Tilly
I bent over my map and penciled in Gena's description of her movements over the last three days. Literally everyone who lived or worked on the farm was gathered in the den after Norm put out the call for an all-hands, so the room felt a bit cramped. As I had expected, Gena was our most problematic vector, given how much she moved around, and the fact that she had been in the lab several times in the last few days.
I called the others over. "Best case is that this new Rot can only infect plants within the subfamily Rosoideae. That's the one our blackberries belong to. Very few species of tree are known to be susceptible to it. However, if it can infect other subfamilies like Amygdaloideae, then most of our fruit and nut trees might be vulnerable to it." I drew a large square on my map that encompassed Gena's route through the orchard. "I want to focus our initial efforts here. We need to survey all of the trees in this area. If Gena picked up and spread any spores three days ago, we might start to see the first signs of infection as early as today."
"What can we expect to see if a tree is infected?" Norm asked.
I gave him an appreciative nod. "As I said, very few tree species are known to be vulnerable to Rot infection. The signs can vary widely, but spore formation is pretty similar across all species. I would look for hair-like fibers growing on the underside of leaves, typically white in color. They might also show up on developing fruit."
"So are we going to need to search the entire orchard?" Nock asked.
"Yes, eventually, but with the light wind we've had, we're more likely to find Rot close to where any spores were first dropped. If you find any signs of infection, we need to know immediately so we can isolate and destroy the host plant."
"May I?" Norm said, putting his hand out. I gave him the pencil. He began drawing lines through the orchard and wrote capital letters next to each section. "Let's do this in teams of two, one person to examine and one to record. All of you pair off and choose a sector to start in. First, we're going to assign the sector a letter and then a number to each tree. We'll tag them so there's no guesswork. Then we need to go over each tree every, uh...?"
"Twelve hours," I supplied.
"Every twelve hours." He frowned. "Shit. Checking all those trees, just to recheck them again. Plus we're going to run out of daylight."
"Has to be done," I said. "We can fudge the timing on the evening shift to ensure we're not working in the dark, but otherwise we need to keep a strict schedule. Let's get everyone we can on it. I'm sure we'll get more efficient at it as we go."
Norm began writing out letters and numbers on pieces of paper to tag the trees, and Dawn glided up next to me. "Where do you want me?" she asked.
I considered for a moment. Dawn and I were probably the most capable of correctly identifying what we were looking for. "With me," I said. I pointed to a spot on the map. "We already know this thing infects blackberries, so that's the most likely way this thing could jump from the farm out into the world. I want to do a sweep of that big cluster we have near the greenhouse and down near the creek, see if any spores might have carried that far north."
She didn't answer right away, and a sense of growing apprehension made me turn. "Damn it, what have we done, Tilly?" she said softly.
I gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm trying not to think too much past what we have to do now, okay? Let's just work to contain the damage. Just do what we can and gather more data before we jump to worst-case scenarios."
"Right," she said, drawing a breath and giving a little shake of her head, "sorry."
I told Norm what we were doing and he nodded absently. "I'll meet up with you at the orchard later," I said, "make sure you don't miss anything."
"You mean make sure he doesn't fuck things up," Nissi added with a smirk. I detected the thread of anxiety hidden behind her playful mask.
Norm gave her a level look, then leaned in close to her ear. His whisper was too quiet for all but the keenest ears in the room. "You've just earned yourself a paddling tonight," he growled
The effect that his words had on Nissi gave me goosebumps. She shuddered, a warm flush of arousal spreading through her body. "Oh, yes sir," she murmured back.
"Brat," he said, and covertly gave her ass a swat.
I took an unsteady breath to quell my own body's reaction to my lovers' banter. Dawn gave me an odd look, no doubt for my flushed face, but I just brushed past her, heading for the door.
The blackberry bushes mostly grew along the creek bed, creating a tough, prickly barrier on the uneven ground. Despite our care, both Dawn and I were covered in scratches within the first hour. I was grateful that it was still early spring, as the temperature stayed in the low sixties while we worked. Still, both of us were soon sweating from the exertion. Dirt and blotches of dark purple berry juice stained our clothes and skin.
I forgot all of that in a moment of recognition and dread. A single leaf, low to the ground, was dotted with tiny brown spots. "Dawn!" I called, then gingerly twisted the leaf to look at its underside. White hairs sprouted along its length.
"Well, shit," Dawn said, crouching next to me and leaning in for a closer look. "That's Rot alright. We'd better rip this one out of the ground and burn it. Then sterilize the soil all around, just to be sure. You think someone shed spores on their way to the greenhouse?"
It seemed likely. The greenhouse entrance was just over the top of the creek's south bank. A spore might have been dislodged from clothing by the wind and carried the short distance to this spot.
I nodded. "Could be. We should pull the plants nearby, too. Everything within ten meters." I wasn't yet willing to give up the whole crop, but if a spore had landed on this bush, it was very likely that others in the vicinity had been infected as well. There hadn't been a hard wind the last few days, so there was a chance we could keep this thing from spreading beyond the farm.
Dawn went to get the materials we would need to start a fire, while I crouched and snaked a hand through the thorn-covered branches to grip the wiry bush as close to the ground as I could. I set my heels and poured my considerable strength into unearthing the unfortunate plant. It came free with a reluctant series of cracks and pops as some of the roots were dragged from the ground, while others simply snapped off. I carried the bush carefully back to a spot of bare ground, then, grimacing, went back for the next.
Dawn and I were busy dragging uprooted bushes, so engrossed in our work that we didn't notice the boy approaching. "What's the fire for, uh, ma'am?"
I looked up with a pained smile. "Hey, Ryan. We've got to burn these bushes. They're infected with Rot. What are you doing out here?"
"Norm sent me to relay messages," he said, with a touch of adolescent pride. "He wanted you to know that..." he paused, his gaze going distant. "... that they've completed their sweep of the first group of sectors in the orchard and found no signs of Rot. They are moving on now."
I nodded. "Good work. Can you relay a message back to Norm?"
"Yeah! I mean, yes, ma'am."
