Out in the fields, Sulfur could see hundreds of people working—testing soil, tweaking sun barriers, reading sensors, tending machines that planted, harvested, and packaged. It was impossible to figure out all the crops growing here, which was a good sign. Emerald’s agriculturalists weren’t going full monoculture. They’d planted a diversity of food crops, as well as rubber trees, flax, and coffee. There were luxuries, too: a field of lavender grew next to a big plot of tobacco. Soon they were in the outskirts of the city, where low-density ranch homes and garden-shrouded castles formed an
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