Chapter 5 — The Star Growers

The map warehouse is located under the dome, behind a wooden door bent by salt. Thao Nhi unlocked the lock with a long key, turned on the light and let the smell of old paper come out first. Rolls of maps stand in plastic tubes, some with years, some with only changed names.

“There is no stellar particle data here,” Lam said.

“Because star seeds haven't been born yet.”

“I need northwest winds.”

“Do you need the wind name or find a reason to trust the sensor?”

Lam looked at her. “I need both, but don't use one as evidence over the other.”

Thao Nhi nodded. She doesn't like young people who only come to the warehouse when they need a confirmation. She pulled out a tube of maps and placed it on the long table. 1998 map, yellowed paper, drawing tidal flats before Thin Cloud existed. Green arrows run from the sea, some days it says "salt wind on the roof".

“Roof layer?” Lam asked.

"Roofs, warehouses, domes. Wind doesn't just move across the ground. It's bent by material and height."

“Who is the artist?”

"A provincial geographical group. They went with the fishermen."

She opened another copy. On the edge is handwritten: "Don't trust an arrow unless you ask the person drying the net."

Lam burst out laughing. “You also keep such sentences as data?”

“I keep it to know that the artist knows he is not enough.”

Mien sat next to the map, using her finger to trace the arrow. She stopped at the outer lagoon, pointed to a small circle and turned to Lam.

“Right where the roof reflects,” Lam said.

Mien nodded. I took out my phone and typed: "In 1998 there was no roof. But the wind had come around."

“So Thin Cloud doesn't create direction, it can make it stronger.”

Thao Nhi listened and did not correct the word "maybe". She took another notebook from the salt maker, recording the whiteness of her hand's skin, the time the fry changed direction, and the day the seaweed dried quickly. The records have no standard units, but the time and place are clear.

“The national map does not use this book,” Lam said.

“Country map don't buy fish here.”

“Not all data goes into the model.”

“But any data gives us questions.”

Lam turns a page. Six years ago, the day of her false warning, the logbook recorded “northeast wind, smell of wet plastic, net not shaking”. Lam's sensor recorded the pressure drop. She trusted machines more than people. Later, the sensor was covered in plastic, but if she read the book, she could immediately recognize it.

“Have you told me about that mistake?” Lam asked.

“Many times.”

“She never said.”

“I talk to the whole class, not just my children.”

"Why?"

“Because I don't need another person to add my name to the old mistake.”

Lam silent. Thao Nhi does not avoid her responsibility, nor does she make her the only one who needs fixing. She put the pencil in Lam's hand.

“Put the date on the map.”

Lam recorded: 2041 — community station detected northwest wind on the third floor. Source: V-18, V-20, salt hut station, Cu observations, not officially calibrated.

“Adding 'it could be due to the roof's reflections',” Thao Nhi said.

Lam added.

Outside the warehouse door, Kha called to receive Bach's calibration procedure. The document was thirteen pages long, requiring a standard gas chamber, two reference gauges, and at least three simultaneous flights. Van Suong has no gas chamber, only the medical station's refrigerator, an old reference machine and six roofs.

“Mr. Bach knows we don't have enough,” Cu said as he looked at the documents.

“He knows,” Lam replied. “But the process cannot be written according to what the village has.”

“So what is the process for?”

“To know what we are missing.”

Mien wrote: "Lack of nothing means no action."

Ha brought a box of ice international. "The refrigerator can keep a stable temperature. The standard chamber cannot be replaced, but it can be used for cross-checking."

Lam shook his head. “It's not called standard.”

“Call it step one.”

They divided the work. Kha took V-19 and V-20 down to the medical room and left the two sensors with the same temperature for four hours. Cu took the handheld meter from the ship, even though it was not certified. Mien set up a vibration signal table for when the star particles lost contact. Thao Nhi marks each action on the paper map.

Just as we were preparing, the airspace department called back. The officer requested that all flying particles be stopped for two hours because a medical helicopter was passing over the coast.

“We have two counties that are on the low end,” Lam said. “One grain may not be able to be pulled back.”

"I'm sending the estimated coordinates. Collect the wire."

“What if the rope touches the net?”

“That is the responsibility of the releaser.”

Lam looked at Kha. He went to the beach. The northwest wind caused the V-20 rope to pull diagonally, no longer safe enough to retrieve by hand.

“We need a ten-minute window,” Lam said.

"Impossible."

“Star particles cannot listen to voice commands.”

“Miss Lam, I am ensuring aviation safety.”

“I am also ensuring ground safety.”

Call off. Lam doesn't know if the other person has the right to suspend the station or just has the responsibility to report it. She ran to the beach. Kha is wrapping the rope around the stake, Mien follows behind with the reflective rope.

“Can it be collected?” Lam asked.

"V-19 okay. V-20 pulled back to the net area."

“Cut the rope?”

“If you cut it, you'll lose it.”

"Don't cut. Pull into space."

Mien looked at the line and put his hand on the ground. She pointed towards a bamboo stake with a red mark, where the wind changed direction.

