He looked away from her as he started to feel the renewed tightening of his body, and focused on Kyle.
“Certainly looks like a lot of glass. Some kind of office? Or a school?” Kyle turned again to Sly. “You make out any more?”
“Not like school. Looks like just glass. Me thinks lots of houses built in glass.”
“Then we’d better be careful not to go throw any stones,” said Heather.
“We’ll go down and take a look,” Jim said, glancing at the others. “Who wants to drive this time?”
“Me,” replied Carrie immediately. “My turn to take control, Jim.”
He caught her grin and was overwhelmed with embarrassment as he started to blush.
SLY LIKED THE WORD. He kept repeating it over and over until his father finally told him to keep quiet.
“Highdrypomix,” he said one last time with his amiable, moonish smile. “Me like that, Dad.”
“Sure, but just leave it out for a bit, Sly, will you?”
Jim had explained to his daughter what the establishment was. They’d parked the pickup a good mile off, in a narrow arroyo, and he and Steve Romero cautiously worked their way through the dead mesquite and sagebrush toward the distant glimmer of glass. Their caution had been merited, as they spotted a number of armed men patrolling a perimeter fence.
“Hydroponics is a special way of growing plants,” he told Heather. “Instead of using soil and natural irrigation and sunlight, you put them into containers of liquid that hold all of the chemicals and nutrients that they need.”
“And they grow? Just like in fields?”
“Better, Heather. It’s incredibly intensive and… You know what I mean by intensive?”
“Sure. We did it with Miss Kent in the first semester and we…” She hesitated a moment. “We were going to do a project on it in agricultural studies.”
Kyle and Steve joined them, with Sly trailing behind, scuffing his feet in the dust, still quietly muttering “highdrypomix” to himself.
Carrie had been watching the establishment from the ridge above them and she came sliding down in a shower of orange dirt. She sat on a rounded boulder, wiping sweat from her eyes.
“That’s the future, folks,” she announced. “Guess the idea is to produce as much as they can and then gradually refertilize the world outside with the healthy plants. And goodbye to Earthblood.”
“Until the next time,” said Kyle. “If there’s a way of screwing the planet, you can bet your last dollar that scientists’ll find a way of doing it.”
“Must be hundreds of acres there,” said Steve. “Can’t have got all that together since Earthblood. The place must’ve been running for ages.”
“And who are the guards?” Carrie looked at the others. “They got some kind of uniform on. Carrying automatic rifles.”
“Zelig’s men?” Kyle shook his head in answer to his own question. “Not far enough north for that. So I wonder who they are?”
So did the others. The hydroponics establishment fascinated all four of the grown-ups. They agreed that it had to be of sufficient interest for them to try and get close enough for a good look. When they eventually made a contact with General John Kennedy Zelig, they felt he might like to know about the square miles of glass-covered tanks.
“Don’t get too near or take any chances on being seen,” said Jim. “Heather and Sly can wait together by the truck.”
“Let me come, Dad,” begged the girl. “It’s not dangerous.”
“Might be.”
“Could be safer to take the kids with us,” said Steve. “Suppose they got wide-ranging patrols. Pick them up and nobody here to protect them. We stay quiet and careful, then there won’t be any danger. I’ll take Sly. You take Heather. Carrie and Kyle can come in from a third vector.”
Jim was reluctant but agreed to investigate come nightfall.
There was a bright sliver of moonlight as they left in three pairs. Kyle and Carrie, in dark clothes, went to the right. Jim and Heather took a longer route to the left.
Steve, with the excited Sly in tow, picked the direct line over the ridge and along a wide draw, then into some dead brush. That should give them cover to within less than fifty yards of the nearest of the rows of long buildings.