Eating Rubbish

Allan T Price

Walking through The Transworld Tunnel Complex, David shifted the rucksack on his back.  Then he tried to adjust his jacket.  His suit was cut to hide his pistol, and hung wrong without it.  Just one more reason he wished he was allowed to take a weapon.  How’d he got stuck with being the contact for the dissidents?

The guard next to the Artemis Tunnel didn’t even ask to see David’s papers, just waving to the copper grill.  Half a century after the moon landing, and interstellar travel was so standard.  Touching the grill, David was sucked through a quantum tunnel to Artemis, a world thirty-four light years away. 

Since the dissidents were forbidden technology, the air smelled better than the farming colonies, and much better than Sydney.  His rucksack felt heavier here, although the gravity difference was too small to notice.  And he only carried two meals, and some exotic nuts.

David looked down the slope of bare earth to a tangled mass of weeds.  Those had been fields, before the original colony failed.  Somehow, weeds had got brought to Artemis and managed to overrun the whole area.  No wonder he had to bring his own food.

Above him was a smaller bright white sun, in a deeper blue sky.  It was low, so local time was either early or late in the day.  Naturally, tunnel worlds all turned faster or slower than Earth, so the time difference was constantly changing.  No-one had a good answer to the problem.  He couldn’t even set a time to visit the dissidents.

Hot, he loosened his tie, and then he put down the rucksack.

*

Around the hill came a hunched young woman riding an ox.  All she seemed to be wearing was a large blue and white plastic bag, which had once held grain.   

The ox stopped at a patch of weeds, and started to graze.  The woman climbed off, and shambled towards David, dragging her left foot a little.  “Ug.  Me Lisa.  You come…”  A slight convulsion interrupted her broken speech.  “You come, ox.  We go…” She shuddered again

David spoke slowly.  “Are you okay?” 

At his question, the convulsions grew into guffaws.  Standing straight, the woman laughed aloud and shook her head.  “I thought I could get through the whole speech.”  She took a few deep breaths, chuckling.  “Sorry.  I’m Lisa.  Alison dared me to, because all you … Earthers seem to expect us to grunt and shuffle.”  She stuck out her hand.  “I’m here to show you to the village.”  She looked from David to her extended hand.  Then she turned, gesturing at the ox.  “Want to ride, or walk?” 

He stared at her, standing straight and healthy in her plastic bag tunic.   She shrugged, and walked over to his rucksack.  Lifting it one handed, she carried it over to the ox.  David followed her.  After helping him on, she climbed up on the ox behind him.  When she slapped the ox, it stopped eating, and lazily walked in a circle.  She struck it again, and it started around the hill.

The village was set in a wide valley, covered in plants.  They all looked wild and out of control.  Cattle and sheep wandered loose, as did half–naked children.  Irrigation was limited to simple trenches.  Clearly they were doing almost as badly as the farming colonies. 

David saw two groups of people hacking at the undergrowth and cutting down trees.  One group wore a mix of plastic bags and leather tunics, and some of them wore glasses.  The other group had shaved heads and all wore leather tunics.  They were hauling away a large tree, using a humped cow rather than a horse.  Smaller trees and plants were being burned.

A short woman from the bald group waved at the ox, and then jogged towards them.  David was distracted by a noise like the cry of a raven.  Searching the overgrown fields, he saw a pair of black birds.  Near them, a naked couple directed a plough across a burnt patch, again using a cow.  They weren’t allowed tractors, but they must have been given horses.  Had they died, or been eaten?

Near the plough, three naked children were playing in the furrows and picking up something.  David realised they were gathering cow dung in a bag. 

*

There was no bridge, so the ox wadded across a shallow part of the river.  Pigs wandered in the shallows of the river, unworried by the passing ox.  When the ox paused to drink, the bald woman caught up, and bowed to them.  “Messi…  Lisa, is this…?”

“Sara, this is David.  Our new liaison.”  The ox finished drinking, and headed between small huts towards a pair of fifty metre long building.  Sara followed along behind.  None of the buildings were not brick or even wood.  They were mud, and the large ones weren’t even straight. 

The settlement didn’t even have dirt roads, the ox had to walk through the plants. 

David looked at Lisa.  “This primitive farming is so inefficient.  We could give you help and advice.   Maybe even tractors, if you will …”

Lisa’s laugh interrupted him.  “Inefficient?”

“Wasteful, ineffective.”  David stared at the mud, dung and cows.  “A waste of time or energy.”

