by K E Lanning
As they got in line to get their lunch, Sevy bopped his head to the electronic dance music pulsing from the speakers in the cafeteria.
Losing her composure, Lowry snapped, “Stop it!”
Sevy made a face. “You don’t like it? It’s the latest song from Argos.”
Lowry looked at him. “Doesn’t all this get to you?”
“All what?”
“You don’t feel trapped living inside of a computer? No nature, no wind?”
He snorted. “And be bitten by bugs? No, I like it—no muss, no fuss.” He cocked his head toward the Earth outside the wall of windows. “Besides, down there, it’s a daily turf battle for jobs.”
They got their lunches and sat at a table. Lowry stabbed a carrot, staring down at her plate as she mechanically chewed it, and then glanced at Sevy. “Do you ever stop to think about the human beast, Sevy? Outside of war, disease, and hunger, there’s just no fun anymore.”
“You’re kind of sick, aren’t you?” He smiled. “I like that in a gal.”
She felt him studying her as she pushed her peas into a semi-circle.
“Lowry,” Sevy said, munching his veggie burger, “You just need a night on the town. A little adult beverage will calm you down. Come join our gamer club; we’re going partying tonight.”
She shook her head and glanced at the faces around her, aware that she was different from the rest. She wasn’t averse to having fun, but the thought of spending the evening in a loud techno-bar wasn’t on her list. Her coworkers went from the intense cubicle life to the electric cafeteria to techno-disco with apparent ease. Of course, massive amounts of alcohol seemed to be a large part of their lives. The demand for booze was so great there was a distillery on board—had to anesthetize those brains somehow.
“How long have you been up here, Sevy?”
“On my third year.”
“Three years crammed onto this prison ship . . .”
“No yard to mow. I love it.”
The huge monitor dominating one of the cafeteria walls streamed a news feed of Southeast Asian peasants rushing the border of China to escape rising seas. Lowry’s appetite faded as the Chinese military slaughtered them in waves of gunfire, the sound of the rifle volleys buried under the chatter of the cafeteria.
A furry panda baby sprang onto the screen, and everyone cooed in delight as she appeared to play peek-a-boo through the bamboo shoots. Sevy drummed his veggie straws to the beat of the incessant music.
Then a hologram image of the new Amerada flag furled in front of them.
Sevy nodded toward the screen. “They did a nice job of the flag—a white maple leaf on a red field instead of stars on a blue field.”
“I heard that Canada and America had merged since the Melt.” Staring at the screen, Lowry studied the flag. In place of the red and white stripes of the old American flag, this new one had six blue and six white stripes. Ten stars were along each blue stripe, representing all the states and the District of Columbia.
The monitor faded to the holographic face of the new President of Amerada, Christine Nilats. “My fellow Ameradans,” began the president.
Sevy turned back to his lunch, mumbling under his breath, “Lord, do we have to be subjected to her while we’re trying to eat? I was hoping for cartoons.”
Lowry shrugged and narrowed her eyes at the image of the new president. “One of the Nilats, huh? She seems sketchy to me.”
“Best president who ever bought an election.” He lifted an eyebrow. “The Nilats family has billions; yes, you heard right—billions.”
“I doubt a billionaire would bother to buy an election on Antarctica.”
“You and I are just lucky she’s not our president, though Amerada’s tentacles are wrapped around every aspect of the space station.” He speared a fry and pointed it at her with a deadpan face. “We’d better not talk too loud. I’ve heard rumor this is a two-way monitor.”
“Maybe I should flip her off?”
“Yeah, that would be mature.”
Scraping of chairs and music drowned out most of Nilats’ speech. The crowd of diners thinned as her speech came to an end: “Be assured that the borders will be secure and the economy strong again. Together, we’ll make Amerada a great nation!”
The world news came back onto the screen as Sevy caught sight of Zoë. “Over here, Zoë!” He beckoned to her.
