Beer on Helome?

One of the casualties of compressing the first three books into one was the excision of the beautiful little story about Silas Hiram. This story will return when the seventh part is published, working title The Vuduri Companion. This book will be a series of short stories and maybe even a novelette or two.

Many of the salient events of Silas' night were recounted in previous blog entries.

Silas Hiram 1 - Astronaut, Farmer
Silas Hiram 2 - Amateur Astronomer
Silas Hiram 3 - Tonight's the night
Silas Hiram 4 - Silas Sees Sol
Silas Hiram 5 - Excerpts from Silas' Journal - Rome's Revolution

One of the things Silas was known for was his beer. Because he was an Ag professor, he was allowed to bring a variety of seeds. He was sure to include barley and hops. In the little story, there were a few allusions to Silas getting really good at brewing beer and bartering with neighbors for wine, etc. In fact, the night "Silas Sees Sol" - he had a beer in his hand.

Unfortunately, Silas was either killed the day after his last log entry (from The Ark Lords) or consumed by the Piranha Rats but he never lived to see New Earth, later Helome blossom.

Years later, in the upcoming Rome's Evolution, Rei and Rome return to New Earth, now called Helome and during a social event, they are served beer. As it turns out, this was cultivated by the banished would-be Ark Lords, members of the Darwin Project, who had found feral crops of barley and hops. The fact is these were the descendants of the crops that Silas had planted. They had survived for 14 centuries and 17 waves of Piranha Rats and still thrived.