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The next day, Cleve and Chloe leave Data Haven in the early morning hours, this time staying together. He leads her to where he set the bush bug traps, and they find two caught in the snares. They hear the creatures before they see them, as they are squealing like piglets. Cleve takes a closer look and determines that this is a bit of an act; any minor injuries they have suffered are due to their own histrionics rather than his trap. It was, after all, intended to catch them alive. Chloe takes an even closer look at each bush bug and announces that Cleve has caught both a female and a male.
This is great luck for starting up bush bug husbandry. The two survivalists bat around ideas on how to get a herd going. An enclosure is the first obvious requirement. In Chloe’s experience, they prefer burrows, and they don’t like xenofungus or miasma, though they’re clever enough to avoid the latter. “Maybe a xenofungus fence could contain them,” she suggests, though Cleve worries they might just dig underneath it. Although it’s possible to eat bush bug eggs, the real nutrition (as well as flavor) is in the full-grown creatures themselves, so any hutch is going to need to have space for them to grow and thrive.
Cleve is entirely willing to get a mini-colony going in his own closet-like quarters back in Data Haven, but Chloe warns him that would create quite a mess. “These are not clean creatures,” she points out.
“Like chicken—oh right, you wouldn’t know.”
“No.” Chloe suggests using one of the abandoned Unity compartments near Data Haven instead. “It doesn’t have any air filtration, so no one is using it,” she tells Cleve. The one she has in mind is just a few minutes hike from the elevator, easily close enough for checking on the livestock several times a day, if needed. It has already been stripped of useful parts, so is basically just a shed now.
The project takes the full morning, but eventually the hutch is ready for its inhabitants. Cleve rigs up a rain barrel to deliver water to a drinking tray while Chloe gathers shroomnuts for feed. They wear themselves out shoveling in a layer of dirt to give the bush bugs enough depth to burrow in. Cleve tells Chloe he’s likely to be away for a few days on a salvaging mission and asks if she’s willing to check in on the bush bugs. “And look, if it seems like it’s not going well, we can just eat them.”
“Sure,” Chloe agrees. “And, hey, if you’re somewhere with more supplies, can you keep an eye out for a multitool? We don’t have any really rugged ones in Data Haven.” That sounds perfectly reasonable to Cleve. He used to have one himself, but like so much of his other gear, it is probably lying under a mushroom somewhere, rusting. Chloe also gives him a credit chit to pick up more ammo for her, if he should find himself in a dome. He is amenable to this and invites her to throw together a larger list if there’s anything else she can think of before he heads out again.
Then, with the bush bugs established in their new home, Cleve and Chloe reset the trap line and head back to Data Haven for lunch.
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