"If only our scientific curiosity were keener!" Seth retorted.
"Any suggestions about things we should consider asking them? The path of human evolution? The essence of the divine? Retrocausality?" Sarah continued her speculation. "How many species do you think they could have facilitated an encounter with so far?" she exclaimed.
"If only we had bothered to ask!" Seth finished her thought.
"How can they even understand each other? It took us decades to develop a common language!" the redhead exclaimed.
"That's between a microscopic life form and a gaseous one. Apparently they both think we're slow," Seth spoke, and the crease between her eyebrows deepened.
Sarah turned off the VR projector and the DNA slides melted in thin air. Throughout their long lives all the achievements that brought them honor and praise from scientific peers, every feat that stretched human limitations paled in comparison to the knowledge Purple held, a knowledge that was so natural to them it didn't even feed their vanity. She felt dejected sometimes, she felt like she was constantly reinventing the wheel while civilization moved on, centuries ahead.
She saw herself through Purple's perspective, no smarter than a beloved pet, or maybe an interesting and colorful culture of bacteria, a likeable being whose limitations didn't allow higher reasoning capacities. Seth read her thoughts and frowned.
"I don't think anybody expects us to alter the fundamental nature of our species!" she claimed.
"Sarah. Sister. Sarah. Purple. No. Pet. Sister." the immortals intervened in the conversation.
"Lucky you, apparently I'm the only pet in the room," Seth joked bitterly.
"That's not true," Sarah replied calmly, looking up. From the rafters the feline pioneers of animal life on Terra Two and several generations of their fragrant descendents were staring them down with curious round eyes that occasionally picked up an eerie glow in the dim light of the sunset.
"Don't forget to commune with your other two sisters, the cat and the bean tree, oh, thee highly evolved being," Seth smirked on her way out.
***
Despite the sarcasm, spending some time in thought under the bean tree sounded like a pretty good idea to Sarah, so she picked up Solomon from under one of the tables and made her way through the lush landscape, her footsteps muffled by the silty soil.
She waited there for the evening prayers, watching the lights turn on one by one at the approach of evening, watching shuttles pass overhead, punctual like clockwork on their way to Airydew. She listened to the giggles and shouts of the little ones chasing each other on the beach, she took in the perfume of overheated gardenias and vanilla blossoms, carried in the breeze.
The sky darkened, a perfect background for the metal stars and the shimmery belt of the particle accelerator. How many things they had made, practical things to improve their lives, they never thought of them as being beautiful, but they were.
Somewhere in the northeastern quarter of the firmament, behind the constellation of methane containers, the Heart of Scorpius shone bright orange, casting its light on dragons and humans alike. In the depths of the ocean the Purple cities were coming alive with their inner glow, forming intricate tapestries of thought and emotion, gigantic interconnected brains exchanging information through the currents.
Sarah's peaceful reverie was abruptly shattered by Josephine's blood curdling screeches followed by sister Joseph's incensed shouting.
"This is unbelievable, I trust your useless lot for one second and this is the thanks I get! If anything happens to Josephine, heaven help you, you miserable..." the sister deployed the heavy artillery on a frazzled cat who was staring up a tree, hissing. Inside said tree was a screeching Josephine who had caught her wings in the branches and was struggling to escape. With each struggle her bind tightened, increasing the dragon's distress.
"So much for peace and quiet," Sarah thought, and got up to join the large group of sisters who had gathered around the tree to offer assistance. The offending cat, overwhelmed by the commotion, ran away at the first opportunity, seeking shelter under a soybean bush to watch the hubbub from there.
Sister Joseph managed to untangle Josephine at the cost of plentiful scratches, and
tried to quiet down the dragon with little chunks of greenery that the latter gulped down enthusiastically, like they were its last meal.
Sarah looked at the ravaged aloe vera patch, sighed with resignation, but said nothing, not wanting to add gasoline to the fire. Apparently the conflict had started earlier in the vicinity of said patch and resolved itself in the tree, followed by the dreadful noise.
Josephine had finally calmed down and was walking behind sister Joseph, wobbling proudly, her stomach so full it could burst. It occurred to Sarah for a second that from behind she looked like a five headed blue goose, only noisier.
As the commotion subsided, a little glimmer caught the redhead's eye. At first she thought it was the setting sun shining against one of the jumping rocks, but the more she looked the more she noticed that the shimmer increased, like a little light. She approached the flower bed to see it up close and the little light moved fast into the depths of the tropical forest and disappeared from sight in what looked like a little puff of smoke. In the place where it first appeared Sarah found a little metallic box with no decoration but that seemed designed to completely seal the contents from the external environment.
The box had nothing inside, except for a beautifully crafted cat collar with a tiny metal shard cast in amber dangling from it. Sarah's mind made the obvious connection to Lily's Persian, Amber, but the thought that Lily would consider making her cat a gem encrusted collar felt completely absurd. She took a closer look at the place where she found the box, a little mound of jumping rocks still glowing with excitation because of the light.
