Inside the dark belly of Silo Number One, twenty-five thousand tons of hard winter wheat rested in silence.
To an untrained eye, the massive golden grain mass appeared dormant. But Giles Croft knew that stored grain was a living, breathing living ecosystem.
If moisture exceeded fourteen percent, fungal breathing would begin.
Cellular metabolism would release heat and moisture. That created nearby heat hotspots that could reach one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit, souring the flour or igniting spontaneous burning.
Giles stood in the concrete discharge tunnel beneath the twenty silos, wearing his heavy canvas work coat.
Above his head, forty-eight steel hopper cones came together into twenty-four level moving belt troughs.
Mounted inside each trough was a twelve-inch nonstop helical Archimedes screw auger forged by Master Borin Bronze-Lung from abrasion-resistant cast hard dark metal steel.
Beside Giles, Master Borin was tightening the pipe rim bolts on a sixty-horsepower electric drive motor.
