Lifeline

Magsaysay raised his gray eyebrows. “Dr. Sandovaal, would you and your staff please brief the Council of Twenty on your projections?”

“Most certainly—you must have named me chief scientist for a reason.”

A nervous titter brushed across the hall as Sandovaal led his entourage of assistants on the stage. Dobo Daeng shuffled over to the large-display holotank. Sandovaal cleared his throat and tapped the microphone pad. The speakers squealed as he breathed into the pickup, making him jerk back. He glared at the microphone.

“Mr. President, members of the Council, for the past four years my associates and I have been tracking the progress of my wall-kelp. You will recall that the Council wisely voted to adapt the kelp as the Aguinaldo’s main source of feed for our livestock. In addition, the actual crop space the wall-kelp has replaced is minimal.”

Ramis wrinkled his nose. The stagnant smell of the wall-kelp had been the basis for numerous insults and expletives invented by the Aguinaldo colonists.

“Luis, we all appreciate your work,” Magsaysay said from his seat to the left of the stage, “but at the moment, we need to know your projections of our ability to survive using our current supply of foodstuff.”

Sandovaal’s expression grew stormy. Ramis drew in a breath, expecting an outburst from the scientist.

“President Magsaysay, since you ask the question so bluntly, I will answer it bluntly: What are our chances of survival using our current supply of foodstuffs? The answer is none. Zero. No chance whatsoever. It is a simple calculation—anybody can see it.”

He stopped and stared around at the faces stunned into silence. His blue eyes looked very cold. Magsaysay struggled to his feet and opened his mouth to speak, but Sandovaal waved him into silence.

“Dobo, display the data. Show them.”

Dobo touched the controls. A set of graphs appeared in the giant holotank. The curves rotated, then the window zoomed in on a chart labeled ASSETS—CURRENT CROP PRODUCTION.

Dr. Sandovaal spoke over a growing murmur in the crowd.

“The blue line is our current population. The red curve is our crop surplus, decreasing as we consume more than we produce.” He waited a beat, then continued. “As you can see, these two curves intersect at a point not three months in the future. That is when we start getting hungry. Shortly after that, I expect fighting and widespread killing. From that point, we cannot calculate accurately how long the survivors can last—it depends on how many there are after the riots.”

A shout rang out from the back. The hall’s sergeant-at-arms scuffled with the person and ejected him. Ramis felt a surge of despair ripple through the gathered people. After watching the War on Earth, this was too much in one day. Ramis no longer felt proud to think of the part his parents had had in Sandovaal’s work. Dobo looked up, frowning at Sandovaal’s attitude.

Magsaysay looked beaten. He held up his hands. His low voice barely projected over the rising din. “Quiet! Please allow Dr. Sandovaal to continue.” When the sounds ceased, the dato turned to his chief scientist. “Luis, are your numbers correct?”

“The calculations are simple—you will find no errors. But I was talking about something much more important when you interrupted me. Several years ago we succeeded in producing a highly efficient feed substitute.

“When you tasked me this morning with projecting the Aguinaldo’s food supply, you placed ridiculous restrictions on what we are capable of doing. You said ‘using our current supply of foodstuff and allowed for nothing else.’ That is nonsense. The answer is staring you in the face. Maybe a few hunger pangs will improve your intellect.” He cracked his knuckles in front of the microphone pad, making a sound like muffled gunshots.

“Now, this second set of charts is also correct.” Dobo quickly changed graphs in the holotank.

Sandovaal allowed the people to study the new curves in silence. He seemed to be forcing down a smug smile. The red and blue lines in the holotank held an uneasy balance, but never intersected. The supply of food remained above the consumption level.

Magsaysay stared and frowned. “What does this show?”

“What do you think? It is certainly not a new idea. A few minutes ago I tried to explain our only way to survive, but you were not interested. You wanted only the bottom line, so I gave it to you. By continuing our present course, wasting too much time and too many resources on inefficient crops, we will starve in a few months.

“We must act immediately if we are going to save the Aguinaldo. As you can see from the curves, we have little margin for hesitation or error. If we decide quickly, we can survive—we can all survive.”

“What is it we have to do?” Magsaysay asked. “Make it plain for those of us who are stupid.”

Sandovaal turned to stare at him. He didn’t seem to notice the slight sarcasm in the dato’s tone. “Just look at the data! What do the curves tell you?