Generations

by Francis Rosenfeld

  The redhead went back to her healing garden, threw herself carelessly on one of the stone benches in the shade of the pear trees and for the first time in two years, rested.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Of Vocation

  Sister Joseph's sudden arrival and departure from Soléa left the youngsters insecure and missing home. Despite being given the extraordinary chance to discover everything the universe had to offer, despite the thirst to know that drove them to the other side of the galaxy they felt vulnerable and alone on this strange cold planet, not because they couldn't handle their tasks, but because they found themselves with no reason for performing them.

  It is not that they were constantly told what to do on Terra Two, goodness knows it would have been hard to have a less hands on approach to child rearing than that of their parents' and the sisters', after all living in a world without peril does come with wonderful opportunities for self-discovery, but as they grew and experimented with life there was always someone there to give them comfort and advice, someone wiser, who had the answers to their questions, someone who loved them and kept them from harm. Because the sisters didn't grow old the issue of coming of age never occurred to the children who assumed the former will always be there at their beck and call.

  Now they were on their own and when they turned around for solace or confirmation they were met only by the wind. It was unsettling, the constant wind of Soléa, singing and resonating among the rocks, heartless and unrelenting, moving with the natural order of things, of much larger things than themselves.

  Their unanticipated vulnerability made them look for safe haven but there was no refuge on the cold blue planet, everything was out in the open and exposed to the winds.

  Lily wondered how the sisters kept their composure when they first arrived on Terra Two and considered the fact that maybe their daily prayer service held a lot more meaning than she thought. Growing up with the sisters she couldn't miss their faith in God but she always saw deity as an all encompassing entity who was out there and ruled all things, not something that she could interact with or speak to. Come to think of it, Soléa and her perception of God seemed to be fashioned from the same essence: bright, distant, beautiful and silent.

  Lily reviewed all the spiritual knowledge she had accumulated in her young life, poring over logical pros and cons, reliving the philosophical society debates, going over whatever she thought she knew about life and meaning, raring to find the solution, the conclusion, the way forward, trying to understand her part in this exceedingly vast and sophisticated machinery of the universe that was unfolding before her eyes and goodness knows how far past the limitations of human gaze. The only feeling she could come up with about the splendid world before her eyes was that of a haunting absence. There was something she missed painfully, something Soléa didn't have and wouldn't allow her to have it either, a caring soul.

  The winds kept blowing inexorably as if to make her aware how small and lost she was in the larger order of things and she started questioning her cosmic ambitions, her resilience, her drive. She took every opportunity to go back to Terra Two where things were just as she remembered them and spent a lot of time around the sisters who were both pleasantly surprised and slightly perturbed by her constant tagging along, but she couldn't figure out the secret to their balance. There never seemed to be any need for spiritual counsel in the living paradise that was their home. As soon as she got back to Soléa, though, the ghost of insignificance shadowed her again, woven in the wind.

  That's when Seth arrived unexpectedly to Soléa, all by herself, just to check on the progress of the young team and get an idea of their future plans.

  There couldn't possibly be a more awkward small talk than that between Lily and Seth, who were both direct, self-motivated individuals with a million plans in progress at every moment and for whom idle chatter was a pointless waste of time.

  "Welcome to Soléa," Lily said cheerfully and then couldn't figure out a single subject of conversation. What was there to talk about? The windy planet was open as the palm of her hand and after you saw one location of it you've seen it all.

  "I trust you're well," Seth helped out uncomfortably. "How is your research going?" she continued. Lily breathed a sigh of relief that she had something practical to talk about and over the next several hours she gave the leader a complete account of their research activities, the feature mapping, the habits of animal life and the very boring climate of Soléa. Seth listened carefully to her report, but listened even more attentively to her thoughts, as they had their bracelets on, trying to figure out ways to ease the burden of the young woman's existential angst. She felt responsible for not taking more time to deepen the children's understanding of the unseen waters of the soul and of the loving presence of God. Eventually Lily finished speaking and they walked in silence for a while.

  "Your heart is troubled," the leader spoke in a soothing tone, but her words took the young woman by surprise and made her startle.

  "I'm sure it's nothing," Lily brushed her off, "the wind can be disquieting," she continued. As if to enforce her point the air movements reverberated against the rocks in weird harmonies. It almost sounded like Purple music at times, but Seth didn't want to point that out to the already distressed Lily who found nothing warm or familiar in the relentless call of the wind.

  "How long are you going to be here?" Seth asked in an unquestionable tone.

  "I beg your pardon?" Lily blurted, perplexed.

  "You don't belong here, Lily. None of you do. It's taking a toll on you and distracting you from your purpose. Weren't you going to travel beyond the edges of the universe?" Seth asked. The stark questioning reinforced the young woman's feelings of inadequacy and almost brought her to tears. If she couldn't make it for a couple of years on a reasonably habitable planet how was she going to make it out there? The leader shook her head.

