The air was warm and moist, heady with the oxygen of growing plants. Great tiers of water tanks rose along the walls, their surfaces thick with the green and yellow and bright colors of fruits and vegetables growing in the vitamin-charged hydroponic baths. They seemed to grow visibly, even as the Earthpeople watched.
Pipes as thick as a man's arm, bank upon bank, were braced in rows through the center of the immense room, and thousands of clear bubbles of water clung to them. The light of gravitic-stasis bulbs glowed deep in each bubble, and the surfaces of all were threaded with the tender shoots of growing seedling plants.
"How utterly incredibly marvelous!" Jean whispered.
The Falcon nodded proudly. "Ten thousand tons of food go out of this cavern every day, taken to the starving people of a dozen worlds. It is not a one man job; it is a tremendous task for hundreds of thousands of men and women." He pointed to the workers between the rows. "Those are the ones who are doing the job; those are my people, my friends. They and all people like them are what I fight for."
"It's gallant," Jean admitted slowly. "But it's also so incredibly foolish. A few hundred thousand, or even millions, cannot change the world we live in. It is far better to take things as they are." She shuddered involuntarily, as a snake-man glided effortlessly across the path. "After all, creatures like that shouldn't be permitted to live like Earthmen."
The Falcon shrugged, some of the good feeling going from his mind. Then he plucked a handful of rich dark grapes.
"Try these," he said. "We've still a lot of sightseeing to do."
For another hour they walked and talked, meeting the men and women with whom the Falcon worked. Nowhere was there a fawning attitude because he was the one whose word was law. There was a tangible feeling of equality among all the people, a feeling that the girl had never seen anywhere before.
She spoke but little, until she saw the great storeroom where the wealth of a hundred nations was piled in orderly stacks. She saw that the door had neither lock nor bolt, and her eyes were startled when she glanced at the tall man at her side.
"There's no need," he said, understandingly. "This is communal property. And there are no thieves in the Base. Anyway, if a thief did appear, he could not escape—an inertia-tractor beam would bring any ship back before it could get away."