Sara dashed forward, to glare at David.  “Do you know how much of the energy put into your ‘better’ and more ‘efficient’ farming of cows is recovered?”  Lisa slapped the ox’s right flank, and it turned to the right. “Four percent.  Farming this ‘inefficient’ way we recover seventeen percent.  More than four times.”

“In India they manage that.”  Lisa looked back at the people working.  “We probably don’t.”

“You are right, Mes… Lisa.”

David shook his head.  “There is no way that…”

Lisa nodded.  “Yep, four percent.  It is partly hidden.  Some of the calories come from fossil fuels, used in your wonderful tractors.  Part of…”

“Calories?”  David smiled.  “You don’t get calories from petrol.”

“Calories are a measure of energy,” Sara growled.  “It is foolish not to count all the energy that goes into making a calorie worth of meat.” 

Lisa cleared her throat. “Part of our high efficiency comes from using the cows to plough and pull carts, and their dung as a cooking fuel.”

“Dung? You cook using…”

Sara nodded energetically.  “Dried dung burns slowly, cleanly and with low heat. Firewood scorches as it burns.” 

Lisa turned to look at David, instead of where they were going.  “Using cow chips, we can leave rice or curry simmering unattended, overnight or while we do other things.”  Undirected, the ox walked towards the small gap between the two long mud-brick buildings. 

“Burning all your manure is foolish.  It should be used…”

“As fertiliser?” Sara interrupted.  “Between thirty and sixty perc…” 

Beyond the two buildings was a garden with a large pond, ‘fenced’ with four low buildings forming a ring.  Near the pond was a rough stone sundial.  Scattered around the garden were many more people than David had seen in the field, and wearing less.  They were reading, playing music and doing handicrafts.  A few sat on large stones, but most lay in the clover.  One group were all bald.  Cows, sheep and pigs wandered loose here too.  

A few people nodded in welcome.  The bald people stood, and then all bowed at to them. 

Lisa flicked the ox, and it stopped.  “About half is returned to the fields as fertiliser.”  She climbed down, helped David down, and gestured to his rucksack.  Sara quickly bowed, and took the rucksack off its back.  Both women just left the ox to wander. 

David turned to Lisa.  “Is it some kind of…?” 

Pointing to a door, she asked.   “Do you need to relieve yourself, after your first ox ride?”

He hesitated.  “I do.” 

She led him across the garden.  Sara fell into step behind Lisa.  They passed a squat cone of mud brick, one side studded with an abstract pattern of ceramic tiles, and a few pairs of twisted wires.  As they passed the sundial, David saw it showed eleven on a range of zero to fourteen.  So it was late in the local day.

“Will you be staying for dinner?”  At the door, Lisa stopped.  “We don’t have microwaves, so you need to think ahead to heat food.”  Sara put down the rucksack. 

“Thanks.”  David nodded.  “If you could heat the hamburger.”  He went through the door, into a well-ventilated room.  The toilets were just well crafted seats over buckets half full of water.  He tried to focus on something else while he relieved himself.  Why were so many people relaxing in the garden?  Were the bald people bowing to Lisa?  Why weren’t these people all working hard to improve their lives? 

There was no toilet paper.  David resorted to using a piece of soft cloth that was hanging nearby. 

Stepping out into the garden, he felt hot, out of place and overdressed.  Remembering he didn’t have a gun to hide, he removed his jacket.  He saw Lisa, lying by the pond talking to two men weaving on a small loom.  Three bald women sat cross-legged a few paces away, facing her.

As he reached her, David gestured at the garden.  “Is it some kind of holiday?” 

Lisa looked around.  “Oh, no.  There are nearly as many people working as relaxing.”  Sara stepped out of the building, and joined the other three bald women.  “It is just that some are inside, or working on the far side of the valley.”

“Half your people work each day?”

“Yes.”  Lisa shrugged.  “Well, nearly.”

“We work more than Kalahari Bushmen.”  Sara moved closer to Lisa, sitting at her feet. 

“With all this primitive ploughing and planting, you only have half…”  David shrugged.  “Well, since Tunnel worlds don’t have weed, you have…”

Lisa laughed.  “We have to weed.”

Sara glared at David.  “I guess your farming colonies still lack ‘weeds’.”

David nodded.  “You were given land with no plants, except the finest of crops.  So, you…”

“Crops, and the native Artemis phytoplankton,” Lisa corrected, “that provided the oxygen atmosphere.”

David nodded distractedly.  “So you must have brought weeds here.” 

