“How long will it take?” asked Heather Hilton. “Years, won’t it? So what’s the point of bothering?”
The young man shook his head and patted her on the shoulder. “We aren’t talking about tomorrow.”
“I know that,” she replied abruptly.
“Let him speak, kitten,” said her father.
“Don’t call me… Sorry, but I guess it seems… The world’s fucked, isn’t it?”
“Heather! Watch that language.”
But she was beyond that, eyes narrowed, mouth tight with anger. “It is, Dad! We all know it. Earthblood’s chilled out the whole world and everything on it and in it and under it. It’s all over, Dad, can’t you see?”
He shook his head, feeling his own short-fuse temper beginning to flare at his daughter. “It’s not over until…”
“It’s totally over?” suggested Carrie.
“Right. What’s happened might have killed nearly all plant life throughout the world. Killed nearly all the people. Wiped out all the cities. Brought human life as we know it right to the brink of the abyss. Sure, all of that, Heather.”
“So?” The girl shrugged her shoulders. “So that’s what I’m saying. What’s the point, Dad?”
Jim Hilton swallowed, feeling a vein pulsing across his temple. He took a slow, deep breath. “Right. I see why you think this. You’re a young girl, and everything you knew and trusted in life has gone like it got chain-sawed off the planet. But remember I kept saying the word ‘nearly’ a lot, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I mean, Heather. Look around you. Seems likely that Earthblood itself has died. New green grass and vegetables. Little trees that’ll turn into mighty oaks and redwoods and sycamores and aspens. Fruit just like there used to be. It won’t be like it was.”
“But how long will these trees take?” she asked, addressing the question to Diego Chimayo.
“To grow to maturity?”
“I don’t… Yeah, I guess.”
“Depends. Some grow fast. Piñon could be a couple of feet high in less than ten years. Oaks are faster. Willows are quick. Most redwoods are slow starters. Fruit trees can be quick.”
She persisted. “But when will earth look like it did before the disease?”
“Before Earthblood?” He shook his head, solemn faced. “Guess it’ll never be the same.”
Heather almost snarled in her anger. “So… ?”
“But it’ll be different. I know you can’t see this or maybe understand it, but we have to think way, way ahead. Planet’s been here for millions of years. Last fifty years man’s being harming it in a big way, Heather.”
“Ozone holes and sulphur layers and car emissions and nitrate leaching and shit like that. Sure, Diego.”
“If the work we do here can be sustained and carried on in other places by other people… then in a hundred years I reckon that we can have a fairly green Earth again. But who knows?”
“Will they be doing this up at Aurora, Dad, growing new plants and all?” She caught the expression on her father’s face. “Oh, sorry. Me an’ my big mouth. Sorry, Dad.”
Diego had been offering Sly a tiny fresh carrot to taste, but he spun around at the mention of Aurora. “You know about that place. Where is it?”
“We don’t know the location. How come you heard about it, though, Diego?”
The young man whistled between his teeth. “You sure that… When we heard about this Hunters of the Sun, it was partly from a stranger we picked up on the road. Gutshot. Said he’d been ambushed by these Hunters. Got delirious and died. But he talked some about a kind of haven called Aurora.”
“We think it’s north,” said Carrie. “But we have no specific idea where.”
Jim looked around the range of buildings, each with its own precious crop. “I think that you should consider seriously about all coming with us somehow.”
Diego laughed. “Nice joke, Jim. Get us a fleet of…say four hundred trucks, temp-controlled. And about six months’ work getting a new site ready. Then we’ll all be right there with you up in Aurora.”
“Okay, I hear you. But you’re vulnerable here to any attack. You said your water was messed with already.”
“True enough. The Hunters?”
“What we hear is that they want to stop this sort of project. Doesn’t fit with their plans. You talk freedom, and they think control. You talk green and light, and they think crimson darkness, Diego.”