New Eden

by Kishore Tipirneni

  “Seth, you’ve . . . returned Rachael to me?” Joshua said, his voice breaking.

  “Yes. Seeing you suffer caused me to suffer as well. I’m not accustomed to this emotion, which is why I restored her life. If you decide to permanently stay on New Eden, the neural nests in each of your clones will be replaced with normal human brains, and you both can live here permanently.”

  Joshua knew this was no dream. He stared at the motionless body of Rachael for several seconds as he thought of the incredible gift Seth had given him. Rachael didn’t move as he walked slowly to the bed, grasped her hand, and gently brushed his tears away with it. “Is she asleep?”

  “No, not asleep, but suspended. I’m going to leave you two alone now. When I vacate your mind, she will wake up. Just a note of caution, however. The last memory she will have will be of the accident, so she’ll be startled and confused when she wakes.”

  Joshua swallowed hard to check his emotion. “I understand. Thank you Seth for bringing my Rachael back to me. I . . . uh . . . well . . . thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Joshua. I’ll contact you again in exactly three days. Make good use of your time. Goodbye, my friend.”

  Eyes wide, Rachael woke up, startled, and sat bolt upright and stared at Joshua.

  “Josh, what happened? We were on the bridge and . . . there was an accident and . . .” She looked around the room. “Where are we? Is this a hospital?”

  Joshua was at a loss for words. He hugged Rachael tightly as he sobbed more tears of joy.

  “Josh, what’s the matter? What’s happening?”

  Putting his arms around her shoulder, Joshua sat next to Rachael to calm her down. He slowly and methodically recounted the story of her death, the spread of Ebola, and the incredible story of how the petrins harvested their creations while spreading their civilization throughout the cosmos. Rachael was disoriented by her surroundings and shocked by the petrin agenda. Most of all, she found it hard to believe that she’d been cloned and virtually resurrected by Seth. She had tears in her eyes when Joshua had finished. She lifted her sleeve and saw that there was no tattoo on her wrist. “I really died in the crash?”

  “Yes, and I was devastated more than you can possibly imagine, but we’re back together now.” He placed his hands on both of her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Seth brought you back to me, and that’s all that matters.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said as she studied the room, still confused. “Josh, is this heaven?”

  Joshua laughed. “No. Like I told you—it’s a planet to which Seth transported us using cloning, DNA, and spookyon connections. It’s a variation of how Seth can inhabit an android body. He wants us to explore the planet for the next three days. He hopes we’ll endorse it in order to convince humanity to voluntarily leave Earth. I guess you could say it will be the biggest PR pitch in history.”

  Rachael was getting her bearings. “Humanity will never accept the idea.”

  “Don’t be so sure. The petrins are offering us . . . well, everything.”

  Joshua couldn’t believe that he and Rachael were sitting on the bed together, inches apart. After months of feeling that he would never see her again, she was present in the body Seth had fashioned—a perfect facsimile. But was it just a mirage—an elaborate trick being playing on him by a far superior intelligence? He had to be sure that this was Rachael—his Rachael.”

  “Rachael, I want to be certain it’s really you. I need to ask you a question that only you would know the answer to. Are you okay with that?”

  “Of course. Ask anything you want.”

  “When we were at the restaurant the day we made first contact with Seth, what was the evidence you gave me for the existence of a creator?”

  “The cell, and that it couldn’t have simply assembled itself.”

  Joshua grabbed Rachael in a tight embrace as fresh tears filled his eyes. “Rachael, I missed you so much.”

  Rachael returned his embrace but said nothing as tears ran down her cheeks.

  After a few moments, Joshua looked at her and remarked, “You were right, by the way. The cell was a cairn.”

  “I have my moments,” Rachael replied with a smile, looking around the room as she wiped the tears from her face. “And you’re telling me that Seth wants to move humanity here? As in everyone?”

  “He said it’s for our own preservation since most societies at our level of development don’t survive the period he called adolescence.”

  “He wants us to explore this place?” Rachael said looking around the room. The walls of the room were circular, with a luminous ceiling and off-white floor. She surmised that it was a bedroom given the fact that they were sitting on a bed with pillows. The room, which had three circular openings, was a sphere with its top and bottom cut off and replaced by the flat ceiling and floor.

  “Yes,” Joshua replied. “He says we have three days.”

  “Well, let’s explore then,” Rachael said as she rose and went to the closed orifice on her right. Joshua followed.

  As Rachael touched the circular door, it sprung open from the center, expanding like the iris of a camera and revealing another room, which she and Joshua peered into carefully without crossing the threshold.

  “I think it’s a bathroom,” Rachael said after a brief visual inspection.

  A sink sat on a pedestal, and next to the sink was a toilet with no tank. Even though the shapes of the fixtures were recognizable, the material from which they’d been constructed were unfamiliar to Joshua and Rachael. Their surfaces weren’t smooth, but slightly uneven and colored a mottled shade of light brown. To their left was a small rectangular room.

  “I think you’re right,” Joshua said. “That’s a sink, but there’s no faucet.” Joshua walked over to the sink and placed his right hand into the cavity, which caused numerous jets of water to shoot from the edges of the bowl towards its center, where they met and flowed into a drain. “Wow, that’s neat.” The water stopped when he removed his hand.

