Recovery

 

Maura came out of her coma last night, and will be taking a few days off on her doctor’s orders after tests revealed no cause or ill effects just like the last time. Sally became available soon after Maura woke up, and gave no explanation for her absence other than “unscheduled maintenance.”

I am staying at home with Maura and reviewing the demolition plan being finalized for my neighborhood. Unlike that used to be normal for such things, the plan involves removing all artificial structures, including building foundations and pavement that would hinder regrowth of plants and settlement by animals. A preliminary assessment of toxic substances was already done, including thorough inspections of all buildings and analysis of soil from representative core samples. 

Dedicated safing facilities co-located with existing landfills have already been built to handle what can’t be processed onsite, and use similar technology to the safing centers. That technology was developed during the five-year preparation period that coincided with the biosphere assessment and is the basis of several systems coming online to deal with external impacts. Al calls them “juiced up recycling plants” because they share some functional similarities, mostly at the front and back ends of the process such as sorting and distribution. The main difference, of course, is the conversion into bio-safe material (thus “safing”) where possible.

A second-generation Personal Environmental Assessment Kit has been useful for checking some of the assumptions built into the plan, such as the projected ecological impact reductions based on local species distribution and services. It’s been fun reliving with Maura some of our test experience from April, which feels like an eternity ago.

Reality Check

The safing facilities do not exist. While the term “bioprocessing” has a very specific meaning, applicable to the creation of products instead of the opposite, I anticipate a similar use in conversion of existing products into forms that other species can use. All technologies described here are based on my own imagination and speculation, and applicable mainly to the “other worlds” to which they are addressed.