Genesis 2.3-c

She looked out the window into space, holding a small vase over her arms where a single rose was planted. "It should happen right at the middle there," she thought. As she waited, her gaze rested on the plant she cradled on her arms. She fidgeted the ground right under the rose to reveal the gold coin she had buried this morning alongside its roots. On the coin was minted “2.3-c”.

There was the soft sound of the door opening from behind her. There were footsteps and soon a colleague joined her by her side to watch from the window. “Adhaya,” he said to acknowledge her presence. She looked at him and smiled. It was Crimson, one of the ship’s head zoologists.

“So,” he continued with a smile, “Have you thought about why our teams are together in one laboratory?”

The question was a long running joke. Crimson's zoology team and Adhaya's botany team were assigned to one lab. There were other zoology and botany teams in the ship but none of them were together in one room.

They were assigned three years and seven months ago; Crimson was counting but Adhaya was not. The only similarity between their teams was that they both studied Earth beings. They both relied on the stored DNA of plants and animals from the planet.

One time, Crimson found Adhaya reading some folklore and myths from Earth; and in another time, he saw her reading earth’s history books. “In a way,” Adhaya had told Crimson, “I feel that we should look back into their history and their culture to see how plants play a part in their lives.”

If Crimson had heard that from others, he would have dismissed it, but he knew Adhaya. Her insights of Earth sciences were profound and logical. She had told him that there were many earth myths which talked about animals and plants. “Did you know that in their famous myths, there were gods who turned into animals just so that they can be with humans?” She would give out trivias like that during their snippets of conversations; sometimes, she would give out stories, her favorite being how humans began from a plant.

“The story talked about a paradise with all kinds of animals,” she would tell him, “One day this giant bird saw a very huge stalk of bamboo and it heard something knocking from the inside. Curious, it pecked on the bamboo and as it did so, the sounds from the inside grew stronger. When at last the bamboo cracked and opened, there were two humans inside -- a man and a woman.”

One time Crimson said, “You always say that it’s a giant bird.”

“What do you mean?” Adhaya asked, puzzled.

“Well,” Crimson continued, “You always assumed that it’s a giant bird and a giant bamboo; but what if they were just little people?” There was a grin on his face as he said that. As usual it was supposed to be a joke; Crimson liked to make her smile. But when she heard it, Adhaya took it seriously and wondered, “What if they were indeed little people?”

As both Adhaya and Crimson looked out the window, Adhaya felt that it was her turn to say another long-running joke, “If we give it some time, we’d probably have Minato with us in the lab.” Minato was one of the head marine biologists. He too was focused on Earth beings. Having him in the lab was incomprehensible because Minato would require aquariums of different sizes.

“Put all Earth biologists in one room!” Crimson said, pretending to be a ship’s captain, “All of them are working on replicas anyway; they’re studying dead creatures.”

Adhaya hugged her vase tighter. She didn’t make any comment. Instead, she kept her eyes glued to the middle part of the window. Sensing that Adhaya’s thoughts were back to the stars, Crimson asked, “Do you think you’ll see much this time?”

“It wouldn’t be as grandiose as the ones that we had,” Adhaya replied, “This binary system is farther, so the remnants of the two stars exploding would be on a smaller scale from where we are.”

“You could always enhance the window’s scope vision so that you could see it clearly,” Crimson suggested although he suspected that she wouldn’t want to do that. He noticed that Adhaya had always wanted to see the light remnants through the window glass, undiluted by any optic aid.

Crimson’s communication device gave out a beeping sound. He answered it and upon finishing said, “I’ve got to go. That’s the captain reminding me that we have a game of chess. It’s part of his earth education.”

Adhaya smiled to acknowledge. When Crimson had gone, she looked at the rose and whispered to it, “Nobody knows you’re one of a kind; you’re not just a replica.”

As part of their work, Adhaya and her team would recreate certain species of plants from the stored DNA library. The team would then study them and would cross-breed plants to create food or medicine. Sometimes, other non-earth sequences were introduced to the plants to see what happens.

