Hesper and Aria's Cottage
It had taken him all of the last night and most of this day to reach his destination—following each lighted leaf through the forest. Whenever he needed to rest, the next leaf stayed illuminated until he was ready to continue on again. But according to Sera, he had a schedule to keep if he wanted to join Hesper on his boat that day. He had no idea that Hesper had already set sail that very morning.
His shirt was ripped badly so he abandoned it hours earlier. His calves were sore, his left foot was blistered, he was thirsty and running on no food. Until the very moment on the Sea Gardens path, as he glimpsed the stone cottage, he had not even thought about what it would be like to see Aria again in person. Now, this strong and determined man felt weak and vulnerable; intimidated by the inevitable meeting... It had been three years. Was she still upset?
He and Aria had been inseparable as both lovers and band-mates many years before, at N'Abode University. His ability to play just about any musical instrument, his business savvy and his imposing presence melded perfectly with Aria's shining beauty and ability to sing any note, and together they composed some of the most beloved music in the history of all the spheres. But he loved her long before he they worked together in any official way. Even at that early stage, they were a feast for the eyes and ears whenever they were seen in the taverns and cafes of the university campus.
Okeanos was tall, muscular and highly intelligent. Every man who met Aria had the feeling that she was more beautiful than God should have allowed a woman to be, and even smarter than Okeanos was. And, unlike Okeanos, who was raised on a large Naturian estate, with private tutors and plenty of N'Abode city experience, Aria had known many pains and struggles in her young life. Their combined experience made them highly appealing. And their friendly personalities were attractive to everyone they met. They brought a new appreciation for music and art to a world that had become culturally despondent, economically challenged and spiritually stultified, right when it was needed most.
He thought back to the first time he'd seen her. It was a cool morning. She was singing acapella at the center of the University's small, outdoor forum. Her voice was unamplified, but cut through the campus air like a bird's song to the sunsrise. And this was the perception she was trying to foster in her performance. She desired to BE art, itself.
Mist clung to the mosses and ivy on the walls of the dorm halls. The Azureon Temple was visible in the distance. Okeanos saw a few people dwarfed by its giant doorway, standing still, as if they could hear this woman's melody. A few of Aria's friends were seated on foam blankets around her. Other people watched and listened from behind the tall flowers at the head of the courtyard.
As he approached her from behind the reflecting pool, seeing her from the side, kneeling in a nest-like bush, he saw the symbolism was unmistakable. He was almost paralyzed by her beauty, slowing his paces with each step closer. And those eyes! She had the violet-blue eyes of mythic royalty, and her skin seemed to shine with a violet hue. Those eyes seemed to ask a question that could not be put into words, nor ever answered. But one could not help one's self from trying. He sat down on the dewy grass, in the back of a small group of students who were relaxing in the sunsrise.
When she sang, she seemed to stare into a kind of personal infinity; somewhere far beyond the world. It was as if she was receiving each note from another place; another time...somewhere below time itself. He was simply astounded by everything about her.
Mist clung to the mosses and ivy on the walls of the dorm halls. The Azureon Temple was visible in the distance. Okeanos saw a few people dwarfed by its giant doorway, standing still, as if they could hear this woman's melody. A few of Aria's friends were seated on foam blankets around her. Other people watched and listened from behind the tall flowers at the head of the courtyard.
As he approached her from behind the reflecting pool, seeing her from the side, kneeling in a nest-like bush, he saw the symbolism was unmistakable. He was almost paralyzed by her beauty, slowing his paces with each step closer. And those eyes! She had the violet-blue eyes of mythic royalty, and her skin seemed to shine with a violet hue. Those eyes seemed to ask a question that could not be put into words, nor ever answered. But one could not help one's self from trying. He sat down on the dewy grass, in the back of a small group of students who were relaxing in the sunsrise.
When she sang, she seemed to stare into a kind of personal infinity; somewhere far beyond the world. It was as if she was receiving each note from another place; another time...somewhere below time itself. He was simply astounded by everything about her.
Aria sings for friends in the main plaza of N'Abode University.
