Mark turned onto the track that led up a short slope to his home, slowing as the suspension bounced him around in the puddles and potholes. Once again, as he did every morning and evening, he reminded himself to get some decent gravel delivered. The vine trellises were stretched out on both sides of the track; lines of wires and poles, like flimsy fences, set a couple of meters apart, extending as far as the eye could see. Small gnarled brown strands of the vines themselves were carefully wound along the wires, each one trimmed identically, no more than five buds along each frond. It was too early in the year for any growth, leaving the whole plot looking pretty bleak with only the narrow strips of straggly grass providing any color between the trellises, though they seemed to be more mud and stone than living tufts. Up at the top of the ridge, where the house sat on an acre of flat land, the lawn was a vigorous emerald carpet. At the moment it surrounded two houses. The one they’d brought with them on the back of a big flatbed truck as a pile of square weather-resistant composite panels that could be clipped together in any design. Liz and Mark had settled on a simple L-shape, with a long rectangular living room at one end attached to three square bedrooms, a bathroom, kids-room, kitchen, and spare room—which was still crammed with crates of stuff they’d brought from Augusta and hadn’t yet opened. Its roof was made up from curved solar collector sections that slotted on top. The whole thing was cheap, easy to assemble, and the kind of place that you wouldn’t want to live in for more than a few months, especially not in winter. They’d been on Elan for almost two years now.
Behind the temporary prefab, their true house was still growing. In keeping with Randtown’s green ethos, they’d both decided it was going to be drycoral—which was strangely rare for an eco-obsessed district. Normally the plant was grown over an existing structure, but Liz had tracked down a company on Halifax that offered a much cheaper method. She’d started with what was essentially a cluster of hemispherical balloons, a simple made-to-order any-size-you-want membrane that she spread out over the ground and inflated. Then she just planted the kernels all around the outside, and waited for them to grow. As the strands slithered their way upward, she twined them together and pruned judiciously, ensuring the walls were smooth and water-tight. Because of Ulon Valley’s harsh winters, she selected a drycoral variety thicker than most, to provide a decent insulation. When they were done, a simple domestic solar-pumped heatstore cube would keep them warm and snug all winter. But it was that necessary additional thickness that made them realize why few Randtown district homes were made from drycoral: it took a long time to grow upward. Every day when he got out of the pickup truck Mark would take another look at the tops of the pearl and cornflower-blue strands to see how far they’d gotten. On four or five of the smaller outlying dome rooms they were already up to the crest, where Liz was knotting them together in a minaret finishing twist; but on the three largest domes they still had a couple of meters to go. “They’ll be ready by midsummer,” Liz kept saying. Mark prayed she was right.
Barry burst out of the house and ran over to Mark, flinging his arms around his father. It used to be his father’s legs, now they were above his hips.
“What did you do today?” They both said it together as ritual demanded, and smiled at each other.
“You first,” Mark said as they walked back to the temporary house.
“I was reading, and spelling this morning, then we had Mr. Carroll for math and programming. I did general history with Ms. Mavers, and Jodie took us for practical mechanics to finish off with. I liked that. It was the only thing that made sense.”
“Really, why’s that?”
They walked into the kitchen, where Liz was sitting at the big cluttered table, trying to coax Sandy into having some soup. Mark’s daughter looked the picture of misery with her cheeks and nose all red, eyes damp, and wrapped in a big warm blanket. It was a flu variant that had been going the rounds of all the local kids. Barry had managed to avoid it so far.
“Daddy,” Sandy said weakly, and held her arms out.
Mark knelt down and gave her a big cuddle. “So how are you feeling today, my angel, any better?”
She nodded miserably. “Little bit.”
“Oh, that’s good. Well done, darling.” He sat in the chair next to her, and got a very fast and perfunctory kiss from Liz. “How about eating some of this soup then?” he asked his daughter. “We’ll eat it together.”
What might have been a smile passed across Sandy’s lips. “Yes,” she said bravely.
Liz rolled her eyes for Mark and got up. “I’ll leave you two to it, then. Come on, Barry, what do you want for tea?”
“Pizza?” he said immediately, followed by a hopeful, “and chips.”
