It was little more thana container above the shade-panel and a gravity-feed line that filleda compression chamber. Every ten minutes, the chamber would compressitself and force the water through the mist nozzles.
Frank smiledinside his helmet as he reached in for more saplings. Terrywas really coming into his own out here.
He’d known nothingabout PLC programming before Frank had bought a system for thegreenhouses in California. Within a month, Terry had figured out howto work with the interface and improve on the basic setup done by theoriginal vendor.
Apparently, thesenanites were even easier to work with. It was all Greek to Frank,which made Terry’s achievements all the more impressive to him.
Maybe Vikram’s working so hard ’cause hewants to impress Terry? Heturned to look at the far row but the youngster wasn’t in sight.
Heactivated the prox channel. “Vikram?” He took a few steps towardthe end of Vikram’s row. “Vikram, where are you at?”
“What’s going on?”Trisha asked from the other side of the planting area.
“Can’t seehim,” Frank said. “When did anyone last see him?”
“Maybe ten minutesago,” Terry guessed. “Maybe he had to, you know… pop the afthatch?”
The suits coulddo almost anything but when it came to solid waste, they couldn’tdo much more than provide a path. Frank cursed himself for notthinking of it before.
If the suits wereable to isolate them from the effects they’d endured earlier, anopening might let that effect in while letting other things out. Orhe just wandered off… How do I..
He used his right eyeto control his HUD, bringing up the locator beacons for everyoneinside of a one-kilometer radius.
An orange iconappeared, semi-transparent to indicate there was solid materialbetween Frank and Vikram. “That way,” he said, pointing into theforest. “Six hundred meters… Wait!” he commanded, haltingTrisha and Terry.
He bounded around tothe front of the vehicle and pulled down three assault-weapons. Hechecked their load-outs, the action happening reflexively the instanthis hand closed on the pistol grip of the first weapon.
He turned andraced over to Trish, tossing a weapon to Terry on the way. “We needto follow the training in ourheads,” he said, handinga rifle to her. “If there’s something dangerous out there, we’renot going to help Vikram by blundering into it.”
She nodded grimly, herface replacing her armored face-plate in Frank’s view. “I’mtaking point,” she insisted, checking her weapon.
Frank thought toprotest but he couldn’t puthis finger on why. She’d had the same combat training modules aseveryone else and, after all, it was herson in danger.
They pushedthrough the forest as quickly as they could, moving from cover tocover and using thermal and IR overlays to search for threats. Frankhad to push hard to keep up with Trisha.
They reached a smallclearing where they found Vikram lying on his back. Trisha abandonedtactics and raced over to him.
“Terry, stay sharp!”Frank said, keeping his own weapon up and aimed where he was scanningthe brush.
“Vikram?” shecalled to him, letting his armor stay closed.
Frank called up thebiometric data from Vikram’s suit, cursing himself for not doing soearlier. He saw nothing alarming, so he projected it to the rest ofthe group.
“Mhh… Mom?”theteenagerreplied.
“It’s okay,”she soothed. “We’re going home now.”
“She’s here,” hesaid dreamily.
“Who’s here?”
“Kusha”
“I’m OK,” Vikramprotested from his bed. “This is silly.”
None of theothersin the room were convinced.
“How much do youremember?” Sushil asked. “Do you remember walking away from yourfamily?”
Vikram’sbelligerence deflated, replaced by a look of alarm. Frank darted alook at his wife and he saw a storm cloud brewing in her features.“It’s OK,” he said. “What’s done is done, so just tell useverything and nobody’sgoing to get upset.”He added the emphasis for Trish’s consumption.
The teenhesitated for a moment, looking down at his covered feet. “I wascurious about the… effect,” he told them. “It felt as if therewas something tangible up there, something in the forest…”
“Ayyoh! And youthought you’d go seek it out?” Trisha demanded.
Vikram regained some ofhis earlier attitude. “What happened to not getting into trouble?”
She started to respondbut she bit her lip, literally, and nodded. “Go ahead.” Shewrapped herself in her own arms.
“I was just going tostep a few paces into the treeline and see if I could pick upanything using an active IR scan. Maybe there would be a structure orsomething.”
“And what happened?”Sushil asked.
“It was differentthan before,” he said slowly. “I have no memory of a slowbuildup. I just felt like I was floating and there was…” Hefrowned.
“Kusha,” he saidquietly.
“Kusha,” Frankrepeated. “Do you mean the cannabis? Our strain traces back to theHindu Kush Mountains.”
“Maybe,” Vikramshook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It was... thinking.”
“Thinking?”Trisha asked. “Kushawas thinking? Talking to you?”
“Thinkingto me more than talking,” he corrected.
“Thinkingwhat?” shepressed gently.
“Nothing concrete,”he said slowly. “It was more of a general feeling, a good feeling.If I had to put words to it…”
He looked up at her.“At last.”
“At last,” sherepeated flatly. She looked up at Frank. “We should consider movingour crops.”
“No!” Vikraminsisted. “Whatever’s up there is glad we’ve arrived, notangry. I don’t think this is something to be avoided.”
“We’ll see.”Shepatted his shoulder. “Just get some rest, for now, and we won’tmake any decisions without you, OK?”
“But I don’t needrest!”
“Dude,” Terrysaid earnestly, “wefound you laying on your ass mumbling about Kusha. Even Iknow that means you’re gonna have to at least make a pretense ofresting.”
That did it.Vikram wouldn’t want to do anything to diminish his stature inTerry’s eyes. He sighed and leaned back on his pillows. “I’mresting,” he told the ceiling. “Somecrazy hard resting going on right here.”
Trisha smirked. Sheleaned over and gave him a kiss on top of his head before leading theway out of his room.
They allreconvened around the kitchen peninsula with fresh coffee. Terry seta data module in the center of the stone slab. “Here’sthe sensor feed from his helmet.”
The island turned intoa small holographic map of the region around the McAdams’plantings. Terry activated an icon and the view changed to show whatVikram would have seen through his HUD.
“You might want tocome over here so you can see better, Mr. Kawle,” he suggested.
“This is impressive,Terry,” Sushil said, moving around to a stool on the far side ofthe peninsula. “I
