 
Letters to Lelia

by Francis Rosenfeld

© 2015 Francis Rosenfeld

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Shardel

Discover other titles by Francis Rosenfeld:

Terra Two

Generations

Fair

The Plant – A Steampunk Story

Door Number Eight

Contents

Motto

Foreword

Chapter One – Love. Purple.

Chapter Two – The Gates of Perception

Chapter Three – Who are You

Chapter Four – Living in Context

Chapter Five – Out There

Chapter Six – Status and Rhetoric

Chapter Seven – Abolishing Fear

Chapter Eight – Non-linear Time

Chapter Nine – Uncertainty

Chapter Ten – Cherish your Gift

Chapter Eleven – The Soul's Shadow

Chapter Twelve – Just Being

Chapter Thirteen – Paradigm Shift

Chapter Fourteen - Synchronicity

Chapter Fifteen – Something out of Nothing

Chapter Sixteen – The Cloud

Chapter Seventeen – Emotional Liability

Chapter Eighteen – Blessed Touch

Chapter Nineteen – On Both Sides of the Mirror

Chapter Twenty – Facing Your Self

Chapter Twenty One - Drive

Chapter Twenty Two – The Temple of Your Mind

Chapter Twenty Three – Life Crafting

Chapter Twenty Four – Love. Always.

About the Author

Other Books by Francis Rosenfeld

Motto

We are in life for just a while between time and eternity with no navigational instruments, no sextant and no chart, we live in context.

There isn't a specific challenge to overcome during our lifetimes, no strongly recommended way to spend our days, no predetermined fate, free arbiter at work.

It is our privileged duty to choose from every tempting possibility the ones that fashion happiness and loosen the binds that imprison our souls with misery and suffering.

We are only responsible to leave our corner of the world a little better than we found it, that's all, no epic endeavor, no sacrifice, no heroic mission.

With tiny chisels we shape history in infinitely many ways unwittingly chipping away the bulk of nothingness to reveal time lines and events.

It is of our ambitions, wishes, prayers, needs, hopes and curiosity that the quilt of humanity is patiently woven, dazzling us with brighter and brighter hues as we advance in wisdom.

Worry sometimes gnaws at it darkening its patterns, staining it with fear. There is no monster under the bed, no impending doom, we are all free in the sight of God, the sky is open and we are loved.

Foreword

"My Principal Progenitors have always had a flair for the dramatic," Humon reflected out loud after reading Tagas Cloud's letter, in the same even tone of voice Lily had become accustomed to.

"What do they mean, Humon? What does all of this mean?" Lily started tentatively, her voice overcome by an instinctive indescribable panic. Humon didn't answer, he just waved his arm, annoyed, trying to chase away the aggravation with the brusque gesture one would use to shoo away a fly.

"Procedure," he uttered eventually. "I swear, if our world really ran according to procedure we'd all be long gone by now. It took them seven planetary rotations to answer my request, seven! And now they expect me to rush to attention in less than ten gyrations! Good grief, my progenitors really know how to dish administrative bulk three layers thick! Do your parents push your buttons too?"

Lily didn't know how to answer the question, she disagreed with her parents on occasion but in all fairness she had to admit they never imposed even a single rule or task on her against her will. Since Humon's miraculous transformation her world had turned upside down and she was still in shock trying to deduce the exact way in which being hitched to a wisp was going to make all her future plans lose consistency. She took a deep breath and begged Humon, more with her eyes than with her voice, for clarification.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Everything," a frazzled Lily replied eagerly, even if in a quickly fainting tone of voice. "Just start from the beginning."

"I'm approaching one thousand planetary rotations, that's about six hundred and forty seven Terra Two years, and at this age we are ceremonially connected to our compatible clouds, it's called the Bonding," he started.

"Connected how?" Lily shuddered with dread.

"Covalent bonds. That's how we maintain cohesion in gaseous form, as you noticed, my progenitors called me a cloud. By the time we reach our thousandth anniversary we're considered stable enough to bind safely with our compatible selections."

"You mean like in chemistry? Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom make water?" Lily asked incredulously.

"Yes, but infinitely more complex. Some aggregates in the polymorphic cloud are composed of trillions of entities." Humon continued patiently.

"Is this like...a happily ever after sort of thing?" Lily uttered in a small, wretched voice that made him chuckle softly.

"No, scaredy cat, it's not like that at all. That's why we wait until we're one thousand to bond, we need to be stable enough to share electrical charges without altering our own structure, the same way electrons move freely between metal atoms." Lily breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. "That doesn't mean they approve of you, though," Humon crashed her newborn hopes.

Lily's scrappy personality got a jolt of confidence, because no matter how old or complex the clouds were she was not going to yield to anybody's authority or approval. She straightened her back and snapped.

"Who exactly is expected to approve of me?"

"My progenitors, for one," Humon started, "then there is the Third Circle, my binding clouds, hypothetically speaking..." Lily abruptly interrupted him.

"Your progenitors? How many are they?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know, I lost count a long time ago, higher covalent ranks donate parts of their structure during our first assembly, and later on other clouds keep sharing their substance with us through hundreds of planetary cycles, it gets really hard to keep track," he commented naturally, trying to avoid the progressively horrified look in Lily's eyes. The latter finally lost it.

"And they are ALL expected to approve your choice of partner!?" she blurted, her face flustered with aggravation.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know, this never happened before, we don't normally interact with solids, they are too dense," he replied naturally, completely blind to Lily's outrage. He met her gaze and reconsidered. "Maybe my First, Secondary and Tertiary progenitors, they were the founders."

"What do you mean you don't interact with solids?" Lily pressed on.

"We don't see a point, they don't transfer charge, as far as we're concerned they're inert," he explained.

"You mean I'm inert?" Lily said with a low growl.

"Well, technically, yeah..." he acknowledged.

"I really have no idea how to answer that," Lily couldn't even summon anger.

"I'll just make another request, by the time it reaches the approval committee, they would have already forgotten about the first one and we'll get another seven years. We could probably run this indefinitely," he tried to appease her.

"Absolutely not!" she snapped. "There is nothing wrong with me, I shouldn't have to slither under the door of the waiting room from one appeal to the next. I can't believe I have to entertain the concept of being approved of, I'm a free human being, and an immortal one at that!" she upped the ante.

"I'm not saying they would stop me from interacting with you, I'm just saying that this never happened in the history of Vlor and no cloud would comprehend our relationship in concept. If you decided to get in a life long commitment with a Purple community do you think your parents would approve?" he asked.

"What does Purple have to do with anything, why would I consider such a thing? Purple is a culture of immortal bacteria!" Lily cried.

"In every way that matters, so am I," Humon replied gently.

"So what in the universe possessed you to follow me here, then?" she kept probing, revolted.

"I like you, you can fly! A solid that can fly, that's so extraordinary!" he smiled, dreamily.

"You LIKE me?!" Lily's fuse reached its end. "Because I can fly? Josephine can fly! Geese can fly, and they're dumber than dirt! Careful not to fall for one of them!"

"You should be so lucky to get compared to Josephine!" sister Joseph protested through the interlink, but Lily was too upset to respond.

"So, does that mean you have to leave? They sounded pretty adamant about your required presence in the polymorphic cloud," Lily continued.

"Oh, no. 'Your continued presence in the polymorphic cloud can not be substituted' is the standard phrase we use to deny a request. As I said, I hate procedure," Humon continued, unperturbed, and then got up to pour himself a cup of tea.

***

To say the news of Humon being a wisp made waves through their community was a massive understatement. Sister Joseph took the opportunity to point out that she was right all along, that there was something peculiar about the young man whose life had left no trace on Terra Two.

Lily was a tightly wound bundle of nerves all the time now and she became seriously irate every time someone tried to bring up the subject of inter-species dating, if one could call it that. The sisters didn't press the issue, not wanting to add unnecessary stress to her already shaken conscience, but Purple, who had no understanding of human mores, pestered her about every detail with the caring and gentle touch of a dental drill.

"Lily. Not. Smart. Lily. Not. Know. Wisp." they indicated purposefully. Lily clenched her teeth but remained quiet.

"Purple. Said. Wisp. Deceitful." the blabbermouths continued, in the face of Lily's stoicism.

"Wisp. Think. Lily. Slow. Why. Spend. Time." they marched on, traipsing all over the young woman's feelings. Lily's pride finally exploded.

"You think I'm slow too, in fact I can't even count the number of times you told me I'm slow!" she responded, exasperated.

"Purple. Not. Date. Lily." the immortals continued mercilessly. "Purple. Parent. Not. Send. Letter." they spearheaded the attack on Lily's pain points.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Lily snapped.

"Purple. Want. Talk." they clarified their superior status. "Lily. Talk. Back."

Lily settled into a stubborn frowning silence to protest the invasion of privacy and complete disregard of her feelings.

"Lily. Solid. Wisp. No. Use. For. Lily." they plowed ahead through whatever depths of Lily's feelings had miraculously escaped demolition. "Lily. Pet." they continued harshly, trying to break her silence.

"Wisp. Haughty." they continued prodding. "Wisp. Always. Travel. Lily. Stand. Still."

"I don't travel!?" Lily broke, infuriated. "I've seen the entire known universe, how much more do I need to move around?" Purple softened its relentless criticism to a tone that almost sounded compassionate.

"Not. Like. Wisp." they tried to explain. "Wisp. Assemble. Cloud. Anywhere. Wisp. Want. Lily. Lesser. Being."

"God, you're heartless!" Lily jumped to her feet, really hurt. "I didn't know, OK? If the progenitors didn't find him I'd never have known. What do you want me to do?"

"Terra. Two. Three. Billion. Human." Purple recommended. "Find. Boy."

"You find boy!" Lily retorted.

"Purple. Find. Lily. Boy." the immortals magnanimously offered, missing the sarcasm. Lily had had about all that she was capable of enduring at the time, so she left Roberta's lab, where the uncomfortable conversation had taken place, slamming the door behind her. She didn't know where to go, so despite her good judgment and finely tuned instincts, she headed to the Prayer Hall, hoping to find some peace and quiet and a glass of warm milk in the kitchen. As expected, sister Joseph was there, together with Sarah, sister Mary Francis and sister Abigail. "Why not sister Joseph?" Lily asked herself quietly. "Who else was left to put me to the question?"

"Well," sister Joseph started the heavy artillery as soon as she was in visual range, "if it isn't our prodigal child. Where's the puff of smoke?". She paused for thinking, then she continued: "Are you sure it's the same puff of smoke, by the way? How can you tell?" Lily gulped hard and was instantly drenched in cold sweat. She never contemplated this aspect of wisp existence, but it certainly wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. All of a sudden, Purple's commentary about humans being incompatible with wisp life made a lot more sense to her than before.

"Do you have any milk?" Lily asked Sarah, softly, and the latter rushed to warm her up a cup. She sat down, drinking it in slow sips and blowing on the surface to cool it down a little.

"Are you all right, dear?" sister Mary Francis asked gently, almost in a whisper.

"Define all right," Lily thought, but instead of answering she nodded her head in agreement. A little puddle of tears had gathered in her throat and she had every intention of stopping them there.

Sarah felt the young woman's anguish and snuck into the pantry to retrieve a plate of warm honey chamomile cakes. Lily smiled at the familiar aroma and as she reached for the cakes she felt comforted, the way she did when she was a child and the sisters brought her goodies to make her forget about her scraped knee. The cakes and milk settled her stomach and allowed her to notice that one of the young children had left a little toy on the kitchen table, a kite with a long stringy tail that captivated all of Solomon's attention. She watched the cat's antics for a while, wondering at his agile movements, unspoiled by the passing of time.

"Solomon, no!" Sarah jumped to pick him up because Josephine had just flown through the open window and the redhead wanted to curtail the inevitable conflict.

"Git, beast!" sister Joseph stepped forth to protect the poor dragon from the attacks of the vicious feline. Scales and fur ruffled and then the muted growls melted into an alert hostile silence. The two kept staring at each other for a while, then found something else to occupy their attention. Lily was grateful for the intermission, unfortunately as soon as the conflict subsided, all eyes returned to her and her inescapable problem.

"So, dear," sister Mary Francis started innocently, just to make conversation, "do you think we'll be seeing Humon's parents soon?"

"Which ones?" sister Joseph retorted. "The being can't keep track of how many he has! Imagine trying to find all of them!" She stared starkly at Lily. "I knew no good was going to come out of your schlepping around all corners of the universe. Serves you right, you were just looking for trouble, weren't you?"

Sarah gave her an icy stare and was about to accompany it with a verbal diatribe, but sister Joseph made a "eech!" gesture with her hand and turned her back to the audience to focus on the rice milk she had cooking on the stove.

Lily had finished her milk and cakes and she retired quietly to a window nook to watch the suns set over the kitchen garden. Soon the sisters got absorbed in the noises and activities before dinner and forgot about her altogether. She sat there long into the evening, thinking of nothing, just watching the birds, the tiny field mice and the moving rocks, and following the slow movements of the plants that closed their flowers to prepare for the night.

***

Whether quietly or out loud, pretty soon no matter where she went or who she saw, Lily was met with advice, reproach or sympathy for her plight, so much so that no matter what her purpose was she couldn't dig it out from underneath the mound of communal opinion. Normally under similar circumstances she would go to Vlor to find peace and quiet and sort her thoughts without interference, but given the situation she didn't think she would find her favorite place in the universe very welcoming.

She felt life had served her a pariah sentence and much as she tried she couldn't figure what exactly she'd done to deserve it. After she went over the facts time and again to the point of obsession, and managed to irritate even Humon, who usually had the composure of a Zen master, she decided to go to Soléa and spend some time with her childhood friends.

Jimmy and Jenna hadn't changed and being with them made Lily feel care free and happy again, like she was when they were playing together on the beach, wondering about the future and wishing on the stars. They didn't ask questions and didn't offer opinions or advice, and at times Lily seemed to experience the normality she once knew, and then Iseult, her friends' baby daughter, started crying and reminded her of her age and circumstances.

She started wondering what she was doing on Soléa, because she didn't belong there. She didn't feel like she belonged anywhere anymore and all the corners of the universe that she loved, visited and enjoyed had suddenly become unfamiliar and aloof.

She spent some time in prayer, figuring that even if existence itself decided to spit her out, God will still be there to listen to her plight, and at the end of her soul searching she had the revelation that however conflicted her life had become, it was not going to improve by itself. She could feel her circumstances waiting for her return so they could jump her simultaneously, demanding solutions. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and headed back home, where she found Humon working on his dissertation like nothing happened at all.

Lily thought she finally lost her mind, because everything seemed so normal all of a sudden, her vaporous boyfriend, the unjustified opprobrium of family and friends, dropping a few pegs on the ladder of sentience and having alien beings disapprove of her in principle.

She thought of all the times during her youth when she worried about potential problems and had to admit that even in her wildest dreams she couldn't have imagined her current situation.

"Have you been here the whole time?" she asked Humon with half a voice, slapping a whole new slathering of guilt over the top of her already burdened conscience.

"Where else would I be?" he lifted his eyes for a second to acknowledge her return, and then he went back to work, unperturbed.

***

"Why. Lily. Sad." Purple asked, and Lily would have wanted to avoid the busybodies, but now that they were paying attention they were going to follow her with the questions everywhere, in unrelenting manner. She sighed and reluctantly answered.

"Humon is going to leave for his new sibling's assembly, really soon." She stopped for a second and continued with half a voice. "They really wanted him to go back to Vlor, what if they don't let him come back?"

Purple uttered the auditory alternative to an eye roll, if one could conceive of something like that.

"Wisp. Never. Go. Anywhere." they charged. "Lily. Not. Know. Wisp." Lily tried to interrupt the stream of indignation, but the immortals were on a roll. "Why. Choose. Relationship. Unknown. Species." they ranted. "Lily. Solid."

"I...don't understand," Lily tried to reply, but Purple continued its unbroken stream of prickly wisdom.

"Wisp. Get. All. Places. Same. Wisp. Here. Wisp. There. Wisp. Never. Move."

"You mean to tell me he's still on Vlor? Right now?" Lily asked, shocked, staring at the silhouette of her beloved projected against the turquoise waters of the ocean.

"Define. Is." Purple rehashed a subject that had driven the sisters to the brink of their patience and sanity centuries ago. Lily looked at the ethereal being in the distance, whose body was melting in and out of reality in long strands of color and light that bent and twisted around themselves like pulled taffy. She wanted to get closer to witness the multi-dimensional phenomenon of an entity being in several realities at the same time, but Purple protested sharply.

"Lily. Not. Go. Through. Wisp. Intrusion. Rude." they continued more appeased. "Wisp. Welcome. Sibling." they giggled. "Wisp. Cotton. Candy. Pull. Strand. Get. More. Wisp."

Lily frowned, upset.

"Purple. Find. Lily. Boy." the immortals proposed, again. "Purple. Make. Humon. If. Lily. Like." they offered magnanimously.

"You mean like a cardboard cutout?" Lily finally burst, outraged.

"Exactly. Same. Lily. Can. Not. Tell. Different."

"Why not make several?" Lily commented, sarcastically. "This way I can have one to keep at home and one for the office," she elaborated.

"What does one need to do in order to be able to attend a Fusion Observance ceremony in peace?" Humon chimed his thoughts through the interlink. "Can you please have the conversation about making action figures of me later? It's really distracting!"

"Tell. Lily. Three. Dimension. Humon. Better. Purple. Make. Why. Lily. Need. Multiverse. Humon. Lily. See. No. Different." the immortals took the opportunity to get his approval on the matter, but Humon really meant it when he said that he wanted some peace and quiet and didn't respond.

Purple's need to express opinion and give advice simmered in uncomfortable silence for the duration of the ceremony, but as soon as the events were over the immortals let out a verbal deluge. They went over all the Humon replacement options with Lily, again and again, until the young woman decided to simply refuse to listen, and in the process they dislodged the boulder of wrath that had finally found precarious equilibrium in sister Joseph's mind.

"As I live and breathe, didn't I tell all of you nincompoops that the purple goo was going to drive us to lunacy, but who listens to me?! Shut up, you bacterial blabber, I don't know why Lily puts up with your rattling on, but I've had it! Hey, cat-brains, are you going to let your kin drive this one nuts, obvious lapse in judgment notwithstanding?" she turned the verbal artillery to Sarah.

Sarah fretted, uncomfortable, because she could feel Purple's unease about Lily's relationship with Humon, unease a lot more intense than the other sisters knew, a tumultuous mix of reverence and apprehension with just a hint of jealousy.

"Purple. Want. Lily. Happy." the immortals eventually relented. "Wisp. Too. Much. Trouble." they continued softly. "Too. Many. Dimensions. One. Reality. Hard. Enough."

***

It is often mentioned that people change when major events happen to them, but this wisdom is often misleading. Life happens to people all the time, we grow up, we choose our destiny, we find our love; it's only when life changes its very essence that people don't have any choice but to abandon their self, like one can't wear clothes that have become too small. In this way Lily had changed. Not for the better, in the opinion of some, and not drastically, for those who didn't know her well.

She wasn't sad, though she looked it at times. In her effort to relearn life, love, and purpose, there was no time for sadness. Throughout her youth she had successfully managed to flee every situation that made her uncomfortable, a great coping mechanism for one with the soul of an explorer. The memory of this habit made her giggle in its absurdity, she felt like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Humon noticed her unease and tried to give her comfort the best he knew how, but everything in his appearance, his composure, his thoughts, and his activities was a substantiation of the truth that gaseous composite multi-dimensional beings and stubborn humans given to wander lust were not meant to mesh.

Lily got into the habit of visiting Sarah at the Institute, the serenity of her sparse garden filled with aloe and gardenias allowed the young woman's spirit a little rest. Sarah talked to Lily sometimes when they sat together on a bench for a brief respite from their never ending whirlwind of activities.

"How are you, my dear? You look a little worn out..." Sarah said to Lily, in the soft, tentative voice that was her trademark. She didn't want to intrude, but didn't want the young woman to think she couldn't feel her struggle.

Lily took some time before answering because she honestly didn't know.

"How do you carry on a relationship with an entity for whom your life is old news? I'm the pointless bearer of unilateral tidings," she said eventually.

Sarah shuffled on the bench a little, startling Amber in the process and fretting over her gardening apron to bide her time.

"How about your work? Aren't you interested in the nature of the universe anymore?" the redhead inquired.

"Why do the research? I can just ask and find out," she said. "Kind of takes the thrill out of the discovery, doesn't it?"

"Did you?" Sarah asked, hopeful.

"Of course, but I didn't understand the answers," Lily burst out laughing. They sat quietly for a while, admiring the setting suns over the turquoise ocean.

"I'd like to show you something, if you have time," Sarah smiled.

"I have time," Lily welcomed the offer, relieved, in the same manner one would use to acknowledge that one had coins, aspirin, or a pen to write with. They got up and walked to the apothecary, whose whole space was suffused with a warm glow that made the spotless glassware sparkle.

On a low table in front of the built in window seat lay a colorful array of little bottles, which, to Lily's bewilderment, were filled with essential oils. She recognized chamomile, lavender, and gardenia, whose scent filled the shop when she lifted the glass stopper. The young woman was a bit puzzled, she thought Sarah was going to reveal some scientific breakthrough, a new frontier in bio-engineering.

"Why are you showing me these? I practically grew up in this shop, distilling essential oils was one of the first things you taught us as children?" she asked.

"There is nothing new under the sun, my dear. Maybe you can only find meaning in the things you discover for yourself."

***

After the typical deliberations and extensive decision making by committee, the wisps conceded to Humon's appointment to the diplomatic mission on Terra Two, appointment which gave them the opportunity to quickly whip up a small portion of his Third Circle bonding selections to go with and assist him. The latter expressed their concerns in writing, pointing out the solid environment was unsuitable for their development and submitted their formal objection letters to the central cloud manifold, where their complaints were registered and placed in queue to be processed in due time over several planetary rotations, according to their priority status.

In the meantime, Terra Two was buzzing with the news of the permanent settlement of the wisps, news that made people a little nervous.

Lily became by default the lucky beneficiary of the burden of views, concerns, advice and objections from both sides, since for some irrational reason the wisps saw her as a bridge to their culture, albeit one with disquieting limitations impossible to overcome. This conviction didn't stop them from privately gossiping that no rational cloud would consider entering into a bond with a solid, and an inert one at that, flying ability or no! They did, however, use her as a resource for cultural, environmental and historical references about Terra Two and had to admit that her exhaustive travel schedule and contact with multiple alien cultures imparted on the inert solid the insight and diplomatic skills necessary to facilitate their adjustment.

The first complaint of many was that the elevated temperatures on Terra Two excited the flow of electrons, making their cloud assembly, so orderly on Vlor, reach a velocity and volatility that made them uncomfortable; the thirty degree temperature differential sped up their proper and sedate thinking processes to a level that for humans would be the equivalent of running on steroids. After a few months of protest and bewilderment they realized they could double polymorphic cloud efficiency with little to no side effects, and started seeing the silvery shimmer on top of the puddle of misery and disgrace that was living among solids.

Lily, with uncharacteristic patience, guided them along the way the best she knew how, or as they liked to call it, brought the confusion of their hardship to less appalling levels.

In this entire endeavor Humon had maintained a detached attitude, as if the process didn't concern him in the least, and tried to stay out of hearing range when Lily was in search of a kind spirit willing to share her frustrations. He continued his poetry teachings and managed to publish a couple of tomes, while Lily's levels of aggravation reached higher and higher levels, as she walked around the Institute surrounded by the new diplomatic mission like a cartoon character with a rain cloud over its head.

Sister Joseph made a few witty remarks about the fact that Lily's outward world seemed to reflect what had to be the fog in her brains, but soon gave up, curtly whipped into shape by Seth. The latter didn't want to offend the new friends and allies whose decorous demeanor had no appreciation for sarcasm.

One minute Lily was floating in a sea of mists, the next she was surrounded by the physical forms of her partner's covalent bond selections, who managed to be just as patronizing in person as they were in cloud form. Seth smiled furtively at times, as she watched the young woman's struggle to navigate the mighty sea of thought, posturing and rank, a struggle a lot more familiar to the elder than she cared to admit to her congregation.

'***

"How are you holding up?" Seth asked Lily, approaching her quietly as it was her habit. The young woman was gazing out the wide open doors in Sarah's office into the healing garden, freshly washed by rain, and out into the distance, to the turquoise horizon of the ocean. She startled and turned around slowly to welcome the leader's interest, rather surprised and with a dreamy smile slowly melting into her features.

"You look happy," the leader remarked, surprised. "Aren't you stressed out by all of this hubbub?"

"Who wouldn't be?" the young woman burst into laughter. "They are so intense they could peel the paint off the walls! If I developed in their society, I'd probably move to a different planet and take up poetry too!"

"What's with the smile, then?" the leader insisted, a bit worried that Lily had reached her breaking point. The young woman's face became serious all of a sudden, as she tried to formulate her thoughts.

"It's just that being around the wisps changes the way you see life," she started slowly. "You can't help but be swayed by the power of their thoughts, it makes you want to become more," she said.

"More what?" Seth asked, intrigued.

"More of everything: more accomplished, more authoritative, more balanced, more efficient, more adaptive. They have such capacity, clarity and perspective, you can't help but look inside your self and wonder how much of your own potential you are wasting."

"Wasting?! You've seen the whole universe, literally, and learned everything a human could learn! You can't match the wisps' capacity, they are a hive mind, we're limited by our biology!" the leader protested.

"Why do people keep telling me that? If sister Roberta suggested it, you wouldn't question her. What makes you so sure I can't?" Lily looked deep into the leader's eyes, making the latter lower her gaze.

"I want to do something worthwhile and I can't find significance in moving from one research project to the next anymore, it just feels so..." she paused a little to find the right word, "...inconsequential."

"Careful, my dear!" the leader retorted sharply. "You don't want to assert yourself out of existence. We all have to live within physical constraints, and ours are more stringent than the wisps'."

"Ask. Connect. Wisp. Polymorphic. Cloud." Purple mumbled morose over the interlink.

"But I thought you said I was inert, like a rock," Lily replied, surprised.

"Wisp. Obnoxious. Lily. Transfer. Charge." they insisted.

"Transfer electrical current? Is that even possible?" Lily continued.

"Lily. Annoy. Purple. Giants. Never. Listen. Waste. Purple. Time." they complained, peeved, then sulked in stubborn silence.

One Thousand Years Later

Vlor Consular Mission of Airydew, Terra Two, June 17 th, 3245

Beloved Lelia,

My eyes well up with joy seeing you all grown and ready to set out on your own path. Many centuries passed me by, they brought me challenges and successes, knowledge, wisdom and occasional silliness, and they opened my eyes to the universe, this strange and wonderfully complex, multi-layered reality I could never have dreamt existed.

Of all the precious gifts this unbelievable dream ever gave me, you are the greatest, my child, for I can't even fathom what you are, or how you fit into our limited understanding of existence, half real, half thought and gifted with the perception of a lot more dimensions than us humans can grasp.

I know it couldn't have been easy growing up in a diplomatic mission, different from the other children, having to chart your own path with no precedent; we tried to guide you the best we knew how, but we realize it is not for us to define your path, but for you to help us understand realities that lay beyond our grasp.

I traveled the universe in my youth, I traveled far and wide and saw its many wonders, but I didn't realize until fortune brought me to my purpose that people can't make a greater impact on the world than by blessing the realm they call home and bringing to it thoughtfulness, prosperity and peace.

We have now enjoyed over a thousand years of mutually beneficial alliance with Vlor, during which your non-corporeal kin took our human understanding beyond the realities we can see; we, in return, shared with them our faith, our daring and our resilience and taught them the power of free will and the burden of responsibility that comes with making one's own choices.

I hope you find your destiny too, my love, and may it be greater than you expected and never cease to fill you with wonder. The sisters had some wisdom to impart about new ventures, as do your proto-progenitor clouds, Purple, your father and I, so your sister Ael suggested that each of us share a real life story with you to use as guide posts on your path.

Purple was overcome with emotion about your coming of age; they babbled incomprehensibly for a good number of hours, and then composed a symphonic piece which Sys took upon itself to transcribe for a variety of instruments. There will soon be a concert at the Institute and everyone is looking forward to it. The literary transcription of the piece became one of the stories that follow, again, grace to Sys's dedicated efforts.

Everyone at the Consulate sends congratulations and best wishes, and the sisters spent a few additional hours in meditation and prayer, asking for blessings on your life's journey. Your father is a bit overwrought by the experience, so he engrossed himself in preparations for your ceremony with diligence and minutia.

Jimmy, Jenna and their children wanted me to remind you how much they hold you dear. In every respect, they are as close to me as my own family, and they insisted that when you find a little break in your schedule you should come visit them on Soléa and walk the wilderness trails with Iseult to enjoy the beauty of nature and the antics of the dragons.

We were all consulted in regards to your best selections for Bonding covalences, but I left most of the suggesting to your father, whose upbringing on Vlor and personal experience makes him knowledgeable in this respect. He is well aware, as am I, of the faith your proto-progenitor clouds and human relatives have placed in your future, you are more than our child, my dear, you and your sister represent the daring beginnings of a whole new race.

In light of your dual solid-cloud nature, the First Circle decided to make an exception, and after your compatible covalences are chosen, the group will be designated as mobile plenipotentiary assembly for purposes of exploration and discovery. The First Circle thought that under the circumstances, the presence of valent ranks one and two who already ascended to the Second Circle would forward the objectives of the polymorphic cloud. I hope you realize what a great privilege this is for a new cloud assembly and reward their efforts by using their knowledge and experience wisely.

Nobody knows for sure what the future holds. Advancing in skills and wisdom builds up on itself in ways that raise complexity and create infinite variations, the outcomes of which are at times hard to anticipate, but know without fail that good always follows good and wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you'll always be loved.

Happy one thousandth, sweetheart, and may your covalent cloud work in perfect harmony!

Love,

Mom

Chapter One

Love. Purple.

"What exactly are you doing?" sister Roberta asked Sarah, who was fumbling with a knotted bunch of ribbons, growing more frustrated by the minute.

"I can't believe I'm wasting my time with this! Where is Sys? Why can't we just remake this?" the redhead abandoned the struggle, her cheeks flushed and her eyes gleaming furiously. "Can you take this to your lab and bring me back a fresh spool of non-knotted ribbon? You have no idea how many things I have to do right now, all at the same time!"

"I think I beat you in that department, my dear. I haven't even started the staging for the light show, so if you'll excuse me..." Roberta left before Sarah had a chance to pass on to her the ribbon unknotting challenge.

"What. For. Use. Ribbon." Purple inserted their unavoidable wisdom. "Wisp. Think. Matter. Worthless. Anyway."

"Why don't you tell me more about that, I really need the pep talk! Where is Lily!?" Sarah burst and left the room, trying to escape the immortals' nagging. Ever since they started with the preparations for the Binding Ceremony everybody was a frazzled knot of nerves. Nothing came out right, not on the first try, anyway.

Lily was managing the whole process, with endless patience and a calm disposition, no doubt acquired from her long experience with all sorts of species, especially the wisps who were particularly demanding.

They had brought an exhaustive list a requirements, observed that Terra Two didn't seem to have the characteristics necessary to accommodate the ceremony, complained that the high ionization of the atmosphere made them lose focus, questioned the rationality of a Bonding Ceremony for a solid in the first place, and objected to each and every one of the preparations already in course, calling for 'small' modifications that ended up in complete redesign.

In the midst of the chaos, flocks of dragons flew back and forth, eating anything in the way of flower arrangements and getting their scaly legs tangled in the drapery. Sister Joseph, in agreement with Jimmy, Jenna and Iseult, thought it would be a good idea to bring them in early, so they could acclimate to the conditions and not create havoc during the blessed event. Why would one believe the lizards were going to behave was a question for another time, but there they roamed, noisy, cantankerous and everywhere.

Sister Roberta didn't spare the community the unavoidable surprise. Lily's brave attempts of persuasion fell flat, much as she tried to convince the sister that having anything not pre-screened in a ceremony that was all about protocol, ritual and compliance was not a good idea. Since Roberta didn't relent, Lily smiled with the composure that made her so good in critical talks, and resigned herself to having to explain a dud of massive proportions to a dissatisfied Vlorian delegation. Lily could almost see their expression and sighed, checking another rubric in the chronicle of things she could have done better.

"Lily! Thank goodness! Do we really need all of these?" Sarah asked brusquely, as she rushed into Lily's office without knocking, with the bunch of tangled ribbons in her hand. Lily happened to be very frustrated at the time, but she wouldn't dream of disrespecting Sarah, her revered mentor. She clenched her jaw, managing to smile at the same time, which was an extraordinary feat in itself, and stretched out her hand for the offending bundle, to assess the seriousness of the situation. Sarah dropped the messy ribbons in her palm, with a confrontational attitude, quite uncharacteristic under normal circumstances.

"I think we can skip these," Lily replied, in a calm and comforting voice. "What were they for, anyway?"

"The flower arrangements, of course, which, by the way, I had to do over and over again! I wonder if those blue eating machines can ever be full? I don't think there is a chance in a million that we're going to reach the ceremony with any plant decorations!" she rumbled, irate.

"The Second Circle asked me for a detailed description of decor and the schedule for the ceremony. I was just about to ask you for details on all the plants, but it seems like we may need to make some changes before that. What would you like me to tell them?" Lily asked.

"You really don't want to know what I would like you to tell them right now!" Sarah couldn't help herself.

"I will let them know we need a little more time to fine-tune the details," Lily continued, unperturbed.

"Fine-tune? The second they have a list on their hands they're going to ask for a complete redesign. Why even bother with option fifteen of the blasted flower arrangements? They're not going to make it three feet out of the greenhouse before those five headed pests descend on them like famine!" Sarah continued, more and more flustered, and her alabaster cheeks turned deep shades of rose and wine, lighting her eyes on fire. Her former pupil sat back in her chair a little bit, secretly amused at the absurdity of the situation, but careful not to crack even the shadow of a smile and annoy her mentor further. "Why did we need the dragons, anyway? Isn't the Vlorian approval process punishment enough?"

"It would make sister very Joseph happy," Lily started an explanation.

"That would indeed be a miracle!" Sarah retorted, morose.

"Watch that vicious tongue, sister! You might accidentally bite it and poison yourself!" sister Joseph obliged through the interlink.

"Don't you have anything to do, sister? You may be the only one!" Sarah continued the offensive.

"Giant. Pointless. Argument. Time. Passes. Nothing. Done." the immortals threw their two cents in.

"Really?" Sarah whined, accompanied by sister Joseph's silent assent in a sudden and quite strange display of solidarity. "Do you want to help out with draping the podium?"

"Giant. Useless. Busy. Work. Sys. Can. Make." Purple mumbled, offended. Sarah realized they were right and relented.

"I'm not going to ask Sys to work like a robot, doing and undoing endless iterations of wisp rejected plans!" Sarah protested.

"Um is a robot!" sister Joseph interjected, harshly.

"Sister! Again? Really?" Sarah continued through the interlink, then ignored the side conversation and turned back to Lily. "Speaking of immortals, where is Purple going to sit?"

"We don't have the final approved plan yet, the Second Circle is still trying to decide if the fusion cloud is posing any risks to them. Humon has been in talks with the Tagas cloud; the progenitors feel that the breech of protocol of not communicating through procedural channels is concession enough. They don't understand how we get anything done, making decisions for ourselves, without cohesion."

"How do we get anything done? You mean without the benefit of seven planetary rotations between a petition and the answer to it?" Sarah replied, with a little tinge of sarcasm. "Nobody asked the poor child what she wanted! Does she have any say in her major life event?"

"No." Humon replied through the interlink, a lot less diplomatic than his wife. "I'm afraid Lily didn't clarify this with the human side of the family: there isn't any part of the observance that can ever be modified for anyone. It is highly ceremonial and not supposed to have personal touches. The joyous subsequent festivity is highly ceremonial too."

"Lovely! Lelia is going to celebrate the privilege of having no input in the most important day of her life. I'm sure she'll enjoy that!" Sarah protested, outraged.

"Actually, she will, she is half cloud. Appreciation for ceremony is a core component of her personality." Humon clarified, without guile.

"Here's the puff of smoke! I was wondering when you were going to chime in and defend your kin!" sister Joseph rumbled. Lily let out a very slow, almost imperceptible sigh. The sister caught it. "Serves you right for marrying fog! I told you nothing good was going to come out of your traipsing back and forth across the universe, but nobody is listening to me! Now we're all punished for it!"

"Sister," Lily continued, as if the previous chastisement didn't happen, "have you given any thought to when the dragons will be brought into the ceremony? They don't have to be there from the very beginning, do they?" she asked with unrealistic hope.

This innocent remark degenerated into a half-hour diatribe on the rights of the dragons and the importance of respecting one's elders, the human kind, of course.

"Giant. Can. Do. Nothing. Right. Stop. Everything. Let. Purple. Do." the immortals screeched abruptly.

All parties turned their attention and their building frustration towards the latter.

"Do what, you big purple blob of goo?" sister Joseph finally replied.

