Canticle Blue

16. Clues

"Elyse is next, and I promise to pay very close attention to her talk." He applauded with the bases of his palms.

Elyse stood up with an impish grin, then delighted the group with, "Thank you, Havi!

"If my cheeks seem rosy to you guys, it's probably from getting splashed too many times by warm water. I wanted to talk about—what else?—plants, or, more to the point, local food production.

"Some of you might have noticed that Havilan and I still have glowing dust on our shoes and clothes. Poor Annibet even has it in her hair. She says she feels like a nightlight. Anyway, when we noticed this after working in the channel, Havilan and I walked all over the floor of the Great Room with an umbrella—strangely no one asked us what we were doing."

Everyone laughed out loud, including Havilan.

"We shaded areas with it, looking for traces of powder, and found it everywhere. We found it in channel sediment too, planter boxes, a few trellises, and even in what is probably living phytoplankton in brighter areas of the Great-Room pool.

"We also noticed that, if we placed globe lights on some areas of the floor, we could see faint grooves and lines of discoloration, as if rows of objects, possibly planter boxes, had rested there for a long time.

"We know that thousands of people lived here, probably for centuries, but we haven't seen any indications of large crop production on the island, even from the air as we arrived. There are herbs and edible plants here, but only in season and not in large quantities.

"So, I got to wondering again about what the Per'sa had to eat and if they grew their crops in these caves using exotic-matter light sources. Annibet checked the light spectrum of the globes for me. She says that, although it favors the blue side of the color temperature scale, it's closer to white light than to pure blue. And it does radiate color wavelengths which are useful to plants.

"You probably remember from school how the brightness of light falls off with the square of the distance from the source—I would apologize for the tech stuff, but I know you guys like tech stuff—which means that light sources of this kind would have to be quite close to plants to be effective. But that wouldn't be a problem because they produce almost no heat. In practice, if we were to use Canticle Blue powder for plants, it wouldn't need to be restricted to spherical shapes. It could be used to coat trellises, containers, or even fabric coverings. We've already seen that the Per'sa had techniques for painting with it.

"So, I wanted to share a few observations and ideas with you.

"First: because of its distribution in the Great Room, at at least some of the glowing powder must have originally come through the water tunnel from whatever is on the other side. Maybe the Per'sa grew crops there too.

"Second: I think we can culture the phytoplankton ourselves and use it to grow our own food here. I have some experience with that.

"Third: growing crops here would increase the possibility of extending our mission. I mean, we could really live here; maybe, with time, even start a new colony.

"Fourth: we can try growing things in the planter boxes right now. I've already found some species I can bring into the city.

"And, a few more things to think about: If the great-room floor was once covered with plant containers, what happened to them? And what might that say about the fate of the Per'sa colony itself?"

As she was finishing, Havilan caught her attention by mouthing silent words and making shapes in the air with his hands.

"Oh, and Havi wants me to tell you that we saw a blue ghost. He thinks it was..." she tried to read his lips, "attracted to...laughter? Anyway, it didn't stick around very long. It might have been afraid of us or was just very busy."

What followed her talk could only be interpreted as stunned silence, and after that, pervasive excitement. Geddes could think of no response. If he told Elyse how much he appreciated what she had said, she might have thought he was just being overly polite. Even Havilan wasn't prepared for the scope of what she had described. He said, "Elyse, I'm glad you conscripted me for your team!"

With that, the meeting dissolved, and everyone gathered excitedly around Elyse with questions.

Syl took a moment to remind everyone. "I know you won't forget the party in the Women's Room—or maybe it would be better to just call it a 'pool party.' Anyway, Geddes and I will be bringing snacks." She winked at Elyse. "They won't be home- grown, but they will have to do."

Everyone wore basically the same swimsuit to the party: hiking shorts and short-sleeve khaki field garments. They were bulky and felt awful when wet after swimming. But in the pool, they did help with buoyancy.

At one point Elyse and Havilan held hands and let themselves float away from the others. With their ears in the water, they could hear very little. As warm waves washed back and forth between them, Elyse closed her eyes to absorb the flickering blue light reflected from the ceiling. It reminded her of a stained glass window in one of the habitats. It was a depiction of a wedding, and the bride wore a veil made of a shimmering fabric, a small piece of which was actually incorporated into the scene. Fascinatingly, it seemed to have a dynamic of its own, randomly cycling through radiance, translucence, and transparency. Sometimes the face of the bride was visible beneath the veil, sometimes not, and sometimes her face would actually shine. Havilan had shown it to her and had questions about the accompanying text. He felt that one of the Per'sa words was used out of context. The word was "Shil," and it normally described the waves of light produced by some marine animals. Yet, there it referred to a garment. The memorial text referred to the person who had made the veil, and translated as: "Her Veil of Shil Covered Four Generations." Elyse imagined herself within that veil as she floated, becoming and sharing light.

As they drifted in the slow currents, Havilan looked over at her and thought:

Surely the One
who made light and waves
does all things well