“And a few animals and insects that eat our crops.”  Lisa nodded, sitting up.  “You gave us a failed monoculture.  Dying crops, with no other plants to break up the ground.” 

“Nothing to control salinity or stop nutrients washing away.”  Sara looked at David like it was his fault.  “No trees to shield the ground from the sun.”

He unbuttoned his shirt collar.  “Shield it from… It is DIRT.”

Sara ignored him.  “No insects to pollinate or turn waste plant matter into fertiliser.”  She glared at him. 

Lisa sighed.  “No bees, or palms, to make honey.”

David frowned.  “So, you want weeds?”

“We need a variety of plants, and accept they will sometimes be in the wrong place.”  Lisa smiled.  “Even that is relative.  If a piece of ground grows taro better than rice, why not grow taro there and rice somewhere else?”  She stretched, and lay back again. 

Sara grinned at David.  “We’ve let plants grow over most of the valley, to regenerate the soil.  Then we burn them, to create natural fertilizer.  Once we get established, we’ll keep most of the area verdant. 

“Weeding it isn’t as hard as tanning, weaving or making mud bricks.”  Lisa sat up.  “Do you want to talk officially now?” 

“Speaking to your leader can wait, until he returns to his office.”  Shadows were stretching across the garden.  “Or tomorrow.”

Sara looked at Lisa, then at David. 

Lisa laughed.  “Returns to His office?”

With a defeated sigh, David stood up.  “Where is your leader?  Lying in the sun somewhere?”

Sara jumped up, hands clenched.  “You are speaking to our… Our messiah.”

Lisa nodded, avoiding David’s gaze.  “I’m the leader, largely because of the cultists.  They all vote for me, so it is kind of democratic.”

“You don’t want to be…”  David sat back down.  “You act like you are thriving.  So why did I have to bring my own food?”

“A building in Brisbane has a colony of song birds in a sealed aviary, with water, soil and food plants.”  Lisa paused.  “They have been sealed in for eight years.  The current birds are the second and third generation.  Know why they don’t starve or suffocate?” Sara sat down, almost between Lisa and David.

David smiled.  “Easy. The plants produce oxygen for the birds.” 

Lisa nodded.  “Do you know the chemistry involved?” 

He paused, staring into space.  “They take in carbon dioxide and make it into oxygen.  It is what plants have…”

“So, where does the carbon go?  Matter can’t be created or destroyed.”  Lisa stared into David’s eyes.  “You Earthers do know that, don’t you? That metal or petrol can’t be created?  That plastic wrappers and plant waste can’t be destroyed?”

Someone started playing guitar, sounding professional.  All the other musicians stopped playing, and a woman started singing along with the guitar, sounding just as polished.

“The carbon goes…  The plants absorb it, and put it… somewhere.”  He smiled.  “Do they throw it out, with the trash?”

“And why hasn’t the soil in the aviary been exhausted, like your farm worlds?” Lisa stared at David for a moment  “Tell him.”

“Thank you, Messiah.”  Sara sat up.  “The birds exhale carbon dioxide and water vapour.  Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.  The plants use the carbon dioxide and water, and sunlight, to make complex carbohydrates, like cellulose or sugar.  The oxygen is a by-product of plants growing, not just living.”  A group of people, none of them bald, wandered in.  “In fact, plants use oxygen at night to metabolise their own stored carbohydrates to get energy.  When you’ve eaten or burned all the plants on earth, it will use all the oxygen the plants have produced by growing.”  The new people scattered, and started chatting with people relaxing here.  “Earth, or this planet, is a sealed environment.”  Sara patted the ground.  “The carbon cycles around and around.  But if an Earther comes here, eats our food and then goes home, he’ll reduce the carbon on this world.”

David stared at Sara, then turned to Lisa.  “The difference would… must be… so miniscule that...”

Sara growled, “Like taking a handful of sand from the Sahara Desert?  No human could detect the impact on the desert?”

David smiled, and shrugged.  “Maybe we could.  There is an instrument that can measure the tides in a tea cup.” 

“There is? I like that idea.”  Lisa grinned.  “Perhaps we could… Anyway, every handful lost would reduce the desert, whether humans can tell or not.  And if we, or any Tunnel colony, sent bulk grain to earth, the loss is far from miniscule.”

David stared across the garden, now mostly in shadow as the sun set over the building.  Three people stripped naked, and waded into the pond to swim.  So, the farming colonies were monocultures, with unprotected soil, that were losing carbon.  No wonder they were failing.  But surely the agronomists knew all this?