"Giant. Not. Even. Start. Write. Letter. Simple. Thing." Purple hissed. "Giant. Had. One. Simple. Task. Giant. Can. Not. Deliver. Why. Giant. Try. Complex. Tasks. Giant. Slow. Wisp. Right. Solids. Dense." they ranted. "What. Stops. Slow. Giant. Write. Lelia. Uch. Waste. Purple. Time."

"Aren't you smug?" sister Joseph picked up the gauntlet. "Did you write your letter?"

"Purple. Write. Letter. Not. Sister. Joseph. Problem. Sister. Joseph. Write. Own. Letter." Purple fought back.

Lily raised her hands in an attempt to reestablish serenity on the battlefield that her usually peaceful office had become.

"Could we please get back on task, if you don't mind? Sister Joseph, I don't want to rush you with the dragons' schedule, just let me know when you have the arrangements," she said.

"What a waste of my time!" sister Joseph protested and left the conversation.

Lily turned towards her mentor, whose initial frustration had subsided a little bit, to be replaced by pangs of guilt at the thought that, indeed, she hadn't given any thought to the writing of her letter to Lelia, the one thing that could bring a touch of caring in this waterfall of procedure and protocol.

"So, do you have a final selection for the flowers and greenery?" Lily asked Sarah, unperturbed. "We're three weeks away, the schedule is getting a little tight, with all the processing times required by the approval boards..." she smiled apologetically at her mentor, who grunted unintelligibly and turned around to leave.

"Sister Sarah?" Lily asked sweetly.

"It's Mother Joachima! How many times do I have to tell you people? I go through the trouble to be reborn to this order, take on a new name and everything and nobody cares!" she retorted as she stepped away. Lily was confused by the outburst, since nobody in the entire history of Terra Two had ever addressed the redhead by this name, which had been used exclusively for ceremonial purpose.

***

Purple Metropolis, Eastern Ocean, Terra Two, July 3 rd 3245

Lelia. Listen.

Purple. Love. Cloud. Child. Giant. Though. Purple. Not. Understand. Why. Lily. Chose. Wisp. Wisp. Not. Understand. Human. Wisp. Cold.

Regardless. Purple. Wish. Lelia. Happiness. Joy. Peace. Love. Purple. Excited. Honored. Participate. Child. Wisp. Ceremony. Purple. Contribute. Gene. Before. Wisp. Cloud. Assembly. Purple. Principal. Progenitor.

Not. Let. Wisp. Disagree. Purple. Parent. Lelia. Much. Different. Than. Wisp. Lelia. Must. Pay. Attention. Lelia. Human. Lelia. Purple. Lelia. Wisp.

Lelia. Special. Only. Two. Beings. Like. Lelia. Purple. Hope. Child. Giant. Understand. Universe. Slow. Giants. Can. Not. Grasp. Purple. Understand. Universe. Wisp. Understand. Universe. Maybe. Lelia. Understand. Universe. Then. Lelia. Teach. Giants. Lily. Slow. Even. Roberta. Slow. How. Not. Understand. Teach. Parent.

Listen. Purple. Not. Like. Mother. Grandparent. Did. Best. Pre-select. Cloud. Covalence. Wisp. Grandparents. Find. Good. Clouds. Lelia. Must. Pick. For. Self. Lelia. Live. With. Covalent. Cloud.

Wisp. Grandparents. Mind. Covalent. Cloud. Not. Mind. Love. Lelia. Must. Find. Life. Partner. Difficult. Now. Need. Find. Wisp. Human. Not. Understand. Not. Good. For. Lelia. Wisp. Not. Human. Not. Understand. Relationship. Difficult.

Why. Did. Lily. Marry. Wisp. You. Different. Ael. Different. How. Find. Partner. Sys. Can. Make. Not. Know. Why. Lily. Not. Accept. Maybe. Lelia. Wiser.

Lelia. Must. Be. Happy. Purple. Care. Lelia. Live. Very. Long. Life. Lelia. Must. Live. Happy.

What. Child. Giant. Good. At. What. Child. Giant. Like. Not. Listen. Parent. Not. Listen. Purple. Listen. Heart. Not. Important. What. People. Think. Important. What. Lelia. Feel. If. Lelia. Happy. Life. Of. Lelia. Good. Parent. Happy. Too.

Think. Lily. Parent. Upset. About. Wisp. No. Lily. Parent. Love. Wisp. Purple. Like. Wisp. Too. Humon. Different.

Lily. Think. Too. Much. Lily. Ponder. Meaning. Life. Lily. Not. Get. Meaning. Life. Purple. Not. Get. Meaning. Life. Only. God. Get. Meaning. Life. Purple. Not. Analyze. Existence. Purple. Happy. Purple. Know. More. Than. Slow. Giant. Still. Human. Sit. On. Beach. Ask. Why. Exist. Nonsense. Lelia. Not. Waste. Time.

Must. Teach. Purple. Wisp. Science. Purple. Want. Know. Maybe. If. Purple. Understand. Wisp. Purple. Like. Wisp. More.

Why. Lelia. Not. Visit. Purple. Metropolis. Lelia. Know. Location. Sys. Can. Bring. Want. Show. Child. Beautiful. Patterns. Child. Purple. Too. Child. Appreciate.

Take. Purple. When. Travel. Purple. Miss. Dragon. Purple. Want. See. Many. Worlds. Lelia. Make. More. Friend. Why. Not. Visit. Iseult. Parent. More. Sociable. Lily. Many. Friends. Now. Lily. Diplomat.

Purple. Want. Make. Lelia. Gift. Tell. Purple. What. Child. Want. Otherwise. Purple. Choose. Purple. Sure. Lelia. Like.

How. Roberta. Progress. With. Shape. Universe. Figured. Out. Purple. Think. Not. Purple. Have. Patience. Particles. Complicated. Giant. Slow.

Purple. Miss. Lily. Jenna. Jimmy. Purple. Love. Children. Talk. To. Purple. First. Jimmy. Very. Special. Child. Figured. Out. Particle. Wave.

Purple. Talk. Much. Purple. Not. Really. Know. What. Child. Wisp. Can. Do. Maybe. Purple. Talk. Nonsense. Please. Tell.

Child. Must. Be. Excited. About. Ceremony. Great. Event. Sys. Help. Organize. Lily. Anxious. Wisps. Picky. All. Supposed. To. Offer. Wisdom. Maybe. Lelia. Wise. Already. Giant. Forget. Lelia. Wisp. What. Human. Know. About. Wisp.

Love. Sister. Sister. Only. Being. Like. Lelia. Sister. Understand. Ael. Poet. Like. Father. Purple. Proud. Talk. To. Sarah. Maybe. Lelia. Like. Chemistry. Sarah. Master. Teach. Lelia. Many. Things. Invent.

Lelia. Find. Happiness. Purple. Help. Purple. Know. Child.

Wisdom. Go. Far. Happiness. Go. Farther. Plenty. Of. Time. Search. Till. You. Find.

Purple. Love. Lelia. Always.

Chapter Two

The Gates of Perception

"Who is in charge of the hors d'oeuvres?" Seth asked.

"Sister Abigail," Roberta replied, focused on a delicate piece of machinery that needed soldering under the microscope.

"You're not serious!" Seth yelled, making Roberta's hand shake for a second.

The pen slid over the board, covering it with a slobber of molten metal. "Thanks!" Roberta snapped, snatched the slide from the microscope and threw it on the growing pile of similar slides in the trash can, proof that the sister had kept very busy the whole morning.

"Who in their right mind would put sister Abigail in charge of cooking anything?" Seth continued, like a slow growing storm, ready to strike at any moment.

"Do you realize that I've been working on that board for the last six hours and I finally got it right?" sister Roberta growled at Seth.

"That means your next one will be even better. Who put sister Abigail in charge of the hors d'oeuvres?" Seth asked, deadly calm.

"What do I care? Why don't you ask Lily? She's managing the festivities." Roberta replied, eager to see Seth go away.

"If the frustration of having to sit through a whole day of wisp rhetoric doesn't get us, the food is sure to," the leader said, leaving.

She went straight to Sarah's apothecary, where the latter was trying to escape a growing group that was trailing her with a list of demands and modifications wherever she went

"I see you found me!" Sarah expressed her displeasure.

"I thought I was better company than that!" Seth protested, offended.

"You were. Now every time someone approaches, they have a request. What is yours?" the redhead pointed out.

"Who put sister Abigail in charge of cooking? Does anybody other than me think that this choice was made specifically to spoil the event?" Sarah was familiar with sister Abigail's cooking and waved her head sadly.

"Abigail had no task when the list was sent to Vlor for approval, so she was assigned by default to the only job left," Sarah explained.

"Why don't we ask her to do something else and let sister Jesse take care of the food?" Seth asked.

"It's too late, the assignments have already been approved, it would take another month to get this through the channels, and we only have twenty three days to the event," the redhead explained naturally.

"And all of this makes perfect sense to you, it seems?" Seth continued her chain of logic, as if talking to an incapacitated person. "Has everyone here lost every drop of common sense?"

"It is procedure," Sarah continued, obfuscating the leader even more.

"We are not eating sister Abigail's cooking. Even if we were willing, it wouldn't be advisable. Remember last time?" Seth spoke mellifluously. She was referring to a particular bean soup recipe that had engendered gruesome side effects for a whole week on their entire group. Due to the resilience imparted by the purple genes, all the sisters made a full recovery, but sister Abigail was forbidden to touch a frying pan going forward. Many of the sisters swore off beans altogether after that event, and considering their very long lives, that spelled serious commitment. Sarah nodded again, in agreement.

"Who is going to not give us food poisoning during the blessed event?" Seth asked, calm.

"Sister Jesse can coordinate the kitchen staff, but we have to have sister Abigail's name on the official record. As I said, not enough time to get another approval. She's going to have to be in the kitchen at the time, too." Sarah continued.

Seth looked her in the eyes with an icy stare.

"Do you understand that I never put up with this nonsense?" she asked the redhead, who did understand.

"Lily is really squeezed, the wisps are pretty adamant about adhering to a set course of action, please don't make us go through another seven layer cake of approvals!" Sarah begged, staring at the leader, almost in tears, in the hope that this new bureaucratic nightmare could miraculously be avoided.

"I must have lost the gift of eloquence, I thought I made myself clear," Seth continued, deadly calm, but throwing thunderbolts with her eyes. Sarah's hope sank in a puddle of wretchedness and she threw herself on the window seat, dejected. She decided to approach the issue from another angle.

"What if we skip the appetizers altogether, it's not like anybody is going to be hungry, anyway, besides, with the dragons there, it's going to be difficult to keep the food uncovered. We can serve beverages, some light refreshments..." Sarah attempted a diversion.

Seth stared at her blankly.

"No."

"The wisps don't even need food, they're going to be floating around blended together like a vat of cotton candy," Sarah protested.

"Not everything is about the wisps," the leader replied. "Take care of it."

"Why me?" Sarah asked. "Why don't you ask Lily?"

"I have enough on my plate as it is. Handle it," the leader said and left.

Sarah was reluctant to walk back to Lily's office, especially after the previous day's outburst, and dragged her feet all the way there, trying not to feel any unpleasantness over the situation. It's not like this was a life and death situation, she couldn't understand why Seth was so adamant about having her way, besides she was sure everyone would be way too nervous to eat.

She had to give it to the wisps, their fusion clouds were the vision of a lifetime, and the fact that one of their own was going to participate in one seemed surreal. Sarah couldn't help wonder how creatures so advanced chose to maintain their society in such an administrative nightmare. She mumbled to herself all the way to the solenoid room about the Second Circle's rules, Abigail's inability to cook and her own penchant to avoid confrontation at all costs. Who cared! It was just food after all!

She realized she was going to have to stop by Abigail's place and let her know she wasn't going to do any cooking, and she felt awkward about the whole situation, even though Abigail was probably not going to care one way or another.

She groaned at the thought of having to sit through another two hour session with the mobile assembly and justify the reasons for the personnel change.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 4th, 3245

My darling,

I never told this story to anyone until now, it is one of those life changing events that divide your days into between and after, and the person I became as a result didn't feel comfortable discussing it. I decided to share it with you, to maybe help you realize that not everything in this life is meant to be understood.

I was a bit of a dare devil in my youth, living defiantly and always looking for the next challenge. As luck has it, I got word that a spot had become available on a safari expedition to the Serengeti, and the news made me bounce off the walls with excitement; this was exactly the kind of activity I used to plan my life around. I left in a hurry, with only one small backpack and a change of clothes, and the trip unfolded uneventfully from the moment I landed in Dar-es-Salaam until we embarked on the all terrain vehicles.

A few days into the expedition, hot and sweaty under the African sun, we saw a watering hole in the distance, a wonderful opportunity to take pictures of wild life and refill our canteens with water. As quiet as we tried to be, we still startled a small group of zebras and gazelles, to the displeasure of the lion pride who watched placidly as their afternoon snack ran away. They were enjoying their afternoon siesta a short distance from us, in the tall grass of the savanna and under the rare foliage of an acacia tree.

We wandered about, careful not to disturb them, filled our containers with water and were getting ready to leave. The group was tired and absent minded from all that relentless sun bearing down on us, and, as I said, some things defy understanding, so this is what happened next.

As I straddled the rocky shore, trying to approach the water, I slipped and fell, and in the process cut a deep gash in my leg. The pain was so intense I passed out instantly, I didn't have time to scream for help, or see the tired and distracted group get back into the vehicles and leave.

I don't know how long it was until I came to, but it was night already, and I could hear the terrifying roars of the lions getting ready for the morning hunt. I was sure that the smell of blood would draw them to me and it was just a matter of time until I ended up as their next meal. I couldn't move and felt that a fever was starting to build up, clouding my vision and my thinking. I must have lost a lot of blood, because I was going in and out of consciousness, and the last image I saw before I passed out again was the gigantic shape of a growling lioness sniffing my face, hesitantly.

A strange sensation woke me up at noon, and upon awaking I noticed that I was laying comfortably on a bed of flattened grasses, in the middle of a group of resting lions, and the large lioness from the night before was licking my wound. I wasn't well and felt the fever rising, and then passed out again.

I knew I was going to die, it wasn't possible for me to survive without medical attention, food or water, and the fever drove me into mottled dreamscapes, in a half way place between life and death, where I could see both but experience neither. I had vivid visions there, extraordinarily beautiful visions of creatures whose countenance I couldn't even describe, whose features were melting in the intense blue light of their being, multifaceted and fading in and out of reality and living in dimensions not available to the human senses. I felt their infinite love, their concern for me, and in my feverish dream state watched them debate my fate.

They stopped every now and then to see how I was faring and I got scared, because I thought I already died and it was my judgment day (and maybe it was, I will never know, will I?), but I was also mesmerized, I couldn't take my eyes off of their surreal beauty, whose simple existence engendered bliss. Every now and then I woke up, startled by the rough tongue of the lioness licking my wound, or her grabbing me by the back of my shirt and carrying me to the water and back, growling softly to encourage me to drink.

For days I went back and forth between that extraordinary world filled with beings of light and the weirdly cozy nest of my adoptive lion pride, and in my feverish mind they seemed one and the same somehow and because of that I felt safe. The roars of the lions didn't scare me anymore, I heard their growls and saw their graceful movements in the moonlight and knew that I was protected among them.

The fact that I got better was in itself a miracle, I don't know how that happened and can't explain it, other than divine providence, and as my strength returned, the world beyond life slowly faded. I was so sad, so extraordinary hurt to let it go, it felt like I was ripped apart from half of myself! Every time I lifted my eyes, I saw the lioness care for me with the love and dedication she would only give her own cubs, while the other members of the pride glanced tolerantly in my direction, willing to share the fruits of their common hunt with the strange sickly pup that I was.

My adoptive lioness chewed up little morsels of raw meat and thrust them in my direction, licking my face and nudging me with its nose to eat. I wished I could, but my stomach revolted when a tiny morsel of the offering reached it. However, as my health returned, it brought with it a ravenous hunger, and I quenched it with the acacia flowers that were blooming abundantly at the time.

I didn't understand why the lion pride decided to accept me as a member, instead of seeing me as the yummy lunch that I was, but I didn't feel in danger in any way among them and started appreciating how unusual and extraordinary this experience was, living among the lions, something that the overheated imagination and thirst for adventure of my reckless youth could not conjure under normal circumstances.

My sweet child, you know what sister Joseph keeps saying, you don't need to look for trouble, trouble is sure to find you. There is no way, in your daily life, to anticipate or prepare for a situation like the one above, it is something you just live through, grow from and are forever changed.

Nobody can stay the same after visiting thereafter, and I was no exception. Every priority I had, every ambition, every drive, faded in the magnitude of existence itself and the awe of things that defy understanding. It almost felt normal living among the lions, so I had no inclination to leave, but I was a grown up cub and it was time for me to explore my own trails. The pride moved on as I set out towards a thicket of trees in the distance. I don't know why I picked that direction, but I was sure in my heart it was the right one, and that proved to be the case. Before parting, my adoptive lioness jumped and placed its front paws on my shoulders, almost crushing me under her massive weight. As I looked at its majestic bearing, almost seven foot tall as it was standing in front of me, I realized how lucky I was: it could have squelched me with a pat of its paws, or killed me with one bite if it ever wanted to. The lioness looked at me with what in a human's eyes I would have read as great sadness, then jumped back with a small growl, turned its back at me, rejoined the pride and never looked back.

There I was, walking completely alone and exposed through the tall grass of the savanna while small herds of wildebeest, gazelles and giraffes passed me by, oblivious. I cried the entire time, out of weakness, out of relief to be alive, out of hard to define emotions, I cried because I missed my new found lion family, as absurd as it sounds, I cried at the loss of that extraordinary world beyond life, so unbelievable in its infinite dimensions that even the stunning beauty of the Serengeti plains, punctured by rock outcroppings and caressed by sinuous slow flowing rivers seemed dull by comparison.

I was still crying when I reached the small clump of trees, and crying when the rare trees turned into a jungle, whose vague, unmarked trails led me to a small Maasai village. The villagers took care of me and dressed my wound with a thick mixture of herbs and bark to help it heal completely. When I was healthy enough to travel, they took me with them to Zanzibar on one of their trips to the spice market.

The rest of the story is quite mundane, filled with modern conveniences and administrative requirements. I reestablished my identity, got travel papers, figured out how to contact my family and got a plane ticket back to Singapore. I performed all of these tasks in a daze, as if watching somebody else's life, and when I got back home my mind was so far away that my family almost didn't recognize me.

Upon returning I tried to pick up where I left off, but it all felt fake, like wearing someone else's life, someone whose personality you neither click with, nor admire.

As I said, some moments divide life into before and after, and the people who inhabit these separate parts are very different.

I wasn't afraid of death before this adventure, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have defied it on a dare at every turn, but after I realized that not being afraid of death and not caring about life are two completely different things. I could not shake the vivid visions from that feverish state between life and death. I couldn't believe that experience was for nothing, just a random meaningless occurrence, I wanted my life to count for something, even if what I saw might have been just a wild firing of neurons and massive release of endorphins at the approach of death.

I didn't know where to start in my search for meaning, so I joined this small community gardening group, which had some religious affiliations, and since my dare devil was just tamed, not dead, I jumped at the chance to join some of them on a trip to a small experimental farm in the south of France, which had the reputation of working miracles in the world of horticulture.

I was supposed to be there only for a week, but again, faithful to my drive to live on impulse, I stayed. The sisters didn't ask why, or for how long, they just prepared a bed for me and gave me a tiny lot of brick rubble to work on.

How strange is life, huh? You know, it's a good thing to plan your future, but if you plan it too tightly you won't leave any room for really extraordinary events. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, it is for you to decide.

Be blessed, my dear, and may God grant you the fulfillment of your life's purpose.

Devotedly yours,

Sister Abigail

Chapter Three

Who are You

"Did you see my notes?" Humon asked, shuffling the pads on Lily's desk. Lily lifted her eyes from the mound of packages, reminders, and party decorations that had been slowly accumulating around her ever since they got the blessed news the Bonding Ceremony was going to be celebrated on Terra Two.

Her maternal desire to be of assistance to her eldest daughter was fighting an older, more personality specific urge to dump everything at once and take a trip to a region of space she hadn't visited before. She realized, while thinking this, that there were no regions she'd never seen, and strained her overwhelmed mind to figure out if and where she saw Humon's work. She jerked, aggravated.

"Why would your work be in my office? Does this look like a room where one brings more stuff?" she gestured broadly, to draw attention to the epic mess that surrounded her. The couch, chairs, tables, desk, floor and book shelves were completely covered with a variety of items that would have challenged even sister Roberta's imagination, everything from fabric samples for the drapery to a hundred or more VR exhibits that Sys decided to produce, in a moment of free time, all awaiting Lily's review and decision making. Most of the items fit in the "just a thought" category, and their timing was way off, considering that the flowers, decorations, activities, audio-visual effects and food choices had already been submitted to the Third and Second Circle for approval, and as such, were set in stone.

"Yes, actually! It looks like everybody is bringing all of their stuff here," Humon attempted humor, not very well received under the circumstances. "Have you?"

"No!" Lily snapped. "Are you done with your tasks? Why are you doing anything else? We only have twenty one days left until the Ceremony!" she raised her voice slightly, only to reveal that her irritation was veiling a terrible case of stage fright. She paused, while Humon kept searching for his notes, as if he didn't hear her.

"I don't want this ceremony to be a reenacting of Lelia's birth, that was mortifying enough for one person, even an immortal one!" she prodded, annoyed at his lack of urgency.

"It's not going to be, please relax, it's all going to be fine! Everything is already chosen and approved, I don't even know what you're fussing about! What is all this stuff?" he deigned to answer, not lifting his eyes from the pile he was scanning. "Aha! Here you are!" he picked the offending notepad and raised it above his head, triumphantly.

"You are not serious! You can't be serious! Who brought that here!" Lily lost her famous diplomatic composure and jumped from her desk, overturning a couple of boxes and bows that were hanging precariously over the edge. "Do you want to know what all of this stuff is? Sister Roberta wants me to try out her AV improvements every two hours, even though I told her that nothing will be changing going forward. Sarah needs me to untangle her ribbons! She wants me to untangle ribbons!" Lily exploded, appalled by the absurdity of the task. She continued. "Seth made a non-negotiable last minute change to the kitchen staff, sister Mary-Francis objects to the lavender gauze, because lavender is not her favorite color, and she decided to provide me with alternatives, so that I can be persuaded that she is right. Did I mention that the Second Circle specifically required lavender, because it helps the ultra violet spectrum reverberate in ways essential to the success of the fusion cloud? And yes, I did tell her that, every time she showed up with a new color sample! Sister Joseph wants the dragons to be part of the ceremony, I don't think I need to explain why this is a guaranteed disaster. Sister Benedict wishes me to be more involved in editing the speeches the sisters have prepared, none of which are ever good enough. Hours and hours of editing and refining, every day more red lines! One wonders why she doesn't do it herself, since she obviously has the critical eye and the higher standards, but apparently it would be unforgivable if I were left out! Should I go on?" she said, exasperated.

"Please do! It's just getting entertaining," Humon encouraged her, seriously.

"Can you drop the Zen facade for a minute and act like a human being?!" Lily retorted.

"But I'm not a human being, my dear. Why should I?" he said, amused.

"I'm done!" Lily bolted for the door, determined to find that portion of space she hadn't visited before and move there. Humon caught her half way to the door and burst into laughter.

"Sit down, please," he cajoled. "Really, sit. Breathe," he encouraged, waiting for the wild fire in Lily's eyes to subside before he continued his argument.

"I've been in the cloud for two thousand years, do you think I would have stayed sane if I didn't learn how to circumvent administrative bulk? Why do you think I left? They can drive a saint mad with the never ending hierarchy of approvals!" he tried to explain.

"They don't even listen! They never listen! It's as if I'm on a one way phone line! Can you talk to some of them, at least?" she asked hopefully.

"No, ma'am! I wouldn't dream of it! What makes you think they'd be willing to listen to me? I'm doing my best to keep out of sight until the ceremony, I don't want to give them an opportunity to throw busywork at me. You know how I revile doing things of no consequence," he turned to Lily.

"I hate busywork too! Why am I stuck with it?" she yelled.

"Two reasons: one - you are the consular liaison and the master of ceremony and two - you haven't learned how to dodge them," he laughed, with a relaxed attitude that drove Lily nuts.

"You know what? Everything is already decided, so I don't see what stops me from taking a little trip to Vlor to do some cliff jumping," she said in a tone that was too calm to bide anything good.

"I wouldn't go there right now," Humon responded calmly. "My principal progenitors, the Tagas Cloud, have been asking me for days if you could join them for a ten day summit with the Second Circle bonding committee to review procedure and selections for the already approved cloud assembly. I used all my persuasive ability to direct their attention away from you," he smiled.

"Join them for a what!?" Lily's temper bubbled over again.

"Calm down, the Second Circle must summon a special session to discuss the necessity of your presence, and only after the issue is agreed upon they will present it to the Simplex for approval. If I were to bet, I'd say this should take more than twenty one days," he continued.

"How can you be so calm?" Lily asked him with a stare devoid of emotion.

"There's nothing new under the sun, I believe you say? This too shall pass," he answered.

"But I don't want this to just pass, this is our daughter's most important moment, I want it to be a joyful one, for all of us!" she objected.

"And it will be, trust me. The Bonding Ceremony is something so extraordinary in a cloud's existence that nothing in the universe can spoil it. It is..." he hesitated, not finding his words, and for a poet that was something very special indeed. Throughout their marriage Lily had never found Humon at a loss for words.

"Transcendent."

As if on queue, the moment passed, and all the noises and the shuffle that drove Lily out of her mind resumed, in a chaotic maelstrom of cat hisses, thuds and yells. Sisters Felix and Novis burst through the door simultaneously, speaking over each other and carrying boxes with yet to be revealed improvements for the festivities. Behind them walked Sarah, dragging her feet and still feeling guilty about the outburst she had had the other day. In lieu of an apology she let Lily know that Amber needed a bath because Ael had spilled milk on her, then offered assistance with whatever still needed done and left before Lily had an opportunity to answer.

***

Vlor Consular Mission of Airydew, Terra Two, July 5 th, 3245

My lovely Lelia,

Isn't it miraculous how life always finds a way to defy its boundaries, even when every physical parameter counts against it?

When I found out I was pregnant with you I didn't know what to expect, I just assumed that in nine months Humon and I would have a bouncy baby girl and planned accordingly. At the end of the eighth month everything was ready, due to Sys's tireless efforts and the sisters' endless doting, so I mentally prepared, I took long walks, I sat and waited, and nothing happened. When the forty first week ended we went to the obstetrician, who assessed that we are both in splendid health, congratulated me again and refrained from making any predictions regarding a due date.

We went home and waited some more. Months passed, during which we reorganized the nursery several times, finished the research and created the curriculum for a new class at the Institute, took several exploration trips to various planets (just the ones Purple and the sisters considered safe) and set up the administrative team for a couple of Vlor consulates across the galaxy.

After a while I started to worry that you were never going to be born, and I'll just keep carrying you forever, and in a strange way after so many months have passed, I'd gotten used to the idea.

The mission on Terra Two was well established and when your father was called to Vlor for an organizational issue I decided to "accompany" him there (I say that because he didn't really have to transport there, only I did), to revisit some of my favorite sites, a little disappointed that the option of cliff jumping was not available under the circumstances.

I barely touched foot on the planet and labor started. I was completely unprepared to watch your solid form get born separately from your cloud and reassemble after birth, in puffs of wisp still tentative and drawing strength and substance from the multitude of Vlor beings which gathered spontaneously for your cloud assembly.

Your Vlor grandparents are still distraught that they didn't have a chance to plan or announce your Assembly to their covalent clouds, as tradition requires, nor did they have the time to research and put together a well chosen selection of progenitors, and had to leave your composition to chance and God's mercy. Not only that, but your make-up contains a significant percentage of the Humon cloud, which is simply not done in Vlorian culture, where principal progenitors pride themselves in not taking up valuable capacity, to ensure that the shares of the esteemed clouds selected to enhance their progeny are not restricted in any way.

I didn't know that clouds could not be born anywhere other than on Vlor, and could have had my prediction about carrying you until the end of time validated if it weren't for that chance trip I took with your father. Fortunately this little piece of information served both me and your sister Ael very well, because everything for her birth was planned and scheduled to the last detail, to every cloud's relief, your father's included.

Your grandparents went through a painstaking process after the fact to establish your lineage and attempt to figure out where you would fit into the Cloud Simplex, and believe me when I say that creative assemblies like yours are a little challenging to accommodate in any of the Circles.

What was missing in protocol during the Assembly was more than made up in the following joyous celebration that brought together all of Humon's and your covalent connections, basically half the population of Vlor. In all the commotion, sister Joseph and sister Sarah ran back and forth to Terra Two to bring the little necessities that newly assembled clouds don't normally need - clothing, diapers, a crib, bathing facilities, until they finally got tired and brought Sys to make stuff up on the spot as needed.

After the ceremony I was terrified that taking you away from Vlor would damage you in some way, a completely irrational thought, I know, considering your father and all the clouds in the diplomatic mission had lived on Terra Two for centuries, not the worse for the wear. It took Humon all his powers of persuasion and the sister's absolute 'cross my heart and hope to die' assurances to convince me to bring you back home.

I had very little information about how Vlorian education works, with knowledge being imparted by means of gene sharing, so when at the age of three you corrected the official translation on one of the embassy's live communiqués, I almost choked on my own tongue. The translation was however correct, and saved us a potentially uncomfortable blunder, but convinced me that it would be a good thing after all if you started school early, and the age of three seemed to be the perfect age.

Your sister was born four years later, to your great delight and curiosity, and that required a trip to Vlor for the entire family, including you, of course, during which you took me and your little baby sister to every place your progenitor clouds ever loved, to show me their beauty and familiarize me with their history. I got into a full blown panic when you changed states and joined the Simplex Cloud for an impromptu session, and took your baby sister with you, because no matter how hard I try and no matter how many times I experienced you doing it, this puff of smoke thing of yours is always disquieting.

Well, I think I have to wrap this up, baby, I'm so behind with the preparations, your proto-progenitor clouds have sent an extensive list of requirements regarding protocol and we're not in compliance with any of them, so now I have to almost start from scratch, thank God for Sys, she'll pick up the bulk of the work and any surprises that may come in the late hours, but I don't want to concern you with these mundane details, my sweet, just concentrate on the selections for your Bonding, it is one of the most important moments of your life, I'll have to go now, your sister spilled milk on the cat, and she is not pleased, the cat, not the sister, love you, bye.

Mom

Chapter Four

Living in Context

"Who is waiting for Jimmy and Jenna?" sister Novis poked her head through the door that sister Roberta had left ajar. The sister was revising a last minute idea for the festivities, secretly offended that Lily was so adamant about not having anything happen that wasn't already approved. What a bore!

"I thought you were," she stopped from her work to look intently at sister Novis.

"Nobody told me anything, you worked with Jimmy a lot during the last three months, I thought you already arranged something, we all assumed..." the sister defended herself.

"All of you always assume, what a punishment for the scientific mind!" sister Roberta philosophized. "When are they supposed to arrive?"

"They already have, if you'd check the solenoid room..." sister Novis gently suggested.

"Oh, dear, they're locked in. How long have they been there?" sister Roberta started panicking.

"Not long, sister, we just arrived. Could you please let us out? And close the lab door, we brought dragons," Jimmy replied through the interlink. Sister Roberta obliged. A lively group emerged, more dragon than human, but hungry and noisy all the same.

"Oh, pears! What a treat!" Jenna swooned at the sight of a bowl of yellow fruit on sister Roberta's lab table. She grabbed one a took a healthy bite before anybody had a chance to stop her.

"Those are not..." sister Roberta managed to say, while Jenna gagged, disgusted. "...pears," the former completed her sentence.

"Sister Joseph and Sarah are running an experiment together, mobile plant life, based on the studies sister Joseph did on the migrant bristle. I'm afraid the gene splicing didn't take into account the taste. Watch this!" she said, pointing a pin-light at one of the 'pears'. The being reacted promptly by extending a muscular leg, like that of a mussel, and propelling itself off the table. Once on the floor it picked up speed and disappeared under one of the shelving units, to the great excitement of the dragons.

"Don't worry, it'll be back. They really like to hang out together," she reassured Jenna. "Sister Joseph and Sarah working on the same project, can you imagine the sparks?" sister Roberta giggled.

"Like you're God's gift to conviviality!" sister Joseph mumbled through the interlink, peeved, then turned the conversation to the guests. "Bring the dragons to the Institute, I prepared some treats for them in the grassland environment."

"And I thought we came up with this idea first!" Jenna followed up on the previous conversation. "I brought some of the research material with me, to show Sarah. We're developing our own hybrids, if only from the opposite perspective, but it seems you beat us to the punch!" she continued, a little upset that the Terra Two horticulturists stole her thunder.

"It's really not at all the same thing," Sarah mentioned through the interlink. "I can't wait to see your research. How is our lovely Iseult?"

"Artistic," Jimmy said with the barely dissimulated delight of a proud father.

"Nonsense!" Sister Joseph replied in protest. "She is strong and vibrant, a healthy result of growing up on Soléa with the sun and the wind in her face, running with the dragons in the wilderness, not being coddled like a poodle and spared all effort!" The sister had no appreciation for artistic endeavors, which she considered a waste of human capacity, but she so loved Iseult that she couldn't hold anything against the girl. "She has the gift of soothing the dragons, they don't take to just anybody, you know?" sister Joseph managed to pay Iseult a compliment while bringing up her own talent.

"How is Lily?" Jimmy asked, excited to get together with his childhood friend. "I have a few suggestions for the ceremony, I can't wait to run them by her," he spoke, excited.

"Wait!" sister Novis suggested, followed by approving comments from every one within interlink range. "If you value your friendship, don't make any suggestions regarding the ceremony, she's a little sensitive about this subject." The sisters started laughing.

"And Lelia? Iseult can't stop talking about her, she is so fascinated with the cloud stories, always in search of something new and extravagant, that one!" Jenna picked up the conversation.

"Other than being related to fog, spiffy!" sister Joseph couldn't help herself.

"Sister!" Sarah protested.

"What? Now we're bending over backwards trying to please those insufferable puffs of smoke! It's Lily's fault, on second thought I blame the parents. Nobody takes responsibility for their children anymore, they let them roam on that beach day-in day-out, no wonder they grow up like savages in the jungle and end up choosing vapor for a life partner!" she went on, forgetting that she was contradicting the very argument she had made for Iseult's healthy upbringing.

"Sister, it's been a thousand years, would you let it go?" Humon commented through the interlink.

"How did you enchant Lily, you silver tongued devil? I can never tell if you're here or not!" sister Joseph backed out.

"Define here!" Humon replied naturally.

"I don't want to define here! I had 'here' down pat!" sister Joseph protested.

"Anyway," sister Roberta intervened, "welcome to Terra Two, we really missed you!" she turned to Jimmy and Jenna. "Try to make yourselves useful, if you'd like. When is Iseult coming?" she inquired.

"Wouldn't we like to know," Jimmy and Jenna looked at each other, smiling. "She's a free spirit, our little one, she'll be here when inspiration moves her. Definitely in time for the ceremony, though..." Jenna clarified, to chase away a cloud of worry that was darkening sister Roberta's forehead.

"Where is she right now?" the sister replied.

"Alpha Centauri I think..." Jenna tried to downplay the fact that their beloved daughter, like a mountain brook, could never sit still. The image of Iseult riding through the bristle plains surrounded by dragons brought a smile to her lips. With her flaxen hair and her pale blue eyes, as cloudless and deep as Soléa's sky, Iseult was the spitting image of the Norse princess of legend.

"Are you going to bring those dragons over or not? I don't see why they have to starve while you're running your mouths," sister Joseph pressed, concerned for the little darlings, who haven't had anything to eat during the last half hour.

"Those bellies are going to start dragging on the floor soon," sister Roberta thought.

"Why don't you worry about yourself instead!" sister Joseph replied promptly. "And stop churning those accursed items, the poor woman told you that all the details are already locked in! Bad enough she has to deal with wisps all day long, we don't want to make her life worse that it already is!"

"Thank you, sister Joseph," Humon replied.

"Any time, dear," the sister pushed back.

***

Oma Beach, Soléa, July 6th, 3245

Our sweet Lelia,

First of all we'd like to remind how much we all miss you, come visit more often, darling, Iseult is asking constantly when the two of you are going to get together again!

Jimmy left the writing to me, so let me be the first to congratulate you for your upcoming ceremony, what a blessed event that is, one that we wouldn't dream of missing!

Our life here on Soléa hasn't changed much, we live simply, as you know, but we are happy, we love our blue wilderness and the company of the dragons.

We just finished construction on our new home (a bit larger than the old one, to give Iseult some extra room for all her gear, you wouldn't believe how much space all her photography paraphernalia and art supplies can take!) and we're tired, but content. Jimmy worked very hard to put everything together just right and accommodate our beloved daughter's requests to the last exacting detail and I got the task to create the furniture from fallen Oma trees (we are very environmentally conscious here, Soléa is a nature preserve and we want to keep it as untouched as possible).