Zoë waved to them, picked up a to-go lunch bag, and walked toward their table. She crossed in front of the monitor, which was streaming a video of protesters in the streets of Bengaluru, India. Lowry inwardly shivered at the bizarre image of Zoë walking in front of the marching rioters, momentarily merging with the activists. Then the camera zoomed in on the desperate, larger-than-life faces, and the newscaster said in a clipped tone, “The leaders of the rioters say they are protesting lack of food and land confiscation by the rich and powerful.”
Lowry stared at her empty plate, surrounded by the chatter of happy people.
So peaceful up here, but back on Earth . . . She gazed over the crowd of laughing coworkers, marveling at the desensitized people around her. For most of her life, Lowry had existed in an unforgiving landscape of rock and wind. This fragility of life demanded a connection with the living. The inhabitants of the ISS, like much of the world, survived the incessant fear assaulting their lives by cordoning it off from their conscious minds. Lowry sighed. Self-preservation—like a bear hibernating in the winter.
Lowry shook off her dismal thoughts as Zoë reached their table.
With a smile, Zoë held up her to-go bag. “I’m just grabbing a lunch to take back to my desk.”
Lowry and Sevy rose and took their dishes to the conveyor belt. All three strolled toward the exit, and Sevy snapped his fingers for Poppy. Growling, the rog ran at him and dove onto his leg, humping like a sex-charged beast.
“Poppy, no!” Sevy shouted, trying to shake Poppy off his leg.
The other diners laughed and cheered as Sevy wrestled the rog off. Poppy pivoted her buttocks to Sevy with an explosive sound reminiscent of passing gas. She flipped a somersault in the air, landing with a bow to the audience, and then bolted out of the cafeteria.
Sevy grimaced. “Son of a bitches reprogrammed Poppy again.” He turned back to Lowry with a smile. “You look tense, Lowry—sure you don’t want to come out with us tonight?”
“No, thanks, I can’t really take the noise level in the techno-club.”
Sevy gestured to Lowry with his thumb, murmuring out of the side of his mouth to Zoë, “She’s into the solace-of-nature gig.”
Zoë placed her hand on Lowry’s shoulder. “Lowry, if you need a friend, don’t hesitate to come talk to me. I know a few people who had to cut short their term of duty because of ship fever.”
“Thanks, Zoë,” Lowry said. “I’ll admit that it’s tough to survive living day to day inside of a computer—the constant mechanical whirring, the onslaught of blinking lights, no breath of fresh air.”
Sevy snapped his fingers, pointing at Lowry. “Say, if you’re so hungry for the ‘natural world,’ why don’t you go to the Garden?”
“I heard about the Garden, but I thought it was just for the food personnel and not for us working stiffs,” Lowry replied.
Sevy glanced at Zoë, rolling his eyes. “Orientation has failed again—she doesn’t know she has access to the Garden.” He gestured with his arms. “Go out these doors, turn left, and follow the ring to Section Four. In front of you will be a series of locking glass doors keyed to your fingerprints.” Grimacing, he continued, “They can’t let those nasty creatures into the rest of the station. On the station’s maiden voyage, some insects slipped past the sterilization process, much to the embarrassment of the ISS biologist.” With a wink at Lowry, he turned to leave. “Beware of the eccentric gardener, Adam—he might seduce you with a fable.”
CHAPTER 5
Lowry walked down the corridor to Section Four and stood in front of glass doors. She touched the fingerpri
nt pad, and the first set of doors slid open. She slipped inside and opened another set of doors until the third set opened to reveal the Garden.
Like a bee drawn to a flower, she moved into an organic world hidden within the sterile existence of the station. She meandered down the rock path, breathing in the moist air filled with the scent of the earth. To her left, rising high above her head, were tall, aluminum-terraced gardens bursting with vegetables, potatoes, and fruits, stretched up along the curved windows toward the filtered sunlight streaming through the top of the dome. She drifted past a cacophony of life bursting with colors—red tomatoes, yellow squash, and purple eggplant.
