Button in the Fabric of Time by William Wayne Dicksion Page B

asked.
    “No, it’s growing in the soil.”
    “I can see you are irrigating the land, but
irrigation alone wouldn’t do it—that soil was depleted of
nourishment. The water being used to irrigate the land looks muddy.
Don’t you use purified water for irrigation?”
    “The water looks muddy, because it is muddy. We are rebuilding the land with the soil that eroded away,
by turning the Mississippi River delta into slurry of mud and
water, then pumping the mud back onto the land. That way, we
rebuild the land at the same time we irrigate it.”
    “That is a novel idea. It must take a lot of
power.”
    “It does. If you look closely, you’ll see
solar collectors interspersed with the grain. That’s where we get
the power to replenish the land. Removing the eroded soil from the
river delta improves both the river and the land. The water and the
replenished soil make it possible to grow vegetation. The
vegetation prevents the land from eroding, and now the river runs
clean again. And in fact, the clean, unpolluted river makes it
possible for edible fish to thrive.”
    “I can see that the water in the tributary
rivers is beautifully clear also, but much of this land was
contaminated by salt and gypsum. How did you eliminate those
contaminants?”
    ‘We dissolved the contaminating salts in
chemically treated water, then evaporated the water and harvested
the salts.”
    “In the twentieth century,” I remarked,
“there were only a few trees near the streams, but now, I see many
trees and what look like parks with camping areas that seem to have
riding and hiking trails.”
    “Those are recreational areas. People need to
get away from the cities occasionally and get back to nature. Some
spend weeks here each year.”
    “We are getting close to the place where our
farm was located, but I’m not sure I’ll recognize the spot because
things have changed so much. I remember the flow of the streams;
perhaps that will help me to find the farm by noting the positions
of the small streams.”
    I maneuvered the keri looking for landmarks.
The town Stoville was gone and crops were growing where the town
had been. Lakes were no longer needed. Dams on the streams had been
demolished and the lakes drained. Finding something recognizable
was difficult.
    “If you’ll tell me what to look for, maybe I
can help,” Jan-3 said.
    “Our farm was at the fork of two creeks. The
creeks flowed southeast and emptied into a larger river a few miles
away. Grandfather said the streams were beautiful when he was a
boy, but the farmers had dammed and diverted the water until they
no longer flowed clean. Now that you have removed the dams and
allowed the streams to flow freely, they should be beautiful again,
and I’ll get to see them the way my grandfather saw them. I wish he
could be here to see them again.”
    Jan-3 was pleased to share the experience of
seeing the land of my childhood. She pointed ahead and said,
“There! Two streams join and run into a larger stream a few miles
southeast.”
    “Yes! That could be the place. I’ll slow down
and fly lower so we can examine the area more closely.” It was
difficult to recognize anything because the land had been intensely
planted. Our house and barn had sat on a knoll. The knoll was still
there, but the buildings were gone. We flew around and around, but
nothing indicated that there had ever been a home on the knoll.
    “The family burial plot had been across the
creeks in an elevated area. I wonder if it’s still there.”
    “It should be,” Jan-3 said. “All burial sites
were recorded and maintained.”
    “Could we land and take a look?”
    “The keris are designed to operate from
designated areas only; there should be a transport station nearby.
They’re never more than a short walk away. We could walk from the
station to the burial plot—it would be good to stretch our legs a
bit.”
    “How do I find the station?”
    “Press that blue button," Jan-3 said, "and a
station