Chapter 585: No more downward spirals
A lot of mechas and various other machines were working in The Fields Region—most of it was out of the way of the ash cloud and safe for machines to work. But now they all stopped, because their fuel was being carried away and thrown into the massive fire.
Workharder would’ve been pulling her hair out, counting the economic damage this was causing us, if she weren’t so busy managing this process and routing extra supplies toward The Fields Region.
The fields there burned for three days straight. As per the calculations, this was exactly how long it took for the ash cloud to reach the mountains.
In these three days, storms formed on the edge of the burning areas, where hot air from fires met cold air from the usnea tree fields. On the first day, these storms poured gallons and gallons of water below, flooding roads and train tracks and paralysing all work for a while.
Then there was just no more water, but the storms didn’t end. Instead, they began striking with lightning, and would’ve caused many unplanned fires if the ground below wasn’t already so wet.
Still, this was disastrous in itself.
More bees had to ration their food supplies or even simple things like soap. My poor girls huddled in the warmth of their hives from the violent winds and relied on their existing but thinning supplies to get by for just these three more days.
But they did.
And then, the entire Bee Empire—most of them by radio, where it was described live—witnessed the monumental event of the ash cloud finally getting away from our lands.
Although I described it as a grand spectacle, in fact, it was too slow for one.
On the third day of its journey north, the ash cloud reached the areas cold enough to notably affect its ability to fly. (This was already outside of the populous areas of the Bee Empire—most of the ground below was covered by water dam reservoirs.)
More and more ash began to fall from it over the next few hours, to the point where entire clumps began to drop instead of individual flakes. The cloud began to thin noticeably, and the sky became almost visible through it.
And finally, the cyclone that carried it lost whatever was left of its cohesion. Within the next hour, the remainder of the ash cloud was torn apart by winds and fell onto the mountains, the Digging Holes Region and the usnea fields grown to pull the cloud away.
Finally, everybody in the Bee Empire could see the sun again.
The relief of it was hard to describe!
A literal dark cloud went away from us, and when the autumn sun shone down on millions of bees that left their hives to look at it, I knew—the Bee Empire was going to start recovering again.
No more downward spirals.
***
A massive celebration had to be held for the occasion, of course. But before that, an even more massive amount of ash had to be cleared from the Central Region and The Fields Region. In the latter, there were also fires that had to be extinguished, which was harder than it sounded.
The amount of fuel burned there allowed a steady level of fire for three days. Now the fire would weaken, but the Oracles claimed that it would take a week to completely stop burning if nobody put the fires out.
In theory, ash could be a good fertilizer for fields. Even usnea plants could appreciate it with larger yields of fruit. In practice, it was the opposite—the usnea trees that grew amid the ash were thinner, weaker and carried smaller fruits.
“The ash from the cloud isn’t similar to the ash from the fires,” Researchina reported on this after doing brief research. “They smell and taste differently. Volcanic ash is notably more acidic, and plants generally don’t like acid. The usnea plants have already proved that they have no resistance against acids.”
This made me sigh in disappointment.
“But the regions with a lot of volcanoes have a lot of fertile soil. Like the land near Pompeii… This was definitely connected,” although I couldn’t remember any more information.
My words made Researchina hum thoughtfully. Theories swam through her mind, and I heard her send them right to the dozens of Researcher hive minds that have become her best and most favoured subordinates lately.
In a few moments, the hive minds responded with their own theories, which Researchina presented to me.
“Acids are much less dangerous and more useful when watered down. Perhaps the volcanic ash will be more useful after the acid from it is watered down with water. There’s already a lot of ash that was mixed with water after the storms. My people can see if something can be done to turn it into fertilizer.”
“You have my permission, Researchina. I’m sure this is possible.”
In the meantime, the ash still had to be put away somewhere! And there was a massive amount of it—more than any storage made by bees or humans could fit.
Landfills—many landfills—were one solution. However, I feared that the nearest storm would just carry the ash from landfills all over the Bee Empire again, ruining all our work.
When I voiced this to Amby, she agreed—and then gave a counter-suggestion:
“As long as we keep the ash not under a roof—and we don’t have enough roofs for it all—water will eventually spread it around no matter what. Why not do it ourselves and just throw the ash into rivers? We don’t even fish in them anymore.”
This…
This actually made me grin and clap my hands.
“This is brilliant, Amby! Just perfect. We already dump lots of garbage in the rivers—I don’t care how much more garbage we dump, as long as it’s downstream from our hydroelectric power stations! Whatever fish still live there will just adapt or die, anyway—and for our sake, it’d be better if they died. I should ask Bloodhero if the fish that fled the volcanic eruption STILL roam in our rivers, actually!”