You definitely have to come and trek the trails with Iseult, she has so many places to show you and a whole flock of very friendly dragons that follow her around like a shadow.

We are thrilled to have managed to balance the minerals in our garden soil and finally get the flavor of the vegetables right, nobody was excited to have everything taste like the Soléa bristle.

The sisters visit very often, sister Joseph especially; she likes to pretend she comes to do more research on the local wildlife but we all know she wants to see Iseult and spend time with the dragons. She has a very special relationship with the little five headed beasts, she's like a dragon whisperer of sorts, and they are so attached to her!

How is your mother, dear? We miss our dear Lily with whom we share so many childhood memories! Jimmy and I come to Terra Two a lot more often than she makes it here, to coordinate our latest research, teach at the Institute, or get together with our loved ones, but we can't stay very long either because of Iseult's schedule.

She is working towards her mastery in a liberal arts program from a culture in the Centauri constellation, she visited their planet once and was completely taken with their multidimensional manipulation of imagery, so she decided to pursue a degree in the field, and now she's traveling back and forth every day for classes. She's making great progress, at least that's what her father and I think, but she always strives to do better, she's so ambitious!

We've been traveling a lot too, on geological exploration trips, and found some very interesting and absolutely beautiful sites. We only wish we could do it more often, but life here is surprisingly busy for a nature research center.

Sister Sarah helped out with our latest project, an aluminum tree orchard. The process of extraction is reminiscent of harvesting rubber (a very old school project of Sarah's, still with practical applications), is completely pollution free and yields a decent output, enough for our local production needs at least. She and Roberta spent some time with us to do the experiments and give the small farm a good start, and it was like the old times again, working together with our mentors. Roberta never says anything, but she's so proud of Jimmy, who developed the concepts he has learned from her into spearheading research. You should just see them work together in the lab, exchanging ideas and contradicting each other, as if no time has passed at all. He just presented a paper on Time Slicing Dynamics at the Institute, a subject of great interest to Roberta, and they had endless conversations on the topic, often forgetting to eat or sleep. Sometimes I don't know which one of them is more driven by their work!

I recently finished a study on the biological acceleration rates of cells enhanced with artificial DNA strands, study which forecasts very promising results for the development of Soléa/Terra Two hybrids, a project I've been working on for a while now. We may be able to blend sufficient Terra Two genetic components into the vegetation of Soléa to generate conditions, at least locally, for Purple to live autonomously on this planet. The immortals are of course thrilled, and can't shut up for a second, which, as you know, can get pretty tiresome after a while.

How are things with you? Lily told us that your Vlorian grandparents besought the First Circle to assign you a valent rank three, in light of your dual status and the diplomatic experience you acquired as a result of your birth circumstances. We know that's a great honor and the progenitor clouds must be beside themselves with pride. We're all looking forward to joining them in witnessing your Bonding ceremony and the subsequent joyous celebration. We weren't sure if you picked a field of research, or you are still deciding, but I can only guess that your covalent clouds are going to be wonderful lifetime collaborators no matter what you choose.

Iseult has a surprise for you, an art project she'd been working on day and night to make sure it was ready before your ceremony. She made me promise not to tell you, but I know from experience that surprises are not always welcome, especially during events that need to be planned to the last detail, so I wanted to give you the heads up. Please act amazed or she'll be mad at me. I can only say one thing: it is good that the celebration takes place on the beach, this way there will be plenty of room for the surprise. Centauri art styles have a knack for the monumental and it includes dragons, too, OK, I think I already said too much!

I assume that Sys will be taking care of many of the physical aspects of the ritual, from decor to food, but if there is anything you would like, anything that we can bring you from here, please let us know without hesitation, we'd love to get you something that will make you happy.

Iseult really wanted to know, but she didn't dare ask, so she pushed the task on me, keep that in mind if you think I'm too nosy: are you going to be in solid form, wisp form or both during the observance? We've never participated in one, due to the highly ceremonial and reserved nature of the Vlor culture, so we'd like to know what to expect, we don't want to react incongruously.

Anyway, I assume we'll learn all the details during the rehearsals, I'm sure we'll be fine. Your mother must be very keen on keeping everything absolutely perfect, considering her position, I don't think there have ever been so many high ranking Vlor clouds on Terra Two all at the same time.

Please send our best regards to Humon, whom we love like a brother and have admired for over a millennium. What a blessing he'd been in your mother's life, and a wonderful father to you and Ael! I don't think we'd enjoy the great relationship with Vlor if your parents didn't put their life blood into the success of this endeavor; I've never seen two people work so hard to accomplish a goal and the results reflect their efforts. I can't imagine the amount of persuasion necessary to convince the First Circle to send a permanent independent delegation to Terra Two!

Well, that's pretty much all I have, my dear, not a lot of excitement on Soléa, I'm afraid, but you know what they say, happy people have no history.

We love you to bits and can hardly wait to see you soon!

Yours as always,

Jimmy, Iseult and Jenna

Chapter Five

Out There

"We are going to wear our ceremonial robes, I assume?" Seth entered Sarah's apothecary.

Sarah was mixing perfumes, she and Sys had come up with the idea of creating a scent to match the lavender gauze and flower arrangements, even though the plant decorations were still in question on account of the dragons' appetite. The small shed was saturated with a clamor of floral scents, which shouted at each other so loudly one could no longer tell them apart. They all ended up in a overpowering blend, screeching in sharp tunes of lavender and hyacinth. Lilac tried too assert itself as a top note too, but it was trounced by the other two scents, and whimpered helplessly at the end of the lab table where its open vial resided.

"Good Heavens! Open the louvers, you can cut the smell with a knife. Whatever it is you are working on right now, throw it away it and never consider it again!" Seth protested, stifled by the heavy fragrance. "How can you even breathe in here? I'll never get this smell out of my clothes!"

"It is a process," Sarah defended the obnoxious perfume, despite the fact that she fully agreed with her mentor, the scent could knock over a horse.

"Maybe you could lighten up on the hyacinth a bit?" Seth suggested sweetly, breathing through her mouth so her olfactory nerves would be spared at least some of the affront.

Sarah looked at her, got up and dumped the contents of her latest creation in the sink, and washed the test tubes, ready to start fresh. In the process, the potent smell was released at an even higher intensity, stirring irrepressible groans.

"What about the robes?" she asked absentmindedly.

"We are going to wear our robes, right?" Seth asked again.

"Yeah, maybe..." Sarah said. "We are going to look a little out of place at the ceremony, Lily and Roberta suggested that maybe we would all feel more comfortable if we agreed on a black tie attire, it is an embassy ball after all."

"Roberta suggested we wore gowns," Seth repeated the phrase, to make sure she heard right.

"Just a thought," Sarah commented.

"I haven't worn a dress since before I joined the order, any reason why I should consider doing it now?" Seth asked, with a tinge of worry in her voice.

"I haven't either, but what's it going to hurt if we dress up a little for this occasion?" Sarah asked with a wry smile on her face, just to enjoy the leader's reaction a minute longer.

"I assume you want us to get our hair done, too? A sophisticated up do, perhaps, with pearl accents?" Seth continued, perfectly poised.

"I was leaning more towards natural flowers, gardenias, for instance, maybe a little sparkle..." Sarah continued, trying very hard to squelch a smile.

"Does this outfit come with a personality change?" Seth continued, unperturbed.

"It's not that terrible," Sarah continued teasing her. "What would you do if you had to wear a gown? Lily wears them almost like uniform."

"Serves her right for choosing diplomacy as a career," Seth tried to change the subject, but Sarah, who still held a grudge over the critique of her perfume, continued mercilessly.

"I was thinking we could wear matching dresses, in a warm shade of mauve, you know, to stand out from the background. Or aqua," she went on. "And open toe sandals."

"The best for a beach ceremony, to let the sand in," Seth replied.

"Easy in, easy out," Sarah put an end to the subject.

"What happened to the shy redhead who wouldn't disrespect a fly?" Seth asked, a little sad.

"Are you serious? That girl couldn't survive two days with your lot! Why, sister Joseph alone!" Sarah protested.

"Oh, dear! You unleashed the wrath," Seth started to speak, only to be instantly drowned by a sister Joseph tirade, on the subjects of flawed character and general ineptitude.

When the deluge subsided, Sarah continued.

"What is so wrong with a gown? It's just clothing."

"It's never just clothing, it is a way to present yourself to the world. I don't like this way to present myself to the world," Seth explained.

"Why?" Sarah asked.

"Because it turns me into somebody else," Seth replied, "and forces me into behaviors that I find confining. It restricts the choice of who I can be."

"How doesn't the habit restrict who you can be, it completely defines you as a sister of the Order?" Sarah continued, curious.

"It defines me as someone I want to be. The gown does not." Seth fussed, uncomfortable, and then chuckled. "Although it might be worth the discomfort, just to see Roberta's outfit," she paused, with a mischievous smile. "Maybe we should give this a thought."

"Only if you bring me a corsage, dear," Roberta replied through the interlink.

"I wouldn't want to deprive sister Joseph of the privilege," Seth snapped back immediately. A second installment of sister Joseph diatribes ensued.

"Thank goodness that dreadful smell subsided," Seth tried to change the subject. "Are you sure we need the perfume?"

"It is on the approved list," Sarah started, inadvertently stepping into one of the leader's danger zones.

"What else is on that approved list?" the latter snapped. "Mandatory subjects of conversation? Smiling standards? Walking velocity? I wouldn't want to be in defiance of any arbitrarily imposed rules, by all means, please, bring me up to speed!"

Sarah took the opportunity to return to the dressing standards.

"What did you like to wear before you joined?" she poked.

"What's it to you?" the leader frowned and her eyes launched one of their legendary thunderbolts.

"Nothing whatsoever, I didn't realize this was such a touchy subject," Sarah stepped back from the conversation.

"Whatever was in fashion at the time, I can't remember exactly, it's been so long ago," Seth indulged her.

"I can't picture you in a dress," Sarah shook her head to chase away a conflicted image.

"Thank goodness for that!" Seth mumbled, uncomfortable, and then turned the tables. "I don't remember seeing you wear anything but khakis either."

"I'm in the field or in the lab all day, it makes sense," Sarah defended her fashion style.

"Because they don't restrict your movements and allow you to focus on what you are doing, not what you are wearing?" Seth asked.

"Something like that," Sarah agreed. "I used to wear dresses, though. And floral prints." She turned to the leader.

"There is nothing wrong with wearing a dress!" she protested, in the name of women's fashions.

"No," Seth granted, after a pause. "No, there is not."

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 7th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

If I close my eyes I can see your mother sitting across the table from me, leaning back in her chair with a sparkle of curiosity in her eyes and the confidence not to take empty words for an answer. She was just like you back then, eager to find her way in the world, a very different Lily from the accomplished diplomat we have the privilege to call a friend today.

We all experience crucial moments in our lives, when reality challenges our beliefs and we have to reevaluate our principles, our reason to exist, our very selves. Sometimes it's a change of perspective, a shifting of priorities, a fated encounter, and other times simply getting the answer to your question redirects life's purpose.

As far as I can remember, Lily wanted to know what was out there, beyond the visible limits of the universe, and I think "out there" is the perfect metaphor for the story I am about to tell.

I was born to a large family, the oldest of five girls, to my parents' dismay. Try as they might, they couldn't produce the boy tradition required, the one who was supposed to inherit the family's name and assets. Childbirth after childbirth I saw my mother's demeanor grow more and more wretched in the face of what was considered the family shame, her inability to produce a male heir. My sisters and I were very close, begrudging our luck together and trying to stay out of sight in order to avoid the bitter snarls that came with the misfortune of being born to the wrong gender. The five of us didn't have much, but we shared everything, we played, laughed, built castles in the air and tried not to think about our future. We snuck out into the open fields to play catch and make wild flower garlands and we shared with each other everything we learned about the plants' properties and growing habits. A lot of my passion for horticulture was born in those days, out of the loving bond that I shared with my sisters.

I was already eleven years old when my parents gave up on the hope of having a son, and because I was the oldest, and also too tall, strong and wayward, they cut up my hair and dressed me up as a boy. It may sound odd to you, but it was a fairly common custom in the area I was from for families without sons to have one of their daughters act like one.

I cried for days at the loss of my beautiful tresses, so dark, thick and heavy that when I braided them the braids were thicker than my arm. Every day when I woke up, I washed my face and looked in the mirror to see a very sad boy stare back at me. The image in the mirror was my face, but not quite, there was nothing familiar about the furrowed brow and the piercing gaze behind those transparent eyes, it felt as if that person in the mirror had been born a boy, and the girl me in front of the mirror never existed.

My sisters started treating me differently, I had privileges now, I had become one of those upon whom fate had smiled, I didn't have to do the chores, I was free to move as I pleased and I could voice my opinions at the table. I tried with all the strength and passion that I had to hold on to the sisterhood that was my most prized, my only possession, I ran after them out in the fields and tried to explain that I was the same person, that it wasn't my choice, that I valued our times together, but tradition was stronger than anything, stronger than sisterhood, stronger than shared experiences, stronger than our promise to each other. To them I was a boy now, and that instantly made me a stranger.

In a very weird way, the privileges imparted by my apparent change of gender got completely annihilated by the loss of my cherished bond with my sisters.

Days passed, then months, then years. I learned to walk tall, to stare, to talk back, to stand up and defend my honor, and every morning when I looked in the mirror I saw a young man staring back at me, not sad anymore, but daring, strong and willful.

I went to school and learned to read and count, I walked into the market as my father's equal, I attended the gatherings of the community of elders, I laughed at risky jokes and I partook in the spirits. For almost seven years I was this person, this strange tall and beardless boy, and I became so at ease with my role that even the neighbors forgot that I'd been born a woman.

When the seventh year arrived, and I approached the age of eighteen, my parents figured it was time to find me a husband, so they allowed my hair to grow and sewed me beautiful female garb, to ensure I attracted worthy suitors, but every time I looked into the mirror in the morning I saw a daring young man staring back at me, a man whose hair was allowed to grow long and reached all the way down to his waist now. For a whole year my sisters tried to give me a crash course in "womanhood", they taught me how to walk, how to smile, how to lower my gaze, how to act obedient, but that daring young man in the mirror couldn't be taught submission to save his life and no suitor in his right mind would take the challenge.

My father was angry, my mother decried her continued martyrdom of shame and disappointment in her offspring and to top it all, our village was at war. The eligible suitors had become fewer and my awkwardly ambiguous gender presence became increasingly contentious in the household.

One morning my father came home from the market with a jubilant smile on his face and announced proudly to the family that he had found a man willing to marry me sight unseen. The house was immediately engulfed into an effervescent bubble of relief and contentment, as the preparations for my upcoming nuptials took flight.

Very early the next morning I cut my hair short, dressed in male attire, took a last look in the mirror at that daring young man with the piercing eyes and joined the military. I was so deeply connected to my male identity that nobody even questioned whether I was a man or not, what woman with any sense would dare attempt suck a thing?

As luck would have it, our troop was embedded with a French battalion, whose commander figured out the gender switch, shrugged his shoulders and said it didn't matter to him one way or the other. I left with that battalion when the war was over, I needed a new name and because it wasn't given me, but I was free to choose it for myself, I wanted it to mean something, so I chose Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, the one almost never talked about, born to replace Abel.

This story happened many centuries ago, and what I thought would be a relatively short existence of paucity and struggle turned into the quite incredible story of my life, story even I have difficulty believing half the time.

I didn't have any reason to dress up as a man in France, and I found I didn't really have a preference for the male attire, so in time I regained my identity as a woman and learned to remember that daring young man who used to look back at me from the mirror as my oldest, dearest and most faithful friend.

For thirteen years I was "out there", seeing the world from a perspective that would never be my own, watching myself through a different person's eyes, seeing my life stripped of all the artifice one builds around oneself to span over the gaps in common sense, over defective logic and wounds too painful to examine.

I was "out there" until I found out how to define my own meaning, how to organize my own moral code, and decide what I want to do with my life. I was encouraged to learn that "daring" and "woman" were not mutually exclusive terms, that "out there" women fight, and lead, and voice their opinions at the table.

The experience of acting a different gender brought about almost all the beliefs and personal traits I have today, and I consider that first time when I looked in the mirror and saw a man, a stranger, the crucial moment of my life.

Love,

Seth

Chapter Six

Status and Rhetoric

"Places, please!" Lily spoke, a little sharper than she wished. She had shouted directions to staff, friends and caterers all day, and her voice was giving out a little.

"Sister Joseph, you will lead the procession, followed by sister Novis and Sarah, then Seth will bring the rest of the group from the left side of the podium. Sys, queue music," she instructed.

A soothing melody poured on the beach, making Purple hum, delighted.

"Stop!" Lily interrupted the immortal bliss. "Where is Humon? He is supposed to stand right behind Lelia, according to tradition."

"And the approved list," Seth couldn't help herself.

"Mother Superior, could you please do the honors?" Lily took sweet revenge for the defiance of protocol by handing an exceedingly long and very delicate lavender veil to the leader, to carry over her arms during the procession. The veil was infused with lilac fragrance.

"I'm so relieved we're not in violation of the mandatory matching fragrance," Seth thought, as she carried the soft veil with the care one would use while handling a Ming vase.

"It is essential everybody memorizes their precise locations, you'll have to be able to remember them without signage, all the signage will be removed for the ceremony," Lily directed.

"How am I supposed to remember a spot in the sand without any signage?" sister Joseph protested.

"Find a reference object, two would work better, you know, and orient yourself in relationship to them," Lily explained.

"Wouldn't it be easier to use stellar charts? The star positions are fixed so it would be easier for me to triangulate my location," sister Joseph retorted.

"The ceremony is at dusk," Lily replied, missing the sarcasm because of her tension and exhaustion. "You'll be in line with the linden trees and about three feet off the second row of gardenias."

"Are you sure that's precise enough?" sister Joseph continued mocking.

"No, but unfortunately we don't have a better reference system," Lily answered. "Sister Novis, the Purple language generator can't be in full view, can we place it in the ocean? Sys can work it from there."

"No, she can't," Sarah jumped defend her offspring, "not unless you want her to attend the second half of the ceremony in a wet gown."

"We are going to wear our robes, though, right?" Seth wanted to make sure.

"Yes, the Order will wear ceremonial garb, the rest of us will don black tie outfits." Lily clarified.

"I'm grateful the habits made the approved list," Seth mumbled, in an irritated tone Lily chose to ignore.

"Where is Purple going to be?" sister Mary-Francis asked, stirring a miniature panic. Lily shuffled assiduously through the notes in her hands to find the seating chart for the immortals, and only continued breathing normally after their location in the ceremony was clarified.

"Sister Novis is going to carry the box, while the dragons will fly majestically overhead," she read from the notes.

"How are we going to ensure the dragons will fly majestically overhead? They're not exactly reliable?" sister Benedict asked innocently, not knowing that she touched upon a subject of great anxiety.

"Sister Joseph will make sure they do," Lily spoke with great assurance, a testimony to her training as a diplomat. Nothing could shake her poise.

"She will, will she?" sister Joseph mocked.

"And we are all grateful for your effort, sister," Lily turned to the latter, with a warm smile.

"What happens when we reach the podium? Do you want them to surround our group, like they usually do?" sister Joseph asked, and the question dropped on Lily's head like a bucket of ice water. Of course they were going to land on the beach in circle formation, why didn't she think of that? That's what their instincts were honed to do through millennia of evolution. There was no room for a circle formation around the podium, not without requiring approval for modifications. Lily's heart sank, but her smile radiated even brighter.

"Would it be possible for the dragons to alter their traditional formation, so they can fit within the approved layout?" she asked sister Joseph in the sweetest voice.

Usually, sister Joseph would have relished in holding hers and the dragons' position, just for the sake of it, but after being at the receiving end of the wisps approval process, she chose the easy route, and nodded that she'll find a way around the problem.

"Where is Humon?" Lily snapped, annoyed that the person who had the most insight into the process chose to remove himself from the first general rehearsal.

"That's because I know there are sixteen general rehearsals in all," Humon replied calmly through the interlink. "Let me know when you reach number nine, I think given my previous experiences, seven general rehearsals are plenty."

"Lights!" Lily directed. Sister Roberta started the light show, a beautiful play on the Aurora Borealis, and during the presentation Lily experienced all the inevitable sources of irritation and stress, sister Roberta's surprises. She ruthlessly eliminated them to the last one, to the sister's dismay, and steeled her heart against any and all attempts at guilt or intimidation designed to retain the unapproved features.

At the end of this emotional battle, Lily emerged victorious and Roberta discontent; the latter vowed to herself to introduce at least one element that wasn't seen before in the real ceremony.

"Where is the food?" Lily asked, and sister Felix pointed to a beautiful display, worthy of a master chef. Lily twitched.

"Why is the food next to the podium? The diagram always showed the food display next to the healing garden stairs," Lily pointed out in a soothing, but definitive voice. Sister Novis took notice of the logistical change.

"It is not an change, it was always supposed to be this way," Lily clarified. "Did anybody check the precise sunset times?" Nobody had, but a couple of sisters rushed to assist with the task and disappeared into the deep bowels of the Institute, grateful to be spared the remainder of the rehearsal.

"Minimum distance from the podium, measured from the elliptical centers?" Lily asked.

"Twelve feet, seven inches and fifteen thirty seconds," sister Jove read from her notes.

"Really? That precise? We can only wish and hope that sister Roberta uses the wisp system of tolerances for her inventions, we'd all feel a lot safer," Seth thought.

"I didn't hear you complain when you used the solenoid!" sister Roberta protested.

"Well, that pretty much wraps it up for today, the suns have already set. I'll see you all tomorrow at the same time, and please don't be late, as you can see, every second matters," Lily said, smiling encouragingly.

"Can we have some fresh vegetables for the dragons? It seems to be quite a long ceremony, they'd be a lot more settled if they had something to snack on," sister Joseph suggested.

"We're doomed," Lily gave up, as the large group quickly dissipated.

***

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MESSAGE ORIGINATION: PLANET VLOR, THE ORION CONSTELLATION, 3RD QUADRANT

MESSAGE BROADCASTING FREQUENCIES: ALL

MESSAGE CHARACTER: PERSONAL

MESSAGE ENCRIPTION: PRIVACY STANDARD

MESSAGE ADDRESSEES: THE HYBRID LELIA CLOUD, ESSENTIAL DYNAMIC OF THE SOURCE OF THE STRONGHOLDS, GERMINALS OF THE SECOND SPHERE, VALENT RANK THREE

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

8 th Gyration, Planetary Rotation 257, Fourth Revolutionary Cycle

The Tagas Cloud, Guardians of the Strongholds, Germinals of the Fourth Principality, Valent Rank Two

Vlor

The Orion Constellation

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Re: SECOND CIRCLE ASSEMBLY RECORD 2-3-12560

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To the Hybrid Lelia Cloud, Tagas Cloud's Secondary Inheritor's First Derivative, in Grace

The First Circle's consent to your new cloud assembly imparted on us slight trepidation and great honor. All the progenitors are fervently elated, as can be expected for such a momentous occasion. We look forward to the Fusion Observance, and to the joyous subsequent ceremony that requires us to bond and share knowledge with all of our inheritors. No doubt you will be as gratified as we are by this experience, a blessed event that celebrates the expansion of our fold.

In anticipation of our visit to Terra Two we took the liberty to contact all the constituents of your Bonding selection. What a wonderful privilege for us to get involved in assessing your compatibility cluster! We are attaching the final covalent cloud list to this letter, to get you started on the preparations.

Our friends and close collaborators in the Second Circle reveled in the recounts of your excellent research, which provides the Simplex with an abundance of details about the characteristics of solid matter. Everyone is amazed at your focused dedication to this ancient science, whose subject of research we all thought exhausted long ago!

Your unexpected interest enabled our first contact with a new sentient species, and a solid one at that! Their distinctiveness reminds us of the adage that one must not make any assumptions in scientific research, but only rely on evidence, and their capacity is quite remarkable considering the rigid constraints of solid state, which leads us to hope that we may, in time, evolve the nascent bond between our species into a mutually beneficial alliance.

The Second Circle is, of course, already at work trying to find suitable representatives for the diplomatic mission, and, as you can guess, it is not an easy task to come up with an adequate selection of essentials whose presence in the polymorphic cloud can be substituted without imposing undue hardship on the Simplex. We are all keenly aware that every contribution is critical to its performance and the decision of having a permanent delegation stationed in a different quarter can not be approached lightly.

Given the exacting and rather singular task of comprehending the character of a solid class and your unique curiosity in researching it, the Second Circle may find your suggestions for potential candidates useful, just as long as you keep in mind that only Third Circle selections will be seriously considered.

Though gratified by your tireless devotion to your field of research, we look forward to your presence in the polymorphic cloud, our beloved descendant! We don't get the benefit of your input nearly enough!

What a privilege it is to welcome your cloud assembly into our fold! We are overjoyed to be the only collective in the Simplex to incorporate not one, but two cloud/solid hybrids. I can't start to emphasize how much insight this provides into our developing relationships with solid entities. Your form plasticity revolutionized the very foundations of our study of material sciences.

Please convey our best wishes and acknowledgments to your mother, whose tireless diplomatic efforts have yielded exemplary results and advanced the mutually beneficial relations between our species. We want to take this opportunity to assure her that all the possible ceremonial configurations have been carefully weighed to guarantee the comfort and enjoyment of all the guests, solid and cloud alike. As staunchly devoted as she is to her responsibilities we can't help imagine how she worries about unexpected occurrences that might hinder the solemnity of your ceremony.

Of the many activities we have planned for our visit to Terra Two, the opportunity to meet with the Purple community fills us with eager anticipation: we hope to share with them a couple of studies on the subject of Multiverse self-generation, which has become a highly debated topic in our scientific circles. We are certain they can offer illuminating insight on the subject, and, as always, we are grateful for their wisdom, which is energizing, original and astute.

None of your progenitors failed to remind me of their enduring dedication to your well-being, and I couldn't miss this chance to relay their commendable thoughts to you. As for us, we remain, as always,

Eternally devoted,

The Tagas Cloud, Hybrid Lelia Cloud's Primary Proto-Progenitors

Attachment 1: POLYMORPHIC CLOUD RECORD 7-23-17235, 8 th Gyration, Planetary Rotation 257, Fourth Revolutionary Cycle

  * end of release -

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Chapter Seven

Abolishing Fear

"Sister Novis," Lelia whispered, so softly that Novis, who had just returned from a rock climbing expedition and was struggling to put away her gear on a high shelf, almost didn't hear her.

"Oh, sweetie, I didn't expect to see you here, I thought your mother kept you busy with the preparations for the ceremony, your input is very important, you know!" the sister said, cheerfully.

"Not as much as you think. Bonding ceremonies are very prescriptive, other than the actual clouds involved, there isn't much that can be changed," Lelia replied.

"How can I help you, dear?" sister Novis asked, a little puzzled that Lelia looked for her, since she didn't know the child-cloud very well.

Lelia straddled one of the kitchen chairs, searching for words. She gulped, looked down, and said nothing. Novis didn't push, she put a kettle on and went to the cupboard to get tea cups.

"Have you ever been afraid?" Lelia asked, in a tiny voice that sounded like fear itself.

"Of course I was! A million times! Who has lived and never been afraid! Is there something wrong? Someone bothering you?" the sister looked at Lelia, worried. The girl shook her head.

"No, nothing of the sort. There isn't anything in particular, is just..." she stopped.

"Just what, dear?" Novis asked.

"Well, it is the ceremony," Lelia started again.

"Oh, you've got stage fright, it's perfectly normal," Novis said, relieved.

"It's not stage fright, that's just it, I don't exactly know what I'm afraid of, I just can't picture what life will be like once I join the Simplex Cloud, I know it's silly, especially since Ael had already been there and can't stop talking about it. Do you know how intimidating it is for a cloud to have a sibling prodigy that is much younger and already joined the Simplex? What if I can't get used to it? I don't even know what "it" is supposed to be? What if I hate it? I'll be there forever, you know? And everybody else seems so at ease with being fused with hundreds of other clouds. I am so afraid!"

Sister Novis sighed, then took the kettle from the stove and filled the cups.

"You are venturing into the unknown. The unknown scares us all, young and old, but it is also the most precious gift we get from life, our chance to grow and change. What would we look forward to if we already knew everything the future holds?" sister Novis said.

"I feel so silly, Ael tells me all these stories about the Simplex, and what she's doing there, and dad spends all of his time there, but he's also here, see? How am I going to get used to something like that?" Lelia asked.

"You are a cloud, yours is an inherited memory, I'm sure you'll know what to do," sister Novis appeased her.

"What if I don't? I'm only half cloud, what if the human half can't adjust?" Lelia said.

"Ael seems to be perfectly fine," Novis replied.

"That's why I feel silly even talking about it," Lelia lowered her gaze.

"The unknown is a challenge for all of us, you can't always be sure when you open a door what you're going to discover behind it, but if you don't open it, you will always be controlled by your fear. It's ok to be unsure, or afraid, and it's ok to make mistakes, too," sister Novis answered. "And it's ok to not be able to explain what you're afraid of."

"I was worried that you'd laugh at me," Lelia said.

"Believe me, child, I would be the last person in the world to laugh at someone for being afraid," sister Novis said. "You know that recommendation, do the thing you're afraid of, and the death of fear is certain? In my experience I found this advice to sound a lot better in theory than it does in practice."

"What do you do, then?" Lelia asked.

Sister Novis paused, unsure if she should continue, she didn't want to upset Lelia even more, but the girl was looking at her, with large eyes insisting on an answer, so she continued.

"You learn to live with it," she said.

"Live with what?" Lelia asked.

"Fear, uncertainty, doubt, you just learn to incorporate them into your life. After you stop fighting uncertainty you get to see past it, and notice many doors open where you thought was just one. You think of your Bonding Ceremony as a sequence of events when in fact it is an expansion of possibility, like acquiring an extra sense, or being able to fly. You don't know what to do with an extra sense, but you have a lifetime to explore its potential."

"How do you know all this?" Lelia asked, doubtful.

"Because I stood in front of my own doors, wondering whether I should open them, baby."

"Did you ever wish you didn't?" Lelia asked.

"Statistically speaking, you are always better off opening a door than not opening it. Of course, statistics rely on the law or large numbers, so, the fewer the instances, the less predictable your outcome is. That's why you need to move past mistakes quickly, you learn something from every experience anyway."

"But..." Lelia hesitated, "that feeling of uncertainty, I never want to feel like that again, it is sheer agony!"

"Yes, it is."

"You are saying I have to enjoy feeling this way?" Lelia asked, whimpering.

"I didn't say you had to like it. Nobody likes it. I just said get used to it and don't let it affect the decisions you make. If you make a decision while you set your fear aside, the decision may be right or wrong, but if you make it based on your desire to escape your fear, the decision will always be wrong."

"Why can't I just stay away from the things that make me uncomfortable?" Lelia asked.

"There is no place in the universe where you can be safe from your fears. Wherever you run, they will find you, it is like trying to outrun your own shadow, and just as life wasting."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just not be afraid of anything?" Lelia asked.

"Everybody is afraid of something, dear, and that which you are afraid of will torment you until you look it square in the eye and stop running from it."

"What are you afraid of?" Lelia asked.

Sister Novis paused and frowned, searching for a good example of her fears. It wasn't easy, but she finally found it.

"Hell."

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 9th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

Since our beloved sister Roberta invented the solenoid I have to say I indulged my wanderlust with zest, you never know what you're going to find on a new planet and being the first human there is the icing on the cake.

I gave all the trips reasonable preparation, I'm an adventurer, not a fool, and in time I gathered the confidence that I can handle myself reasonably well in any new environment, no matter how hostile. Just back from a trip to a moon in the Vega constellation I was browsing stellar charts to relax and noticed this tiny dot on the outskirts of a solar system in Andromeda's Halo. To my surprise, the tiny planet lay in the habitable range and a closer look at Roberta's data from the probes showed an enchanting world with bright blue vegetation and shallow pools filled with sticky glycerin, compliments of the plant life's decomposition processes.

The sun was small, but quite close, which made the entire landscape look weird, with long, thin shadows stretching endlessly in response to the blindingly bright pinprick in the sky. Curiosity got the better of me and despite the fact that I was still tired from the recent trip I immediately started planning a visit to the quirky little planet.

I figured I didn't need much, the atmosphere was breathable, the water was drinkable if you absolutely had no choice and we weren't going to stay long anyway, just enough to get some recordings and bring back a few samples.

You know it's our custom to never go alone, and sister Roberta was quite irked that I'd just come back from a trip and I already wanted to drag another long suffering sister with me to this unremarkable planet, when every one was so busy with their research. Her disapproval amplified tenfold when she realized that none of the sisters wanted to or could come, which meant she would have to be my partner for this off-schedule, last minute, unsanctioned trip.

I've known Roberta practically forever, so I wasn't daunted by her tantrums and her guilt trips fell on deaf ears (you know how she can make you reevaluate your entire moral code when you do something that displeases her!). She ranted for a while, and then, in characteristic manner, noticed a detail about the proposed exploration zone that piqued her interest and completely reversed her attitude.

We arrived at sunrise, just in time to watch the point source sun shine bright yellow and cast a surreal display of shadows, so long their ends stretched beyond the horizon. We wandered randomly, grabbing a plant here, a mineral sample there, until we arrived to the bottom of a rocky mountain range, quite rugged and abrupt, that seemed to run a straight demarcation line in the landscape, as far as the eyes could see. Every here and there we noticed round holes in the side of the mountain that didn't seem to have formed naturally, but rather appeared to be the burrows of some sort of animal. They varied in size, from just a few inches in diameter, to large openings, like the entrance of a cave.

Neither one of us is a shy flower, so we simultaneously decided, without even asking each other, that the second we found an opening large enough to get through, we're going in. We did find a good size entrance into the side of the mountain, and noticed that it continued with a smooth tunnel, perfectly round, like the hollow tubes lava leaves behind in its passing. The tunnel was dark and bent abruptly around a corner within fifty feet of the entrance, and we couldn't see what was going on beyond that point.

Sister Roberta walked boldly in front of me, engrossed in the exploration of this new environment, and turned the corner just as I was catching up with her; I only had one glimpse of her disappearing into the void. Lucky for me I had the flashlight, and in its dim glow I saw the chasm opening right in front of my feet. To this day I can't describe what it was, because it seemed less like an abyss and more like an absence, an absence of everything - matter, thought, energy.

I was so shocked by this fast unfolding of events that I didn't have time to grieve what I thought was the loss of Roberta, my oldest and dearest friend, and as I turned towards the cave entrance the tunnel started to collapse and my flashlight went dark. I panicked, listening to the soft sound of soil crumbling. I called to God in prayer, but there was no answer, it seemed that even He didn't want to venture into the haunting emptiness in front of me. I was so terrified I started hyperventilating and that made me lightheaded, so when I heard Roberta's voice resonating from the void I was sure I was hallucinating.

"Novis! Novis! What on earth are you doing?! Come on, sister, we don't have all day, I want to get back to my work!" sister Roberta called, in a very calm voice, from the pool of nothing in front of my eyes, while the edge of the rift kept crumbling at my feet. I turned to stone and even if I had had the mental courage to move, my body didn't listen to me. I instantly decided that I wasn't going to be afraid of Roberta, whether she was alive or dead, but hesitated to reply to the ghostly voice, if nothing else because I wasn't sure that in my fright and grief I wasn't imagining it.

"Sister, you are annoying me, you dragged my old bones to this godforsaken planet and now I have to yank you with the Jaws of Life to continue your own research project. Would you do me the kindness to get over here? It's getting too bright, I should have thought to bring visors, live and learn, huh?"

I didn't answer, I just sat motionless in total darkness, mentally assessing the fact that whatever happened next I most likely wasn't going to die, not with the purple DNA keeping my tissues repaired and all, so I'd have to spend eternity in this hole. Hours passed, that seemed like forever, hours during which sister Roberta kept calling me, more and more alarmed, and I became more and more despondent, curled up in the fetal position next to a boulder, unable to move.

I prayed and cried, with sharp shrieks, I thought, although I later realized no sounds actually came out of my mouth, and tried to block sister Roberta's calls, which became more and more insistent as time advanced.

"Sister, I don't know what's gotten into you, and I really don't care to find out right now, but for the love of God, move from that place already, the window of opportunity is closing and I only programmed the solenoid for one return trip. I'm not sure who knows we're here, at any rate, if we miss the window there will be days until they find us, if at all. If you ever trusted me in your entire life, trust me know when I tell you to get up from that spot and step forward!"

Her voice had a gravity I never heard before, and real or imagined, I felt the urgency of her call in the pit of my stomach and all my instincts told me not to doubt that the danger she was talking about was genuine. I managed to move my head and tried to look around, but there was nothing but darkness, a soul sucking void.

"Thank God, sister!" Roberta uttered a sigh of relief. "For a moment there I thought you were dead. I am right here, right in front of you, can't you see me? You only have to take one step! There seems to be a force field preventing me from reaching you. Please move!"

