The Seed Grower is part of my cli-fi series There Is Hope about life on a planet devastated by climate change and the things that give humans hope.
This is episode #4. You can find an overview of all the episodes here.
Previously 👇
The Seed Grower: The delivery
A farmer grows illegal seeds of resistance, but her life gets complicated when an unlikely guest joins the Midsummer festival.
‘An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name, With water white is the great tree wet.’
Alaska tilts the copper vessel and pours a light stream of white water through the water outlet of the plant-growing pod. Then she sets the copper vessel on the altar, folds her hands in front of her heart and bows her head.
‘May the threads of my past, future and present allow me to safely deliver this seedling in the hands of those who need it most,’ Alaska says.
She taps a button at the base of the growing pod, and a transparent plastic encasing rolls up. On it, a red text appears:
Phoenix dactylifera Date palm tree Gender: Female
Alaska puts the plant-growing pod in her bag, straps it across her body and stands up. The soft pastel light beaming through the polychrome stained plastic windows falls on the peaceful face of the Goddess Jörð holding a Yggdrasil tree resting on the altar.
‘Thank you, mother of seeds, rain and sun. May your strength be upon us,’ Alaska says, exiting the temple.
The temple, a pre-fabricated pink container shaped like a dome, rises above the yellow cornfields ready for harvest. Alaska strolls around the temple, to the narrow trail meandering through the fields to her home, a simple capsule house she shares with her son and sister. The morning summer sky, a clear blue with patches of white clouds, is quiet. The surveillance drones aren’t activated yet. Between the temple and the corn fields is a plot of fallow land lush with lofty grass and wildflowers. Alaska stops to inhale the scent of summer, hot soil, dry grass and the delicate fragrance of the wildflowers when she sees a silhouette laying in the grass. It’s her sister Fanny. Alaska approaches quietly and lies next to her. Hidden in the grass, the sisters watch bees flying from wildflower to wildflower, their silicone wings glittering in the yellow light. It’s a dizzying dance of pink, green, and blue sheer wings as if someone had thrown a handful of petals in the wind. And there it is, mingling in the buzzing chaos of perfectly identical steel bodies, the anomaly, the outlier, the little brown and yellow hairy monster: a real honey bee. Fanny’s lips part into a wide grin.
‘Welcome home, honey!’ Fanny says, snatching the bee in a glass trap.
‘That’s 397 worker bees; well done, Fanny’, Alaska says.
The sisters stand up from the grass. Fanny lifts the trap with the erratically flying bee, and the glass shimmers in the sun. A gust of wind sweeps through the green-yellow corn fields rustling their sword-like leaves.
‘I can’t wait to have some boiled corn,’ Fanny says.
‘When was the last time we grew corn?’ Alaska says.
‘Don’t know, I think we were eight,’ Fanny says.
‘The summer before dad…,’ Alaska says.
‘Yeah!’ Fanny says.
The colorful mechanic bees, messengers of the goddess residing in the container temple, buzz in the sudden silence. There’s a complicity in how the sisters walk on the narrow pathway, the corn leaves gently brushing against their bodies, careful not to touch each other, as if by doing so, they would unleash an unwanted disease, the awful curse hanging above their heads ever since that summer many years ago. Fanny pulls the hand control pad from her pocket and switches on the virtual dashboard. She scans the data streaming in from the myriad nano-pods surveilling and feeding the plants growing on their farm. She swipes to the overview screen with a sideways movement of her eyes.
Season I Yaar farm: 40 corn varieties Owner: Siberian Seed Bank Cultivated area: 404.86 square meters Estimated yield: 3,200 corn ears Health check: Green
Alaska peeks over her shoulder.
‘What are you looking at?’ Alaska says.
The identical features of the twin sisters reflect on the dark background of the shimmering VR dashboard.
‘How many corn ears can we keep,’ Fanny says.
‘And?’ Alaska says.
‘Around 1280. It’s about 32 corns ears per variety. Which ones do we sacrifice?’ Fanny says.
‘I was thinking of keeping some for cross-pollination. We can do some experiments in the next season. I have some ideas,’ Alaska says.
‘Yeah?’ Fanny says, swiping to a map of their farm. ‘Where do you wanna do that?’
‘We can use this fallow ground here,’ Alaska says, pointing to a brown patch at the edge of their farm. ‘The strips of land surrounding it to the south will be fallow next season, and in the north, it’s protected by the temple.’
‘Hmmm,’ Fanny says.
‘We can also add some beans,’ Alaska says.
‘Sounds better,’ Fanny says.
‘It’ll be good, you’ll see. Maybe we can replicate dad’s success, remember? The drought-resistant variety he created stood the test of time,’ Alaska says
‘Thankfully,’ Fanny says. ‘The corn blight from the second season nearly landed him in jail.’
‘Oh, the corn blight! I had forgotten,’ Alaska says. ‘I don’t think they would’ve jailed him; they must’ve had duplicates in the Svalbard Seed Vault. Plus, it’s not like he unleashed the fungus himself…’
‘It came with one of the clandestine plants he was growing on the fields,’ Fanny says.
‘You never understood…,’ Alaska says.
‘You mean sacrificing the family for a dream?’ Fanny says.