Terra Two Read online

  Seth often forgot to eat and considered the craving of food a base and pointless lack of self-control and she would have liked to instill this higher level of discipline into her pupil. Sadly the brief time they had spent together did not allow her to teach a reasonable level of self denial to the redhead.

  Cheerful shop windows put on a continuously moving display of advertisements as the glass changed from clear to broadcast and then to colorful artwork faithfully aligning itself to the information on Seth and Sarah's neural interlink bracelets in a proactive attempt to anticipate their every wish. A softened watercolor ad for steaming hot cocoa appeared repeatedly, so lifelike with the accompanying aroma that it diverted several people from their path and led them to Cafe du Monde, the plausible source of the comforting smell. Scented ads had become so popular that one couldn't tell if one was in a bakery or a perfume shop anymore. Seth frowned, irritated, but said nothing.

  The yellow brick road kept materializing in front of their feet to mark the next few yards of their journey as charted by their travel guide. Sarah liked to input random quotes in the yellow bricks and entertained herself by reading comments about her journey as she put one foot in front of the other.

  A group of kids on a school field trip crossed their path, spread out to inspect the fruit stands in the market and then reassembled on the other side to reach the river bank, just as Sarah was reading "Nobody told me it was impossible when I did it.", written in phosphorescent lime green font, cursive and covered in curlicues.

  "We're late", Seth spoke nervously, even though they had at least half an hour to span the five minute walk to the Space Science Center. The highlighted brick in front of Sarah read "Any place is within walking distance if you have enough time". She could swear even the travel guide read her mind sometimes. She giggled inwardly, rushed to keep up with Seth's accelerated pace and didn't think of getting anxious about their presentation until they reached the gate. "You have arrived" said the yellow brick road.

  "Parents give children middle names so they can tell when they are in trouble", said the yellow brick road. Sarah was suddenly relieved her parents didn't think to give her one, then shook her head at the absurdity of the thought.

  "When in doubt, mumble", said the yellow brick road, and then shut down with a delicate and reassuring chime.

  ***

  They ran up the transparent stairs whose gleaming in the light on the setting sun created the precise out-worldly effect that the architect's team was hoping for. For the life of her Sarah couldn't understand why they were rushing so since it was twenty five minutes to the hour of the meeting. She took a second to observe the eerie structure they were entering. Held together by transparent boron cables and structural glass it seemed made of water. Waves of changing light and reflections of passing hydrocars caressed the ever changing transparent envelope, alternately concealing and revealing the fervent activity behind it.

  It felt strange to walk inside this completely see through structure, with fiberglass re-bars showing through the translucent columns, and step on the thin crystal floor that revealed the steady movement of the Mississippi river below it. The obvious metaphor of walking on water warmed Sarah's heart; she smiled and went over the last details of the presentation in her mind.

  The double doors slid open to allow them to pass from the antechamber to the meeting hall, in a very strange move of entering a space while you are actually in it. The terraforming committee was waiting, more friendly and relaxed than Sarah expected, considering that the elite training at the Space Science Academy had tested every boundary of their physical endurance and intellectual capacity. Sarah felt out of place in her plain cotton sweater and khakis standing in the midst of this spotless surrounding where everything was so precisely designed; she was starting to get nervous and looked at Seth to see if the latter felt the same. Seth stood tall, shoulders straight and chin up, her steely eyes burning with intense determination, and all of a sudden her presence here made all the sense in the world, she looked like she belonged.

  "Sit down, please", said the chair. "We reviewed your findings and would like do discuss some of the details of your report that brought up questions."

  Four hours later the doors slid open again to let out a completely drained Sarah and a seriously tired Seth. Sarah could not remember in her long history of taking exams and research presentations a time when she had to draw upon all the things she had ever learned in order to answer. The questions were exhaustive and very specific at the same time, dragging her from botany to chemistry, geological analysis, chemical physics, environmental science, botanical genetics, biotechnology and of all things professional writing. The plant trays laid on the table between them during this volley of questions and answers, oblivious to the technical improbability of their existence and defying common sense.

  Tired as they were they stepped over the endlessly moving waters of the river without noticing them as they walked towards the front door, only to bear testimony to how easily the human spirit embraces the unusual or seemingly impossible once it has experienced it and turned it mainstream.

  "You did well", Seth spoke, walking down the stairs in the soft and humid darkness of the night. The fog surrounded the fast moving headlights with glowing haloes and softened the crinkled contours of the trees, fading them in the distance. "I wish we had more time, we can always send more data if needed." Sarah didn't answer, she was tired and her head was spinning. The yellow brick road said "Experience is the kind of thing you only get after you need it."

  "Let's find a place to eat", said Seth, "but first cocoa and beignets."