Adhaya’s rose was something different. She didn’t create it as it was from the ship’s computers. Instead, she had formed a seed from the information in the library and planted it on soil; soil that she carefully recreated through the compost of other plants. It took her some time but she was glad that the rose had grown as big as it had. Although tedious, it was not the first time she had done that. On their home planet, she had grown plants from seeds like what other botanists had done. On the ship though, growing a plant from a seed was not practical.

Adhaya placed the plant on the ledge of the window and took a few steps backwards to look at it. Was she indeed possessive of the rose like what Crimson had told her? She was bringing the pot with her every day -- to the lab and to her quarters. When asked, Adhaya’s reply was that she wanted to observe it as it grows.

“Perhaps putting it in a mini-greenhouse would serve your purpose more efficiently?” one colleague had suggested. Adahaya knew that it was a good suggestion. Putting the rose in a mini-greenhouse will remove any distractions from the plant. Surroundings can be controlled and cameras can be installed around the rose. But that was not what she wanted; she wanted the plant to interact with its surroundings and not just be isolated from it. She also wanted to water it herself. "You're not just an earth plant, aren't you?" Adhaya thought as she checked the rose's leaves and petals.

As her team worked in the lab where Crimson team was also, she thought about whether she had been controlling the conditions of the plants too much. Isolating variables is a way to influence but Adhaya knew that when they were living, these plants did not work in isolation. They interacted with the animals of the earth; in fact, parts of them were eaten only to grow back again during the next season. Through different organic and memory simulations, she had hope to give her plant the randomness of plant interaction. She knew that it wouldn’t be complete but she had to try.

“And since you’re my creation,” Adhaya continued thinking, “I’m giving you a gift from my ancestors.” And that was the golden coin that she placed by its roots.

Adhaya returned her gaze outside the window. A flash of blue and red came from a point in space, near where Adhaya had predicted. She smiled and observed them. She thought that on earth, the only place a plant could witness a similar display was if it was found on areas where auroras were visible.

The strips of lights became bigger to the point of her expectations then Adhaya’s eyes widened. They were supposed to disappear but instead, the lights seemed to be moving towards the ship, becoming bigger and bigger until they engulfed the whole ship. Then, she noticed a strange thing -- a strip of red and blue light seemed to have entered through the window and made its way to the rose, particularly to the soil “To the coin,” Adhaya thought. From the coin, the light went through the rose.

Adhaya knew something had happened. She got her vase by the window and walked almost ferociously to her quarters. She set the mode of her doors to private and placed the vase on her desk. The red and blue lights were still hovering around the plant. The flower then closed into a bud, as if time had rewinded on it. Then the bud began to move as if it was breathing.

She didn’t blink as she watched the plant glow with blue, red, and then she noticed that tinged of gold which could only come from the coin she had buried by the plant’s roots. What did her mother tell her about it? About that gold coin her ancestors had passed on as a charm of a necklace? “This is an egg from our moons,” her mother said to her one time. As she did, Adhaya swore that she saw her mother’s eyes glowed red and blue. -- one eye was red; the other blue. When she told her mother about the glow from her eyes, her mother said that sometimes Adhaya’s eyes were red and blue too.

The rose bud became bigger until it was three times its original shape. Something seemed to be moving inside it. The stem had bent as if the plant was carrying something from its bud. Then slime flowed from the flower and then a blob came out landing on the table. To Adhaya’s surprise, the blob was heaving.

Adhaya got a pair of thongs and a scalpel and began to carefully study the blob. She realised that there was something inside and so, she tried separating it from the blob. When she was done, she saw what looked like an elephant, a few inches big. The bud began to heave again and another blob came out. It contained a small lion. The last that came out was a gorilla. They were all exhausted it seemed and so they slept. Adhaya, meanwhile, felt her heart pumping at the things she was seeing.

