FARMER
By MACK REYNOLDS
Illustrated by RITTER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine June 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Someone out there didn't like trees.
He wanted to wreck the Sahara Project—and
he was willing to murder in the process!
I
One of the auto-copters swooped in and landed. Johnny McCord emptiedhis pipe into the wastebasket, came to his feet and strolled toward theopen door. He automatically took up a sun helmet before emerging intothe Saharan sun.
He was dressed in khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt, wool socks andyellow Moroccan babouche slippers.
The slippers were strictly out of uniform and would have been frownedupon by Johnny's immediate superiors. However, the Arabs had beenmaking footwear suitable for sandy terrain for centuries before therehad ever been a Sahara Reforestation Commission. Johnny was in favorof taking advantage of their know-how. Especially since the top brassmade a point of staying in the swank air-conditioned buildings ofColomb-Bechar, Tamanrasset and Timbuktu, from whence they issuedlengthy bulletins on the necessity of never allowing a Malian to seea Commission employee in less than the correct dress and in less thancommanding dignity. While they were busily at work composing suchdirectives, field men such as Johnny McCord went about the Commission'sreal tasks.
It was auto-copter 4, which Johnny hadn't expected for another halfhour. He extracted the reports and then peered into the cockpit tocheck. There were two red lights flickering on the panel. Work forReuben. This damned sand was a perpetual hazard to equipment. Number 4had just had an overhaul a few weeks before and here it was throwingred lights already.
He took the reports back into the office and dumped them into thecard-punch. While they were being set up, Johnny went over to theoffice refrigerator and got out a can of Tuborg beer. Theoretically, itwas as taboo to drink iced beer in this climate, and particularly atthis time of day, as it was to go out into the sun without a hat. Butthis was one place where the Commission's medics could go blow.
By the time he'd finished the Danish brew, the card-punch had stoppedclattering so he took the cards from the hopper and crossed to thesorter. He gave them a quick joggling—cards held up well in this dryclimate, though they were a terror further south—and sorted themthrough four code numbers, enough for this small an amount. He carriedthem over to the collator and merged them into the proper file.
He was still running off a report on the Alphabetyper when Derek Masoncame in.
Johnny drawled in a horrible caricature of a New England accent, "Isay, Si, did the cyclone hurt your barn any?"
Derek's voice took on the same twang. "Don't know, Hiram, we ain'tfound it yet."
Johnny said, "You get all your chores done, Si?"
Derek dropped the pseudo-twang and his voice expressed disgust. "I gota chore for you Johnny, that you're going to love. Rounding up somelivestock."
Johnny looked up from the report he was running off and shot animpatient glance at him. "Livestock? What the hell are you talkingabout?"
"Goats."
Johnny McCord flicked t