Lowry smiled at the unruly vines of peas and the boisterous beans, all spilling over the terraced beds. She had grown up surrounded by the fabric of nature—a diversity of texture and natural shapes instead of the relentless straight lines of the space station. Twirling on her toes, she spun in place, inhaling the élan vital. To truly breathe, her soul needed nature.
Wandering down the path, she discovered a pocket garden and tiptoed into a refuge from the noise and inorganic ISS. She sat quietly on a large, faux-stone bench and felt the tension of the past weeks slide away. Sitting still, Lowry melted into the background, and the birds returned, singing and fighting, engrossed in their own parallel universe where a human was an occasional irritant. Maybe that was why some people disliked nature; they would have to acknowledge that they weren’t masters of the world but rather a passing nuisance to most of the creatures of the Earth.
Lowry leaned down, brushing her hand through the tender blades of grass, and then, with a sigh, she lay down in the fold of the cool, soft meadow. Lowry stared up into the canopy of limbs as bees swarmed in the warm sunlight and rabbits dined on the tender grass under the branches. She closed her eyes, and a lecture by one of her favorite professors at college floated into her head. He was considered a bit of a wacko, and she loved him for it.
“We must demand balance in our lives before we, as a society, have a nervous breakdown. What happened to the promise that the computer age would make things easier? Now all we do is work for the computer, creating a virtual treadmill for ourselves, on the computer’s timeframe—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, until the computer crashes, and we scurry around like worker ants on the queen.
“Is it no wonder we are exhausted when we get to spend the precious little time we have with our children? And it just keeps speeding up; we have to stop it; we as individuals have to control the computer age. Ah, the Life of Riley! But wait, didn’t we tell you? You don’t get that life until you buy the new Orwell game! Better hurry; they’re going fast! All the other kids have them!”
In the warm sun, serenaded by nature, Lowry’s eyes began to flutter, and she curled onto her side for a nap. A sound of humming startled her awake, and she saw an odd man pushing a hovercart around the corner. She observed him from her hideout as he raked debris from the flowerbeds near the path. He was quite small and wiry with brown skin and black hair. He had small glasses that seemed ready to fall from his face as he dug around the plants. This must be the elusive Adam, the gardener.
Lowry sat up quietly as Adam picked up some dead leaves and placed them in his hovercart. He pushed on, and when he was next to her, she called to him softly, “Hello, Adam.”
He looked up in surprise and then squinted at Lowry through the branches, examining her like an unfamiliar bird or insect. With a twitch of his nose, he sniffed in dismissal, like she was an interesting bug but nothing else, and proceeded to gather more leaves.
With furrowed brow, Lowry studied Adam, now determined to get a response from him. With a smile, she ran her fingers through her hair and said, “I think you have the best job on the ISS, Adam.”
He looked up again, and his face softened at Lowry’s accepting gaze. A slight smile grazed his face for an instant, and then he nodded. “Man cannot live by bread alone.”
Lowry laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
His eyes shifted from side to side, seemingly wary that others may be eavesdropping on them. Without another word, he turned and shuffled down the path, pushing the hovercart until he disappeared around the corner.
Lowry was a person who collected experiences, and she felt an impulse to draw Adam out of his shell. He had an indeterminable accent, and she could not discern where he came from, but he was definitely the most interesting person she had met so far on the station.
***
About a month later, Lowry saw Adam again. He was planting bulbs with a small shovel, with his back toward her. She came up beside him and said quietly, “Hello again, Adam. Your garden is beautiful, as usual; I can tell that you work very hard.”
Adam’s shoulders started at her voice. Like a snake, he twisted his head around, peering at her as if he didn’t remember their last meeting. Then he nodded but turned back to his task, driving his shovel into the ground and pushing the soil aside to form a hole for the next bulb. She stood there while he plucked a bulb out of his wagon and knelt to press it into the open hole. He patted the soil around the bulb and then straightened up. Leaning on his shovel with a shy grin, he looked at her. “May I tell you the fable of the silkworm and spider, miss?”
Amused, Lowry nodded.
