The Terrace Loop Fails, and the Eden Strawberry Is Lost
2827 UCSD, Early Autumn
Eden's ring terraces are held under a grant written in 2671 UCSD, the habitat's first year, that puts every valve on the terrace loop under a grower's hand. The Warden sees the loop only where it meets the habitat's water, at its intake and its drain, and has never turned a valve on it.
In the early autumn of 2827 the loop chiller on the six fruit terraces failed for three days and a water mould spread through the shared loop. The Warden filed an assessment of root disease at sixty-eight in a hundred, stating first that its 2825 estimate of fouled water on terrace three had been wrong, and asked for the terraces to be isolated from the loop. The Terrace Committee voted four to one to wait for the culture and minuted Noted. Pending confirmation. Mayor Imogen Petrakis posted a review of the grant's valve clause on the three days' notice the grant requires. The review closed the loop on the fourth day. The culture confirmed the mould on the fifth.
Every Eden strawberry on the terraces died, the nursery row's mother plants included. The line had been kept on the ring by cutting since Eden's first year, so seed could not restore it. The one plant of the line known to survive was on the children's row: Lev Saunders had taken his home on the second day and kept it under terrace light the Warden gave his window. In the sixth week he gave the Committee's chair, Tomas Brennock, a rooted runner from it.
Canon facts:
- In early autumn 2827 UCSD the loop chiller on Eden's six fruit terraces failed for three days and a water mould spread through the shared loop; the Warden filed an assessment of root disease at sixty-eight in a hundred, stating first that its 2825 estimate of fouled water on terrace three had been wrong, and asked for the terraces to be isolated from the loop.
- The Terrace Committee voted four to one to wait for the culture and minuted Noted. Pending confirmation. Mayor Petrakis posted a review of the grant's valve clause on the three days' notice the grant requires; the review closed the loop on the fourth day, and the culture confirmed the mould on the fifth.
- Every Eden strawberry on the terraces died, the nursery row's mother plants included; the line had been kept on the ring by cutting since Eden's first year, so seed could not restore it. The one plant known to survive was on the children's row.