A Seed In Space

I’m on a journey that I don't understand yet.

That line had echoed in Hestia’s mind ever since the day she’d read it. It was the first line of a leather-bound journal buried in the back of a supply closet. The closet was in Dr.Scott’s office, and Hestia would never have found it if she had not been tending to her duties as his most proximate assistant. It was dusty but new, as if it was rarely worn down by hands or eyes. She’d never seen a notebook that was not bound by spiral, or with such a smooth and soft finish.

She picked it up and the opening of the first page elicited a feeling she hadn’t felt since she was a child. A kind of pang in her stomach erupted, a pleasant hollowness she didn't have words for. Like something was flying around in the space between her ribs.

The days stretch out before me endlessly. I have little to do with the hours I am awake besides look out and count the stars. There are so many of them. We will be landing eventually but to be frank, my hope is dwindling. The task at hand seems impossible, but I remind myself that it is already halfway done, that I am already carrying the seed of new life here...

It seemed like a personal diary, and she knew reading it was an obvious transgression. She would’ve put it down if not for the unquenchable curiosity she had after after realizing that the handwriting in the book was nothing like Dr. Scotts’. His writing had always been slightly angular, small, geometric. Everyone’s handwriting on the base was, as they’d all learned from him. However, these lines were all curved and slightly rounded. Whoever wrote it swept the tails of their ys and gs into delicate loops. The color of the ink was also new; it was a bright blue, when all the ink she’d ever seen on the base had been black.

She flipped through a bevy of daily logs that indicated this was the journal of someone who once lived on the base, and at the very end was nothing but a series of blank pages. There was, however, one page with a few brief sentences. She spotted a familiar name written at the top and it gave her a jolt. It was addressed to her.

Hestia,

you have taught me not to be afraid of lands untraveled, paths unmade. please know I didn’t abandon you without reason. please know that if I could’ve, I would have stayed with you until the very end.

yours always, mom.

Wedged into the pages there was a picture. Hestia held it hesitantly between her fingers. The image of this strange woman, who wrote her name, who said she was her mother—struck her. The crease of their eyes was similar, and the shape of their face and smiles almost identical. However, Hestia’s hair was thin and limp, whereas this woman’s’ hair was thick and golden. The woman’s skin seemed colorless, while her own had a faint orange glow. She would put the picture in her pocket, and later that night, approach the bathroom mirror carefully, as if examining a rare creature. The similarities, the differences. Maybe I’m the strange one, she thought.

She was not worried about Dr. Scott discovering the journal's absence. He had been bedridden for almost 2 years, a consequence of his steadily declining health. Though he was still the base leader —and the only adult that the group had grown up with—Hestia and a couple of the others were learning to run the colony on their own in preparation for his death, an event which the Dr. himself constantly reminded them was not far away. The news had not been taken well by most of them. He was essentially their father, even if he did not like to be addressed as such.

Hestia was different. She did not show undue emotion, assuming the responsibility of carrying the brave face for the rest of the thirteen. The loneliness and wonder of what the world once was and was supposed to be—those questions stayed locked in her brain, only to be opened in secrecy, in her pod, with secret books from the base library.

Hestia walked into the room to give Dr. Scott the status of the base. It had been about a month since she had discovered her mother’s old journal, and the lament, secrecy, and mystery of the entire ordeal was enough to keep her distracted even she relayed cold facts about oxygen levels and power grids.

“Is something on your mind Hestia?” mumbled Dr. Scott, breathing heavily through his respirator, sensing that there was something amiss.

“I have a question that I’m gonna ask, because I need to understand, ok?” Hestia had said it to diffuse tension, but her preface just made Dr. Scott more concerned than before.

“What was earth like?” Before she knew it, she had blurted it out.

“I don’t just mean what land formations there were and whatnot, but what…” her sentence trailed off. She realized she did not know what she meant to ask, that the very nature of what she had been missing her whole life eluded her. She did not have her hopes up for a response that would help, anticipating the matter-of-fact answer that would likely come out of Dr. Scotts mouth. This was, after all, a question he had answered many times before.

