Previously — Part 1: Technology
They used the fireballs seven times. Each time, the Prime Lower Omings picked a densely Wooded city. There was no way to throw the fireballs at long distances – the Lowers were too small and, despite their efforts, their new stone materials could not be fashioned into a launcher. There was no alternative but to send in small troupes of Lower Omings with blue fires enclosed in stone boxes. The soldiers crawled in the darkness of night when the Omings were respiring. The night would soon be bright with dying Woody Omings.
The technologists found that although the Woody Omings could not move to escape the way Lowers could, fire did not spread as easily as it might have at the equator. In the rich equatorial cities, the ground was littered with Omings that had died naturally and were returning their nutrients to the soil. In the Woody cities, the ground was almost bare. Therefore, for each mission, the Primes asked more than twenty Omings to carry their deaths to the enemy. In a community still tied closely together, the deliberate deaths of hundreds of Lower Omings were wrenching.
The Heartwood called for a ceasefire.
‘Stop,’ it said. ‘We cannot run the way you can. It is a massacre.’
‘We ran when you invaded,’ the Primes responded. ‘Yet, you chased us down. Running has not been a way out.’
‘How can you destroy so many? How can you ask your own to die in flames?’ the Heartwood wept.
‘We have no options.’ The Primes also wept. ‘We have nothing left.’
‘What do you want?’
‘We want a Homefield.’
‘How can we give you a Homefield where there was a city you burned to nothing?’
‘It was ours before,’ they said. ‘We know what it is like to have your home taken away. This is justice.’
‘There is no justice in killing those that were not alive when that happened!’
The Primes were silent for a long time. The path they had chosen was already deep with sacrificed Lower Omings. ‘We have nothing left… except more blue fire.’
What they did not say was that they would run out of Omings willing to carry the fires. Near the barren poles, the population was dwindling and families were drawing younglings closer, warily.
At the end of the five day ceasefire, the Heartwood came to the Primes with a proposal. The Lowers could populate the seven charred fields and the Woodys would not send spores by air into those fields. The Primes conferred quickly and realised that the seven sites could not support the entire Lower Oming population. An eight field was needed.
‘We need more soil to grown on,’ they stated.
The Heartwood hesitated. ‘The world’s productive fields are occupied, except for those that were… cleared. The Woody Oming are not mobile. We cannot voluntarily… clear… another field.’
The Primes called for their technologists.
‘We are fifteen years away from a solution,’ the technologists said. ‘We are developing solar catchers that can take the sun falling on the open ocean and transport it to the dark and cold poles. The soil under the frost is rich enough in nutrients. If we bring sun and warmth in, we open up entire continents of fields.’
The Primes turned to the Heartwood. ‘All we need is fifteen years.’
The Heartwood heard this and presented his final offer. ‘Athomfield is eleven days flight south of here. It is a field you have never colonised. We discovered it three years ago and have sent some spores there. There is a copse of about 100 Woody Omings already established. There is room to grow. We had planned to send further spores.’
The Primes understood the magnitude of the offer. ‘We can share Athomfield for fifteen years.’
‘Share your solar catching technology with us,’ the Heartwood said quickly. ‘This technology will benefit all Omings. The sun is unlimited; there will be no wars to catch sunlight.’
‘We will send technologists to Athomfield and train the Woodys there,’ they agreed. ‘Athomfield will be a place for learning.’
So the peace agreement was signed by the Lower and Woody Omings, and witnessed by the Canopys. A year later, the Athomfield University was founded when the Lower Oming technologists and their families joined the Woody copse.
It took twelve years to develop the first large-scale solar catcher. It was not yet transportable but it could catch and store sunlight. Sunlight from the unpopulated corners of Athomfield was caught and released to the city, boosting the temperate climate to the same productivity as the warm equator. Soon, the Lower and Woody Omings were joined by Canopy Omings. The Canopys brought with them great experience in the governance of diverse Oming societies.
In the years the scholars took to develop transportable solar catchers, Athomfield became a known as a centre for knowledge, peace and productivity.
