Four green hooks broke the surface of the planter.
Adam counted them from the edge of the shade while he waited for the first basin to fill.
Yesterday there had been only damp kelp.
The shoots had bent as they pushed through, and two still wore bits of the dark medium on their leaves.
He touched none of them.
The planter readout showed four radishes growing, planted on Day 16.
It still gave an estimated harvest around Day 54.
Chloe crossed from her raft with the stripped kelp she had left to dry overnight.
She stopped before she reached the shade.
“They came up.
Harlan, come and look.”
“Can see green from here,” Harlan said.
He kept hauling his net.
“You can’t.
Your eyes are terrible.”
He came over after he had secured the net.
Chloe pointed to each shoot as if he might miss one.
Her own bottle of three seedlings stood beside the planter.
The leaves were still yellow at their edges, but the stems had stopped leaning quite so far after she had moved them into better light.
“Mine were bigger,” she said.
“These look healthier.”
“Give yours a few days,” Adam said.
“You gave them bird muck yesterday.
I am giving them a few days.”
Harlan asked when he could eat a radish.
Adam showed him the estimate.
He made a noise and went back to the fish.
The shoots would not feed them for weeks.
Adam cooked the remaining fish from yesterday while Harlan set his net.
Chloe had managed to dry enough fibre for two full ropes.
The short lengths she had made yesterday went into the first one, and she worked more of the fresh kelp while they ate.
A buyer in another sector offered five Wood for two ropes.
Adam asked Chloe whether she wanted to keep them for the rafts.
She checked the joins between their three and said Harlan had enough for tonight.
They had no spare on Adam’s raft, but six Wood there would not buy two new tiles either.
Five more Wood could go towards a larger build once she made the next ropes.
“Sell them,” she said.
“If it rains, the wet kelp can still sit on my raft and make itself useful later.”
He accepted.
The two Ropes went into the shared window and five Wood appeared in his inventory.
Chloe watched the exchange complete.
Adam set the Wood under his shade, away from her drying fibre.
[Barter complete: 2 Rope for 5 Wood.]
Regional Chat had filled with reports of rain that morning.
One shower had crossed a sector south of them.
Two more had fallen to the west.
People who had been offering cloth and wood for water were filling buckets instead.
[RainMan_Ted] Four units in my catch bucket.
Didn’t even have the recipe ready.
[Marnie_S] We got rain.
The tarp would have caught more of it.
[Saltking] Told you.
Water never holds its opening price once everyone can catch it.
Adam’s sector had thin cloud but no rain.
The purifiers kept working through the breaks and made six units that day, less than the twelve they could produce in full sun.
He took his usual three units, then filled two of Chloe’s 1 L bottles with one unit of Water each.
The buyers’ messages thinned.
At three Wood per unit, his offer sat unanswered for most of the day.
One person proposed two Wood and wanted the water immediately.
Adam sent one litre in a one-litre bottle for the two Wood.
The buyer kept the bottle with the water; its empty came back in a second barter, costing him one of his remaining trades.
He marked the lower price on the scrap of tarp Chloe had given him: Day 21, two Wood.
Rain in three sectors.
Harlan landed six fish by evening, enough for all three people and a few to sell.
Adam ran the cook stand while Chloe brought over a torn piece of cloth caught in her kelp.
Three usable scraps came out of it after they cut away the part soaked with oil.
Adam took them as common supplies; Chloe said she would need one if the bottle plants required a shade of their own.
He wrote C3 on the tarp.
They ate fish under the shade.
Chloe’s share of water was already in her own bottles.
Harlan still had rainwater saved from the squall.
Adam had offered him water anyway.
Harlan told him to save it for the person who would pay for it.
At night the rafts came together.
Chloe kept working a fresh rope while she talked, pulling the strands taut, then letting the half-finished length rest when her fingers hurt.
Harlan put his net away before they tied up.
Frey’s group had not appeared to the north, but nobody wanted a loose net between the rafts if they needed to separate quickly.
The next morning Adam found his water offer still unanswered.
Two messages asked for fish.
Someone wanted a rope.
Chloe had another one ready and enough drying fibre to make more.
He cooked the previous evening’s catch and traded two of the fish for a small plank and a strip of clean cloth.
The buyer returned the cloth with the plank after admitting it was too small to count as a full scrap.
Adam took the plank and left the cloth out of his tally.
The two ropes they had sold were gone.
Chloe made three more over the next two days from the dried kelp.
She left one by the crate and kept two on her raft.
Adam no longer stopped to decide whose rope went to which repair.
Harlan showed her a quicker twist; she tried it, then kept the parts that held.
Adam took the hook pole out between trades.
The morning current carried a run of loose boards close to them.
He gathered three Wood with the pole and Harlan pushed one more plank towards him with an oar.
With the plank from the fish trade, that was five new Wood.
Adam now had the six he began with, five from the rope sale, four from water over the two days, and five found or traded for here: twenty.
He put the count on the tarp rather than leave the boards in a stack where one might roll away.
Harlan took the longer pieces off Adam’s raft for the night; he could hand them back when Adam needed to craft.
The second water buyer also offered two Wood for one unit.
Adam filled a 1 L bottle from the jerrycan and put it in the window.
The buyer confirmed, and the bottle went with the Water.
Its empty came back in a second barter.
Adam accepted instead of holding to the old three-Wood price.
He had sold two units since the rain began.
A week earlier he could have sold all the water he made and still had more requests.
Today a seller in Sector 9 was trying to move a rain catcher for less than the price of its parts.
Rain had missed them, but the purifiers kept producing through the cloudy breaks.
On Day 22 they made six units as well.
Each day, Adam used three, Chloe received two, and one was sold: 9 + 6 − 3 − 2 − 1 = 9.
Both days ended with nine Water in the jerrycan and bottles.
Over the two days, the purifiers made twelve, Adam and Chloe used ten, and two were sold.
The planter’s medium stayed damp; Adam used no extra Water on it during those days.
They had six cooked fish in the crate after eating and the small sale.
The cook stand had burned a little dry wood from Harlan’s raft.
Adam offered fish in the regional chat before he offered water again.
A buyer wanted three, but the ten-kilogram exchange was not the problem; the fish would still spoil if the buyer delayed.
Adam asked for an answer before night and went back to his own supper.
A report from another sector arrived in Global, repeated so often that his filter caught it even though he had not searched for the place.
[Cutter_9] Sector 6 had a raft gang come straight at two tied rafts.
Took the net, a bucket and food.
They could steer.
[Jonno] How?
[Cutter_9] Board on a hinge at the back.
They picked who to hit.
It wasn’t the current.
There were other versions of the story.
One said three people had been hurt.
Another said nobody had been hurt and the owners had given up the bucket.
Adam could not tell which account was accurate.
The report about the board on a hinge was repeated by two survivors who said they had watched the rafts approach.
He told Harlan and Chloe that much.
Harlan set a fish down beside the cook stand.
“That’s next, then.
Once someone can choose where to go, they can choose us.”
Chloe looked north.
No rafts were visible in the late light.
“Frey already rows where he wants.”
“For a while,” Harlan said.
“A proper steering board works when a man’s too tired to row.”
Adam asked him what held the board in place.
Harlan sketched a flat piece of wood with a hinge at the back and a handle reaching forward.
Adam checked Crafting.
He had no steering recipe.