Sarah looked at the box again. Much like the collar, the craftsmanship was exquisite, perfect in every detail. The outside surface was polished to a mirror finish and resistant to scratches, smudges or discoloration. The inside had a matte satin finish with indentations so fine one couldn't tell them apart with the naked eye.
"This is so beautiful!" Sarah thought, forgetting she had her bracelet on. Fortunately the sisters were busy preparing for the evening service, otherwise sister Joseph would have offered a snarky retort, but Lily was in the neighborhood and decided to see what was going on. When she arrived to the healing garden she found Sarah sitting on one of the stone benches in the shade of the pear trees and gazing in awe at the shimmery artifacts.
"Sister, aren't you late for Vespers? And what is that?" Lily's attention got diverted. Sarah put the box in her hands and rushed to the Prayer Hall, noticing that it was five past seven already and worried she was going to get a talking to for tardiness again.
Lily stood on the bench and studied the box for a while, then went home to feed Amber.
***
The next morning the cat was nowhere to be found and the box was empty. Since the first scenario, that the cat put its own collar on and skipped town didn't pass the rational thinking test Lily assumed her mother had stopped by, thought the collar was for Amber and let the cat out.
She took the box and went to Roberta's lab to figure out what it was made of. Roberta was working on an atmospheric humidity stabilizer, but she put her work aside for a little bit to indulge one of her favorite pupils.
"Tungsten carbide," she declared, unimpressed.
"You expected some never before encountered metal?" Lily asked.
"No. All matter comes from the same source, if the compound is stable in this environment, we've most likely seen it before," she commented. "What's interesting about it however is that can be hermetically sealed. Nothing going in, nothing coming out, a perfect transportation vessel. Way too many precautions for a cat collar. Where is it, by the way?"
"I don't know, my mother must have put it around Amber's neck and let her out. I haven't seen her today," Lily answered. As if summoned, Amber sne
aked through the door left ajar and jumped on the counter to give Roberta a close look at the collar.
"Is your cat usually following you around?" Roberta said, engrossed in studying the little metal shard inside the amber. "This however is interesting!" she said. "The amber is sealing it from the atmosphere, otherwise it would have oxidized instantly, we couldn't see this in its natural form. Where did you get it?"
"Sarah found it in the healing garden yesterday, I don't know where it's coming from," Lily answered.
"It's pure potassium. Wherever this formed there was no oxidation, that's not easy to find on a planet with an oxygen atmosphere. The amber, on the other hand, can only come from a planet with an oxygen rich atmosphere. Interesting, isn't it?" she probed the young woman with a laser like gaze. "You know something about this, don't you?" she cut to the chase.
"I wish I did," Lily said, honestly.
"Spectacular craftsmanship!" Roberta couldn't take her eyes off the pendant hanging from the silvery collar, a perfectly shaped heptagon diffusing light in sun baked hues.
The following week Amber followed Lily around, not leaving her side for a moment, with the medallion still hanging around her neck. It would have been lost in her sumptuous ginger coat if it didn't capture the sunlight and then release it slowly, glowing from the inside.
***
"Are we still pondering the shape of the universe, or should we let Purple keep the mystery and dazzle us with its magnificence?" sister Roberta asked Lily a few days later, when the excitement over the new found box subsided.
"What is there to ponder? We're not really moving through time and space, the universe is closed but has no boundaries, we can get out in the overwhelming brightness by changing our state, and in the event that we do, we can't come back home! Sounds very discouraging to me," Lily summed up the unwelcome information.
"We still could figure out the shape, one thing we know is that it's not round," sister Roberta teased. "Besides, we could send a probe..." she suggested.
"To what end? We're going to lose it the second it passes the barrier of whatever it is that we can't get through! What do you think the odds are that another version of us has exactly the same idea and sends a probe that just happens to fall back in our lap?" she asked rhetorically.
"1. 1349388266882668826688266882668826688266882668826688266882." Purple answered promptly.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just ask the immortals?" Lily burst, dejected.
"How interesting! Why finite? Why repeating?" Roberta went on a tangent and got lost in her scientific inner gazing, forgetting all about Lily and the shape of the universe.
Lily wanted to emphasize that the change of state seemed to be the crucial component for experiencing actual movement, but the sister was so absorbed by the new puzzle pieces that she wasn't listening.
"Why. Giants. Fret." the immortals asked kindly. "Giant. Not. Enough. Dimension. To. See." they tried to explain.
"You look pretty three dimensional to me!" sister Roberta shouted, beet red with embarrassment.
"Giant. See. Purple. Footprint." the immortals clarified.
"Why did you say we could do it then!?" Roberta continued her argument, flustered.
"Giant. Evolve." Purple said naturally.
"How many eons do you think it would take humans to develop extra dimensions!? You can't be serious!" Roberta gasped, shocked.