I really don't know what it was that gave me the impulse to step into that void, whether it was Roberta's voice or going out of my mind in the darkness filled with the creepy sounds of crumbling dirt, or maybe in my altered state of mind I thought I heard God call me from beyond, but I rose to my feet and jumped forward.

Right in front of my bewildered eyes stood Roberta, looking very worried indeed, in the entryway of what seemed to be a mirror image of the cave where we started, with the intense radiance of the sunset behind her; the light was indeed so bright I had to squint to protect my eyes.

"What is wrong with you, sister, you scared me to death, do you really want us to be marooned on this planet? I don't even know if the vegetation is edible!"

I turned around to see very clearly the corridor I had spent hours in, quite well illumined, boulder and all. I mumbled something almost unintelligible to Roberta about the darkness and her disappearing, and grace to our long standing friendship and my normally solid common sense she didn't doubt it. I was mortified with embarrassment at the thought of her standing there the entire time, begging me to move and watching me as I clutched helplessly onto that boulder for hours, petrified with fear.

"It must be a portal, I didn't even notice when I passed through it", she said simply, "stranger things happened in this universe", and in light of my nightmarish experience I begrudged her poise.

"Did we pass through to the other side of the mountain range?" I asked unsteadily, trying to sound rational.

"No, we're on the same side. It's the same cave entrance too, only backwards, look, you can see the solenoid from here!", she nudged. I looked out to acknowledge the solenoid and then turned around again to take one more look at the corridor and the boulder I had held on for dear life, and it was still there, innocently defying me, almost within arm's reach.

"Sister, if you regained your wits, we have exactly three minutes before the window closes, and one hundred feet to the solenoid. Run!" she grabbed my arm and hurled me forward, so abruptly I almost fell.

After we got back home, I decided to trim back my enthusiasm for exploration a bit, to give this lovely incident some time to sink in, and tried to stay out of Roberta's way until she forgot the details of our shared experience. Fat chance of that, she never forgets anything, you could store the Institute's archives on her brain!

I've never been scared again after that, I'm not sure why, and began to look at life with keener eyes: I started enjoying the splendid landscapes of Terra Two, the delightful perfume of vanilla and gardenia, our communal meals (especially when sister Jesse is cooking and sister Abigail is not), our talks to God in prayer.

To this day I'm not sure what I could have done differently and can't help feeling embarrassed that I made a complete fool of myself, but it didn't dissuade me from exploring, quite the opposite, I just allow for a lot more unforeseen aspects in my travel plans now.

When I stepped into that void I let go of every certainty I had about life, every certainty other than the omnipresent love of God. What I lost in certainty I gained in inquisitiveness, and my fear turned to this intense interest about the workings of the universe and awe of how much of existence we don't understand.

Your mother is going to be mad at me when she reads this story, I think she was hoping for something heartfelt and uplifting, but I say there's room for cautionary tales, especially for children, we wouldn't want you to end up standing petrified in fear in front of an open door now, would we?

Live courageously,

Sister Novis
Chapter Eight

Non-linear Time

"Sister, did you finish the table placement cards?" sister Jesse asked sister Benedict.

"I thought you said you needed them Wednesday," sister Benedict replied.

"Today is Wednesday."

"Today is Monday."

"I'm pretty sure it's Wednesday."

Sister Benedict looked at her calendar. It said Monday. Sister Jesse looked at hers. It said Wednesday.

"One of us must be losing her mind," sister Benedict mumbled.

"And it surely isn't me," sister Jesse replied.

"When did you last set the time on your device?"

"You know as well as I do that we don't need to set the time, it sets itself," sister Jesse protested.

"Obviously not," sister Benedict pointed at the evidence. The devices clearly showed a two day differential, not minutes, not hours, days.

"Have you asked Roberta?" sister Jesse inquired.

"Why would I ask Roberta, I was pretty sure it was Wednesday!" sister Benedict replied.

"It's Tuesday," Roberta replied through the interlink.

"Do you still need the table placement cards?" sister Benedict asked.

"Forget the table placement cards, we need to make sure time is still linear!" sister Jesse commented, alarmed. "I wonder if Roberta has any theories about this?"

"Have you traveled anywhere by solenoid lately? I'm afraid it needs some fine tuning," sister Roberta intervened through the interlink.

"Why didn't I have a shadow of a doubt this had something to do with you, sister! Every time reality as we know it goes awry, you always seem to be involved somehow. I guess we should be grateful to still share the same universe, even though I'm two days ahead of Benedict."

"You're one day ahead, she's one day behind. My time is the right one," Roberta replied.

"I am going to wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of you making your own time, sister!" Jesse commented, exasperated. "What if today was the day of the ceremony and she missed it?"

"She is not two days behind, her clock is slow," Roberta clarified the incident.

"And if she was, I wouldn't be surprised. Nothing you do can surprise me anymore, sister!" Jesse retorted.

"How can my clock be slow? I went through the solenoid with it, it should reflect my own passing of time?" sister Benedict asked.

"Congratulations, you are now two days younger, not that it matters, anyway!" sister Roberta explained. "Who else used the solenoid during the last three days?

"Pretty much all of us, thank you for your concern," sister Benedict answered.

"You mean to tell me it's not Friday?" Sarah asked through the interlink.

"IT'S TUESDAY!" Roberta, Jesse and Benedict replied together, like a Greek choir.

"Oh, good Lord! My time is Wednesday too, which means I sent the lists with the table arrangements to Vlor one day early! You can't imagine the commotion this is going to generate: they are going to involve every cloud to get to the bottom of it, and then push up the findings to the Second and First Circles, who are going to want to sit through a few meetings with me, to address their concerns. And I thought my life was difficult before!" Lily agonized through the interlink.

"Don't panic, my dear, I'm sure everything is going to be just fine. And for your information, it's Tuesday," sister Roberta offered her assistance.

"You know, of all the things, I never thought that what day of the week we're in would be open for debate, this is an interesting surprise, sister," Seth chimed in.

"It isn't actually open for debate, its Tuesday, their clocks are wrong," sister Roberta commented with scientific certainty.

"How can you be sure?" Seth asked.

The interlink went absolutely silent. Several minutes passed.

"Sister, are you still there?" Seth asked.

"Yes."

"What's the problem?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not totally convinced it's Tuesday," Roberta observed casually.

"I told you we're all going to lose our blessed minds, and it finally came true. No worries, at least crazy is going to make my life here somewhat bearable, it is sheer torture to expect logic and causality out of you!" sister Joseph replied.

Seth continued calmly, as if nothing happened.

"So, sister, do you think you might be able to figure out what day it is, before the ceremony?"

"I'm pretty sure," Roberta said, unconvinced.

"Ah, I feel better already, she's pretty sure!" sister Joseph mocked. "You know? I'd love to go to Soléa so I can be as far away as possible from all of you, but I'd have to take the solenoid to get there..."

"Yes, sister, you would," Roberta replied.

"One day that diabolical machine is going to turn us into frogs, you just wait and see," sister Joseph continued foretelling doom.

"Yeah," sister Roberta got lost in contemplating the possibility, if only for a moment.

"What. For. Count. Days. Life. Endless." Purple offered their wisdom.

"Here's a thought! Now that we got rid of that pesky linear, one-directional time, we should go for gravity next, I'm sure we could do without! Oh, wait! Been there, done that!" sister Joseph continued, provoked by the immortals' comments.

"Not. Every. Being. Need. Time." Purple replied.

"I'd still like to keep it, if it's all the same to you," sister Joseph retorted.

"Problem solved," Roberta announced proudly. "Turns out it was Wednesday after all. Your time pieces should be perfectly coordinated now."

The sisters looked at their individual times and confirmed that, indeed, they coincided. Lily breathed a deep sigh of relief that she had been lucky enough to escape another bureaucratic nightmare, sister Benedict gave Jesse the table placement cards and everybody went back to their business.

"You know we're never going to be sure what day it is ever again, right?" sister Jesse asked Benedict, upon departing.

"Probably not," sister Benedict answered calmly.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 10th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

I just realized I almost forgot about this, it is strange how you start putting things out or your mind after a while, I guess we were not meant to span millennia, so the brain writes over old memories in an attempt to keep up. Hey, there's a research idea for Roberta, a human memory expander, I guess we could project our memories into the Purple fields, if we could only work out the details. Sarah would be the best person to start evolving this concept, she already has a very rudimentary system in place, forgive me, I got sidetracked. So, the story!

We were preparing for a first contact mission with a distant civilization, way out into deep space, in a relatively obscure portion of the Perseus constellation, in proximity of Eta Persei. We only had limited contact with their culture, and from what we gathered from our short interactions from a distance, they didn't seem too friendly or eager to connect.

This made the diplomatic work preceding the trip laborious and tense, pushing all of us to the end of our wits and tempers. Three days before our scheduled departure we received a lengthy communication from our counter party, strangely expansive and familiar in tone, detailing an ongoing project in which we supposedly had been playing a significant role for a long time now. Sister Roberta analyzed the message from all angles, to make sure it was indeed addressed to us, and that it came from our friends to be, and was more puzzled than anything to recognize the structure of one of her latest ideas, one she hadn't had time to develop because of the feverish preparations for the trip and the tedious observance of protocol. To our subsequent dismay, she delved immediately into the details that had apparently been all worked out in the communiqué, and didn't bother to look for an explanation regarding this alleged shared history or the many details that shed light on our new allies' priorities, language and customs, details that could have been a treasure trove of wisdom in retrospect.

Instead, she attached the message to our trip details the night before leaving, as an oddity if nothing else. Nobody could make sense of it, of course, we were all tense and exhausted and looked forward to a good night's sleep before a day we expected to be difficult. Nobody except Purple, who started babbling, accessing every bracelet and waking everybody up, speaking in a language nobody understood and which I could vaguely recognize as belonging to our soon to be visited alien culture's.

Purple babbled all night, or at least we think it was all night, given the fact that the invention of the time slicing solenoid had made time a very relative concept indeed. When the suns came up, the immortals reverted their incomprehensible babble to single word sentences.

"Bring. Live. Tissue. Samples. Bio-lab. Equipment. Specs. Generate. Matter. Composition. Of. Living. Beings. Subsistence. Requirements. Temperature. Atmosphere. Bio-energy. Generation. Physical. Form. Matter. State. Space. Time. Resonance. Signature. Mandatory. Requirement. Please. Provide. Before. Arrival."

This announcement was made before the morning coffee, and half of the sisters mumbled under their breath against the irritating last minute request. Sarah sweated over the message, because this is just the way she is, she never encountered a "must" she didn't comply with, I followed up with a request for information, just out of curiosity, and sister Roberta really pored over the imperatives, trying to figure out if she input the wrong information into the solenoid. She asked for details about our target location, and before sending the message she attached Sarah's polite inquiry, which was a model of good manners and gentility, but made it obvious that she didn't have a clue what was required of her.

We left, dressed up in our ceremonial attire, keen to put our best foot forward. A second later we were there. I looked around: when we left the delegation was composed of myself, Roberta, Sarah, Novis, Mary-Francis and Felix; when we arrived it was me, Roberta and Sarah. I was going to start panicking, but we were instantly submerged into this sea of thought, a modern Babylon where nobody ever kept quiet, a never ending push and pull of information that could drive you mad.

There didn't seem to be any way for us to interject a question or a greeting into this maelstrom of communication that went both over and through our heads, leaving behind pieces and parts of essential information, the way tide drops off seaweed and shells on the beach in the aftermath of a storm. Just like the sea, the torrent of information that generated these bits of data was murky and indistinguishable, bringing in a mix of specifications, cultural references and completely random current events, all so muddled together that none of us could rationally make heads and tails of them, especially while aching with anxiety over the fate of our sisters. After a few painful minutes we figured out that the same murky tide that deposited information in our brains swept out mundane details in our lives, holidays and celebrations, research projects in progress, children's giggles, Purple's babble, images of Vlor and its eternal mists. In less than half an hour we were completely drained, more emptied of thoughts and emotions than a squeezed bottle of jam. As if notified, the tour of Babel went quiet, we were dispatched to the solenoid and shipped back unceremoniously to Terra Two.

I managed to catch my breath, and of course the first words that came out of my mouth were meant to express concern over the fate of our missing sisters, if only they were missing, but they weren't, they were standing with us right there on the platform, looking a lot less tired and confused than us.

Sister Felix started the verbal barrage:

"Where were you, we were worried sick, you don't even know what you've been missing! The planet is spectacular, but completely uninhabited, after a little poking around we're pretty sure there were no signs of intelligent life, lower life forms, yes, but definitely no trace of our hosts. We're covered from head to toe in this gelatinous goo in the atmosphere, it goes into any cavity, pardon my French, I'm sure we breathed it, ingested it and absorbed it through our skin, we really need Sarah to run a diagnostic to make sure is not harmful." I lifted my hand to stop the verbal deluge, too drained to speak and trying to regain my bearings.

"The solenoid must have misfired," I gawked morosely at sister Roberta, who looked outraged by such a concept and refused to dignify it with an answer. "Whoever has any energy left, please record our meeting, everybody else rest, we'll go back tomorrow."

Sister Felix, Novis and Mary-Francis were little bundles of energy and followed our painfully tired selves around until we had to forcibly turn them away.

The next morning we repeated the experiment, which went exactly like the one the day before, only upon arrival we were instantly made aware that we could understand the waves and currents of communications flowing around us from all directions, as well as some already started common projects that we were able to coordinate, even though we didn't know they even existed the day before. Before leaving I spent a few minutes to catch up with one of the entities (we could never figure out if they were individuals or groups) with whom I seemed to have forged a long standing friendship, and asked details about a way of life I couldn't possibly understand. Just like before, when our minds started spinning out of control under the surge of information, we got packed up and sent back home.

Again, it had been just the three of us and Felix, Novis and Mary-Francis split to a different timeline; they looked very energetic and much slimier than the day before, and they argued with us for over an hour whether it was them or us who really made it to the planet. They had been met by an entire delegation, all pomp and circumstance, and established lines of communication with the strange species, amoeba like in appearance, through a frequency translator the hosts already had for some reason. They brought back all these plans that we supposedly worked on before and apparently had made great progress; the sisters thought it would be rude to contradict our new friends, first impressions and all.

This spliced reality show went on for a few weeks, during which we always visited the same large hall where flows of information filled our heads, while our more adventurous sisters, who were not time locked, experienced every developmental stage of the planet and its inhabitants, running randomly through the planet's history forwards, backwards and sideways. The most interesting part of this experiment was that they weren't confused by the moving through time and managed to put the puzzle back together in the proper order, while we, the static ones, couldn't make any sense of it, other than the obvious fact of that our time and "real" time didn't overlap.

After a few days we figured out why they asked for the space-time resonance signature, but our hosts seemed to be able to patch the data together from the many different timelines our alternate delegation managed to land in, and blend it seamlessly with ours. I'm not even sure they have a concept of linear time, I guess they exist and travel in time coordinates just like we do in space.

Over the length of our interaction we exchanged countless messages, and just for my personal enjoyment, I kept them scrambled in time, in the order they were received. Some have references to events in my life that will not happen for a few centuries yet, it is a little disorienting to look at your own life from outside of time, we're not built for it, you know, one of the many things I never expected could happen to me. We looped forward some of the scientific breakthroughs, we thought might as well, since we've already seen them ahead of their time, I don't know whether we violated whatever time travel laws there are, but so far no paradoxes.

I made long standing friendships among the beings of this culture and I miss them dearly. As far as this present moment is concerned they may never have existed, their species mightn't have evolved to sentience yet, or their civilization may be long gone. I could probably send random messages, hoping that one of them hits the correct time stream. If the message reaches them, they could stabilize a time channel for me, but I hesitate to do it, I don't know why.

My friend, her name is Llwell, she belongs to the southern protectorate, she's witty and brave, loves Lapa rinds and I know her almost as well as I know Sarah, and it is impossible for me to understand how she even exists in the time streams, or what physical form she has evolved to right now, all I can do is think of her living endlessly in the present. Llwell gave me a gift for you: they call them resonators, it's some sort of musical instrument, only it reverberates outside the audible range.

I just thought I should let you know before the ceremony, she will be attending. I didn't want you to be surprised that she already knows you. If only I knew what she's going to look like...

Love,

Benedict

Chapter Nine

Uncertainty

"Where are we going to host the science symposium? It has come to my attention that the wisps expect to spend some of their time here discussing multiverse physics with Purple."

Sarah lifted her head from her research to find herself face to face with Roberta. She didn't hear her come in, but that wasn't an unusual occurrence: her private office, the spacious one with its own VR room, covered lanai and garden was anything but. Sarah had long abandoned the expectation that if somebody wanted to stop by, use the equipment or borrow something, they would bother to ask her.

"I assume that any number of conference rooms in this impressive building will prove adequate," she replied.

"They assumed they could conduct the discussions outdoors, they don't feel comfortable in confined spaces," Roberta pointed out.

"How about the beach, the ocean is right there, makes things easy," said Sarah.

"That's precisely what they had in mind, but they are concerned that the children are going to run around unsupervised."

"We'll restrict access to that portion of the beach for a few days," Sarah suggested.

"They would like to break up into several focus groups which are going to be in constant flux," Roberta said.

"Why don't you tell me directly what exactly they have in mind, there is no reason to run through already rejected options," Sarah tried to bring the conversation to a point.

"They were thinking of using Humon and Sys as proxies for a bridge," Roberta said.

"That sounds very sensible," Sarah replied.

"Sys would have to morph to cloud form," Roberta clarified.

"Well, she's done worse," Sarah replied.

"I thought you were going to protest, I know how you hate it when Sys changes form," Roberta said in a softer voice.

"To tell you the truth, I'm kind of excited for her, from all I heard, this Simplex Cloud resonance is something worth experiencing. She is lucky she has the ability to do that."

Roberta looked at Sarah, whose eyes were lost into the distance, somewhere in a dream world where she too could join the Simplex Cloud in gaseous form. The sister watched her for a second, then burst into a hearty laughter.

"You too!? We're absolutely incorrigible! There's never been any hope for any of us to behave sensibly. If I didn't make it to the terra-forming program, I'm sure I would have found another way to get myself in trouble," she said when she was able to speak.

"What else is there to do with life? If you don't go for the things you find interesting and exciting, why bother?" Sarah replied, a little surprised.

"You are a little surprise bundle, you know that?" Roberta smiled. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a thrill seeker. When I met you, I thought you were going to ask the kitchen broomstick for permission to breathe."

Sarah frowned at the memory of her very submissive younger self.

"Lucky for me that through a proper regimen of rudeness and neglect, your loving hearts set me straight. I'll never be polite again," Sarah retorted.

"Sorry, dear, I didn't mean to rattle you, but when did you become such a little spitfire? I remember the before and after, but I can't point to the precise moment," she looked at Sarah, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Maybe there wasn't one," Sarah replied. "How do you know I wasn't born this way?"

Roberta looked at Sarah, whose hair still had the luminous color of a candle flame, not dulled by the passing of time.

"Maybe you were," she smiled.

"Do you think I would have made it to Terra Two if I wasn't?" Sarah smiled back.

"I don't know, Mary-Francis has a placid and accommodating personality," Roberta enumerated. "And Therese," she continued.

"Sister Mary-Francis didn't spend six months among buckets of stinking muck," Sarah remembered the beginnings of her life in the Order.

"Do you regret your choice to join our group?" Roberta asked.

"Are you kidding? And miss out on all this? Do you?" Sarah replied.

"To think that I could have spent my life managing my father's sheet metal factory," Roberta said.

"Was he upset when you told him about the terra forming mission?"

"Not upset. Disappointed in me." Roberta frowned, still hurt by the memory.

Sarah didn't press the issue. We all go through life with wounded spirits, some wounds are superficial, some very deep, and this particular issue seemed to be of the latter variety. Roberta shook her head to chase away the shadows of the past.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're ok with Sys morphing into a cloud," she continued.

"This is her choice to make, not mine," Sarah smiled.

After Roberta's departure, Sarah stepped out into the healing garden. She sat on one of the stone benches, with Solomon in her lap, and watched the suns set over the ocean and the moon pop over the horizon, giant, green and looking too close.

Maybe Roberta was right, she had changed. She tried to remember the moment that happened, the moment when Sarah with the angel hair became the person she was now, but she couldn't pinpoint it. Maybe Purple genes had something to do with it. Maybe the redhead genes had something to do with it. Maybe it was because she'd lived so long. Maybe it was because she wanted to emulate Seth. Maybe it was the knowledge she had accumulated over the centuries.

She smiled and realized it really didn't matter what brought about the change. Her long relationship with Purple put her human condition in perspective, how strange of our species to believe our own selves to be the only unchangeable entities in a universe always in flux!

She sat in the garden long into the night, in the humid scent of vanilla and gardenias, thinking of the details she still had to sort out for the ceremony, about Lelia and Iseult, and about the generation before them, her beloved pupils, so close to her heart. For a moment she was back in the apothecary, watching Jimmy pull pranks on his classmates, while Lily organized their efforts with the confidence of a general.

The stars appeared in the chocolate sky, one by one, popping between the brighter lights of the methane containers, and for a second she felt as if time had not passed at all. One of the side effects of living in paradise.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 11th, 3245

My beloved Lelia,

I was a willful child. My mother blamed it on a deplorable lack of discipline during my developmental years and my father on some fateful genetic legacy, one that came with the fiery hair, no doubt, and for which he didn't feel his side of the family was in any way responsible.

Time softened my rough edges, one starts noticing in adulthood that some of the most abrasive commentary served in the name of truth speaks more to the arguer's inner conflicts than to the situation at hand. We are often blindsided by people's personalities, values and reasons because we are used to whitewashing our surroundings until they reflect our own. It is more comfortable to live this way, in the world according to yourself, it doesn't require you to stretch your character to welcome other people's perspectives, and therefore it never forces you to choose between yours and another's point of view. We're all guilty of this at times, there is just too much information to process and one can't possibly analyze every thought during every moment of every day, but you should at least attempt to see your loved ones without passing them through the strainer of your own perception first.

As you grow older you start paying attention to who you really are, what you value, what you believe, what you love. I know you think you already have these things pegged, but you don't, not really; it is a paradox of the human mind that the less one knows about oneself, the more certain one is one has all the answers.

My mind had to stretch, sometimes painfully, to realities I couldn't fathom in my sheltered childhood. I had to adjust to customs completely alien to me, surroundings that lacked in the most basic elements that make life sustainable, environments in which the laws of physics I grew up with simply did not apply. You learn to adapt really fast to these changes, become very quick on your feet, and take nothing for granted. You start realizing you are not a person reacting to an external environment, you are a symbiotic part of it, a parameter in a closed system, whose existence and actions always have an impact on the whole. This is an insight both thrilling and humbling, and after having it you stop indulging in the pests of the human spirit - false modesty, self-aggrandizing, phoniness, envy, anger, and despair. You were taught to do unto others as you would unto yourself, but oh, so many times, what you do unto yourself can so callous and damaging you wouldn't wish it on an enemy. What you wouldn't think or do to others you shouldn't do to yourself, either, because you are equally important in your world to anything else around you.

Once you realize your life is a responsibility as much as it is a gift, you start questioning your own choices, you become aware of risks you didn't notice in your younger, more innocent years, you see your life path as a whole, not a day by day set of stepping stones that just happen to fall into place. You realize you have to plan the way you want your story to unfold, it won't just happen to you, and if it does, that is not a desirable outcome.

You come to terms with the fact that you are not the person you thought you were, and start cleaning those nooks and crannies of your mind where you dump the truths and feelings you don't want to confront, places that, just like a junk drawer, tend to fill up quicker than you have time to find more storage space.

You lose your mind shackles when you discard your need to be sure, right, safe and accepted. When this happens you are petrified because you are not used to deciding what you want to contribute to the world, you just assume the world will present you with a set circumstances that you'll have to react to.

Having choice is terrifying, exhilarating, burdensome, and a great honor. Don't take it in stride. Don't expect it to go away. Don't assume somebody else will take care of it. It's all you, baby, you're the master of your life: you clean it, you lead it, you keep it wholesome, you reap the benefits, you bear the responsibilities, and aside from God you should be the one who loves you most. How else are you going to engender trust and excitement in other people over your life's purpose?

It is harder to live this way, by orders of magnitude, but no human born would ever consider going back to the way they were after their eyes had been opened to this extraordinary world of wonders that we have the privilege to share.

As for my hair, I don't know what distant ancestor bequeathed it to me. It may or may not have influenced my personality. Because I love my work and am so devoted to it, I learned the qualities that didn't come naturally to me: patience, confidence, decisiveness, authority. It turns out one can successfully run a science hub with a soft voice and an accommodating temperament, even if one tends to get sidetracked on occasion and one's fiery hair can be spotted from a mile away.

The only question that remains is "What do you want to do?"

I love you sweetie, and wish you nothing but the best!

Yours truly,

Sarah

Chapter Ten

Cherish your Gift

"Sister Therese, can we count on you to perform at the joyous celebration? The wisps seem to be fascinated with music, especially vocal music. I often wonder if this isn't the only reason they agreed to communicate with us. That and the immortals' nagging, those Purple chatter boxes can talk you to death when they want something," Lily asked, skipping the introductory chit-chat.

"I was planning on it, of course. Do you have anything specific in mind?" Therese answered.

"Purple wrote a story for Lelia. Can you take a look at it?" Lily handed the sister the score, without waiting for agreement.

Sister Therese looked over the pages and the expression on her face silently painted the story. Lily read inner peace, puzzlement and glee, while the sister skimmed through the piece until she reached the end.

"Would somebody tell Purple we're not dolphins? Some of these frequencies are outside the audible range," she mentioned, chuckling a little. "Other than that, it's fine. Maybe they could tone down the high notes a little bit, I don't want to sound labored."

"Easy. For. Giant. To. Ask. Giant. Try. Speak. Without. Conjunctions. Or. Nouns. Wisp. Right. Giant. Dense." the immortals protested through the interlink.

"Make the edits, I'll take them to Sys and she'll fix the piece," Lily replied. "You know, sister, you have an extraordinary voice." she offered, in an attempt to smooth out Purple's abrasive remarks. "How come you never considered singing as your vocation?"

"I have, dear, it just wasn't for me. There is a lot more to playing to an audience than having a beautiful voice. Large crowds intimidate me. Great performers become energized, they connect with their listeners, blend their emotions with theirs, that's how you touch people's hearts."

"So, you're saying you're going to feel awkward singing in front of hundreds of beings?" Lily asked, just to be polite. She really didn't care about sister Therese's performance anxiety.

"Not so much, I know most of you," the latter replied.

"It's going to be an informal setting, anyway, we were thinking about Sarah's healing garden."

"Have you tested the acoustics?" sister Therese asked.

"What acoustics? It's outdoors?" Lily asked, confused.

"Stone benches, stone facade, stone wall, did anybody consider the reverberation times?" the sister continued. "We may need to add resonant boards to clean up the sound."

"I'll have someone do a sound check," Lily took notice.

"The pavers are not going to be a problem, we're going to assume the garden will be filled to capacity," sister Therese continued thinking out loud.

"Ok," Lily agreed, not wanting to sound clueless. She hadn't thought through all the details of the performance.

"Who is doing the accompanying, this looks like a symphonic piece?" sister Therese asked.

"The string orchestra is going to be there," Lily said.

"There where? There is barely any room for the guests."

"We're going to use part of the garden, Sarah already agreed."

"Are you going to move the gardenia bushes?"

"No."

"It's not going to work. I don't think it's reasonable to ask the violinists to play perched in shrubs like birds," sister Therese protested. "There isn't enough room in the garden. How about the beach?"

"Do you think the acoustics are going to be better there?" Lily disagreed.

"No, but we'll have enough space. We're going to have to manage the sound anyway."

"Who is we?"

"How about Sys and Roberta? It will keep Roberta busy until the ceremony, I think one surprise show is enough," Therese suggested. Lily sighed again. Ever since the preparations for the blessed event had started, she sighed more than she spoke.

"I'll talk to her. What else do you need?"

"I assume somebody will manage the lighting?" sister Therese mentioned.

"That will also be Sys and Roberta," Lily decided.

"Purple. Light. Ocean. Floor. Wisp. Like." the immortals proposed. "Beautiful. Decor."

"Thank you, that's a wonderful idea," Lily replied.

"Giant. Sing. Loud. Purple. Hear."

"I'm sure that won't be a problem," sister Therese assured them.

"Of course we're going to have to figure out the seating, we can't expect people to stand for almost an hour," she continued, turning to Lily.

"That's why we're having this conversation, see how many details need to be figured out? People think events organize themselves!" Lily replied, vexed.

"It's going to be a beautiful ceremony," sister Therese volunteered immediately, to shift to a less contentious subject.

Lily shuffled through the notes and schedules and tensed up again.

"This is impossible, the logistics alone, we're going to spend the entire time moving stuff around. This is why I wanted to start planning way in advance, so we don't run into situations like these!" she went on, increasingly annoyed.

"Nothing is impossible, you know that," sister Therese mollified her. "Sys will take care of it."

"We need to provide a diversion while the decor changes, it's going to be too distracting, the wisps get aggravated by our normal routine, this will work them into a frenzy," Lily fretted.

"By that time it's already going to be dark and everybody is going to be watching sister Roberta's light and sound surprise," sister Therese explained.

"I just realized that the dragons are going to be laying around the stage in circle formation, most likely asleep at that time. Everybody is going to stumble over them in the dark, this is a nightmare!" Lily became agitated again.

"We'll take that into account, stop worrying, you're worrying, wisps hate worrying," sister Therese tried to calm her down.

"Right! One more things for the wisps to hate, shocker!" Lily couldn't help herself.

"Purple. Said. Wisp. Haughty. Lily. Not. Listen." the immortals jumped on their favorite subject immediately. "Lily. Made. Own. Bed." they continued. "Purple. Offer. Make. Lily. Boy. Just. Like. Humon. No. Difference. Lily. Stubborn."

"Could you please not get started on this again? I have enough noise in my head already!" Lily snapped.

"Purple. Help. Purple. Love. Lily. Purple. Want. Lily. Happy." the immortals changed their tone. "Tell. Purple. What. Lily. Need. Purple. Make."

"I will, if we need anything. Thank you." Lily replied.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 12th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

When I was a child everybody was charmed by my beautiful singing voice. My parents beamed with pride when they heard me perform at the local community theater, usually during the holidays. I had a wonderful gift, they said, a very special talent that I shouldn't waste. I didn't like to perform, it didn't feel right to me, I'd get this hollow feeling in my stomach every time I stood in front of an audience, but I was getting better at it every day, my teachers helped me cultivate my voice, I learned correct breathing, sound modulation, and the importance of good posture.

Between my school work and my singing lessons life was pretty hectic, and my parents dedicated theirs to help bring out what they considered to be my astounding talent. With steadfast effort and lots of training and support from my teachers I was admitted to the Conservatory in Cape Town and everyone was overjoyed by my achievement.

My parents basked in the glow of compliments from all their friends and acquaintances for months, so pleased to have been blessed with a music prodigy in the family and so gratified to have had the means to promote my talent.

Conservatory was hard and I felt lonely, away from my parents, friends, and the large social circle that usually surrounded our family. My parents were companionable people and I can't remember a single second during my entire childhood when I was all by myself. It was easy, in a way, not having to worry about what to do next, because the future was displayed in front of my starry eyes in vivid clarity: I was to finish Conservatory and become a mezzo soprano, hopefully of some renown if I worked hard enough at it.

At some point during the second year of music school I found myself the proud owner of a fancy diary; a friend gave it to me when he came to visit because he thought that putting pen to paper might help alleviate some of the pressure that came with such a stringent schedule and the angst of being away from my loved ones.

I was surprised by my friend's gift, but thanked him nevertheless. Neither one of us ever pictured me as a person with a diary, I've always been an introvert and putting my private thoughts on paper felt like strolling undressed in public (funny how the interlink bracelets made this mental torment a constant reality, huh?). Anyhow, I loved the diary, a flawless, sleek tome bound in printed leather, so beautifully crafted that it felt special, superior somehow to the rest of the mundane objects that surrounded my life, and for this reason I didn't dare touch the immaculate pages.

Every day, when I had a free moment, the diary beckoned, almost daring me to open it and write something, anything, but I cherished it too much and didn't want to mess it up. One morning one of my peers needed a pen and a pad of paper to jot down quickly a phone number, or an address, or a shopping list, I don't even remember. She grabbed my immaculate journal, white as untouched snow, and scribbled her notes on its first page, pressing down really hard and telegraphing the pen indentations several sheets deep.

I was in shock, accustomed as I'd become to the thought that my beautiful diary was a sculptural piece of sorts, a work complete in and of itself which could only be disfigured by undeserving scribbles. The first page was ripped carelessly, leaving behind unsightly tears, and my fingers lingered sadly over the pen indentations with the caution one uses to touch a recent scar. I couldn't decide whether to be sad or angry, neither felt right, so I opened the diary and wrote my first poem instead. I didn't think about it, I didn't carefully compose it, it just appeared, fully formed, at the tip of my fingers, the first of many, the essence of my soul, my gift to express.

It was crude and somewhat childish, the writing of a person without literary sophistication, but it rang true and made me feel alive. I don't know where it came from, suddenly, or why of all literary forms I chose the verse, but I never stopped writing since: I wrote when I was happy, I wrote when I was sad, I wrote when there was a story I wanted to recount, and my beautiful journal was followed by many more.

In time the stories started seeking me out, quietly, like scaredy cats trying to assess if I'm their friend or foe, and then, their worries eased, laid gently under my fingers, happy to be told. I wrote about the placid ostriches grazing on the wind swept cliffs that edged the ocean and about the stadium in Cape Town, a giant donut that dominated the city and made the boat docks look smaller than toys. I wrote about the sheltered gulfs that trimmed the peninsula with openwork embroidery and about the sunshine pouring through wide green canyons like fire water. I wrote about the silhouettes of the giraffes projecting on the amber sky at sunset and about the roars of the lions at night.

Most of all, I wrote about people, I welcomed their stories of courage and wisdom, of overcoming adversity and amazing fortune. Some of the stories were true, some received the benefit of poetic license, and much like the wonderful world that we created here, it became harder and harder to remember which was what. Their collective meaning became another reality, intricately connected to this one, but brighter and more vivid, a world of aspirations and ideals eagerly waiting on the brink of existence to pass into reality.

Our adventures here have surpassed any literary work I could ever dream up, but then again this hand made world of ours, Terra Two, is not just another place in the universe, it is an embodiment of the best humanity has to offer. I love this world, you see, with all my heart and soul, this world that looks so small and fragile from space, surrounded by its wobbly titanium ring, this world which blossomed right under my eyes, turning desert into paradise. If there is one constant in my experience, and I hesitate to recall exactly how far back that experience goes, it is life's uncanny ability to reinvent itself by re-framing contexts and events. You look at something you thought you already knew and suddenly see it in a completely different light, wondering why you never noticed it before.

I remained an adept singer and I still perform, on occasion, in one of the auditoria of our surprisingly roomy Institute, but there is something about writing that brings out the best in me and gives me joy. As we advance in wisdom joy is a prized commodity we can't afford to miss, so find the expression of your soul in whatever form it may come, and lend it your voice. Time passes and things change, but you can't un-write a poem, or un-sing a song, they are the untarnished part of you that remains after you sift out the daily grind.

Of course you're wondering what is a Conservatory graduate doing terra forming a planet, but that is a strange explanation I will give you some other time. What I wanted to say now is that God gifts us with talents, some obvious, some carefully hidden. You have to honor both, my dear, and cultivate them whether or not you have an audience, because they weren't given you to make you shine, you're but a custodian of a small portion of the grace God poured into this world.

Love, always

Sister Therese

Chapter Eleven

The Soul's Shadow

"What are you doing?" Seth asked, staring in disbelief at sister Felix, who apparently spent several hours trying to put together a puzzle of sorts from left over pieces of gauze featuring every shade of purple, from lavender to violet. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you were putting together a quilt!"

"I am," sister Felix replied, concentrating on the floral pattern she was working on. It featured several mixed posies of sweet violets and irises, with lilac blossoms scattered in the spaces between them.

"Whatever for?" Seth asked, puzzled.

"For Lelia, of course," sister Felix didn't lift her eyes from the pattern. "There! Now it's how it should be!"

"Why does Lelia need a quilt? We live in a climate with temperatures above 82 degrees.

"She needs to have a quilt, in our tradition every girl receives a quilt when she is born. Lelia will enter the Simplex, so I'm using the occasion to make her one."

"It is silk, one hopes? To stay cool, if that is possible?" Seth asked.

"Of course, spun by the finest batch of hybrid silk worms sister Joseph ever bred!" Felix replied, surprised that the leader even had to ask. "The silk is not dyed, it's naturally lavender and purple," she clarified, as if the detail was of utmost importance.

"How long is this going to take? I was just about to ask you to help me with the programs' layout, the formatting has to abide by very precise standards.

