Her destination was the oxygen garden, the central hub of any neighbourhood, a curved green assemblage of places to play and places to sit and plenty of room to think. She parked her wagon in its usual spot, put on her apron and gloves, and selected a canister. She stepped over a plex barrier into one of the planters, treading carefully around all that grew there. The grasses couldn’t be easily avoided, but she did her best to not trample the flowering shrubs and broad leaves. She crouched down near a bush and unlocked the canister lid. The heady smell of compost greeted her, a smell she spent so much time alongside it was a wonder she noticed it anymore. She spread the stuff around the roots with her gloved hands, laying down handful after handful of rich black nutrients. She wouldn’t have minded getting compost on her bare skin but, much like pulling the wagon, it was a matter of respect. Compost was too precious to be wasted by washing it from her hands. She was meticulous about brushing off her gloves before folding them back up, about doing the same with her apron, about shaking every last crumb out of the canister. Each bit had to make its way to where it had been promised it would go.

Eyas emptied every canister in turn, tending the recipient plants carefully. She made sure not to walk where she’d worked, and took care not to touch her face. She stuck a small green flag in each planter as she finished, letting others know the area had recently been fertilised. There was nothing about the compost that could harm a person, but it wasn’t the sort of thing most would be comfortable accidentally sticking their hand in. It didn’t matter that compost was just compost – nitrogen, carbon, various minerals. People got so hung up on what a thing had been, rather than what it was now. That was why publicly distributed compost was reserved for oxygen gardens and fibre farms, the only public places in the Fleet that used soil. You could use compost tea in aeroponics, sure, but the food farms got different fertiliser blends, ones that came from plant scraps, bug husks, fish meal. Some families did indeed use their personal compost canisters on food gardens at home; others recoiled from that practice. Eyas understood both sides. Clear divisions between right and wrong were rare in her work.

As she neared the end of her batch, she felt the shapeless tingle of someone’s gaze. Eyas turned to see a little boy – maybe five or so – watching her with intense focus. A young man was with him – a father or uncle, who could say – crouched down to the child’s height, explaining something quietly. Eyas didn’t have to guess what the topic was.

‘Hello,’ Eyas said with a friendly wave.

The man waved back. ‘Hi,’ he said. He turned to the boy. ‘Can you say hi?’

The boy presumably could, but did not.

Eyas smiled. ‘Would you like to come see?’ The boy shifted his weight from foot to foot, then nodded. Eyas waved him over. She spread some compost on her gloved palm. ‘Did M here tell you what this is?’

The boy rubbed his lips together before speaking. ‘People.’

‘Mmm, not anymore. It’s called compost. It used to be people, yes, but it’s changed into something else. See, what I’m doing here is putting this onto the plants, so they grow strong and healthy.’ She demonstrated. ‘The people that turned into compost now get to be part of these plants. The plants give us clean air to breathe and beautiful things to look at, which keeps us healthy. Eventually, these plants will die, and they’ll get composted, too. Then that compost gets used to grow food, and the food becomes part of us again. So, even when we lose people we love, they don’t leave us.’ She pressed her palm flat against her chest. ‘We’re made out of our ancestors. They’re what keep us alive.’

‘That’s pretty neat, huh?’ the man said, crouching down beside the boy.

The boy looked undecided. ‘Can I see in the tube?’ he asked.

Eyas made sure there wasn’t any compost on the outside of the cylinder before handing it over. ‘Careful not to spill,’ she said.

The boy took the cylinder with two hands and a studious frown. ‘It looks like dirt,’ he said.

‘It basically is dirt,’ Eyas said. ‘It’s dirt with superpowers.’

The boy rotated the cylinder, watching the compost tumble inside. ‘How many people are in this?’ he asked.

The man raised an eyebrow. Eyas threw him a reassuring glance. It was not the weirdest thing she’d ever been asked, by far. ‘That’s a good question, but I don’t know,’ Eyas said. ‘Once the compost reaches this stage, the . . . the stuff that makes it gets jumbled together.’

The boy absorbed that. He handed the canister back.

Eyas reached into her hip pouch and pulled out a flag. ‘Would you like to put this in the dirt? It lets people know I’ve been working here.’

The boy took the flag, still not smiling. Eyas understood. It was a lot to think about. ‘Where can I put it?’

‘Anywhere you like,’ Eyas said, gesturing to the dirt around them.

The boy considered, and chose a spot near a bush. He stuck the flag down. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

‘Does what hurt?’

The boy tugged at the edge of his shirt. ‘When you get turned into dirt.’

‘Oh, no, buddy,’ the man said. He put a reassuring hand on the boy’s back and kissed the top of his head. ‘No, it doesn’t hurt at all.’