Day Fifteen — Something Out of Nothing
“Have you finished writing your letter, dear?” sister Therese showed up on Roberta’s doorstep, at the end of a long door to door pilgrimage during which none of the sisters were forgotten.
Therese already had a stack of letters in her hand, which proved her dedication to encouraging the others to complete their writing. Sister Novis had whispered to Roberta through the interlink that Therese sat her down and didn’t leave her house until the letter was completed, proofed and signed.
“I know you need to bind them, sister, but I haven’t had a chance to start on mine yet, I’m not that great with writing,” Roberta tried to avoid repeating Novis’s story.
“That’s not a problem, I have time today, I can’t assemble the tome until I have all the letters, anyway. I’m happy to help,” Therese got inside the lab and sat at one of the tables, pushing a couple of very sensitive instruments out of the way to make room for her notepad. Sister Roberta’s blood pressure ticked up a point.
“Careful with those, I just finished calibrating them!” she managed to utter, a moment too late.
“There, now we have plenty of space to work,” Therese said, tapping on the stool next to her to entice Roberta to sit down.
“I would rather think about this by myself for a little while, I find it difficult to pick a subject, first of all,” Roberta tried to back away from the challenge.
“That’s why I am here, to help,” Therese ignored Roberta. “You need to write about something you care about, good or bad, doesn’t matter, something that touches your heart. And don’t try to make stuff up, dear, for Lelia’s sake,” she anticipated Roberta’s escape hatch, “there’s got to be something in your very long life worth writing about!”
“It wasn’t a lot longer than yours,” Roberta protested, offended. “Of course there are a lot of things I could write about, like the moment I discovered the formula for pushing back space-time slices to make the solenoid work,” Roberta’s eyes sparkled and she looked suddenly inspired.
“Oh, no, dear, I’m afraid you can’t write anything technical, nobody else does, this is supposed to be from the heart,” Therese protested, shocked.
“I can assure you this subject is very close to my heart, if there is anything I love in this world…” sister Roberta attempted to salvage the safe subject.
“It will be good for you, trust me! How about that time when you visited Airydew for the first time?” sister Therese bubbled excitedly. Roberta wasn’t a big city fan, and the look in her eyes deflated Therese’s enthusiasm. “Or when…” she tried to find another subject, only to discover that she hadn’t been paying sufficient attention to sister Roberta’s personal life to suggest a heartwarming subject.
“Sister, why don’t you leave this to me? I’m sure I’ll find an appropriate subject, please don’t touch that!” she rushed to set straight a piece of equipment that Therese was about to knock over with her elbow.
“Sorry, I’m all thumbs today, I haven’t had time to even drink a cup of tea, that’s probably why. You wouldn’t happen to have some, would you?” she asked sweetly.
Sister Roberta dug through the entrails of a messy cabinet, where printed boards and coffee bags and sugar bowls happily coexisted and managed to find a jar of chamomile blossoms.
“Something caffeinated, perhaps? I hate to impose,” sister Therese kept looking over Roberta’s shoulder into the depths of the cabinet to see if she could find real tea. She did, and pointed it out to the latter, who conformed and started the kettle on a heating element.
Sister Therese continued babbling.
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had, wondering around in this heat for hours,” she stopped briefly to take the tea cup from Roberta’s hand. “Thank you, Sister! This is so good!” she rejoiced like a child when the tea aroma touched her nostrils.
“Don’t mind me, go about your work, as I said, I don’t want to impose!”
If there was anything Roberta couldn’t stand, besides trying to untangle subjects she didn’t understand, it was to have someone hover and look over her shoulder as she worked. The transgression could only be made worse if the perpetrator was also asking numerous questions and offering help, which is exactly what sister Therese started to do.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I feel bad about being here, taking up your time, when you have important things to do. What are you working on, exactly?” she asked with genuine curiosity.
“I need to make a few adjustments for the light show,” Roberta gave the shortest explanation she could.
“What a beautiful piece of art, I enjoyed it so much during the rehearsal, you are truly gifted, Roberta!” sister Therese gushed.
Roberta started getting really annoyed when she remembered how Lily ripped every one of her surprise elements from the show in front of everybody.
“How do you like your tea, sister?” Roberta asked. “Cream, sugar?”
“You don’t have lemon and honey?” Therese asked innocently.
“I’m afraid not. You know, Sarah is on kitchen duty, maybe she has some there, I can go get it really quickly,” Roberta seized the opportunity to get out of the lab and escape.
“No, thank you, dear. I’ll make do with these. I never had cream tea before, but then again, there is nothing like a new experience every now and then,” she smiled. “You don’t like tea?” she asked sister Roberta, who was standing in the hope that maybe her uncomfortable posture might suggest to Therese that she should leave and come back another time.
“I didn’t really feel like it right now,” she said, not wanting to be rude.
“It’s very good, the cream gives it a different flavor, try it, you’ll love it!” Therese encouraged her.
“Thank you sister, but I had cream tea before. More?” she asked, as Therese sipped the last drop from her cup.
“Don’t mind if I do!” she cooed. Roberta refilled her cup and passed her the cream and the sugar. The tea was steaming, so Therese set it aside to cool down a little.
“This is a beautiful tea set. Where did you get it?” she restarted light conversation.
“Sys made it for me after a picture I showed her. It looks like my grandmother’s,” Roberta answered.
“Interesting! What a wonderful subject for your letter! What was so special about your grandmother’s set?” Therese asked.
“Nothing, really! I just had a picture of it and I thought it would be nice if I could make a replica. This is from the early days of the ‘alchemy machine’, it was a big deal at the time.”
“Now why do I have trouble believing you? You could have picked another object, why these cups?”