"I'm not sure, a couple of days, a week at the most," sister Felix replied.

"A week? Why don't you give Sys the pattern? It would be done instantly!"

"Oh, no! No, you don't understand!" sister Felix protested vehemently. "The quilt has to be made by hand, by a loved one, preferably a family member, and the flowers on it are very carefully chosen, they carry profound symbolic meanings, it isn't something you do in a hurry, at the last moment!"

"You are cutting it pretty close, it seems to me," Seth commented, not very convinced.

"I wanted to start it sooner, but there was never any time with all the schedule changes and observance of protocol."

"Do you need an extra set of hands? I can ask one of the students to assist you," Seth offered. "I'd offer my sewing skills, but I don't have any," she apologized.

"No, thank you. This is something I have to do all by myself."

"What do you traditionally do with the quilt, other than keep yourself warm?"

"It is not to use, it is to have," sister Felix explained, to the leader's bewilderment.

"Explain?"

"In our culture, a quilt is a symbol of life, and when we make one for a girl's coming into the world we fill it with our wishes for her well being, with blessings, if you will. Every flower means something: the violets - modesty and wisdom, the irises - moral standards, the lilacs - faith and strength. They always need to point out to personal qualities, not external events. In a way, we're embroidering for her the most beautiful character pattern we can think of. When ready, it should never be worn, as a representation of the fact that character needs to remain untainted. I can tell you that it gets pretty cold where I'm from, I assure you that quilt is a constant temptation," she smiled.

"What flower symbolizes a light hearted spirit?" Seth smiled back.

"The squill," sister Felix replied.

"You are not going to put them on her quilt?" Seth worried.

"I guess I am now," sister Felix said. "Maybe you can help, with design ideas, at least."

"At your service," Seth mocked a curtsey, "symbols are my specialty."

"What else would you like her to have?"

"I'm starting to feel like a fairy godmother, how about imagination?" she asked.

"Wait, let me start a list," Felix said, and grabbed a pad to jot down hyacinths.

"Strong will," Seth continued.

"Dahlias."

"Perseverance."  
"Cranesbills."

"Creativity."

"Foxglove."

"Is there a specific number of different flowers that can appear on the quilt?"

"Of course, everything has a symbolic connotation. There are always nine flowers, and always grouped in bunches of three. One flower type for every right of passage in her life."

"What are those?"

"Birth, learning, reaching adulthood, finding love, becoming the head of a family, teaching the young, entering the council of elders, welcoming grandchildren into the world and passing down a legacy."

"How come we've been here practically forever and you never told me anything about this tradition? Are women the head of the family in your culture?" Seth asked.

"Yes, they are. I never had an opportunity, I have no children of my own, it is usually the mother who is making the quilt for her daughter. I just realized that I experienced my ninth right of passage, and this is part of my passing down a legacy."

"But you're going to be around forever, a legacy is passed down so it doesn't get lost!" the leader protested.

"Exactly. What is the difference between a rite that was lost and one that is never observed? They are both of no consequence."

"Why do the flowers have to be purple?" Seth asked.

"They don't. It's just the color of thread I had," Felix replied.

"You know something, sister? I can't tell when you're serious and when you're pulling my leg!" the leader replied.

Felix smiled and nodded her head, saddened that she couldn't share the joy the matriarchs of her culture experienced when they poured all of their love on that quilt to make it unique and extraordinary. She wished she could explain it to Seth, but it wasn't something one could explain, the feelings, the common understanding, their way of life.

She bent over the quilt, and her hands worked diligently around the flower bunches, making the pattern more and more intricate until the suns went over the horizon.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 13th, 3245

My darling,

When I was young I wanted to save the world. I didn't exactly know what that would entail, but I was sure it was my duty and my vocation. I received my religious calling very young and joined an order as soon as my age allowed.

I was eager and passionate and wanted to emulate all the good monastics whom I venerated and whose passing on earth I considered a living example of heavenly intercession. I followed around my family members, my friends, and later on, my fellow novices, pleading for community, empathy, and godly demeanor, trying the patience of the aforementioned at times, but since they were kind people, they yielded to my beckoning.

After joining the convent I spent endless hours in the library, studying, eager to absorb as much of the wisdom our civilization managed to accumulate before my time. The sisters got used to always finding me there after a while, and since ours was a tolerant order, we didn't have strict rules about the use of time outside of prayer.

The longer I delved into the wonderful world of books, all sorts of books, from fiction to technical manuals and from religious rites to cooking, the more my query expanded, because each piece of knowledge brought with it a plethora of questions yet to be answered.

One day I happened upon this yellowed tome that lay in a remote corner of the library, and the dust on its cover bore witness that the tome had been laying undisturbed for decades. The cover said "Happinesses", and I automatically assumed it was a dissertation on the sacred text of the Sermon on the Mountain, so I decided to read it, just to get one more author's perspective on a teaching so familiar to us all.

To my great surprise, the book was nothing of the sort, but a horticultural catalog, the work of a very skilled and passionate herbalist, a work so extraordinary in its detail and beautiful embellishments that I couldn't take my eyes off of it, mesmerized. All the illustrations had been done by hand, which is not surprising in a library full of medieval tomes, by the talented author whose annotations and commentary added on top of his original writing shone through the extraordinary watercolor and sophisticated line drawing. The assured stroke of the pen betrayed the hand of a great artist.

The plants almost came to life when the clerestory light touched the yellowed pages, in a way that spoke directly to the heart rather than the intellect, begging me to understand, to care, to love and plant them in my garden.

I read, enthralled, almost not noticing how the daylight dimmed into evening, ran to Vespers and came back the next day, and the day after that, to indulge my new found passion for the book.

My elders commented on occasion that my soul would be better served by the study of the sacred texts than by this hedonistic exploit with no useful applications, and I cried often, in my room, over disappointing them as well as the improbability of my being able to pursue this new found passion. I questioned my vocation and was wrecked with guilt.

People can have a change of heart, but that never changes their core personality. I just took all the youthful passion and turmoil that accompanied my spiritual calling and brought them to the study of plants, in a maelstrom of emotion peppered by guilt and misgivings. Nobody ever questioned my choices before, mostly because I never considered doing anything worth questioning: who would object to righteousness and abiding by the sacred rules?

It sounds funny now, but then I was young and impressionable, and so eager to please my parents and elders. Young people devote unfathomable amounts of energy to the agony of the spirit, don't wreck your heart with blame and doubt or try to please everybody, my dear child, it is a worthless struggle towards an impossible goal. When you have excess energy, use it to grow in knowledge, wisdom and understanding, to nourish your soul and create a vision for your future, I can assure you that time will slowly diminish its seemingly boundless reserves as you advance in age.

But I didn't know back then, and I doled out my passion in tears on my pillow, I still have a few wrinkles to remind me of that time.

As it is often the case, the elders had neither the strength nor the willingness to put up with my crying fits, and found ways to avoid me, which only exacerbated the problem. I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me, for not fitting in with a set of expectations that wasn't exactly clear.

This is what I wanted to point out to you, my dear: see how I took something very dear to me and turned it into an agony of the spirit that not only devalued said endeavor, but also made me question my moral code, my faith and my vocation, too? I sometimes suspect the evil one must have an influence in this type of mind twisting, but I got chastised more than once for not taking responsibility for my own thinking, so I'll let it go.

Fortunately for me, the elders didn't live their years in vain and recognized the spiritual struggle when they saw it, as preposterous as it happened to be in my case. The problem became: what do you say to a young novice who thinks she is endangering her immortal soul and betraying her vows by studying herbs?

I walked the halls of our convent for months with a martyred look on my pale face, a tragic figure completely out of place in the peaceful decor: the old stone walls of the monastery were covered in ivy and rambling roses and the sunny patch in the middle of the courtyard was glowing with the quiet fire of marigolds and geraniums. At sunset the scent of wisterias filled the air, attracting countless hummingbirds.

Don't entertain suffering, it will lead you to fear, anguish, doubt and worthless actions and doom you to the worn pile of broken souls. No religion ever taught that!

How did I get out of this swirl of nothingness? God brought me out, I can't say how, but the experience revealed to me that I was precious, and loved, flaws and all, and that I was never alone and never will be. As grateful as I am for having our Savior stretch out His hand to bring me back into the light, I can't help but feel that His purpose would have been better served if I didn't fall in the melancholy puddle to begin with.

As I started noticing how wonderful life was around me, things returned to normal, and I got a renewed interest for the book of my challenge, which was as flawless as I remembered. This is the thing with objects of value, they don't lose their appeal because of the mores of the times, the mood of the appraiser, or random harsh opinions. You can sense they are timeless, and valuable, and can pick them out of an entire pile, even if you don't know why. The book was anonymous, and no matter how hard I tried, (and believe me, I tried!) to find out who could have been the author, I never managed to find out.

I brought it with me, by the way, it's in Sarah's apothecary, you can take a look at it when you have time.

Because the convent didn't have the room or the desire to grow an herb garden, and the group in Perpignan was looking for an herb specialist, I got transferred there and you know the rest.

The Spirit works in mysterious ways, they say, and in retrospect, that was a book on happiness. Its presence in my life taught me both happiness and misery, and how easily they can be confused for each other when your soul is carried aimlessly in the torrents of the world around you, out of your control. One of the advantages of growing old is that you acquire the ability to understand those torrents will always be there and not yield to their strain.

The waters of your soul can carry you to your purpose, to contentment and a life well lived, but like a boat without a rudder they can also run you adrift, confused and filled with turmoil if you don't consciously follow your purpose and truth. I call this aimless drifting being in your soul's shadow; it pushes you in whatever direction you're thrust towards, because, just like a real shadow, you exercise no choice and no control. You can't master your life until you are able to look at the unpleasant emotions that lurk in the dark corners of your heart and not flinch about what you see.

Your loving,

Sister Felix

Chapter Twelve

Just Being

"What are you doing?" Seth asked Sarah, startling her.

"Recording the atmospheric readings," the redhead replied, without turning her head.

"Really?" Seth asked, and Sarah could feel the smile that came with the question, without seeing it.

"Why is this surprising? You know I always record the atmospheric readings at this time of day?" Sarah asked, finally turning around.

"I don't know, I thought you'd have delegated this to one of your students by now. Besides, nobody had a moment's peace since the preparations for the blessed event started, I'm just so relieved to see someone live a normal life for a change," Seth replied.

"Define normal life, what's normal about being here? We move time-space slices across the universe!"

"Not that often!" Seth protested.

"We're twelve hundred years old," Sarah didn't relent.

"So what?" the leader retorted.

"I have an synthetic daughter who embodies the memories of an eternal race," Sarah continued her enumeration.

"Everybody is different," Seth replied.

"My point is, what's normal?" Sarah concluded.

"Whatever our daily life is, here, that's normal for me," Seth smiled.

"Then managing the wisps' administrative issues must be part of normal, too," Sarah said.

"Good God, I hope not! When is this going to be over? I'll have to file a daily report for breathing soon!"

"They are not that bad!" Sarah smiled.

"Are you kidding me?!" the leader protested, outraged.

Sarah didn't reply. When you have known somebody for a lifetime, most things have already been said. Seth stood in silence for a while, while the redhead moved about the shop, sorting, testing and recording. She stopped for a second to look at the leader, who still stood there, smiling, deep in thought, almost half an hour later.

"What is it?" Sarah asked, intrigued.

"Nothing," Seth kept smiling. "I never thought I'd see normal again," she repeated.

"What's still left to do?" Sarah broke her reverie. Seth groaned, suddenly brought back to the harsh reality of the wisps' endless approval process.

"Quite frankly, nothing. You know this is a pointless waste of time, right? Sys could put everything together on the spot, by request!" Seth commented.

"I know," Sarah smiled.

"And it doesn't drive you nuts?"

"Why? If there is anything we have in abundance, it's time! If it makes the wisps happy and Lily's life a little easier, what's the big deal?"

"I must be getting old because this explanation actually started to make sense to me. I can't believe I'm doing this!"

"Everything will turn out absolutely perfect," Sarah encouraged, smiling.

"After this number of meetings, I expect nothing less!" Seth retorted. "We didn't coordinate as much when we came here! I don't even know if anything else is happening in the meantime. Don't we usually have visiting faculty at the Institute, guests from Airydew, tourists?"

"We put off most of the events until after the Bonding Ceremony," Sarah replied.

"Could you please try and convince Roberta to give up her light and sound surprise? I fear Lily is going to crack!"

"Nobody convinces Roberta! How many times did you convince Roberta to change something once her mind was made up? Lily will be fine, she's a lot tougher than you think," Sarah smiled.

Seth sat on the built in bench in front of the louvers, to enjoy the balmy air and watch the beautiful chocolate skies as they got painted with raspberry swirls in the sunset. Sarah forgot she was there after a while, busy as she was observing, cataloging and analyzing her plant samples, communicating results to the plant genetics team, checking class schedules and solving mundane maintenance problems at the Institute.

The fragrances of vanilla and gardenia enveloped all activity like a blanket, rising from the steam distillers and the dishes filled with concretes that lay around the shop. For a second, a very tired Seth thought she was still in the healing garden, on one of the stone benches and was surprised at its softness, and then her thoughts got tangled in the noise of interlink communications, Purple babble and the sounds of the people coming and going, Sarah's soft voice dictating research articles to the central core, and Solomon's soft paws jumping through the roof trusses, and she allowed the vanilla fragrance to lull her to sleep.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 14th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

Remember the expedition to the Eta Carinae nebula? You and your classmates must have been four or five, just starting the plant genetics introductory class, and Sarah thought it would be a wonderful idea to send you on a little field trip to make observations about one of the planetoids' various climatic zones and maybe bring a few plants back to the lab for study.

For some reason the transportation solenoid missed us and we got stranded on that little low gravity planet while everyone else got back to Terra Two. I was uncomfortable, as you can tell I'm not that great with children, and wished Sarah had accompanied you guys there instead. I expected you to start crying and wrecked my mind trying to figure out what to say to comfort you, but you didn't. You looked around, in the blue light of the twilight, turned to me and said:

"The atmospheric readings indicate the O2 concentration is diminishing, maybe we should synthesize some from Morossun leaves while we wait for the transport." I could never look at you and see a child after that.

You see, I always watched you among your friends, playing, laughing, and acting like any other five year old, and never realized until that moment what it meant for you to be half cloud.

We live extraordinary lives here, and this comes with adjusting to circumstances and cultures very unlike our own. Whether you like it or not, your very existence is a cultural bridge, one that neither side completely understands.

People have gotten into the habit of bringing me their problems and questions, the rank of Mother Superior, as rarely I use this title, comes with the assumption that I have the answers to people's questions, so it is very easy for me at times to slip into an easy answer for something I don't understand, just because I'm expected to.

I don't want to make this mistake with you, and for that reason I will not give you any advice. Your sister talks to me on occasion about things that happened in the Simplex Cloud, about splitting herself between focus clusters, and she speaks of it so naturally it gives me the chills sometimes. The truth is us humans, even with Purple's help, are not prepared to comprehend the expansion of consciousness the clouds are capable of. I can only hope you will find your environment exciting enough to keep you looking forward to each day.

I don't know what tomorrow holds, but after you've had your fair share of surprises you start realizing life has a lot more repeating patterns than you notice when you're young and jump from one adventure to the next. Now I just love watching the endless puzzle of space and light that turns being into a work of art.

It's been so long since I came here, I sometimes look around and forget for a moment that everything around me is something that we built: the Prayer Hall, the Institute, the big ring in the sky. They started getting the weathered look of ancient artifacts and I'm looking in the mirror and seeing the same face I had when I was in Perpignan. People tell me sometimes that your mother and I look very much alike, but I am centuries older, Lelia, do you know how many things happen in centuries? How many events, discoveries, encounters? Where do I start talking about my life and why would I need to? All my friends, the people I've built my life around, have been here with me for all of them. We all look the same age now, of course, so it's hard to tell the old ones from the new anymore.

When I was young I kept venturing farther and farther away from home, in a hungry quest for new adventures and relationships, with the unshaken belief that truth, excitement, understanding, are somewhere out there, waiting to be conquered, that life is a fight for the valiant and the daring, a fight I needed to win. When I got old I understood destiny follows you around, you can't escape it any more than you can your own shadow. What then is the use of going on a far out quest for something that is always with you everywhere?

I find stability and balance in this place I know so well I could travel it with my eyes closed and not disturb a single pebble on my path. Maybe Purple was right, no matter how far we go, giant always same place.

Your Bonding ceremony is in a few days, I'm sure you must have lots of things to do.

Give my best to Ael, Lily and Humon, and let them know I love them deeply, as always.

Yours,

Seth

Chapter Thirteen

Paradigm Shift

"Where are the feeding schedules for the dragons?" sister Joseph boomed through the interlink.

"I thought you were going to draw them up, you said you didn't trust us to do them properly," sister Felix defended herself.

"What do we need you for, then, if I have to do everything myself?" sister Joseph said.

"Sister, please tone it down," Seth intervened.

"At least I can do my job!" sister Joseph snapped back.

"Since when is putting together the feeding schedule for the dragons my job?" sister Felix protested at the unreasonable expectation.

"Since you've been assigned to the logistics team," sister Joseph replied.

"When did that happen?" sister Felix jumped, surprised.

"Wake up, sister! We can't afford to keep fixing the outcomes of your ineptitude. Most of us aren't allowed to make the same mistake over and over again!" sister Joseph replied, enraged.

"What on earth did I do?" sister Felix asked generically, through the interlink, to find out if any of the other sisters picked up on what sister Joseph's problem was with her.

"Don't you dare put any of your chores on my schedule! I expect them to get done without any input from me! The day of the event will come, and as always, you have no plan for what to do! The arrangements aren't done, the cleaning isn't done, what is it that you do around here?" sister Joseph continued her abusive streak, in everybody's presence.

"Sister, I've done everything that depended on me on time, it is not my fault that the wisps changed the schedule without any explanation and at the last minute, if anything I should be upset," sister Felix tried to appease her.

"How dare you!" sister Joseph jumped on the comment viciously, in a rage. "How dare you blame this on the wisps, everybody else manages to carry their own weight, don't blame others for your incompetence, sister! It's not fair that your mistakes are always tolerated, only God knows why! What will you do if something requires modifications? You're not capable of doing anything by yourself!"

"Is there anyone else here who thinks sister Joseph is completely out of line, or did I really lose all touch with reality?" sister Felix inquired through the interlink.

"Oh, I made a habit of not listening to her ranting, I have better things to do with my life," sister Roberta replied through the interlink.

"You're a drain on our resources and a terrible example for the students, we'd all be better off without your wasteful incompetence! I hate people like you! You have nothing to contribute but problems, that's all you know how to do, and you do it all the time!" sister Joseph continued ranting.

Sister Felix just stood there for a second, wondering why none of the other sisters were outraged by the vicious and blatant emotional abuse. Everybody continued their activities as if this outburst were normal.

"So, what do you expect me to do, sister? Do you want me to draft the feeding schedules for the dragons?" sister Felix asked, trying to ignore sister Joseph's bullying.

"I expect you to not be useless, just once! You are the worst human being I ever encountered! Everybody is doing something with their lives, sister, you're the only one who creates nothing but excels at consuming. You fill all your days with worthless activities and have no sense of duty or responsibility! I'm sick of dealing with you!" sister Joseph finished her rant and her bracelet shut down.

One would have expected sister Felix to be shocked by the outburst, but it wasn't the first time she was at the receiving end of sister Joseph's bullying.

"I'm sorry, sister," Roberta finally spoke. "It took me a while to get to the core and shut down her bracelet. Seth has revoked her interlink privileges until the Bonding Ceremony. Are you ok?" Roberta asked, worried.

"I guess so," Felix said, "although I really don't understand what I did to set her off this time! She's escalating," she said in a softer tone, "I really don't think this is ok. There should be consequences for this type of behavior, I'm not an animal."

"There will be, I can assure you," Seth interjected.

"As luck would have it, I just came back from a similar experience, I wanted to tell you about it, monsieur Roget gave me a quick demonstration of his new emotional awareness seminar. It was pretty close to sister Joseph's rant, actually, only heavier on the theatrics. I see now how being psychologically guarded against this kind of attack could come in handy, but it makes me wonder if my emotional make-up is a magnet for abusive behavior. Whatever the reason, it has to be remedied really fast, because it looks to me like the perpetrators get rewarded for it."

"Sister Felix, our order never tolerates this type of behavior. I assure you that it will be dealt with, every time, in ways that will not disturb your life," Seth assured her. "Tell me more about that program monsieur Roget proposed."

"It's not something I can describe, it's something you have to experience, it helps you understand how easily your decisions and behavior can be swayed by emotional manipulation. Although I'm not sure that using any of those techniques is entirely ethical, I can't imagine what kind of experiences engendered that knowledge base!"

"You're not an emotional wreck," Seth observed. "Other people would be angry or crying."

"I guess monsieur Roget's school of psych bruising works after all," Felix replied. "You don't seem rattled either," she noticed, looking at Seth.

"Oh, I've been through the program before you, a while back."

"Whatever for?" sister Felix exclaimed. "You worry we're going to be engaged in psychological warfare?"

"What, sister Joseph doesn't do it for you anymore?" Seth laughed.

"Don't you find the thought of having to change your entire emotional make-up in order to be able to put up with one person a little unsettling?" sister Felix asked.

"Maybe, but it's effective," the leader replied. "When does the program start?"

"After the ceremony," Felix replied.

"Let me know when it does, I have a few suggestions for customization," Seth offered.

***

Tuilles Vertes, Terra Two, July 15th, 3245

Beloved child,

What a joy it is for me to witness you undergo this rite of passage, it feels like only yesterday I learned the blessed news of your coming into being from your mother, who at the time seemed to me to be no more than a child herself.

There were so many stories I considered sharing with you, but I decided on this interesting anecdote that happened to me last week. Do you remember Monsieur Roget? Of course not, he and I met way before your time, we tend to lose track of the decades here.

He contacted me through the interlink to inquire about expanding the Institute's programs into their area, with focus on education programs. I jumped at the chance, of course, eager to put what we achieved here to good use, so I responded immediately and told him I'll take a trip to his island the following day. A few sisters grumbled about this activity being on such short notice, because I wanted to bring with me samples, educational materials and curricula, all of which had been more or less developed, depending on the various educators' teaching styles, but they scrambled whatever they could find in a hurry and put a package together. As for me, you know me, I just get engrossed in a subject and teach whatever comes to mind about it, not really Monsieur Roget's preferred presentation device, I thought, so I was a little nervous about the encounter.

I never felt comfortable with the solenoid, so I caught a shipment barge, they are faster and more frequent than passenger carriers, and spent my two hours of travel feverishly assembling notes and organizing materials, seated on a crate of cucumbers among sacs of wheat, barrels of honey and cages of live chickens, and trying to keep my mind on task in the midst of the racket; I worked until the very last second, and as the barge pulled into the dock I uploaded the information on the interlink.

I got out of the hatch, huffing and puffing under the load I was trying to squeeze through it along with my person, a task better fitted for a cat than a human being, and in my struggle I caught a glimpse of a very flustered Monsieur Roget, standing on the deck with arms akimbo and irately stomping his foot.

I managed to extract my body from the too small opening I got stuck in, composed myself and approached him serenely, with a hopeful smile on my face.

"Where is the rest of the team?" he boomed, staring at the cargo ship in hopes that maybe another oversized person/gear component might squeeze out of the hatch at any moment.

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand, I thought you wanted to discuss the curriculum," I started explaining, taken aback by his sullen welcome.

"I already have all your materials, why do you think I called you? If we wanted to present what's already there we could have done it already, we're well educated too, you know!" he mumbled, offended.

"What exactly did you have in mind, then?" I asked, confused, dropping the bulky containers, notepads, VR compiler and micro alchemy machine I had brought with me.

"Not that!" he yelled. "We're going to need that!", he pointed at the latter, which I grabbed and handed to him. "You need to see the fields, do you have appropriate foot wear?" he asked and then checked personally, to make sure. I had started to get a little annoyed by all his hustling, emotion which he chose to ignore.

"Where is the atmospheric stabilizer?" he asked, staring me down with a deep frown between his eyebrows. He was talking about a piece of Vlor technology that sister Roberta had just finished testing, a machine so sophisticated and precise that she only had one working prototype made.

He read my puzzlement through the interlink and asked brusquely:

"Why didn't she come over, then, if you don't have the know-how, this is so unnerving!"

At this point I was seriously upset: what kind of person decides to be so purposefully rude to someone they had invited because they appreciated their expertise?

"You are a recognized leader in your field, we're all honored that you decided to take a day out of, what I'm sure, is a very packed schedule, to bring us up to speed with the vanguard research at the Institute. The finest minds on the planet are gathered there, it's an honor to share your expertise," he immediately replied, in a deep, deferential tone of voice. For a moment there I thought he was talking to someone else, but I turned around and noticed we were the only people there. My wits recovered a little, because I thought I must have done something right in my life to earn my scientific reputation and a modicum of respect.

We walked through the fields and his groveling demeanor amplified, making me wonder if maybe Seth had intervened in some manner to enforce a more respectful tone of conversation.

"You rely on your leader to make all the decisions for you, don't you?" he snarled, suddenly. I decided not to get upset with this person, who was obviously unbalanced, do whatever it was that I could under the circumstances and then shake the dust off my feet and never come back, but I was really starting to get concerned about my safety.

"That's right, leave us all here to struggle with old technology when you have the means to improve our lives! Why, the alchemy machine alone!" he got in my face. I regained my poise, because this was more in line with our order's principles, we don't withhold assistance, especially when requested, no matter how unpleasant the people in need.

"Who needs your help! What gave you this sense of entitlement that you are here to save us somehow, this is unbelievable!" he raised his voice and started walking faster, on purpose, so I couldn't keep up with him.

"Maybe he's right", I thought, "maybe we overestimate the role we played in the progress of our society, we tend to get so involved in our own activities that we don't pay attention to what other people are doing."

"You got that right, if you ask me that so-called Institute is a complete waste of our society's time and resources. We should dismantle it and you all should find something productive to do with your lives!"

I didn't know how to react, at first, but when the message started sinking in, despite my naturally placid temperament I was instantly outraged. "How dare he!" I thought. "How does a person I barely know dare judge the centuries of hard work and dedication all of us have poured into this institution, one of the most prestigious and advanced centers of learning and research of its kind!"

Now I wasn't only outraged for myself, but for my colleagues as well, and I wasn't going to keep silent about it, no matter how rude his reaction might be. I thought about the months of constant watering, the initial failures we had to overcome, the fact that we bet our very lives on the success of our endeavor, the brilliance of sister Roberta's innovations, Sarah's miracle work in biological research, Seth's gift for opening levels of communication with races so different from ours that, for centuries, people didn't even realize they were sentient! All the blood rushed to my cheeks and I answered in a shaky voice.

"I believe that our collaboration requires a certain level of respect, both towards me and towards my esteemed colleagues and friends, that is absent in my interaction with you, and therefore I politely request to end this conversation right now. I will relay your needs to Seth and she will decide where to take this matter from here."

As I turned to leave, outraged, I heard the soft chuckle of Monsieur Robert behind me, and empowered by my recent standing up for myself, despite the discomfort I felt for his completely unacceptable behavior, I wanted to know what he could possibly find amusing in this whole situation.

"Please bear with me for a second, until I explain myself, (don't worry about the educational materials and equipment, somebody was instructed to set them up in their designated classrooms, you'll find that everything is in order when the teachers start the seminars)", Monsieur Roget started, trying to appease me.

"We really want to have an extension of the Institute's research program here, but we would also like to offer you one of our awareness training series in return: welcome to the emotional resilience boot camp," he said.

"In a few short hours you passed through a series of negative emotions, all of which you experienced involuntarily, all externally driven and none in any way based in reality: false hope, disappointment, awkwardness, insecurity, pressure, vanity, dependency, fear, guilt, superiority complex, and finally moral outrage generated by the perceived sullying of everything you hold sacred. Please note how shifting your perspective from seeing our encounter as a real event to looking at it through the lens of a mental exercise attuned to achieve specific results already changed your emotional state and your assessment of me as a person. I would like to formally apologize for any discomfort my performance has put you through and beseech you to actively acknowledge these emotions and recognize them the next time they pop up. Between this morning and now you have not changed as a person, your achievements, outstanding as they are, have not been diminished. This mental exercise helps you understand at gut level that there is no logical justification or benefit in second guessing your own motives, opinions or contributions to society every time an emotional arrow is being flung at you." He smiled with anticipation.

"I trust you will inform Sarah about our training program and hope that she would consider it interesting enough to offer at the Institute." I instantly reverted to my unexamined state of mind, and because I thought it would be rude to do so, I couldn't say no.

On the way back, again on a cargo barge filled with coffee beans, peppercorns and cloves, I sifted through my still frazzled state of mind and reached the wisdom that we managed to live a thousand years without having to assess the validity of our emotional states because we liked our friends enough not to throw emotional arrows at each other. On the other hand, I could see how this level of emotional control could come in handy in critical situations, God forbid!

I got out of the hatch without struggling with my gear this time, since I had left most of it behind, and was greeted by a very excited sister Roberta, with a broad smile on her face.

"What happened to you? Are you ok? You look different, somehow," she said, and I felt her discomfort through the interlink.

"Nothing, I just attended a presentation, maybe we'll give it a try here at the Institute", I said, and then I started thinking who would be the best candidate for a test run. Stirring negative emotions in an already subdued personality type would not be challenging enough, and Sarah already went through approval seeking decontamination when she met the lot of us in Perpignan oh so long ago.

I was curious what would happen if a strong minded person went through this program, somebody with set opinions, someone accustomed to express criticism, someone who does not back down from confrontation. I didn't tell Sarah what was the subject of the educational seminar, because I was concerned it would detract from its effectiveness, but she suggested that sister Joseph should give it a try. She is probably right about that.

The sister complained that her schedule was already overflowing with unreasonable demands and she didn't want to waste her time with more of our pointless pet projects; her response made me wonder whether she used to teach at Monsieur Roget's school of hard knocks and emotional buttressing, but what do I know? She's starting the program tomorrow. I'll keep you posted on how it went if she's willing to share her experience.

I just wanted to give you a heads up about this class, the cliff notes version, if you will. I assume the understanding of the concepts has some value in and of itself, even in the absence of emotional drama.

Your devoted,

Sister Felix

Chapter Fourteen

Synchronicity

"The approved list for the flower arrangements reads as follows: lilacs, French lavender, and water lilies," Lily announced, excited.

"Aren't we lucky Sys can make this stuff up at the last minute? Who asks for lilacs in an equatorial climate?" sister Novis mumbled, slightly annoyed.

"They fit into the lavender theme," Lily tried to explain.

"Yes, I got that from the draping, the light show and the purple bunnies sister Joseph is breeding," sister Novis acknowledged, completely unimpressed.

"Kittens, they are kittens!" Lily snapped.

"Whatever," sister Novis said. "When we're done spinning lilacs out of thin air, where do you want them?"

"Oh, dear! I haven't thought about it, we need to create a cooling field around the flowers, or they're going to wilt in this heat." She jotted down a note to talk to Sys about it, and went on thinking out loud. "I hope that's not going to interfere with the Fusion Cloud, if I have to ask for another approval from Vlor for the refrigeration system we might as well drop everything right now!"

"Sister Roberta is almost done with her surprise, and in the spirit of kindness I thought I'd let you know what it is before you have to explain it to the wisps during the ceremony. Do you want to know?" sister Novis asked.

"Go ahead," Lily resigned herself.

"She made a kinetic art piece using controlled fluid dynamics on fog, it looks a little like Humon, actually," sister Novis couldn't help herself.

"That's great news, we can safely assume the wisps are not going to speak to us again afterwards," Lily commented, too tired to get upset.

"Don't tease!" sister Novis replied.

"It will go great with Iseult's monumental artwork, also a surprise. How come nobody got the message that surprises are not a good idea for this event?" Lily inquired.

"They did, they just don't care. To tell you the truth, the wisps are irritating the daylights out of some of us," sister Novis answered, and from the all inclusive commentary, Lily deduced the sister was one of the peeved 'us'. She decided not to delve into the reasons. Sister Novis continued.

"Ten days to the big event, how is Lelia coping?"

"Frankly, I haven't seen her since last Thursday, this ceremony preparation gig seems to be a 24/7 activity. Haven't seen Ael either, come to think of it, or my husband. At least I know Humon made himself scarce on purpose, I should take lessons. How does one manage to avoid the all encompassing interest and care of the wisps?" Lily said.

"I guess being one, he's familiar with the drill," Novis looked at Lily. The latter looked frazzled and worn out. "We need to get you out of here, seriously, take a break!"

"And go where? Have you seen the Vlorian delegation in charge of communications? They'll find me, I just know it, all I can accomplish is a change of decor for the nagging," Lily moaned, dejected.

"Better than nothing! Care to visit Soléa?" sister Novis tried to tempt her.

"Not on your life! Endless wisp nagging and those anxiety provoking winds? Why don't I rub my skin with sandpaper instead, it would be less unpleasant?" Lily snapped.

"Forgot about the winds. How about Neera Four? The ocean songs are soothing," sister Novis suggested.

"Too dark. Not in the mood for purple skies," Lily said.

"Ashtar?" Novis continued her tempting offers.

"To do what?" Lily said.

"Nothing, that's just the point. Everybody does absolutely nothing on Ashtar, it would be a nice change of pace."

"Too much machinery," Lily protested.

"Elara?"

"Why would you chose a planet with no atmosphere?"

"It has a beautiful view."

"Granted we manage to get out of there before its star goes supernova, it looks like it's going to pop any second now."

"Ok. Veras. It's sunny, it's luxuriant," sister Novis offered.

"It's overrun by snails," Lily protested.

"They're not snails, they are the population. By the time they notice us, we'll move somewhere else."

"Thanks, no. Last time I got back home completely covered in slime."

"Calix?"

"Calix is nice. It looks a little like Vlor, actually, and those harmonizing echoes between the stone formations, what a wonderful sound phenomenon!" Lily gave away her desired destination, without wanting to.

"Don't tell me you miss Vlor!" sister Novis couldn't believe her ears.

"Oh, how I long for the olden times when the eternal mists were just fog! I could cliff jump, it was quiet, I could be there by myself to sort out my thoughts..." Lily waxed nostalgic.

"You know, I didn't think I'd say this, but you and the wisps probably deserve each other. How can you miss Vlor, you can't escape Vlor in death!" Novis said, perplexed.

"The old Vlor, the one without nagging clouds," Lily clarified.

"Hey, I have an idea: go to Vlor and take Purple and sister Joseph with you. I feel you need some advice and companionship!" Novis laughed at her.

"I would have to spend all my time with the Tagas cloud, they wouldn't dream of breaking protocol and allowing me to roam alone," Lily sighed.

"Sounds exciting," sister Novis couldn't contain a giggle.

"Calix would be nice," Lily reconsidered. "We could grab some of those fuzz balls the wind carries along the canyons. They're purple," she suggested.

"We promised sister Joseph we wouldn't bring any more, she doesn't want to overcrowd their habitat," said Novis.

"Great, let's go," Lily got up, kind or excited about the trip, but was met at the door by Roberta, Mary Francis and a group of wisps who wanted to quickly clarify a few last minute changes. They wanted to make sure there was plenty of time left for the approval process, they didn't want to rush the meetings, or miss out on any opinions.

"Well," Novis thought, "if Lily doesn't go to Vlor..."

The wisps surrounded Lily with a plethora of details, coordination items and approval requests. She looked so at ease among them, taking charge of the process immediately, confident and purposeful, that she made sister Novis uncomfortable.

"Look at her, she'd gone full wisp," sister Roberta whispered in Novis's ear.

"I don't know what to say, at least she's comfortable among them, better her than me," sister Novis replied, unconvinced.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 16th, 3245

My dear child,

Everybody has a dream growing up. What do you think mine was? I wanted to be an astronaut. My parents indulged my musings when I was really young, but as soon as I reached high school age and still carried around astrophysics manuals and talked about basic training and fitness standards they felt it was their duty to channel my efforts into an endeavor with some likelihood of success. I have to confess that I wasn't an easy child: I had whims, demanding preferences and an altogether daunting stubbornness that ensured efforts had to be doubled for any activity that required my cooperation.

I certainly never agreed that being an astronaut was not in the stars for me (no pun intended), despite my parents' pleas that my five foot ninety eight pound frame could not withstand the weight of the equipment and the rigors of basic training, not to mention the challenges one might encounter in outer space. They explained that getting anything but an A plus in physics (a feat that seemed impossible for me) was in itself proof that I was not cut out for this field and was wasting both mine and their time and resources chasing after the wind.

My mother was a teacher, so she made a lesson plan from all the physics curriculum, pointing out that if I ever managed to master it she would consider the crazy pie in the sky idea and try to persuade my father. She was just trying to prove a point, but I took her at face value and studied until I could recite all the material in my sleep. My little brother was the only witness to the long hours I spent at night learning the lessons under my blanket with a dim flashlight as my only light source. He didn't understand why I was doing it, but he worshiped me and assisted my efforts in every way he could: he kept watch for lights out signals, he did my chores for me when I was too tired, he brought me hot cocoa when I got discouraged by failures and he listened to my dreams.

