“The garden?” Ted asked, puzzled. “What good is a garden on a space ship?”
“Come along and you’ll see,” Dr. Kenton said and started for the door. Mrs. Kenton said she preferred to stay in the suite and collect her shattered nerves, but the children, of course, were eager to go.
“Haven’t you two wondered how you’re able to breathe in the ship?” their father asked as they walked down the corridor.
“I know how,” Ted said. “The air is pumped through the ship from compressed-air chambers.”
“What is air?” his father asked.
“Mostly oxygen and nitrogen,” Ted answered.
“The Shooting Star uses oxygen, with helium instead of nitrogen to dilute it,” Dr. Kenton said. “That’s so that, in case a meteor penetrates the ship, the rapid decompression won’t cause us to get bubbles in our blood, which is a dangerous condition called ‘the Bends.’”
“But what’s that to do with a garden?” Jill asked.
“You’ll see in a minute,” came the reply.
An attendant showed them through the “garden.” There was not much to see. There were merely rows and rows of broad-leaved plants covered with plastic and a network of tubes.