"How big is it?"
"I didn't get a chance to build more, what you see is what you get. If you proceed forty steps ahead you are going to see its edge." Sarah started, curious of course, and arrived to a sharply drawn line that sliced the beautiful florid scene like a saw and continued with the soybean rows. She realized that they must have stepped on some of the plantings on their way and there will be some 'splainin' to do once they got back to reality.
"This is amazing, sister, how do you turn it off?" asked the redhead.
"I haven't gotten to that part yet", sister Roberta said in the most serious tone, then burst with laughter, "just kidding, you should have seen the look on your face! Pull my left ear."
Sarah pulled and three Chinese fortune coins fell to the ground singing a delicate jingle.
"I so wanted to do this!" Roberta the tiger sighed, pleased. She pressed a bluish colored rock on the edge of the stream with one of her front paws and the scene vanished, giving way to the messed up soybean fields and a frowning Seth staring them down.
"Where have you been and how did this happen?" asked Seth, pointing at the ravaged soybean rows behind them. Roberta filled her in on the details which brought up a few questions to Sarah's mind.
"How come Seth didn't appear in the scene?" asked Sarah.
"It only works in harmony with individual brainwave patterns, they weren't matched to hers, so she didn't interpret the signal, we're all special and unique. I still have to tune it, Solomon shouldn't have been there either, it's getting there", mumbled sister Roberta in an excited tone of voice.
"How did you know what my brainwave pattern was?" asked Sarah, concerned.
"I scanned you", said sister Roberta, completely tone deaf to Sarah's upset at this invasion of privacy.
"I don't remember you asking me", said Sarah, who didn't want to be unpleasant but wanted to point out that she was a person, not a lab rat and the least one could do was ask for permission.
"Oh, that's ok, dear, I got all the information I needed", said sister Roberta, completely unperturbed. She picked up the shiny gizmo and went back to the lab to fine tune the range.
Chapter Twenty
"Once you realize that the impossible doesn't exist the universe opens its treasure chest to reveal things you couldn't conceive of before. Some are fundamental scientific breakthroughs and then some are trivial but quite entertaining bits of impractical nonsense. No matter, though, because our life here made the important and the unimportant become equal."
"I learned that we define what is or is not important by the standards we embrace from our older loved ones, or our trusted teachers, sometimes without realizing it, but once the system of reference changes the standards no longer apply and we set aside the sorting sieve to appreciate the miracle, large or small, just the way it is."
"Sister Roberta, can you help me make some titanium?" asked Sarah.
"For what, dear?"
"What can we make titanium out of?" Sarah asked, naturally.
"Well, we can use the tuna cans, but then we're going to have to sleep under the stars. There are adequate amounts of magnesium and boron in the soil, but it's too much trouble knocking out all the extra particles. How about iron, surely there is plenty of it all over the place in this red soil? What do you need the titanium for, anyway?"
"We're going to get some extra juice for your antigravity device", said Sarah, in the hope that this offering would incentivize the curious sister.
***
There wasn't a scientific challenge that sister Roberta wouldn't accept. In record time she put together a science lab that looked very much like an old scene from the gold rush days: rough carts on wheels advanced slowly through the electromagnetic field which separated the iron particles from the dust, then an alternating pulse of negative and positive particles knocked out electrons and protons to change iron into titanium. Alchemy at its finest. Of course the substance obtained was significantly heavier, but the properties were fundamentally the same.
"What should we call it?" sister Roberta asked.
"What's wrong with titanium?" retorted Sarah.
"It is not titanium, really, we have to be more precise about it."
"How about ferium?"
"Doesn't have a good ring to it. Light iron?"
"Worse. Heavy titanium sounds better."
Sarah engaged in this philosophical debate about the proper name for this modified element just to please sister Roberta, she really couldn't care less what the material name was as long as the sister produced enough of it.
"How long would it take you to make enough for 20,000 square feet of heavy titanium plate?" asked Sarah.
"What on earth for?" asked sister Roberta, alarmed.
"ALBEGs."
"What's an ALBEG?" asked sister Roberta.
"Ambient light bio-energy generator", said Sarah.
"You mean solar panels?" asked the sister, bursting with laughter. Sarah didn't answer.
With a lot of work from sister Roberta and the half-hearted cooperation of the metallurgical team who had serious concerns about the long-term stability of this compound, Sarah managed to get enough titanium trays and wiring to cover an entire soybean field lined up between the rows.
The commotion attracted a large audience, both scientists and non-scientists alike and generated a lot of commentary regarding the possible use of the apparatus. The redhead spent the next week boiling red cabbage in very large bins and mixed in cream of tartar, stirring with an enormous ladle and mumbling under her breath, for theatrical effect. She figured if she was going to spend so much time doing this with so many people staring, it might as well be entertaining. Slowly but surely the little trays started filling with purple juice which was subsequently sealed with a film of soybean oil that had chamomile and lavender essence mixed in.
"Why are you doing this", asked Seth, whose curiosity burned more and more intense as the project advanced?
"UV ray blocking, we're trying to keep the juice vital for as long as we can."