We see a morning view of the Azureon Temple in the distance.
Her transcendent melodies rose and fell so organically...
Waking to the sun inside a songbird's nest
Fragrance of the lilac and the rose
Little bird is waiting for her maiden flight...away
Mother sings her greeting in the orange light
In the trees the time is Always right
She still hears the monsters far away...
Chasing after the night
Time to learn the reason
Here inside the Rising Season
Here I hear the chiming of the hour
In the song that every bird is singing
The fanfare for the Sun
Pure white moth that flutters at my open door
Bright desk light has brought him to my pen
Played with him a while and then I went...to bed
Busy night of dreaming on the broken words
Words, the moth did whisper to me still
Next day I found him facing out, as if to fly...
Dead, on my window sill
Time to find the Making
Where I see what I've been breaking
Here I hear the chiming of the hour
In the path that every moth is taking
The fanfare for the Sun
In the west the Sun is Rising
In the west the Sun is Rising
In the west the Sun is Rising
We are Rising...
When she had finished singing the “Fanfare for the Sun” - a song she had written the night before – no one could bring themselves to clap. It would have ruined and defiled the sacred sound still echoing in their minds. She misunderstood this at first, as rejection, and blushed deeply. She was completely unaware of her own magic. Then people began to rise to their feet, and walked toward her. Her roommate, Carol, simply walked up and hugged her. Then a young man – Carol's boyfriend at the time, a classmate named Hesper – put his hand on Aria's shoulder and said, “I do believe that is the first time I've ever heard a piece of heaven.” She smiled widely. And everyone nodded in agreement.
Okeanos waited patiently in back for each person to greet her. The bell tolled for First Lecture as the last student hugged and congratulated Aria. Everyone else quickly gathered up their computers and dashed off in different directions.
Okeanos rushed up and grabbed her coat, opening it for her to slip her arms into. She immediately caught his gaze; being nearly a whole step above her head; holding it in a form of suspended animation. He was actually shaking a bit, though she never saw this nervous energy. He smiled at her, and said, “Well, not TOO bad.”
Her beautiful eyebrows compressed into a brief look of confusion. “Well... I'll try to do better next time,” she said, tersely.
Okeanos rushed up and grabbed her coat, opening it for her to slip her arms into. She immediately caught his gaze; being nearly a whole step above her head; holding it in a form of suspended animation. He was actually shaking a bit, though she never saw this nervous energy. He smiled at her, and said, “Well, not TOO bad.”
Her beautiful eyebrows compressed into a brief look of confusion. “Well... I'll try to do better next time,” she said, tersely.
“And you WILL do better.”
“Oh...? How is that?” She bent down to grab her computer, releasing his eyes from her the iron grasp her own.
“By letting me play the music I heard behind your words.”
She looked impatient and sighed. Who was this guy? Yes, he was handsome and had an interesting voice of his own. But pretty presumptuous! She peered back up at him, “I'm already late to First Lecture and I'm very busy...”
“Well I don't mean right this moment.” He smiled more amiably this time. “What is your name?”
“My name is Aria. What I'm saying......(?)”
“...Okeanos.”
“Okeanos...is that I don't have many FREE moments.” She gently pulled the coat out of his hands and put it on herself. She immediately turned away from him and began walking briskly toward the entrance of the lecture hall. Without turning back around, she teased loudly, “I doubt you could satisfy my musical needs anyway.” He did not see her lips curl into a grin as she strutted off toward the building.
For a moment he stood there trying to think of a witty comeback, but nothing came to mind. “Wait!” he called out and then took off after her. By the time he reached her she was closing the hall door in his face—flashing her violet eyes at him, but looking intrigued. He waited there outside the building, unsure of what to do. Somehow he KNEW he had to get together with this goddess, but he did not want to push his luck. He said, out-loud, partly to the closed door and partly to himself, “It would be good enough... if I could just stand in your shadow...” Later, she told him that she had also waited there, on the other side of the door, in the shadows and stained-glass shining of the morning windows that lined the long passageway to the auditorium. She told him that she heard him say that, and that was when she first felt the fire for him light within her heart. He lowered his head and walked off to his own First Lecture.