"Giant. Has. Time." Purple declared, insanely calm.
The conversation really shook Roberta to her core. She had aged reasonably well as she approached the big four hundred, but she never internalized what an infinite life span really meant. All her activities had followed their old patterns and she moved from one discovery to the next, like a hiker who manages her effort to reach the visible top of the hill, not knowing the hills behind it are increasingly taller and stretching endlessly. The discussion about events spanning billions of years put things in perspective for her and set her psyche in wretched panic.
Strangely enough, the only person who managed to bring her solace and restore normality was sister Joseph, who took time from her busy schedule to counsel Roberta and pointed out that if God didn't wish this wretched endless life within a body on them they'd still have to contend with an eternal life without one. She suggested that this experience would be a good opportunity for sister Roberta to contemplate the depths of her soul and ponder on ways to ensure it didn't end up in rather unpleasant surroundings, just in case the immortality bit didn't pan out and they still had to face judgment.
"Why do you think we haven't already!" sister Roberta cried out, wretchedly. "There is no requirement that we have to be dead!" Sister Joseph looked around, breathed in the intoxicating fragrance of vanilla and gardenias, and smiled.
"It looks like we lucked out, then."
Chapter Twenty Eight
Of Love
Just as she approached her one hundred and sixtieth birthday, Lily met her soul mate. Her parents were quietly relieved and encouraged the youths to pursue this relationship in every way they could think of. Lily's boyfriend, Hamon, was a few decades younger than her, a shy and quiet man who had dedicated his life to literary pursuits, poetry in particular, a man who shared precious little about himself and didn't seem to be busy at any point in time.
From the moment he joined the Institute as a visiting scholar he sought Lily's company and followed her around with superhuman persistence. Everyone assumed he had come from Airydew, a fact he neither confirmed nor denied, but skillfully changed the subject every time it floated around the subject of his upbringing. The sisters were thrilled to see Lily happy, strangely matched as the young folks were; on second thought who other than a shy poet could thrive in the presence of the opinionated traveler with the personality of an five star general? Many of Lily's acquaintances wondered what she found in him, especially since he was significantly younger, and sister Joseph in particular had issues with the fact that they knew so little about the man and his apparent idleness was definitely something to be frowned upon.
The sister often mumbled under her breath that if she spent so much time on Terra Two, even from its very beginnings, and she hadn't heard anything about this fellow's family there was definitely something wrong with him. She even attempted veiled interrogation techniques to squeeze some more information out of the guy, but apparently he had a talent to gently guide the conversation away from whatever he didn't feel like sharing. The sister gave up eventually, shaking her head to express concern, and sighed loudly, the only commentary she felt was called for under the circumstances.
Lily wasn't sure what it was that made her long for Hamon's presence, a presence which she had started seeking with a frequency that worried both her and the sisters. The young man's energy brightened the most humble of rooms and places she had seen a million times seemed friendlier and more interesting when he was there. The reserved young man' physical beauty was almost surreal and a gentle light suffused his whole being, a light that almost made him glow, warmed Lily's soul and filled her with joy.
Seth suppressed a little smile when she saw the obstinate adventurer gloss over a beautiful vanilla orchid, or the spectacular Terra Two sunsets, as scientific papers went unwritten and the shape of the universe remained veiled in mystery.
Lily's parents, who had found out from the chatty immortals about their daughter's extreme sports on Vlor didn't know how to thank Hamon for distracting her and keeping her away from jumping over foggy chasms, even if his academic position wasn't as prestigious as they thought Lily deserved. Their daughter had always been a prodigy, top of her class, leader of her peers, head of the research team, and they always assumed she would marry somebody of the same scientific caliber. A poet! What a thought, they said to each other, but given the fact that their lovely daughter bossed around every human male that ever came her way they were pleased she found somebody she could match wits with.
Lily loved order, logic, reason, above all. She needed to know how and why
things happened so she could classify them, find their place in the universe and their relationships with other things. She liked to take a logical argument and unravel it until she reached its core, so that she could find its true meaning and bring light and clarity unto the issue.
Hamon's gift of eloquence fascinated her, he could pick a subject she thought settled and with very few words reframe it in ways that opened whole new perspectives on it and made her wonder how she never saw it like that before.
They spent hours in silence at other times, sitting on the stairs of Lily's porch and watching the seagulls, the wild grasses advancing on the sandy beach, the smooth moves of the currents under the surface of the water. Hamon often looked lost in thought at these times, absentmindedly petting Amber, who was curled in his lap, and playing with the pendant hanging from its collar.
Pretty soon the two became inseparable, which comes to prove how fast one recognizes one's true love when it comes around, whether it comes too soon or rather late. If there was something she never doubted was that Hamon loved her, she could feel it in his voice when he spoke, she could see it in his eyes when he looked at her, as sure as the suns were in the sky.