Chapter 3 — The Star Growers

Six rooftops volunteered to accept the station, but only five people agreed to sign. The old school roof has no clear manager, the salt guard tower belongs to the cooperative, and the observation dome is the property of the commune. Lam sat in a small conference room, in front of him were six forms with blank lines.

“If you don't sign, you won't install it,” she said.

Kha stood next to the door, holding a bundle of bamboo. “Install first, sign later?”

"Are not."

“Is the wind waiting for paper?”

“The person receiving the station has the right to know what it measures, who gets to see it and when to remove it.”

Cu tapped his pen on the table. "What about the person who doesn't sign but still wants to know the wind?"

“Name the community, not the individual.”

“Sounds like you built a whole court for a ball.”

“Because the ball could fly over someone's house.”

Thao Nhi poured tea into six plastic cups. She did not calm down the controversy. She just gave Lam an old piece of paper, where the community had established a convention to divide the country in five droughts. Each line records the recipient, time and right to object.

“There was no data that year,” she said. "But there are conventions. New data shouldn't make the village forget how to ask each other."

Mien sat in the corner and removed two navigation lights. I cut a strip of red tape and attached it to the low station case. When Lam asked, Mien wrote: "The low station sees. The high station only sends."

“You mean the light helps people on the ground know where the station is?”

Mien nodded.

Add a line to the application: "If contact is lost, people will not climb the roof to find it."

She always thinks about what real people will do when data is corrupted, not thinking about the device as a self-existing object.

When the temporary documents were completed, they brought the station to Mrs. Mui's house. She set up a bamboo stake in the middle of a bed of sea spinach and tied a conical hat to the top of the stake to "keep from getting lost". Kha remove the cone, place the receiving station in the plastic box.

“My hat keeps the rain out,” she said.

“The station doesn't need a hat.”

“The station doesn't need it, the people who work on it need it.”

Lam checked the ground. Sea spinach grows low and has thick leaves due to salt. Mrs. Mui planted it to keep the land, not to sell it. She asked if the star seeds would kill the vegetables.

“No. It didn't spray anything down.”

“What if it falls?”

"Call us. Don't touch the pulse."

“What if my house is carried away by the wind?”

“Not to that extent.”

Mrs. Mui tilted her head. “Don't say 'no' without thinking.”

Lam recorded her words in the notebook: reassurance sentences must have scope.

The second station is located on the roof of the old school. Cracked concrete roof, low railings. Measuring the vibration when the truck passes on the road below, then chooses a location near the water tank instead of in the middle of the roof. She uses hand signs with Kha: two fingers turn, three fingers stop, flat hand. Kha didn't understand, but Lam translated.

“Mien told me to leave three loops of the anchor rope, not wrap it close to the pole.”

“Why don't you say it directly?” Kha asked.

Mien looked at him, pointed to his ear, then pointed to the wire. She wrote: “I speak faster with my hands.”

Kha nodded, please teach me the symbol set. For the first time, I didn't try to speak slower for you; he tried to look closer.

The third station is at Cu factory. He didn't want to put it on the roof because he was afraid of welding sparks, so he made a shelf to hang it on the porch. The high ball must fly over the drying fish net area. Cu requested that the release time be clearly recorded so that workers know how to remove the rope.

“What if I forget?” Cu asked.

“The station will prompt.”

“Which station knows I forgot?”

“Please set the bell to ring.”

Cu looked at Mien. “What is a ringing bell?”

Mien placed a small box in his palm. It vibrated three times when the anchor rope was tensioned incorrectly. Cu frowned, then asked to make another one for the pump.

At the salt hut, the new station receives white dust particles sticking to the filter membrane. Kha uses a water stick Sample the semen, put it in a clean bottle. Lam cannot call it sea salt because it has not been tested. Thao Nhi wrote the label: "white sample — 16:20 — salt hut — person married to Kha".

“What are you looking at?” Lam asked when he saw Thao Nhi looking up at the sky.

“Clouds don't have this border.”

“It's a feeling.”

“Feeling is a reminder to find measurements.”

The installation session lasted until sunset. Five stations send data. The sixth station on the dome does not turn on. Lam climbed up and saw the power cord removed from the battery. Next to it was a piece of paper scrawled: "Don't call the wind to my house."

No one knows who placed it. Kha wants to report to the commune. Cu wants to find someone to remove it. Lam said not to do both right away.

“What if that person is afraid?” Ha asked.

“You have to know what they are afraid of before saying they are wrong.”

Thao Nhi looked at the piece of paper. “In the village, fear often has the name of someone who has done wrong.”

Lam understood what she was talking about.

Cu did not dodge. "Six years ago you sent a false warning. People lost fish. People were afraid that the stars would also follow that night."

"I know."