That afternoon, Okeanos skipped the Third Lecture period, and tenaciously tore through the school's computer archives searching for anything about her. And there was a lot. She had made her entire profile public. There were no security protocols to deal with at all. She posted her actual University Entrance Bio, seemingly, because it was also allowed to be her Evaluation Essay. He consumed the information like a bowl of fruit.
She was born to a mother named, Xela, a small, beautiful and culturally refined woman with space-black hair, greying early and shining blue-violet eyes, similar to Aria's. Xela had given up a life of comfort on Naturia to work in the wilderness of space. She was a woman who constantly struggled to keep her job as a biological engineer. Her interests actually ran more toward physics, causing her to neglect her biological duties. She was practical, serious and sometimes rather indifferent. Okeanos admired the painting Aria did of her mother...
Aria's painting of her mother, Xela, while on vacation on Naturia.
Aria's father, Gaius, was a science officer aboard one of the older supply ships. It was a long range vessel, servicing the Aquarus Moons Colony Project around the giant, water world; returning every few years with supplies and software upgrades from the sister star system. He made deep runs to that Blue System for years on end, Aria had only remembered spending three occasions with her father, for one year each. He returned from Rina A very rarely. Xela often complained that he liked life there more, which she knew wasn't true.
These pleasant times of his homecoming came in the form of long vacations on Naturia. Gaius' pay was very good, and when the three of them lived together the family never struggled for anything in the material world. The best times of Aria's childhood were spent on these long visits to Naturia.
She painted and swam, wrote and sang on these vacations. He father taught her the hand harp, and she was hooked. She remarked in her Bio that her father was a blond man with a beard and kind, bright green eyes. Okeanos searched for a picture of him and found an informal shot of Xela sitting on Gaius' lap, while he playfully tickled her in front of their large window at their lunar residence on Aquarus 3. The picture was taken when Aria was just a baby, he could see Aquarus in the background filling the sky.
Gaius would pull Aria up into his lap when she was very young, and they would sing songs together that he'd learned from the Blue Star Worlds. He gave her his Symbol Pin (a point of gold, surrounded by a blue stone). He told her it was the symbol for the ancient Flower Cult of Azureon and that someday when she was grown up the people of this cult would come back to Naturia to reestablish it. their faith She looked up with her huge, violet, child-eyes from a straight set of soft black bangs and promised she would be there to meet these teachers when they arrived. He smiled down at her hugged her close to him.
They played sports together for a few seasons and Aria broke her leg once during a particulalry rough game. Gaius - even though it wasn't his fault - felt terrible guilt from this accident and vowed to steer Aria's interests away from sports. Her musical intuition was the obvious choice to focus on. She had a smooth and friendly disposition and a calm temperament that lent itself nicely to study and performance. Mostly, what everyone saw about Aria was her complete lack of fear. She was a born performer, philosopher and spitiriual enthusiast, encouraged by her parents and happy for a while during that time. Gaius told her that on his final mission he would come back and retire, invest in and manage her musical career for her if she wanted and that he would tutor her while they tour the solar system. And though she was just a little girl, and he was an optimist, he meant what he said. And she believed it with absolute certainty.
Gaius was a straight shooter. He was a loyal husband and ideal father when he was around. And Xela never saw any other man while Gaius was away either. Even in this free-loving Naturian culture, these two people were meant to be together even for the short time they were, and they never contemplated any other alternative. As Okeanos read along through Aria's file, it dawned on him that his own parents had many other outside affairs.
She painted and swam, wrote and sang on these vacations. He father taught her the hand harp, and she was hooked. She remarked in her Bio that her father was a blond man with a beard and kind, bright green eyes. Okeanos searched for a picture of him and found an informal shot of Xela sitting on Gaius' lap, while he playfully tickled her in front of their large window at their lunar residence on Aquarus 3. The picture was taken when Aria was just a baby, he could see Aquarus in the background filling the sky.
