Three

Two years later:  Challis.

A light snow was falling as Mike guided his aged Ford into Challis, the large flakes reflecting the lights of the growing town, striking stars where skimmer headlights struck through the tiny falling crystals. Sparkles of light reflected from the snowbanks along either side of the roadway.

November in central Idaho was always cold, always snowy, but Mike was used to both. A lifetime spent in the mountains had hardened his body to physical discomfort. Another kind of discomfort assailed Mike this evening though, the sight of another set of condominiums rising on the outskirts of what was rapidly becoming a booming young city.

Challis was fast approaching half a million residents. Mike’s family had left central Colorado for the Snake River valley two generations before, his paternal grandfather seeking to escape the vast metropolis that had consumed the Front Range. Now a vast city stood along the front of the Rockies, with Cheyenne at the north, Pueblo at the south, and Denver at its heart. Nor was there much escape to the west–the Las Vegas metropolitan area was gobbling millions of acres of desert, and in Utah the Salt Lake City metro area had climbed high into the Wasatch Range. 

Mike’s father had watched the spread of humanity’s urbanization creep into Montana and southern Idaho, and had fled the increasingly crowded Snake River valley for the mountainous center of Idaho. Now, in Mike’s generation, even the tiny mountain communities of the Sawtooth, Salmon River, Clearwater and Lost River Mountains were filling up with people.

People, people, everywhere people. Mike’s parents were gone. Mike was left alone now, twenty years old, and heir to a small cabin on ten acres of land in the Salmon River range. He hunted an elk every fall for meat, but the elk herds were dwindling, pushed into tighter and tighter habitats every year by encroaching humanity. The few acceptable fishing streams left were packed, spring summer and fall, with dozens of anglers along every bank, swinging expensive fly-fishing tackle in the hopes of dragging in a forlorn ten-inch brook trout. Mike’s chosen lifestyle was growing more impossible by the year.

Parking his old Ford skimmer pickup near the Country Market, Mike headed for the vast store, his list of required canned goods clutched in one callused hand. 

He walked up to the cavernous entrance, looking left and right. The checkout lines were long and unruly, as usual. More people came to Challis every year. A new ski resort was in the works, which promised to bring more people still to the area. The crowding was driving Mike to distraction. A solution, though, was not immediately forthcoming.

Or so he thought.

Following his parent’s death, he’d investigated Africa; doubts about remaining pockets of plague as well as wandering bandit tribes had dissuaded him. Alaska was out, filling up as it was with millions attracted by ready employment at the vast oil fields. Siberia was under development, millions of Russians and Chinese pouring into the mineral and oil-rich region. Mike was feeling increasingly hemmed in.

He hadn’t considered emigrating off world. 

The entryway to the giant supermarket was wide open, a forced air curtain holding back the early winter chill. Just inside the entryway was a large bulletin board, covered with announcements; used skimmers for sale, hunting and fishing leases, calves and feeder pigs, moving sales, and so on. This evening there was something new, a large, colorful poster in the middle of the board:

FOREST

Off-World Mining & Exploration, Ltd. Seeking

COLONISTS

To settle and develop the exciting new Type II world

FOREST

Gravity, atmosphere within 3% Earth normal

61% oceanic, 39% landmass, heavily forested, mountainous, approximates Earth climate in mid Jurassic era, native wildlife plentiful

Colony requires:

Pioneers

Farmers

Civil and Commercial developers

Civil Engineers

Former military preferred, combat veterans ideal

Settlers leaving Jan 1^st on Colonization Ship Mayflower, Kilimanjaro Skyhook

APPLY NOW, e-mail FORESTSETTLERS@owme.com or APPLY IN PERSON, OWME Headquarters, One Off-World Plaza, Denver, 52140-6582-5215.

Wow, Mike thought to himself. Pioneering a new planet? I wonder how the hunting is. The image of his hunting client from two years ago, Mr. Davies, swam back into this mind suddenly.

“Ah’m goin’ off-Earth, boy. Took a job as a security chief with Off-World Mining and Exploration.”

A voice behind him interrupted his perusal. 

“If I were thirty years younger, boy, I’d go myself!”

Mike turned to greet the speaker. “Otto, you old devil, I’m surprised you aren’t going anyway!” Otto Greentree was an old friend of Mike’s family, a skinny, white-bearded hermit who lived in a cabin a few miles from Mike’s home. At age 79, Otto still lived alone, still hunted deer and elk every fall, and still tramped the mountains all year around. Seeing him in town at all was a surprise, much less on a snowy evening. Mike grinned at the old hermit. “What brings you into town on a night like this, old man?”

Otto shook his head, frowning. “This cold snap, boy, it plays hell with my arthritis. I caught a ride down with Joe Steen in his skimmer, I had to get my pain medicine.”

Mike cocked a thumb at the poster. “You really mean what you said? You think this would be a good deal?”

The old man squinted at the poster. “Well, boy, says here that they especially want military and combat vets, so I reckon there’s some dangerous game there. On the other hand, they want hunters and farmers, so it’s pioneering. Think of that, boy! You’d be out there like Jim Bridger, only better. This ain’t no new country, it’s a whole new world! Do I think it’s a good idea?” Otto gestured around, at the huge supermarket, the crowded parking lot, and the teeming skimmers on the road out front. “Hell, yeah, I think it’s a good idea. If they’d let someone my age on the spaceship, I’d be signing up today.”

