Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen

Lexi shook her head ruefully.  “We’ve spent our whole lives surrounded by plants, studying them, taking care of them.  It seems impossible now that we never noticed.”

“Believe me, I know the feeling,” I assured her, nodding my thanks as I accepted a tall glass of iced Chai.

We had made our way up to Lexi’s quarters, surroundings that perfectly reflected our hostess’s love of all things natural:  rattan furniture, stained pecan and topped with plump, rust-colored hemp pads; an area rug made of dried grass in a basket weave, edged in khaki.  Carefully chosen accents added color and character.  I was particularly taken by the large abstract hanging over the sofa, a bold swirl of copper, orange, and yellow that somehow evoked sunsets—which was an interesting association to my mind, considering I had never actually seen a sunset.  Eran and I sat in low chairs with gracefully curved arms.

Jordi sat on a matching sofa, his left wrist draped over the arm, his weight resting on his right arm, which was bent at the elbow and propped on his thigh.  His right hand dangled between his knees.  He turned it palm up as he spoke.
“Any farmer—and when it comes down to it, that’s what the two of us are—will tell you there are seasons.  Plants sprout, mature, bear fruit, and eventually, die.  Of course.  So, what’s new, right?  Year after year, we pluck up spent plants and replace them with genetically identical seedlings.  We keep meticulous records:  size, circumference, date the first blossom appeared, date the first fruit appeared, total yield, and so on.”

“And?” I prompted, when he fell silent.

“And,” answered Lexi, sitting down beside him, “year after year, we reviewed our remarkably comprehensive data and failed to put two and two together.”  She reached over to the glass-topped coffee table to pick up one of the gray stones littered around a trio of red-orange candles in a square bronze tray.  She began to toy with the stone, unconsciously rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.

“Until ten days ago,” Jordi reminded her with a grin.

“Yes.  Until ten days ago.”

“We were preparing tomato seedlings for transplant.  I looked down at the tray in my hands and suddenly, I saw subtle differences between the young plants … the shape or color of the leaves or their positions on the stems.  It was as if … as if I had new eyes, as if I had never seen tomato seedlings before!  For a minute, all I could do was stare.  ‘Lexi,’ I cried, when I finally came to my senses, ‘look at this tray!  What do you see?’ ‘Tomato seedlings?’ she said.”

Lexi chuckled.  “Well, you can hardly blame me for being slow to catch on.  I had been hard at work for hours, trying to straighten out that glitch in the germination chamber’s main computer.  It took me a moment to shift gears.”

“Lucky for you,” Jordi continued, leaning back and patting her knee, “I was there to help!  Now, as I was saying …‘Tomato seedlings?’ she said.  ‘Yes, yes,’ I insisted, ‘but look at them!  Pay close attention!  Look at this one, then this one, then that one.  See?  The first has twelve leaves, the second ten; and see how their leaves are arranged, the small differences?  And notice that one in the corner … it’s a half-shade greener than the one next to it.’  I kept at it, until finally, her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open.”

“Hardly a flattering picture,” she laughed, “but true!  If anyone had walked in right then …  Well, I hate to imagine what they would have concluded.  Two gaping maniacs, mesmerized by a handful of sprouts.”

“Genetically identical sprouts,” Jordi emphasized, “that didn’t appear at all identical!  That started the conversation, of course.”

Lexi agreed with a nod.  “The analogy was impossible to avoid.”

“One thing led to another,” said Jordi, “and before we knew it, we had moved beyond the discussion of possible differences between ourselves and our Primes.  We came to the conclusion that we could be, and maybe should be, our own individuals.  After all, nature clearly abhors repetition.”

“Stars,” Eran murmured.

“What about stars?” I asked.

“No two are alike.  Millions upon millions of stars, no two exactly alike.”

“There!  You see?”  Jordi crowed triumphantly.  “Why should human beings be an exception to the rule?”