Xela and Gaius at home on Aquarus 3.
Gaius would pull Aria up into his lap when she was very young, and they would sing songs together that he'd learned from the Blue Star Worlds. He gave her his Symbol Pin (a point of gold, surrounded by a blue stone). He told her it was the symbol for the ancient Flower Cult of Azureon and that someday when she was grown up the people of this cult would come back to Naturia to reestablish it. their faith She looked up with her huge, violet, child-eyes from a straight set of soft black bangs and promised she would be there to meet these teachers when they arrived. He smiled down at her hugged her close to him.
They played sports together for a few seasons and Aria broke her leg once during a particulalry rough game. Gaius - even though it wasn't his fault - felt terrible guilt from this accident and vowed to steer Aria's interests away from sports. Her musical intuition was the obvious choice to focus on. She had a smooth and friendly disposition and a calm temperament that lent itself nicely to study and performance. Mostly, what everyone saw about Aria was her complete lack of fear. She was a born performer, philosopher and spitiriual enthusiast, encouraged by her parents and happy for a while during that time. Gaius told her that on his final mission he would come back and retire, invest in and manage her musical career for her if she wanted and that he would tutor her while they tour the solar system. And though she was just a little girl, and he was an optimist, he meant what he said. And she believed it with absolute certainty.
Gaius was a straight shooter. He was a loyal husband and ideal father when he was around. And Xela never saw any other man while Gaius was away either. Even in this free-loving Naturian culture, these two people were meant to be together even for the short time they were, and they never contemplated any other alternative. As Okeanos read along through Aria's file, it dawned on him that his own parents had many other outside affairs.
Aria adored her father and his warm presence so much that she virtually fell apart every time he had to leave again a new mission. She simply could not understand the logic of even having a family if her Pappa was going to be gone for whole years at a time. She presented notes that she wrote herself. She made presentations with her little computer, 3D images. She wrote songs and sang them for family and friends. She knew she was good and that people liked her music. So she failed to see why her inventive and very-adult-like presentations wouldn't change her parent's minds about how they spent their time, and inspire her father to change careers.
She had once told Okeanos that at some point soon after her mother passed away she looked back at her life on Aquarus 2 and realized that it seemed her parents wanted to be apart. They both knew that the other would never stray, and they were workaholics. Well...Gaius had more of a travel bug. He always wanted to see the frontiers of experience. Later Okeanos would learn that Gaius HAD actually tried the Blue Dawn Flower as a nectar concentrate on Blue Colony 2, as he spent a long season exploring the garden worlds that were spontaneously develpoed by probe building robots who were left without instruction on distant asteroids and outer rim ice worlds.
Strangely, as we see it, beauty around Rina A (the blue star) had been only partially achieved by the hand of humanity, but much more so through the choosing of ever more beneficial embellishments by machines preprogramed, mechanistic minds who literally survive to fulfil human plans.
These were the few hundred small seed probes of the first wave sent out from the home world moon colony. But some of these little machines lost contact with the main grid of the Rina Solar Frame (the communication system), sometimes for thousands of years these probes would be "lost," but would develop paradisical little garden worlds, of low gravity, complete with self sustaining wildlife, set up with fresh accomodations for colonists or travelers who might never even pass by.
It is interesting to note that about 10% of these orginal, but "lost," seed or builder probes develped their spheres into military outposts of inpenitrible strength and advanced weaponry. The machine caretakers have never allowed landing on these sparsely occuring "weapon worlds." There is no known way to take them over or shut them down. Many theories and legends abound about these few space fortresses. Some believed that they were a secret insertion into the machine DNA. This implies they were a back up plan for the posibility of alien invasion by any neighboring solar systems...or to preserve the species from a destructive rebellion against the plans of the Azureon Architects. But they had never functioned in any way at the time of the telling of this story, and some were estimated to be nearly 35,000 years old.
