"About the work to be done," said Bordman, "I imagine the sea-water freshening plants have closed down?"
"They have!" said Sandringham. "They insisted on piling them up over my protests. Now if anybody proposed operating one, they'd scream to high Heaven!"
"What was done with the minerals taken out of the sea-water?" Bordman asked.
"You know how the fresheners work!" said Sandringham. "They pump sea-water in at one end, and at the other one pipe yields fresh water, and the other heavy brine. They dump the heavy brine back overboard and the fresh water's pumped up and distributed through the irrigation systems."
"It's too bad some of the salts weren't stored," said Bordman. "Could a freshener be started up again?"
Sandringham stared. Then he said:
"Oh, the civilians would love that! Now if any man started up a water-freshener, the civilians would kill him and smash it!"
"But I think we'll need one. We'll want to irrigate some of the Reserve area."
"My God! What for?" demanded Sandringham. He paused. "No! Don't tell me! Let me try to work it out."
There was silence. The brown dog blinked at Bordman. He held out his hand. The dog came sedately to him and bent his head to be scratched.