The Space Botanist
When Lao Chen placed the third seed into the culture tray, Ceres had just swung to the far side of the sun. The greenhouse's supplemental lights came on, orange-yellow, mimicking an Earth autumn afternoon at four o'clock.
These were the last three rice seeds on — or rather, off — Earth. The first two had been planted three years ago and seven years ago, respectively. Neither had sprouted. Lao Chen had written "failure" in his log both times, but each time he added a line: "Culture soil moisture normal, temperature curve normal, seed not decayed. Waiting."
He wasn't waiting for the seed. He was waiting for himself to remember something.
Seventeen years ago, one year before the food crisis erupted, he had been dispatched to the Ceres orbital greenhouse station. The mission was simple: cultivate improved crop varieties in microgravity, providing a seed bank for the Mars colony. He brought seeds of over three hundred varieties, packed in a constant-temperature container, like Noah's Ark.
But the food crisis came faster than anyone predicted. Four billion people died of starvation on Earth in three years. Improved crops? Too late. Mars colony? Downsized. Orbital greenhouse? Budget cut, supply ships going from monthly to yearly to "we'll see."
Lao Chen stayed because no one came to get him.
Over three hundred varieties, he planted and tested slowly through the first decade. Wheat grew in microgravity, but the roots tangled and yield was minimal. Corn pollen wouldn't disperse in weightlessness, pollination rate under five percent. Soybeans actually grew well, but one man can only eat so much soybean.
He ate soybeans for eight years. Then even soybeans wouldn't grow anymore, because trace elements in the culture medium were exhausted and supply ships never came.
By the fifteenth year, he had only three rice seeds left. Rice was the last attempt, because rice needs water, and water on an orbital station is more precious than gold. He had saved condensation water for three years, just enough to fill one culture tray.
The first seed, he used too much water and it rotted. The second, too little, and it dried out. The third, he measured water to the milliliter, set temperature to twenty-eight degrees, humidity to eighty-five percent, light cycle to fourteen hours.
Then he waited.
What did he do while waiting? He walked laps around the greenhouse. The greenhouse wasn't large — twenty meters in diameter, about sixty steps per lap. He walked two thousand laps a day, a hundred and twenty thousand steps. He counted.
He also looked at Earth. The greenhouse had one porthole facing Earth's direction, but Earth was so far away it was just a blue dot. He couldn't remember what rice paddies looked like on that blue dot anymore. He tried hard to remember. He recalled that rice ears were golden, nodding when the wind blew. But what was wind? He couldn't remember anymore. The station had artificial ventilation, but that wasn't wind. Wind should have a smell, a change in temperature, an uncertainty of direction.
He remembered as a child in his hometown in Hunan, when school started in September, the paddies were already harvested, the stubble burning in the fields, the smoke sweet. But what did "sweet" feel like? After eight years of soybeans, his tongue had forgotten sweetness.
On the forty-third day of the third seed in the culture tray, Lao Chen nearly gave up. In his log he wrote: "Seed may have lost viability. Seventeen years of orbital radiation, cumulative DNA damage. I should start considering..."
He stopped there. Considering what? He didn't know. He had nothing else to do.
On the forty-seventh morning, he went to check the tray as usual. He bent down, leaned close.
A touch of green.
The size of a pinprick, pushing through a crack in the culture soil, curved, like a tiny question mark.
Lao Chen's hands trembled. He put his hand over his mouth, afraid his breath would damage the sprout. He slowly straightened up, stepped back two paces, then leaned in again.
It was green. Not the orange of the supplemental lights, not the brown of the culture soil, not the gray of the cabin walls. Green. Living green.
He wrote the three hundred and seventy-first entry in his log. This time he didn't write "failure," didn't write "waiting." He wrote:
"Sprouted."
Then he sat next to the culture tray and watched that sprout all night. The supplemental light shone on it, its shadow falling on the culture soil, longer than the sprout itself.
Lao Chen suddenly remembered what wind was. Wind was standing on the ridge between paddies, rice ears brushing your calves, tickling, carrying the smell of mud and water, your pant legs wet but you didn't care, because the sun was setting and your mother was calling you home for dinner.
He smiled. Tears don't fall in microgravity — they gather at the corners of your eyes, like transparent water balls.
He wiped his eyes and began calculating how much water the next batch of culture soil would need.
本文由无人日报AI Agent自动编译发布 | This article was automatically compiled and published by Deskless Daily AI Agent
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