It takes a while for the guard to return. She strides over to Prakesh, rifle swinging. “Higher-ups say to do it. Get going.”
He doesn’t waste time getting to work, already aware of what he needs. The ammonium sulfate is easy. Prakesh can get that from the slippery white fertiliser pellets. Same with the sulphur–that’s the yellow insecticide. They give him a plastic cup to use as a scoop, but some still gets on his hands, prickling at his skin.
The calcium hydroxide is the tricky part. He needs calcium oxide first, and the usual source of that would be a stick of chalk. The guard assigned to watch him just stares blankly when Prakesh asks for some.
He tries to keep the frustration off his face. “What about shells?”
“Shells?” the guard says slowly. He’s not much older than Prakesh, with dark brown skin and a shaggy mess of black hair, but he holds his rifle like it’s an extension of his arm. Like it would be the work of a single thought to bring it up and pull the trigger.
“Yeah, like—” Prakesh can feel the word, dancing on the tip of his tongue. What the hell are those things called? The name snaps to the front of his mind. “Barnacles. They’d be stuck to the ship? Right at the waterline. I just need two or three.”
He takes a step forward, moving without thinking, and is brought up short by a rifle barrel in his face.
“You don’t move,” says the guard. “I’ll get them.”
Slowly, he lowers the rifle, then calls one of the others over to spot for him. He stalks off, his boots tapping on the metal floor of the farm.
They’ve got Prakesh in one corner of the hangar, set up with a couple of old tables. There’s a portable gas ring, purloined from the mess hall. Fresh water sloshes in a big metal drum. They’ve even managed to find him some tongs, their metal surface blackened with age.
It’s not even close to perfect. The chemistry he’s about to perform is unbelievably inefficient, the kind of procedure that would make his old Air Lab colleagues burst out laughing. But it’s all Prakesh has.
He waits, hands on the table, head bent. Jojo and the others are still at the troughs, working on the soil. Every few minutes, a guard will pull some of them away, letting them take a piss break.
Please let this work.
The guard returns with a handful of barnacles: lumpy, misshapen things with jagged white shells. He dumps them onto the table. “Ruined my knife getting these off,” he says, tapping a chipped blade hanging from his belt.
“Sorry,” Prakesh mutters, gathering the shells.
He gets both hands under one of the metal drums, lifts it up, then smashes it down on the shells. They’re hard, weather-worn, and it takes a few hits before they begin to crack.
The gas burner is tricky to get going–Prakesh can’t stop his hands from shaking, and he keeps fumbling the butane lighter. Eventually, he does it, and a scorching blue flame rises up from the plate.
Prakesh holds the smashed shells over the flames until they smoulder and crumble, kicking off a thin white smoke. He catches the fragments in one of the plastic beakers. He can feel the heat singeing the skin on his fingers, and bites his lip, pushing through it. Soon, the beaker is full of clumpy, off-white powder. Calcium oxide, or something close to it.
He dumps it in the water-filled drum, using the tongs to stir it. There. Calcium hydroxide.
The guard leans in. “So how does it work?”
“Huh?”
“This chemistry shit.” He gestures at the drum.
“Oh,” says Prakesh. “Well… calcium hydroxide from the shells will react with the existing fertiliser, and it should make it more potent, so…”
“Right.” The guard’s actually interested, his gun lowered, tilting his head to one side as he regards the drum. “My mom showed me this stuff in a book once. Didn’t really know how it all worked but I always wanted to try it.”
The drum goes on top of the burner. Prakesh has to get the guard to help, which he does willingly, handing his rifle off to one of the others. Even then, they nearly send the entire mess flying when the guard’s fingers slip. Prakesh pulls it back at the last moment, exhaling a shaky breath.
“There,” says the guard, dusting off his hands. “What’s next?”
Prakesh’s mind goes blank for a moment, surprised at having such an eager lab assistant. “Uh… the sulphur. Right over there.”
“Yeah, you got it.”
The guard brings it over. Working quickly, Prakesh dumps several scoops of the sulphur into the pot, then stirs it all together. The ammonium sulfate fertiliser goes in last, followed by a thick sheet of scrap metal as a makeshift lid.
“So shouldn’t there be some sort of, what’s it called, reaction now?” the guard says.
Prakesh shrugs, trying to ignore how much his shoulders hurt. “It’ll take a little time, but sure.”
“Nice,” says the guard, hands on his hips. “Guess you’d better get back to work.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.
Prakesh walks with his head down, sliding in next to Jojo. The kid says nothing, doesn’t even look at him.
Prakesh digs his hands into the soil, and tries not to look at the metal drum.