  "What is there for you to do here other than allow the wind to drive you mad? Sarah is very worried about you, your parents too, we all are," she continued gently. "If this were the place for you, you'd be happy and fulfilled, look at sister Joseph, she can barely wait to sneak out and visit."

  Lily thought how at ease sister Joseph looked among the dragons, walking alone for days in the sparsely populated fields open to the winds. What was it that she knew, what kept her soul at peace and drove her spirit every day in this strange land?

  "Well," Seth answered her unasked question, "first of all we're a religious order," she continued obviously uncomfortable about revealing her innermost beliefs. She was going to explain that sister Joseph enjoyed any venue that allowed her to be away from people's 'useless yakking' for a while but she changed her mind and continued. "We rely on God's guidance no matter where we are."

  She would have loved to make Lily understand her words beyond the dry linguistic meaning but knew there was no shortcut for the young woman's journey and everyone's soul had to come to peace, balance and wisdom in their own way. "Anyway," she continued, "you classified every rock, animal and body of water on this planet, unless you want to live an ascetic life in the midst of a natural preserve I suggest you wrap up your research and come home."

  Throughout this soulful talk the dragons followed them humbly and faithfully and without questioning their purpose, always unfailing guardians, closing a protecting circle around them when they sat down and ready to guide them on their path when they got up.

  ***

  Lily came home as requested but her heart was heavy with what she perceived as the failure of her life plans and with guilt for not being able to love a planet which by any description was one of the most beautiful places in the universe. Just when she thought she found some peace she would run into Josephine wobbling down the corridors of the Institute like the blue ghost of Solea and personification of her inadequacy.

  "Get over it! Go visit if you'd like, you don't have to live there!" sister Roberta cut off her mental anguish.

  "What
if you said the same thing upon coming here, I mightn't even have been born!" Lily protested, revealing the hurt under her short lived adventure.

  "I didn't have anything to do with you being born," sister Roberta attempted a little humor to lift the morose youngster from her doldrums. "I love it here, I knew I wanted to be here before we left, that's why I came. You don't have to like a place just because you're capable of traveling there!"

  "Purple. Like. Terra. Two. Better." the immortals added their two bits in an effort to console Lily.

  "You're just saying that to make me feel better!" the young woman protested.

  "Yes." Purple giggled. "Purple. Love. All. Places."

  "You heard them!" Lily turned to Roberta, anguished. "How can they love all places and why can't I? I should be thrilled to discover new worlds, this was supposed to be my vocation!"

  "Don't let them get to you, you know how they like to tease," sister Roberta quenched the argument. "Listen, while you were away we sent a few probes in various directions and found a couple of planets worth seeing. One of them doesn't have a breathable atmosphere but it spins a crazy doily pattern around a double star system. Temperatures are tolerable and the skies are amazing, you might want to take a look."

  ***

  Lily nursed her wounded self for a while, not wanting to start another venture, and spent a lot more time around the sisters just watching their easy assurance and their contentment with their daily tasks. She followed Sarah around all day and dropped with exhaustion at the end of it wondering how she managed to fit in all her activities and still find time to hush Josephine away from the vegetable patch. She spent a few months in Roberta's lab learning everything there was to know about the solenoid's function.

  She took some time to study the images the probes brought back and had to admit, even though still raw from her disappointing experience, that the double star system was filled with a beauty and strangeness no human mind could have conceived with its violet, green and blue iridescence that flashed like so many dancing rainbows across the blackness of space. The stars around the tiny planet without air looked huge and blindingly brilliant due to their close proximity and its dark side never got dimmer than a twilight. The other side was stuck in quasi perpetual daytime due to tidal lock; the planet spun several loops around one of the suns, facing it the entire time, then took its leave, did a half twist at the center of gravity and turned to run crazy loops around the second sun for the other half of the journey, dazzling the observer with its beautiful celestial ballet and feeling much more familiar to the Terra Two child than the singular sun of Soléa could ever be.

  "I see I've piqued your interest," sister Roberta commented, pleased.

  "It's amazing!" Lily exclaimed, forgetting her philosophical reserve and her recent delving into the meaning of life or lack thereof. "What's its name?" she asked, excited.

  "Oh, we wouldn't want to deprive you of this joy, now, would we?" sister Roberta smiled and left the lab to give Lily time to find the best name for this beautiful and eerie new world.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Of Patterns

  "Squiggle!?" Seth exclaimed, shocked. "Of all the words in the English language you decided to name this awe inspiring world Squiggle?"

  "Actually, its name really is ..." Lily played a major sixth harmony on the gamma ray translator, "but I'm not a nightingale, so I figured Squiggle would be more practical."

  Seth sighed. Of all the unintended consequences of developing the Purple language this was ubiquitous and most irritating: people had an irrepressible urge to pepper conversations with Purple words, habit more easily accomplished in thought form than speech pattern for obvious reasons. Seth found Purple harmonies especially jarring when they jumped at her unexpectedly in the middle of a sentence and often wished she could go back in time and not enable this exasperating fad in the first place.

