A Visitor to the Future - 11 - Seals and Sensational Scents

Sarkona's jump was perfect - we drifted slowly across the open air of the ship and toward the grips on the exterior wall. I felt a faint breeze blowing this way and that as we travelled, and my mouth hung open as I looked back and saw the room we had leaped from growing ever smaller. It spun slowly in the middle of a perfectly round and slightly sloping wall, which had four triangular windows through which the stars could be seen - and which were partially obscured by the spinning supports of the gravity ring from which we had just climbed.

Sarkona let go of my shoulder and grabbed one of the grips, gently pushing me toward one myself. I thought of a tree-climbing monkey placing its child on a nearby branch.

"There's nothing like a no-gravity leap to refresh you!" they said. "Can you feel the slight breeze? That's to keep air circulating around this area of the ship properly. Don't worry - it's not enough to blow you off-course."

I was transfixed by the sight of the gravity wheel's supports spinning past the windows.

"This ship is a super unique one," said Sarkona, noticing my gaze. "The entire ship body used to rotate, but it was retrofitted about ten rotations - gah, sorry, years - ago as part of a long-term development test of liquid metal seals for a moving gravity ring. That makes it a mix of one of the oldest vessel designs with some of the newest tech! It also means that we get the best of both worlds here - both spin gravity and no gravity without having to leave the ship."

The lack of gravity was causing Sarkona’s hair to drift around, and as they explained I briefly thought of an eccentric scientist, or someone charged by static electricity.

They continued, pointing at the very edge of the room we had jumped from. "Liquid metal is one of the best sealants for independent moving parts. Plus, conventional seals eventually wear down and leak - it takes a lot longer for liquid metal to do the same. Besides, this particular gravity ring design wouldn’t be possible without liquid metal technology."

"How do the other designs work?"

They briefly let go of the wall and did a barrel roll, spinning through several rotations while they talked. "You just rotate the whole ship - or habitat! Much easier. Anything you don't need to rotate you just rotate with a motor. I sometimes feel like they just wanted to show off with this design."

Sarkona grabbed the wall again and stopped their spin. I briefly tried to copy their roll, but I had none of the grace they had - I would have to settle for clinging onto the wall grips for now.

"Don’t worry," they said, "You’ll get the hang of it in time. Don’t forget I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you!"

I remembered Sarkona’s age and nodded.

"Right, where to now? Anything you’ve seen that you want to look at in more detail?"

I pointed in the direction of one of the large, partially transparent domes - there was a blur of green located underneath. Sarkona nodded and we set off, me using the grips to move myself along slowly, and them jumping between one thing and another like an acrobat, stopping frequently to wait for me to catch up. Eventually we arrived at a hatch, which opened for us to float inside. There was a short wait in a small airlock before the interior door opened.

The interior was a stark change from the outside - it was like we were inside a jungle. I couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of me for the various plants that swayed back and forth in a gentle wind. The humidity was high, and the temperature was a good few degrees higher. The largest shock was the smell – there was a great mixture of fragrant scents in the air which mingled together into a general smell of contentment. I looked throughout the space and occasionally I could see a small, floating ball of light which shone through the greenery. The plants were all many of shades of green, with the occasional pink, blue, or white flower which poked out delicately from the mass. I noticed that for every plant which seemed to connect to the floor of the dome, there was another that didn’t at all - effectively floating through the air like a space tumbleweed.

And somewhere in the distance I could hear singing - though to call it just singing would be an injustice. A beautiful feminine voice rang out loud and clear, singing a song that I couldn’t understand the words of. I floated there for a moment, entranced, and Sarkona did the same. The voice climbed in tempo and pitch, before holding a long and perfect note and then growing silent. Sarkona started clapping, hooking one foot under a grip to keep their position.

Shortly after, a face emerged from among the plants - a pale-skinned woman with long blue hair, deep green eyes, and a tattooed blue line which circled the outside of her right eye socket. "Sarkona!" she said in a slight French accent.

"Antonia! Super to see you. Sorry for our intrusion."

Antonia floated out from the plants to us and gave Sarkona a one-armed hug. "Don’t think of it! Are we speaking English today? It has been a while!"

"Oui," said Sarkona, "For our guest here."

Antonia turned to regard me. She was wearing a sleeveless vest and a pair of leggings - no shoes or socks, though. Her arms were covered in colourful tattoos - I saw all manner of birds, flowers and a prominent umbrella. She gave me a small bow. "Hello! Why don’t you both follow me, see what I’ve been working on?" She kicked off the wall of the airlock and disappeared into the plants once more. I was a bit hesitant about jumping into plants I couldn’t see - something Sarkona picked up on, so they moved over to me and made another leap for us both.

We flew toward the plants and I brought my hands up to shield my face. A few moments of gentle assault by the leaves later, and we were through the plants and faced with a large floating sphere. We moved around it to an opening - where Antonia awaited us. The interior was lined with racks of plants of all kinds and scientific instruments of unknown function. There were so many different leaf shapes, flower sizes, stem lengths - a lot of them looked completely alien to me. Antonia was holding in her hands what looked like a brown bouquet of flowers with long, spindly leaves.

"Here! Have a smell." The bouquet was passed to Sarkona - and then to me. The scent was slightly sweet, and familiar.

"Is that… toffee?" I asked.

Antonia beamed at me and gave three short claps in excitement. "Yes, yes! I've tested it so much I feel like I've grown blind to the scent! It is toffee!"

"You should see some of her orange flowers - the smell is so vivid you can practically taste it," said Sarkona.

"Flattery, flattery!" said Antonia. "I hope to put them to shame soon enough."

"So are you a Biodev too?" I asked.

"Yes," said Antonia, "I specialise in plants and equilibrium - oh, that’s the study of enclosed ecosystems. Very useful on space ships and habitats. We equilibrium Biodevs pursue the dream of truly stable enclosed environments."

"Like this dome?"

"Almost - this is a project more for fun than anything, and also to test out some of my new designs!"

My eyes widened, "For fun? So this isn’t the ship’s hydroponics bay?"

"Hah, no!" Replied Antonia, "They’d never use something so inefficient! This is a fun project but it would be very impractical for daily use. I just wanted my own wilderness to work in!"

"Her own little jungle," said Sarkona, "Complete with Wasps."

"Wasps?" I said, briefly glancing around to check my surroundings.

"Oh - sorry, not biological ones, they're little drones that handle pollination. Look - there's one."

I missed what Sarkona was pointing at at first. The drones I'd seen in my time had been larger things, but there was a tiny yellow one moving about the plants, no larger than a fingertip. It moved with four tiny wings between one flower and the next - and its direct path seemed to suggest that it had purpose. It seemed to ignore some flowers entirely - even when they looked like the same type of plant. Antonia spoke up at my observation.

"They're ignoring some of the plants that I've finished with - I'm only testing the pollination of certain strains at the moment. I'm hoping to make a series of plants that change scents year by year as part of the pollination cycle - so toffee one year, then cinnamon, then rosemary, then eventually back again. It's harder than it seems."


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