OBLIVIOUS

CHAPTER 18 - Shimmer

I never thought I'd feel so relieved to be back inside the habitat while so disturbed about everything we had encountered during our overnight adventure into the wilderness. We lost my bag with the food and water rations while returning with only one meal for us both. After we retreated to the living room and the furniture I had unpacked from the crates, we finished the final rations and couldn't help but relax and inhale the security, and exhale the last of our tension and anxiety.

Eve sprawls out on the sofa, using up the entire thing while I drape a leg over the arm of a chair and lean back into the cushion, exasperated. Jinx had docked the drone to charge in the storage room near the Animal Barn, which I'm not so sure how I feel about filling with animals at this point. I just want to breathe.

I told Jinx we needed some quiet time, and he obliged, his persona vanishing into the habitat's computer system once again. More than anything, I'm grateful Eve and I survived. I want answers, but searching the computer archives can wait till morning. As we sit here, the skylight fades to dim with nightfall setting in, and it's not long before the stars twinkle overhead.

I flick on a lamp and look at Eve. "I want to find out a few things about the reseeding."

"Let me guess, in particular, the vile bears?"

"That's one thing, but more than that. From what Abraham told us, I thought the reseeding had taken place recently. As in, not long before we awakened."

"It's the dead trees, isn't it?" Eve sits up.

Her abruptness prompts me to take my leg off the arm of the chair and focus on her. "Yes, but not only that, I'm thinking about the entire circle of life. The process from beginning to end. Think about it... the spruce trees were thick and mature, and moss covered the forest floor like a blanket in a lot of places. Then there are the dead trees... the hollowed-out log that not only had time to die, but rot from the inside out. How long does it take for the entire process to occur?"

"Years, I would imagine," Eve says. "How long does it take for a tree to grow to full maturity?"

"Exactly." I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. "It takes up to sixty years for a spruce tree to grow sixty feet tall, about ten feet of growth a year."

"How do you know that?"

I shrug. "Memory transfer, I guess. Sometimes I think about things, and I just know the answer. I'm not sure how or why, but I know."

Eve scratches her cheek. "So..."

"Well, think about it. Sixty years to grow a spruce tree forest—more time for them to die and rot—and I saw more than one tree. There were multiple fallen trees out there. We were in stasis for what, a hundred and seventeen years?!"

"Okay." She nods cautiously. "Maybe he reseeded the Earth while we were in stasis? Ever thought of that?"

"Yeah, but the way I took it, the waters covered the planet for that length of time. Then the reseeding took place. Then we awoke."

"What are you saying?"

"Just that maybe we aren't the first people to try to establish a presence for humanity on Earth."

"What makes you say that?" Eve slides down the sofa, stopping close to me, our knees bumping.

"Well, remember the octagon-shaped room on the space ark, where we got off the elevator and boarded the habitat?"

"Yeah."

"There were eight doors. One was the elevator, one was our habitat, and the other six, who knows?"

"You think there are six more habitats?"

"I think so, yes. Maybe they still exist? I don't know, but there could be six other habs somewhere, scattered all over the Earth."