Of the the 66 tiny worlds that experienced "robot runaway" - space bodies with only the technological guidance and machine influence of the original seed or builder probes to develop the environment as they saw fit - only six became military-police installations. The other 60 became anomolous and fascinatingly strange worlds with breathable atmospheres, low gravity and hundreds of newly evolved species of plants and animals. It was the last 12 of these run-away worlds - and one military sphere, that Gaius was bound for when he left that fateful night. He never got to see any of them.
In the last hours before Gaius left Aria was incosolable. In torturous desperation she begged her mother to let her go on that fateful mission with her father. But her mother roundly refused. Both parents felt bad for Aria but accepted that things must be this way. Aria had a different feeling in her heart. It was a premition of death, "the view of the void." The last image of her father that she remembered was of him waving goodbye as he walked to his shuttle and then blasted off. He said, “I love you my little melody! We will sing again together when I return.”
And that was it. She never saw him again. Okeanos felt a lump in his throat as he viewed Aria's childhood painting of her father's transfer shuttle blasting off into the night, never to return.
She had once told Okeanos that at some point soon after her mother passed away she looked back at her life on Aquarus 2 and realized that it seemed her parents wanted to be apart. They both knew that the other would never stray, and they were workaholics. Well...Gaius had more of a travel bug. He always wanted to see the frontiers of experience. Later Okeanos would learn that Gaius HAD actually tried the Blue Dawn Flower as a nectar concentrate on Blue Colony 2, as he spent a long season exploring the garden worlds that were spontaneously develpoed by probe building robots who were left without instruction on distant asteroids and outer rim ice worlds.
Strangely, as we see it, beauty around Rina A (the blue star) had been only partially achieved by the hand of humanity, but much more so through the choosing of ever more beneficial embellishments by machines preprogramed, mechanistic minds who literally survive to fulfil human plans.
These were the few hundred small seed probes of the first wave sent out from the home world moon colony. But some of these little machines lost contact with the main grid of the Rina Solar Frame (the communication system), sometimes for thousands of years these probes would be "lost," but would develop paradisical little garden worlds, of low gravity, complete with self sustaining wildlife, set up with fresh accomodations for colonists or travelers who might never even pass by.
It is interesting to note that about 10% of these orginal, but "lost," seed or builder probes develped their spheres into military outposts of inpenitrible strength and advanced weaponry. The machine caretakers have never allowed landing on these sparsely occuring "weapon worlds." There is no known way to take them over or shut them down. Many theories and legends abound about these few space fortresses. Some believed that they were a secret insertion into the machine DNA. This implies they were a back up plan for the posibility of alien invasion by any neighboring solar systems...or to preserve the species from a destructive rebellion against the plans of the Azureon Architects. But they had never functioned in any way at the time of the telling of this story, and some were estimated to be nearly 35,000 years old.
Of the the 66 tiny worlds that experienced "robot runaway" - space bodies with only the technological guidance and machine influence of the original seed or builder probes to develop the environment as they saw fit - only six became military-police installations. The other 60 became anomolous and fascinatingly strange worlds with breathable atmospheres, low gravity and hundreds of newly evolved species of plants and animals. It was the last 12 of these run-away worlds - and one military sphere, that Gaius was bound for when he left that fateful night. He never got to see any of them.
In the last hours before Gaius left Aria was incosolable. In torturous desperation she begged her mother to let her go on that fateful mission with her father. But her mother roundly refused. Both parents felt bad for Aria but accepted that things must be this way. Aria had a different feeling in her heart. It was a premition of death, "the view of the void." The last image of her father that she remembered was of him waving goodbye as he walked to his shuttle and then blasted off. He said, “I love you my little melody! We will sing again together when I return.”
And that was it. She never saw him again. Okeanos felt a lump in his throat as he viewed Aria's childhood painting of her father's transfer shuttle blasting off into the night, never to return.
Aria's painting of her father's last shuttle ride.
These times with both her parents were the only occasions she would get to visit Naturia until she finally left for N'Abode University as a young woman.
