Music - Turning: Turning Back by Alex de Grassi
The evening meeting was held in the artifact room. Before it started, the pendant Havilan and had found was passed around to give everyone a second look. Cian was the first to speak.
"Tor and I pulled up quite a few tiles in the water tunnel—they're a lot larger up there —and cleaned about forty feet of the main channel. We think we increased water flow by about twenty percent, so we're on the right track. Our silt catchers did a good job too. There's a lot more work to be done, but we're encouraged. We found a sizable piece of R-type that might have been part of the pumping mechanism at one time. Pulling it out of the sand increased the current considerably. I'm going to pass it around now, and then we'll put it on a shelf with the other samples. If it feels too heavy, just turn it over," she kidded. "Annibet and Os found a few pieces of R- type in the Great-Room siftings too."
Geddes was next. "I can't thank you guys enough for your hard work today. I think you'll find that you created your own reward. The north channel in the Great Room is clear now, for all intents and purposes, and we even made some headway on the south one. Os and Tor are making improved silt barriers for the water tunnel as we speak and could have them finished by tomorrow. After that we can start putting the floor tiles back in the north channel to retain heat.
"Syl and I worked on, and in, the 'Women's Room' pool, and we think you'll be surprised at how things are looking in there. She says we could even use the pool for a swimming party tonight—bless her relentless optimism. It is warming up in there, though, or maybe we were just working too hard. For sure the water is warmer and cleaner.
"Incidentally, Annibet checked the water quality above the waterfall area this afternoon and thinks we could drink it if we wanted to. But she feels the caldera lake is a safer source for now. She also says that the temperature in the Great Room is measurably higher now than anything we've seen since we got here.
"The pool is filling pretty quickly, but won't be completely full by tonight. For those of you who want to swim, we know that any suits we can find aren't going to make any fashion statements; but maybe they'll make up for that in flotation. We've already moved some of the camp chairs and tables in there. The washroom on that side, though, will be reserved for the women, as they'll be using it for personal needs and for hanging clothes to dry.
"Havilan wants so say a few words about the pendant."
As Elyse took the team logbook from him, Havilan stood up. "The pendant we found, except for its size and certain modifications, is very similar to a well-known kind of Per'sa accessory. To me, this one speaks more of function than adornment though. I don't know what that function would be, but I can describe the meanings of its symbols and text." He held up the pendant . "As you can see, it's basically oval shaped, except for these crossed spars. The wide horizontal line running through the center of its length represents time, or in modern terms, space-time. The smaller sea-glass arrangements are intended to be candles." He pointed to one of them. "The candle with the blue flame at this end of the time line, represents the beginning of creation and the presence of God at that time. The red-flamed candle on the other end symbolizes the presence of God at the end of time. The lavender mist-flower in the middle of the time line—notice that its petals extend well outside of it—represents life, including the Per'sa people. The gold ellipse surrounding the time line signifies eternity, and the candle with the amber flame there represents God in eternity." As he showed them the obverse, he said, "the translation of the text here is, very likely, 'End-Stone.'
"I want to add that, from everything I know about the Per'sa, this pendant wouldn't be regarded by them as having any kind of special spiritual power. God was their source of power and provision. The pendants were normally celebratory faith statements first and personal adornments second.
"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