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The hydroponics bay smelled of chlorophyll and old promises. Amara checked the nutrient levels one last time before the delegation arrived — not because the sensors were unreliable, but because touching the plants reminded her whose hands had built this place.

Her grandmother's hands. Her grandmother's seeds. Her grandmother's treaty with the river that still flowed three kilometers east, through land that had been desert before the Reseeding.

The delegation from New Accra would arrive in twenty minutes. They wanted the drought-resistant millet varieties. Amara wanted to know if they still remembered the old reciprocity — not the market exchange, but the deeper contract: you take a seed, you return a story.

She touched the millet's hollow stem and felt the vibration of the grow-lights through her fingertips. The future was not in the seeds themselves. It was in the remembering.