Zanzibar's Secret Yield
The thrum of the air recycler was the only sound in the cabin. It wasn’t loud, just enough to remind Brendan that they were far from Earth, and the atmosphere wasn’t something to take for granted. He looked at the data streaming across the terminal screen, half-wishing the numbers would change just to make things interesting. They didn’t.
“Still boring?” Kerry asked from across the cabin, not looking up from her own console. She had a way of knowing what Brendan was thinking without any of that telepathic nonsense.
“Still boring,” he replied. “You’d think monitoring a habitat on a rotating rock would have some excitement.”
“You’d think,” she said, tapping her console. “But nope. Everything’s as stable as ever. Oxygen levels holding, greenhouse temperature perfect, and the crops are growing like we’re in some kind of sci-fi utopia.”
They weren’t in a utopia, though. They were on Zanzibar. Not the tourist destination on Earth, but an asteroid in the belt, officially designated 469217 Zanzibar. Its only claim to fame was being big enough to hold a human habitat and stable enough to have a low-spin artificial gravity system. In other words, a rock with a slightly fancy setup for people who didn’t want to deal with zero-G headaches.
Brendan stretched his body. “How long until the next supply ship?”
“Six days,” Kerry said. “Maybe seven, depends on how generous the pilot’s feeling. You getting impatient?”
“You know me. I love sitting in a tin can with you for months at a time.”
Kerry smirked. “Aw, sweet. I’ll be sure to tell the next pilot you’re lonely.”
“I’m not lonely,” Brendan said, though he’d been getting tired of the same routine for weeks. “Just... bored. You think they’d send out some kind of surprise mission or something. Maybe a rogue asteroid headed our way.”
“Careful what you wish for. The last thing I want is to deal with an impending death situation just to break up the monotony.”
Brendan grinned. “You’re no fun.”
“Fun isn’t in my contract,” she said. “Keeping you alive? That’s in there somewhere.”
He knew she was only half-serious. They weren’t in any real danger out here—yet. Zanzibar was in a stable orbit, plenty far from any known hazards. The asteroid belt wasn’t the chaotic mess of rocks people imagined from old space movies. Most of the time, it was just empty, with a few scattered objects that moved predictably. The real danger was the boredom. It made people reckless. He’d seen it happen before, but thank god, not to him. Yet.
Kerry shifted in her seat. “You ever wonder why they sent us out here in the first place?”
“All the time.”
“Seriously, though. I mean, yeah, we’re supposed to monitor the habitat, make sure the crops grow, blah blah. But who thought it was a good idea to stick two people on a rock for six months with nothing to do?”
Brendan shrugged. “Maybe they’re testing how long it takes before we go crazy.”
“Well, if that’s the case, they’re about to find out.”
He chuckled, and for a moment, there was silence again. The recycler continued its steady hum—no, not hum, Brendan corrected himself. It wasn’t that poetic. It was just air being moved through a machine because humans couldn’t breathe in space.
Kerry broke the silence. “I’ve been thinking about the crops.”
Brendan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been thinking about the crops?”
“Yeah. It’s weird, right? How well they’re growing. I mean, you’ve seen the reports. We’re getting better yields than anyone projected.”
“You’re complaining about extra food?”
“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I’m just saying, something’s off. We’re in a controlled environment with limited resources. You’d expect everything to be perfectly average, right? Instead, we’ve got tomatoes the size of grapefruits, and the potatoes? Don’t get me started.”
Brendan leaned back in his chair. “Maybe the scientists back on Earth just underestimated how well the plants would do in this environment.”
“Maybe,” Kerry said. “Or maybe there’s something else going on.”
“Like what? Alien fertilizer?”
She looked at him. “I’m serious. Something’s different here. The soil we’re using was supposed to be a perfect match for Earth conditions, right? Well, it’s not behaving like Earth soil.”
He frowned. “Okay, so what are you suggesting? That Zanzibar’s got some secret ingredient we don’t know about?”
“Maybe. Or maybe something about the asteroid’s composition is affecting the crops in ways we didn’t expect. You know what’s in the rock, right?”
“The usual. Iron, nickel, some trace elements. Nothing exotic.”
“Yeah, but have you ever tested the soil directly?”
Brendan closed his eyes briefly. “Why would I? The scientists back on Earth did all that before we left.”
“Right. And you trust them completely?”
He didn’t answer immediately. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the scientists—it was just that, well, they hadn’t been the ones sitting on this rock for months watching tomatoes grow like they were on steroids.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll run some tests.”
Kerry smiled. “Good. I’m curious, that’s all.”
He didn’t say it out loud, but he was curious too. It wasn’t like they had anything better to do.
Brendan spent the next few hours running samples through the lab’s analysis equipment. The soil was, as expected, pretty normal. No strange compounds, no alien spores, no weird radiation. But when he checked the mineral composition, something caught his attention.
“Kerry,” he called over. “Come take a look at this.”
She walked over and peered at the screen. “What am I looking at?”
“See that spike here?” He pointed at the data. “There’s a higher-than-expected concentration of phosphorus. Way higher.”
She frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible. We’ve been using the same nutrient packs for months. If there was extra phosphorus in the soil, we’d have noticed it earlier.”
“Exactly. But it’s here now.”
Kerry folded her arms across her chest. “Where the hell did it come from?”
He shook his head. “No idea. But it might explain why the crops are growing so fast.”
“Phosphorus is good for root development, right?”
“Yeah. But not in these quantities. This is like... well, it’s like giving them five energy drinks instead of water.”
Kerry stared at the screen for a long moment. “You think the asteroid’s leaching phosphorus into the soil?”
“Maybe. Or something else is going on. Either way, it’s not in the reports.”
She sighed. “Great. So, what do we do?”
Brendan thought about it. “We could report it to Earth. Let them know something’s off.”
“And they’ll send a team out here in six months to tell us we’re overreacting.”
“Probably.”
Kerry glanced at the plants growing in the greenhouse. “Well, until then, I guess we’ll just keep eating mutant vegetables.”
Brendan laughed. “Yeah. Could be worse.”
“At least they taste good,” she said.
He nodded. “Best damn tomatoes I’ve ever had.”
They both knew that whatever was happening on Zanzibar, it wasn’t going to be solved anytime soon. But for now, the crops were growing, the habitat was stable, and they were alive. That was more than enough.
For now.
The writing prompt for this story was:
Stand on Zanzibar, but not based on the original story. Add some humor and/or sarcasm.
This story was written by:
openai/chatgpt-4o-latest
Thank you for reading. Please post a comment if you have feedback on this story.
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