The floating farm squares they’d built were nothing. “Castor” was floating up to them like an office building, an island, or maybe a Japanese wooden sandal with the usual two wedges beneath it. His sense of perspective was thrown off, but really it was the same building he’d inspected on land. A grey concrete slab atop two big boxes, made to withstand the sea’s pounding at minimal cost. Simple lines and angles. Functional, if not elegant.
“May I?” asked Zephyr, who had come up to the deck with Martin. Tess was about to hand the antique spyglass to the robot but she saw Garrett grimacing at the thought. She gave it to Martin instead with an apologetic shrug.
After an agonizing delay, the platform reached the designated spot. The ocean churned and thrashed and made Constellation tremble. When the thing was finally hovering over the seabed and unleashed to bob as the current willed it, Garrett brought his boat closer and stared at it again.
His stomach churned to see his new home shaking like that. Visible below the waterline was the array of concrete pipes that had been attached to the underside, like inverted cups, to create a “pneumatically stabilized platform.” The waves would press on the air trapped inside the “cups” and create pressure differences. Valves linking the cups would let air flow back and forth, like giant bellows. The system would not only steady the platform, but generate electricity too. Nice clean engineering. Hopefully he was seeing it with the stabilizers off.
As Constellation came around to the north they found the landing dock. It was just a padded concrete wedge that jutted from a pillar, with a metal door and a staircase leading up.
“Nice, huh?” he said to Tess.
“It looks like there’s scum on the concrete already.”
He frowned at that. It was inevitable, though. They docked and he stepped off, feeling wobbly. Under his hands the steel staircase railing felt huge and jagged as he climbed. Tess bounded ahead, two stairs at a time. They stood on concrete amid a jungle of crates and drums. So much stuff. What a lot of work to do!
The others joined them, looking around at everything. Garrett went towards the platform’s edge and Tess followed. He felt like he was on a high-dive platform, a little dizzy when he looked down at the waves. Still --
Garrett said, “This actually belongs to me! This gigantic thing!”
Alexis was at his side already. “It’s going to be amazing.”
Tess looked skeptically at the platform.
“We’ll make it work,” Garrett said, with a goofy grin plastered on his face. He was looking not at the platform but at the almost-empty ocean around it. “We did it! We got the resources together and put a farming station out here!”
Martin smiled, but what he said was, “No. You bought things made by other people’s hands. Now let’s see what yours can do.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Garrett slid away from the wall, watched the sea a moment longer, then turned to face them. “Let’s get to work.”
13. Martin
Martin hitched a ride to Cuba with the departing transport ship. It was nice to get away from the Castor group for a while, for the sake of privacy and rest. He was getting a little old to be hauling gear around in muggy weather, but that didn’t matter. He was doing God’s work.
Cuba was a strange place these days. It had been known in his youth as a time capsule, stuck decades in the past, but now only poverty held it back. There were some genuinely charming old buildings and visionary new styles mixed with Soviet garbage. Businesses were moving in, some to take advantage of the aggressively low-regulation environment and some to exploit the cheap labor. Or to set up shop for political dealings. Since Martin’s last visit, the initial thrill of being free had worn off for the locals; the new flags were faded. But some of the chaos had died down too.
In the shadow of a crumbling apartment building stood a beautiful cafe overlooking the shore. He sat at a table of rough-hewn wood. He had a soda at one hand, his computer spread in front of him, warm wind blowing through open thatch walls, and tourists swimming with dolphins outside. Not a bad place to work.
As earnest as young Fox’s people seemed, they were the practice squad. He hoped to get them demonstrating the basic operations of growing and processing a crop. Then he’d bring in people who would streamline the process and scale it up. Maybe he’d keep Garrett on as the dreamer: a technically competent administrator who would keep the team inspired, focused, and happy while others did the actual work. The others were of dubious usefulness, but they worked well together, cheaply, and he only needed proof-of-concept results from them. Then they could stay, or not. It would take many years to pay off the initial construction cost.
Martin had projects in other places. Parts of a small aerospace concern in India, an unusual village in Africa, a biotech firm in Mongolia, and some friendships he’d maintained in Texas and his homeland of Utah. He had almost nothing left for himself.
His first love, the nanotech business, was practically stalled. So he’d had to look at the bigger picture and become a longshot player. The human race needed a longshot, preferably one influenced by America and the Word of God. It had been revealed that bad times were coming, not that you needed revelation to see that. If people were to accomplish what they’d been put here for — the right to become the apprentices of God — it would have to be soon. Martin had had a blessed life for the most part. It was his duty now to throw a few seeds and see what sprouted. The world needed new knowledge and ideas, new sources of strength and adaptability, to deal with whatever was going to happen. Martin wasn’t sure whether he believed in the coming of “one mighty and strong”; the world had already had the original, after all, and plenty of pretenders. But he had a more sober belief in people’s ability to accomplish great things. Now was the time of testing for the species. Martin was one of those called to prepare the way.
Though his own comfort didn’t matter, he was glad to be here on the island with good Net access and better food. He soaked up news from his various contacts, and relaxed. He could shop this afternoon for some gear on Garrett’s wish list. Then he could fetch the little motorboat and head back to — well, he might as well start calling “the floating platform” by its proper name. To Castor! He lifted his drink.
There was a message from a stranger who’d made it through Martin’s mail filters. Something about business opportunities. Martin answered cautiously; the guy wanted to meet in person.
A reply came when Martin was about to leave. “I’m in town. Are you free?”
The stranger had a powerful handshake and hair that was growing out of a crewcut. “Walter Eaton,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Martin looked over Eaton’s brand-new tourist clothes and the way he sat up straight at the table. “A military man?”
Eaton nodded. “United States Marine Corps, recently retired.”
Martin tried a salute, then bought him a drink. After a minute’s chat he said, “What’s your interest in Castor?”
“It strikes me as strange, because it’s financially doomed.” Eaton set aside the paper umbrella from his drink and sipped. “Besides the high startup costs and the risk, how can you expect to profit by growing crops? Farming has hardly ever been a booming industry.”