Infinite Farmer

This is an odd dream, boy.

Tulland was on a boat, alone, in the middle of the sea, far enough out that Ouros looked like a dot of earth in the distance. He was, in the setting of the dream, very small. Much too small to pilot a boat of this type, too weak to work any of the instruments, and too short to reach several of them. And even if all that wasn't true, he didn't even understand most of what was happening.

For all practical purposes, the dream should have been a nightmare. Instead, Tulland was excited.

"Why's that?" Tulland asked.

Because you should have suspected you were going to die. And while you are naive, I do not believe you have ever been truly dim. Why aren't you frightened in this memory?

"It's not a secret. I can tell you, but you have to answer something for me first. Why are you even here?"

Because you allowed me to be. I have no way of breaking past the cordon The Infinite has set around your mind and soul otherwise.

"I didn't allow you," Tulland protested.

You must have.

As the Tulland of his own memories dipped a hand in the surprisingly warm water, the Tulland of the present puzzled over the System's presence. He supposed he had been pretty proud of his kill. It was possible he had absentmindedly flipped the switch that let the System in to gloat about it just before he went to sleep.

"Fine. I'll believe that for now." Tulland watched through his past's eyes as he looked over the side of the water, a nine or ten-year-old face reflecting back at him. He looked curious and impatient all at once. "The answer to your question is that I wasn't in any real danger when this happened. Watch."

The System managed to hold its tongue a few seconds, just long enough for the surface of the water to roil, break, and reveal Tulland uncle's face.

"What did I say, Tulland? Get the net. I need you to have it ready."

Young Tulland rocketed back as he realized his own lapse, then reached for his uncle's wood-and-rope net, holding it over the side of the boat and letting the business end dip below the water-line. His uncle hefted a big armful of something into it, then steadied the net with his hand as he bellied over the bow and out of the water entirely.

"These should do it. There were some big ones down there, after all." His uncle brought the net over to his feet and started pulling large, round shellfish out of it. The bigger ones were about eight inches across. "There are those that tell you not to eat these shellers in the warm months, you know."

"Why?" young Tulland asked.

"Sea worms. Small ones. Parasites. They'll make you sick in a way only a weak poison can cure, since that's what it takes to kill them."

"Oh." Tulland looked at the shellfish doubtfully. "Shouldn't we not take them, then?"

"No, boy. Remember why we came here in the first place. The fish."

Tulland nodded. Earlier in the day, his uncle had caught a spiny, ugly-looking fish that he claimed was poisonous to eat, but kept anyway. Now, it was swimming unhappily in a big, covered tank of water.

"We cook the shellers together with that fish, Tulland, and the poison leaches out of the flesh from the fish. Just enough to kill the worms, you see. And then we wait until the heat cooks the poison off. The heat won't kill the worms alone. And the poison isn't enough by itself. But together, we get a chowder."

Tulland lifted the lid from the fish-storage and regarded the spiky, terrible-looking fish with a new respect. "Did you figure that out by yourself, uncle?"

"Oh, no. Of course not. There are too many steps." His uncle pointed at the fish, then the shells, then the ocean. "You have to know that spine-fish is poisonous, but that the broth it's cooked in can be heated safe with enough time. You have to know the shellers are down by the coral, which must have been quite the discovery when they first found them."

"Why would they have even swum down that deep?"

"Probably a dare." His uncle laughed and pulled the oars to a rowing position. "Lots of stuff gets learned though foolish dares, Tulland. More than you'd think. But once you have the shellers, you learn they make you sick. Then someone else learns they only make you sick sometimes. And then someone else figures out it's because of the worms."

"And that's it?"

"That and a bunch of steps I left out. This kind of knowledge is built over generations, Tulland. But eventually, you have it and then you have that much more food. And the island can take care of that many more people."

Tulland started putting the shellers into a bag. That was his job, his uncle had said. The ones from this newest haul joined the rest of the shllers in a big canvas bag, which Tulland tied shut and put in the storage with the rest of the fish.

"What if you wanted to know sooner? To figure it out yourself?" Tulland asked.

"Hmm. A good question." His uncle considered it. "You'd probably have to be hungry."

"Hungry?"

"Starving. A famine, where you can only see faint glimmers of hope. Willing to do anything and try anything. Survival is a powerful motivator, Tulland."

He is not wrong.

Quiet. I'm listening to this.

Tulland's uncle splashed some fresh water from a bucket on his face, then got to rowing.

"A powerful enough motivator to make for a lot of progress in a short amount of time. I just pray that you'll never have to know something like that firsthand."

—

Tulland woke up feeling much better. He was starving and entirely sick of the one safe food source he had on hand, and thirsty enough that his entire throat felt like it was lined with sand. But his bones felt better, if not quite right yet, and he had survived. It wasn't a bad state, all things considering.

The thirst was the first problem to get solved as Tulland drank deeply from his makeshift well before heading to his briars that had survived the ordeal and eating several of their fruits. They weren't bad-tasting things, especially once he had become used to them. They were, however, something he had become unbelievably sick of in his time here.

It took less of them to be full than he liked, even as hungry as he was. His stomach was heavy after a few fruits, but he knew he would have to come back to them several more times before he had enough total energy for the day.

After that, he picked quite a few more of the fruits as seeds. By now, the process of using parts of an animal as fertilizer for his vicious briar children was starting to become rote, although the Forest Duke was much larger and the variety of different parts Tulland had available to him meant a little more work. He hurried through it, as the last thing he wanted was for the meat to spoil in some way before his seeds had their shot at it.

After he was finally finished with the grosser part of his day, Tulland settled in for a long bout of reading. And there was plenty to read.