“According to history,” I told him, “we’re not.  That used to be common knowledge.  The fact that genetic equivalence didn’t result in identical phenotypes, I mean.  As a matter of fact, there were no known instances of phenotyically identical clones.  Minor differences in physical appearance and/or personality never failed to crop up sooner or later.”

“The Protocols,” Eran added, “were specifically designed to clamp a lid on those minor differences.”

“Of course, of course,” murmured Jordi, brow furrowed thoughtfully.  As serious as the discussion was, I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.  Of course was obviously our new friend’s pet expression.

“Maybe, deep down inside,” Lexi reflected quietly, “the Alphas knew those differences wouldn’t be so minor after all.”

“If this merry little band is anything to go by,” Eran replied, circling a finger to include the four of us, “they were dead right.”

“Dead!” exclaimed Jordi, instantly reclaiming our attention.  “I almost forgot!  That brings us back to my second point.  As I said, nature operates according to seasons.  There are seasons for everything:  germination, growth …” he paused meaningfully … “even death.”

“A time to be born and a time to die,” I murmured.

Eran glanced at me.  “What was that, Red?”

“Just something about seasons I read once.”  But I couldn’t remember where.  “So what happened after you ….”

“Woke up to the truth?” Lexi suggested, smiling.

“Yes,” I agreed, returning her smile,  “after the awakening.”

“We talked about what we should do,” answered Jordi.  “How should we live.  Going about business as usual was out of the question, of course.”

“Just like that?”  I was amazed.  My next question was a bit embarrassing, but I had to ask.  “Weren’t you afraid?”

Lexi tilted her head.  “That depends what you mean by afraid.  Were we afraid to live, really live, for the first time?  The answer to that question is no.  I, for one, found … find … the idea incredibly exciting.  If by afraid you mean did we have concerns … naturally.  There may be social and political consequences—very ugly consequences.  We’ll have to deal with those when the time comes.  But seizing our own identities, believing in our right, our obligation, to live fully and courageously is worth any risk, don’t you think?”

“I do now, but it took me a lot longer to reach that conclusion.”

“Yes, Eran told us.”

Her expression was sympathetic.  I appreciated the compassion, but since I no longer pitied myself, I didn’t want her to pity me, either.  “Well, as they used to say on Earth, we’re all on the same page now.  Listen, not to change the subject or anything, but I’m dying to know how the three of you got together.”

Jordi looked from me to Eran.  “You mean, you haven’t told her how you found us?”

“Telling her that I had found you seemed more important.  There hasn’t been a suitable opportunity to go into how.”

I arched an eyebrow.  “Oh?  What about in the library?  Or when we were traipsing through that last corridor?  The one where there was nobody but you, me, and a few hundred yards of ductwork?”

“Could have done,” he acknowledged with a nod, “if I had wanted to unleash the unstoppable torrent of questions that was bound follow.  Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided not to broach the subject.  Once we reached our destination, I knew most of the questions you were dying to ask would be answered in due course.  Was I wrong?”

No, but I didn’t have to come right out and admit it.  “So tell me now.  How did the three of you meet?  And how,” I asked Lexi, “did you get around to talking about … I mean, how did he find out you were—”

“—on the same page?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll say this much, Red,” Eran began, “the odds against a chance encounter like the one that brought us together must be astronomical.  I’ve never subscribed to the idea that events are ordained by some mysterious, external force called fate.  But now … I’ll let you be the judge.  After I left you at your portal, I went back to my quarters, determined to sort out the implications of your epiphany.  It was a lot to take in.  I would no sooner get hold of one piece, get it straight in my mind, when an entirely new aspect would occur to me.  Well, I’ve always thought better on my feet, on the move, as you know.”

“So you went for one of your walks.”

“Red, I went for a hundred walks.  I walked for hours, days, weeks.  There isn’t one corner of this ship I didn’t visit and revisit, up to and including the catwalks on Six … at least, the ones they’d let me get at.”