  "That means 'wonder at light'", the leader commented, drained. "What possible connection could you find between 'wonder at light' and 'squiggle'!?" she commented, exasperated.

  "Try it in a conversation, who can say 'I'm going to wonder at light' with a straight face?" Lily explained.

  "Why did you choose it then?" Seth couldn't believe her ears.

  "Because it does," Lily responded simply.

  The sisters shrugged their shoulders and accepted the name Squiggle halfheartedly and without commentary, with the exception of sister Joseph, of course, who mentioned in passing that Josephine, one of the cats or even Sarah could have come up a more dignified name.

  The children were very excited about it, however, and during the following months named every single school project after the new planet, wishing they too could go and wondering, just like the Purple name suggested, at its strange beauty. They had squiggle pancakes for breakfast, squiggle t-shirts, squiggle hairdos, squiggle pencils and squiggle behaviors. Sarah's endless patience was severely tried when every experiment in her chemistry lab turned to stringy confetti and every plant in the biology lab blossomed doodles and twirls.

  Purple was even more excited than the children, which was no surprise for the sisters, since the immortals had the same emotional level and could play the same games for hours.

  "Purple. Love. Squiggle. Squiggle. Sister. Wonder. Light." they chattered enthusiastically.

  "It's 'wonder at light'!" Seth corrected them, frustrated and dreading a repeat of the 'water.blue' incident.

  "Light..." the immortals whispered, dreamy. "Purple. Go."

  "Yes, of course," Seth answered absentminded. "As soon as practical, talk to Lily" , she softly dismissed them.

  The trip to Squiggle was not going to be as easy as the one to Soléa, there were a lot of factors to consider: the absence of an atmosphere, the much lower gravity, and more than anything, the nauseating effects the planet's strange revolution patterns could have on human physiology. Lily explained to Roberta that they were not going to stay longer than a few minutes, but the latter couldn't find peace until she dotted every i and crossed every t, concerned with every detail, worried about every contingency, trying to ensure there will be no surprises.

  "I don't like this lack of atmosphere thing, not one bit," she kept complaining. Her comments unleashed sister Joseph's sharp tongue and the latter let loose a steady stream of unpleasantness until the other sisters, who had had it with her observations and pointed criticism for the long centuries they had been together, jointly admonished her and threatened to tune out her bracelet.

  The sister tried to take offense but her complaints fell on deaf ears, so she decided to go to Soléa for a few months, where, as she pointed out, she could be with creatures who were not only more agreeable than present company, but also smart enough to appreciate her.

  "I don't understand why you have to go there at all," sister Roberta babbled at Lily, forgetting that she was the one who brought the young woman the project to begin with. "We have all the information from the probes, what else is there to find?" she commented, unconvincing.

  "Fine! I'm not going!" Lily finally exploded, swearing off the whole Squiggle concept and regretting the moment she first laid eyes on the crazy planet.

  "No, no," sister Roberta appeased her. "We just don't want to rush into anything, you know, have every eventuality planned for. It's not like we're under time pressure or anything."

  "Oh, so I'm going, then?" Lily asked.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea? Who knows what can happen, what if gravity doesn't keep you down and we have to rescue you from space? What if the weight of your exploration party gives the planet just enough oomph to spin out of orbit?" the sister continued to prophesy doom. Lily eventually decided not to go, to the sister's great relief, and counted strike two on her abacus of failure, taking on a martyred look that Seth found very annoying.

  Sister Roberta tried to stay out of Lily's way for a few weeks until the youngster admitted that there was some merit to the spinning out of orbit doomsday scenario. She wasn't
worried about herself, of course, but she didn't want to disturb the strange three body motion with her presence and resigned herself to 'wonder at light' from a distance.

  Far out in the skies Squiggle continued its strange lacy dance around its two suns, oblivious to the fact that a young ambitious woman sacrificed her dream to protect it.

  "Why does it have to be a place with such precarious balance? There are plenty of planets in the universe, I'm sure we'll find you a better one, one where we can send you without worrying about your safety," the sister justified herself to Lily.

  "I wonder what qualifications you'd need for that blessed place? I'm sure at this point sending me to Earth sounds unreasonably dangerous to you!" the latter protested.

  "Well, the higher gravity might put undue stress on your system," the sister started debating, but stopped when she encountered the young woman's appalled gaze. "I'll find you a new planet, I promise. One with air and life and without potential for spinning out of orbit."

  ***

  And she did. Not one but countless, a marvel of strange and wondrous planets, hazy planets with deep oceans, worlds with overlapping skies, green worlds set in perpetual twilight, worlds of ice inhabited by transparent creatures, worlds locked in twin revolution, spinning around each other like a strange time piece mechanism as they moved around their sun. She found worlds with life, worlds without life, intelligent worlds, worlds whose civilizations were sadly long gone. She found star system after star system, some with multiple habitable planets. She found rocky worlds like Terra Two and worlds veiled in the mystery of perpetual mist.