Dekel let out the chirds. The sun had barely risen over the horizon, but then again, it never did. Faintly, Dekel could remember what a full summer sun felt like. He remembered it felt warm on his face. As he watched the chirds pick at the ground around the nightbox, he realized he also missed chicken. The chirds sufficed, but they were always scrawny and tasted slightly acidic.
The life he and Tella had made out here on Ermo was sufficient. They had a small homesteader complete with large greenhouses. Tella had insisted on the deluxe greenhouse upgrade. She loved flowers. They had the flock of chirds. In his opinion, it was actually quite the accomplishment. In the race to the edges of the galaxy, no one had made it as far as he and Tella had. When their Homesteader Elite crashed on Ermo 27 years ago, they had expected other families to join them in the years ahead. No one had.
The first few years were the most difficult. The Homesteader series came standard with equipment needed to colonize world but, conceptually, the worlds were meant to be colonized with multiple ships in order to have redundancy. Without a contingent of ships, at minimum, a Homesteader counted on Mercia resupply ships passing by every few years. Dekel had not seen or heard from another living soul since the crash.
Tella often said they owed their survival to Dekel’s tinkering. Dekel said they owed their survival to Tella’s fortitude and patience. She had been the one to domesticate the chirds. Dekel just fixed things when they were broken. Things broke a lot, though. He had gotten good as what Tella called, “artistic engineering.” Truth be told, he did like the challenge of working up creative solutions. One time he had even fixed the Dithermometer using only a pen cap, some gelex and a smooth pebble.
Dekel finished filling the chirds’ trough and walked back to the Homesteader. Halfway back, Garl came running up the path. Barking madly, he scattered the chirds. “Garl, no! No, bad! Get over here,” yelled Dekel. “Stupid dog,” he muttered, as Garl came trotting up to him.
Of course, Garl wasn’t a real dog. The Homesteaders were built to either carry or replicate food and supplies of all types, but had neither carrying capacity nor hyperdrive equipment for livestock or pets. When the food replicator had crapped out 19 years ago, Dekel had scavenged it for parts. One evening while tinkering with the leftover pieces, he discovered that the visual acuity booster could replicate the look and feel of almost anything he could imagine. Its original function was to produce lifelike representations of plates of food before the order was prepared in order to limit resource waste. With so many off-world dishes available, the VA booster was able to replicate the temperature, smell, and even consistency of any dish prior to order.
Her dog, Garl, was the only thing Tella had ever complained about missing since arriving on Ermo. Dekel had gotten the real Garl for Tella during their first year of marriage. Making the VA booster project a lifelike virtual dog was the easy part. Since the VA booster was designed to mimic representations of foods, the difficult part was get the virtual dog to act like a real dog. A bowl of barzaks and jimo is pretty personality-less, after all. It had taken 5 months and the motherboard to a hydrotekkie to create Garl. He missed the tekkie dearly as it forced him to hand-water almost an acre, but it was worth it to see the delight on Tella’s face when Garl came running up to her.
The Homesteader’s computer galaxolopedia had filled-in the dog’s more general attributes and, by coaxing Tella to reminisce about the real Garl, Dekel was able to make the virtual Garl behave with startling accuracy. Early on, if Tella remarked that something about virtual Garl’s behavior seemed inconsistent with real Garl then all Dekel had to do was make a few tweaks to the programming. Over the many years virtual Garl had become almost indistinguishable from their beloved pet, right down to his habit of bringing in leaves and hiding them in the seetee.
As Dekel entered the Homesteader, Garl trotted past with a large lilac-colored leaf in his mouth. Dekel sighed heavily. “Tella, your dumb dog is destroying the local vegetation again.” Tella didn’t answer. He looked around the mainspace for her and noticed the fresh gardenias in a vase on the table. Tella loved flowers. The gardenias weren’t real either. They were another product of the VA booster. Their smell permeated the ship. He made a mental note to turn down the fragrance effect on the flower program later.
Tella entered the homesteader with an armful of pims.
“Where did you get those?” asked Dekel suspiciously.
“From the west grove,” replied Tella. Her chin jutted upwards in defiance.
“Lala, please, I told you not to go the west side of the site. It’s untamed.” said Dekel
“It’s fine, nothing happened. You worry too much.” Said Tella, placing the pims in a large bowl.
Dekel did worry. There were plenty of dangers on this planet. Large carnivorous reptilian animals frequently prowled down from the mountains to the west and there were smaller venomous lizards and insects that inhabited the brush, besides. He had cleared most of the area around the homesteader, but the west stood in the shade of the mountains and the vegetation had adapted more aggressively to insufficient amounts of sunlight that penetrated the mountain’s shadow. There were things out there that Tella shouldn’t see as well.