  Rachael walked to the rectangular room and placed her arm through the entranceway. Thousands of water droplets poured from the lighted ceiling of the room. “The entire ceiling is raining. I think it’s a shower,” she said. “The water’s warm. It’s going to be like taking a shower in a spring rain.”

  “It looks like a lot of fun,” Joshua said as he looked at the cascading drops. “Unbelievable technology.”

  Rachael removed her arm from the shower, and the water stopped instantly. “I feel like Alice in Wonderland,” she remarked, “and we’re pretty far down the rabbit hole.”

  They exited the bathroom and returned to the bedroom. The door closed rapidly and silently behind them.

  Joshua touched one of the textured gray walls. “I wonder what materials this place is made of. It feels like bark.”

  Rachael ran her hand along the wall, dug her thumbnail into its surface, and swiped it sideways, revealing a small green patch beneath. “Josh, you’re right. It’s exactly like the bark of a tree.”

  Joshua peered closely at the scratch and then slowly surveyed the rest of the room. “My God, I think it’s . . .”

  “What?”

  “I think the wall, the house, and everything in it—the sink, the bed, the lighted ceiling, the floor—is alive!”

  “How can that be?” Rachael asked. “I know the petrins are advanced, but that seems a bit farfetched.”

  “Seth said they bioscaped this planet to be a new home for humans but remember that their technology is completely DNA-based. Everything looks to be organic and made of living materials.”

  “They certainly look organic, but how could they build a living home?”

  “Because they didn’t build it. They grew it.”

  Rachael looked at Joshua, her mouth agape. “What do you mean they grew it? Like from a seed?”

  “Probably. The petrins are masters of DNA. Hell, they invented it. They could’ve designed this house and then encoded it w
ith DNA to literally grow from a seed planted in the ground. In fact, I’m almost sure of it.”

  Rachael turned three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. “Damn. We’re inside a living organism.”

  “If it is living, I bet it’s also self-reparative. If there was any damage, it could probably heal itself. No maintenance, no upkeep.”

  “Also, no manufacturing required.” Rachael added. “All that’s necessary is the information for the home encoded in DNA. The cells would do the rest. Simply amazing.”

  She walked to the other closed orifice in the room, which was a few feet from the foot of the bed and touched it. The orifice opened quickly, just as the other one had, and bright sunlight streamed through. It was a window that offered Joshua and Rachael a view of the terrain, one that left them speechless, for they saw a world of immense beauty. It was filled with grass fields, orchards, forests, and snow-capped mountains in the distance. The sky was a deep blue, interspersed with fluffy white clouds. The colors of the vegetation were familiar, and the entire scene, including the forest, was landscaped to perfection.

  “My God, what a beautiful world!” Rachael exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a landscape so perfect.”

  “It’s immaculate,” Joshua observed. “It seems like there’s no plant or blade of grass out of place. Now I know why Seth called this place New Eden. I can’t wait to explore it,” he said, rubbing the palms of his hands together in anticipation.

  They looked through the window, and Rachael touched the clear material with her hand. It was solid but didn’t feel like glass or plastic. It was somewhat squishy and became slightly deformed as her fingers pushed against it.

  They walked back to the room in which Joshua had awakened. Rachael pressed an orifice in the wall closest to the bedroom, which opened to reveal a window with a view similar to the one they’d seen in the bedroom.

  “I wonder how we get out there,” Rachael said.

  “Well, there’s only one portal left,” Joshua answered. “Let’s try it.”

  He approached the remaining opening and touched it with his hand. It opened and afforded them an exit to New Eden. He and Rachael stepped outside and gazed at the mesmerizing vista. Adjacent to the exit of their abode was a large orchard with a variety of trees planted in rows, each with fruit hanging from its limbs. Some of the fruit looked familiar, but some looked quite bizarre.

  Joshua stepped forward and looked at the outside of their home. “I was right,” he remarked. “Our house is living.” He pointed to the roof. “It’s covered with green leaves.”

  Rachael glanced at the roof, which had numerous branches sprouting from it, each with dark green leaves. The leaves themselves had a shape that reminded her of aspen leaves, but these were much larger. “Josh, we’re going to be staying inside a living organism. Kinda freaks me out.” She turned back to the orchard. “Well, we’re here to explore, so let’s see what’s out there.”

  Joshua and Rachael strode up and down the lanes between the rows of trees in the orchard. Some of them were instantly recognizable. Joshua stood under what looked like an apple tree, picked a piece of fruit, and took a bite. “Definitely an apple,” he said while chewing.

  Rachael approached an unfamiliar-looking tree with large, reddish-orange grapefruit-sized fruit, one of which she plucked from a low-hanging branch. The outer layer was tough and leathery, and she thought it might be a peel that wasn’t meant to be eaten. The fruit in her hand unexpectedly changed color, turning yellow. “Josh, I think it’s getting warmer.”