“I know but I still stutter.”

“Because of the previous mistake of not stopping the wind from existing.”

“It also doesn't make people forget.”

"There's no need to forget. It needs to be clearly written down."

Mien stood in front of a piece of paper, took a pencil and wrote below the old sentence: "Whoever removed the station, write down the reason for knowing next time."

Ha read it, then took tape and stuck it together. No one deleted the threatening line. Lam said to keep it as part of the community diary.

In the evening, the receiver at Mrs. Mui's house sent data containing three packets of increased saltiness. The old school station did not increase. Cu factory station increased slightly. Salt hut stations increased sharply. The distance between the hut and the school is 300 meters.

“Which station is correct?” Cu asked.

“Both could be right,” Lam replied.

“There are two types of wind in an area of 300 meters?”

“There may be.”

“You said ‘maybe’ again.”

“Because we don't have enough to talk about tonight.”

Mien looked at the number line and took two red and blue pieces of cardboard. I put red at the salt hut, blue at school, then used a wire to connect the two points. In the middle, I leave it blank.

“You want the seventh station?” Lam asked.

Mien wrote: “Space also needs to be measured.”

Kha said there is a spare receiver in the grid warehouse. But it doesn't have a salt-proof cover yet. Cu told me to cut a water bottle in half. Thao Nhi said to clearly write down temporary items, so that later people don't think they are correct.

They installed the seventh station in a plastic box, placed on the roof of Ms. Ha's house. Ha signs to accept but adds a condition: if the data displayed is wrong and causes panic, the team must come and explain directly, without sending a message.

Lam agrees.

An hour later, the Lower station sent a temperature 1.2 degrees lower than the Long station, with an intermediate salinity. The wind changes according to the height and hardness of the roofs.

“The star garden is starting to take shape,” Thao Nhi said.

Lam looked at the dots on the screen. They don't form a nice line. They are like discrete notes on a song whose rhythm is unknown.

At that moment, a pickup truck stopped in front of the dome. The man wearing an aviation uniform stepped down, holding an envelope with a red seal.

“I'm from the Central Airspace Coordination Office,” he said. “There is a request to check the ball dropping activities at Van Suong.”

Kha looked at the flying particles. “Is it now?”

The man did not reply. He gave the paper to Lam.

One line included: “Suspend all drone release activities until risk assessment is complete.”

On the screen, the V-20 particle had just sent a new data packet. The wind direction at high altitudes changed from northwest to west, the speed doubled.

Lam folded the paper and did not sign immediately.

“If we stop,” Cu asked, “we'll still know What?"

Lam looked at the darkening sky, then looked at the star bead that was a small dot on the screen.

“Knowing that we were told to stop,” she said. “And the wind continues.”

The proposal to stop the launch does not make the rooftops any quieter. On the contrary, people began to hear sounds that were obscured by the sound of engines and announcement speakers: electric wires vibrating on poles, tarpaulins slapping against fences, shells rolling in the gutter. Thao Nhi told everyone not to turn every sound into a sign. She gave each group a note, asking them to write down any mishearings.

At the roof of Ms. Luu's family, station V-17 was unplugged. She said she did not want to turn the roof into a testing ground for a wind that no one could name. Lam did not argue. She asked her if she agreed to let someone else put a wind measuring cloth on the fence. Ms. Luu nodded, but requested that all data be read to her every night.

“I'm not afraid of machines,” she said. “I'm afraid the machine will speak for me and then people will say I agreed.”

Lam wrote that sentence in the data rights book. She began to realize that a monitoring network needed more than just a lot of sensors. It requires small agreements about who gets to open the box, who gets to see the original, and who gets to ask to remove their home's image from the map. Without those agreements, Star Garden would be just another form of peering into other people's lives from afar.

In the schoolyard, the children shared a map with chalk. One child drew a house, one drew a ditch, another drew the direction of the wind with zigzag lines. When the teacher asked which way was correct, they pointed to different ways. No one will delete it. Thao Nhi said the first map of a place is often a map of different things people remember.

At the end of the day, Lam gathered six groups. Five stations are still operating, one station is waiting for new approval. Strange packets appeared in three locations less than a kilometer apart. Bach sent a letter reminding him that the results were not enough for publication. Lam responded with a three-column table: measured, checking, can't say yet. She did not send a confirmation. She sent proof that the village had learned to wait without standing still.

That night, the person on duty wrote the weather by hand on the big board. There is no such thing as "normal heaven". They recorded: “low wind, light change; The smell of salt increases on the lagoon side; "There has been no impact on the school yet." A longer sentence, but more useful. On the roof, the remaining stations flashed their lights at irregular intervals. Van Suong had not yet been given permission to launch more particles, but it had begun to gather something else: the consensus of those living under the sky.