"It would be more efficient if they were sealed."
"Yes", said Sarah.
"The electrical team is going to laugh at us."
"Most likely."
"Why didn't you ask them to make the cells?"
"They don't have cabbage juice", asked Sarah simply.
"Make some!" yelled Seth, but then felt kind of bad about it because Sarah and the sisters were connecting the cables to a large electromagnet that picked up three water canisters and kept them suspended waist high.
"It's not that innovative, you know, they invented this thing in 2010", commented Seth.
"Still a good source of energy. We'll always have cabbage and soybeans", Sarah said and immediately regretted it, because she felt Seth's formidable gaze burn the back of her head.
"We can scale this indefinitely, you know", she spoke, softly.
"How hot does the liquid get?" asked Seth, worried about the cats knocking the trays over and getting scold burns.
"Somewhere in the range of 100F, we're safe."
"We're going to trip over these trays every time we harvest the beans, are you sure this is the best place for them?"
Sarah shrugged, picked up a community cat that was rubbing against her ankle and continued to watch the water canisters float gingerly in thin air.
The sisters and the engineering team accepted the upgrade without enthusiasm or objections, but pawing at the trays became the favorite preoccupation of the cats, whose fur became infused in the chamomile and lavender essential oil and started carrying the scent around like a mobile perfumery lab.
The perfumed cats of Terra Two became famous as years passed, a main visitor attraction together with the studded sky and the atmospheric light and sound show. Generation after generation of cats were so doused in fragrant oil that they internalized it, making it part of their natural scent, and their presence was made known to the nose before it was obvious to the eye.
&n
bsp; Like fragrant clover, one could wander for hours trying to find the source of the scent, only to give up finding the secluded corner the private feline hid in to get respite from the suns, traffic and curious visitors.
Sarah was sometimes absorbed in the pruning of a tomato chord and felt a waft of chamomile or lavender fragrance brush past her, as delicate and elusive as the breeze. The sisters hadn't figured out if the cats were accidentally spilling oil from the trays or did it on purpose because they found the aromatherapy soothing.
***
When the luxury of having all necessities ensured afforded Sarah time for favorite activities she started an herbalist studio that looked more like an apothecary shop than a chemistry lab.
Bunches of herbs were hanging from the rafters, exuding aromas from pungent to heavenly amidst glass jars, marble mortars and pestles, glassware and wooden bins. The place didn't have windows, just shutters that let light in obliquely, painting abstract patterns on the rough wooden floors. The cats found the place fascinating and the more Sarah tried to keep them away from the drying racks, the mixing pans and the medicated salves, the more they found ways to sneak back in.
Solomon had a privileged situation, him being Sarah's favorite cat, flirting with immortality and quite frankly having won the territorial fights, so he spent his time on the countertop, next to the round bottomed flasks where his aromatherapy oils were distilled. He didn't mind the heat and more than once singed his whiskers trying to get closer to the irresistible aroma, more intense and enticing because of the heated volatile components.
"No, Solomon!" became Sarah's most used words, as she chased after the cat to prevent him from pawing at the flames, pushing against lab glassware and licking perfume concretes set out to macerate.
The perfume lab started more or less as a pass-time but soon became a luxurious haven of fragrance that was irresistible not only to the cats, but their caretaker too. Sarah became so passionate about her new hobby that she spent all her spare time, which now was quite copious, replicating fragrances or isolating healing oils.
"At least it doesn't stink most of the time", was sister Joseph's commentary, even though she was trained to praise austerity and self-denial and this lavish decadence seemed somewhat wicked.
"We got a cauldron, we got a broom", she said occasionally.
"We don't got eye of newt", Sarah thought, but kept it to herself because sister Joseph was on her case enough as it was and she didn't feel the need to aggravate her.
Seth pretended not to be interested, even though the fragrance and sadly sometimes the reek of Sarah's experiments wafted around the tuna cans like a cloud from a higher dimension, but once the pharmaceutical products emerged she started examining the results in the name of common good. As Sarah acquired expertise in the ways of chemistry, remembering some of her college training and the herbalist lessons learned from her father and her aunts, the products became more and more sophisticated: a universal antiviral remedy, a cellular regeneration stimulant, a drinkable hair coloring product.
Seth complained about the latter, mentioning that Sarah's time would have been better spent developing something less frivolous, but accepted to become a test subject and walked around with deep violet tresses for a couple of weeks until her body filtered out the dye.
Normally the group would have relished in every type of joke and commentary imaginable, but it was Seth they were contemplating and apprehension won its battle with entertainment. They didn't know what would happen if they said a few words too many, but were certain they didn't want to find out.
Sarah wanted to try the dye herself, but was forbidden under the threat of choking to change the color of her heavenly tresses. The sisters protested as one saying it would be an offense to the benevolence of the Almighty who graced her with the undeserved treasure of hair of gold and fire, like that of the angels, but sadly complemented it with the brains of a chicken if she considered altering it in any way.
