Buher let out an almost comic sigh of relief. 'I thought you'd never ask,' he said.

Atherton sat back in his seat, crossed his arms, and sulked. Pasarian had to smile. Some days it was sincerity, today it was theatrics. Whatever method Buher chose to use, he almost always got his way.

And as the golf cart drove on toward the enormous greenhouse that was its destination, the four occupants were too preoccupied to notice the guard who was waving at them wildly. He was trying to get Richard Thorn's attention, for an extremely urgent phone call had just come in for him.

***

Once inside the greenhouse, the four men walked down a long passageway in a seemingly endless sea of green. They were totally silent, awestruck at what lay before them. It was an incredible sight; oversized vegetables grew on one large table, while miniature windowbox farms thrived on another. Buher could see that even Atherton was moved, and he was inwardly ecstatic. For the time being, however, he maintained his air of reserve and continued his presentation in a hushed tone that was almost prayerful.

‘There was a man once,' he said, 'who asked, "Can you plow the sea?" People thought he was mad. But he wasn't, he was just ahead of his time. The answer to his question is "Yes." Not only can we, but we must. And hydroponics is only the beginning of it.' They all moved farther down the passageway, past plots of vegetables that were far more brightly colored than it seemed they had a right to be. Finally they reached a section where there were some technical exhibits, charts, and graphs.

'Here,' said Buher, pointing out an elaborate, perfectly scaled-down model, 'you see the modern farmer as he will be. He sits at a control console in this central tower. He receives information about his fields from television and memory computers. His plowing has been done for him by ultrasonic waves beamed down from small, remote-controlled aircraft. His computer machines can pick, grade, and box fruit with computer-controlled mechanical fingers.'

Finally Atherton found his tongue. 'And what will that do for the starving Chinese?'

'Feed them!' Buher shouted with terrible intensity. ‘The Chinese pride themselves on the fact that they can march all day on a bowl of rice, but what kind of accomplishment is that? We have to feed these people!' Now Buher really began to hit his stride. 'And to do that, the oceans must be farmed, new strains of faster-growing rice must be developed, imitation meat must be manufactured. And we—Thorn Industries—must take the lead. We will own the land, or rent it. We will own or control a percentage of the crops and the animals. We will manufacture the fertilizers that make food grow, and we will design and build the machinery that will turn barren land and polluted seas into arable, plentiful gardens.'