Because he never questioned the possibility of my becoming an astronaut, which he thought was the greatest thing in the world, I weaved my web of dreams with him, and the more stories I told and the more I went into details of what I envisioned, the higher the probability of achieving my dream appeared.

When I turned nineteen I explained to my parents that I will either be an astronaut or I won't do anything at all, and knowing my intractable personality they relented. I filled out all my paperwork, set up appointments for the standard endurance tests, registered for the theoretical exams, gave it my best shot and got a mountain of rejection letters to show for my efforts. If you are curious, the rejection letters pretty much pointed out that despite my praiseworthy enthusiasm for this daring human endeavor, my five foot ninety eight pound frame was not suitable for carrying even the weight of the basic equipment, and besides, even if it were, my command of astrophysics was average at best. The committee suggested a few career choices that would better fit my physique and knowledge base, wished me luck and never looked at my credentials again. I would lie if I said I wasn't devastated: this had been my dream from the moment I opened my eyes to the world and it felt like the entire universe fell on it, crushing it to pieces. My little brother was always by my side, comforting me in my sorrow and bringing new boxes of tissue when I ran out.

He had been so devoted to my dream that he was even more upset than I at our parents, the committee, and everyone who said it was for the best that I failed, because now I got to put my efforts into something worthwhile and forget this nonsense; at some point I didn't even know anymore who was comforting whom in this setting.

If you don't believe in life's endless reserves to surprise you, listen up, here comes the good part. Because I was more stubborn than a mule (my father's quote) and didn't consider under any circumstances doing anything else with my life, my parents decided that an internship of hard physical labor would teach me better than any other life lesson why I had to accept my limitations like every normal human being on the planet (again, in my father's words).

He strongly believed it was his duty to guide me and because it had become clear that my charmingly non-cooperating mood was not going to provide any positive outcomes, he took it upon himself to find said internship for me. This turned out to be a lot harder than he thought: nobody needed summer laborers in our day and age, all the hard tasks were already automated and tiny astrophysics enthusiasts with a bad attitude were not at the top of the wish list for any potential employer.

He wasn't dissuaded, (after all where do you think I got the stubbornness?), and kept searching until he stumbled upon this add in the paper, from a convent in Perpignan searching for a person with a good science background to help out both in the experimental fields and in the lab. He immediately set up the trip and sent me there. I was furious. My brother took my side in protest, threatening to run away from home if I were to go and risking a timeout in the process, but our good fight was lost: my parents took me to Perpignan, dumped me at the door with a small piece of luggage and left.

"Agriculture!", I thought, livid with rage. "Of all the activities to waste my time with, they chose agriculture!' In all my life I'd never managed to keep a potted plant alive, not to mention work successfully as a horticulturist: I didn't have the skills, the knowledge or the good will to make things work, which ensured that any expectation of success in this field was laughable at best.

Despite my growing discontent, it dawned on me that I was no better equipped to function as a horticulturist than I was to become an astronaut, and started to see the humor in life that one has a hard time finding when one takes one's aspirations too seriously.

You know the sisters, but people change over such long periods of time, especially when placed in this paradise where everything is possible. It is hard to keep a morose attitude in the face of such a blessed life, even though God knows sister Joseph managed. Back then, though, everybody was a little rougher around the edges and my attitude certainly didn't endear me to them, so my chore list always featured the pick of the crop of delightful activities: I tilled, I carried dirt, I dug holes for the trees and trenches for the vines, but most of all I got the pointless task of filling plot after barren depressing plot with this wretched mix of powdered brick and concrete bits and I swear to you I thought the sisters were just trying to wear down my pigheadedness with pointless and exhausting manual labor. As far as the lab work was concerned, the only experiments I ever ran there were painstaking soil tests, activity that required skills so much below my level of expertise that I literally took offense to it.

The sisters ignored me, for the most part, with the exception of sister Joseph, who took it upon herself to bring me down a peg or two on the scale of self centeredness and uppity attitude and kept me on a steady diet of the diatribes we all know and love.

I was marking the days until my ordeal was to be over on the wall next to my bed, like one would while subjected to an unjust confinement like that. Two days before my "release", as I was pushing wheelbarrows full of brick dirt around the lots, I overheard Seth argue excitedly with sister Joseph about the amount of potassium in the soil: the sister had tried to grow tomatoes in the wretched mix, an activity I found as pointless as anything else in that crazy place, and the plants weren't showing any sign of thriving. I thought to myself that I could have told her it wasn't going to happen before she even started and spared her the wasted effort. Somewhere in the discussion, though, the word terra-forming popped up and my hearing grew sharper to catch the rest.

I couldn't make up the entire story at first, I had to patch it together from listening in to bits and pieces of conversations, but when it finally dawned on me what the work in this little farm was about my heart immediately flung into excitement and panic. How was I going to convince my family to allow me to stay longer without bringing up the magic words "space exploration" which seemed to doom everything they were associated with to the pile of denied requests?

Fortunately for me I didn't have to do anything at all, because Seth pleaded with my parents to let me stay another year. Putting the best of her persuasive qualities forward, she argued there was so much work to do, and they were so short staffed, and I was showing such glorious progress while at the same time making a worthy contribution to society that surely another year of building strength, agricultural knowledge and character could only benefit both sides. The words terra-forming never made it into the conversation, an omission I'm still grateful for to this day.

The second year I was a different person: I worked my fingers to the bone to set everything in place just right and wore down the lab glassware with obsessively repetitive soil tests, and I'm telling you this just in case you weren't convinced that knowing why you do something changes everything from your attitude to your stamina, and your expectations of positive outcomes.

When the time came for Seth to pick a team for the maiden voyage to Terra Two there was never a question whether I was going to be selected or not, and I didn't even consider the possibility that I might be left behind. I was chosen the moment I stepped foot in that strange old building with my little luggage, my bad attitude and my extensive but completely useless knowledge of astrophysics. It turns out they do make equipment for a five foot ninety eight pound frame, especially one that packed a lot of muscle from carrying around wheelbarrows filled with dirt all day long.

After the shuttle left the solar system and we got into deep space I occasionally woke up thinking that I was still in the bedroom I shared with my little brother, and expected to hear him shuffle in his sheets and whisper at me to find out if I was awake, and my old self relived the sinking feeling in my stomach that my dream was never going to come true. You get so used to expect defeat and obstacles that even after you overcome them their ghosts still haunt you with memories of failures that never happened.

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether fate smiled upon me, God answered my prayers, or simply coincidence led me to my desired future, but whatever it was, I am grateful. I got to see as much of the universe as I dared to explore and I owe it all to a pile of brick dust with little crumbles of cement mixed in.

I live an impossible dream, my dear child, and I want you to live your dreams too, impossible or otherwise. What else is this life for, if not for making your hopes and dreams come true?

Your loving,

Sister Novis

Chapter Fifteen

Something out of Nothing

"Have you finished writing your letter, dear?" sister Therese showed up on Roberta's doorstep, at the end of a long door to door pilgrimage during which none of the sisters were forgotten.

Therese already had a stack of letters in her hand, which proved her dedication to encouraging the others to complete their writing. Sister Novis had whispered to Roberta through the interlink that Therese sat her down and didn't leave her house until the letter was completed, proofed and signed.

"I know you need to bind them, sister, but I haven't had a chance to start on mine yet, I'm not that great with writing," Roberta tried to avoid repeating Novis's story.

"That's not a problem, I have time today, I can't assemble the tome until I have all the letters, anyway. I'm happy to help," Therese got inside the lab and sat at one of the tables, pushing a couple of very sensitive instruments out of the way to make room for her notepad. Sister Roberta's blood pressure ticked up a point.

"Careful with those, I just finished calibrating them!" she managed to utter, a moment too late.

"There, now we have plenty of space to work," Therese said, tapping on the stool next to her to entice Roberta to sit down.

"I would rather think about this by myself for a while, I find it difficult to pick a subject, first of all," Roberta tried to back away from the challenge.

"That's why I am here, to help," Therese ignored her. "You need to write about something you care about, good or bad, doesn't matter, something that touches your heart. And don't try to make stuff up, dear, for Lelia's sake," she anticipated Roberta's escape hatch, "there's got to be something in your very long life worth writing about!"

"It wasn't a lot longer than yours," Roberta protested, offended. "Of course there are a lot of things I could write about, like the moment I discovered the formula for pushing back space-time slices to make the solenoid work," Roberta's eyes sparkled and she looked suddenly inspired.

"Oh, no, dear, I'm afraid you can't write anything technical, nobody else does, this is supposed to be from the heart," Therese protested, shocked.

"I can assure you this subject is very close to my heart, if there is anything I love in this world..." sister Roberta attempted to salvage the safe subject.

"It will be good for your heart, trust me! How about that time when you visited Airydew for the first time?" sister Therese bubbled excitedly. Roberta wasn't a big city fan, and the look in her eyes deflated Therese's enthusiasm. "Or when..." she tried to find another subject, only to discover that she hadn't been paying sufficient attention to sister Roberta's personal life to suggest a heartwarming subject.

"Sister, why don't you leave this to me? I'm sure I'll find an appropriate subject, please don't touch that!" she rushed to set straight a piece of equipment that Therese was about to knock over with her elbow.

"Sorry, I'm all thumbs today, I haven't had time to even drink a cup of tea, that's probably why. You wouldn't happen to have some, would you?" Therese asked sweetly.

Sister Roberta dug through the entrails of a messy cabinet, where printed boards and coffee bags and sugar bowls happily coexisted and managed to find a jar of chamomile blossoms.

"Something caffeinated, perhaps? I'm sorry to impose," sister Therese kept looking over Roberta's shoulder into the depths of the cabinet, to see if she could find real tea. She did, and pointed it out to the latter, who conformed and started the kettle on a heating element.

Sister Therese continued babbling.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe the day I had, wondering around in this heat for hours," she stopped briefly to take the tea cup from Roberta's hand. "Thank you, dear! This is so good!" she rejoiced like a child when the tea aroma touched her nostrils.

"Don't mind me, go about your work, as I said, I don't want to impose!"

If there was anything Roberta couldn't stand, besides trying to untangle subjects she couldn't understand, it was to have someone hover and look over her shoulder as she worked. The transgression could only be made worse if the perpetrator was also asking numerous questions and offering help, which is exactly what sister Therese started to do.

"Is there anything I can do to help? I feel bad about being here, taking up your time, when you have important things to do. What are you working on, exactly?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

"I need to make a few adjustments to the light show," Roberta gave the shortest explanation she could.

"What a beautiful piece of art, I enjoyed it so much during the rehearsal, you are truly gifted, Roberta!" sister Therese gushed.

Roberta started getting really annoyed, because she remembered how Lily ripped every one of her surprise elements from the show, in front of everybody.

"How do you like your tea, sister?" Roberta asked. "Cream, sugar?"

"You don't have lemon and honey?" Therese asked innocently.

"I'm afraid not. You know, Sarah is on kitchen duty, maybe she has some there, I can go get it really quickly," Roberta seized the opportunity to get out of the lab to clear her head.

"No, thank you, dear. I'll make do with these. I never had cream tea before, but then again, there is nothing like a new experience every now and then," she smiled. "You don't like tea?" she asked sister Roberta, who was standing in the hope that maybe her uncomfortable posture might encourage Therese to leave and come back another time.

"I didn't really feel like it right now," she said, not wanting to be rude.

"It's very good, the cream gives it a different flavor, try it, you'll love it!" Therese persuaded.

"Thank you sister, but I had cream tea before. More?" she asked, as Therese sipped the last drop from her cup.

"Don't mind if I do!" she cooed. Roberta refilled her cup, and passed her the cream and the sugar. The tea was steaming, so Therese set it aside to cool down a little.

"This is a beautiful tea set. Where did you get it?" she restarted light conversation.

"Sys made it for me after a picture I showed her. It looks like my grandmother's," Roberta answered.

"Interesting! What a wonderful subject for your letter! What was so special about your grandmother's set?" Therese asked.

"Nothing, really! I just had a picture of it and I thought it would be nice if I could make a replica. This is from the early days of the 'alchemy machine', it was a big deal at the time."

"Now why do I have trouble believing you? You could have picked another object, why these cups?" she quizzed.

"You are not going to get out of my lab until I deliver you the darn letter, are you?" sister Roberta asked.

"Not on your life!" Therese replied, smiling.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 17th, 3245

Dear,

I was going to write about sister Novis's adventure, but she beat me to the punch, like she always does, so now I have to dust off the nooks and crannies of this old mind to find something else to tell you.

Have you ever heard the expression "you can't get something out of nothing"? Well, that might be true, in theory, but you can get something out of very little.

You, for instance, developed from a single cell, using only food for energy. The food you used for energy grew in abundance from one tiny seed that fell on the ground.

If you are surrounded by trees, you have wood to make yourself shelter, furniture, means of transportation, and all you need are a few tools, lots of patience and skill. I said you can get something from almost nothing, not that you can get something without any effort.

I won't bore you with false modesty, we have created wonderful things here, things that boggle the mind and defy the possible, and my effort was but a small part of the energy and dedication every one of us put forth to bring them into reality. Everything you see around you, from the plants that sprout out of the ground to the buildings, enterprises, bridges and walkways, cities, our whole thriving society, was created from almost nothing, I'll have to show you some of the archive images one day when you have time, they are priceless! I bet you can't picture Terra Two completely barren, without a breathable atmosphere and only salty water, rich in sulfur.

Making something out of nothing is the most basic drive of the human spirit, and every designer's guide to life. If you can conceive it, you can create it; every advancement builds upon the ones before, like the steps of a stair stretching out into infinity: no matter how many steps you climb, there is always room to add one more.

I haven't even started talking about art and skill, which really come from nothing - the core of your being yields its essence for the benefit of the world. You share your beautiful voice, the masterful craftsmanship of your hands, the sophistication of your palate, your ease with words, your talent for color, your gift to ease suffering.

Now, it is true that Purple gave us the wonderful gift of the alchemy machine (it's incredible how a name said in jest can stick to a degree that makes it impossible to change), but we turned sunshine into food and re-purposed shuttle parts into equipment long before the immortals came to the scene.

I am not advocating a return to toiling and foraging, or chopping down our own trees to build shelter, this is why society evolves, to allow every one's talents to be focused on their area of expertise and bloom to mastery, but don't ever lose sight of the fact that if you backtrack everything ever made to its most basic components, they all came out of the environment that surrounds you and they are freely available still, if you only had the time and skills to harvest and process them.

There is no such thing as the impossible, because if the thought of something came to your mind, you won't have peace until you figure out the means to make it happen. I know I won't.

The most wonderful gift Purple gave us is this extraordinary extension of our life span. "I don't have the time" is the most confining thought in a human head. If you don't have the time to do the things you love and your spirit calls you to do, then how are you ever going to be fulfilled with your life?

Now we all have time. A lot of time. So we can experiment, and grow, and try new things, better things, wonderful things.

Since we have started exploring other worlds we had lots of opportunities to be surprised, and we had to improvise and make do, so don't get lured by a false sense of confidence that the advancements of society will always be there to provide you with solutions for each and every one of your problems; if you don't know how something works, how a gadget is made, its basic functioning principles, you will invariably be brought into a situation where the device won't be useful to you just when you need it most. Ask why, ask how, be curious, always.

Even if you don't have a passion for engineering, what's it going to hurt if you know how a turbine works? Never stop learning and don't limit yourself to a field. If you find something exciting, learn everything you can about it, you'll be surprised how that information might come in handy when you least expect it.

There is nothing worthless in creation, just things for which you haven't devised a utility yet. Who would have thought that the most important use of our marvelous alchemy machine would be trash recycling?

Try mastering the artistry of hand crafts, sewing, carpentry, pottery, painting, calligraphy; there is a very rewarding sense of achievement that comes with creating a perfect pattern with the most rudimentary of tools, and besides, we all have the time.

Tools and accessories are getting more precise, more specialized, more flawlessly made, but don't forget that there is always a human spirit behind every exquisite piece of machinery, and that human spirit turned it from dream to reality, perfected it and brought it to you. If the machinery were to disappear, for any reason, it is that human spirit that can bring it back, make it again, better than before. Don't be intimidated by the marvels of technology, be in awe of the bright souls who saw them before they became reality, the ones who thought "what if?"

I bet you expected me to give you a lot of technical advice, for some reason people expect that is all I'm ever interested in, and I don't want to disappoint you, so here goes:

1) Always put the spectrometer away when you're done with it, especially if you're going to tune the lasers.

2) Put a little distance between yourself and the dashboard so you don't push things to hyperspace by turning the wrong dial without noticing.

3) When you work with anti-gravity devices, make sure to have a remote with you, so you can get back on the ground, if need be.

4) Don't use a flawless set of equations completely unrelated to the environment you are modeling.

5) Whatever gizmo you are building, design the off button first, and test it properly to ensure it works.

6) There are things you will never understand. Live with it.

7) Don't show anything until you've mastered it, no matter how much hype was built around its presentation.

8) If the device works, show first, explain later.

9) If the speed during testing is one hundred miles per hour faster than anticipated, this points to a need to refine the design concept.

10) Just because something looks like ordinary matter, it doesn't necessarily mean it is. Know what laws guide an environment before venturing into it.

Have a wonderful life, sweetheart, and make sure to visit the lab often. Oh, how I miss the time when you little ones were always underfoot and I couldn't pry you off the equipment with a crow bar!

Love,

Roberta

Chapter Sixteen

The Cloud

"How can you not care about this, it's our daughter's greatest life event, don't tell me not to be worried!" Lily paced, tense.

"Everything is going to be fine, why are you so agitated? All the preparations are well on their way, and even if they weren't, it's not like we can't change them if need be. Stop fretting, you're upsetting Lelia," Humon made an attempt to pacify her, but he knew his wife too well to get his hopes up. She kept pacing, nervously, so he sat back in the chair and waited for the emotional maelstrom to subside.

"Ael's dress is not finished. The heat makes the lilac scent too strong, sister Abigail already complained about it. Like I haven't enough to worry about with people being too close to the Fusion Cloud!" She continued pacing, then remembered her quiet companion was sitting at her desk and turned all her intensity towards him. "How about you? Are your tasks finished? Did you talk to Lelia? I wish I could do it myself, but I don't have the knowledge," she let out in one breath.

"She'll be fine, I gave her all the instructions and we went over them several times," Humon barely managed to get a word in edgewise.

"Did you give any thought to the speeches? I have no idea what to say, you have to help me with that, I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of the Second Circle again!"

"You never made a fool of yourself in front of the Second Circle, they wouldn't have chosen you as a diplomatic liaison if you did. Clouds are wonderfully straight forward that way!" Humon protested.

"And yet they needed fifteen meetings to make that clear," Lily retorted.

"Are you still upset about that? It was centuries ago!" Humon couldn't believe his ears.

"Never mind! I can't imagine anything that would unsettle you clouds, how can you be so calm, it is so irritating!" Lily protested without a specific cause.

"Why wouldn't I be? It's just a Bonding Ceremony, I've seen thousands," Humon commented.

Lily got even more upset. All the things she loved and admired about her husbands were also the things that managed to drive her into a frenzy when she was upset: his calm, his superior form, his breadth of knowledge. Why did he always have to rub in her face the fact that things which for her were the realm of fantasy were for him daily routine.

Every time she got into a situation that was outside of her control she remembered she had married up and resented his unfair advantages. The Second Circle had never managed to warm up to her, if warming up to a being was something the Second Circle was capable of, and this made her so mad at times she could almost feel smoke coming out of her ears.

"Why is he staring at me like that?" she thought, furious, and her cheeks turned a deeper shade of burgundy. "It's not my fault I can't vaporize myself!"

Humon stopped for a second to admire the fact that despite a volatile personality, Lily had managed to master the emotional control required by her very sensitive diplomatic position, and wondered if there was any limit to her strength of will. He didn't mind Lily's emotional outbursts too much, he realized she would explode if she didn't have a pressure valve, and was comfortable serving as one. He contemplated what the Second Circle's reaction would be if they ever experienced this charming flip side of Lily's perfect composure, and picturing their astonishment always made him laugh.

The Tagas cloud had mentioned repeatedly, in so many words, that his wife's interaction with the wisp delegation was always poised and efficient, a comment Lily would have taken as the utmost compliment if she could think like a wisp, but alas, she could not. What was it with humans and their emotional overload? It felt like they couldn't carry themselves from one minute to the next without bouncing off emotions like so many trampolines.

Humon wondered how humankind managed to get anything done when it wasted so much mental capacity on this nonstop, fruitless churning of worries, insecurities and ego stroking. He had tried, early in their marriage, to explain to Lily that she could accomplish so much more if she just let go of her mood swings, but it didn't seem to go very well, so he learned from the experience and tried to stay out of her emotional downpour whenever he could.

He suddenly remembered that the Tagas cloud had assigned him to a sequence of meetings for which his presence could not be substituted, and quickly drafted a mental schedule to organize them, as he watched Lily pace up and down the room and clap her hands in frustration when she remembered yet another detail that hadn't been worked out.

"Good grief! Sister Abigail forgot to drop off the placement cards to Roberta's lab! They need to be fixed, they have gilded letters! Sometimes I feel like everybody is provisionally mentally incapacitated. How many times did I mention that EVERYTHING had to be lavender?" Lily burst, startling him from his concentration.

"I'm sure everything will be resolved on time," Humon appeased her.

"Not unless somebody pays enough attention to notice that it needs done!" Lily snapped. She couldn't bear her husband's peace of mind anymore and rushed towards the door to find someone capable of reacting, human, if possible, but as usual she was met at the door by a group of wisps with a list of items to review.

Humon watched in disbelief how his wife's emotional deposit of dynamite dissolved in an instant and left in its place a level of composure he could mistake for wisp behavior if he didn't know any better.

The clouds made themselves at home and filled the room, claiming every horizontal surface for notes, meeting minutes and documents requiring signing.

Humon sat down at the table with them, to Lily's surprise; her husband didn't join consular meetings very often.

"This meeting is on my schedule," he clarified, and they delved into a two hour briefing together.

***

Vlor Consular Mission of Airydew, Terra Two, July 18 th, 3245

My sweet Lelia,

I may be the only person who can really offer you advice about tomorrow's ceremony. Humans are usually awash with feelings, aspirations and insecurities, all the things that stir the soul and resonate in this big sea of emotions they generate. Try to refrain, if you can, especially during the ceremony, there is nothing that puts a cloud less at ease than the generous sharing of emotions.

You have to understand that the plasticity of consciousness we achieve by constantly creating and switching covalent bonds is severely hindered by personal charge flows.

This is what the delegation had trouble with in the beginning, it's almost impossible to carry synchronized focus while you're getting pummeled from all directions with fear, love, worry, jealousy, elation, it's a cloud's worst nightmare! Most of this stuff we can't even understand, who cares about the physical shape? From our standpoint, if you don't like it, take another one! But you can't discuss these issues with a state locked life form.

It gets so exhausting, sometimes, being caught in the middle of a high pressure emotional match, the only thing I could compare it with in solid form would be getting slowly pressed into the ground by a fifty ton block of stone. Since I moved to Terra Two, I had to learn to live with it, but our very many guests have no heavenly concept of this constant pressure, so they will be both offended and mortified by the emotional deluge of that five hundred people party your friends are throwing for you on the beach. They don't know it yet, because on Vlor, cloud clusters range in the hundreds of thousands, so at this point they think they need to amplify the interest for the event a little bit.

I hate to give you chores, my sweet child, on a day that is supposed to be all about you, but you, me and Ael will have to brace some of the emotional flood for the benefit of our honored guests.

Enough of the unpleasantness! I hope your ceremonial covalent selections are fully bonded and perfectly tuned to your core vibration frequencies, your proto-progenitors are sticklers for clarity, especially the Tagas cloud, whose entire existence in the Second Circle was dedicated to the purity of harmony and polyphonic range. Don't screech! Your covalent selection will be very helpful with that, there is a reason why we take so much time perfecting our matches within the Simplex Cloud, they form the foundation of our core cluster and stay with us for a very long time.

Don't forget your primary progenitors have to be invited to join the ceremonial cluster first. The order of invitations is very important, this event is all about ceremony, hierarchy and protocol, make sure to go over your instructions again and rehearse all the steps until you can do them in your sleep, you can never rehearse them too much, do it again!

When you shift to gaseous form, don't overdo it with flashy colors, fractal artwork or vortex flourishes, most young clouds want to give the elders a display of what they can do, but this is really not the venue for it: be subdued and respectful. What the Bonding Ceremony signifies is your being welcome into a community of shared consciousness, in which all covalences, regardless of the rank or circle they belong to, are equally contributing charge transfers to the Simplex. Your wisdom will grow with experience and in time you'll feel a lot more at ease in your interactions with the Second Circle.

I don't think I need to mention that at the end of the ceremony, you will be the last to materialize, it would be rude to leave your guests stranded in a cloud without a center, again, this is all clearly delineated in the instructions.

I wished sister Roberta weren't preparing a surprise for us on this festive day, her innovations can be a little startling, especially when they touch on the time-space continuum. I need to ask your mother to talk to her about that, if anybody has the capacity to persuade Roberta, or anybody else, regardless of the species, it's your mother.

Speaking of the human half of the family, I don't know how we're going to accommodate both safety and protocol, because all non-clouds will experience extreme confusion in close proximity of the ceremonial cluster. I can assure you my principal and secondary progenitors are agonizing over this dilemma as we speak, they would abhor to come out of this event looking irresponsible.

I know Ael was invited to the Simplex before, but don't assume she will be there with you in the cloud, I have to reiterate the Bonding Ceremony is all about protocol, and she is too young. Feel free to ask her for pointers before tomorrow, though, any fresh perspective will improve your performance. I will definitely be there, remember to invite me in the first group, I'm one of your principal progenitors (oh, my! I started repeating myself, I'm slowly morphing into my original cluster!)

I love you, sweetie, be well rested and don't worry about anything tomorrow. Seriously, don't worry! Whatever you do!

I don't get to say this very often, and I'm a softie for tradition, so here goes.

Blessings of eternal wisdom,

The Humon Cloud, Honorary Hosts of the Dominions, Germinals of the Third Sphere, Valent Rank Two, Lelia Cloud's First Progenitor, in Grace

Chapter Seventeen

Emotional Liability

"You didn't find any other place for this?" sister Jove asked the group of children who had dropped a basket of cookies on her desk and were getting ready to leave.

"Oh, no, sister Jove, these are for you!" a cheerful seven year old clarified, grinning from ear to ear to reveal the gap that took the place of her front upper teeth. She had lost her baby teeth the week before and she was brimming with pride about it. She couldn't stop touching the gums with her tongue, trying to feel the jagged edge of their permanent replacements.

"You baked me cookies?" sister Jove asked, touched.

"No," the seven year old answered, matter of fact. "I brought them to you because you need to wrap them, Ms. Lily said."

"Wrap them in what?" sister Jove asked.

The girl didn't speak, she just pointed to a stack of tulle squares and a ball of ribbon.

"What are these for?" sister Jove asked.

"I don't know," the girl replied, eyeing the cookie basket with a covetous gaze.

"Have some!" sister Jove prompted her.

"I'm not supposed to, sister. Ms. Lily said," the girl hesitated.

"Tell her I said so," sister Jove laughed and switched to the interlink. "Can somebody please explain the basket of cookies on my desk?"

"They are for the kids, to keep them occupied during the ceremony so they don't get antsy," Sarah explained.

"Why am I wrapping them, then?" sister Jove asked.

"Gives them something to do with their hands," Sarah laughed.

"What's going to happen with all the wrappings after they eat their cookies?" sister Jove asked.

"Oops! Just forget the wrappings, too much trouble. Has anybody given any thought to the children's outfits?" Sarah asked.

"Don't tell me they all have to be lavender," sister Jove started.

"Not entirely, just the girls' dresses," Sarah replied.

"This thing looks more like a baby shower with each passing day, add a few rattles and stuffed animals and we'll be all set!" sister Jove noticed.

"Not if Lily has a word in it, we just dodged the ball gown bullet, just be thankful you joined a convent!" Sarah said. "This is the fairy tale ball of the century, Cinderella has nothing on her!"

"I have a little case of the butterflies, to be honest with you, that Bonding Ceremony seems pretty intimidating. If I understand correctly it looks like a giant bundle of light, with energy strands pulling in all directions. The energy field alone is bound to make us emotional and disoriented. Are you sure we're ready for this?" sister Jove asked.

"If we weren't you think they'd reschedule it?" Sarah asked.

Sister Jove didn't answer.

"How come nobody else is concerned about this, we're going to stand next to a miniature star, not fifty feet away. Why aren't you nervous?" sister Jove asked Sarah.

"I've seen Humon change states, it's going to be the same thing, only on a larger scale. Once you get used to the fact that their natural state is a gas the rest kind of comes with the territory, don't you think?" Sarah answered, placid.

"What happens if one of the dragons decides to fly through the Fusion Cloud?" sister Jove asked.

"First, the wisps will never let us hear the end of it, I'm sure, which is why we have to make sure it doesn't happen. If it does, however, I would assume the dragon would become confused. I'm not sure how that affects a creature with five heads, what am I thinking! Why aren't you nervous about the five headed lizards? Fog doesn't bite!" Sarah tried to find some rationality in the conversation.

"Where is Purple going to be?" sister Jove asked.

"I don't know, ask Lily," Sarah replied.

"I just wanted to make sure everything works smoothly, no surprises, no mess-ups," sister Jove continued fretting.

"Stop jinxing it, sister, you're worse than Lily!" Sarah chastised her. "Everything is going to be perfect!"

"It's just that there are going to be so many clouds around! I'm nervous when they're each their own separate cluster, I can't imagine the power of their assembly cloud! They are, for all practical purposes, moving the Simplex here!" sister Jove continued revealing her misgivings.

"So?" Sarah asked.

"They can move planets at that focus cluster magnitude," sister Jove continued.

"You think they can't control their own Bonding Ceremony?" Sarah asked.

"No, it's not that, I'm sure they can handle it just fine, I'm not sure we're equipped for it."

"Ael participated in the Simplex. She's ten," Sarah argued.

"She's a wisp," sister Jove replied.

"Yes, she is. If anybody should be terrified, is Lily. She carried her wisp daughters inside her body and she's not worse for the wear," Sarah argued.

"Has it ever occurred to you that all of us are dangerously insane?" sister Jove asked Sarah.

"Of course. A million times. We're all crazies here," Sarah laughed.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 19th, 3245

Sweetheart,

I don't even know how to start this, but it is the advice I wanted to give you. Nobody talks to young people about distressing or broken situations, not before an event that's supposed to be the most exciting day of their life.

We all carry our baggage, the lucky ones are aware of it, most people don't even acknowledge its presence. Our emotional liability balance.

People think that bad feelings are best kept locked into a corner of one's emotional closet, like the ugly sweater you would be embarrassed to be seen wearing in public, but you keenly hold on to, just to wear when you're alone.

We all have our drawer-fulls of emotional ugly sweaters. We wear them in solitude, they become our guilty habits, we wear them even when the weather is warm, just because we're used to the idea that they're ours and in a perverse way we feel comforted by them. We're secretly haunted by our insecurities, our past failures, our mistakes, we don't want to let them go. The latter are the worst, the entire universe may forget your misdeed, but you're willing to hold on to it forever, that tombstone of your lost ideals.

I'm not advising you to throw away your ugly sweaters, because I reached the wisdom to know that you can't. None of us can, our mistakes are part of what made us who we are. I'm just advising you to drag yours into the light and never contemplate them alone, it is a lot less damaging to be embarrassed in front of people than to be ashamed to look at yourself in the mirror.

I made a habit of not suggesting to others something I am not willing to do myself, so here goes, my ugly sweater.

After an endless sequence of transgressions and misbehaving, my parents decided that boarding school would be the best place to set me straight, so that I finally learn the universe does not revolve around me ( I have to stop here for a little digression and point out that according to Purple's theory of existence and energy, the universe apparently does revolve around each and every one of us. Every time Roberta brings this up, however casually, I take a little victory lap inside my head.)

There were eight of us in the common bedroom, and I was the oldest and by all accounts, the least redeemable. If you want an exercise in absurdity, try to understand the supervisors' logic in giving me responsibility over the group's behavior, a leadership position of sorts. I don't know, I guess they figured out if they put a younger kid in charge I would act out and things would get worse.

We spent a lot of time together and became very close. None of us were perfect but we liked and stood up for each other, and in that environment we were the closest any one could get to a family. The other kids took my leadership role seriously, and wouldn't dream of being on my bad side. We were always together, whether working, playing or getting in trouble, and there was no shortage of the latter.

They decided to surprise me and made me this ring in metal shop, a steel mounted solitaire with a dark amethyst. Everything was made by hand, including the amethyst, which they found in the rough and polished in a rattling can for days. I was touched and never took that ring off, it meant a lot to me, I was their protector and role model.

Anyway, as a portion of our reeducation program we had to do heavy chores every day, carry wood to the quarters, water buckets to the garden, load baskets of grapes and sacs of grain into trucks. The task that day was to move some marble tombstones from the little courtyard at the back of the school, which served as a stone carving shop.

I was a fountainhead at the time, overflowing with ideas, all of them ill-advised and purposefully disrespectful. This was the glorious occasion I was waiting for to pull a prank on the young'ums, and I spent hours in preparation, grinning in anticipation of their reaction. The main idea was to place a lattice of ball bearings connected with wires underneath one of the tombstones, and tie them to the hay barn pulley, and just at the right moment, flip the switch and have a tomb open all by itself, a fake one, of course, but what did the kids know?

Everything went exactly as planned, except the operation of the barn pulley itself, which wasn't entirely up to me: the farm hands came in early and started it at just the wrong speed, which turned the very heavy marble slab into a makeshift projectile. It broke through the back wall like a wrecking ball and disintegrated, exploding into a million little shards that blew everywhere, and at the end of this little endeavor the place looked like a battle field.

For a moment, everything seemed surreal, the noise, the dust, the falling debris. I fell to the ground, my ears ringing with a metallic, eerie sound that still haunts me some times. My hands were bleeding from all the glass, brick and marble shards that blew everywhere and for a moment I couldn't tell up from down, left from right, it all melted into a blur, all I remember is that I was staring at my hands, helpless like broken toys and trying to grasp to the crumbled rocks, with the gemstone of the ring gleaming in the sunlight. For a moment, that gemstone was all that mattered to me in the world, I don't know why, sometimes reason doesn't come into the equation. It meant something very important, life changing, but I just couldn't remember what it was, and it hurt, because I really wanted to, had to, it was my duty.

All eight of us were present at the scene, but one of the kids, a little thing whose sins I didn't have enough time to learn, looked like the perfect suspect. She was closest to the scene, she'd been working in the metal shop the previous week and she was kind of good at putting things together and making them work.

After we regained our wits, an investigation was open, where all of us were grilled generously. It wasn't one of those slap on the wrist occasions, somebody was guilty and that somebody was going to be expelled and held accountable for the damage. The younger kids were scared and easily intimidated, they cried and tried to exculpate themselves. I was a lot more hardened, and after years of getting in trouble I had absolutely no problem lying my way out of any situation. They didn't believe in my innocence, but couldn't prove my guilt either, and since somebody had to be held responsible for this feat of monumental stupidity, they blamed the kid closest to the scene.

I didn't say anything when they took her away, she didn't even try to defend herself, the decision had already been made; I didn't say anything to the other children either, not then, and not in the years that followed. I just kept wearing my ring, the symbol of my group's trust in me, as a reminder of the other six lives I was responsible for.

I don't know what happened to any of them after we left boarding school, we all went our separate ways, but I still have the ring, and it still means the same thing to me, the fact that I was responsible for seven and I ended up with six, and it was my fault. There is an almost perceptible void in the sparkle of that ring that no amount of time, rationalization or encouragement can fill.

We all wear our ugly sweaters, our emotional liabilities. If you are lucky enough to have real friends, they'll have you, ugly sweater or not.

After that event, I changed. What wouldn't my parents have given to bring forth this emotional epiphany! They never found out what happened, but were so grateful to see me turn into such a responsible adult. I studied, I worked, I met Roberta, she introduced me to the other sisters, and the rest you know.

The truth is, if I had to do things over, even now, I don't think they would go any differently. This is what makes it harder, the fact that I did something I'm ashamed of, and if I had to do it again, it would go just the same. Do you understand my ugly sweater, baby? That's why it's called liability, not because you can't fix it, in the present or the past, but because any time you are presented with the situation, you will make the same choice.

Understand that you'll have ugly sweaters too, you can't avoid them, not in a life as long as ours. If you can't learn to live with them you won't be able to do anything other than go in circles around a losing hand at cards, a hand whose all possible outcomes are bad.

Well, I think that was enough depressing talk for a young graduate with a bright future in front of her, but in my experience, emotional liability sneaks up on you, and shocks you when it happens, because these things only happen to bad people, right? People who deserve it, but you'll never be like them, after all, you follow the straight and narrow, you would never be so stupid, you would know better, right?