“You are not going to get out of my lab until I deliver you the darn letter, are you?” sister Roberta asked.
“Not on your life!” Therese replied, smiling.
Landing Bay, Terra Two, July 17th, 3245
Dear,
I was going to write about sister Novis’s adventure, but she beat me to the punch, like she always does, so now I have to dust off the nooks and crannies of this old mind to find something else to tell you.
Have you ever heard the expression “you can’t get something out of nothing”? Well, that might be true, in theory, but you can get something out of very little.
You, for instance, developed from a single cell, using only food for energy. The food you use for energy now grows in abundance from tiny seeds that fell on the ground.
If you are surrounded by trees, you have wood to make yourself shelter, furniture, means of transportation; all you need is a few tools, lots of patience and skill.
Look for a large mulberry tree and you might be able to find silk worms, which will lay eggs for one crop of silk after the next. You’ll have to pick fresh leaves to feed them and clean their beds, but I said you can get something from almost nothing, not that you can get something without any effort.
I won’t bore you with false modesty, we have created wonderful things here, things that boggle the mind and defy the possible, and my effort was but a small part of the energy and dedication every one of us put forth to bring them into reality. Everything you see around you, from the plants that sprout out of the ground to the buildings, enterprises, bridges and walkways, cities, our whole thriving society, was created from almost nothing, I’ll have to show you some of the archive images one day when you have time, they are priceless! I bet you can’t picture Terra Two completely barren, without a breathable atmosphere and only salty water, rich in sulfur.
My point is, my dear, that making something out of nothing is the most basic drive of the human spirit and every designer’s guide to life. If you can conceive it, you can create it; every advancement builds upon the ones before, like the steps of a stair stretching out into infinity: no matter how many steps you climb, there is always room to add one more.
I haven’t even started talking about art and skill, which really come from nothing — the core of your being yields its essence for the benefit of the world. You share your beautiful voice, the masterful craftsmanship of your hands, the sophistication of your palate, your ease with words, your talent for color, your gift to ease suffering.
Now, it is true that Purple gave us the wonderful gift of the alchemy machine (it’s incredible how a name said in jest can stick to a degree that makes it impossible to change), but we turned sunshine into food and re-purposed shuttle parts into equipment long before the immortals came to the scene.
I am not advocating a return to toiling and foraging, or chopping down our own trees to build shelter, this is why society evolves, to allow every one’s talents to be focused on their area of expertise and bloom to mastery, but don’t ever lose sight of the fact that if you backtrack everything that was ever made to its most basic components, they all came out of the environment that surrounds you and they are freely available still, if you only had the means and skills to harvest and process them.
There is no such thing as the impossible because if the thought of something came to your mind you won’t have peace until you figure out the means to make it happen. I know I won’t.
The most wonderful gift Purple gave us is this extraordinary extension of our life span. “I don’t have the time” is the most confining thought in a human head. If you don’t have the time to do the things you love and your spirit calls you to do, then how are you ever going to be fulfilled with your life?
Now we all have time, lots of time, so we can experiment, and grow, and try new things, better things, wonderful things.
Since we have started exploring other worlds we had plenty of opportunities to be surprised and we had to improvise and make do, so don’t get lured by a false sense of confidence that the advancements of society will always be there to provide you with solutions for each and every one of your problems: if you don’t know how something works, how a gadget is made, its basic functioning principles, you will invariably be brought into a situation where the device won’t be useful to you just when you need it most. Ask why, ask how, be curious, always.
Even if you don’t have a passion for engineering what’s it going to hurt if you know how a turbine works? Never stop learning and don’t limit yourself to a field. If you find something exciting learn everything you can about it, you’ll be surprised how that information might come in handy when you least expect it.
There is nothing worthless in creation, just things for which you haven’t devised a utility yet. Who would have thought that the most important use of our marvelous alchemy machine would be to turn trash into supplies?
Try mastering the artistry of handicrafts — knitting, sowing, carpentry, pottery, painting, calligraphy — there is a very rewarding sense of achievement that comes from creating a perfect pattern with the most rudimentary of tools and besides, we all have the time.
Tools and accessories are getting more precise, more specialized, more flawlessly made, but don’t forget that there is always a human spirit behind every exquisite piece of machinery, and that human spirit turned it from dream to reality, perfected it and brought it to you. If the machinery were to disappear, for whatever reason, it is that human spirit that can bring it back, make it again, make it better than before. Don’t be intimidated by the marvels of technology, be in awe of the bright souls who saw them before they became reality, the ones who thought “what if?”
I bet you expected me to give you a lot of technical advice, for some reason people expect that’s all I’m ever interested in, and I don’t want to disappoint you, so here goes:
1) Always put the spectrometer away when you’re done with it, especially if you’re going to tune the lasers.
2) Put a little distance between yourself and the dashboard so you don’t push things to hyperspace by turning the wrong dial without noticing.
3) When you work with anti-gravity devices, make sure to have a remote with you, so you can get back on the ground, if need be.
4) Don’t use a flawless set of equations completely unrelated to the environment you are modeling.
5) Whatever gizmo you are building, design the off button first, and test it properly to ensure it works.
6) There are things you will never understand. Live with it.
7) Don’t show anything until you’ve mastered it, no matter how much hype was built around its presentation.
8) If the device works, show first, explain later.
9) If the speed during testing is one hundred miles per hour faster than anticipated, this points to a need to refine the design concept.
10) Just because something looks like ordinary matter it doesn’t necessarily mean it is. Know what laws guide an environment before venturing into it.
Have a wonderful life, sweetheart, and make sure to visit the lab often. Oh, how I miss the time when you little ones were always underfoot and I couldn’t pry you off the equipment with a crow bar!
Love,
Roberta
