“You know Alice, the thing about corn is it’s an important foodstuff.”
“Yes.” Alice nodded.
Farmer Ghent gestured upward, where multiple planets of varying relative sizes could be seen in the sky. “All those other planets, plus ours, do nothing but grow corn, and without it, the capitol would fall. It takes two dozen planets like ours to grow enough food for Ghandor’s population, and without us, they’d starve.”
“Yes.” Alice repeated, nodding. “I am aware. I’ve been here ten years.”
“Ten years?!” Farmer Ghent exclaimed. “Has it been that long?”
“Yes.” She repeated a third time.
“And I haven’t told you the thing about corn yet?”
She rolled her eyes. “You have. Every day. Multiple times.”
But Farmer Ghent seemed unsatisfied. “No… No, I haven’t taught you yet.” He beckoned toward the farmhouse. “Come. I need to show you something.”
Alice felt an odd trepidation as a result of her mentor’s sudden change in demeanor, but dutifully followed him through the yard and back to the house. The pair entered, and Farmer Ghent led her to a bookshelf in one of the spare bedrooms.
“This book right here.” He said, grabbing it. He showed her the cover.
‘A Thousand Uses for Corn.” She read.
Her mentor nodded. “Remember that title.” He turned back to the bookshelf. “Now watch. I turn it upside down and put it back on the shelf, then-“
A low hum sounded from beneath their feet, and the bookshelf slid to the side, revealing a winding stone staircase descending into the ground. Alice was shocked. How long had she been living there, and never once had she known the house’s secret.
“Voila!” Farmer Ghent smiled.
“What? But… What?”
“The thing about corn is, there are lots of things about corn.” Farmer Ghent’s face grew a bit more serious. “Some things are a bit more secret than others.” He nodded toward the staircase. “Come. There are a few things you need to see.”
…
The staircase was long… Incredibly long. Sensing the growing curiosity in his apprentice, Farmer Ghent smiled. “This tower is ancient… And yes, it used to be a tower. It’s been here so long that the surrounding land has been built up around it. That’s how long our order’s been around.”
“Your order?”
They reached the bottom of the tower, and Farmer Ghent pushed open the odd door at the stairs’ base.
“Is that door made of plastic?!” Alice exclaimed.
Farmer Ghent’s smile grew. “That’s nothing. Come. I want to show you what we keep down here.”
The room was filled with shelves and tables that were laden with piles of papers and old objects.
“Know what this is?” Farmer Ghent asked, lifting a large, framed piece of paper.
Alice briefly inspected the writing, but it was in a language she couldn’t understand. “I’m not sure.”
“You ever hear of the Treaty of Vi?”
Alice’s eyes went wide as her gaze went back and forth between her mentor and the paper. “But no one knows what was written in the treaty. You’re saying you have a copy?”
“Not a copy… The original.” He placed it carelessly back on the table. “Before the War of Scouring Water, we went through and saved valuable documents.”
“But that war was famous for being sudden and unexpected. How did you know it was going to happen?”
“Breed GH-77D.”
“Huh?”
“Breed GH-77D” Farmer Ghent repeated. “It’s a strain of corn that will increase aggression and irritability in those who consume it. Around that time Ghandor was considering replacing us farmers with robots, so we made sure that factions who disliked the senate grew in number and became more active… We made them more aggressive. It took 4 weeks to grow this strain, and another 4 weeks before the first riots started… In 72 hours, every greater institution across the planet was in flames.”
Alice’s eyes were wide with a mixture of shock, admiration, and horror.
“And this!” Farmer Ghent said, picking up a large ruby ring. “One of the jewels from the Treasure of Mibdandi. It was split amongst us farmers, so I only got a ring…” He placed it on his hand and briefly admired it before taking it back off and placing it back on the table. “Still, a gorgeous keepsake.” He moved to a table with a bundle of wires and glass. “And do you know what this is?”
Alice shook her head.
“Synthetic Feed Chamber. You put carbon-based waste in here, and this end releases a nutrient-rich sludge… Well, maybe not rich in nutrients, but nutritious enough, I expect. A lot of people were not happy about the taste, but the test subjects showed they could survive off it and the senate was planning to solidify Ghandor’s power and autonomy by cranking out these machines and banning off-world farming. No one would’ve been happy with this, least of all, us farmers. Know what we did?”
“What?” Alice asked in a hushed whisper.
“We got together and agreed to feed all of Ghandor Breed FT-397C-A. The Incompetence Strain. Over the course of several months the complexities of the food recycler were forgotten, the notes blueprinting it became incomprehensible to researchers, and the project was deemed unfeasible for wide-scale production. By some measurements, Ghandor’s average IQ sunk 30 points during that time.”
“But surely someone would have noticed the corn was making them stupid.” Alice argued.
Ghent laughed. “The thing about corn is, to most, it’s just corn. It’s yellow, it’s crushed into high calorie meal, it’s the foundation of a thousand different recipes. No one really looks at it any further. Why should they? It’s just corn.”
“But didn’t anyone notice that the planet was getting dumber?”
“Oh sure, a few sociologists studied the phenomena, and they spent decades blaming government policies and the culture of the time and anything else that was unique for that period. They spent so much time analyzing what was different that they never thought to inspect things that were constant… Like corn.”
Alice nodded to a table containing a small metallic sphere. “Isn’t that a heat dissipater?”
Farmer Ghent studied the object for a moment, then smiled. “Ah, yes! Those were sorta our doing. There are billions of these in Ghandor’s interior, and they help mediate the planet’s temperature… Spread out the heat so no one place gets too hot. Before these were around, Ghandor and the rest of our alliance was gearing up to invade the Thella System. Their farmers contacted us with concern, so we agreed we’d keep the conquest from happening. Half our farming worlds grew PJ-0701-D, and the other half grew KL-9982-22-F. Soon, half of Ghandor claimed they felt too hot, and the other half claimed they felt too cold. It’s hard to remain hungry for conquest with that level of constant discomfort, and soon the extra resources and manpower were being allocated toward repairing the planet’s temperature systems. These were invented, which allowed for variable temperatures across the planet.”
“So you’re saying that the farmers supplying food to Ghandor were secretly responsible for much of the empire’s biggest historical events?”
“Not just past events, but future ones as well. From a social point of view, it’s important to remind new generations the lessons learned from the older ones. In about twenty years we’ll probably see another attempt to subjugate the farming worlds… These things tend to be cyclical, after all. When that happens, we’ll feed them the right type of corn and internal strife will ensue. The focus will be taken off us and be turned inward. Sometime after, when the people are no longer itching for conflict, we’ll send them their normal strain of corn and things will become peaceful once more.”
It was a lot for Alice to take in. “So if you really do have this level of control, why not ask for more money?”
To that, Farmer Ghent gave a loud, sudden laugh. “Alice, dear, haven’t you learned anything these last ten years you’ve been out here? Haven’t you been happy?”
“Of course.”
“Our work is fairly simple yet fulfilling. We live long, healthy lives, and are freer than anyone else in the alliance. We want for very little, so why would we need money?”
“But if that’s true then why don’t people want to be farmers?”
“You did.”
Alice shrugged. “True, but you don’t see too many like me. A lot of people on Ghandor see this work as undignified.”
“Almost as if most people were programmed to think that, despite farming’s obvious benefits.” He smiled.
Alice stared up at him. “But… Wait… Seriously!? You’re telling me that by feeding Ghandor specific strains of corn you’ve made it so next to no one wants to be a farmer?”
Farmer Ghent winked at her. “It turns out there’s a lot you can do to a person’s disposition by controlling what they eat. That’s the thing about corn.”