  Chapter Six

  "The most important decisions of our lives are always the easiest to make. The younger we are, the most obvious they seem, but even in our later years we recognize our destiny when it crosses our path."

  "Our ancestors dreamt about being the first to cross the ocean, the first to fly, the first to leave Earth. Like the early explorers we embarked on our ship, just like them not knowing what we were going to find, considering the risk worth taking so that we could be the first humans to settle another planet."

  "What was that about?" Sarah asked, forgetting her usual timidity. A bowl of beignets arrived, so buried in confectioner's sugar that they had to dig in with their fingers to find them. The pastry was steaming hot and melted goodness dripped down their wrists and forearms. The fine powdered sugar dispersed with every breath or gust of wind, dusting their faces and the fronts of their shirts.

  "Have you heard about Terra Two?" asked Seth in a slightly distracted conversational tone.

  "Yes, they have been working on the atmosphere for years, it seems that the methane is stratifying close to the planet surface which raises the new atmosphere temperature too much. What does that have to do with our project? You don't mean...!"

  "Yes."

  "And that planting mix was...?"

  "Yes."

  "And we managed to...?"

  "Yes"

  "Wow! How did you get involved in this? Why didn't they send it to a university?"

  "They did. Several. Us too, we worked together in the past."

  "How come they are talking to us, though, didn't the other projects work out?"

  "Certainly, they just needed a lot more in terms of equipment and materials, the project is supposed to be as bare bones as possible. It takes a lot of energy and manpower to transport things from here."

  "So it was what, luck?"

  "Part of it, I'm sure."

  "What's the rest then?"

  Seth didn't answer. She was focused on the delicious beignet in front of her whose wispy aroma steamed the already humid night air. She was trying to keep the raspberry jelly from running down her fingers and spoke with her mouth full.

  "Mercy, these are absolutely delightful! I wonder how they make them. You know, they published the recipe but good luck trying to get the pastry to taste the same. It's the baker, I tell you, I'm so glad you thoug
ht of this."

  Sarah chewed on her beignet savoring it like a three year old on her first field trip to the bake shop. She sat in quiet reflection of the information received, not knowing how to react to it.

  "So", Seth said after a long pause, "what are you going to do after your specialty program ends?"

  The question took Sarah by surprise, she had been so immersed in the intensity of this project that she never took time to think what was going to happen when it was over. She didn't really know, if anything her parents couldn't wait for her to come back, they were counting on angel hair to improve the harvest, she had gained quite a green thumb reputation around her corner of the world.

  Her younger brother was getting married and everyone in the family was knee deep in wedding planning and preparation. Her aunts had sent her numerous messages to keep her current with the most intricate details of who said what and who didn't agree, together with the fifteen versions of the wedding party design, flower coordination and color scheme. Sarah's head was spinning around all of these already overwritten versions of how things were going to be and couldn't decide if it was sadness or relief that she didn't participate directly in the planning. The only thing the entire family agreed upon from the very beginning was the timing, a very traditional harvest themed wedding.

  For a moment the entire terraforming project took a back seat in Sarah's mind to the swarm of details surrounding the wedding.

  "Well?" Seth asked, impatiently. Sarah shrugged, a simple gesture her mentor had learned to anticipate with irritation. Sarah shrugged when she wasn't sure, didn't want to accept the assertion, was cold, had an aha moment, knew she was right, wanted to stretch her back, didn't understand the question, experienced contradictory emotions or any of a great number of completely unrelated feelings, so a shrug from her was even less of a clarification than no answer at all.

  "I haven't thought about it", Sarah said, suddenly realizing that she would never again experience the double layered paradise filled with birds and curious visitors, where everything was so much larger than life, so unreal that nothing she could achieve from this day forward could match it. It just wouldn't be possible, there was no not of this earth medium to cultivate outside of those old stone walls, maybe in one of the universities involved with the program, if she was lucky to get into one of the long term studies.

  "We could use some help, you know, I'm not sure exactly how we're going to work this out, we have to talk to the guys at the Space Science Center to see if we could get another grant. It will be different, a lot more traveling and coordination with them. If they are convinced we have a working solution, and at this point they probably are, we're going to have to move some of the setup here, it will make the collaboration easier. You will need to get a hold of some books, I'll make you a list, they should prove helpful. You will also need formal clothing for functions and a place to live. Can you drive?"

  Sarah listened to this detailed list of activities dumbstruck as she realized that Seth didn't even consider the possibility of her choosing another venue. She started to bring up her brother's wedding but apparently Seth had included the wedding ceremony and regular visits to her parent's farm in the schedule, together with additional post doctoral studies on chlorophyll metabolism in low light environments and cellular engineering for enhanced processing of carbon dioxide and rare metals.

  Sarah kept munching on her jelly filled pastry and realized that she made a life changing decision in less time than it took to finish a beignet, in less time than it took the jelly inside it to cool down.

