Breathe

Part 4

In the morning Jill and I were munching a breakfast of sweet potato crisps and talking about ways to expand the Habitat when Michelle shambled sleepily into the living area yawning and rubbing her eyes. Hopey half-heartedly woofed a few times, but didn't get up from under the table. Gina wandered over to greet Michelle, wagging her tail. Michelle smiled sheepishly, "I couldn't remember where I was for a moment when I woke. And then I remembered. Thank you, both." She patted Gina awkwardly on the head.

Jill beckoned her to the kitchen counter where we were eating and patted a high stool beside her.

I stood and walked around the counter into the kitchen area and asked, "What would you like for breakfast, Michelle? What do you normally have?"

She said, "Uh, workers only have one meal a day: dinner in the evening."

"Well, we have two meals a day here, and sometimes a snack for the middle of the day too, if we feel like it. So, would you like some oats with some fresh or dried fruit and goat's milk, or would you like some bread and butter with any of various spreads, or would you like some eggs and some bread, or would you just like some fresh fruit?"

Michelle's eyes lit up. "You have fresh fruit? Oh!" she moaned, "I haven't tasted fresh fruit since I was a young girl. Yes, please."

I nodded and went to the fridge, lifted its top and peered in. It was top-opening to conserve energy. The mechanically connected shelves inside rose in one half and lowered in the other, with the top shelf moving from the rising column to the dropping column, while the bottom one shifted the other way. I circulated the stacks until the fruit shelf was at the top, displaying its contents. "We still have some guavas, gooseberries, and mandarins. We always have apples because we can store them in the cool room. The mangoes should be coming on soon, I think." I looked questioningly at Jill. Her sense of time was much better than mine.

Jill shook her head, "Not yet, I think. Don't forget we still have some coconuts in the cool room from last month's trip to the coast. And the tomato plants are still producing a little." She smiled apologetically to Michelle, "This isn't the best time of the year for fruit."

I raised my eyebrows to Michelle, "So, what would you like?"

She laughed, "I don't know. Wow! A mandarin? Or maybe an apple?"

Jill and I laughed too. It was nice to have someone to show us how special all the foods actually were that we'd come to see as normal. I got a mandarin out of the fridge and took it over to Michelle. Then I went back through the kitchen area, walking into the back of the larder, past the hatch to the freezer room, and to the hatch of the cool room, which I slid aside. Descending the stairs I grabbed a few apples from their shelf and went back up to the kitchen. The cool room door slid shut behind me.

Jill was showing Michelle how to peel the mandarin and eat it in segments, their arms over the sink because the fruit was very juicy. Michelle kept making appreciative noises and laughing. When finished they both washed their hands. Jill transferred the mandarin skin to the compost bucket and the seeds to the seed tray for later replanting, then wiped down the sink.

Michelle said, eyes shining, "Well, I never realised how wrong flavored drinks and sweets are. They taste nothing like the real thing."

I handed her an apple. "Have you eaten an apple before? You know not to eat the core, right?" I demonstrated, chomping into mine. After a few bites, I pointed to it and said around a mouthful, "The core with the seeds."

It was fun to watch Michelle munching and slurping on her apple.

Jill beckoned, "We should show you around." She crossed the living area to the glass doors. As soon as she opened them we could hear the twitter of many small birds. They walked out to the garden, mostly in early morning shadow, but softly lit from the east by the orange, permanently overcast sky.

I fetched the small two wheeled trolley. It had a basket sitting on two wheels and a long, extensible handle. When not being pulled along, the trollet sat on its two wheels and a single leg. Into the basket I put two bags I grabbed from the cool room. They were filled with goodies for the animals. Lastly I added a large glass bottle and the funnel from the drying rack by the sink, then I pulled the trolley along behind me and followed Jill and Michelle out into the garden, pausing to slide the glass doors closed behind me.

Michelle was looking around in awe. We were standing outside the living quarters, but inside the high, glass dome of the Habitat. Ahead were fruit trees surrounded by grassy patches and shrubs and some small vegetable patches. Everything was wet and glistening with droplets in the diffuse early morning light. She was breathing deeply through her nose. "What's that beautiful scent?"

I smiled and breathed deeply too, "Lovely, isn't it. It's from all the flowers. The mulching grass gives a nice perfume too. Ummm..." I rubbed my forehead absently, trying to remember the name of the chemical that was attractive aroma released by hay. "Ah, coumarin."

They both looked at me and I shrugged.

Jill pointed up at the latticework above, "The dome filters out most of the ultraviolet, making the light safe. You can still get sunburned, but it's like the light from before the catastrophe. We have to allow some ultraviolet to keep the moulds and fungi and bacteria at bay, or they'd take over."

"That's a lot of glass and metal."

I said, "Nope, no metal. It's all ceramic and glass. The big problem of the mismatch in thermal expansion of the metal and glass was solved by using a lightweight ceramic instead. It means the dome is lighter, was easier to build, and has less stresses. It can be bonded more effectively to the glass so that when the glass expands and contracts with the heat and cold, the lattice does too at the same rate. Silicone joins large sections together to take up the stress." I pointed out one such section. I glanced at Michelle and realised that, awed as she was by this place, the technology didn't hold the same fascination for her that it does me.

"How big is this place? It looks enormous!"

Jill said, "It doesn't feel so big after you've lived here for some decades. The center of the dome is thirty three meters above the ground we're standing on. It's not so high viewed from the outside though, because the ground level inside is roughly five meters lower that the ground level outside," she pointed to the five meter high dark wall at the bottom of the dome beside the living quarters. "That's to discourage plants, especially vines, from growing up the inside of the dome wall. From one side to the other is about ninety three meters. But this is really only about a third of the structure. It's actually a sphere one hundred meters across, two thirds of it underground. The entire Habitat is made up of seven of these spheres, all linked together via airlocked doors like a six-petal flower, the seventh one is in the center, connected to the other six. Each one contains a different environment. This one is temperate-1. There's also a second we call temperate-2. That's the one in the center. Another two have savanna climates -- savanna-1 and savanna-2. The three others are rainforest, lake, and marine."

"Lake and marine? What's the difference?"

"Marine has salt water. Lake has fresh water. They're the two most difficult environments to manage. Everything in them grows so fast it makes them very unstable. In the early years species would quickly go out of control. We still sometimes have problems with them. The two savanna regions are the easiest to manage. They're used mainly for growing grains. Most of our traditional fruit and vegetables come from the temperate domes. They're pretty easy to maintain too. I wish we had another rainforest. It's really easy to manage and is very productive, though not as insanely fecund as the two water environments, of course. We get a lot of food and other things from it. It's where our chickens live, laying eggs for us." Jill grinned. "You can enjoy some eggs in tonight's meal, if you want."

"Real eggs! Wow! I'd like that."