Mira pressed her hand to the cold greenhouse glass and watched her breath fog it up. Outside, the station turned slowly around Veil, a dying red star whose weak light always arrived late and faint. But her bean vines weren't reaching for that tired star. Every leaf and curling tendril had turned the other way, toward the empty dark. Mira frowned. Plants follow light. So what light were they following?

Mira grabbed her dad's old light sensor from the toolbox and pointed it at the empty dark the vines leaned toward. The screen flickered, then showed a tiny blip — a real source of light out there, too dim for her eyes but very real. "You're not crazy," she whispered to the beans. "There's something out there."

Mira ran to the control room and aimed the station's big telescope at the blip. After a long minute, an image sharpened on the screen — not a star, but a ship. A small, silver ship, drifting slow and dark, with one tiny window glowing faintly. Someone, or something, was inside, and it was coming closer.

Mira opened a radio channel to the silver ship, her voice shaking. "This is Veil Station. Who are you?" Static crackled, then a calm reply came through: "We are the gardeners. We seed dying stars with slow light, so something can grow after they fade. Your grandmother joined us. We came back for you."

Mira wasn't ready to leave her home. "I want to stay and grow the garden here," she said. The gardeners were quiet, then pleased. "Good. A star needs a keeper too." They sent one seed of slow light across the dark into her hands through the airlock port. Mira planted it, and Veil's old red glow grew a little warmer, just for her.