“You were on the Propulsion Deck?”

“Several times.”

“And nobody said anything, nobody asked what you were doing there?”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Right.  You wouldn’t have heard them if they did.”

“I don’t know why,” Eran continued, “but I avoided the garden during my rambles.  I would wander right up to the outer portal, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in.  Finally, four days ago, I gave up trying to sort through variables, vague prospects, and possible outcomes.  I decided truth was truth, and I for one was going to do my best to live by it, even if I couldn’t entirely master it, even if it meant placing myself in eventual harm’s way.  Well, I had no sooner reached that conclusion, when—and there’s absolutely no logical explanation for this—I suddenly knew the garden was where I needed to be.  Try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the compulsion or rationalize it away.  So, feeling ten times the fool, off I went.

“At first sight, the garden had the same effect on me it had on you.  I experienced an immediate, overpowering sense of homecoming.  Extraordinary,” he murmured, adding with a wry smile, “and, I admit, a bit disconcerting for someone who has always considered the laboratory his natural habitat.  But as I ambled down the path, a peace enveloped me, a sense of rightness unlike anything I had ever known.  I hadn’t walked far, when I heard a voice nearby—a woman, I realized, somewhere in the shadows under the trees, speaking very quietly.  And she said the most startling thing imaginable.”

I was hooked.  “What?”

“She said, ‘Then we’re agreed.  Each life is unique, and it’s up to each of us to make the most of ours.’”

Ω

Chapter Fifteen

From the Personal Journal of Kai-Lee Fox Delta

The unexpected.

Who knew it could make life so interesting?  By unexpected, I don’t mean your garden-variety surprises, although they’re nice, too.  But the events that come completely out of the blue, the ones that make you sit straight up and take notice?  I’m learning to love those.

When it comes right down to it, I guess I’m learning to love life.  These days life seems miraculous and wonderful and full of possibilities, all the more so, because it will never be repeated.  I’m sure of that now; I feel it in my bones.  The helix can be replicated, but nobody can recreate me.  Eran, Lexi, and Jordi feel the same way.

We’re careful to make our usual social rounds, because we don’t want anyone wondering why we’ve dropped out of circulation or changed our habits.  Eran and I even went to a mix at Na’weh’s last week, but our hearts weren’t in it.  Meanwhile, we get together with our new friends every chance we get.  We have great discussions, often lasting most of the night.  Sometimes we talk about life and how we want to live it, and we strategize ways to break out of our prefabricated ruts, so we can find out who we really are.

Everyone loved my idea about trying new things, by the way, and given the fact that we’ve already wasted a good chunk of our lives, we decided not to put it off.  So, I’m learning to garden.  (Lexi, who apparently possesses inexhaustible patience, is teaching me.)  Eran has done some pretty good pen-and-ink drawings—mostly line portraits of the rest of us—Jordi’s taken up the guitar, and Lexi is dabbling in poetry.

We talk about other things, too, like the relative brevity of life.  After all, compared to stars and planets and galaxies, people live and die in the blink of an eye.  Our reaction to that isn’t what you might expect; none of us feels afraid or anything.  Oddly enough, the fact that our lives are singular and brief, only makes each day more precious.  No, really.  When you come to terms with the realization that this is your only shot, and it’ll be over before you know it, you learn to milk every moment.

With all this talk about how brief and precious life is, I guess it was only a matter of time before we got around to the subject of procreation … you know, having children.  The ban on childbearing never bothered any of us before the awakening.  It’s different now that the four of us are into making our own choices and living life to the fullest and all.  Oh, we know having children is an impossible, foolishly romantic fantasy; but the idea does have a certain wistful appeal these days.

