Exploding Fruit

Fenestra did not particularly like doing ‘field trips’ but, sometimes, the job required it. Today was one such day. Her favorite fruit distributor, favourite in the sense that they had excellent offerings and good prices, had invited  her and several others to an observe and taste party. Apprently they had some new fruit…

“Good morning, Ska!” a kesh said, leaping into the called skimmer and kissing her so fast she didn’t catch the mode. “Kesh Gregin Kiladi.”

It was rather odd to greet someone with her own last name. Or, rather, her en-drek’s. “Ska Fenestra Kiladi,” she said, kissing back Ska to Kesh. 

“Oh, joy!” the kesh said. “Who is your en-drek?”

The son was standing in the middle of the skimmer, rocking back and forth as it moved, not even bothering to sit down. “Iloh Kiladi,” she said.

“Oh, Uncle Iloh!” the kesh said. “Not that he’s an actual uncle, you know. More of a second cousin once removed. But we’ve certainly met, and I hear noises about him from time to time. So, where are you going?”

This kesh was amazingly brash. And nosey.

“I am going to Crestin Fruits for the…”

“Oh, I am too! I’m going to get to pick!”

So, this kesh was employed? They started them so young, here! Back on Ephemera this kesh couldn’t have been out of the house on their own, except on a bus to school! “What will you be doing?”

“Picking the fruit! It sounds so exciting.”

Well, Fenestra didn’t think so. Long hours in the hot sun, picking fruit?

Three more kesh got on the called skimmer, causing Fenestra to frown. This many workers must mean a rather short harvest season, which was, of course, good for no one. It made harvesting more expensive, meant that shipping schedules had to be tighter. Depending on how well the fruit stored, of course…

The skimmer landed and the kesh piled off, running over to a big sign stating ‘harvesters gather here’. She got off in a more lounging manner and a man standing half way to the harvester’s area noticed her and came over. “Harvest manager Gregory Kiladi,” he said, kissing merchant to customer. “And you are?” he asked.

“Trade master Fenestra Kiladi,” she said, kissing back.

“Ah, Aunt Fenestra,” he said. “It is good to meet you. You will wish to meet with our marketing manager over there, behind that plexi-glass wall.”

Fenestra looked and then stared. There was, indeed, a plexiglass wall, with a tasting table and a small pavillion with seats. How odd! And how odd to meet two of her husband’s relatives… except, of course, it wasn’t as odd as all that. No doubt the harvest manager was the only coincidence. The young son in the skimmer was related to him, and no doubt called in to work because of that. Nepotism was considered very favourably here, unlike on some planets.

“Ah, Ska Fenestra,” the marketing manager said, when they had made their kisses. “The harvest will begin in a half an hour, but until then please do some tasting. We have the fruit processed into several different forms. We will, as you requested, give you a ‘to go’ bag for your daughter to process at home. Marvellous idea.”

“But, in the meantime, please, please stay behind the wall. It can be rather dangerous else.”

“Dangerous?”

“Oh, yes, you will see.”

She wandered over and began tasting. What a marvellous taste! She thought it compared to a mixture between Earth pineapple and Ephemera passion fruit. And a very strong taste. Her daughter would no doubt say it made an excellent glaze…

Her attention was caught by the kesh-u that had come, who were all putting on… what looked like amor! Heavy clothing all over, and a helmet!

“Well, Ephemera Lines!” she heard, and turned, sighing internally.

“Hello Gregor,” Fenestra said, and the two of them kissed. Gregor’s kiss being rather forceful… as was the custom on Titan. She would be rather surprised if he didn’t manage to get himself executed.

“I think there will be some tight competition for this one,” Gregor said. “Not nearly enough to go around. Only the most exclusive restaurants and all that.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Fenestra said, rather annoyed that Gregor knew more about what they were doing here than she did. “It is delicious.”

“If you like that kind of thing,” he said. “But it will sell well, and that’s the thing, eh?”

The man had no taste. Or else pretended he didn’t.

“Ska-u!” the marketing manager said. “We are ready for our first demonstration. If you would take your seats, please.

Fenestra sat down, Gregor, annoyingly, sitting next to her, and the other trade masters and sales people sitting all around them. This man would surely be executed.

“The first part of our demonstration concerns our harvesting suit. We are thinking we will use mostly kesh-u as the work involves a great deal of hurry. We have designed the suit to be impervious to the explosions…”

What explosions? she wondered, as the manager showed off a kesh, perhaps one of the ones she had ridden with but who could tell? who was all dressed up in his armor.

“Now we will demonstrate the problem,” he said, and nodded at the kesh who waddled out in to the orchard to the first tree, climbed up a ladder, and cut down the fruit…which would have been about the size of his head if it hadn’t been enclosed in the helmet…. and then climbed quickly down the ladder and raced away.

Fenestra stared at the kesh, and then at the fruit… which then exploded! She, and she wasn’t alone, ducked, but of course the transparent aluminium shield blocked all of the… the what?

