Agriculture didn’t need sunlight. It needed energy, carbon, cold air, and water.
Giles Croft stood on the upper walkway of the Great Northern Karst Basin at Depth Five Thousand.
Around him, a huge natural limestone gallery four hundred yards long and fifty yards wide had been carved into twelve cascading agricultural terraces. Down the center of the stepped terraces tumbled a warm, stone-rich stream of earth-heat runoff water, discharging from the steam cooler heat-exchangers of the power vaults.
Beside Giles stood Mistress Rowena Mallow, the colony’s chief horticulturist and master brewer, her canvas work coat dusted with fine, pale fungal spores.
“The surface blizzard has closed the northern valley roads under six feet of snow,” Giles said, checking the water heat with a floating glass heat gauge.
“The wheat mills in the upper baronies are frozen solid. If Haven-Hold relies on surface grain to feed fifty thousand new refugees, our granaries will be empty in nine days.”
Rowena adjusted her wool kerchief, running her fingers through a tray of black, porous gravel.
“Surface grain is a delicate, fragile crop, Lord Giles,” Rowena remarked briskly.
