Chapter Six

"The most important decisions of our lives are always the easiest to make. The younger we are, the most obvious they seem, but even in our later years we recognize our destiny when it crosses our path."

"Our ancestors dreamt about being the first to cross the ocean, the first to fly, the first to leave Earth. Like the early explorers we embarked on our ship, just like them not knowing what we were going to find, considering the risk worth taking so that we could be the first humans to settle another planet."

 

"What was that about?" Sarah asked, forgetting her usual timidity. A bowl of beignets arrived, so buried in confectioner's sugar that they had to dig in with their fingers to find them. The pastry was steaming hot and melted goodness dripped down their wrists and forearms. The fine powdered sugar dispersed with every breath or gust of wind, dusting their faces and the fronts of their shirts.

"Have you heard about Terra Two?" asked Seth in a slightly distracted conversational tone.

"Yes, they have been working on the atmosphere for years, it seems that the methane  is stratifying close to the planet surface which raises the new atmosphere temperature too much. What does that have to do with our project? You don't mean...!"

"Yes."

"And that planting mix was...?"

"Yes."

"And we managed to...?"

"Yes"

"Wow! How did you get involved in this? Why didn't they send it to a university?"

"They did. Several. Us too, we worked together in the past."

"How come they are talking to us, though, didn't the other projects work out?"

"Certainly,  they just needed a lot more in terms of equipment and materials, the project is supposed to be as bare bones as possible. It takes a lot of energy and manpower to transport things from here."

"So it was what, luck?"

"Part of it, I'm sure."

"What's the rest then?"

Seth didn't answer. She was focused on the delicious beignet in front of her whose wispy aroma steamed the already humid night air. She was trying to keep the raspberry jelly from running down her fingers and spoke with her mouth full.

"Mercy, these are absolutely delightful! I wonder how they make them. You know, they published the recipe but good luck trying to get the pastry to taste the same. It's the baker, I tell you, I'm so glad you thought of this."

Sarah chewed on her beignet savoring it like a three year old on her first field trip to the bake shop. She sat in quiet reflection of the information received, not knowing how to react to it. 

"So", Seth said after a long pause, "what are you going to do after your specialty program ends?"

The question took Sarah by surprise, she had been so immersed in the intensity of this project that she never took time to think what was going to happen when it was over. She didn't really know, if anything her parents couldn't wait for her to come back, they were counting on angel hair to improve the harvest, she had gained quite a green thumb reputation around her corner of the world.

Her younger brother was getting married and everyone in the family was knee deep in wedding planning and preparation. Her aunts had sent her numerous messages to keep her current with the most intricate details of who said what and who didn't agree, together with the fifteen versions of the wedding party design, flower coordination and color scheme. Sarah's head was spinning around all of these already overwritten versions of how things were going to be and couldn't decide if it was sadness or relief that she didn't participate directly in the planning. The only thing the entire family agreed upon from the very beginning was the timing, a very traditional harvest themed wedding.

For a moment the entire terraforming project took a back seat in Sarah's mind to the swarm of details surrounding the wedding.

"Well?" Seth asked, impatiently. Sarah shrugged, a simple gesture her mentor had learned to anticipate with irritation. Sarah shrugged when she wasn't sure, didn't want to accept the assertion, was cold, had an aha moment, knew she was right, wanted to stretch her back, didn't understand the question, experienced contradictory emotions or any of a great number of completely unrelated feelings, so a shrug from her was even less of a clarification than no answer at all.

"I haven't thought about it", Sarah said, suddenly realizing that she would never again experience the double layered paradise filled with birds and curious visitors, where everything was so much larger than life, so unreal that nothing she could achieve from this day forward could match it. It just wouldn't be possible, there was no not of this earth medium to cultivate outside of those old stone walls, maybe in one of the universities involved with the program, if she was lucky to get into one of the long term studies.

"We could use some help, you know, I'm not sure exactly how we're going to work this out, we have to talk to the guys at the Space Science Center to see if we could get another grant. It will be different, a lot more traveling and coordination with them. If they are convinced we have a working solution, and at this point they probably are, we're going to have to move some of the setup here, it will make the collaboration easier. You will need to get a hold of some books, I'll make you a list, they should prove helpful. You will also need formal clothing for functions and a place to live. Can you drive?"

Sarah listened to this detailed list of activities dumbstruck as she realized that Seth didn't even consider the possibility of her choosing another venue. She started to bring up her brother's wedding but apparently Seth had included the wedding ceremony and regular visits to her parent's farm in the schedule, together with additional post doctoral studies on chlorophyll metabolism in low light environments and cellular engineering for enhanced processing of carbon dioxide and rare metals. 

Sarah kept munching on her jelly filled pastry and realized that she made a life changing decision in less time than it took to finish a beignet, in less time than it took the jelly inside it to cool down.