Chapter 1 — The Star Growers

The star planting lesson began with a child spilling an entire pot of salty soil onto the console. Da Lam was bending over to hold the bamboo frame when he heard the sound of falling ground. Looking up, he saw little Ti standing still, his hands covered in mud, his eyes looking at the signal receiver as if he had just broken something that could not be bought back.

“It's okay,” Lam said. "If soil falls, pick it up. It's the burning circuit that's difficult."

Before she could laugh, she used a cloth to cover the receiver and brush every particle of dirt from the radiator slot. The smell of damp earth mixed with the smell of recycled plastic in the old dome of Van Suong Star Station. Outside, the tidal flats sparkled in the late-season sun, and seaweed drying nets hung between wooden poles. In the classroom, seventeen children sat around three assembled tables, each with an unfinished sensor box.

“She said the ground must be dry,” little Han said.

"Soil to grow plants needs to be moist. Soil placed next to veins needs to be in the right place."

Lam took a small brush and pushed the soil out of the power button. She didn't yell at Ti, but she also didn't act like she had a cute accident. Star growers need to know that a small error can cause the entire measurement chain to be lost.

On the board, she wrote three lines:

Measure.

Take note.

Clearly state the uncertain part.

“Today we will hang star seed number V-18 in the low wind layer,” Lam said. "It will not see the future. It will only record pressure, temperature, salinity and wind speed while flying. When it falls, it sends the final version to the receiving station."

“So why is it called star?” asked a child.

"Because when it's dark, its lights flicker. Because one particle doesn't make the sky."

Thao Nhi stood next to the window, holding an old atlas. She does not participate in class by sitting and listening. She passed each table, watching children write their names on the inside of the box lid. Name of installer, installation time, replacement material and non-release condition. She said that a device must have someone remember it to become the village's data, and not just a flying plastic item.

Outside in the yard, Vo Kha is checking the lifting rope. He is tall, has thin shoulders, and has long scratches on his arms from the net. Next to him is Pham An Cu, the train engine repairman at the end of the hamlet. Cu doesn't attend class, but always shows up when something is about to be sent up into the sky.

“I'll say it first,” Cu called in, “the wind today is not like the bulletin board.”

Lam walked out onto the porch. “Which bulletin board?”

"District station bulletin board. Second level southeast wind, calm sea surface. Outside the lagoon there is a layer of foam running backwards."

“You saw it?”

“My ship lies there.”

“Then write it down.”

“I'm not a sensor.”

"You're the one on the water. Data comes in many ways."

Cu frowned. “You said that again.”

Lam knew he was remembering the false alarm six years ago. At that time, the community station received a series of rapid pressure drops, Lam sent a message telling more than a hundred ships in the lagoon to turn back. The wind doesn't come. The fish ran away from the spawning grounds, people lost a night of fishing and a whole week of income. The next day, she discovered that the sensor was wrapped in a wet plastic bag and the readings were wrong due to heat. She apologized and publicly announced the reason, but the apology could not pay for the oil.

Cu was the one who had to pull his brother's boat to shore that night. From then on, he only trusted the vibration of the machine and his eyes, not the beautiful graph lines.

“There is no warning today,” Lam said.

"Good. Don't make it a study session."

Kha pulled the rope. The V-18 star particle is located in a round shell made of clear membrane, below which hangs a small sensor and navigation light. The bamboo frame is made from old mesh, tied with hemp fibers soaked in bio-resin. It's not beautiful. A joint still wrapped in yellow tape, a directional fan rotates slightly askew.

“Fix the propeller,” Lam said.

“If repaired, the wind window will be lost.”

“If not corrected, the direction number is wrong.”

Kha looked at the sky. “Twelve minutes.”

“Twelve minutes is enough to lose a day.”

Mien stood under the table, using her fingertips to touch the body of the receiver. She couldn't hear the rattling of the fan but could hear vibrations through the wooden surface. Mien pulled out a thin piece of rubber from his pocket and slipped it under the stand.

Lam looked down. “What do you do?”

Mien pointed to the vibrating metal part, then wrote on the small board: "The weld on the left is 2 mm higher."

“What do you measure by?”

Mien raised her finger, then used a caliper. "Vibrate."

Lam removed the fan blade and measured again. Mien is right. She didn't say "good job" like she would say to a child. She gave Mien the screwdriver.

"I'll fix it. Kha keeps the frame."

Mien looked up, a bit surprised. The little girl is often given the task of labeling by adults, because everyone is afraid that she won't be able to listen. Mien tightened the weld with a small clamp, working slowly but firmly.

From the coastal medical station, Nguyen Ha brought two bottles of water and a bag of anti-allergy medicine. She heard Lam talking about the class and immediately asked for a list of people who might have difficulty breathing if it rained salty water. Lam replied that today was just a test session, there were no risks.

“No risk is a phrase that should not be used,” Ha said. “There are only unknown risks.”

Thao Nhi looked over. “I taught geography for thirty years, that sentence sounds annoying.”

“But it's easier to use than 'don't worry'.”