As if he were an actor appearing in a play, Adam took on another persona. He gazed up to the sky with his finger in the air, quoting: “Having received an order for twenty yards of silk from Princess Lioness, the silkworm sat down at her loom and worked away with zeal. A spider soon came around and asked to hire a web-room nearby. The silkworm acceded, and the spider commenced her task and worked so rapidly that in a short time, the web was finished.
“‘Just look at it,’ she said, ‘and see how grand and delicate it is. You cannot but acknowledge that I’m a much better worker than you. See how quickly I perform my labors.’
“‘Yes,’ answered the silkworm, ‘but hush up, for you bother me. Your labors are designed only as base traps and are destroyed whenever they are seen, and brushed away as useless dirt, while mine are stored away as ornaments of royalty.’”
Adam looked at Lowry and said with grand finish, “True art is thoughtful, delights, and endures.”
Lowry’s face lit up with delight at the sight of Adam bowing with his hand on the shovel like it was a king’s scepter.
Clapping at his performance, she said, “That’s beautiful, Adam!”
Embarrassed, he stared at the ground. Then he put his shovel in the hovercart and shuffled away.
With a twinkle in her eye, she shook her head, watching him disappear around the corner. From what everyone said about Adam, Lowry was probably one of the few people to speak to him.
***
The Garden became a refuge for Lowry, enabling her to escape and decompress from techland. A microcosm of the Earth and her Eden in the stars, it recycled the garbage and sewage of the station and returned clean water and organic food to the inhabitants. Wastewater flowed into the Garden and then returned to the humans filtered and clean.
Through the glass dome arching overhead, sunlight was reflected into the Garden by huge mirrors, which rotated with the sun for maximum exposure. Picturesque sunrises and sunsets painted the sky during the beginning and end of the “day,” and during the artificial “night,” the mirrors folded down, revealing a brilliant tapestry of heavenly bodies.
Like an orchestra, the Garden was divided into sections, which together created an organic symphony of terraced vegetables, fruit and nut orchards, and a small farm animal area with coops for chickens and rabbits. The only part of the food chain missing was the large animal protein, grown in a lab area along the ring for lack of space to raise cattle and pigs.
In her off time, Lowry explored the grounds until she became a thread in its intricate fabric. Daily, she meandered down the trails, picnicking in each of the lovely pocket gardens, accompanied by butterflies dancing in the air. She was not the only tourist
in the Garden; it was a popular place for joggers, and she learned which paths to avoid so she wouldn’t be run over. There was talk of building a workout facility in the middle of the orchards, a glassed-in bubble of blaring music and grunting jocks. She shuddered. No thank you, sir—I’ll take my nature straight up.
A myriad of life existed in every nook of the Garden, all with a specific purpose to keep the human masters alive and well. But the Garden was a tamed version of Earth, where the animals were docile and the rain and wind were programmed to occur only at certain times so as to not disturb nor wet the human masters. Lowry missed the wildness of Antarctica and the exhilaration of a great storm billowing on the horizon with the slashing wind and rain. In this man-made Garden, the ever-present dome loomed overhead, both protector and prison.
***
Sevy trailed behind Zoë and Lowry through the sliding doors of the Garden. Poppy followed him in, keeping close to his heels. “It’s been years since I’ve been in the Garden,” Sevy said.
“Really?” Lowry laughed. “I come here all the time. I even help out during harvest and these monthly Garden events.”
Sevy cocked his head toward the doors. “Shouldn’t they close behind us?”
Lowry shook her head. “During these events, they leave them open for a bit while crowds of people are coming through.” She pointed to fans on either side of the doorway. “Those fans discourage any flying insects and birds from making an escape.”
They strolled past the freshwater lake, and Sevy pointed at a pair of mating swans swimming toward them with wrath in their eyes. Then the artificial wind shifted, and the mist from the spouting fountain enveloped them with wet spray. Laughing, they quickly retreated to the path beside the saltwater lake. A school of salmon, their silver bodies glistening in the sunlight, swam in one of the containment nets bobbing in the middle of the lake.
Zoë patted her stomach. “That’s what I want for dinner—I love salmon.”
