The heat in the grower’s office was dry and smelled of drying lavender and ink. Len sat on a low three-legged stool near the iron stove, his wet boots steaming on the hearth stones. He held a mug of bitter chicory infusion between his trembling hands. His teeth were still chattering. But the deep, bone-settling chill of the under-road drain was beginning to retreat, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache that radiated from his left forearm through his shoulder and into the base of his neck.
The office was a small, square room cut directly into the dark rock wall above Bay One, its single window of thick, bubbled salt-glass looking down over the long rows of timber cloches. On the walls hung hand-drawn maps of the terrace soils, showing the depth of gravel and compost in each sector. It was marked with colored grease-pencil to indicate where the heating coils ran closest to the surface. A tall iron safe stood in the corner. Its door heavy with was heavy strap-iron and two brass combination dials that bore the crest of the pre-disaster agricultural union.
On a side table sat bundles of dried herbs—feverfew, dried mint, and bitter wormwood—hanging from copper hooks to cure in the rising warmth of the stove. For twelve years, this room had been the office center of an underground famine defense, where every ounce of flour and every pint of seed grain was measured against the probability of another year without sun.