  Chapter Seven

  "The hardest thing we had to do wasn't to prepare ourselves for the challenge, we didn't question it or think about the dangers, but to share our plans with our loved ones. From the safe distance of what they perceived as normal and desirable our decision looked selfish and unforgivable and they couldn't understand or justify it."

  "They were afraid for us but also ashamed that we took leave of our senses, after all their efforts to raise and educate us, after teaching us right from wrong, after giving us all the love they had. We embarked our vessel with our hearts bleeding, this was the price we had to pay for our audacity."

  The next year turned into the next two, then four years, with studying, testing, analyzing, refining, in a sometimes mind-numbingly repetitive sequence of processes which morphed into each other to the point where the team had to stop all activity and review where they were, what they already covered and why they were doing what they were doing.

  The overheated atmosphere issue lingered like a bad smell as the environmental science team worked their way through the methane with the slowness of a snail and the patience of Job. The methane was consumed in the oxygen rich environment in painfully small doses, as if finishing this project during the scientists' lifetimes was not in the cards. At least this is how it seemed to them, they got more and more impatient with this never ending challenge.

  It was ironic that they had to burn through most of this vast amount of fuel just to make the air breathable and they agonized over the decision for months, but the number of containers was limited and the temperature stubbornly refused to drop. They still managed to isolate and pump a good part of the gas in countless tanks to be used as fuel.

  When they ran out of space on the surface and underground they started launching the tanks in orbit to be retrieved later and as the shiny containers floated kilometers above the surface outside the new and fragile atmosphere they looked like a myriad stars studding the coffee latte sky, brilliantly reflecting the light from the sun in freshly melted pools and streams of water, and creating a dreamlike emotionally charged imagery that was going to fire-up the creativity and inspiration of several generations of poets and artists.

  ***

  Meanwhile the whole congregation moved from Perpignan to New Orleans in small groups of two or three as the need for extra hands and minds increased. The plants were doing well and grace to extensive studies on increased carbon dioxide processing were both showing real promise for bioengineering the atmosphere of Terra Two and feeding entire sections of their earthly host city.

  Years and events passed over Sarah and the sisters as if they belonged to a different, slower time, while the faster, more tumultuous one surrounded and flowed next to them, two streams with different beds in the same large river. After the first couple of years the small group got so deeply immersed in the life and times of Terra Two that the consideration of a pioneer mission came as a natural development of the project. There was no real discussion about when that was going to happen and who was going to go but it was assumed that the mission would include the sisters and will launch as soon as feasible.

  Sarah's parents were stunned and objected vociferously to the harebrained idea that their beautiful young daughter instead of settling down and starting a family would risk her life in a hellishly scary environment where air was scarce, water even more so, and food was non-existent, alone under a godless sky, millions of miles away from home. Who would care for her if she got sick, whom would she cry to if she was scared, when would they ever see her again?

  No argument remained unused, no anguish was spared, no understanding shared. Sarah tried in vain to explain that this was an experience so rare in the history of humankind that anybody would be honored to be selected, that the mission consisted of a few hundred people and she wouldn't really be alone, and that every detail was considered, every need taken into consideration, and every possible comfort provided.

  After several unsuccessful efforts to persuade her and a quite blatant abduction attempt, after both of her brothers were very transparently used as proxies to convey the message from a younger perspective, but that of people still in possession of their mental faculties, a guilt-ridden and misunderstood Sarah remained unmoved in her decision.

  The family discussed the issue for months, complaining about the redhead's lack of wisdom, making assumptions about the connections between the fir
e colored hair and the ludicrous life plans, and only relented when they found out that the mission included quite a number of eligible young men, recipients of doctoral degrees, physicians, engineers, physicists, biopharmaceutical experts, all single and confined to a limited choice of potential brides, far away from home for years and years.

  The thought that she might marry on Terra Two enflamed the conversation even more when very indignant family members contemplated the thought of raising babies in that God forsaken place. After a while the irritation of simply talking about this issue became so intense that they stopped bringing it up altogether and limited themselves to briefly present the news that Sarah continued to convey every week.

  This family drama made her realize that she knew close to nothing about the sisters, especially Seth, and wondered if they too experienced disapproval, if their families were equally upset. She had stepped into their tight knit group which seemed to have been together forever and didn't stop to think what their lives might have looked like if they never joined the order.

  She also realized that for the other people participating in the mission she too was Sarah with the anaerobic bacterial cultures, for them the angel hair child that hid in the doorway leading from the kitchen to the herb garden and listened to the nuns talk about their day never existed. This little change of perspective made it a little easier to accept her parents' outrage. They haven't participated in her experiences over the last few years so for them all the extraordinary research and engineering feats were a vast blank space with Terra Two scribbled on it in big, bold and scary letters.