Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and have just borrowed them for my - and your - pleasure. Author's note: Field work might not be an immediate concern, but one should always prepare for the worst outcome. Don't worry. I won't go overboard with futuristic technology. We are still in the late 60s. FATAL HARVEST

Steed shows off his roots. Emma does some weeding.

Chapter 6

Later that week, Emma drove Steed to an anonymous warehouse. They were greeted, military-style, by a guard who checked Steed's credentials and admitted them inside. A gruff mechanics clad in overalls folded his newspaper and came to meet them.

"Steed! I cannot believe you left the Bentley behind. Finally realized you should trade in the old wreck?"

"Just looking for a loaner, Gulch. Show me the latest for mowing down villains and delivering them to the authorities in neat little bales."

With a long-suffering glance Robert Gulch turned towards Emma Peel. "I rounded up the array of hardware that your customer would likely be using. Mostly German and American models. They are copied the world over, so there was little point in looking beyond those."

Steed was already poking at gigantic tyres with his umbrella. Gulch caught up to him in a few easy strides.

"Far worse injuries arise from using farm machinery than from reckless polo playing, Steed." The wiry man turned around to face them both and gave them a quick rundown of the monstrous tillers, tractors and crop bundlers in the cavernous hangar. "Any one of these could crush you like twigs. You two spend as much time as you wish tinkering with the real things. I will stick around for your questions."

Under Gulch's watchful eyes, Steed and Mrs. Peel examined the control panels and the wiring of a wide assortment of vehicles. Dwarfed by most of them, they climbed up into a dozen cabins to fire up the lumbering beasts, listen to their innards and drive a few of them around.

Emma looked at Steed, frowning. "It would be child's play to modify any one of these in order to accommodate weapons."

Steed winced in reply. "Probably a superfluous refinement, Mrs. Peel. I gather that industrial farming already relies generously on chemical warfare."

Later in the day, Steed sighed as he folded back his long frame in the Elan's front passenger seat.

"Say what you will, Mrs. Peel, but my venerable Bentley is a delicate jewel next to any one of these behemoths" He braced himself resignedly for the spirited ride home that Emma would surely give him, elated to find herself again behind the wheel of her sporty car.

-o0o-

Steed's second meeting with Miss MacKay took place in London, over a bottle of chianti at Bertorelli. Inimitably aware and confident of his influence on the opposite sex, Steed showered his guest with attentions. Miss MacKay soon made it clear that she remembered every detail of the brisk sketch of his land ownership. Steed congratulated himself on having run through it three times already during his first round of interviews. She asked him to elaborate his vision for the future of his property.

"I am probably of the old school" shrugged Steed, self deprecatingly. "Keeping farming on a small scale, and as natural as possible. What the big industry is moving towards seems more like, well, raping the land."

"Raping?" Miss Mackay's eyebrows rose mischievously at his choice of word.

"That's what I read. Nothing like this would ever happen on my land. Not without me, well, noticing, you know." Unexpectedly at loss for words, Steed swore inwardly. This agricultural stuff doesn't exactly roll off the tongue... His eyes widened disarmingly as he bravely rallied the troops. "I should add that my consultant has a much kinder view of science. I cannot help think that there must be a better, gentler way to improve crop yields. More chianti?"

They moved on to discuss the needs that her firm might be able to adress. Miss MacKay laid out a ten-year plan which, she said, was the time scale over which natural farming could be expected to show its benefits. She sounded frightfully well prepared: soil analyses, moisture monitors, plot divisions, crop rotations, slow-release fertilizers to complement composting. Steed listened with interest and asked her to forward a copy of the plan she had just outlined to his business address. He then skillfully drew her to talk about the prospects of the family business, pointing out the rumours swirling around the latest developments in crop technology.

"Your consultant is quite right, Mr. Steed. Agriculture relies increasingly on science. What might surprise you is that this is not incompatible with a more natural form of farming. The benefits of a scientific approach may run equally well to quality rather than quantity."

Nonetheless, she expressed skepticism when Steed mentioned that the prospect of genetically modified strains was apparently the growing buzz among the bigger firms. In fact, her family had recently turned down a lucrative offer to enter into trials of varieties rumoured to be at the testing stage.

"For a dozen years we have grown four different varieties of barley", she explained,"and adopted state-of-the-art technology. Controlling the amount of soil moisture and monitoring the flux of nutrients is economical and crop rotation enhances the soil fertility and decreases the incidence of disease. We are quite satisfied with our approach."

"Yet I imagine that business, even in the guise of feeding manking, is a ruthless world" offered Steed, delicately. "Do your competitors share your prudence?"

Miss MacKay smiled enigmatically. "What is prudence? What is progress? Your earlier comments weren't off the mark, by the way. The profession harbors a pretty wide range of views."

Steed nodded gravely. Discretion was a quality he treasured in anyone, but finding it in such a lovely and competent form was nothing less than a personal challenge.

After three hours of good food, animated conversation and a few turns on the dance floor, maintaining throughout an impeccable display of gentlemanly manners, Steed walked the spritely Ms. MacKay back to her car. His eyes twinkled appreciatively as he held her hand to his lips.

"Ms. MacKay, it takes a genuine gift for turning what could have been a chore into a most agreeable and educational evening. I look very much forward to doing business with your family's company."

Alison MacKay blushed distinctly but she held his gaze and flashed him a delightful smile, at once winsome and modest. She checked that they had traded business cards, thanked him graciously for the meal and invited him to visit their facilites, an offer that Steed earnestly promised to follow up.

-o0o-

The next step had been to acquaint them with the latest tracking technology developed for the ministry.

As they sat down, the medical officer handed Steed and Mrs. Peel a pair of aerial photos of their sprawling target, its features already familiar.

"As you know, this model farm is humongous. Should you need to locate each other quickly in a field or in any one of their greenhouses, you would be faced with a search for a needle in a haystack." The graphic description of the site of their mission made a pretty convincing case for the minor surgery required. Emma had grimaced and Steed had drummed his fingers rather noncommitally when the door behind them slid open.

Exceptionally, Mother had been discreetly wheeled out of his office by Rhonda. His gravelly voice carried a note of warning rather than the usual bark of authority.

"This is your call, Steed. It did not sit well with me that Warner would consider sending you to that funny farm without making sure we could come looking for you. There are other, less intrusive, options but this one offers the advantage of novelty and discretion. I suggest you try it and report."

The miniature implant now embedded in the fleshy lobe of her ear was certainly unobtrusive but its insertion had made Emma feel unnervingly one step closer to a cybernaut. She wondered if Steed would have accepted the device had she balked at it herself. Despite his readiness to experiment with a wide range of gadgets, he was famously skittish about anything that encroached too intimately on his body. This time, however, Emma Peel had pre-empted his potential objections with a single comment. "This makes perfect sense, Steed, but I will not be the only blip on the radar screen".

That evening, as he steered the Bentley towards the car park of Mrs. Peel's flat, Steed glanced ruefully at the tiny fresh scar on his left forearm. The tiny capsule embedded in his flesh now made him traceable, above ground, underwater or as deep as 5 meters underground, anywhere within a radius of 1 kilometer. As unpleasant as the prospect might be, he had also quizzed the medical officer about the possibility of removing it himself. Emma had rolled her eyes, but the medic had fielded Steed's questions efficiently and quite dispassionately.