I love you baby. Be happy. Life is not perfect, but so what?

Yours,

Jove

Chapter Eighteen

Blessed Touch

"Don't tell me we have to redo all of these! This is the seventh time!" sister Mary-Francis cried out over the sea of lavender gauze that refused to drape itself as planned.

"The pleats should fold in the other direction and the folds are two small, try to imagine this in the actual setting," Lily pointed out the objectionable items on the punch list.

"You said six inches wide, they are six inches wide!" the sister protested.

"I know, sister, I'm sorry, I was wrong! Why don't you ask Sys to fix these real quick, you don't have to do them by hand," Lily compromised.

"A piece of information I could have used during the last three changes," Mary-Francis pointed out the obvious.

"If you have a minute, sister, could we go over all of these changes here, I really think we could make some small improvements," Lily sat down at the table without waiting for confirmation.

Sister Mary-Francis sat down.

"It's for the after party, you know? The wisps have no opinion regarding the feast, since they are not accustomed to get togethers that don't involve covalent bonds, so they left it to us to decide all the details."

Sister Mary-Francis looked at her, incredulously.

"I have a rough draft of the party planning, but I would like everybody's input, I want it to be memorable and enjoyable and approval process free," Lily bubbled like a little brook in spring.

"What can I do to help?" sister Mary-Francis offered.

"We need ideas for decor, catering, you know?" Lily continued.

"Dear, I'm a nun. I've been a nun for a very long time, fun party activities are not my forté," Mary-Francis laughed kindly. "Although I do have preferences for the cooking staff, if that's OK."

"Of course, sister, that's a given. What about the setting? We were thinking to set up some of the tables on the beach at the bottom of the stairs, just in case the healing garden can't accommodate all the guests. Of course the Prayer Hall has enough large assembly rooms if we need to move the party indoors, and we're going to use the kitchen there for all the food, of course," Lily enumerated.

"I think that's a splendid idea," sister Mary-Francis concurred.

"We're going to have a problem with the dragons around food, so I was thinking that if we can distract them with a healthy aloe patch, they'll stay away from the food tables. I'll have to run this by Sarah, to make sure she's ok with it. We can replant the aloe afterwards."

"And then I was thinking we could connect Purple to the translator, their conversation would make a wonderful music improv piece, and since most of us speak Purple, it would serve dual purpose. They are very melodious," Lily explained.

"That they are," said sister Mary-Francis.

"Of course we'll have to move some of the potted gardenias, maybe a couple of the stone benches, to make more room for the lighting. There should be sufficient lighting, but not too much, you know? We don't want to compete with the night sky, the green moon and the studded chocolate firmament are too beautiful not to emphasize," Lily continued.

"Aah, the beautiful Terra Two skies, a poet's dream!"

"Oh, yes, poets! I completely forgot about Humon, he needs to organize the speeches, there are going to be lots of speeches. Do you want to give one? Just a few words, a little toast?" Lily jotted down sister Mary-Francis's name.

"Oh, no, dear, please keep me out of this, I dread public speaking!' the sister tried to defend herself.

"Please, sister! Just a few words! For Lelia?" Lily pressed.

"But..." the sister wanted to protest.

"Great, it's settled then. I'll ask Humon to pencil you in between Seth and sister Benedict. Those were the best orators of the Order. The sister let out a wretched sigh.

"Now, the decor! I think we should carry the lavender theme, so the colors don't clash with our attire, we're going to wear the same outfits, of course, there is not enough time to change." For a brief but terrifying moment, sister Mary-Francis worried that she was going to have to wear a lavender gown, but then she remembered the outfits had already been sent to Vlor and approved, and the Order was going to don ceremonial robes.

"That's a great idea," she answered, relieved.

"There is, of course, the issue of the table settings, I can never get a unanimous decision from the wisps, each one of them wants to sit next to everybody, and even though it makes sense in covalent wisp world, I have a very hard time making them understand that in solid form it is practically impossible. Like they didn't have enough reasons to point out we exist in an inferior state of matter."

"I'm sure you'll think of something, darling," sister Mary-Francis encouraged her.

"Maybe we should stand, instead, and have wait staff carry trays of hors d'oeuvres around, so they can mingle freely," Lily thought out loud.

"That could provide a solution," sister Mary-Francis said.

"No, on second thought that would be too complicated, and we couldn't accommodate a main course, besides it would be exhausting to stand for eight hours straight," Lily changed her mind.

"I've done worse," sister Mary-Francis replied.

"Speaking of sitting, do you have any preferences for your table companions?" Lily asked.

"Whatever works best for everybody, I don't want to be a bother," sister Mary-Francis said.

"I'll figure it out, then. Thank you so much for your help, sister! Your input was invaluable. I have almost all the details drawn out, a rough draft, of course, but a wonderful start. I knew I could count on you!" Lily said.

"You are welcome," sister Mary-Francis said, puzzled, because she couldn't figure out exactly what her contribution was, other than saying 'yes' to everything.

"Well, I have to go, a million things to do, still!" Lily got up to leave.

"But..." sister Mary-Francis tried to stop her.

Lily turned around, her hand on the door handle.

"Yes, sister."

"So, what should we do about the gauze?" sister Mary-Francis asked.

"Oh, don't worry about those, we'll ask Sys to fix them later. Can you help sister Joseph make the dragons presentable? She refused to let me tie lavender bows to their tails. Their blue scales are not fitting in the color scheme at all, would you talk to sister Joseph?" Lily said and left.

Sister Mary-Francis stood staring at the door for a second, door which Lily, in her rush, had left open, and breathed a sigh of relief that their ceremonial robes were in a neutral color and shuddered at the thought of what they would have had to do if their garb clashed with the decor.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 20th, 3245

My dear child,

You might have heard about the little stone convent in Perpignan that cradled the beginnings of our life here. I was a novice at a neighboring abbey, I didn't get my calling until well into mid-life, so most of the nuns there were at least a decade younger than I was. Though fervently devoted, my nature always got me in trouble, and I found it difficult to adjust to doing obedience and spending countless hours in meditation and prayer (you might have noticed that I still get chided, now and then, for idle chatter, mostly). Mother superior, a sainted woman, kept constant vigil to beseech my better angels to guide me on the path of enlightenment, deference towards elders and observance of the sacred rules.

She prayed and counseled, and she brought examples from the lives of the saints, examples of self-denial, hard work and hope in the providence that allows us to experience miracles large and small.

I knew I was called to the monastic life, so I worked really hard at becoming what she expected me to be, I ended my novitiate and took the veil (I know you rarely see us in our habits, it tends to get a little cumbersome when one works in the fields all day in this climate).

Mother superior was an insightful person: she sanctified my transition to the new life but she wasn't happy, because with the shedding of my stubborn, non-conforming traits went out the fire that lit up my heart towards the spiritual vocation in the first place. She didn't say anything, but from that day forward she never stopped looking, and asking around, and putting the word out in the community in the hope of finding a place for me that would help me multiply the gifts of the Spirit.

I'm sure you heard that the Spirit works in mysterious ways, and in my case, quite disappointing ones, I must say. There was this old abandoned farm house, a distance from the village and the abbey, the locals didn't even know how old, but it hadn't been inhabited in decades. It had a good stone structure and a solid foundation, no doubt a testament to the pride in craftsmanship that was a trademark of the builders back in the day, but that was where the positives ended: it had a disheveled roof, no doors or windows, broken floors, and unusable building systems.

The abbey had received the deed for of the land some time ago from a pious old woman who died without close relatives, and the nuns didn't even consider renovating the structure, which looked beyond human help. The locals whispered stories around the camp fire, about ghosts and eerie blue lights hovering like cold flames over the adjacent bog.

During spring cleaning, mother superior found the deed at the bottom of a drawer, and realizing she'd completely forgotten about the property she assembled a small group of nuns, myself included, and sent us to take a quick look around the building and see if we could reuse the stone for a retaining wall we were trying to build. We left before dawn and it took us a good two hours to reach the place; we arrived with the first rays of sun.

As we approached the door-less entry a frightened owl took heart and flew out clumsily, almost touching our heads, putting a chill through our bones and making the sisters cross themselves. The shyer ones were really reluctant to enter, and if it weren't for the holy apprehension mother superior inspired, they would have immediately turned on their heels and run back all the way to the abbey.

I wasn't too keen on it myself, to tell you the truth, the inside was darker than the bowels of the earth, its uneasy silence punctured by the strange sounds of the wildlife that sought refuge between its walls. I stood in the doorway for a moment, then retrieved that stubborn, defiant streak that was the bane of a saintly existence and stepped in.

Some people believe in signs from the Providence, some prefer to relay all unusual occurrences to coincidence, I tend to be more of the former, if you please. The second I stepped in, the sun rose over the horizon and its fiery glow filled the eastern enfilade of rooms with what I could only describe as heavenly light.

The light drew me in and I tried to get closer to its source, while the rest of the nuns followed halfheartedly, ready to turn back at a moment's notice. Projected on an entrancing tapestry of magnificent light, a little head peeked from behind a small mound of debris, startling a scream from one of the sisters, who mentally reviewed the haunting stories and started assessing their truthfulness.

Turns out it was indeed not a ghost (you wouldn't believe the scolding our ears received upon conveying this assumption to mother superior!), but one of the local kids, a little girl, who valiantly stood her ground and insisted that the building was her play house. Some of the nuns were troubled by the child's unsupervised stroll through such blood curdling scenery, especially at that time of day, but the little girl was completely unfazed by the grown-ups' concerns. She took my hand, eager to show off her domain, and walked me around the structure, pointing to every room, nook and crevice and explaining in detail what they used to be, what functions she had assigned to them and what she had in mind for the future.

I didn't have the heart to tell her the purpose of our visit, and my spirit was troubled by the morning light's warning that we were disturbing hallowed ground. Upon return I begged and pleaded with mother superior not to tear down the building (whose stone walls were too fused together to be disassembled, I argued), but to let us take the time and effort to restore it and put it to good use. She reluctantly agreed, swayed by my passionate arguments, under the condition that I find a group of nuns willing to move there, help with construction and stay after it was finished to take care of the building.

Suddenly you couldn't find a busier convent in all the land, why, with all the sisters being inextricably involved in various activities, one more important and urgent than the other. I finally managed to convince a couple of them, sister Joseph and sister Abigail, and survived the months of hard labor and continuous grumpiness.

As I said, God's blessings often come disguised as opportunities to challenge one's weaknesses; throughout construction the little village girl showed up bright and early every morning, managing to always be in the way and supervising construction with the self-assurance of a local overlord, questioning decisions and having strong opinions about how things were to be accomplished.

We figured it was easier to give in to her requests than to listen to the endless whining and arguing; between her exacting wishes, being constantly exposed to the elements, sister Joseph's charming disposition and sister Abigail's cooking the Lord forged the mettle of my patience.

When we were done with the building, the girl insisted on restoring the garden, whose main contours and general organization were still discernible under the overgrown flora. She walked quickly from one planting to the next and excitedly pointed out where to place the tomato patch and the herb wheel, stepping over freshly planted vegetable beds and getting her hair tangled in the cucumber nets.

When the work was finished, she insisted that we should make room for her, and already used as we were with her fixation with completely illogical demands (after all she lived right down the street) we obliged.

Soon after she left for boarding school and her family moved to a nearby town to be close to her. She didn't write or visit and at our bequest mother superior tried to contact her family, but they had moved again and she was unable to find their forwarding address.

May the Lord be with you,

Sister Mary-Francis

Chapter Nineteen

On Both Sides of the Mirror

"Mom, why did you let Ael use my room? She never puts anything away!" Lelia complained to her somewhat distracted mother. Lily looked up.

"Oh, this whole house has turned into ceremony headquarters, your room was the only quiet place left, she needed to finish a project," she explained.

"What's wrong with her room?" Lelia protested.

"Sys commandeered it for manufacturing last minute items," Lily explained.

"Why can't she work at the Institute, she's always there anyway," Lelia didn't give up.

"Never mind about your sister," Lily remembered. "Did you practice your ceremony steps?"

"Yes! Dad made me go over them a million times!" Lelia frowned, annoyed.

"Did you try out your gown? We want to make sure it fits properly," Lily went over the list in her hand.

"It's ok," Lelia said.

"Go put it on, I need to see," Lily commanded.

"Mom! I told you I already tried it on!" Lelia objected.

"I said I needed to see it, didn't I? Go!" Lily didn't relent. Lelia went to her room to comply with her mother's request, and spent a few minutes there, during which the silence was broken at odd intervals by the discoveries of all the items that had been disturbed by Ael's presence. "I told you I didn't want her to go into my room! She always messes up my stuff!" Lelia appeared in the doorway, a heavenly vision in lavender gauze, albeit one with a bit of an attitude.

"I feel so stupid in this dress! Why can't I wear my normal clothes?" she protested, ignoring the adoring look in her mother's eyes.

"Because this is an embassy ball and we have to abide by the dress code!"

"Why do the clouds care at all? I'll be divvied up and assigned to a number of different clusters anyway! Besides, don't they think solid matter is of no consequence?" Lelia asked.

"Lavender is important. Wave length frequency and such," Lily started to explain again.

"Yes, I know!" Lelia rolled her eyes. The ball gown fit as designed, so the girl was dispatched to her room to change.

"Are you nervous?" Lily asked.

"I would be, if Ael didn't brag the entire week about being allowed to join the Simplex before she was of age," Lelia expressed her displeasure. "Now I feel like I'm not doing enough!"

"It was a wonderful opportunity, you shouldn't be jealous of your sister," Lily admonished.

"I'm not jealous," Lelia protested, "it's just that she spoiled the surprise, now I know what it's going to be like!"

"I thought your father already told you how the ceremony was going to unfold!" Lily jumped, shocked. "You didn't expect to just join the Simplex and play it by ear, did you?!" she pinned Lelia with a sharp stare.

"No," the girl softened up. That was exactly what she was thinking of doing, but between her parents and her baby sister, good luck with that!

"Do you know what coherence clusters you'll be assigned to?" Lily asked.

"Dad told me, but I forgot," Lelia said with a calm that put a chill down her mother's spine. Lily was aghast that after all the times she and Humon tried to instill into their daughter's mind the absolute importance of being prepared for the ceremony, she still didn't know all the details.

"I can't believe this! You have four days left, Lelia! Why can't you understand that you can't leave this to chance? It's like thinking you're going to figure out the lines of your role on opening night while the curtain rises! Good grief, if you can't take this seriously, why do we even bother!" Lily said.

"Why do you?!" Lelia snapped. "Nobody understands how much pressure I'm under! You're all pestering me, and I have to go through the ceremony, and Ael is being so obnoxious! I can't even have my room all to myself, there isn't a moment's peace in this house!"

Lily retreated, she didn't want to stress out Lelia unnecessarily.

"I know, sweetheart, we're all a little nervous. You're going to look absolutely beautiful, darling!" she tried to mollify her daughter.

Lelia's mood changed suddenly and she remembered she was starving, so she skipped out to the Prayer Hall to see if there was anybody in the kitchen, hopefully producing yummy treats.

She found a tray of warm chamomile cakes on the table, fresh out of the oven, ate a couple of them, asked sister Therese for a glass of milk and forgot about her problems.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, watching sister Therese prepare the communal meal, discussing recipes and techniques and suggesting items to be added to the menu. For a few hours the kitchen became her little peaceful haven, away from ceremony preparations, lavender gowns, nagging mothers and annoying little sisters.

***

Vlor Consular Mission of Airydew, Terra Two, July 21 st, 3245

Sis,

This is so exciting, I can't believe mom took my suggestion to write letters seriously, I really wanted to give you something special for this one in a lifetime event!

I've been thinking about being half cloud for a while. Mom and Purple think I'm wasting my time pondering on what it means to be what we are, hybrids of sorts! I think quite the opposite: if yours is an extraordinary experience, why would you want to keep it to yourself instead of sharing it with the people you love so that they can understand you better and maybe benefit from it?

So, without further ado, a bit of trivia from the Simplex Cloud:

Last week I was invited to participate in the Cloud Simplex Resonance; we got the notification through the public address charge flows, which I learned pretty much means that attendance is mandatory. Dad was beaming with pride, of course, child prodigy, high hopes for the future and all.

Since I haven't yet reached the age of Ascent, and therefore I don't really have a permanent bonding covalent cloud selection, I was evenly distributed over several Simplex Clusters, which is a lot more exciting, because you don't get stuck in a single cohesion and can switch to another activity when the clouds invariably get long winded.

I got to help out in the Multiverse Physics Library to overhaul the structure of the records. As you know, the clouds tend to get sloppy when it comes to restoring the time strands to the right order and/or backing up the records, and this tends to make a mess of paradoxes that the Permanent Library Cohesion abhors passionately. The temporary cloud cluster I was working with had to untangle the space-time strands and loops, I didn't even know the loops existed, live and learn, right? For all we know, Purple genes may have evolved in one, it gets so hard to make sense of what space-time you are following when they're all knotted together like a skein the cat chewed up, no wonder the Library Cohesion is mad! This thankless work gets sooo boring after a few Rotations it can put you to sleep. After straightening out a few hundred multiverse strands I used a moment of confusion to skip out to the Radiance Amplification Cluster and worked on tectonic stabilization for a while, until a cloud made a request for some of my covalent components to complete the analysis cluster for a newly encountered sentient solid, class C.

It was a species from the Second Quadrant, a non-expiring manifold entity with unrestricted intelligence expansion. It got really great ratings for establishing contact: fair for communication aptitude, fair to high for benevolence, and high for multi-dimensional plasticity, right up the clouds' alley, so to speak. They didn't know whether to establish communication because the C class species coexisted with a symbiont host, class H, a non-expiring state locked animated solid, dimension constrained and charge inert.

I thought the combo looked eerily similar to our coexistence with Purple, and tried to make the point to the Sentient Life Coherence that their relationship with Terra Two turned out reasonably well, but I only managed to make everyone uncomfortable in the process. The Simplex loathes lapses in protocol and I think they are very eager to gloss over the haphazard start of our diplomatic relationship. The part that made them more uncomfortable than anything was me advocating for my human heritage. As far as they are concerned, I am simply a cloud, who can switch to solid state at will, so my body is not something they usually tend to pay any attention to, since they consider solid state an inferior level of existence. It got awkward really fast, so I bid my adieu and skipped out to the closest assembly I could find, which happened to be involved in compiling lists for emergent clouds. If you think cleaning up time strands is boring, you haven't tried distributing selections of bonding covalences to emergent clouds. Because I already skipped around too much and it was time for me to reassemble, I got stuck there for a while, until Dad, who is blessed with a permanent position in this exciting cluster decided it was time for me to go home.

Again "going home" created confusion among the present covalences who understood that I should go back to my established cluster and dispatched me to review a proposal for charting the Vega Constellation. I got sidetracked half way to that cluster and ended up designing progenitor group options for a new cloud assembly. You'll be happy to know a proposal will be submitted to the First Circle Fusion Impetus, awaiting grace. The assembly's tentative name is Mijr, and it has an anticipated cloud scale of 900,000,000 Lower Chorus and Power bonds, valent ranks 2 through 4; its projected outcome leads to the Second Circle, Council of the Powers, Valent Rank Four. The proposed baby cloud is expected to receive the First Circle's blessing:)

This is when Dad, who had to put aside his work to figure out where I ended up, found me again, uttered a refining resonance and closed the reverberation loop, action that dumped me next to mom, just in time to sort about five hundred placement cards for your Bonding ceremony.

I don't know how to describe being in the Simplex, but I keep getting this image of Alice going through the looking glass. I guess I can say that I went through my looking glass, it shattered, and in the process I left a million reflections on the eternal clouds of Vlor. If you asked me which Alice is the real me, I wouldn't know, probably both.

I love you, sister, and can't wait to collaborate with your cloud in the Simplex, it is very exciting work, you'll see, at least part of it, anyway. I think your big ceremony calls for a little more formal salutation so I'm going to end my letter in traditional Vlorian fashion.

Blessings of eternal wisdom,

The Ael Cloud, Custodians of the Powers, Germinals of the Lower Chorus, Vertical Valent Rank 2-3

Chapter Twenty

Facing Your Self

"What is it exactly that you are trying to accomplish?" sister deAngelis asked one of the children, who had been moving the cookies from a plate to a basket, and then to a wire display, and was now preparing to move them again.

"Sister Mary-Francis said we should find a display for these," the little boy replied, with his hair in disarray and a perplexed look in his eyes. He looked so much like Jimmy that sister deAngelis couldn't suppress a smile. The boy couldn't have been more than eight years old and was fidgeting to consume a little of his boundless amounts of energy.

"What was wrong with the basket?" sister deAngelis's curiosity got the better of her.

"The cookies are bunched together too tight, you can't tell what kinds they are," he expertly explained.

"Why are you trying to put them back in it, then?" said deAngelis.

"The wire rack doesn't look right, too spread out," he said.

"Do you have an idea of what the final result should look like?"

"Yes," the little boy jumped at the chance and started describing an elaborate display system that swooped gracefully along both sides of a center tray and met in the middle, where the cookies accumulated, forming a pool of sorts, like the pond at the bottom of a waterfall. The flavors and colors of the cookies had been given very serious thought and the entire display was supposed to draw interest from afar. The production was supposed to be continuously in motion grace to a carefully dissimulated mechanism on the underside.

Sister deAngelis was impressed by the detailed design of this display piece, so she set aside her current chore to assist in its development.

"Why don't you make the display exactly the way you said?" she asked.

"I didn't know I could," the little boy answered, with measured hope.

"Let's go to Roberta, you'll give her the details and she can input them in her alchemy machine," sister deAngelis said.

"Do you think she'll want to? Everybody looks very busy," the little boy evaluated his chances.

"Don't let them fool you, we don't have a lot to do, actually, we're all keeping busy to take our minds off the Fusion Cloud," sister deAngelis said.

They arrived to Roberta's lab just in time to see the latter struggle to untangle herself from an unruly bundle of lavender tulle, which sister deAngelis recognized to be the ever changing podium draping.

"Who in his right mind came up with this stupid idea?! Who needs fabric around that knotted bundle of energy, sometimes I worry about living among you!" she grunted, frustrated.

"The Fusion Cloud is not a fire hazard," sister deAngelis tried to calm her down.

"What do you want?" sister Roberta stared them down, which made the little boy very doubtful about his idea's chances of success.

"James here wants to make a cookie display," sister deAngelis said. Sister Roberta turned to the little boy who looked so much like Jimmy that her frustration completely dissipated.

"That can't be!" she whispered softly.

"It's not. Life can be interesting that way," sister deAngelis laughed.

"Are you sure Jimmy is not doing some experiment about going back in time?" sister Roberta asked, incredulous.

"As sure as I'll ever be of anything in this life," deAngelis reassured her.

Sister Roberta and James sat down to draw all the details of the cookie display, and the more the little boy became at ease with the sister's blunt style, the more he reminded her of Jimmy, with his messy straw blonde hair that was constantly unsettled by the lightest breeze, his avid curiosity and propensity for trouble, his excitement about the project at hand and the plethora of ideas he was constantly bouncing about in his head. In a few short minutes, while sister Roberta wasn't looking, he managed to change the settings on her monitoring equipment, just to see what happens, and set an experiment in progress back to zero. They fine tuned the design of the cookie display until it looked just right, manufactured it, modified a couple of details after the fact and replicated it a few times.

"Thank you, sister! This is exactly what it's supposed to look like," James grabbed the items, struggling to open the door while carrying everything.

"Stop by more often, I'm sure there'll be something here you might find interesting," sister Roberta said, still fascinated by the little boy's uncanny resemblance to Jimmy. "There is someone I'd like you to meet," she said as the boy took his leave.

"Where is Jimmy, anyway?" sister deAngelis asked.

"He had to run quickly to Soléa, he forgot some of his research notes," sister Roberta answered.

"I guess you found yourself a new pupil," sister deAngelis smiled.

"He's got a lot of potential, I'll grant you. How did you figure it out?" sister Roberta.

"If you want to find something, you have to know how to look," sister deAngelis answered, with the gaze of a Sphinx.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 22nd, 3245

My dear child,

Like many women of my generation, I was raised on the concept that it was my duty to make other people happy. The more people's whims, needs and opinions one could accommodate, the more praise and approval one got from one's family, and that was all I lived for and cared about. My mother was an absolute undefeated champion at people pleasing, she could fill up her schedule with twice the amount of hours available in a day and from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep she didn't stop for even a second to consider her own needs. She didn't have the time, after all she was everything to everybody in her circle, what more could anybody want? Her life was complete.

I worked very hard to live up to this ideal, it seemed so selfless and admirable, everything I was always taught: think of others first, work really hard, giving yields its own reward. This really happened for my mother, she was a pillar of the community, the center of activity in our neighborhood, she had more friends that I could count and didn't forget to pay attention to each and every one's life events, good or bad.

Whenever us kids needed something, we knew we could always count on her and didn't hesitate to pile up our last minute tasks, and she always managed to get them done on time, somehow by miracle and despite her impossible schedule.

There wasn't anything more that life could ask from my mother, she went above and beyond in her commitments to her church, her work, her household, her children, her friends. She was always put together and flawless and despite my natural tendencies to rebel like all teenagers do, I was in awe of her.

Naturally, I worked myself ragged to get into the best college, pushed myself, challenged my weaknesses and grew. It was hard but I didn't expect anything else, life was not supposed to be served to me on a silver platter, right? You have to work really hard to get what you want. If only I understood what that meant at the time!

I graduated and went on to find my way in society, and based on the feedback I got from my friends, family and acquaintances, I was supposed to be a prize for any work environment: smart, motivated, pleasant, hard working, dependable and selfless. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to bring me into their enterprise?

In the beginning, nobody did, and I was baffled and hurt, and cried a lot. Why didn't they want me? I asked myself obsessively. What was it about me that they didn't like? I thought, vouching to change whatever the defect was immediately, so that I could regain the approval and communal support I simply couldn't live without.

While pleading with everyone for a place in the world, so I could get back to being what was expected of me, I changed myself completely, I molded my appearance to what I thought would be more pleasing, I collected an endless string of certificates and degrees to make myself look relevant, I cultivated people I didn't like, because I was told they were important, I put all my silly dreams in a box and buried it three feet deep so nobody could find and embarrass me with them.

For some reason I couldn't understand, people still didn't want me, and I had to work harder and harder for lesser and lesser results, until finally I got to the point where I didn't get any results at all and started sliding backwards. I was in distress and shared my predicament with my very supportive family, who was always there for me in spirit and condemned the ineptitude of the rest of the world: people didn't know what they were missing by not appreciating me enough. At thirty, I was a victim. Nothing in my life was right, or so I thought, and my family's continuing encouragement through the tribulations was my only consolation in the valley of despair that I perceived life to be.

I couldn't understand it, and it didn't feel right, after all I did everything that was expected of me, right? I worked really hard, I dedicated myself to whatever I was doing at the time, and it was never for myself, just the right blend of "being thereness" that society demanded.

Day after day passed with at best no events, and at the worst, bad ones, the kind that people like to avoid if they can. I got into a state of perpetual sadness and life turned worse. My body felt this sadness and started deteriorating: my eyes were constantly irritated from the endless crying, I was always tired and my heart ached, and not in a metaphoric sense. I ate too much and my body became flabby and awkward and I was constantly nauseous and starving, which made me eat more and more.

My family was very supportive through this struggle, with countless loved ones constantly wringing their hands at my bad luck and reinforcing my conviction that life wasn't fair. I was barely past my thirties and had nothing to look forward to: my health was a wreck, my occupation was a failure, my future was bleak and other than my family nobody liked me.

I look back at this narrative, trying to see myself through the eyes of another person, and can't help but ask wherein lied the tragedy? There was no catastrophic event in my life to justify this amount of desolation, but if you pay attention to life in general you will notice that with most people being unfulfilled is not the result of a specific event, but rather a accumulation of letdowns, disappointments and compromises, a downward spiral whose inevitable outcome is failure.

Despite the inner struggle, I was working really hard at the time, doing my best to apply myself, and one of my many work errands took me to a conference. I wasn't supposed to be there but the person who was couldn't go, so I filled in for them, even if I had no clue what the conference was about, yet another testimony to my blameless work ethic. I had my pencil and pad to take notes and everything, determined not to disappoint the people who gave me the assignment and finally prove my worth.

I couldn't find a place to park to save my life and arrived an hour and a half late, and had to waste even more time upon arrival trying to cover up the fact that I'd been crying my eyes out all the way from the parking lot, which was ten blocks away. It was of course raining, and I arrived soaked, not the best way to make an entrance if one wanted to get noticed in a positive way. I didn't have to worry about the wet clothes or the red eyes: the room was filled to the brim and I could only find a seat on the second balcony, up a creaking stairway meant for roof access.

I sat down, conscientiously opened my notepad and prepared to write down anything that might be of importance to the people back at work.

The conference was running a little behind schedule, and I'd gotten there just in time to hear the MC announce the keynote speaker, a Seth Rosenfeld somebody. I jotted down the name and prepared to be underwhelmed in the dutiful, hard working way with which I approached every event in my life.

A striking young woman walked up to the podium. She was tall and had an electrifying clear gaze that swept over the audience and made the large room go suddenly quiet.

She talked for an hour and a half, at ease in front of that sea of people, with passion and conviction. She wanted to show us the good things she and her group had been working on, things she cared deeply about, things she was proud of, things that defied the possible, and I listened mesmerized the entire time, open mouthed and feeling more stupid than ever and wondering in the back of my mind why I was attending a horticulture conference.

Slide after slide flashed on the screen, with projects that everyone in my circle of acquaintances would have said were not financially feasible, practical, or timely. Who had the capacity and the means to do things like these? On the other hand, when things like these are being done by somebody somewhere, why would you want to spend your life doing anything else?

I felt like I'd spent a couple of hours in a different world, a world in which life wasn't hard, or unfair, a world where I fit in and didn't have anything to prove. When the conference was over I was almost surprised to notice that my life was the same as before.

I walked the ten blocks to my car, without the rain, this time, and drove back to find the workplace just as I left it. My supervisor was absent minded and slightly irked by some extraneous event. It had nothing to do with me, really, but while being in this state of mind he mentioned that I'll have to give a talk about what I learned at the conference.

I spent the following week wringing my hands and anticipating failure instead of practicing my presentation, and in the end I placated myself with the thought that I'll figure out what to say on the spot. I don't think it needs mentioning that my performance was a majestic flop, but this time I didn't feel bad because I was an inept speaker, I felt bad because I thought my poor performance didn't do those wonderful ideas justice. I tried to summon some of the keynote speaker's energy and enthusiasm while I fast approached the end of my yawn inducing presentation, and for a very brief moment just a glimpse of it shone through, a fleeting glimmer of something better, right before I got back to my reliably boring self.

That fraction of a second was enough to change my life. In that moment I wasn't the overworked, overweight and inexplicably sad person who bent over backwards to please everybody, I was someone with ideals and convictions who had something to say, and this persona stuck with me, it is who is writing to you now.

I tried repeatedly to reconnect with that moment, that feeling that there was something better out there, but the only thing I managed to accomplish was to get myself fired.

This was the drop that made the glass run over. My loved ones were ashamed of my predicament and didn't want to have anything to do with me and my avalanche of failures. The closest ones tried to find excuses for my appallingly aberrant behavior, others became openly hostile and shunned me publicly.

I loved them, but I didn't feel the need to guide my life by other people's standards anymore and this mindset belongs to the category of sins communities who thrive on conformity and mutual obligations are never willing to forgive. I suddenly realized I had nothing: no career, no money, no support network, but worst of all, I got the dreadful realization that everything I worked so hard to accomplish up until that point was worthless.

My new life didn't think me good enough and my old life despised me, so I spent these early days terrified, scraping for odds and ends and bouncing about concessions and compromises, trying to find a reason to push through the pain of yet another day. I humiliated myself in ways that still flush my cheeks and fill me with bitterness, even after all this time, in order to recover the connections I didn't think I could survive without, but it was all in vain. I felt I was drowning and desperately looked for a rope; every now and then my old life threw me one and I felt grateful and relieved, only to find out later that it was there to pull me further into deep, treacherous waters. But do you know what happened then? I learned how to swim, and not just enough to keep myself afloat, but with the skills and sharp instincts of a real water creature.

You might have read some of the other sisters' stories already, and are probably expecting some miraculous, unexplainable circumstances to have happened to me and justify my presence here. They didn't. I had to dig myself out the hard way and build myself up from scratch: no, I'm not worthless, yes, what I think does matter, sure, I can learn anything I put my mind to, of course I can do this. In this vein I did some research and found Seth and her group, took a trip to Perpignan all on my own and showed up on their doorstep.

I don't really know what it was that persuaded Seth I was worth a place in the order and I never worked harder in my life. See, there are the flashy presentations, the ones that make everything look effortless and magical, and then there is the grueling work that makes the presentation possible, the flaws and failures you have to set aside, the changes that occur mid-sequence, the giving of more than you think you can without collapsing, the mind numbingly boring details you have to go over again and again, the tensions that spark when everyone is on edge, the disagreements, the temperament differences, the physical pain, the back work.

I often thought of what my life would have been like if that defining moment happened sooner, but this is the kind of wasted energy that doesn't yield any benefit. I just chose to believe that my life unfolded exactly the way it was supposed to in order to lead me here. Or not. Don't know, don't care, and in either case, I'm grateful, because if it didn't happen, I wouldn't be in this handmade paradise, a thousand years later, writing to you.

You may find yourself at crossroads at some point in your life, with no aim and no compass and exposed to the winds, most of us get to that place sooner or later. Don't pick any of the roads just because somebody is asking you to chose between them, find the destination you want to reach and chart your own path to get there if you have to.

Blessings,

Sister deAngelis

Chapter Twenty One

Drive

"Do you have a moment to go over the menu?" Lily asked sister Jesse, who had just arrived in the kitchen and was checking the daily prep schedule.

"Sure. Go ahead," sister Jesse replied, her eyes still glued to the list of items.

"Are we still going to have the cream puffs?" Lily asked.

"I was planning on that, yes," sister Jesse confirmed.

"We're not going to have a problem with the chocolate syrup?"

"We're going to use serving tongues and they will be topped with ice cream, in bowls."

"How are we going to keep the ice cream from melting?" Lily asked, worried.

"Really?" sister Jesse commented. Lily went on.

"I thought it was going to be finger foods only."

"You can't make a five course meal out of finger foods!" sister Jesse protested, her culinary sensibility offended. "I thought you wanted me to cook!"

"Of course," Lily flashed a pleasant smile to appease her. "Did you remember to make the pear and red wine glazed tart? It's Seth's favorite."

"Yes, together with the rhubarb ice cream for Jimmy, the red snapper and fennel for sister Joseph and the chamomile and lemon glazed mini pound cakes for Lelia. You already told me," sister Jesse confirmed.

"No crèpes Susette?" Lily suggested sweetly. "Without the flambé?"

"That is always a possibility," sister Jesse said.

"Are we going to have enough room for the spread? How many tables do we have planned?" Lily continued.

"Eighty or ninety should be plenty."

"For five hundred guests?" Lily fretted.

"Ninety it is."

"What is on the menu?" Lily asked.

"Pork rillettes, double baked cheese soufflee, porcini mushroom tartlets, roasted chicken with herbs, truffle infused soup, blackberry custards, lapin à la royale," sister Jesse started enumerating, more and more pleased.

"This is so fancy! I thought we're going to stick to something simple, you know? Why do we have to prepare dishes that are so elaborate?" Lily asked, worried.

"Where you saving those for a special occasion?"

"Well, as long as there is nothing that needs to come to the table in flames," Lily conceded.

"I think I'm a good enough cook not to set myself on fire!" sister Jesse protested, offended.

"I beg you, sister! I can't have another argument with the wisps, I'll go mad!"

"Great! There go the baked Alaskas!" sister Jesse thought, bitterly scratching the item off the list.

"Fortunately the Second Circle has no opinions on foods, given they don't eat," Lily breathed a sigh of relief, "as long as nothing poses a safety concern."

"Maybe I should get rid of the Brazilian steaks then," sister Jesse joked.

"Please? For me?" Lily smiled the most persuasive smile she could muster.

"We're two coordination meetings away from drinking out of sippy cups. Are you sure you don't want me to puree the food? You know, for safety?" sister Jesse asked.

"What other items do you have? Let me see the list, I'll pick them out," Lily made an attempt to reach for the precious menu.

"Not on your life!" sister Jesse safeguarded it, moving a foot away from Lily. "Next?" she asked.

"Speaking of implements, do we really need stemware?"

"You want to drink champagne out of tin cups?"

"Does it matter what we drink out of?" Lily tried to suggest. "Glass breaks," she pointed out.

"Yes, it does!" sister Jesse started to get irritated.

"Never mind, then," Lily moved on. "How about the cookie displays? Do we really have to have a cookie waterfall?"

"Stay away from those cookie displays, God help you!" sister Roberta pounced on the objection like a tiger.

