A Seed Is Not a Crime

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The quarantine officer came without Venn. That was the first good thing.

Mina and Owen waited on the marked side of the workshop. The capsule remained closed beneath its own light. The officer checked the cargo seal, then compared two test records on her screen.

One came from Venn's import scanner. It identified an unlicensed plant. Not a pathogen. Not a broken containment seal. Just growth outside his company's approved list.

The other came from the capsule's inspection port. Its filters and pressure history showed no breach. The officer took a surface sample anyway. Rules existed for reasons beyond Venn's convenience.

Mina waited through the full test cycle. She didn't touch the capsule. She didn't make a speech about her mother. She let the facts remain smaller, and harder to push aside.

The officer recorded temporary clearance for sealed transport. Any opening would require an equipped receiving facility. No dispersal. No sale of uninspected seeds. Mina accepted every condition.

Then the officer called the auction office. The sale stood. Its earlier hazard notice would be corrected.

Owen let out a breath when the hatch closed.

"Fifty credits still seems expensive," he said.

Mina looked at the green leaves.

"Only if we're buying by weight."

Venn demanded a private meeting. Mina answered from the workshop, with the quarantine decision visible beside her. Owen waited outside. This argument didn't need three people in it.

"You've proved it's a plant," Venn said. "Congratulations. You haven't proved the drone belongs to Arbor."

"Its cargo seal matches the old registry."

"Old registries contain old mistakes. Your mother's career is evidence of that."

Mina held the brass tag until its edges hurt.

"Stop using her name to avoid answering questions."

"Then ask a sensible one."

"Why did a worthless drone interest you before we opened it?"

Venn leaned back. Behind him, glass towers glittered above the port's artificial dusk. Mina maintained the little public garden in their shadow. He had never once noticed her there.

"I knew the mark," he said. "Arbor carried valuable equipment. It was my company's responsibility to supply it."

"And the company reported everything lost."

"Because it was."

"Then you won't mind a recovery attempt."

His gaze sharpened.

"By a gardener and a mechanic?"

"You sold us the first piece."

For a moment, she thought he would shout. Instead, he offered a hundred times the purchase price. Enough for rent. Enough for a new irrigation unit. Enough to make saying no hurt.

Mina imagined the drone behind his private glass. Its seedling turned into a product. Its memory unit emptied. Her mother still a warning in a manual.

"No," she said.

This time, the word felt expensive.

Owen put his loan agreement on the mat between them.

"You should read this before asking me to fly."

Mina had been about to ask. She hated him slightly for knowing.

The agreement covered Sparrow's engine repairs. Ordinary debt, secured against ordinary equipment. Three payments remained. Venn's company could make collection unpleasant, but the debt didn't give it command of the tug.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mina asked.

"Because you were selling extra shifts to buy potting mix. I didn't want another thing in your head."

"You don't get to choose that."

"I know. I'm telling you now."

She read the payment dates. The next fell in four days.

"How long can we be away?"

"With fuel reserve? Two hops out, two back. A few days. Not a grand expedition."

"And if we find nothing?"

"We come home. I negotiate the payment. You keep your drone and a very expensive plant."

Mina ran a finger along the bench's scarred edge. Owen had never promised her an easy thing. That was why she trusted him with difficult ones.

"I won't ask you to lose the ship."

"Then don't ask me to make that decision blind. Show me the route first."

Together, they connected the drone's memory unit through an isolated reader. No live link to Sparrow's controls. Old machines could carry surprises that weren't poetic.

The first file was damaged. The second held maintenance instructions. The third opened a simple transit diagram.

Three markers. A gap. Two more.

Mina whispered her mother's counting song.

"Garden reserve return route. Current position expires after orbital drift update. Consult local navigation."

Not a prophecy. Not a magical map. A route built for a patient machine, now several weeks out of date.

Owen overlaid it on his current charts. The last marker sat inside a retired transit pocket. Too much debris for normal traffic. No profitable cargo, according to the port guide.

"Except someone sent a seedling from there," Mina said.

"Someone, or something."

"I know."

She studied the maintenance file. A crew note had survived in plain text. Lena had written it seventeen years earlier, before the loss.

Children understand the safe routes when adults make them a song. Do not remove the colored door marks during repainting.

Mina remembered arguing that blue should mean breakfast. Her mother had said breakfast could move. Safe doors couldn't.

For years, Mina had been ashamed of how little she remembered. A laugh. A sleeve smelling of leaves. One silly rhythm. No secret that could save a reputation. No heroic final words.

Now those ordinary fragments belonged to an actual person again.

She copied the note separately. Whatever happened to the expedition, that much would come home.

Owen checked the charts once more, then sent the provisional route to port navigation for the required departure review. A real flight plan. Sealed cargo clearance. Emergency contacts. Mina's pursuit of truth would not become an excuse to endanger whoever came looking for them.

By morning, approval arrived with restrictions on their approach. Sparrow wasn't cleared to force a debris field. They would assess from its edge, and turn back if needed.

Mina signed beside Owen.

He handed her Sparrow's emergency checklist before she could celebrate.

"Read it. Then show me the release points."

"I passed my port flight safety course."

"On a training platform. This is my very particular collection of repaired parts."

Mina read. Then she found the breathing sets, the fire isolation panel, and the marked handholds beside the inner hatch. Owen made her demonstrate the communication backup twice. She resented it until she reached the line naming who would contact the port if he couldn't.

Her name belonged there now.

"You trust me with this?" she asked.

"I trust you to learn it before we need it. That's different."

She thought of Lena's colored doors. Adults turning safety into something a child could carry through fear. Her mother hadn't hidden a grand destiny inside a song. She had tried to get everyone home.

Mina went through the list again, more slowly.

At the last item, Owen asked her to describe their turnback conditions. Lost navigation. Unsafe debris approach. Fuel below reserve. She added one of her own: if she started treating finding Arbor as more important than keeping them alive.

Owen looked at her for a long moment.

"I'll hold you to that."

"Good," Mina said. "Someone should."

She packed one change of clothes, a field notebook, and the growing cloth. Owen packed spare couplings, more water than she expected, and no romantic assumptions about adventure.

At the hatch, Mina looked back toward the port. Venn's towers shone above the public planters. The repaired irrigation line would last until her replacement arrived. She had left clear notes. Even revenge needed someone to water the flowers.

Owen called her to the second seat.

Sparrow pulled free. The port lights became a pattern against darkness. Mina held the capsule between secured supports, where its lamp could stay steady.

"Still time to change your mind," Owen said.

"About the plant?"

"About the trip."

"Ask me after the first terrible meal."

He grinned and brought up the lane approach.

Behind them, another ship detached from a private berth. Smaller than a freighter. Much faster than a tug.

Mina didn't see it.

In Venn's office, Sera Dane's contract screen showed one instruction above the payment figure.

Recover Arbor's core. The gardener's claim is not to survive review.