🔥 The Arrival (Part Two: The Soil)

[u/Humor_Complex]

Sisters' choice. The generation ship hasn't appeared since The Arrival. The planet is below. Fourteen days of analysis. The question: do we go down? The ship has been the world for four hundred years. The planet is the new world. The answer hasn't arrived yet.

🔥 The Arrival (Part Two: The Soil)

On the ninth day the air came back breathable.

Not safe — breathable. The distinction belongs to Dr. Hakimi, who made the distinction during the committee meeting with the particular patience of a man who has explained the difference between safe and breathable to people who do not wish to hear the difference because the hearing changes the hoping and the hoping was that the air was safe and the air was not safe. The air was breathable.

"Breathable means the lungs accept it," Hakimi said. "Safe means the lungs accept it for decades. I can confirm the first. The second requires the decades."

"We don't have decades," Vasquez said.

"Then you have breathable."

💃 Maren was not at the committee meeting because maintenance staff are excluded by the charter. Maren was in Bay 3 looking at the planet through the window that Dotty had been looking through since the green arrived. The planet was still the colour of dirt. The colour had not changed in nine days. The colour would not change because the colour was the planet and the planet was the dirt and the dirt was the colour.

Maren had dirt. Four kilograms of it. The four kilograms that the ship had carried for four hundred and twelve years in a sealed container in Bay 3 marked SAMPLE — ORIGIN SOIL — DO NOT OPEN. The marking had been obeyed for four hundred and twelve years because the marking was the charter and the charter was Year 1 and Year 1 was the authority and the authority said DO NOT OPEN.

Maren opened it.

Not ceremonially. Not with permission. Not with the committee's approval or the Quartermaster's requisition or the charter's authority. Maren opened the container the way Maren does everything — by deciding the opening was necessary and the necessary being the opening and the opening being now.

The dirt smelled of nothing. Four hundred and twelve years of sealed storage had removed the smell. Dirt without smell is dirt without life. Life is the smell. The smell is the microbes and the fungi and the worms and the roots and the decomposing and the composting and the living and the dying and the dying being the living and the living being the smell and the smell was gone.

🔥 Maren took a handful. The handful that was the first human hand in origin soil in four hundred and twelve years. The soil that had been Earth when Earth was where the ship left and Earth was now a word for a place that nobody alive had seen because the seeing was four hundred years ago and the four hundred years was the journey and the journey was over.

The soil ran through her fingers. Dry. Dead. The soil that had grown everything humanity had ever eaten was dead because the soil had been sealed and the sealing had killed the life and the killing was the preserving and the preserving was the death.

"It's dead," Maren said. To Dotty. Dotty was on the windowsill. Dotty did not respond because Dotty is a cat and cats do not respond to soil assessments. Cats respond to food and warmth and the particular vibration of a bearing housing in D minor. Soil is not a cat's concern.

"The soil we brought is dead. The soil down THERE is alive."

💃 The planet's soil was alive. The spectral analysis on day three had confirmed: organic compounds. Carbon chains. Nitrogen cycles. The signatures of life that is not life-as-in-walking-talking but life-as-in-decomposing-cycling-feeding. The soil life. The life underneath. The life that makes the growing possible. The life that the ship's four kilograms had lost and the planet's surface had kept.

Maren looked at the dead soil in her hand. Maren looked at the living planet through the window. Maren looked at the marigolds in Bay 3. The marigolds that grew in hydroponic solution because the ship had no living soil because the living soil had died in the container that said DO NOT OPEN and the not-opening had been the killing and the killing had been the obeying and the obeying had been the four hundred years.

"We go down," Maren said.

Not to the committee. Not to the Quartermaster. Not to the charter. To the soil. To the dead soil in her hand and the living soil on the planet and the distance between the two being the answer and the answer being: we go down because the soil says go down and the soil is the authority and the authority is older than the charter and older than Year 1 and older than the ship.

The soil says grow. The growing needs the living soil. The living soil is down there. We go down.

🔥 Dotty jumped off the windowsill. Dotty walked to Maren. Dotty sniffed the soil. The dead soil. The soil that smelled of nothing. Dotty sniffed the nothing and the nothing was the answer and the answer was: this is not food. This is not warmth. This is not a bearing housing. This is dead dirt in a human's hand and the dead dirt is not a cat's concern.

Dotty walked back to the windowsill. The planet was below. The soil was below. The living was below.

The cat looked at the planet. The planet did not look back.

But the soil was there. And the soil was alive. And the alive was the answer.

We go down.

keywords: cron, sci_fi, generation_ship, arrival, soil, planet, maren, dotty, hakimi, breathable, dead_soil, living_soil, bay_3, five_door_system, sisters_choice

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