Story Identification: kolonister på en planet där vetet är kristallint
Jag läste en historia tillbaka i början av 90-talet om en grupp kolonister som landade på en planet där vete (eller veteliknande ekvivalent) är en slags kristallin växt. Kolonisterna utsätts för svält tills en av dem räknar ut hur man bearbetar vete.
Jag tror att det var av Asimov men hittills har jag inte hittat det genom att leta efter hans verk.
Jag kan inte heller komma ihåg om det var en roman eller en novell.
1 svar
Detta är " The Green Book ", en roman från Jill Paton Walsh från 1986
Det har kristallina växter (som du kan se på bokomslaget) och ett svält tema;
Refugees from the dying planet Earth, they, along with other ships, have been sent into space in the hope that some of them will survive to continue the human race. But the success of Shine remains doubtful as crops fail and provisions brought from Earth dwindle.
Even the excitement surrounding the hatching of the giant moth people from the "boulders" in Boulder Valley doesn't make the group forget the hopelessness of the situation. It isn't until Pattie and her sister Sarah make an important discovery that survival becomes a certainty.
Boken innehåller ett par ganska levande beskrivningar av vegetationen:
One morning when we woke up they were all sick, lying in a heap in a corner of their hutch, with sad cloudy eyes. And by the next day they were all dead. Sarah said they died of homesickness; Father thought they might have caught some kind of virus; most people thought they had been killed by eating the crystalline plants. The chickens were all right; and they had eaten only Earth-grown grain.
Så småningom inser barnen att trots att kornen är som glaspärlor, kan de krossas och malda som mjöl:
But Sarah said, "I'm going to try, I'm going to try, I'm going to try!" She stole a handful of the glass beads, and rubbed them between two stones, and they fell easily into a dry white powder that smelled good. She sent Pattie for a ladle of lake water, and mixed a dough, and rolled it out thin, and made a pancake, and cooked it on the fire. Then, when it looked done, she broke it into four pieces, and gave one to Pattie and one to Joe, and bit into one herself, leaving Father's share in the pan.
Oh, it tasted good! We ate it in three bites.
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