“I do not understand,” Jolakaia said.
“Where I come from we use energy, like electricity for example,” I explained. “Metal can conduct it to power up appliances like these. But they’re usually plugged into an outlet.”
Skalla translated, but Jolakaia did not look any less confused than before.
“The power source is within the object itself,” she said, tapping a claw on the metal side of a machine used to disinfect tools and beakers. “It is not simply conducted by the metal; it comes from the metal. Or, more precisely, from the Shara plant.”
Now it was my turn to be confused. Jolakaia rolled her robe’s sleeves up to the elbows, as if gearing up to teach me a complex lesson.
“Here. Regard the Shara plant.” She held up one of the cottony, metal-lined flowers. “As the plant grows and thrives, it takes in sunlight, water, nutrients, heat.”
I nodded. That much, at least, I could understand. I was a botanist, after all.
“The metal,” her claw twanged against a bright thread, like she was plucking a guitar string, “conducts the plant’s energy up and down its length. But it also acts as energy storage. This stored energy then powers the objects created from the metal. Even more than this, the metal retains an echo of its life in the plant – a memory of sorts – and it can continue to collect and distribute energy from sunlight long after it has been stripped out of the living plant.”
“Are you telling me,” I said, disbelief catching in my throat, “that you are essentially growing your very own self-sustaining, solar-powered batteries? In a garden?!”
After Skalla translated, Jolakaia jerked her snout in confirmation.
“Is it not so on your world?”
“Definitely not,” I said, shaking my head and staring at the simple, brain-bendingly extraordinary plant Jolakaia held. No natural gas, no nuclear fusion, no hydro. All the Bohnebregg people had to do was to let these plants grow in their native environment, soaking up sun and energy, and in turn they could power entire cities with the stuff.
Instantly, I started thinking of all the ways such a plant could benefit Earth. We could eliminate pollution, shut down mines, save forests and oceans and people! So many people!
My excitement had a bucket of cold water dumped on it when I realized that this was exactly the sort of thing our mission had been sent out into the universe to do. The whole reason I was abducted from Earth was to find, no, to steal alien technology and resources that could sustain Earth into the future.
But no human ships had come to this world. At least, not yet. The Shara plant would remain here, untouched and safe.
And so would the people of Bohnebregg.
After my brief and mind-blowing lesson on Bohnebregg energy production (or cultivation, I supposed) and a few more demonstrations of the lab’s machinery, we got to work. I learned how to use the feathery yellow Mother’s Breath to prepare an antibiotic tincture, and how to extract Mother’s Tears (a viscous clear sap) from the stems of plants of the same name. I peeled threads of metal from Shara plants, sliced stalks open, boiled and bottled, all the while peppering Jolakaia with questions translated by Skalla.
She didn’t appear to mind at all. In fact, she seemed happy to have such an enthusiastic student. I was happy, too. I was so engrossed, so glad to be immersed in work like this, that at one point Jolakaia stopped, looked at me, and said with a laugh, “You were born to be a Mother’s Hand!”
“I do like this sort of thing,” I admitted, blushing at her compliment. “Back on Earth, I used my botany skills mostly for survey work. I’d go over project sites for utility companies and make sure they weren’t harming any endangered species. Stuff like that. But...”
I gave my freshly collected Mother’s Tears a stir with a metal rod.
“But I always had a passion for this kind of work. My sister got very sick and the chemotherapy – the human treatment for her illness – caused her a lot of problems with her skin. I used to create skincare products and salves for her in our kitchen using different natural ingredients.”
No matter how tired or sick she’d felt, she’d always exclaim over a new batch of anything I came up with. “You should sell this stuff,” she’d told me. “Seriously! Go on one of those American shows, get a bunch of start-up money, open a factory!”
When she’d said it, it almost seemed like it could have been real.
But then she’d died. I finished school, got a boring job, and to top it all off, got abducted twice, first by humans, then by Skalla.
Things really aren’t turning out the way we thought they would, Elvi.
After Skalla finished translating what I’d said, Jolakaia put down the Shara plant she’d been working on and bumped her knuckles gently against my nose.
“I am sorry to hear of your sister. I, too, have lost a sibling. My brother still lives, but...” She stared at the metal table for a long moment, then said, “but I know I will never see him again. Nor do I wish to. But it is still a wound.”
A wound. One that wouldn’t heal no matter how many soothing plants you piled on top of it.
Tentatively, I bumped my knuckles against the tip of her snout, and when she smiled I knew I’d done the gesture correctly. We looked at each other for a long moment, and for the first time I noticed something odd gleaming on her chest where her robe gaped slightly.
“What is that?” I asked. It was a simple enough sentence, so I said it in Bohnebregg.
The thing I’d asked about looked to be a hunk of shiny metal embedded in the flesh of her chest. It was vaguely triangular in shape, roughly the size of my thumb with its narrow end pointing down like an arrow. If it was a cultural thing, like a piercing, I hadn’t noticed it on anyone else.
“Ah,” she said, glancing down at the metal hunk adorning her front. “That was a gift from the very brother I just mentioned.”
Her voice was flat, which made me think it had been no gift at all.
“My brother Joleb is a vicious raider warlord,” Jolakaia said, putting down the beaker she’d been holding. “He is very cruel, very wealthy, and very good at what he does. Many men have pledged allegiance to him. His army is the largest and most powerful on this side of the river. His hoard is the stuff of legend, built upon what was hoarded from the generations who came before.”
Generations before...
I followed her gaze to Skalla, who stood directly behind me. Other than a twitchy pulse of his wings, he had no other reaction to her words.
“As his younger sister, I was expected to assist on raids,” Jolakaia continued. “I did so, just as I’d always done for our father, until...”
She paused, appeared to gather her thoughts, then said the rest in a very mechanical sort of voice, like if she let any emotion into the words, she wouldn’t be able to speak at all.
“Until we raided a village with no army and very little metal. I watched my brother slaughter innocents in their homes, pulling children from their beds, searching for any glinting scrap he could hoard. He would not let me tend to the wounds of any of them. I entered a berserker rage, but it was a rage against him, not those we fought. Of course, it accomplished nothing. I was beaten down by him and subdued by his loyal army. When my rage faded, and I became fully aware of myself again, I was bound by chains in our home.”
She touched the metal stud on her chest.
“Joleb pulled out the scale above my heart with his own claws for my betrayal. Then he embedded this metal in my flesh. A reminder of whom I was meant to be loyal to.”
She began to rub at the metal, like it was aching.