Of course, discussions about life and living usually segue into speculation about what, if anything, comes after … as in, after we die.  And while I admit the jumping-off point for our theorizing—namely, me, dead—sometimes gives me a mild case of the willies, death is part of life, and any honest conversation exploring the latter more or less has to include the former.  Of course, speculation is as far as we get when we ask questions like, is this life is all there is, and does consciousness stop, and will the universe simply roll on without us, albeit ever so slightly altered by the currents of our existence.  (Granted, four fleeting lives are small potatoes in the vast scheme of things.  But to quote my favorite male agronomist, “Small should not be confused with insignificant!”)  Even science concedes there’s more to the universe than meets the eye.  We’re hoping there’s more to life and, yes, death, too.  We plan to keep searching for it.

On a strictly personal note, I’m changing in ways I wouldn’t have predicted, if I could have predicted the changes, which, of course, I couldn’t.  For example, it seemed logical to assume that exploring my own identity would require prolonged periods of total self-absorption.  Well, that isn’t how it’s working out at all.  If anything, the opposite is true.  Now that I’ve wholeheartedly embraced living, I don’t spend nearly as much time obsessing about myself.  I do, however, spend more time worrying about people who have yet to realize their lives are unique, valuable, and passing them by.  I feel so sorry for them!  I have to watch my expressions though, obvious sympathy could land me in some sticky situations, since the folks in question would insist they don’t need or appreciate my pity.  Anyway, my point is, once you become more aware of people, it changes the way you see them.  Take today, for example ….

I saw Liriene Chancal at the library.  Sitting primly behind that French Provincial desk that’s as delicately wrought as the lady herself, dressed in an off-the-shoulder green tunic, she reminded me of a cross between a librarian—which she is—and a dusky, bohemian woodland nymph.

“Bon jour, Kai-Lee,” she said, smiling.  “Ça va?”

“I’m good,” I answered, “really good.  How are you?  Busy?”

“Not particularly.”  She gave a wry Gallic shrug, head tilted, mauve-tinted lips pursed, hands spread.  A wide cuff of slim bangles jingled and glinted as they slid down her arm.  “But then, what is new?”

She had a point.  The ship’s library computers, set up hundreds of years ago, had probably hummed along flawlessly ever since.  Aside from routine maintenance, booting up canned research seminars for the Academy, and cataloging the odd new professional paper, there probably wasn’t much for Liriene to do.  She and Publius were in the same boat.  With how many others? I suddenly wondered, imagining myself in their shoes—trapped  in personal and professional stagnancy.

“Why are you looking at me that way?”  Liriene’s slender, French-tipped fingers flew to the tiny silver teardrops dangling from her ear lobes.  Finding them both in place, she self-consciously fingered her pixie fringe of black bangs.  “Am I … décoiffé?”

Realization dawned slowly.  I had been staring at her, appalled pity written all over my face.  “No, no, You look great,” I stammered.  “I was just thinking … that … that …”  What?  “… that I like your hair short!” I finished in a burst of belated inspiration.

Her dark-chocolate gaze brightened immediately.  “Merci.”  The fingers of her right hand fluttered over her shaved nape.  “It is so much easier.  Of course, you know that; you have always worn yours short.  But, Kai-Lee, surely you did not come to the library to talk about my hair.”  She smiled, clasping her hands together on top of the desk. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?  Can I help you find something?”

Newly sensitive to her predicament—a predicament that probably bothered me a lot more than it did her right then, for the simple reason that she had no inkling there was a better way to live—I wasn’t about to admit I knew exactly where to find what I was looking for.  It wouldn’t hurt to conveniently forget and let Liriene help me.  “If I’m not mistaken, you have a copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience?”

“Yes, I do!  An excellent choice! ‘Tyger!  Tyger!  burning bright/In the forests of the night….’ Il est magnifique! I will get it for you at once.”  Quick as a wink, happy as a clam, she scooted out of her chair and up the short, curved staircase to the balcony.  “It is my duty to remind you,” she called cheerfully, “that the complete works of Blake are available in an electronic format, which can be much more conveniently accessed from your quarters.”

“Yes, I know.”