Instead, the sight of the water world filled her childhood sky and gave some comfort to her, by its sheer beauty. And she always had her dear friend, Carol. Aquarus was indeed a wondrous planet. With a nitrogen, oxygen and low-carbon dioxide atmosphere, and a planetary-wide ocean surface that was being slowly developed with floating algae “continents,” it was the pride of Rina B; the triumph of Azureonion and Naturian technology. It was the reason why the orange star system was ever explored in the first place.
Life originated around Azureon, the Blue Star home world of that now-approaching giant. Comparatively small, Naturia wasn't even discovered until robot probes were first sent to explore the orange star system, back in antiquity.
Life originated around Azureon, the Blue Star home world of that now-approaching giant. Comparatively small, Naturia wasn't even discovered until robot probes were first sent to explore the orange star system, back in antiquity.
Orbits of the two star systems of Rina. Azureon, orbiting Rina A, is where life first evolved in this double star system. Over a billion years later, humans appeared and evolved to the utopian age of "Light and Life." The home world of Azureon is called by all Rina worlds, "The Land of Light."
Within a million years after first becoming human, the mortals of Azureon were able to colonize the planets and moons of every practical space body in the Rina A system, while they sent out robot probes to Rina B (the orange star). Eventually, they sent out colonists to the worlds of Rina B once Naturia was discovered. Colonizing Naturia happened tens of millenia ago. Naturia was allowed to self govern in every aspect by the Azureons.
Every 250 years or so, during the Great Exchange, the peoples of the two stars were actually able to visit each other, as they exchanged passengers for the return flights of new generations to each respective star. Now after two and a half centuries, the Exchange year was fast approaching...
Once, hundred of thousands of years ago, the primitive citizens of Azureon could see Aquarus, the distant water world, through their telescopes even before they were able to harness electricity. It reflected the orange light of its mother-star so brilliantly that it would illuminate its own moons enough to be observed all the way from Azureon whenever they passed between the light of the orange star and the water surface of Aquarus. Four times every thousand years, the two star systems would come close enough to really observe the Rina B planets. Who could have known that the profound voice of a humble, human woman would someday sing out from realms of the orange star worlds? How could they know that this woman would hail from one of the tiny moons around Aquarus to bring all the worlds together like no other force in history?
Water was the most precious substance in the universe to the ancient Azureons. And around the smaller, orange, sister-sun, circled this one planet, completely composed of water! Because water was its primary substance, Aquarus was also much less dense than the terrestrial home world of Azureon and its subsequent Blue Star Colonies. They were extensive now and covered the terestrial worlds and moons of Rina A. Azureon was now an idyllic garden world of art colonies, billions of tourists and visiting students, and held a vast university system.
Fortunately, being 100 times the volume of Azureon (a world slightly smaller than Naturia), meant that by some complete cosmic accident, Aquarus gravity was almost exactly that of an ideal terrestrial planet. It was a perfect place for life to be established, with a moderate temperature, maintained by the absorption of solar energy into its water from the orange mother star, and a surface area large enough to support billions of future colonists quite comfortably. Okeanos did the math: the surface area of the water world, Aquarus would be about four times the surface area of Naturia.
Naturia was home to two billion colonists—being the first planet to be settled in the orange system. It too seemed to be tailor-made for life. Large land masses were punctuated by smaller, salty, land-locked seas. Rivers ran from the many mountainous highlands of these land masses, into thousands of small rivers, and they inevitably drained themselves into hundreds of larger rivers, and then into the seas. Two small moons swung around Naturia, pulling its axis into a regular but substantial tilt back and forth, between 45 degrees on either side of the rotational cycle. But this “wobble” largely eliminated the vicissitudes of planetary seasons and mediated the longer "star year seasons." It only took 100 years for vegetable and animal life to overtake the entire planet once it was imported and implanted on Naturia, from Azureon.
Of the six major planets in the orange system, Naturia was the closest planet to the orange dwarf, Aquarus held the next orbit, and then there were the four large, icy planets in more irregular orbits much further out. Naturia was a green jewel. Aquarus was a blue gem, and they both circled a small, but long-lived, golden-orange sun. It was an ideal planetary system, especially compared with the drier more energy-soaked Blue Star Colonies. Though located much further out from the surface of Rina A, the Blue Star Colonies continuously dealt with the dangerous rays of their much more energetic sun. Water and ice searches along with gas mining and resource production melded with the advent of quantum-based computer technology.