The song ended.  After a moments silence, there was a shrill whistle.  Lisa smiled, “Dinner time.” David sat up, ready to go to the dining hall.  No one else moved.  Then a few started to gather around the pond.  The people swimming waded out and dried themselves with the inside of their tunics.  Many more people came in from the fields.

Eventually, three bald people emerged from the building with piles of bowls and wooden spoons.  They started distributing them.  One handed David his hamburger in a clay bowl.  Three other people emerged with large clay pots and started dishing out rice and curried pork.  As the smell hit him, David wished he was eating that.

One pot was left aside, unopened.  David looked at it, and Lisa nodded.  “That’s right. Dessert.” 

He stared at people’s bowls.  “They are small portions.”

Lisa nodded.  “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper.” 

Half way through eating, David remembered his hamburger was heated over a dung fire.  Putting it aside, he watched the others eating.  “So, you have the perfect farm here?  The perfect…”

Many people shook their heads.  Lisa muttered.  “No ice-cream.  No chocolate.  No duct tape, for repairing and improvising.  But at least we have hot water, and soft cloth to make toilet cloths and tampons.”  She pulled open the collar of her tunic, to show the plastic was lined with cloth.

“Those are petty person deprivations, liaison.”  Sara stated, frostily.  “More important, we still feed animals food that is suitable for humans.”

David nodded.  “That sounds foolish.  Do you have…”

Sara bristled.  “On your farms, ninety percent of the cereal, legumes and vegetable protein suitable for humans are fed to animals.  We fed them, as much as possible, on stuff we can’t eat, like the rice husks and straw.”

“Especially now we don’t need much straw for mud bricks.”  Lisa gestured at the buildings.  “It is always a balance between competing demands, and some stuff is still wasted.  But as much as possible, Waste is Food.”  Lisa stared into space.  “And you have finally brought us some mangetti nut from the Kalahari.”

“Those are the nuts in my rucksack?  Why do you want them?”

Sara interrupted.  “According to The Book, mangetti grows without any human tending, is highly drought resistant and has a hard outer shell that protects it from rotting for a year after it falls to the ground.”

Lisa nodded.  “On paper, I’m impressed with it.  I just hope we can make it grow here.”

David frowned.  Weren’t they still seeking the easy way out.  “Do you have a good reason to reject more productive crops?”

Sara sneered.  “Productive?  The Book says mangetti nut produces five times the calories and ten times the protein of cereal crops.  So less than two hundred grams will contain the calories of one kilogram of cooked rice.” 

“Some of us might become hunter gatherers, if these plants get established.”  Lisa yawned.  “Especially if they grow on land where crops can’t.”

“Well, it’s getting late…”  David looked at watch, and went pale.  It showed 3:12.  “It can’t be three in the morning.”

“Don’t let our diurnal cycle fool you.”   Lisa laughed.  “Could it be three in the afternoon, back in Sydney?” 

David nodded.  That would be about right. 

Sara muttered something, which sounded insulting.  “Did you bring dessert for yourself, liaison?”

He shook his head.  “I should go anyway.” 

Lisa nodded.  “Sara, fetch his satchel.” 

David picked up his jacket, and Sara brought him his empty rucksack.  Folding the light plastic mesh bag, he slid it into his jacket pocket.  “Anything else you need from Earth?”

“I’ll walk you back, and we can discuss a two-way radio.”  Lisa led him out of the garden.  “One that runs on solar cells.”

She walked with him through the dusk back to the stone platform.  He was back at his car, in the sunshine, before he remembered he’d had another meal in his rucksack.

David visited Artemis the next three afternoons, arriving earlier in the local day each time and making his own way to the village.  He had to admit, at these to himself, he enjoyed his brief visits on Artemis.  And, at leats at home, he started putting his food waste in a separate bin for compost.

On his fourth visit, the sun was near the ‘eastern’ horizon and a tall bald woman in a leather tunic was waiting for him. “Greetings.  I’m honoured to escort you.”

“May I ask?  The baldhead?  What does it signify?” 

“We are the truly enlightened.”  She stood taller.  “We follow the wisdom of Lisa, and at her behest we shave our heads.”

*

Eventually, he got through the authorisation, special dispensation and funding, and brought the dissidents a radio, with a rechargeable battery and solar cells.  “Do you need help with these?”

