[i]collaboration with idlehands and Igraine[/i]

Ester hugged Pauline back, she was a stranger but radiated a happiness that drew her in. She had every right to be sad and withdrawn but she was not. It helped ease what could have been an awkward scene and Ester was grateful. 

“I hope she told you nothing too unflattering. And of course you’re more than welcome to come along,” she said, “It’s no bother at all.” 

Naomi lead the way, chattering about the places Ester would need to know about. The cafeteria and the lounge in particular, and the giant aquarium that was close to the gardens. As they walked along Ester watched the holographic screens flickering scenes of Earth from the windows. 

“Don’t we ever get to look outside?” she asked. 

“You could if you like but honestly, there isn’t much to see out there,” Naomi replied. “A lot of blackness and stars but it doesn’t look anything like those nebulae photos from NASA. We can’t see the colors that exist in space.” 

Ester felt vaguely disappointed but it was soon forgotten when the approached a double set of heavy sliding glass doors. She tapped on the number pad and it slid open with a soft hiss. Once they were inside, she gawked at the indoor botanical garden that had been planted in the last years. It was distinctly Oriental, having been cared for by the Japanese botanist couple. Manicured and pruned to perfection, it was a delicate and beautiful entrance to the garden area. In the center was a trickling stream that ran down from stone to stone and a bench was located next to it with arching cherry trees above it. 

“Beautiful,” she said, “I recognize Chouku’s touch.” 

It was lovely but she was never a fan of stringently laid out gardens, she preferred for the plants to interact, to blend and share their silent green world. Already plans on rearranging things and allowing the growth to run a bit wild was entering her head. They moved on through another glass door and she felt the warmth and humidity rise. 

The rainforest room was enormous, with towering teaks and mahoganies and liana vines roping along the limbs. Dozens of fruit trees were scattered among the lush tropical foliage and in one glance Ester could see the oblong star fruit of the carambola and the vivid red and yellow of ripe mangos. Macadamia, cashew, and brazil nuts trees were ripening alongside the coconut palms. Tall coffee bean and cacao trees grew toward the center and she could sent the cinnamon as she passed by the cluster of spice trees and spotted the soft yellow trumpet of a flowering vanilla bush. Brilliant pink hibiscus surrounded a deep tank that was masked by stones and trailing jade vines with their unusual and lovely sea green clusters of blooms. 

Ester took a deep breath, the fresh oxygen generated by the dense greenery was almost palpable. Life seemed to hum and pulse in the misty air around them and she could feel her long dark hair starting to curl from the moisture. A shimmer of color caught her eye and she turned toward it, her lips parting in a surprised smile. A dozen iridescent blue butterflies landed to drink from a wet stone next to the small waterfall. So there was animal life after all, the previous caretakers must have released a selection of insects that would aid in pollination. 

Pauline breathed deeply as she followed after the sisters, savoring the presence of their easy, uncomplicated company every bit as much as the delicate scents of the formal gardens, transformed to the heady intoxicating greens of a thick rain forest. Naomi had shown her these spectacular verdant spaces after she woke, perhaps with a thought to easing her hurts - and they certainly had. Pauline could not love her friend more for this kindness, than if she were her own sister born. 

But with Naomi’s flesh and blood sister here now, the brilliant horticulturalist, Pauline had a mind to pose the questions to Ester that rolled about her inquisitive mind from the moment she’d first stepped foot in the biodomes. “Were they always like this, Ester?” she asked, her voice softened and almost reverential in all this magnificent beauty. “When the Copernicus launched, I mean. Or have all these trees and plants grown a great deal since you first went to sleep?”

Ester looked back at Pauline, brushing a strand of hair that clung to her neck, “They have grown much but that is the way of tropical plants. Fast and lush growth, filling the voids where it finds it.” 

Her fingers trailed along a plumeria shrub with fragrant white blossoms, “I’m glad they let this place grow wild for the most part.” 

She fell to silence as she continued forward, her large dark eyes drinking in the sight of the man made jungle. Naomi followed with her arm tucked into Pauline’s, and leaned closer to her, “She’s in heaven you know.” 

