The Night Harvest

At 17:40 Jo fitted the transfer sieve under the nursery outlet. The mesh was fine enough to catch a glasslace no bigger than a pin scratch, and she had rinsed it twice. The collection bag hung from the lower spout, weighted with two liters of conditioned water. Toma's first stock was due at six.

Twelve days was the usual shipment. Jo's log had a column for it, written in her own hand: DAY 12 — FREE-SWIMMING. The storm had closed the coast road for five days, so this batch had reached seventeen. She had never held glasslaces past twelve. They had eaten well, molted clear. There were no dead ones. That was the trouble.

At 17:52 the work-light timer clicked. The overhead bank went out. In the sudden dark the tank seemed to empty. No flecks drifted against the black, no pale cloud at the outlet. Jo opened the transfer valve a quarter turn. Clear water ran into the bag. She shut it, then hit the manual work light.

The animals came back in the white glare: hundreds of them, small as splintered glass, turning in the current. Jo looked at the camera monitor. Its individual count had fallen to zero at lights-out, as if the tank held nothing. The oxygen meter beside it still read 6.4. The compressor hummed at thirty-eight percent.

She was reaching for the valve again when boots sounded on the ramp.

"You relit it," Toma said. She stood in the doorway with two clean buckets, rain still beading on her jacket. Her gaze went past Jo to the tank. "I saw the work light come on from the lane."

Jo set the bag straight. "Tank went quiet at lights-out."

"Quiet." Toma came in, not waiting for an invitation, and looked at the compressor first. "Your blower's still pulling thirty-eight. That's Tuesday's number."

"Same draw," Jo said.

"Then don't call it empty yet." Toma set the buckets down. "You want to show me my stock, or do I get to guess?"

Jo unscrewed the outlet union and lifted the fine screen. The mesh was intact, every edge seated in its gasket. No tear, no curled corner. Toma took it from her and held it up to the lamp while Jo checked the sump. Clear water, no bodies, no seed caught in the return. The level held at the black mark on the glass. The floor under the tank was dry.

"Seventeen days," Jo said.

Toma looked up. "What?"

"The batch. It's at day seventeen. The storm shut the coast road five days, and I've never raised glasslaces past twelve."

Toma turned the screen once in her fingers. "You told me Friday."

"I told you Friday because I meant to ship Friday."

"That's not the same thing." Toma set the screen on the bench, not hard. "I have six clean rails in my shed and no stock. You promised me viable seed."

"I know what I promised."

The work light was too bright. It flattened the tank into a glare and made the animals look like dust. Jo knocked the timer switch to manual off. The room went dark except for the red observation lamp clipped to the shelf. Toma stood still, her face all cheekbone and shadow.

Under the top rail, the removable support panel had gone milky at one corner. Jo crouched. It wasn't on top; the film was underneath, a pale skin thinner than egg membrane on the acrylic. It covered a palm's width and stopped where the panel met the frame. As she watched, a slow ripple crossed it from one edge to the other, like a held breath moving under cloth. Toma came down beside her. Neither spoke. The ripple came again.

Jo closed the transfer valve. She pulled the bag from the spout, emptied the clear water into the sump, and hung the transfer sieve on its hook. Then she found the red hold tag and wrote on it, OBSERVE. She tied it around the tank frame where the work light would show it.

"Your stock," Toma said.

"Not through that sieve," Jo said. "Not tonight."

Toma dragged the stool closer to the panel. Jo set the red lamp on the shelf and aimed it at the film.

The red OBSERVE tag hung at eye level. Under the lamp, the film on the panel looked like wet tissue. Jo laid the growth log on the tank rail and opened it to the marked cohort. On the camera's marker view, the harmless fluorescent feed in their guts showed as twenty-two pale flecks within the sheet. Jo counted them against the twenty-two animals recorded in the growth log.

"Same animals," Toma said.

"Same marks." Jo turned to the camera monitor. Its individual count sat at zero. The oxygen meter held at 6.4, and the compressor still pulled thirty-eight percent. "Nothing's left the tank. The camera just can't count what's joined."

Toma leaned closer. "You're sure those are the marked ones?"

Jo put her finger under a double fleck near the panel edge. "That paired mark has been in every growth image since day nine. Yes."

Jo put her thumb on the work-light switch. "Watch."

The white light flooded the tank. The film broke. The water filled with separate commas of glass, each trailing its pale mark. The camera count climbed off zero and steadied at one hundred and three. Jo held the light for a breath, then switched back to red. The swimmers slowed, touched, and closed into a sheet again, marks and all. She did it once more. The same cluster formed under the same panel.

"Not a predator," Toma said.

"No bites. No shells." Jo touched the outlet screen anyway. "They're at day seventeen. I've never held a batch past twelve. That's the only difference."

She wrote in the log margin: same marked cohort; separates under white; rejoins under red. Then she capped her pen.

They lifted the panel with the clearest film into a spare glass bin. Toma cut a length of tubing, clamped it to the panel frame, and opened the sump valve through a fine filter until water slid across the acrylic in a thin sheet.

"Its own flow," she said. "Nothing from the main tank but what comes through that filter."

Jo added a quarter measure of feed at the inlet. The film rippled once and went still.

By first light, a darker line had threaded the film along the inlet. When Jo touched a pipette of feed to the water, the line darkened again. At the lower edge, six pinhead buds had loosened—unmarked, smaller than the study cohort—and rolled in the slow current.

"One panel, one night," Jo said. She wrote it down. "It fed. It let go of six. That's a trial, not a life cycle."

Toma caught one bud on the pipette tip and held it under the lens. "It's alive."

"Yes."

Jo looked at the transfer sieve hanging on its hook. The mesh was fine enough to hold day-twelve seed. It would catch the sheet at every ripple and tear it into strings.

"Then don't use it," Toma said. "Give me panels. I have six clean rails. I'll cut them down and brace them with stainless wire. My spare pump runs low enough."

"Four panels to you," Jo said. "I keep four for a full-cycle trial."

"And your next batch?"

Jo opened the booking book. She drew a line through the Tuesday glasslace slot and wrote a zero in the tank-fee column. Toma watched the pencil move. She did not offer to cover it.

"The invoice says experimental stock, four panels," Jo said. "No yield promised."

"I know what experimental means." Toma wiped her hands on her trousers. "I'll log what they do."

By noon four panels lay clipped in Toma's water-filled transport tray. Of the four Jo kept, three were on the rack and the trial panel was in its bin below. The delivery sheet on the desk read EXPERIMENTAL—FOUR PANELS; the yield line was blank.

Toma slid her fingers under the transport tray. The sheet rippled across the acrylic. Her grip shifted—thumbs finding the dry edge—before Jo's hand closed on the corner.

"I'll carry this one," Toma said.

Jo looked up at the white inspection lamp above the door. Her hand found the switch. She stopped.

"Which light do you want?"

"The red one."

Jo unclipped the red observation lamp and hung it from the carrying frame. Its dim glow fell over the sheet. Toma lifted her end. Jo took the other. They carried the colony out.