That night, Adhaya didn’t sleep. Instead, she was at her desk, looking at the small animals and the flower beside them. She didn’t dare to leave her room, afraid that they might disappear. She had also told the computer to make for her three small aquariums and gently placed the animals there. Soon, each animal became active. They were curious as to what was around them.

It was strange, Adhaya was sure that they were trying to make sounds; the lion seemed to have roared, the elephant trumpeted, and the gorilla looked like it belched, but none of them made a sound.

“What am I missing here?” Adhaya asked herself. “I’m assuming they are making sounds. I’m assuming that I can hear them.” Then as if remembering something, Adhaya went to her drawers and began rummaging through her things. She got a small device and placed it on her table.

“Let me put this on automatic,” Adhaya said out loud, but talking to herself. “Anyone of you, make a sound please.”

Adhaya smiled. It was a funny thing to ask, particularly because she didn’t expect she’ll get an answer. The gorilla knocked on the aquarium glass with both of its hands. Adhaya could hear its tapping on the glass, but not him. She tapped the aquarium back with her fingers which seemed to have irritated the gorilla and so it seemed to have belched again. When he did, Adhaya looked at her gadget and saw that it had measured a sound wave.

“Aha! So you’re in that frequency,” Adhaya said, “Computer, change any sound wave frequency of 2.34 to 7.02 Cotsel in this room.” A beep was heard and soon, she could hear the angry belch of the gorilla which made Adhaya laugh. Following that, she heard the lion and elephant making their sounds as well. When it was becoming too noisy, Adhaya said, “Computer, cancel change in sound waves.” The sounds of the animals then became lost behind the silence.

“You’re all from the same frequency, but what does that mean?” Adhaya asked. “Computer, show related literature for 2.34 Cotsel”

There were a few relevant records regarding the 2.34 Cotsel. It was a frequency rarely observed and it was only observed in between multiverses. It shouldn’t exist in the reality that she’s in.

“This is wrong,” Adhaya thought as she read how some experiments consist of creating instruments which mimic the wave but eventually deforming and portions of it disappearing. She didn’t want that same thing to happen to her animals.

Adhaya stood up and went toward her drawers. She then pushed a panel to reveal a handle on the wall. She turned the handle clockwise and pulled it, revealing a long capsule which she carefully carried back to her desk.

She was shaking her head as she carefully took out things out of the capsule. They were cameras and transmitting devices --- and replaced them with the aquariums where the animals were. She also secured the vase with the rose on the capsule. She touched a corner on the capsule and said, “Close capsule. Open only when on land and when the surrounding frequency is 2.34 Cotsel.” The capsule closed.

Adhaya stood up and opened the door of her quarters. “Follow me,” she commanded. The capsule floated towards her. Adhaya felt a tinge of nervousness as she walked on the corridors of the ship. She was after all carrying new living organisms. She had recorded the new beings into her log but she had wondered whether she should tell her captain about it. She decided not to. The logical thing to do was to show the creatures to one of the zoologists, particularly to Crimson since he focused on Earth animals, but for some reason she decided not to. She’ll probably tell him afterwards; she had gathered samples anyway, so that should be fine.

As she turned on the corner towards her lab, she saw Crimson by the window at where she was a few hours ago. She stopped on her tracks for a few seconds, calmed herself a bit and continued walking. When she was by his side, she greeted him, “Crimson.” Crimson faced her, pleasantly surprised that she was there, “Adhaya, o, you brought a capsule? Will there be another explosion?”

Adhaya nervously smiled and then replied, “Nah, I just thought about sending this to the last one.”

“So late?” Crimson asked.

“Well, I wasn’t planning to,” she said curtly, “But things change.” Adhaya then went towards the controls on the windows and started typing. When she was done, a compartment opened up below the window where Adhaya guided the capsule in.

The computer said, “Launching in 5..4..3..2..1..”. Adhaya and Crimson saw the capsule shoot out into space.

“How long will it be out there until it comes back?” Crimson asked. Adhaya didn’t answer, pretending not to hear. Instead, her gaze followed the capsule as it flew to the direction of the explosion.