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“You’re getting lazy,” Ezra Kowalski informed the cucumber plant as he squinted at its newest tendril, which had chosen to grow in entirely the wrong direction. “Five perfectly good trellises, and you decide to reach for the compost bin instead.” The plant, predictably, offered no excuse for its behavior. “Don’t think I won’t correct you,” he muttered, carefully redirecting the wayward tendril toward its proper support. “There. Much better. Try to keep yourself together, Charlotte. You’re making the others look bad.” The morning light from Halcyon’s twin suns cast a peculiar glow over Ezra’s garden—amber from one direction, pale blue from the other—creating shadows that stretched in two directions at once. He straightened up with a grunt, his knees protesting the movement with an impressive series of pops. At seventy-something (he’d stopped counting precisely a few years back, finding age to be increasingly irrelevant), he figured his joints had earned the right to complain. He, on the other hand, did not have such luxury. “Perfect growing conditions,” he announced to his garden at large, ignoring the fact that he said this every morning regardless of the actual weather. “Couldn’t ask for better.” His weather station—a contraption that looked like it had been assembled from spare parts and sheer stubbornness—chose that moment to emit a disagreeable beep. Ezra scowled at it. “Nobody asked you.” The device beeped again, more insistently. “Fine.” He shuffled over to examine the readout, squinting at the flickering display. “Twenty percent humidity? That’s not right.” He gave the machine a solid thwack with the palm of his hand. The number jumped to twenty-one percent. “Better. Still wrong, but better.” Ezra’s garden spread out before him in what an observer might charitably call an organized chaos. To him, it was a masterpiece of agricultural engineering. To anyone else, it looked like a mad scientist had been let loose with cucumber seeds and far too much free time. Trellises spiraled in geometric patterns that made sense only to their creator. Irrigation lines zigged and zagged in defiance of conventional plumbing wisdom. And in the center of it all stood Ezra’s pride and joy: thirty-six varieties of cucumber, each labeled with hand-carved wooden markers bearing names like “Elizabeth,” “Darcy,” and “Rochester.” “Good morning, Mr. Darcy,” he said, stopping to inspect a particularly robust plant. “Looking rather pleased with yourself today, aren’t you? Well, don’t get cocky. Your flowers are opening too early. Again.” He made a note in the small, battered journal he kept in his back pocket. The pages were so crammed with observations, pressed leaves, and soil samples that the binding had given up and was now reinforced with what appeared to be electrical tape, twine, and optimism. Ezra’s morning inspection ritual continued with him shuffling from plant to plant, delivering equal parts criticism and grudging praise. To an outside observer, it might have seemed like the ramblings of a lonely old man. Which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely inaccurate. But to Ezra, it was simply how one maintained proper discipline in a garden. Plants needed guidance, structure. Like children. Not that he’d know firsthand about the latter. “You’re looking peaky, Heathcliff,” he informed a slightly wilting specimen. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. Trying to get extra water by playing sick? I invented that trick.” Nevertheless, he adjusted the dripper to provide a bit more moisture. “This is special treatment. Don’t tell the others.” The sun rose higher as Ezra completed his rounds, his shadow shortening as the amber light intensified. His stomach gave a pointed grumble, reminding him of the next item on his unwavering daily schedule. Continue reading this cozy sci-fi in Kindle Unlimited. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJS1N399