Chapter Twenty One
"We always live in the present when events seem urgent, inevitable, unmovable, but life is not a sequence but a tapestry, only to be understood as a whole. One's goal in life, one's talent, is to weave a beautiful, understandable pattern, not a random collection of clumsy stitches meant only to cover the fabric."
"Imagine if you will that a master weaver is asked to create his or her art without a pattern or a color scheme, making do with what he or she is handed gradually over time. What skill is required to weave wonders under these circumstances, and how valuable the end result!"
"Sarah, are you happy?" Sister Therese asked, all of a sudden.
The question took Sarah by surprise, she didn't think that anybody in the group was guided by anything other than faith and duty. Come to think of it their happiness was probably wrapped in the faith part, but she didn't think one of the sisters would consider it separately.
She didn't know how to answer the question, she had been so engulfed in her constant and all consuming activities that she didn't have time to assess her emotional state.
They woke up at the equivalent of six in the morning and worked solidly through the evening for about sixteen hours at which point they were so tired that they barely made it to their beds. After the first six years when the schedule seemed to relax a little bit, the dutiful Sarah filled it back up with the herbalist shop, medical research and biotechnology studies. She loved working with herbs, it reminded her of her childhood, the scents, the colors, the peaceful surroundings and the ever present cats.
She was almost thirty-three now, she passed the thirty year mark without making note of it, without feeling any different in the strange two sunned days of Terra Two. The childhood softness of her features had hardened a bit, her face looked more chiseled and a couple of thin lines showed at the corner of her eyes when she smiled. Other than that she was still the Sarah they all knew and since they saw her every day they didn't get to notice the slight changes.
Was she happy? What a strange question to ask, Sarah thought. She never had a clear plan for her life, she let it take her where it led. Other people knew exactly at the age of fifteen what they were going to do, whom they were going to marry, how many kids they were going to have and what their home was going to look like. Sarah thought that if she ever had plans as clear cut as those she would have been disappointed for sure, miss one of the details and the plan is not perfect anymore. She liked perfect, that was one of the little things that both made her excel at her work and drove the sisters nuts. "What was the point of making something flawed?" she thought.
She looked at herself standing tall dressed in the tan work overalls. What a hideous color, she thought, of all the colors of the rainbow they chose something that looked like dirt. What, they were afraid aliens were going to see them from up high and attack? A robin egg's blue or a clear turquoise would have been so much better, to draw out her eyes and compliment her fiery hair.
Sarah was a beautiful woman, quality she never treasured for some unknown reason, and she had caught the eye of several guys from the logistics team but she never pursued a relationship and continued her path through life in the company of the sisters who by default were all single.
She would have liked to have children, she often imagined the giggle of little ones chasing each other around the counters in the lab, playing with the cats and knocking over bottles of aromatic oils. Their little camp was expanding with real homes for everyone and lush green gardens and social spaces, it wasn't like she was going to bring children into a desert world.
Her parents found the idea revolting in every one of its aspects, from who was going to take care of the kids to who was going to educate them, and the sisters didn't care one way or the other. In the absence of a better half though, the issue remained open and was not often pondered upon.
Was she happy? the question resurfaced, taking way too much time to answer. She thought about what her alternate life would have been, probably a professor position
at one of the top universities, maybe she could have been on the base team back on Earth supporting this mission. She thought how sad she would have been to watch the images of Terra Two from afar, never being able to experience them first hand. Maybe she would have visited though, they got many visiting scientists and tourists now. The thought of seeing her brainchild at the age of ten and raised by someone else made her heart ache. She knew every spec of dirt, every gust of wind, she felt like she planted every blade of grass herself.
She looked around and her eyes rested on the emerald green soy bean fields shining in the suns behind the herbalist studio and she let her gaze linger on the purple bean tree, almost over-shadowed by the other tall trees in the orchard. The suns set suddenly, melting in the raspberry chocolate sky and a myriad of artificial stars appeared. The sisters were winding up quietly in the field preparing to turn in for the night.
Was she happy? the question followed, relentless, bouncing against her thoughts, tangled in her fire colored hair that caught the last rays of light and shone like a candle.
"I guess so", she said aloud and smiled.
Chapter Twenty Two
"Left to its own devices the wild astonishes us with results that defy the possible. Sheltered between the mountains and the sea in the movement of warm humid air entire microclimates formed, fertile and excessive. Plants found the best combinations to thrive in this environment, both taking sustenance from and reinforcing their new stable and self reliant surroundings."
"Nature doesn't believe in thrift, it constantly pushes life higher, better, closer together, it takes everything to the limit of resources, finding the perfect point of balance to keep the cycle going indefinitely. There is no space left in its vegetal extravagance, no square inch of dirt uncovered, no lack, no waste. We often say there is no perfection in the world, but how can one believe it if a completely self-contained ecosystem can function for so long with this degree of precision like a living breathing perpetual motion machine."
"Did you compare the last two atmospheric humidity readings?" asked Seth irritated, trying to squeeze through a compact group of visitors who were attracted to Sarah's shop like moths to a flame. This was happening because her herb scented shed had the highest density of fragrant cats per square foot and all but guaranteed a sighting.