"That is not what I asked."
He smiled.
"You and your lawyer share an annoying habit."
"Answer me."
Martin looked across the water.
"No. Not if we can build a legitimate management plan here."
"Why?"
"Because this pond was part of the old program before either of us knew its history. The water is good. The site is isolated. You own enough surrounding land to control runoff and access. And you have already done something Silver Ridge did not."
"What?"
"You asked who owns the fish before asking how much you can sell them for."
That embarrassed me slightly.
"Low standard."
"You would be surprised."
The trust proposed a provisional management agreement.
It did not give me ownership of the genetic line.
It gave me the right to house and manage the stock under defined conditions, share in approved commercial propagation, and sell certain offspring subject to certification and royalty terms. The trust retained lineage rights, registration oversight, and approval over breeding-stock transfers.
Tom read the draft.
"This is good."
Daniel read the same draft.
"This is complicated."
"Those are not opposites," Ethan said from the kitchen doorway.
I pointed at him.
"Stop listening to adult conversations."
"You are all standing in the kitchen."
The provisional agreement required improvements before any sale.
Containment at the outflow.
Aeration redundancy.
Separate nursery capacity.
Water-quality monitoring.
Tag and breeding records.
Health certification.
Biosecurity procedures.
A written emergency plan.
Insurance.
The list kept going.
I looked at Tom.
"Still think this is a business?"
"Now it is starting to look like one."
He estimated initial infrastructure would cost more than I liked.
Not hundreds of thousands, but enough to matter.
I had savings.
I also had enough sense not to gamble retirement money on enthusiasm.
So we built a conservative plan.
Phase one would stabilize the existing stock and create two smaller managed nursery ponds in an unused lower field. No restaurant processing. No large hatchery. No expensive visitor center. No fantasy projections.
Just the things required to protect the fish and prove we could operate correctly.
Ethan built the first spreadsheet.
He called it FISH EMPIRE.
I made him rename it.
He changed it to HAYES AQUATIC EMPIRE.
I threatened to take away his laptop.
The third version became STOCK MANAGEMENT.
That one stayed.
He entered every tag number the state provided.
Growth class.
Species.
Sampling date.
Estimated breeding group.
He built formulas to flag missing records.