Kha doesn't understand. Lam looked at Thao Nhi's paper map: the northwest wind arrow circled the warehouse roof. She told Kha to change the pull point. They moved the poles and the ropes eased the tension. The V-20 drifted off the grid, but the locator lights flashed wildly.

“What is it sending?” Cu asked over the radio.

Mien pressed her hand against the body of the receiver. Three quick beats, one long beat.

“It's not pressure,” she wrote. “The string vibrates.”

Lam opened the data packet and realized the sensor was recording the vibrations of the wire itself. If not marked, someone will read it as gusty wind.

“Record wire status,” Lam said. “This copy is not for measuring.”

V-20 was taken down after eight minutes. The shell is scratched, the fan blades are stuck with mesh fibers. The airspace officer called back and said the flight had passed, but made a record to remind them because the release group had crossed the corridor.

Lam received the record, signed it and clearly stated that the particle was not on the flight path, but was 42 meters away from the plan. No one is happy.

“Do you have to write down the part you got wrong?” Cu asked.

“If you don't write it down, next time they will only remember you said the correct part.”

Remove the wire. "I'll redo the hallway. Maybe pull the rope off to the west."

“No more releases during the day.”

“But the data—”

“Yes.”

They brought two seeds into the medical room. For four hours, V-19 and V-20 were placed next to the reference machine. Temperature difference 0.4 degrees, pressure 1.2 hPa, salinity V-20 higher than 0.08. I don't know if it's because of the sensor or because the shell has salt on it.

Bach called at nearly midnight. He looked at the rough version and asked about the wire condition.

“If the wire vibrations cannot be isolated, the V-20 data at high altitude cannot be used,” he said.

“We made a mark.”

“The part of the wind before the string vibrates?”

“There are three minutes.”

“I need that copy.”

"For what?"

“Compare with shore stations.”

“Would you say it's valuable?”

“I would say it's conditional.”

Lam sent the marked package, including the original. Bach asked why she sent the error copy.

“Because the error sheet tells us where we made a mistake.”

"I understand."

“Do you ever delete a rough copy?”

Bach was silent for a beat. “Once. Because the system doesn't have enough space.”

“Do you remember it then?”

"Are not."

“Then don't ask us to do what you did.”

Bach did not object. “I didn't ask. I'm studying.”

In the room, Mien heard the last sentence through Lam typing it again on the board. She wrote: "Learning needs a teacher."

Lam gave the board to Bach through the camera. He looked, then nodded.

The next morning, Thao Nhi's paper map was placed next to the calibration results. An old northwest wind stream, a V-18 stream, a V-19 stream. The three lines do not overlap completely, but point to the reflective roof area.

Cu stood on the porch, looking at the lagoon. “The fry still walk backwards.”

Ha reported that two people had more dry coughs and did not need emergency treatment.

Lam opened the book. She recorded a low-level internal warning: “Monitor salty wind layer, danger not yet confirmed; Medical stations prepare eyewash and filter towels; Do not move the device arbitrarily.”

She read it to everyone before broadcasting it. No one objected, but Mrs. Mui asked: "If it's not dangerous, why prepare?"

Ha replied: “Because preparation is cheaper than panic.”

Lam sent a message. That's not a storm warning. No one left the village, no one built a dress. But nine families changed filter towels, three people stored drinking water, and a group of children stopped playing in the windy beach.

At noon, the V-20 starlet sent one last data packet from its location outside the lagoon. It doesn't fall. It just turned off the light and drifted into the blue sky.

Kha asked if he was looking for it.

Lam looked at the wind. “Not yet. First write it is lost.”

Mien touched the table, transmitting a short beat. She wrote: "Loss does not mean no more."

Lam wrote that sentence in his diary, next to V-20's final coordinates.

The next day, Lam printed the 1998 map in two font sizes. The large copy is hung in the cultural house, the small copy is folded into the bag of each team on duty. On the map, the old wind path was not drawn with straight arrows but with broken lines, because the painter at that time only recorded the direction according to discrete observations. Bach doesn't like its precision, but admits that a broken line is better than a blank space that is considered nothing.

Mien and Thao Nhi walked along the old ditch, taking photos of each filled-in section and marking the places where reed roots remained. I don't need a V-20 to work. I used a mechanical compass, some colored paper strips and a homemade vibration box. When the wind passes through the narrow ditch, the paper strip does not fly up but presses close to the ground. Thao Nhi calls it a sign of a low flow.

In the afternoon, they discovered that a newly erected wall had covered the old observation point. The homeowner apologized, saying he didn't know what the ancient map was used for. Thao Nhi did not ask to remove the wall. She only suggested leaving a small observation hole and recording it on the new map. Van Suong could not keep everything intact for the purpose of measuring. It must learn to measure in an ever-changing place.

Lam sent an update to Bach, with a line: “When we lost the seeds in the sky, we learned more about the ground.” Bach responded with a yes symbol and a sample request. V-20 has not yet been found, but its absence is no longer the end. In the duty book, Mien added: "Equipment may be lost. Perspective should not be lost.”