The Winter Gardeners

About this book

Everyone at Aster Station has two jobs. The doctor is also the barber. The station leader is also the cook on Sundays. And Marisol Vega, atmospheric chemist, thirty four, first winter, has drawn the assignment the old hands quietly call the chaplaincy: the greenhouse. Twelve square metres of lettuce, tomatoes and one stubborn lemon tree under lamps, the only green for three million square kilometres, tended in an unbroken relay by every winter crew since the station was raised. The Growth Log in the greenhouse runs to eleven volumes. The first entry is dated 1958. It is the last winter.