Chapter 3: An Evening at the Whitlock’s – Slugs

Rystole’s friend Bert Morris had some ideas about the broken radio, but needs some time to put something together. Rystole needs some time for dinner…

Find previous chapters on The Slugs of Dale Cannon Table of Contents.

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Rystole walked down the dirt path to his home feeling like he’d wasted the day at school and then wasted the afternoon with Bert. He should’ve skipped class, helped out on the farm, but he needed to see Bert, and showing up at town hall during school hours would’ve gotten him in trouble.

The teacher spent the whole day going over the complexities of wireless charging.

Rystole’d learned about wireless charging when he was six and the tractor’s charging station went out. His mother had pulled him out of school because she needed a second set of hands to help fix it. He didn’t do much more than deliver her a wrench or two but she still took the time to show him around the dismantled charger.

Thanks to her he knew about most things in the school’s textbook, which was just an in-depth user manual for all the colony’s technology. He could pass the senior exam right now but he knew Speaker Grisham wouldn’t allow it.

Rystole could hear Grisham saying: “We’re a small colony lightyears away from any major system, every citizen needs to know as much as they can about the tools we depend on and the tools that connect us to our fellow humans.”

Except when Bert wanted to take the senior exam early and the comms director vouched to take him on as an apprentice Grisham approved it. How repairing radios was more important than raising cattle Rystole still hadn’t figured out.

Rystole had about as much connection with the off-world humans as a tractor did with its wireless charging port. He knew they were out there, somewhere in the stars. He knew they helped him survive because they sent resupply packages every two and a half years. But there was nothing that made them tangible or important to his day-to-day life.

The colony of Dale Cannon was nearly self-sufficient and on the path to abundance and if the off-worlders quit sending them supplies Rystole had no doubt they’d find a way to survive.

Of course, that wasn’t the plan.

The plan was: once Dale Cannon was an abundant colony more settlers would arrive and work to turn the planet into the Central System’s newest and furthest colony in the stars.

The colony’s population would grow tenfold overnight and new specialists would arrive and so would new technology.

There’d be no expectation for a student to study the colony’s user manual because it would hold only a small fraction of the things available to them.

If Speaker Grisham had his way the infusion of new specialists would arrive tomorrow. Realistically, Rystole expected any kids he had to be learning from the specialists, not working a farm like him.

Of course, the slugs would keep that from happening if they kept raiding farm cabins and putting the inhabitants in comas. His mother wasn’t the first to fall prey to the attacks.

Usually, whole families would be wiped out only to be found a day or two later when no one heard from them.

Everyone kept saying the Whitlocks were lucky that only his mom was touched by the slugs. But all Rystole could think about was the list of chores that would be difficult or impossible without his mom around.

As he walked up to the house he saw his oldest sister and father, who still wore his thin work pants, struggling to manually herd the buffcows in the distance. Rystole used his hand terminal he summoned a few herding drones from the barn as he went to lend a hand.

Juniper, his sister, made a disgusted face as she saw the bots fly up.

“We don’t need those,” she protested.

“You do if we want a decent harvest next month.” Rystole pointed to a small group of furry buffcows headed off to a pasture of barley. Thinking about doing a harvest without his mom was gut-wrenching but he focused on the task at hand.

The drones let out a low hum that encouraged the cattle to move away from the crops. Rystole and his family corralled the group in through the gate and his sister swung the gate closed, having to jump on it because the gate was so heavy. She usually smiled at the fun ride but today her face was as plain as if she was drying dishes.

“What took you so long to get home?” His father asked as they finished up other chores around the farm. His father wasn’t scolding, it sounded more like a professional interest.

Rystole explained his visit to Bert at a high level and got the low down on how his father’s day went. His mother did most of the work on the farm while Rystole and his sister were at school and his father was at work in town.

Like every colonist, his father knew the gist of running a farm but his mother had a certain knack for it while his father often said, “It takes a special kind of person to do that work and your mom’s the most special person I know.”

They ate the dinner Leilani, his youngest sister, prepared together at the dinner table ignoring the empty place that was set out of habit.

“We could have gotten the buffs in without the drones,” Juniper said, not one to put a tool down before the job was overdone. “It’s more natural that way, and it’s how ancient cowboys used to do it.”

“Ancient cowboys weren’t herding genetically spliced cows,” Rystole said. “You know what else is natural? Broken bones and concussions.”

“He’s right, June, we should have used them from the start,” their father said.

“Mom doesn’t use them,” Juniper whined. But seemed to regret the statement after she said it.

“She does. When she needs to,” Rystole said. “If you and I weren’t there she’d use them. And I remember when she was pregnant with Leilani and Harry she used them.” Those were the early days of the colony when they still lived in town and it was a treat to explore past the colony’s tall printed walls.

“That was just because you were too young to help,” Juniper retorted.

“Harry was born two summers ago,” Rystole said, gesturing at his little brother who was being fed by his father.

“I’m just calling it how I see it,” she said sticking her tongue out.

The comment hit him harder than it should have. It was a phrase June picked up from their mom.

“Rye is right,” his father said as Harry chewed up his spoonful of mashed potatoes. “We don’t get extra credits by doing things the old-fashioned way. We need to use the tools at our disposal, even if I can’t get them to work right half the time.”

The rest of the dinner went on and Leilani, barely four, babbled on about what she’d learned in school. The family cleaned the dishes.

After Harry and Leilani were put to bed then the three of them played a board game and hid the fourth set of pieces in the box trying to collectively ignore that the cabin was missing someone. Juniper won the game and wouldn’t let anyone live it down as she trotted off to bed.

“You want a beer?” Rystole’s father asked pulling one out of the cold side of the deep freeze.

“I’m fine,” Rystole said, he’d never liked the taste. Plus as a teenager, he felt the only appeal of drinking was getting away with it while your parents weren’t watching.

“I talked to Dr. Yu today.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” his father replied.

“Anything…” Rystole didn’t know the words he was supposed to say next.

“Nothing new,” his father said after a sip of his drink.

Rystole flipped through the book that was in his lap but didn’t really read any of the words on the page.

“She’s stable at least,” his father said after some silence, “like the rest of them.”

“Mr. Montgomery is still doing okay?” Rystole asked.

Morton Montgomery was the first person to be attacked by the slugs months ago. Rystole knew of him, the colony was small enough for that, but everyone’s interest in him peaked when he was attacked.

“As far as Dr. Yu can tell he is. He’s still losing weight though…”

“He had some to spare,” Rystole responded.

His father gave him a look indicating his comment was rude and unuseful. “I don’t want you doing anything stupid with Bert. You and him are smart kids, smart enough to get yourselves into trouble you can’t get out of.”

“We’re not doing anything dangerous.” Rystole didn’t think this was a lie, mostly because he didn’t know what Bert was planning to do.

“I still remember when you broke your arm trying to break the buff-bull that charged mom.” His dad said it with a smile, but Rystole saw that there was concern in his eyes. “You weren’t much older than June.”

“At least I had the sense to use an electric harness.”

“An electric harness for an adult,” his father said with a chuckle. “It was two sizes too big for you!”

“It could’ve worked,” Rystole said. It was the phrase he’d always fallen back on even though everyone in the room knew it wasn’t true.

“Then you wandered in here holding your arm saying you thought something was wrong with it.” His dad shook his head in disbelief. “I was still nursing your mom from the charge.”

“Well, I was right that there was something wrong with it.” The memory, though painful, brought a smile to his face.

“Just be safe kid, we’re not going to be able to get much done if something happens to you too.”

“I’ll be fine,” Rystole said, but he was worried the statement was already a lie.