Seconds later, she stood beaming at me, a slim, black volume in her outstretched hand. “Voilà!”

“Thanks.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

“Not right now.”  I gestured with the book toward an alcove on my right.  “I’m just going to sit over there and read for a while.”

“Bon.  I will be leaving in a few minutes.  If you will put the book back on the shelf when you are finished?”

“Sure.”  I started toward the alcove.  Obeying an impulse, I stopped, turned, and said, “You know, I’ve been spending a lot of time here lately.  I like all the wood and leather and the smell of lemon polish.  I like to run my hand along the balcony rail, I like the stairs, and most of all, I like to hold actual books in my hands.”  I glanced around, then back at her.  “There’s something very real about this place, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t see how she could; even I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant.  But if the delight dawning on Liriene’s face was anything to go by, I had just paid her the compliment of a lifetime.

“Oh,” she breathed, “Oh, yes, I know precisely what you mean! Ma petite bibliothèque … I did not think anyone else understood … that is, no one seemed to appreciate … but then, so few people come here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.

She shrugged self-consciously, murmuring that it was only that, well, the library had so much to offer, after all.   Of course, she acknowledged, not many people shared her zeal for the written word or her devotion to its preservation; still, she tried to kindle small fires wherever she could.  She cherished the books especially, but not just as rare and priceless artifacts—which indeed, they were.  Ah, but their real value, she said, lay in the humanity pressed between their covers.  The simple act of holding them in our hands as we turned the pages forced us to pause, to appreciate, and somehow brought us closer to the authors.  Did I agree?  And how could insubstantial lines of code marching like black ants across a holographic screen as insubstantial as mist hope to match that?

Okay, you know what emotional distance is, right?  That nice, safe space between two people where one can listen in sympathetic comfort while the other pours her heart out?  Well, I’m not sure how it happened, or when, but at some point in Liriene’s fervent discourse, I lost mine.  I was with her heart and soul, understanding at a level too profound for words that the library was both her labor of deepest love and her redemption.  Without it, her life would be barren, a sentence with no hope for parole.

“—special place.”

“What?”  I blinked, startled to discover my eyes were as damp as hers.  Trying to regain my footing, I stuttered,  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, it makes me happy to know you, too, enjoy this special place.”  She brushed a finger under her eyes, sniffed and grimaced self-consciously.  “Regardez-moi!  Ridiculous to get emotional!  I am sorry, I did not mean to preach you a sermon.”  Her brow furrowed.  “I do not know why I did.  I suppose it was ….” she trailed off, apparently at a loss.

We faced each other across an abrupt, awkward silence.  I remember thinking, If she’s waiting for me to say something, we’re in trouble.  What just happened here?

Liriene was obviously embarrassed by what she considered an uncharacteristically emotional display, one she was sure had made both of us uncomfortable.  I was uncomfortable, all right; explaining why would have been the hard part.  My discomfort had nothing to do with the wince and blush of a socially awkward moment.  I wanted to throw my arms around her, tell her life didn’t have to be this way.  I wanted to scale a two-story soapbox and scream against the flawed system sentencing so many to pointless misery.  Since neither option struck me as doable right then, I could only stand mute, helpless to reassure her.

“Well …” she murmured at last, taking a step back.  “I, ah, I suppose I should be going.  There is … oh … I have much, so much to do… I have a … a meeting.”

I nodded and finally managed, “Thanks again for your help.”

I never did get around to reading Blake.  I sat there for an hour or so, trying to figure out some way—short of hitting them over the head with a truth they weren’t ready for—I could add meaning to the lives of people like Publius and Liriene.  Ideas were scarce on the ground.

I learned a couple of things about myself from that encounter.  One, I’m rapidly developing a knife-edged aversion to seeing wonderful people cheated out of their lives.  Two, sooner or later, that’s going to make keeping my mouth shut about the truth impossible.

© 2010, Kathy DiSanto, all rights reserved