets with terraforming nanites that re-arranged minerals and got the environment “ready” for colonisation.
River read more of the info associated with the alert.
The agri-tech nanites build microscopic lattice scaffolds to ‘promote growth’ and ‘stabilise soil structure’. Occasionally though, they escaped the guard rails in their programming and ran rampant across whole ecosystems. That got them outlawed; mostly.
“Hhmm. I reckon the agri-tech was buried deep until it got unearthed in the craters. Then, the Old Ladies acted as mature templates for the nanites to speed up growth.”
“That sounds right, but are they mature? Or just fast grown?” asked River.
“That’s a great question. Only one way to find out.”
His father was only gone for a few minutes and then returned like a child who’d found an old toy he’d forgotten he had.
“What’s that?” asked River as his dad brushed dust off an old, battered piece of gear.
“It’s an add-on to the scanner. Allows us to stress crystals, see if they’re stable or not.”
He opened the small drawer and placed one of the lightning crystals in.
“How will we know if it fails.”
“Other than the loud bang,” he smiled. “Joking. We look at the results.” His Dad pointed to the screen.
They waited and then, when the results came up, his father let out a cry.
“What! No?”
Now he was more worried that ever. The results had classified the lightning crystal as mature. People were being killed for immature crystals, and they were sitting on a source of mature crystals that could be propagated quickly.
They needed help.
Posted Apr 1, 2026, 6:02 AM UTC