Smiling at some private joke, Lisa shook her head.  “Eric can handle them.”  Lisa nodded towards a redheaded man.  “He tells me it will need to be in a direct line from the gate, to receive any signals from Earth through the quantum tunnel.”

For a week, it was night each time he visited, so he didn’t see Lisa.  Then, he got busy with other duties and contented himself with checking by radio. 

*

A few weeks later, David was asked to take Angela Robinson, from The Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, to look at the dissident colony.  The dissidents told the new visitor woman about their farming, even though she didn’t seem interested.

David quietly told Lisa, “I noticed that, since my first visit, you haven’t talked about how wicked norm…,”  he hesitated, “modern farming is?  Or how much…”

“How much better our ‘old’ ways are?”  Lisa nodded.  “Well, we are still working things out.  And why preach to the choir?  We only need to tell outsiders, ‘heathens’ like you and Miss Robinson.”

When he returned, David put in a report on the dissident’s farming. 

*

A month after Miss Robinson's visit, David got a directive from DIMIA.  He wondered if it was in response to Miss Robinson’s report on the colony or his report on their farming?

For a few days, he avoided radioing Lisa.  Finally, he made time to visit in person. 

Lisa was swimming, but she quickly waddled out of the pond and a bald man handed her a towel.  “Thank you, Joshua.” 

Today David could hear a different talented person singing a rock song.  Once she was dressed, Lisa and David sat on two stone benches.  Joshua knelt at Lisa’s feet.

“I am here to discuss a deal.”  David took an envelope from his jacket, and realised the fourteen sheets of paper were carbon he was adding to Artemis.  “To offer you contraband technology, for your help in developing Artemis.” 

Lisa took the envelope.  “Developing our world how?”

“Initially just expanding colonisation.  Tunnel worlds are the answer to Earth’s overpopulation problem.”  Lisa shook his head, but David persisted.  “We have the technology to transport them to the other continents.  You could keep this continent solely yours.”

“What is done on another continent will still effect us.  It is sad if you Earthers don’t know that.” Lisa smiled.  “And Earth doesn’t have a population problem.”

David stared at her.  “How can you say that?”  He’d thought she was the sanest one.  “Lack of arable land.  Lack of fossil fuels.”  Lisa tried to say something, but David pressed on.  “Earth can barely support the billion of people it has. Of course it has…”

“Earther,” Joshua interrupted, “it does not.” 

“Earth already grows enough food for nine billion.”  Lisa smiled.  “It just can’t sustain the number of western people, living a wasteful western lifestyle.  Private cars.  Meat rich diet and more food than they need.  A television and a DVD player each.  Disposable everything, and making it cheaper to replace than repair.”

David stared at Joshua, and then Lisa, stunned by their naive ideas about global problems.  Lisa handed David a laminated card.  “You all just need to use five times less energy.”  She laughed at David’s expression.  “It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?”

David read the card.  ‘One American uses as much energy as 2 Germans, 3 Swiss or Japanese, 6 Yugoslavs, 9 Mexicans, 16 Chinese, 19 Malaysians, 53 Indians or 109 Sri Lankans, 438 Malians, or 1072 Nepalese.’

“Instead of dumping people like us, you should let us teach in your schools.”  Joshua clenched her hands into fists.  “Let us tell the next generation that they don’t need to devour the planet like their parents and grandparents.”

David handed back the card.  “You want to live like Nepalese?”

Lisa shook her head.  “The cultists do.  The rest of us want to live more like Malaysians or Indians.  We like having hot water, a computer data base and DVDs to watch.”

Several bald people moved towards them.  David looked around.  “Computer?  DVDs?  How can you …”

“Nothing wrong with one player and screen for every dozen…”  Lisa stopped, and looked at the crowd threatening David.  “We do have a little contraband technology.”

“Messiah.  You have told him…”

Lisa made a shooing motion.  “We can trust…  I trust David with our secret.”  The cultists surrounding David relaxed, and sat down.  She whispered to David.  “Being their messiah is a pain, but it has its advantages.”

“Computers?  Home entertainment?”  David realised he could still hear rock music, including electric guitars.  And no-one here was singing or playing.  “Is that a recording?  Where do you …?”

Lisa pointed at the mud brick pyramid.  “Those tiles are solar cells, mostly scavenged from broken devices.  Whenever possible, we smuggle some through and add them to this solar power station.  Trips to hospital are good for smuggling.”  She nodded to her left.  “The power line runs underground into the building.  Eric is the one to thank for all electrical engineering.  Thanks to him we even have a few rechargeable lights.  ”

“But it was Lisa’s idea to rig them it to send power to a CD player,” Eric explained, “when all the batteries are fully charged.”