“I’m sort of tempted myself,” Mike admitted.

“Let’s go in and get a sandwich, boy.” Otto offered, pointing at the deli section of the supermarket. “You’ll be more than tempted when I get through with you!”

In a few moments, the two were seated with sandwiches and soft drinks. Otto had dropped his old leather daypack on the floor next to his chair, and now he rummaged in it a moment before fixing Mike with a basilisk eye.

“Now, boy, what do you suppose I got here?”

“A skunk pelt?” Mike offered. He was surprised to see Otto produce a dog-eared copy of Jane’s Habitable Planets, the benchmark listing of all known Type I and II worlds. “I been thinking about leaving Earth some time now,” Otto confessed. “All these people. Well, never was a planet I was interested in, ‘til this one, and I’m too damned old now – nobody over 55 gets on an OWME starship for any reason.”

Flipping open the large, cloth-bound volume, Otto found a certain page and spun the book over to Mike:

Forest

Planet specifics: Type II, gravity .98 Earth normal, atmospheric ratios nitrogen 74%, oxygen 22%, CO2 .03%. Climate is temperate, with mean temperatures averaging 4-5% warmer than Earth. Land surface 61% ocean, 39% land. Continental landmasses include two large in northern hemisphere, two large in southern hemisphere, and one small at northern magnetic pole. Various volcanic islands and archipelagos are found in the southern oceans. 

Flora and Fauna:  Initial orbital surveys by Off-World Mining & Exploration, Ltd completed June 2199. Majority of continental landmasses heavily wooded, mountainous in many areas. Predominant flora includes trees resembling Earth conifers, some large tree ferns. Undergrowth is sparse in forests, lush on the few plains. Plant life has not yet evolved to the level of flowering species. Various herbivorous animal species include large grazing animals found in forested areas and edge habitats, and many arboreal species. One large predator possibly dangerous to Man, a bipedal birdlike carnivore, 18 meters in length, 6 meters in height.  Flora and fauna in general approximate Earth during the late Jurassic period.

Colonization considerations:  Heavily forested nature of planet promises to make agriculture difficult without extensive terraforming. Presence of possibly dangerous indigenous life requires well-armed and equipped colonists. Further, Forest lies on the outer edge of explored space; it is unknown what possible other intelligent species may lie beyond the boundary.

Mike snapped the book shut. “I guess nobody’d landed there yet when this book was printed?”

“Nope.” Otto grunted. “But last summer, I guided a fella on a fishing trip who was a surveyor for OWME. He was tellin’ me that OWME has over a thousand people on Forest now. He was there to help set up the initial landing point and the town around it; they’re calling it Settlement. Original, huh?” he grinned, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Anyway, there are people starting to push out into the woods there. OWME is looking to start farming the place. I guess most Earth crops grow like gangbusters there. He says these big bird-things – ‘rocs,’ they call ‘em, after some mythical bird-beast – are right dangerous, and big as a tyrannosaurus; but there aren’t very many of ‘em.”

“Figured that right off,” Mike said. “A predator that big, it stands to reason it would need a big territory. That means not too many of them around.”

“Best part is,” Otto continued, “this fella tells me the hunting is unbelievable. The settlers there now are mostly dirt-crop farmers, and they need some good marksmen to bring meat into the villages. Boy, they’ve got a critter like a squirrel that weighs a good forty pounds. They’ve got these funny-looking two-legged sort of cow-looking things, only with a crest of gray and brown feathers on their heads; critters are bigger than a moose, and seems they travel in herds.”

“Like the buffalo here in the old days,” Mike reflected.

“Yep, you know it, boy; only Man’s a smarter animal now than we was then. People are only hunting them to feed the colony; the feathers are valuable, I guess, but the Company’s only taking what animals they need to feed their construction crews and settlers. Now; you got a girl here?”

Mike shook his head. His lifestyle was too secluded to attract many girls, and in any case, most of the young people in the area were leaving for the bright lights and fast times of Denver or Las Vegas. The couple of potential girlfriends he’d known in his teenage years had been deterred by Mike’s frequent absences to wander some distant stretch of wilderness.

“Well, that settles it then, don’t it?” Otto pointed out. “Not much keeping you here, is there? Like I said, boy, I’d be heading there myself if I could.”

“No mention of any intelligent life, there,” Mike noted.

“Ain’t been any other intelligent races found yet, and OWME’s on a dozen planets, with orbital charting done for another twenty.”

Mike considered the old man’s description. There didn’t seem to be much future in staying on Earth, unless he wanted to end up living in a city condo with a few thousand other people within spitting distance. Maybe, he thought, maybe this is what I’ve been looking for.

“Go, boy,” Otto urged, leaning across the table. “Get out now, while you can. Don’t wait until you’re an old man too! Don’t get stuck here!”

In the aisle just outside the deli seating area, the bustling throng of people pinged on Mike’s consciousness. The sight of the condos going up on the edge of town sprang to mind, unbidden.

It might be the best thing going, he thought. “OK, old man, you’ve sold me. I’ll e-mail the company tomorrow and see if they need a good mountain boy.”

Otto grinned again. “Good decision, boy. I’ll admit I’m envious, but it’s a good deal for you. Imagine it – a whole new world!”

“A whole new world,” Mike echoed. “A whole new life. Well, there’s nothing keeping me here. Not anymore.”

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.