Ha put the list on the table. Names of the elderly, children, people with asthma and three houses with salt stoves. She wants each warning to come with something to do: close the seafront windows, put away the nets, check the drinking water. Lam nodded and added a blank box: "who received it".

Kha took the frame to the beach. Cu was still standing there. He pointed to the low clouds on the horizon.

“If you let go this way, you'll get caught in the oyster farming team's net.”

Lam looks at the wind map on the tablet. “We choose the northwest direction.”

“The wind table says southeast.”

“I'm talking about the outer measurement of the lagoon.”

“You just said you're not a sensor.”

“So do you want me to remove your eyes or remove the board?”

Cu did not reply. He used his hand to point to a space between two net posts. "Let it go over there. But the rope must be shorter."

Lam changes plans, notes the reason. She didn't want to turn Cu's opinion into an order, but she also didn't want the data to start by ignoring a person standing where the device hadn't yet reached.

Kha counts from five. The star beads vibrate on the string, the small light turns amber. The children looked up simultaneously. It rose slowly, over the dome, past the old antenna mast, and was then pulled by the wind toward the tidal flats.

Lam looked at the screen. Pressure is fine. The temperature was 0.6 degrees higher than expected. Salinity was not unusual during the first seven minutes.

“See?” Cu said. “Just a ball.”

Mien touched the receiver with her fingertips. She turned to Lam and shook her head.

“What do you see?”

Mien pulled out the small board, drew four long lines, then one short line. I pointed to the sky, pointed to the screen, then wrote: "The wind does not go with the shadow."

Lam zoomed in on the map. The V-18's locator signal was to the west, but the wind direction sensor recorded the flow from the south. The two data layers do not match. She was about to say it was because of the propeller, but Mien fixed the propeller and the data still changed.

“Ha, don't let the rope go any further.”

The star seed is too high to pull down easily. Kha held the coil and looked at her. "What is up?"

“Don't know yet.”

“So what is it called?”

Lam checked again. On the tidal flats, pieces of dry seaweed fly east. Overhead, V-18 drifted northwest. Two The wind layer runs backwards.

“It's called different,” she said. “Not dangerous yet.”

At that moment, the star particle jerked violently. The navigation light flashes three times, then turns off. The rope sags. The balloon shell lost its tension and fell in a curve toward Mrs. Mui's sea spinach bed.

The children ran after them, but Lam told them to stop. Kha put on gloves and waded through the mud. The star seed is stuck between the vegetable vines, the sensor still lights up a red dot.

Mien comes first. I didn't lift it, just touched the shell.

Lam opened the data cover. A final line appears, interrupted due to power loss:

LEVEL PACK 3 — SALT WIND FROM THE NORTHWEST.

There is no northwest wind layer in the noon news.

Lam looked out to sea. The tidal flats are still bright, the village still hears the sound of the seaweed grinder, children still laugh around the earthen table. Only on the screen, a layer of sky just appeared in a place no one named.

“Write a warning,” Cu said.

Lam folds the lid of the machine. "Not yet."

“You just saw the data.”

“A falling star, the measuring chain is not enough.”

“If you wait enough, the wind will come.”

Mien pulled Lam's sleeve and pointed to the last line. She wrote on the board: "It's not that the star seed is wrong. It fell because of the wind."

Lam looked at the words. I don't know if you're right or just want to protect the device you just repaired. She also didn't know if the two levels of wind were a sign of the weather or interference from the fan blades.

But for the first time in six years, she saw the fear of false warning and the fear of not warning running parallel, like two winds high above.

She took out a notebook and wrote down the time the star fell, the witnesses, the tidal conditions, and the unconfirmed data stream.

At the bottom of the page, she wrote an unspoken sentence:

“On Van Suong there is a layer of wind that the map does not know how to name.”

Lam closed the book but did not stand up immediately. The rest of the room kept looking at her, waiting for a neater conclusion. Mrs. Nam selling vegetables asked if she needed to take the children up the hill. Another person asked why the data only appeared on the small box and not on the district map. Lam explained that the star had only been in flight for seventeen minutes, its altitude was not yet stable, and the salinity sensor needed to be checked with ground samples. She spoke slowly, allowing the transcriber to write, then repeated with simpler words.

“I don't know if that layer of wind is dangerous,” Lam said. “But I knew it was worth checking out.”

Mien stood next to it, looking at the flashing numbers. I took a pen and marked three lines: time, wind direction, and salinity. Then I circled around the empty space in the height column. Without altitude, a wind direction is just an arrow lacking ground to fall on.

Cu pulled the chair closer to the table. "Tomorrow I'll go to the lagoon. If another seed can fly, I'll let it go this way." He pointed to the map, where the water changed color with the tide.

Lam looked at the arrow, then looked at the star bead lying on the tray. It doesn't look like a life saver. It's like a question wrapped in thin string, requiring many people to hold it so it won't be blown away by the wind. She added in her diary: "No orders issued. Open an investigation."

On the porch, sensor lights turn on automatically when it gets dark. A small dot of light on the cultural roof answered it in light blue. Van Suong did not have an answer for the strange wind, but from that night, the village had a new way to not rush to turn the unknown into something non-existent.