David unbuttoned his shirt.  “We are surprised you dissidents are doing so well.  Our farm colonies are…”  David stopped before he spoke treason.  “They are hardly doing better.  Where did you get your knowledge of farming?”

Everyone, cultist or not, looked at Lisa.  Blushing, she shrugged.  “Just the same ANU education that got me exiled.”

David stared at her.  “I looked you up.  Your degree is not in… it is an arts degree.”

She nodded.  “Literary Studies and Philosophy.  But I did Intro to Anthropology my first year, and read Conformity and Conflict.  That is what the cultists mean by The Book.  It told me about India farming with zebus, and Kalahari bushman eating mangetti nut.”  She looked away. 

“And luckily she brought it here when she was exiled.”   Joshua scowled.  “It showed us the truth, and the future of your world.”

“This can wait, Joshua.”  Lisa frowned at the bald fanatic.

Joshua glared at David.  “It told us that Easter Island was once a subtropical paradise, with a wide variety of plants.  They had a palm twenty metres tall and two metres around.” 

Lisa slumped, chin in her hands.  “Easter Island was the richest seabird nesting sight in Polynesia, and perhaps the whole Pacific.  The first Polynesians to reach it found themselves with fertile soil, abundant food and building materials.”

“All we started with,” Joshua grumbled, “was an abundance of space, and Lisa’s wisdom.”

“The islanders even had lebensraum, room to grow.  So they prospered and multiplied.”  Lisa sighed.  “But after a few hundred years, they started building stone statues and platforms like their Polynesians forebears.  As they got competitive, the statues and platforms got larger and they added ten-ton red crowns.” 

“They cut the forest faster than it could regrow.”  Joshua stared at David.  “And now western culture is doing the same thing to your whole world.”

“You can harvest a forest forever at two percent.”  Lisa shook her head.  “Or you can clear fell the whole thing, sell the wood and invest the money at eight percent.  Makes sense, economically, but you run out of forests doing that.”  She lay back, eyes closed.

“I can assure you…”

Joshua cut him off.  “The islanders ran out of timber and firewood.  Without wood to build decent canoes, fish catches declined.  Deforestation let the soil erode, dry out and lose nutrients.  Crop yields fell.  Eating rats and people only replaced some of the lost fish and plants, so people went hungry. 

Lisa nodded.  “The island could no longer support priests, chiefs and bureaucrats.  The government collapsed.  Chaos reigned, and a warrior caste took over.  Even now, spear points and daggers litter the ground.”  Lisa drummed her fingers on her tight stomach.  “Between arriving in the fourth century and seventeen twenty two, the islanders built a great civilization, over used the resources and wiped out paradise.”  Lisa raised her head and looked into David’s eyes.  “The Dutch thought it was a sand island, because all they saw was withered grass and scotched vegetation.” 

David glared at Joshua.  “Why do you think Earth will suffer…?”

“Not just Earth.”  Lisa stated.  “Using the Tunnels, you are spreading your lifestyle to other worlds.”  

“How are your new farm colonies doing?”  Joshua sounded like he knew. 

David sighed.  “With only one Tunnel to each world, we can’t get enough petrol to them to run tractors and enough chemicals to grow crops.  Plus, I now realise, they’re all animal barren monocultures.” 

“No-one has wondered why wheat and rice need petrol?”  Lisa gave him a comforting smile.  “You can still avoid this doom, but you have to make changes.”

David looked at the gathered dissidents.  “You keep saying ‘you’.  Don’t you mean ‘we’?”

Lisa grinned.  “You exiled us, so are we still responsible?”

Joshua nodded.  “And Lisa won’t let you destroy our world, along with your own.” 

Lisa stared at the fanatic.  “Now is not the …”

“Eric knows enough about Tunnels to disrupt them, and has built the equipment.”  Joshua leapt up.  “Before you take our world, we’ll take action.”  He raised his hand, as if to stop David.  “From today, anyone coming through our tunnel without Lisa’s permission will arrive as a mangled tube of flesh, having been squeezed through a portal smaller than Lisa’s palm.”

Lisa nodded.  “You are invited to join us, and settle here, but for now you should go.”

David stood up.  “If you know what is wrong, why didn’t you tell anyone before you left Earth?”

“We tried.”  Lisa laughed.  “How do you think we got deported?

*