An agricultural register describing the orchards, pasture animals, crops, medicine, and water markers maintained for Asterhome's missing colonists.
Asterhome's farms were prepared for a full colony. No humanoid community ever used them. Caretaker automata continue planting, pruning, irrigating, harvesting, and resetting the fields according to the original settlement plan.
Dawnfruit Tree: These golden-leaved trees were planted along orchard roads and around early homesteads. They provide fruit, shade, medicinal material, and wood for initial construction. Crownbeetles often claim one tree and defend it from workers, visitors, and other beetles. The caretakers remove damaged branches but do not clear the orchard simply because a beetle has occupied it.
Ribbonhorn Grazer: The long-horned herds follow the original pasture rotation. Ribbonfold Shepherds move them between fields and replace the bright boundary ribbons each season. Older animals carry faded ribbon caught around their horns. The herds keep the pasture healthy and remain unusually calm around people.
Starburrow Hare: These nocturnal hares dig branching warrens into the soft banks beside irrigation channels. Quartz dust in the spoil makes each entrance visible at dusk. They eat crops planted for a population large enough that their feeding causes little loss. Caretakers do not remove them from the fields.
Wakeleaf: This crisp morning herb was cultivated to restore alertness after cryogenic or medical sleep. Harvest mature outer leaves after sunrise. The younger center growth provides the next cutting.
Firstmeal Root: This dependable nutrient root was selected for the first communal meal after arrival. It stores well, tolerates uneven weather, and can be prepared without specialized equipment. The receiving-house stores are still replenished from every harvest.
Starlace Fern: This fine luminous fern grows along mineral-rich runoff. Healthy growth indicates that water is moving through the intended filters. A dark or broken bed should be treated as a water-system warning before it is treated as a failed crop.
Guardian Bloom: These broad blue flowers were planted near every original nursery shelter. Their extracts are used in calming medicine. Caretakers replant any missing bed even when the associated nursery has never opened.
Choirstone Quartz: The natural crystal stores environmental harmonics and bends them through its facets. Boundary deposits help settlement systems identify fields, roads, and assigned plots. Chorus Mites gather on exposed stones and repeat parts of the settlement hymn. Their song is incomplete but can reveal a damaged boundary marker before an instrument does.
The register lists colony-sized harvests because the schedules were written for colonists who never arrived. Storehouses fill, are inspected, and are cleared when the preserved food reaches its limit. New crops replace it. The system continues to prepare the next first meal.