Well, there was a smear of fruit all over it, but that hadn't made the pinging noise…

“The fruit explodes soon after being picked,” the marketing manager said. “The time is variable, this one was very quick. Some of them wait several minutes. But all of them explode.”

“So, we  have invented a method of gathering the fruit.”

Another kesh came up, bag in hand, and climbed the ladder. He carefully enclosed the fruit in the bag that he (at least, she assumed it was a ‘he’, but who could tell in that armour?) and then used a curved knife to cut the stem.

The bag had tightened around the fruit and they all watched expectantly as the kesh climbed down and brought it close to the shield where, finally, they saw the bag give kind of a leap.

“Our bag contains the force of the explosion. It is, of course, sanitised before we use it. Our harvesters then take the bag to a processing truck where…”

Fenestra stared. She had never heard of anything like this. How dangerous! It would not doubt have been outlawed on Ephemera. But here on Libertas there would, no doubt, just be warning signs around the orchard. Probably high tech ones with sensors.

“Can they kill someone?” someone called from the audience.

“Oh, indeed. And they do. It is one of their methods of propagation. We have bred a particularly large version but for the smaller versions, birds and animals have been known to eat one of the fruit, and fly or run off, the fruit explodes, and the seeds get their start inside the body of the animal almost immediately.”

There was a general sound of disgust, but Fenestra didn’t care about the fate of some foolish animals. This was a dangerous product to harvest, perhaps, but that would add to its attraction back on Ephemera. They were allergic to danger, but not not to hearing about it elsewhere.

“How are you selling it?” she called out, and the crowd got silent.

“We, umm, were going to give out samples and then begin taking bids…” the marketing manager stuttered.

“Let’s bid right now,” Gregor shouted, and Fenestra nodded.

“Well, umm, if you are ready…”

“What size lots?” another daughter asked.

“Umm, shall we say lots of ten? Of fruit, not including the seeds, which we will largely hold on to but will sell some…”

Fenestra did a quick calculation of the size that ten of these fruits would produce. “One silver hex!” she shouted.

“Two!” Gregor said,

“Two and a half!”

“Three!” the other daughter yelled…

The first lot went for six silver hexes, to that other daughter, but Fenestra got the next one for the same price. No doubt the other daughter had just wanted enough for samples. Gregor got the next for six and a half, and Fenestra bought the next four at the same price.

The price settled at seven and several other members of the audience were buying until…

“I’m sorry, we will have to stop,” the marketing manager said. “I am not confident that we have many more to sell. Our calculations aren’t that accurate. But we will refund the last few buyers if we don’t have enough, or put any extra up for a snip auction. That concludes our formal program for today, but feel free to keep tasting and to ask questions. And watch the Kesh-u work.”

The crowd broke up with most of them going back to the testing station. But Fenestra went down to the marketing manager, standing at the end of the wall, talking to one of the harvesters and looking rather shell shocked. “I hope you didn’t mind my intervention,” she said, “But I had no desire to wait. When will the next harvest be?”

“Not until next year, I’m afraid,” the man said. “This was largely just proof of concept.”

“Well, I would be very interested in getting an exclusive contract…”

“Not so fast, Fenestra, there are others who wish to get in on this!”

“I had no idea there would be such competition!” the marketer said. “I was worried we wouldn’t sell out.”

“The fruit tastes fine, but the story is worth almost as much. If I can’t get an exclusive, shall we agree on a distribution?”

“For how many?” Gregor demanded.

They all turned to look at the manager. “I’m sorry?” he said.

“We are proposing a mini-consortium to buy up your next years product,” Fenestra said. “We would pay you a certain amount in advance, for a certain number…”

“No,” Gregor interrupted. “We will buy the whole crop. We will pay, say, eight silver hex per unit of ten, and we will pay a certain amount up front.”

“Say what you made today,” the other daughter put in. Who was she?

“Yes, that would be fair,” Gregor admitted. “We will double what you made today, and we, the three of us here,” he said, quickly, will have the right to the entire crop at eight silver hex per lot of ten. Delivered immediately upon harvest.”

“I need to reserve some for others, for local marketing,” the manager protested.

“Ten percent,” the daughter said. “We’ll split four, four and two,” she said, pointing to Fenestra, Gregor, and then herself, “And you can have ten percent for your purposes.”

The manager looked as if he had been run over by a train, but he held out his hand. “I will work on the pre-contract and contracts,” Gregor said. “I will send it to our legal team.”

“That’s fine,” the daughter said. “You have a large legal department. Standard fee.”

They walked off discussing the contracts which would have worried her on Ephemera but didn’t here. “You have my sample bag?” she asked, quietly.

“Yes. Over there. It has your name on it. I can’t believe that this went so well!”

“It’s a tasty fruit, but the exploding thing will make it very saleable back on the larger planets. The chef will make a spiel of it. We will need to work up some literature…

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