The Ascension Factor

"Get something to grow here. They have huge farms all over the upcoast regions. Just like the Islanders, but they've moved the islands inland."

Doob looked at Gray incredulously. He had heard rumors, of course, everybody had.

"You're not kidding, are you? They grow food up there and the Director lets them get away with it?"

"That's right. He can't keep control up there and down here, too."

"But everything up there's just cliff face and rock. "

"That's what you hear," Gray said. "Where do you hear it?"

"Well, on the news. I don't know anyone who's actually traveled overland up there."

"I have."

Doob glanced over at his best friend. Something had happened to him today, something that changed his whole disposition. Gray was a lot of fun. He'd come home, drink some boo with Doob, tinker with the vehicles. Sometimes, when Doob could afford it, they'd take their wives to the settlement for an evening of wine and buzzboard. Gray was definitely no fun today, but Gray had been upcoast and Doob was very curious.

"You have?" Doob asked. "Well. what was it like?"

He knew the danger of this question. He suspected that whatever it was that Gray had to tell him about the upcoast region was something that wouldn't be healthy to know.

"It was beautiful," Gray said.

He spoke up, but his voice was still hard to hear over the noise of the track's exhaust.

"They have gardens, hundreds of them. A rock ranch like this one would grow corn in one season up there. And every little garden is bordered by flowers, all colors. "

It was the wistful expression on Gray's face that worried Doob. Doob had seen that expression often since Gray got back from wherever it was that the Director's people had sent him. Gray didn't volunteer information, and Doob knew better than to ask. The less he knew about that kind of stuff, the longer his life span, he was sure of that.

Besides, he listened to dangerous politics from his roommate, Stella. Like Doob, she was twenty-two, but she hung around with artists and tried to act older. She had converted most of their living space to a multilevel hydroponics garden, and she grew mushrooms under their rooms. Gray knew this, of course, but he pretended not to. Stella came from a long line of Islander gardeners. Her family owned patents to seeds mutated specifically to Pandora, and about three centuries of know-how in hydroponics. Doob thought she could probably make the walls sprout if he let her.

Stella talked nonstop, but this didn't bother Doob. It meant that he didn't have to say much, and that was the way Doob liked things.

Gray signaled him to shut down the engine. The track backfired once and stopped atop a rock ledge that afforded them a sweeping view all around.

"I want to believe I can trust you," Gray said. "There are some things I need to talk about."

Doob swallowed, then nodded.

"Sure, Gray. I'm a little scared, you know."

Gray smiled, but it was a grim smile.

"You should be," he said. He pointed to the refugee sprawl ahead. "There are starving people out there who would kill you for one meal out of Stella's garden. Flattery's people would kill you for growing illegal food. I might kill you if you told anybody what I'm about to tell you."

Doob sucked in his breath. From Gray's steady gaze, Doob knew he wasn't kidding. He also knew that he needed to hear whatever Gray needed to say.

"Even Stella?"

Gray's eyes softened. Doob knew how much he liked Stella. He treated her like the daughter that Gray and Billie never had.

"We'll see," Gray said. "Hear me out."

Gray spoke in a near-whisper, and his gaze darted around them nervously. Doob hunched close to Gray and pretended to be working on the track's control panel. He had the distinct feeling they were being watched.

"I've been gone a month, you knew that," Gray said. "They sent me upcoast, to spy on some Zavatans up there. They set me up with a story, a lapel camera, a way in and out. Overflights showed some signs of illegal fishing and food production, Flattery wanted details. What I saw there changed my life."

He lifted off the lid to the control panel and propped it up. Both Gray and Billie had been raised down under in Merman settlements.

He's methodical, like a Merman, Doob thought. Gray's ice-blue eyes kept watch for movement around the track. Out in the open, this close to the perimeter, there were risks of other dangers than humans. Gray continued to talk in his slow, quiet way.

"They're Islanders without islands," he said. "There are thousands of them up there — Flattery has no idea there are that many. They have camouflage for overflights. The ratty little gardens that we see from the air are meant to be seen. Under the camouflage, and underground. that's a whole different story. They make bubbly out of the nutrient vats the same way they used to. Except now, instead of growing islands out of it, they spray it in a foam across rock like this and grow plants on it a week later. They make it out of garbage and sewage, just like the old days.