Free A Talent For The Invisible (v1.1) by Ron Goulart Page B

surrounding the Pharmz complex seemed able to seek him out with no trouble.
    He and Angelica had arrived in Urbania on the previous night. Urbania was a narrow, relatively new, country wedged between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and named after Pope Urban III.
    Conger approached Pharmz invisible and alone. The dark girl National Security Office agent waited for him in a landcar at the edge of the swamp. It was midday, the air was hot and streaky.
    Mammoth frogs, the size of bowling balls, harumphed in scummy ponds of green mossy algae. Two foot long orange lizards slithered over fallen logs. Insects hovered round Conger.
    From ahead now came sound. A great chuffing, a low persistent binging, mismatched rattlings and scrapings.
    Climbing over a rise, he saw the Pharmz complex bubbling up in front of him. Fifty or more large domes spread over a hundred acre clearing.
    Each dome was as large as a two story building, each was tinted a different shade of blue or green. Two dozen human guards in one-piece all-purpose repellent suits patrolled the clear strip of land around the dome city, a few of them accompanied by cyborg police dogs.
    Conger avoided the dogs, crossed onto the experimental farm ground near a lean drowsy guard.
    Immediately to his right were the domes making the chuffing.
    Stencilled on the walls, in both English and Spanish, was the designation Leaf Protein Extraction Station and then a number. After these domes came a row of them devoted to Intercropping. Then one, a quiet shade of underwater green, given over to Gossypol Extraction and a dome where anatoxin was removed from peanut oil.
    Having obtained some background information on Avo Enzerto from Angelica, Conger knew the old scientist lived and worked in a dome set aside for Advanced Protein Research. After searching the Pharmz grounds for ten minutes, Conger located the APR dome. It sat almost in the swamp, with one of its covered ramps extending, like a giant drinking straw, out into a wide slimy swamp pool.
    Enzerto was wandering around by himself in his lab apartment up under the ceiling of the big dome. He was a large hefty old man with prickly white whiskers. He wore a loose white lab smock over all-season pajamas and a flapping pair of Japanese slippers. He was clutching a bundle of large dark green leaves to his chest, muttering happily to himself. “A great day for science,” he said in Spanish. “A giant step ahead for protein, not to mention gourmet cooking. Ah, the junta’s going to love this!”
    Conger sat in a tin bucket chair. “Professor Enzerto,” he said and became visible.
    The large old scientist nodded at him. “Buenos dias, señor,” he said. “Do you realize what I’ve done this day?”
    “Nope.”
    “I’ve discovered a way to make skunk cabbage not only palatable but sweet-smelling,” Enzerto told him. “Wait until they get wind of this over in the leaf protein extraction crowd. You see, they have the notion, now that I’m fast approaching ninety, that the brain is going blooey. Not so! A man who’s devoted most of his life to protein—well, to protein and politics—such a man is not likely to have his brain go on the fritz, señor. Can I fix you a dish of skunk cabbage?”
    “I just had lunch,” said Conger. “Professor, I’m from the United States. I’ve come to warn you.”
    “Warn me? That’s a laugh, señor, the way you Americans insist on eating. It’s I who should warn you. Waffleburgers, jelly donuts …”
    “The Agrarian Espionage Force is sending agents here to kill you.”
    “Again?”
    “It was the junta who did you in last time.”
    “Quien sabe?” sighed the old professor. He dropped the skunk cabbage on a long white table which had several chutes and tubes suspended over it. “When I was engaged with political matters somebody was always trying to assassinate me. I’ll tell you something. At your age a man thinks he can dabble in this and dabble in that. Time is not important to you yet.