You mix the “Mars minerals” because the planet should be useful, and useful feels like science.

The bin’s label is a sentence you skip. Perchlorate salts are a dry, sharp problem. They are not potting soil. They do not belong in a wet tray of things you plan to eat, or even in a wet tray of things you plan to look at proudly.

Imani does not let it become a poison story for a kid book. She lets it become a crop story: leaves that burn at the edges, roots that give up, a whole bay that will be bagged and logged and mourned like a science fair that caught fire.

GROVE: “Leaf tissue stress: high. Recommendation: quarantine Bay B. Do not taste. Do not ‘rinse and hope’ as a plan.”

You did not mean harm. Meaning is not a filter. Lina closes the EVA porch so nobody “takes a break outside with a handful of dirt.” Oskar already has the bags.

The storm arrives on a greenhouse that is half a failure you invented. Hearth is fine. You will eat from a can. The cans will taste like a label.

THE END

What you learned: Martian dust is not potting soil. Perchlorates and sharpness stay in labeled bins. A planet’s dirt can be a chemical, not a garden. Feed plants the media you actually mixed for them.