Chapter 43: The Secret Greenhouse
Alex knelt in the damp soil of the Empress's garden, the morning sun warming his back. He stared at the tiny green sprouts as if they were the most precious jewels in the imperial treasury. And, in truth, they were. Each fragile shoot, pushing its way defiantly through the dark earth, represented a power greater than any legion, a wealth more profound than any gold mine. It was the power of survival.
The elation that surged through him was immense, a giddy, light-headed relief that almost made him laugh aloud. It had worked. His impossible, desperate gamble on a dead root and a ghost of a memory had paid off. For a moment, he allowed himself to bask in the pure, unadulterated triumph of it.
Then, the cold, hard reality of his situation reasserted itself. He counted them. Nine. Nine fragile, infant plants. This wasn't a harvest that could feed a city. This was a genetic archive, a tiny, irreplaceable seed bank. It was everything, and it was also next to nothing. The famine was a raging inferno, and he was holding a single cup of water. He needed to turn that cup into a river, and he needed to do it faster than nature intended.
He rushed back to his study, his mind racing. Timo, his silent, watchful guardian, saw the look on his face and simply bowed, stepping aside to let him pass. Alex went straight to the laptop. The thermoelectric generator had become part of the room's daily ritual, the coals tended, the water refreshed, feeding a constant, life-saving trickle into the machine. The battery icon hovered at a low but stable 3.4%.
"Lyra," he said, his voice urgent. "The tubers have sprouted. Nine viable plants have emerged. I need an emergency agricultural acceleration plan. Now."
Acknowledged, Lyra's voice replied, her systems still running in a low-power state that made her responses feel more deliberate. Analyzing horticultural data. Standard propagation from these nine initial plants will be too slow. Awaiting the natural tuber production for a full harvest would take a minimum of one full growing season. My projections indicate widespread societal collapse, including major riots and military desertions, within four months. We cannot wait for a natural harvest.
"So what do we do?" Alex demanded. "How do we speed it up?"
We must abandon traditional methods and create an optimal growth environment, Lyra explained. We must accelerate the growth cycle of the existing plants and simultaneously maximize propagation from every part of the plant structure. We need to build a greenhouse.
"A greenhouse?" Alex asked. "With what? I don't have glass."
Glass is not a necessity. The objective is to trap heat and humidity. Thinly scraped and oiled parchment, stretched across a wooden frame, will be a sufficient substitute. It will be translucent, allowing sunlight to pass through while retaining a stable, warm, and humid micro-climate. The screen displayed a simple but effective design.