With only four quarters left before the end-of-winter nuclear harvest at Compartment Three, the entire winter's effort will have been wasted. The rules also require that, once the harvest quota is verified, enough people must be found to fill the delisting quota. The first name on the posted notice is Old Yue Bing, who has spent forty years breeding seeds. Lu Qiao, an unregistered black-market breeder, squeezes through the crowd to stop them from taking him away. The weighing team declares that plots seven through eleven are to be put to death, and the beds are cleared on the spot. Yet from a bag of waste slides an ear of grain still bearing seven seeds, soaked and roasted. Lu Qiao scrapes off the waxy skin, smells the earthy scent, bites the husk to hear its crisp sound, and snaps the seed open. The fine frost-white line running seven-tenths of the way up from the embryo root is still there. Holding half a seed, he announces its viability score to everyone: 6.5. On the harvest verification platform, Zheng Zhuo, head of the compartment, stops with the tally sheet in his hand.