Dekel studied Tella as she arranged the pims. Time and hard labor on this planet had aged him greatly, but Tella remained as beautiful as ever. The grey streaks in her hair had only served to enhance her features.
“Please do not go out there again,” pleaded Dekel, “if you want pims, I will transplant a tree in the north valley.”
“You can’t just replant everything I discover on this planet in the north valley,” said Tella
“I can. If it keeps you safe,” said Dekel.
Tella rolled her eyes. She moved the pim bowl to the counter next to the small technaclock.
“Oh!” she exclaimed looking at the clock, “I almost forgot. Today’s our anniversary.”
Dekel looked into her excited eyes. “Yes.” He said simply. He knew full well that Tella had not forgotten.
“What do you have planned?” She grinned mischievously.
“You’ll see,” Dekel replied .
Dekel always made a big deal of their anniversary. He knew Tella loved celebrations and surprises, an attribute that had not dimmed with age or the unavoidable solitude of the planet. Dekel did his best to make such days special. Of course, he took special care to hide the fact this was the most difficult day of the year for him.
Today he was planning a picnic in the clearing. He had spent the past year experimenting with a cheese recipe using phytobacteria. He had perfected to a point where it almost tasted like real cheese, something akin to the consistency of a brie mixed with the flavor of a blue cheese. He had been squirreling away the best produce for the past week. He had also made fruit wine, which was somewhat of a tradition. In the evening, they would have roast chird under the soft glow of the halolights and then very likely slow dance to Tella’s favorite band, Maleek Oobstra Ek. While not on the scale of the extravagant parties of Tella’s past, it would be a pleasant change of the tedious monotony of off-world farm life.
“Speaking of arrangements, I must begin preparations, my love.” Dekel said winking.
“Perfect,” said Tella, “It will give me time to make a pim custard for desert this evening.”
Dekel smiled. Tella always made custards. He hated the consistency, but didn’t have the heart to tell her. He had choked them down for 30 years now and he wasn’t about to reveal the lie at this point.
“Looking forward to it, Lala,” Dekel lied, “I will see you in a bit.”
Dekel let the door to the homesteader whoosh close behind him. He walked to the greenhouse where he had hidden the supplies for the picnic. He gathered them together and placed them into a durapod. He then walked to the geodome. He lay the durapod down outside the door. He pushed the entry button. It scanned his finger and the door hissed open.
He was greeted by the steamy aroma of many different flowers. Orchids, delilahs, zearids, and chrysanthemums all exploded in an upheaval of color and scent around the geodome. He spent careful hours maintaining the flowers throughout the year. Tella loved flowers. Today he spent extra time wandering through the rows picking the best and biggest blooms. When he had collected an arm full, he exited the geodome and picked up the durapod.
He walked west.
After walking for 10 minutes he located the little trail into the untamed wilderness. He hitched the durapod higher on his shoulder and stepped into the shadowy vegetation. He walked until he came to the old, gnarled, vine-wrapped tree that obscured the opening to his small footpath. He stepped cautiously around the tree careful not to disturb the surrounding foliage and began picking his way slowly down the footpath.
It wasn’t long before the scraps of rusted metal came into view. The vegetation had grown over them, but they stood out conspicuously due to their inorganic shape and rough angles. He grunted and walked on. Rising from the undergrowth like a hulking, metal hillock, the shell of the old ship came into view. The trench leading to it had mostly filled in over the years through rain and washout, but was still discernible as a mottled green indentation in the forest floor. Dekel walked up to the shell. He maneuvered the flowers to the other arm and ran his fingers along the cold, smooth metal. Remains that had once been inner pieces had begun to rust, but the outer ship, untouched by the ravages of the elements due to a protective coating, gleamed coldly in the dim light.
Dekel only visited this spot once a year. New shrubs and vines grew here and there. The forest reclaiming its lost territory. He put his durapod down and walked around to the back of the ship. He was unsurprised to see that some of the branches of the canopy had grown back. He pulled out his leatherman and adjusted the settings. He pointed the beam at the canopy and trimmed off several small branches. Light filtered in more brightly.
Dekel walked to the spot where the light fell. He adjusted the settings on the leatherman once again and began to trim the grass and weeds that had sprung up. It didn’t take long to clear the area around the old fallen tree. He placed the flowers on the ground gently. He picked up a few twigs that had fallen haphazardly on the mound and tossed them aside. He stared numbly at the spot of earth. As he had so many times, he used his finger to trace the worn etching on the tree. Tella.
He stood for a moment longer, then he walked back to ship and picked up his durapod. He had to get the picnic set-up. Tella would be waiting.