I considered that for a second or so before responding. One of the less appealing aspects of my job is coming to the defense of nasty little bugs like the anopheles mosquito.
Nobody likes mosquitoes, myself included. They are at best annoying as they buzz about one’s face and ears. At their worst, they are vectors for disease—anopheles in particular had an unsavory history on Earth of spreading malaria. If it were possible to construct an ecosystem without them, I would heartily approve. Only people like Otis can think of good things to say about mosquitoes: that in both their larval and adult states they are the principal food source for other species that in turn sustain thousands more. The rest of us don’t think in terms like cascade effects, and accelerated entropy in closed systems—until we have to pay for it. By then it’s usually too late.
Coping with the interconnectedness of nature is the first and most important step in ultimately utilizing it to our best advantage, but throughout history that has been the hardest step to take. Back in the twentieth century, timber harvesters rarely considered that one minor effect of their logging would be increased sunlight reaching the forest floor, warming the waters of countless brooks flowing through it. If that did occur to them, they didn’t take the next mental step, and recognize that this would damage or destroy river spawning grounds for ocean-dwelling fish. They did not connect their work to reduced fish harvests thousands of kilometers away. Nor did they consider that each reduction in forestland also reduces the volume of biological filter purifying groundwater, leading to increased levels of contaminants discharged into the local water supply; or that loss of predator habitat leads to explosive growth in the population of undesirable insects and small mammals, who in turn….
You see how it goes.
Of course with a whole planet at one’s disposal it’s easy to overlook such things. The larger an ecology is, the more damage it can simply absorb. Whole species may go extinct, but an overall equilibrium will reestablish itself and, for the survivors, life will go on. But the ecosystem under Hawking Mons Habitat’s dome covered only about 3,000 square kilometers. When Otis said loss of mosquito breeding grounds was a threat to the integrity of the system as a whole, he wasn’t speculating on developments in the distant future. He meant the threat was immediate, and that Weltverbesserungswahngesellschaft, as the prime contractor charged with maintaining a stable ecosystem under the dome, would end up paying for it. Ultimately this cost would be passed on to the Enterprise, and from them to the dome’s inhabitants, but that could take decades. It would be small comfort to shareholders whose dividends suffered in the short term.
“Otis,” I sighed, “it would be nice if just once our problems centered around some cute furry creature people actually liked.”
Otis and I left the terminal in a quaint little red trolley. It actually rolled on wheels along two steel rails going click-click, click-click—no superconductors, no maglev technomagic, it was obsolete technology pure and simple. The designers of the dome’s internal transport system had decided quite deliberately to reinvent this antiquated vehicle. After all, its only reason for existence was to create a place for rest and relaxation. The planners felt the slower pace of life imposed by old-fashioned technology would contribute to this.
As it left the tunnel which connected the ground terminal to the habitat, it wound its way down a track in the side of the crater wall giving us an unobstructed view of the interior. Above me, I saw a pale blue sky, crisscrossed by the delicate triangle traceries of the dome’s geodesic frame. Below, was the lush tropical green of the crater floor. Outside the temperature might compare to Washington in autumn, but inside that giant greenhouse, it was more like Bombay. Hot humid air rose, losing moisture as it thinned and cooled at higher altitudes, forming clouds. They seemed to settle in smooth, misty strata over the Habitat’s large central lake, its surface mirrorlike, undisturbed by even a hint of breeze. And around the lake grew a forest like an ocean of emerald leaves foaming with flowers.
On planet after planet where the Big Word has contracted to manage some part of the environment, ecosystems are utilitarian, designed only to serve the basic needs of settlers. Flowers exist because pollen must be carried about by insects to ensure genetic diversity in successor generations. But in here, flowers exist because they are beautiful, and Otis and his team had perfected an ecosystem designed to maximize both their brightness and numbers. Bougainvillea and honeysuckle, orchids and lilies, magnolia and jacaranda grew in profusion spilling scent and color into the still air. Each was a triumph of genetic engineering, found nowhere else in the Universe.
One reason the designers had been able to conceive and create such a whimsical ecosystem was that the habitat was not expected to sustain a large population. Only about 20.000 people actually live here. Perhaps a hundred times as many transients will pass through in a terrestrial year, but none stay very long. The dome doesn’t need much agriculture or industry. It is the kind of place people like Otis dream about. A vibrant living world of species complexity interwoven to form: magic.
But working people on vacation want to do more with their leisure time than smell the flowers. They want restaurants and dance clubs, bordellos and “VR Entertainment Complexes” to either stimulate or relax them, and conveniently separate them from some of their hard-earned cash so the Enterprise can recoup a portion of their salaries without being accused of underpaying anyone.
The Big Word doesn’t handle that sort of thing. The Wags do.
To be fair, I should say the Wags don’t actually go out of their way to damage the environment in the name of mindless entertainment. But much of what they do requires substantial infrastructure. They must string powerlines about the dome’s interior to run the many services the Enterprise expects them to provide. If they bury them underground they upset Otis by destroying earthworm habitat. Run them overhead, birds suffer.
Once, after years of debate and planning, the top brass at both the Big Word and the Wag had agreed on a corridor between Southern and Northern settlements to be developed as a transport and electrical power artery. Then Otis came out with a report showing that electromagnetic fields produced by the high voltage power cables Sharawaggi intended to run down it, would alter the daily pereginations of some hummingbirds who were important pollinators, and so… not surprisingly, the Wags thought we had been negotiating in bad faith. A lot of acrimony resulted.
The corridor went through. Both road and powerlines were built. And Otis, as usual, turned out to have been right. We’re still trying to reestablish some aesthetically pleasing flora in the regions hummingbirds no longer visit.
It was one more example of how fragile the ecology under the dome really was. Given a whole planet, not even Otis would have been overly worried about hummingbird interaction with EM fields. But here, in this tiny world sealed in a bubble, every part must work perfectly for the ecosystem to survive. And every time the Wags began some project that involved digging, building, or just making loud noises, something in that system was affected.
“Otis,” I asked as the tram descended, click-clicking slowly toward the crater floor, “how is it that plans for this complex were able to get this far without your knowing about it?”