Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber Read Free Book Online

envisioned…thanks to Bédard’s modifications to the psych templates.
    A deep, fundamental part of Pei Kau-yung had felt a shudder of dismay when Mission Control first briefed him and his brother on everything involved in Operation Ark. Not even the fact that every one of the cryogenically suspended colonists had been a fully informed volunteer had been enough to overcome his historical memory of his own ancestors’ efforts at “thought control.” And yet he’d been forced to concede that there was an element of logic behind the decision to implant every colonist with what amounted to the detailed memory of a completely false life.
    It almost certainly would have proved impossible to convince eight million citizens of a highly developed technological civilization to renounce all advanced technology when it came down to it. No matter how willing they all were before they set out for their new home, no matter how fit, young, and physically vigorous they might be, the reality of a muscle-powered culture’s harsh demands would have convinced at least some of them to change their minds. So Mission Control had decided to preclude that possibility by providing them with memories which no longer included advanced technology.
    It hadn’t been an easy task, even for the Federation’s tech base, but however much Kau-yung might despise Adorée Bédard, he had to admit the woman’s technical brilliance. The colonists had been stacked like cordwood in their cryo capsules—as many as half a million of them aboard a single ship, in the case of really large transports, like Hamilcar —and they’d spent the entire ten-year voyage with their minds being steadily reprogrammed.
    Then they’d stayed in cryo for another eight standard years, safely tucked away in hiding, while the far less numerous active mission team personnel located their new home world and the alpha terraforming crew prepared it for them.
    The world they’d named Safehold was a bit smaller than Old Earth. Kau-zhi was considerably cooler than Sol, and although Safehold orbited closer to it, the planet had a noticeably lower average temperature than Old Earth. Its axial tilt was a bit more pronounced, as well, which gave it somewhat greater seasonal shifts as a result. It also had a higher proportion of land area, but that land was broken up into numerous smallish, mountainous continents and large islands, and that helped to moderate the planetary climate at least a little.
    Despite its marginally smaller size, Safehold was also a bit more dense than mankind’s original home world. As a result, its gravity was very nearly the same as the one in which the human race had initially evolved. Its days were longer, but its years were shorter—only a bit more than three hundred and one local days each—and the colonists had divided it into only ten months, each of six five-day weeks. The local calendar still felt odd to Kau-yung (he supposed it made sense, but he missed January and December, damn it!), and he’d had more trouble than he expected adjusting to the long days, but overall, it was one of the more pleasant planets mankind had settled upon.
    Despite all of its positive points, there’d been a few drawbacks, of course. There always were. In this case, the native predators—especially the aquatic ones—presented exceptional challenges, and the ecosystem in general had proved rather less accommodating than usual to the necessary terrestrial plant and animal strains required to fit the planet for human habitation. Fortunately, among the units assigned to each terraforming task group, Mission Control had included a highly capable bio-support ship whose geneticists were able to make the necessary alterations to adapt terrestrial life to Safehold.
    Despite that, those terrestrial life-forms remained interlopers. The genetic modifications had helped, but they couldn’t completely cure the