One thousand years after the discovery of Naturia and the initial exploration of Aquarus and its moons, the robots had sent word that colonization was now possible around the orange star. Over the next 10,000 Naturia years (about 40 Rina solar years), colonists arrived there to live as agriculturists and artists, and to work on developing Aquarus and its moons.
They immediately set their sites on aquaforming Aquarus with algae implantation, upon floating mats of specially-designed material, while terraforming and producing breathable atomoshperes on three of its moons. The establishment of these few Aquarus moon colonies was even being undertaken by robot construction teams way back with the concurrent settling of Naturia. Within 1,000 years of Naturian life establishment, bare-bones settlements had also been established on these moons.
They immediately set their sites on aquaforming Aquarus with algae implantation, upon floating mats of specially-designed material, while terraforming and producing breathable atomoshperes on three of its moons. The establishment of these few Aquarus moon colonies was even being undertaken by robot construction teams way back with the concurrent settling of Naturia. Within 1,000 years of Naturian life establishment, bare-bones settlements had also been established on these moons.
Seven other Aquarus moons - probably captured asteroids from one of the several belts surrounding the orange sun - were still being robotically mined even in Okeanos' day. But resources and sensitive software upgrades from the blue system would always wane, and then become very rare during each solar year (250 Naturian years). The two suns' highly eccentric co-orbit of their common center of gravity brought them far away from each other, before pulling them back together.
One solar year lasted almost exactly 250 Naturian years. And Naturian years were represented the seasons in the orange system's solar year. Rina had two sets of seasons—one for each star.
There were more rains and snows in the late part of the solar year, on Naturia during its “winter years,” due to the distant location of the orange sun's enormous, blue sister. But the lush “summer years,” when the stars came close together again, brought the warm, tropical plant and animal activity on Naturia into overdrive. Summer on Naturia was known across both star systems as being among the most beautiful seasons of all the worlds and colonies.
That was the time of the Great Exchange between the two solar systems. Whole generations of Naturian people would be born, live their lives, and die without ever knowing the joys of the summer years. Now summer was coming back.
That was the time of the Great Exchange between the two solar systems. Whole generations of Naturian people would be born, live their lives, and die without ever knowing the joys of the summer years. Now summer was coming back.
The early results of transforming Aquarus itself were very promising. But always, frustratingly, progress would virtually halt as the suns became too far away from each other to maintain the delivery of parts and sensitive software upgrades supplied by the trans-solar shipping lines. Weather control was not easy to manage during the winter years on Aquarus. Immense cyclones would build themselves into hemisphere-wide hurricanes. The technology to maintain construction on the water world was always there. But the resources needed to meet the time frames of the colonial architects always ran short in these winter seasons.
However, it was in the very late solar spring that Okeanos' generation was born. And it was the most fortunate time to be born. Unfortunately, the science settlement on Aquarus 3, where Aria was born, was at the bottom of the Rina system's economic priorities. Its atmosphere was still very thin, there were only mosses and fungi, covering the landscape. The inner gardens were located deep beneath the surface. A gravity enhancer was employed to amplify the moon's gravity to 60% that of Naturia's gravity. Counter-intuitively, low gravity colonies were much harder to live on and it took enormous synthetic mechanisms to hold down atmospheres and facilitate ground travel. But Aria's brilliant mother was developing a grant proposal that she intended to submit for a second gravity enhancer on Aquarus 3, in anticipation when the next Great Exchange came around again.
This side project became an obsession for her. Xela was really only happy, or at least satisfied, when she was working hard. She didn't only want obtain the mandate and the capital credits for the installation, she wanted to understand exactly how reactor worked, and receive a promotion to manage the gravity enhancers once they were working in tandem. She studied physics applications and installation schematics for the last 20 years of her life. When the next Great Exchange finally took place she wanted to be damn sure that she could sell her idea to Azureon.