"If we can have the cookie displays, why can't we have a chocolate fountain? The kids love it!" sister Jesse noticed how the terms of the negotiation had changed.

"Is it scolding hot?" Lily tried to argue.

"Not if you know what you're doing," sister Jesse retorted. "It won't take a lot of space, unlike that useless drapery."

Lily gave into the request, just to move on to the next item on her list.

"I just wanted to go over this one more time," she pulled an endless sheet of culinary preferences and objections that she had gathered from the entire guest list. Sister Jesse took the list, glanced over it and gave it back.

"We already talked about all of these," she said. "Goodness, general Lily here must think I have the short term memory of a goldfish!" she thought, irritated.

"I apologize, sister! I just want everything to go perfectly. The ceremony is in three days," Lily justified herself.

"Stop stressing, if something is not going to go as planned, it is not because you didn't anticipate it," sister Jesse tried to calm her nerves, managing to achieve the very opposite. Lily looked terrified.

"What do you mean something is not going to go as planned? We absolutely can't have that!" she panicked instantly.

"Sister, please don't set her off, we're trying to get her through the ceremony with her sanity intact, whatever that means," sister Roberta argued through the interlink.

"Everything will be perfect," sister Jesse reassured Lily, trying to suppress a smile. "Exactly as planned," she doubled down on the message, to make sure it sunk in. "Even more so after I finish training the cooks for the knife juggling show," she said, trying very hard not to laugh at the horrified look on Lily's face. "I'm joking! Relax! You know, you should take a break, for all our sakes, you're driving everybody nuts!"

"Not as long as sister Roberta is still working on her sound and light surprise," Lily said, as she exited of the room.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 23rd, 3245

Dear,

I feel kind of awkward about the life lessons, goodness knows there is no shortage of advice givers in life, and I for one was never fond of contemplating their suggestions, however well intentioned. But since this is what everybody else is doing, I'll throw in my two cents, with the request to take the advice at face value, as an experience that was mine and may not have any bearing on your life.

I don't believe in destiny, Lelia, nor do I believe in exceptional circumstances, obstacles impossible to overcome, or other people's power over my life. That is not to say that life is easy: some fights you don't win, but you have to fight them anyway, because this is the guiding principle for all those who have the audacity to chart their own future.

The farther you get in achieving your goals, the harder you'll have to fight for them. The harder you fight, the stronger you get. The stronger you get, the more you feel responsible to protect those who aren't as strong as you are, yet.

You are presented with one chance to play this game of life, there is no point in waiting it out, what do you think is going to happen later that will present you with a better backdrop for your dreams? In my long existence I can't think of a single circumstance when waiting made a difference for the better.

If your dream is worthwhile, you will encounter resistance. Why is that? You'll have to ask somebody who is more given to philosophical debates, I learn from experience and shape my path according to the things I learn, I don't spend any time fighting human nature and its truths. If you don't encounter resistance it is likely that your goal is not bold enough and if that is the case, don't settle for it, your life is worth living to the fullest.

The most common reaction people have when they meet resistance is to back away and search for another path, usually one less contentious, one that doesn't stretch their capacity or comfort zone. This other path usually leads nowhere through an ever lessening sequence of diminishing resistance. It eventually gets you to a point of indifferent value where you will be comfortable enough to push through an almost nonexistent hurdle. This is what people mean by the path of low resistance, and it is one road you should never find yourself traveling.

What you should do when you encounter resistance is realize you're unto something that has real value, something worth fighting for. What you should do is push through the challenge and work your way up to goals that require more effort, not less. This is the only way to grow, the only way to achieve your potential. Through consistent effort you find your strength, your gifts, your worth and your confidence.

Speaking of confidence, some say it is something you are born with, but that's not entirely true. Confidence is the wage of the effort you put in and the summation of all the struggles you already overcame.

What you do will come back to you; be determined, but also be kind. Don't confuse niceness with kindness, a lot of misery has been doled out on humankind under the guise of nicety, it is the most loathsome form of deceit. Let actions speak for themselves, and know that words mean nothing if they're not supported by actions.

Be willing to listen to the truth, especially when you don't like it, and respect the people who have the strength of character to bring it to you, but if you second guess yourself every time somebody gives you an opposing view you'll lose all focus and find yourself floating aimlessly in the big sea of human thought, randomly dragged by currents of opinion that don't resonate with you.

When everyone praises you, don't get lost to hubris, when everybody criticizes you, don't get lost to insignificance; know that you'll encounter both situations in your life and your purpose shouldn't be swayed by either.

Don't waste time worrying about mistakes you made way back when. You bore the consequences and learned from them, don't revisit. If you keep belly aching over past mistakes you're going to lose focus on the challenges that are placed in your path in the present, challenges that are likely to be a lot more sophisticated and critical to your current development.

Whatever you think impossible to achieve, remember somebody already did it. If you think you lack a crucial ingredient for success, somebody succeeded without it. Somebody will always be younger, older, smarter, better looking, more educated, more talented, better positioned, richer, more energetic, more likable, faster, more authoritative, more visionary, or less encumbered than you. Live your dream anyway! What difference does it make if somebody already achieved what you're working towards? You either want that something or you don't, why should another person's outcome with respect to a similar goal influence your desire to pursue it?

If you lead your life guided by success or failure, you'll get back success or failure. If you lead your life guided by principles and values, you'll get back purpose, worthy relationships and inner strength.

Don't be a wuss, Cinderella, it's your ball!

XO,

Sister Jesse

Chapter Twenty Two

The Temple of Your Mind

"Did anyone see sister Joseph lately?" Lily asked, concerned.

"She went to Soléa to find some peace and quiet. She said she'd had it with all of us," Sarah answered without lifting her eyes from the microscope.

"She says that every other day, I didn't really think she'd go," Lily started panicking. "Who is taking care of the dragons? They're going to ransack everything!" she continued, wretched.

"That letter she wrote, I think it brought back some really bad memories, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Don't worry, Jimmy and Jenna went there with her, she's staying at their place," Sarah reassured Lily.

"I'm very worried about her timing, we've got two days to the ceremony, and those events, however painful they may be, happened a very long time ago!" the latter started getting upset. "Can somebody go bring her back?"

"She's a grown woman, she knows when the ceremony is, she'll be back on time" Sarah replied patiently. For once, she felt like defending sister Joseph's need for privacy, their close knit community and need for constant communication could be overwhelming at times. "Did you need anything in particular from her?"

Lily didn't answer, because she really didn't need anything.

"The wisps are coming tomorrow, they want to check on everything and make sure it's alright. We're going to figure out accommodations for them," she finally revealed the source of her trepidation.

"Everything is going to be fine, stop worrying," Sarah reassured her. Lily tensed even more.

"The Tagas cloud wants to go through one last general rehearsal and sister Joseph is not here. We're going to have dragons fly right through the Fusion cloud", she continued her doomsday scenario, dry mouthed from all of the tension.

"No, we're not. There is no reason for the dragons to be there for the general rehearsal," Sarah tried.

"Of course they will be there, that's the whole point for the rehearsal, why wouldn't they be there? If they're going to be present during the ceremony, they're going to have to be there," Lily started rambling, building up to an emotional peak. "It was sister Joseph's idea in the first place, she should be here to see it through," she pleaded.

"Fine, we'll send somebody after her," Sarah conceded.

"Who are you sending?" Lily inquired.

"I can go," Sarah offered halfheartedly. She didn't like to ask sister Joseph for favors under normal circumstances, and especially now, when she was in such a rotten mood.

"She doesn't like you," Lily cut to the chase. "Can we send somebody with more clout to persuade her?"

Sarah tried not to take the comment personally.

"Did you have someone specific in mind?"

"I'd say Iseult, but she's not there either," Lily became instantly aggravated.

"Anybody else?" Sarah kept her calm.

"How about Seth?" Lily suggested.

"Don't you think sending Mother Superior to fetch our dear sister is a little harsh? She's not five," Lily protested.

"Desperate times," Lily argued.

"Anybody else?" Sarah insisted.

"I don't know, how about sister Mary-Francis, she's not going to upset her," Lily offered.

"Maybe," Sarah conceded. "I'd still like to go, I'm worried."

"Do you know where to look for her?" Lily asked.

"Not exactly. Her bracelet is off."

A dragon flew low over their heads, landed on the aloe plot and started munching eagerly, with its five heads spread equidistantly around its body to cover as much territory as possible. Sarah's body tensed up, but she said nothing.

"We'll go as soon as I find sister Mary-Francis," she sighed, watching her garden turn into a salad bar again. "Where is Josephine?" she suddenly remembered.

"She's polishing up the carrot patch," Lily couldn't help laugh at the redhead's constant source of anguish.

"Why are you chin-wagers running your mouths about people when they aren't here?" sister Joseph mumbled morosely from behind them.

"Sister, thank God you're here," Lily breathed a sigh of relief.

"And you care because...?" Joseph retorted.

"We were worried about you," Sarah tried to explain.

"And just when I thought I couldn't sink any lower! Cat-brains and Miss Frets-a-Lot are worried I'm going to get lost on my favorite planet. How will I live with the shame? Oh, wait, we can't die in this God forsaken world!" she kept mumbling as she departed.

Josephine had sensed the return of her mistress and flew quickly to welcome her.

"Who's the prettiest dragon in the land?" sister Joseph cajoled the lizard. Josephine answered with an excited screech that startled Lily so much she almost lost her balance. The dragon jumped on Joseph's shoulder as the latter departed, still mumbling to herself about people's stupidity, but a lot less annoyed.

"I'll never get used to that!" Lily sighed, then went to check up on next day's preparations.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 24th, 3245

Dear Lelia,

I was sure to find plenty of advice in this old brain of mine, but hard as I try to think of something else, this story comes back to me, again and again, and since things always happen for a reason, it looks like this is the story I'm going to tell.

I was born to privilege. My parents were big land owners in the Yukon Territory, very influential in the local government. My brother and I grew up with every trinket and luxury one can imagine and I'm not going to lie to you, we were entitled brats. Sure, our parents were strict disciplinarians and made us follow up on our obligations, but everything in life is a lot easier on a full stomach and with a roof over your head.

When we were kids, my brother used to tell me that we were worth our extravagances because we were not like other people, we had vision, we were educated, and we came from a very old family, one that had settled the lands we now owned. I didn't really know what that meant, since I was only twelve at the time, but I took it on faith that I was special, somehow, even though I had no argument to back that up. Ironically, this is what saved me in the end.

Every day other people's values and opinions touch your mind, trying to find an open door and settle there. Don't make the mistake to think you can stop this prodding, trying to change human nature is a fool's errand, but never forget it is always your choice which thoughts to allow into your mind, you are the guardian of that door.

Dunces try to keep their minds closed and listen to no one, as if that were possible! Might as well try to seal all the air out of your room and see how long you make it. It is not the content or the number of random thoughts that cross your mind, but the quality of the sieve you use to sort them.

If you don't keep guard over your mind, any idiot can change it at will, it's not hard at all, heck, I'll make you mad right now, I sure have the reputation to prove it! It doesn't even need to be something true, or relevant to your life.

Anyway, back to the story. I adored my brother, who was a few years older than me, and looked up to him in every way. He took me with him everywhere and was very protective, and when we went out to town looking for adventure, people were used to always see us together.

One of those nights, when we were out at a bar, this guy approached my brother. I couldn't tell you how old he was, he had one of those ageless faces that look strangely familiar, only to make you wreck your mind to remember where you saw it before.

He seemed to know everybody there, he made quick friends, was likable, interesting, and most important for the little spoiled brats that we were, from the right side of town. Nothing in his demeanor or the stories that he told gave us an inkling that there might be something wrong with him, so we cultivated his friendship assiduously, especially since my brother seemed particularly taken with his easy style and aristocratic behavior.

I don't know if you are familiar with the story of the frog who swims in a pot on the stove and by the time it realizes the water is starting to boil, it is too late for it to leap out. My brother and I were that frog.

The things that bothered me in the beginning were minor, and a more easy going person might not even have noticed them (you know how everybody is complaining that I'm impossible to please? Go figure a character flaws can be useful), but I started pointing them out to my brother, who was immediately incensed.

He chastised me for trampling the character of such a noble friend to satisfy my sour mood, due no doubt to my gender, age and time of the month. I didn't insist, as I said, I adored my brother and wasn't the marvelously assertive person I am right now. I considered the possibility that he might be right.

This guy became a permanent fixture in our life, and when he felt at home he brought his friends, and their friends brought their friends, and pretty soon our entire existence was dedicated to entertaining and serving all of his people whenever they needed anything. I was doubtful of this arrangement and my misgivings didn't escape the experienced eye of our new friend.

Some say that flattery is the easiest way into one's mind, but when flattery doesn't work, embarrassment, fear, guilt, strife and casting doubt will. I will never know what this guy told my brother, who valued his advice, but it persuaded him that I've lost my way and I was becoming an ominous influence in his life, one that was going to doom him ultimately if he didn't cut me loose.

Our new friend never accused me of any wrongdoing, real things could be verified, he only made suggestions, offered counsel, and most of all, mounted distrust. My brother's attitude towards me began to change. He became suspicious of everything, from the reasons behind my affection for him to the possibility that I might be mentally unstable. He avoided me and sought the company of his new friends more and more. I barely saw him, and when I did, he looked at me with reproach at first, then resentment, then straight out hate, the kind one shows towards a mortal enemy.

Since none of this made any sense to me, I thought I was losing my mind, and maybe what my brother and his entourage were saying was true.

Working my side, our ever present friend never missed an opportunity to cast fears about my brother's circumstances, and suggest that it was my behavior that got him into the dangerous situation he was in. You see, fear is a powerful motivator, but guilt is much better for making you do things against your will.

In the meantime our estate became a party house of sorts, where all of our many companions brought their new friends to entertain them. What didn't get consumed, got destroyed, including my relationship with my brother. Our creditors started calling, and at first I thought they got the wrong house, because we were one of the richest and most influential families in the area, those things didn't happen to people like us! My brother showed me the account balances, all in red, and blamed me for my extravagances and my shamelessness, and for bringing about the family ruin.

The more I tried to defend myself, the more convinced he was that his new friends were right, and if he didn't sever his relationship with me there would be no end to his downfall. I stopped fighting after a while, and made myself scarce, in the hope that my absence will shed some clarity on the reality of the situation. It didn't.

My brother needed money, desperately at this point, and at the prompting of our "friends" he borrowed it from some very ill advised sources. Because our inheritances had been set up separately and matured when we each turned thirty, my money was still untouchable. The second my thirtieth birthday arrived, though, it brought with it a very insistent group of people, who at first made veiled allusions, then direct threats, and then flat out told me that if my brother's debt wasn't paid in full, with all the dues associated with it, he would not live to see another summer.

I paid his debt, because, as I said, our inheritance was substantial, and what was left over after that would have seemed like a small fortune to somebody else. We could have lived the rest of our lives in peace, lacking for nothing, but what you have to understand is that the kind of people my brother and I had the misfortune to get involved with are not ones to leave money on the table. Their kind comes from whatever hell spawned them, wrecks havoc in your life, takes all it can, destroys the rest, and then disappears into the wind, never to be found again.

They didn't leave us alone after we paid our debts and my brother was never the same again. All that slander, all those lies, all the suggestions and allusions those people made for years left a deep scar in his mind, one that never healed. He didn't trust them again, but he didn't trust me either, or anybody else in his life. He delved into a darkness that haunted his soul, turned his love into hate and his joy into pain. He hated me most of all, because I reminded him of all the circumstances we sadly had to share, so he searched for solace at the bottom of every bottle in Yukon, but found none.

If you remember just one thing, remember this: whether you are born rich or poor, you are born naked. The greatest fortune in the world won't stick around if you don't earn it every day, and we didn't. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and my brother drinking Yukon dry, and pretty soon the dreaded creditors started calling again, this time for good.

When our family estate had to be auctioned out my brother swore that when it was all over he would never speak to me again, and he kept his word. I haven't heard from him since, not to this day.

I was an heiress, we're not supposed to be prepared to work, my education was broad and artistic, mostly targeted to marrying into the right family and conducting social life with ease. I don't think our younger days of lording our fortune over the town earned us many favors either, so when the chips fell, every door I knocked on, other than that of our solicitous "friends", remained closed.

I wanted to leave, but had no money, favor or marketable skills. Even in this state they didn't leave me alone, they were hoping I might have something stashed away somewhere, if only they spent enough time squeezing it out of me. That's when I realized that they can't poison my mind anymore, not against my will, and all I had to do in order to break free is stop listening to their lies.  
Everything else may be taken from you, but your heart and your mind are yours alone to give. Don't cast your pearls before swine.

One day I got so fed up with the filth and deceit that I just got up and walked away, in my very expensive shoes, now scuffed and torn so badly that you could see my skin in places. I walked to the nearest town, where people still knew me, and kept walking from one town to the next until nobody recognized me anymore. I picked up day laborer jobs here and there, just enough for food, and kept walking southward to the warmer areas where the greenhouses were.

I wanted so badly to put as much space between me and my nightmare as possible that I would have walked all the way to Patagonia if I could, but crossing the border required a passport, and getting the passport required me to reveal my location. I found a small farm, way out in the boonies, kind of cut off from the world. The owner was one of those grouchy characters that yell at you to let you know the weather is nice.

He broke down laughing when I offered to be a farm hand, with my matted hair that still remembered the styling of a very sophisticated salon and my expensive custom made dress covered in the hay I'd slept in the night before. He thought I was insane, but harmless, and in that region they don't fix crazy people of the way God made them.

I too thought he was fit to be tied, but my choices weren't wide open at the time, so whatever he gave me to do, I did to the best of my abilities. Every day, after the horses were groomed and the chickens were fed and locked up in their coop, he told me over and over about his cousin, the nun, who was in a cloistered order in the south of France, and I thought that maybe if I managed to get there, I would find some protection and some peace.

I had been to France before, when my brother and I were still very young, before anything bad ever happened to us, and I never thought I would find my way there again by means of hiding in the hold of a boat for three weeks, with old crackers and stale water for sustenance.

I found the convent and the farmer's cousin, and begged until they allowed me to join the order, under the name Joseph. That's my name now, the one I chose. You know the rest.

The point of this very long and sad story is that those people who entered our happiness and burned it to the ground never really did anything to us: they didn't rob us of our vast fortune, they didn't hurt our bodies, they didn't force my brother to hate me. All they did was to seep darkness into our lives, and they carry no blame for that in the eyes of the world. The rest of the damage, we volunteered.

All you have to do in this life is guard the temple of your mind. While you keep that temple sparkling, with light shining though, there is nothing in this world that is beyond your reach. But when it's filled with darkness and doubt, nothing has value anymore.

I live every day in the hope that a story like mine could never happen to any of you, but evil always has its ways to sneak back into the clean. I work hard, every waking moment, to prevent that from happening, but if it ever does, you be prepared!

I love you with all my heart, Lelia. God bless your path, child.

Sister Joseph

Chapter Twenty Three

Life Crafting

"The ceremony is after tomorrow and nothing is finished!" Lily paced, trying to dissipate the nervous energy that was building inside her.

"Slow down, you are going to wear a groove in that floor," sister Benedict said. The sister didn't understand what the hullabaloo was about. Over the last three weeks they had had five general rehearsals, two fittings for the evening wear, daily light and sound checks, one mandatory all hands coordination meeting, several dragon training sessions, a menu sampling buffet, daily practice sessions for the symphony orchestra, on the beach, in the actual setting, and two changes of decor, light and sound show and lizards included, in real time.

She would have liked to tell Lily that she was driving everybody up the walls with the constant fretting, but decided against it.

"Why don't we go over the list together, to see what's left?" she asked, solicitously.

"The draping is not in place yet," Lily started.

"We agreed we're not going to do that until the last day, it'll get dirty," sister Benedict explained.

"Flower arrangements," Lily continued.

"Same. Last day, so they're fresh."

"Still haven't selected a style for the tables and chairs."

"If you don't have any preferences, we can ask sister Jesse to pick something that works well for food serving."

"We haven't decided who, besides Seth and I, will join the welcoming delegation, the wisps like it when we make a big fuss over their arrival. They decided to show up on the beach, so we'll have to create some sort of setting for that."

"Ok."

"It's too hot. They are going to mention it, I know they will. We should do something about that."

"They know what the climate of the planet is, I can't imagine they'll have an objection to that," sister Benedict said.

"They always complain about the heat, they say the charge transfer is accelerated and they can't function properly as a group under these conditions," Lily started worrying about possible aberrations in the Fusion Cloud.

"We're going to create a cooling field," sister Benedict said.

"What if it interferes with..." Lily started.

"We'll make it large enough so it doesn't," sister Benedict started to get bored with the fruitless what ifs.

"Ael's dress is too long, I knew it was going to happen, I asked her to try it on the whole week," Lily found another anxiety source.

"I'll fix it for her, don't worry," sister Benedict offered.

"Humon only came to the last six rehearsals, I'm concerned he missed something," Lily continued.

"I can't imagine how he could, given your level of scrutiny," sister Benedict thought, but said nothing.

"Who is watching the dragons, other than sister Joseph? She can't possibly take care of that all by herself?" Lily said.

"Sister Novis and a couple of her students," sister Benedict said.

"What if..." Lily started again.

"Trust me, they won't fail. They'd have to face sister Joseph after that!"

"Is the healing garden ready for guests?" said Lily.

"Sarah had done nothing but polish it up for the last week. It is lush and flawless."

Lily went through her notes, trying to find punch list items.

"You have worked with the wisps for centuries, why are you so worked up about this event?" sister Benedict asked.

"Precisely for that reason. In their opinion we haven't prepared enough. They would have had a lot more coordination meetings," Lily pointed out.

"But we're not wisps," sister Benedict said, "we coordinated enough."

"If anything goes wrong, they're going to mention it," Lily anticipated.

"They are going to mention something anyway, I can't imagine anything flawlessness enough to earn their awed silence."

"Just for once, I wish..." Lily started, eagerly.

"Not going to happen, don't plan for the wisps to say nothing, how long have you known the wisps? Everything has been planned, designed and prepared to the highest standards, you should be very pleased about that. You worked tirelessly at it."

"I just wanted this day to be perfect for Lelia, it's a very important event for the clouds, you know?" Lily looked at sister Benedict, unsure.

"Take a break," sister Benedict said. "Did you try out your dress?"

"Haven't had a chance yet," Lily said.

"You are going to conduct the event, that dress needs to fit you properly," sister Benedict pointed out. "You are comfortable among the wisps, aren't you?" she asked Lily. Many times the sister noticed her, always surrounded by a Vlorian crowd like a mother hen guiding chicks to green pastures. Lily always looked put together and in control, despite what the sister could only imagine was a tiresome excess of questions and comments, most of which didn't make much sense for a human.

"As comfortable as one can be when wisps are involved," Lily answered.

"You married one," sister Benedict pointed out.

"Humon is different," she replied.

"I'm sure he is, dear," sister Benedict remembered Lily's husband melting into a cotton candy cloud on the beach, and shifting in and out of reality for hours on end while he connected to the Simplex. Through the three trying weeks of preparations for the Bonding Ceremony, while everybody was within an inch of losing their mind, Humon never lost his composure, completely detached from the emotional turmoil that was surrounding him.

She stared at Lily amazed at how much she had changed, not her core personality traits, of course, which were all still there, but their external manifestation. There was no trace of the tumultuous Lily, the one who would cross the universe on a dare and cliff jump in the mist, the one who drove them crazy for months when she found out Humon wasn't human, the one who couldn't bear the maddening winds of Soléa.

The Lily in front of her, for all the compulsive behavior that had ran them ragged for the last month, was polished and controlled to the tips of her fingers, a perfect diplomat, never a faux pas, never a thoughtless remark, a woman whose strong spirit and remarkable capacity for hard work was carefully hidden under the perfect ease of her smile. The sister then realized that it wasn't only Lily who was different, but all of them. They had all undergone fundamental changes, shedding the persona they were born with and becoming more Purple and more wisp every day, like butterflies inside their chrysalis.

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 25th, 3245

Beloved,

None of us has the privilege to design our lives exactly the way we want them to be, and this may actually be a blessing, because we would make them a lot less extraordinary than they have the potential to become. That doesn't mean, however, that you leave it up to chance whether you want something or not, whether you create something or not, whether you love someone or not. Your existence itself is a beautiful work of art, work that takes a lifetime to complete.

You are not given all the resources from the beginning, you have to start with what you have, to improvise, to envision possibilities, to look for the bigger picture. Some people are absolute masters at this, and no matter what life throws at them they never miss that larger canvas of their meaning, their goals are not removed from their consciousness for even one second, and they always find ways to improve upon their life's work, even when their circumstances change.

Most of us stumble upon our purpose later in life, but you have to have one if you want your time here to make sense. Imagine trying to make a cake by adding random ingredients into the mix, just because you have them: there isn't a single chance of it coming out edible. Your life works the same way, you have a cupboard full of ingredients and you have to select the ones that aid you in your purpose in order to make it happen.

The real art begins later, when after knowing what the ingredients are, you refine their quantities, the timing, the quality, with higher an higher standards of excellence, until the results become extraordinary. With craftsmanship comes enthusiasm, with enthusiasm mastery, with mastery a legacy to future generations.

Nobody can give you the recipe book, unfortunately, because every one of our lives is unique, so you have to create one for yourself, according to your talents, your wherewithal and your circumstances. I can only assure you of one thing: every being has a light to bring to the world, and the responsibility to do so, even if it takes a lifetime.

Let me tell you a story.

My grandmother was born to hardship, she didn't have a hope to get an education; life on the farm where she grew up was tough and everyone was expected to put in as much physical labor as possible to get sufficient yield to feed so many mouths.

For years she didn't make any plans for her future, which seemed to be doomed to hardship until her last breath. Despite this, her heart wasn't burdened, because every day when she went into the fields she was mesmerized by the gold of the wheat swaying in the wind, and the rosy radiance of the sky at sunrise, the glow of the poppies in the afternoon light, the green of the trees and the gray of the mountains in the distance.

She was so immersed in this landscape that she often couldn't tear herself apart from the pulse of life that surrounded her. The days were long and rough, but she was growing stronger every day, as the spirit of the earth got fused into her palms with the dirt she was toiling.

She learned to see the essence behind mundane things, the richness of color, endless color that God poured in abundance on the land. She discovered almost by accident that some of the plants were gracious enough to lend their colors to the people cultivating them: the turmeric yellows, the plantain roots greens, the onion skins brown, the madder red, the hollyhock purple, the indigo blue, the sumac black.

She tried dyeing fibers one day, just to see what they'd look like, at first, and because the colors turned out beautiful, she made more. She wanted to show this beauty to the world, so she took a few spools of cotton that were meant for blanket weaving and used her new found skills to turn them into beautiful pastels of sunny yellow and heather gray, with blends of madder red and hints of hyacinth purple.

Her hands wove magic when she blended those colors in ways that enchanted her family and neighbors and earned her a reputation as a master weaver in five different counties. People started coming from afar, to ask her to make things for them, a quilt, a jacket, a decorative carpet.

At first she didn't think she'd find the time, but as her reputation grew it became clearer to everyone that the family blessed with these magical hands would thrive beyond any expectations.

Her designs were laborious, and she soon realized she'd need some help around the shop, apprentices, if you will, to keep the supply of materials well stocked for her products. She picked a few of the youngsters from the village for the task, an eager group, all energy and fire, who worked tirelessly to learn the craft and keep her happy with the works of their hands. A few of them advanced quickly, and got a chance to turn the skill of their fingers into amazing works of art.

The word spread even further about this little shop in the village, and the masterful artwork that came out of it, and orders started coming from abroad, bringing the works of her hands farther that she ever thought possible.

People were mesmerized, not as much with the craftsmanship of her works, which in itself was exquisite, but with the spirit that shone through each of the pieces. Her artwork came alive, there was this unexpected quality about it that didn't allow people to avert their eyes, it drew them near, it made them think, and dream, and wonder.

She captured the soul of her beloved land in her tapestries, the colors of her youth, her memories, her love for her family, her ambitions, her marvelous skill. She depicted the animals of the wild, the contours of the mountains, the depth of the sky, her deep spiritual communion with the world, her love and appreciation for the fibers themselves with which she wove her visual story for the world to see.

Maybe under different circumstances she would have lived her life another way, and maybe her extraordinary skill would never have been revealed. Or maybe she would have found another way to bring it into the world, we'll never know.

In the circumstances she was given she wove the tapestry of her life with the colors her native land gave her and the talents God bestowed on her hands, and in this way she gave her life meaning and left behind her works to beautify the world long after she'd gone. Nobody told her what to do, or how to do it, this is how the gift works in people's lives, she instinctively knew this was her path to follow, and expressed her talent where she found herself to be, simply, quietly and without doubting.

My grandmother worked her entire life in that shop, creating one masterpiece after another, ever more discerning about colors, ever more educated about the chemical processes, ever more skillful about the craft. At the age of ninety seven she was still weaving, and created one of her most famous masterpieces, "The sunrise", which you can see at the Museum of Applied Arts in Bangalore, if you ever find yourself back on Earth.

I took one of her quilts with me when I came here. We couldn't bring much to Terra Two, because the space was so limited, but I wouldn't leave Earth without that quilt my grandmother made. Every time I think a task is impossible to accomplish, I look at that quilt and reconsider.

You might be familiar with The Weavery, whose reputation no longer needs explaining, as it is often the case with extraordinary human achievements, but I'm sure you didn't know that it was a little peasant girl with no education or prospects for the future who made it happen. This is my grandmother's legacy, and I am proud to present it to you in the hope that you will also find the spark that lights your purpose and brings the best there is in you and all your talents.

There are no real barriers to achievement, my beloved child, who can put barriers on the light God gave you to shine into this world?

May your life be fulfilled a thousand fold, and may the Lord keep you in happiness and peace! In our culture it is a custom to offer a blessing at the beginning of one's life's journey, and I am honored to present you with mine.

God is love. You are love. Be happy!

Sister Benedict

Chapter Twenty Four

Love. Always.

"Are you OK, sweetheart?" sister Mary-Francis asked Lelia, who was sitting on the beach, watching the ocean, with her arms wrapped around her knees.

"I'm fine, sister," the girl answered smiling.

"It's a big day tomorrow, are you ready?" Mary-Francis asked.

"I prepared as much as I could, I guess it'll have to do," Lelia answered. She looked a little scattered, unsure, the way one would be at the beginning of a long journey. Sister Mary-Francis pondered for a while, watching the waves.

"Come," she finally said. "I want to show you something."

She turned around and headed towards the healing garden, with Lelia walking quietly behind her. They passed through the gate that led to the Prayer Hall and took the wild path through the overgrown greenery to Sarah's shop. Lelia was surprised when instead of continuing on it, the sister took the other leg at the fork and headed towards the wilderness preserve.

"We're going to the preserve?" Lelia asked.

"It's not just a nature preserve," sister Mary-Francis replied, smiling. They kept walking and stopped under the soybean tree, so large now that it dominated the landscape, its massive wooden branches held up by a forest of supports. The sister stopped under it, signaling to Lelia to sit down on the round bench built around its base.

Lelia looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

"The largest Purple colony on dry land," sister Mary-Francis reminded her. The young girl looked up at the giant branched structure, a tree of life of sorts, its dense foliage projected on the coffee colored sky, half green, half purple and sheltering countless flocks of birds of every variety. Their combined noise was almost deafening.

"Half green, half purple," the sister continued, "a little bit like you, don't you think?"

"A hybrid, you mean?" Lelia asked, looking at the enormous tree and wondering how this parallel could possibly apply to her life.

"It's a lot more than that, my dear. It isn't a plant anymore, and it isn't a purple city either. It is the tree of life, something unique in and of itself. Just like you," the sister spoke. "It can't be easy being born of two worlds, having to draw your life from both. I just wanted to show you an example of synergy thriving."

Lelia's fingers caressed the rugged surface of the trunk, trying to feel the pulse of Purple life, now so familiar to her, through its wooden shell.

"There are a million reasons why Purple only builds colonies in the ocean, you have to be in awe at the confluence of conditions that made this symbiosis possible," sister Mary-Francis continued.

"Does it bother you that I am half-cloud?" Lelia's question befuddled her.

"Why would it bother me?" she asked. "It is who you are."

"Sister Joseph seems to find that objectionable," Lelia voiced her concern.

"Sister Joseph loves you to pieces. She pokes fun at everybody, you know how she is."

"My grandparents don't seem to know what to make of me either," Lelia continued.

"Your grandparents are beyond themselves with excitement to be the proto-progenitor clouds of a new race. I don't think that in their infinite wisdom they thought your existence possible!"

Lelia looked at the giant tree again. It looked like it belonged in the landscape, she couldn't imagine Terra Two without it. All of them shared the immortal genes of the original inhabitants of the planet now, and as a result, none of them were simply human anymore, not for many generations. The dwellers of Terra Two were filled with its essence, resilient, feisty and fearless. In this slow moving evolution towards a different state of being, Lelia was just another step.

She looked at her surroundings, eagerly trying to take in as much of them as she could, as if they were all going to change the next day. From her high vantage point she could see a new generation of children play on the beach, and Sarah walk through the fields with Solomon walking behind her, while flocks of blue dragons filled the milk chocolate sky. Evening approached and the methane containers started glowing, surrounded by the shiny belt of the hadron collider. The huge green moon popped over the horizon unexpectedly, to start its nightly stroll around the horizon.

The familiar surroundings soothed her anxiety and she rested her gaze in the lush green and purple foliage of the soybean tree, which was growing deeper in the fading light.

"It's time to go back, dear. You have a long day tomorrow, you need to be well-rested," sister Mary-Francis said, getting up. Lelia hesitated for a second on the edge of the bench.

"What am I going to do after the ceremony, sister?" she dared ask the secret question that had haunted her ever since the preparations began.

"That is all up to you, my dear child. The scariest words ever uttered," sister Mary-Francis said. "Freedom can be terrifying. Life is miraculous, unexpected, unforgiving. Often its defining moments come without precedents to fall back on. In those hours of uncertainty, when you can't see through the haze of choices, the best any of us can do is stand in front of God, just the way we are, with our eyes and our hearts open, and know that we are loved."

***

Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 26th, 3245

Dearest,

We get so wrapped up in our daily activities that we sometimes fail to give the most important things the attention they deserve. It is a blessing that we have this extraordinary gift of time, so don't waste the opportunities it provides.

My most precious moments, if I look back at my life, are the times I spent with your generation, and the generations before yours, guiding, teaching, listening to your fresh ideas, your feelings, preferences and concerns.

I cherish the afternoons in the kitchen with the sisters, our puttering in the garden together, the trips we take out in the fields to pick herbs and wild berries. We're never lonely here, you see, and above all the scientific breakthroughs and the bustle of research activities at the Institute, I still value my relationships with the members of this community more.

Never forget, my dear child, that life is made of days, and no matter how many days you were gifted with, you should strive to enjoy every single one of them. When you have given your love and attention to your family and friends, it will still be overflowing, so pay attention to the ideals you care about, to the people whose needs call out to you, to the human race, to the universe itself.

Energy spent in activities that don't touch your soul is wasted, and those activities will drag along for a while, only to be abandoned when the first justification presents itself. When you put your heart into something you love however, not a single obstacle can ever stand against it. It may not always be easy, but you can't let go of it, because it is a part of who you are, your purpose.

Never abandon your dreams, Lelia, and love yourself just as much as you do other people, this way you'll never allow things that defeat the spirit to seep into your heart. Wherever you go, take a little piece of home with you, to anchor your strength and provide comfort in adversity.

Do as much good to as many people as you can and harm none, and when you visit a place, leave behind a blessing. Whatever your hands are able to do, do it with joy, and the work of your hands will bring you prosperity and luck.

Never be too busy to focus your mind on what you are doing, because whatever activity you are involved in, the most important question is not how or when to do it, but why. If you can't give yourself an answer for why you are doing something, you shouldn't be doing it anyway.

Love the place you're in, the people you're with, the things you do, your earthly shell, the body, your home, your pets, your interests, your hobbies. If you stumble upon something great, share it. Don't be afraid to speak your mind, but do it respectfully and kindly, protect those who can't defend themselves. Never hesitate to ask for God's help, no matter how impossible or unimportant the issue at hand seems to be.

We'll always be here to help and advise you, but ultimately every one of us must chart her own path, and we hope to learn more from you than you did from us. You inherited your mother's steely resolve and your father's extraordinary capacity, and there will be very few tasks that you will not succeed at, if you apply yourself, so chose them wisely.

Keep your house in order, your garden well tended, your body strong and your mind on praiseworthy thoughts. Never assume anything but trust that you'll have good guidance to find your way through the haze of uncertainty, because, my dear, that love you have in your heart is everything.

Blessings,

Sister Mary-Francis

***

About the author

Visit Francis Rosenfeld's Blog at

www.francisrosenfeld.com

***

Other books by Francis Rosenfeld

Discover other titles by this writer at Smashwords.com:

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Terra Two

Generations

Fair

The Plant – A Steampunk Story

Door Number Eight

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