Today though, he paused ruefully.

“Beautiful…” he said with a sigh, and then his gaze turned soft and went nowhere. His sincerity caught her by surprise. She watched and waited for his next word.

“It was for us, Hestia. I don’t know what more I can say besides that it always felt like it was made for us. See, you are made for Mars, but the Earth…the Earth was made for us.”

“The reason I never let you all watch the movies that we brought, or see the photos, was because I didn’t want you all to long for a world you could never have. It’s where your parents are from, but it’s not yours.”

His tone went from sorrowful to commanding.

“The best thing you can do for yourself is forget them. Forget Earth, because whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

He then coughed and coughed, and pressed a button that brought in Max, another one of the thirteen who had been learning to run the base. Max was specializing in medicine, and upon seeing the Doctor’s state, got to work in administering a sedative for his lungs.

The Doctor chuckled to himself. “Thankfully we altered you all to survive some radiation. Otherwise, we’d all be dying right now.”

Max smiled politely. Hestia seethed. She felt unsatisfied with his lack of transparency. Once Max had left, she went to her pod, and brought back the journal.

“I found this in your office.”

She didn’t say anything else thinking he might offer up an explanation but instead he stayed silent, mouth agape.

“It says..” Hestia was suddenly apprehensive. She found it hard to breathe. “She says she was my mother.”

Dr. Scott frowned. His disposition had turned back to sorrow. He muttered to himself.

“Something told me today was going to be the day…”

He looked her in the eye.

“Did you read the whole journal?”

Hestia realized she hadn’t.

“No, I didn’t,I-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Dr. Scott gently grabbed the book from her hand and turned to a specific page. He then passed it to her to read.

03/02/2095

Baby was kicking extra hard today. I think she likes it here. Scott and I were pouring over the library trying to think of baby names. He’s a big nerd so of course he turned to the Greek myths! I’d never go for Aphrodite or anything like that. My mind is not made up, but there is one name Scott said that I did like, Hestia. Hestia is quite pretty.

Hestia had barely processed what Dr. Scott was telling her, but when she looked up, there were tears running down his face.

…

“I have a request to make of you all."

Dr. Scott reached into his nightstand, and pulled out tiny bag.

"These are for flowers-- Marigolds. Should give you a couple. On my desk, I left the instructions. Plant in the chrome greenhouse. ”

Hestia grabbed the bag of tiny seeds. She thought back to what she’d known about flowers. The only one she’d ever seen was a rose, and that was only briefly, during a science class with Dr. Scott as a little child.

“What is it going to look like? I’ve never seen a Marigold.” A girl asked from a corner in the room.

Dr. Scott opened his exhausted eyes. There they were, the miracle children, who by-now were adults. He chuckled at how from time-to-time they still looked at him like timid, small creatures peeking out from behind a bush. He smiled.

“Then I won’t ruin the surprise. But it's unlike anything you've seen before.”

He zeroed his gaze in on Hestia, who was kneeling down by his bedside.

“You know, they were your mothers’ favorite." His voice got weaker and he spoke through shallow breaths. Remorse colored his face. “We’ve had them for so long, I don’t know why I never planted them.”

She was overcome with a desire to say I know why but instead she said nothing, and gripped the seeds in her hand. The unspoken understanding blew through them like a breeze. Her heart pounded so much, she felt in her ears.

Max took two fingers, and pressed down on the Dr.’s limp wrist as the rest of the group watched. "Your pulse is unsteady." He could only manage a sentence, but the realization sunk in like a knife. Dr. Scott would soon be gone. The silence that filled the room was at once impenetrable and paper-thin.

...

"What do we do now?" asked one of the younger members.

All thirteen watched as the sun drifted below the horizon. It was an unusual night. There was none of the regular wind or fog, and the result was one of the bluest sunsets that any of them had ever seen on the plain.

Hestia could only think of one thing.

"Well, we should probably get started on those marigolds."