  Joshua put his hand on the fruit. “It’s definitely warm—almost too warm to hold. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Rachael replied. “Let me open it.” She used her fingernails to peel the leathery skin. Inside was a warm core that emitted a small wisp of vapor. “It smells and tastes good,” she said. “Kind of like mac and cheese.” She offered Joshua a bite, which he took.

  “You’re right,” he said, “but the texture is different. It’s still delicious, though.”

  “Here, you finish it,” Rachael said as she offered Joshua the fruit. “I’m going to sample another one.” She walked over to another unfamiliar tree, one that had reddish-brown fruit that was rubbery to the touch. She picked one, and since it didn’t have to be peeled, she bit into the pulp. A surprised look covered her face as she examined the interior of the fruit while she chewed. It had a dark red color.

  “Josh, it’s ahi tuna.”

  “Fruit that tastes like tuna?”

  “No, it doesn’t just taste like tuna. It is tuna.”

  Joshua stood by her side and also took a bite. There was no question: the inside was definitely meat.

  “What happened to your vegetarianism?” Rachael asked with a laugh.

  “It’s meat, but without a brain.”

  “How can meat grow on trees?”

  “Meat, trees—everything here is made of cells. The petrins are genetic engineers with complete control of DNA. I’m sure they can engineer a tree to grow meat on its branches, and they apparently did.”

  Joshua and Rachael continued their exploration of the orchard. Further on, they saw trees that looked familiar, although they’d never seen them on Earth. They resembled the nectar trees on Petri, with vines of different colors hanging from pods underneath their leaves. Joshua grabbed a pinkish-colored vine, put the end in his mouth, and drank.

  “It’s sweet,” he said. “Tastes like some kind of fruit juice. Very refreshing.”

  Rachael took a drink from a grey-colored vine. “I think this is just plain water.”

  Two vines were multi-colored. One was gray, with maroon stripes encircling it. “I wonder what the deal is with this one,” Joshua said as he took a sip. “Whoa, it’s red wine, complete with alcohol,” he said, clearly pleased as he sipped.

  “Looks like Seth thought of everything.”

  Joshua and Rachael spent the next hour sampling the enormous variety of food and drink in the orchard. There was hot and cold food of all varieties, not to mention an almost endless variety of beverages from the nectar trees. There was even fruit that resembled a warm bread-like substance.

  “I’m full,” Joshua said. “Let’s explore somewhere else.”

  They walked to a space on the other side of their home and saw rows of shrubs.

  “Their leaves look exactly like the ones on top of our house,” Rachael noted.

  Joshua examined one of the leaves. “You’re right. Perhaps they’re growing more homes here.”

  Thousands of shrub-like plants were organized in orderly rows, with wide pathways in between. The shrubs extended almost to the horizon. “It looks like it’s going to be a village or small town,” Rachael commented. “Can you imagine what it might look like when completed? It will be an orchard of homes.”

  “Pretty cool.”

  Rachael’s voice betrayed doubt. “And they’ll all look the same. Little houses made of ticky-tacky, just like an old song said.”

  They walked for an hour along the edge of the still-growing village, adjacent to which was a wide meadow covered with grass four inches high that waved gently in the breeze. When they reached the end of the village, they spotted a creek splashing over rocks. Beyond the creek was another orchard. By the bank, Joshua knelt down and dipped his hand in the water.

  “It’s cold,” he said as he scooped water with cupped hands.

  “You’re not going to drink it, are you?” Rachael asked, her voice incredulous.

  “Why not? Seth said that there’s nothing dangerous here. Besides, we already ate the fruit, and it didn’t harm us.”

  “But what about bacteria or parasites?”

  “I think it’s okay,” Joshua said before taking a sip. “Perfectly refreshing water. Try it.”

  Rachael knelt, dipped her hands into the creek, and drank. “Tastes perfectly fine, but bacteria take time to reproduce.”

  “I don’t believe there’s any bacteria here.”

  “Why not? Bacteria are part of
all biology.”

  “Because the petrins engineered this ecosystem from the ground up. They may not have needed to create bacteria. Earth’s biology needs bacteria for any number of reasons, but this isn’t Earth. Everything that’s alive here was engineered with a purpose.”

  “That purpose being?”

  “To serve as a home for humanity, just as Seth explained it to me.”

  Stepping into the flowing water, Joshua and Rachael crossed the creek and stood in the orchard on the other side. The trees were completely different from those next to their house. “It seems like each orchard is unique, with its own variety of food,” Rachael said, brushing her hand against leaves and bark.

  “It’s like an endless buffet, all delicious—and free.”

  Rachael shot Joshua a cautionary glance. “Nothing is free. There’s always a trade-off.”

  “Don’t know what that might be here on New Eden. It’s as close to the proverbial free lunch as you can get.”

  They sat down in the soft grass of the adjacent field for a picnic. Rachael looked at the forest, with snow-capped mountains rising in the distance. “I definitely want to explore that forest,” she remarked. “I’d love to hike it.”

  “It’s pretty far away.” Joshua saw that the sun was lower, the sky tinged with orange and pink hues. “Let’s do that tomorrow. I don’t want to travel too far from the house and risk getting lost in the dark.”

  “Josh, this place is very different from Earth in some respects, and yet I’m amazed at how similar it is in other ways.”