Time and Dirt
(First Day -- Previous Day -- Day 13 -- Next Day)
Day 13
Heliopause Colony on Planet Vertumna, Medbay
“Solane... how are you? The rain is so heavy today again it’s impossible to do work outside. The soil is just mud with ponds on top and anything planted or sown right now would just float away... I’m glad we got the potatoes out in time.
Too bad we still don’t have plants that are both drought- and wet season-resistant here, we really need to find ways to cultivate native ones, or maybe create some hybrid cultivar combining like, potatoes or something with a crop that is better adapted to the climate and other conditions of our planet.
It’s unfortunate I don’t have the time for it, since I am the only person left with like any actual botany knowledge in the colony... I know you were also looking into it when you were younger but then things changed so rapidly for all of us in the colony, so many big... difficult things happened and you lost sight of it, right? The last year and a half you had spent so little time in geoponics, just dropping by occasionally to say hello, maybe bring a cake while smiling softly... it’s nice but I have to admit it was much more lonely, even when your father was still around.
Anyway, because of the rain I was in the greenhouse again, looking after the hydroponic lettuce when Chief Administrator Seeq came around. Tiki was safely hidden in a bag hanging from my shoulder, so I wasn’t worried about that, but after our last encounter I still felt, uh, more than a bit on edge. They strutted in, with some weird package in hand, and then, weirdly enough, told me not to unwrap it. It actually looked like it *had* already been unwrapped once before and then someone had desperately tried to wrap it up again. When I asked about it, they just said that the previous deliverer had been a ‘beastly child’ and refused to elaborate further. Only said it was a personal gift from them to Dr. Instance, and that I should hand it over to her when I see her later.
So I did, and uhh, if you could hear a scream earlier, it wasn’t me. Or maybe a little. But mostly it was Dr. Instance! Who had received an... anatomically accurate statue of herself with a small love letter attached. And, now I know a bunch new cursewords I guess. The worst thing is she pawned the statue off to me and now I’m stuck with it. What am I even supposed to do with it?? Hand it back to Chief Administrator Seeq? I would probably get another earful... And I don’t exactly want to risk a conflict with them.
I can’t imagine you’d want it either, heh, so I’ll probably just leave it in the hallway. Someone else might know where to put it. Maybe someone who gets Dr. Instance better... I just think she is weird. So cold... Not nice to be around. But I try to not hold it against her even if her words can just feel really cruel sometimes. She’s really not meant to be a doctor, is she? And like, she *was* hired as a biologist, wasn’t she, to do research and investigate cures... Probably resents having to do all of this now.
I don’t want to think about what I’d feel if I had to do work that didn’t fit me at all and was only vaguely connected to my field. Isn’t that why she had hired you to work as a nurse for her whenever you were free? And now... Now she’s alone again as well, since her assistant Tang is busy with whatever gross experiments they are doing here. I don’t even want to know what they are working on now...
We really need more people in the colony, but is there even anyone on this planet we could ask for help? Imagine if we could talk to xenos, and maybe even resolve our differences that way... There’s so much about this planet we could learn from them, too.
Ugh, I’m sorry. I need to get back to geoponics. Make sure the small onions are all planted correctly in the trays by the farm aids and the greenhouses aren’t set on fire. Even with all the automation we still need to do so much by hand, and honestly, I’m thankful for it. And soon you’ll be able to join, too, right?”