17 July 2104 [14 Jefferson 306]—My four-square-meter garden was just starting to show fruit, little green marbles on the tomato plants, miniature peppers and squashes instead of white and yellow flowers. This morning I went to water it on the way to the office and everything was wilting. By tonight, everything will be dead. The virus is back—not the same one, actually, but a close relative, able to resist the antigen they used to clean the place up before.

So we sterilize more thoroughly and try again. The engineering problem is that there’s no practical way to isolate the ag level and the park from the living areas; we’re all one big happy biosphere. Otherwise they could flood it with some virulent-but-reversible poison. Marius said that even that wouldn’t be an absolute guarantee, viruses being what they are, though the ag engineers may ultimately try doing the obverse: isolate all of the humans in a small area, a space ship within a space ship, and saturate the entire “outside” biosphere with poison for a few weeks. Then have automatic chem-E devices remove the poison from the air, and we step out into a brave new sterile world. Assuming all of the poison had been removed.

I think I’d rather eat yeast for the next fifty-eight years. For a person who lives inside a machine, I don’t trust them very much. (For a person who lives with two engineers, I don’t trust engineering very much!)

It’s a good thing they warned us about this possibility. It’s depressing enough, all those acres of dying plants. All those hours of coaxing life out of the air and light and soil. Which has been interesting and relaxing. Try again in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, there are pills. I shouldn’t have taken two, just because of the plants. Can’t concentrate on the work here, the music schedule. Maybe I should take a third, and go upstairs to collapse.

YEAR 8.36

HUSBANDRY

5 February 2106 [3 Radhakishun 309]—Cleaned out most of the garden today, a good crop. Saved some carrots and other rabbit food as snacks for the diet and took the rest up to the commissary agent, who seemed less than overjoyed (had to wait in line behind a dozen other generous souls).

Since there’s no shortage of food anymore, I decided to just raise herbs this season. Their smell was such a comfort a few years ago. My seed ration: three kinds of basil, chamomile, chervil, coriander, dill, fennel, lavender, lemon balm, marjoram, oregano, peppermint, rosemary, sage, savory, two thymes: French and lemon. Thyme and thyme again.