“We saw you coming in,” continued the shadowy figure. “Two male adults. One female adult. Teenage girl and a boy our watchers thought was probably Down’s syndrome.”
Jim Hilton could see no point in trying to be evasive. “Girl’s my daughter, Heather. I’m Jim. Other man’s Kyle. Other lady’s name is Carrie. The teenage boy is Sly.”
“Good to meet up with you. I’m Diego Chimayo. Me and some friends are trying to run a hydroponic centre.”
“Getting greenery back after Earthblood?”
“Yeah. Doing well. Got stuff germinating we thought might have been lost. But there’s seed still doing well, despite the plant cancer having killed the mother strain.”
Jim nodded. “Look, if we’re not going to kill each other, how about waking the others and we can talk properly.”
“Sure. But…”
“What?”
“One thing, Jim. Been hearing about some sort of crypto-fascist crowd.”
“Hunters of the Sun?”
“Yeah. Right, Jim. You seen them?”
“Some. They bothered you?”
“Not really but…well, someone fucked up our water supply a day back. When we saw you we… But now we know it’s not you. It’s just talk locally about these Hunters.”
“It’s more than talk,” replied Jim.
DIEGO CHIMAYO WAS in his midtwenties and had studied plant genetics at Tupelo. There were a dozen with him on the project, mostly in their early or midtwenties, working in ramshackle huts under glass or heavy-duty plastic. Most of them had associated degrees or a botanical or agricultural background.
Their small complex was up a dirt road, with low hills around in a sheltering basin. Jim noticed as they drove in that the only token nod toward defense was a three-barred metal gate that dragged on broken hinges.
Diego had told them that there was another route in, across a wooden bridge near a long-abandoned mission. Then down a crook-back trail that would lead them out onto a farm road and then eventually onto the highway.
The place was incredibly low on transport, with only a flatbed that had a busted front axle and a little Nissan Donroy car with transmission problems.
When Kyle commented on this as they sat around the trestle dining table, everyone laughed.
“Doesn’t much matter since we don’t have any gas,” explained a young blond woman named Harriet, who was breast-feeding an eight-week-old baby girl.
The food was totally vegetarian. “And totally grown here on-site by our own labor,” explained Diego.
The meal was top-heavy on bean sprouts, which seemed to be the easiest to produce hydroponically, and was larded with legumes and some delicious mushrooms.
“Got tomatoes and loads of squashes coming along,” said a skinny black teenager. “Melons look good, and if you come by here around Easter, then there’ll be more of all the small fruits. Strawberries and we reckon some decent dwarf apples and pears by then.”
Jim could hardly believe the good feeling that he got from being surrounded by such positive and eager young people—and to witness green again.
Nothing had ever looked quite as good to his eyes as the growing shoots in their neat rows, under the steamy heat of the hothouses. A narrow stream that flowed down behind the living quarters powered a wheel that gave them a fairly regular supply of electricity.
After the meal Diego took them on an extended tour of the project, proudly showing them their successes and their comparatively few failures.
“What we’ve found most is that the man-made and genetically engineered plants, like hybrid roses, for instance, don’t seem keen on returning. Same with some fruits. The more exotic they are, the less we’ve been able to breed them.”
“I thought broccoli was kind of exotic,” said Kyle Lynch, grinning. “Least, I remember hating it when I was a squid back home. Used to try and smuggle up a big mouthful to the John to spit it away. Mom caught me and squeezed my cheeks, and it went all over my favorite Mutant Scum Legion T-shirt.”
“We got a small plantation out back, near the stream,” said Diego. “We’re trying trees there. Not much success with some of the deciduous varieties. Pines do better. But we’ve got some oaks that are three or four inches high and thriving.”