“It’s good to be awake,” Ester replied, “I’m looking forward to getting to work. Let’s head to the next room.” 

They passed through another set of doors and the air felt instantly cooler and dryer, the huge room filled with more familiar plants and she smiled at the olive trees and date palms that grew among the clusters of sage and rosemary. Tall straight laurels lined the wall and there was arbors for the twisting grape vines that covered them, arching over the pathway. Toward the back were towering evergreens with reddish bark, cedars from what she could tell. 

Ester grinned and reached up, brushing aside the large, hairy leaf to gently touch a plump green fig of a low growing tree next to the path. 

“Doesn’t this remind you of home, [i]ac’hot[/i]?” Naomi asked with a sparkle in her dark eyes. 

“Yes, like the fig tree Ima planted in front of the house,” her sister replied, letting go of the unripe fruit. 

Pauline smiled as she strolled contentedly and quietly past the sisters, toward another nearby fig tree whose fruits were not near so green, but a ripe and resplendently deep reddish purple. With a supreme effort of will, she plucked a handful easily from the lower branches, and ate not a single one as she returned to Naomi and Ester. Pauline was an absolute glutton for fresh figs, never having the chance to discover as much until Naomi showed her these gardens. 

She held out her hand, offering the few she had picked while nibbling happily on one, her pale eyebrows raised expectantly. “I don’t know a fig tree would have lasted long, if we’d been lucky enough to have one in front of [i]our[/i] house,” Pauline said with a soft laugh. 

Ester took one from her hand, splitting the stem with her thumbnail to open the soft flesh, pink inside and it tasted like light honey on her tongue. The fragrance of the ripe fig filled her senses, taking her back to the days in the sun on the collective farm where they grew up. It seemed so long ago she and Naomi feeding the kids and lambs with bottles, collecting eggs at dawn, and eating the figs until their faces were sticky. Ester blinked and wiped her lips, smiling a little at the memory. 

“Did you live somewhere in the north?” she asked, “Figs cannot stand cold.” 

Naomi chuckled, “I think she means she would have eaten them all.” 

Ester glanced at Pauline’s reaction and blushed slightly at her mistake.

But Pauline gave Ester not a thing to blush over at all, gracefully moving forward without missing a beat. “So this is like to where you and Naomi grew up then?” she asked, peering about the biodome, to the laurels and the olive trees appreciatively, breathing in the sage and the rosemary, as if she might glean more of the sisters merely by taking in all of the lands they both so obviously loved. 

She nibbled thoughtfully on another fig, forcing herself to eat it slowly though all she really wanted to do was gobble it down, and then run back to the tree and pluck even more, one after the other. Pauline remembered the parable of the barren fig tree then, and knew the Gardener would find no fault in the trees to be found here, tended by Ester’s knowing hands.

“This is a Mediterranean garden, many of these we grew,” she looked around, following a gravel strewn path. “Ah, yes. I’m so glad, look.” 

Ester pointed out several trees with dark green foliage and orbs of orange and yellow. The faint scent of citrus in the air around them. 

“The lemonade,” Naomi leaned her chin on her sister’s shoulder, both of them remembering their grandmother’s fresh lemonade she made every summer. 

Ester smiled and felt the bump of her sister’s belly press against her arm. Once again, the little seed made herself known, kicking out against the sudden pressure. Naomi shifted away, putting her hand on her stomach. 

“Maybe we’d better keep moving, if she keeps kicking I’ll have to find the restroom,” she said, turning towards the path that led to the door on the left.

Pauline laughed at Naomi’s jest, thought briefly about making some small joke about bears in the woods and all of that, but she decided quickly it was probably not a reference the Israeli sisters were likely to catch. Instead she simply hurried after them, to yet another door that marked the borders between the biodomes, and wondered how much longer until she felt those butterfly flutters herself.

It would be a far, [i]far[/i] better sensation she was sure, than the hormone-induced nausea that snuck up on her at all the worst times. 

Like now. 

Naomi caught sight of Pauline’s sudden change of expression. She took her by the elbow, guiding her toward the door. Ester looked back and sat the sickly pale look on the young woman’s face and without a word, ran back toward the tropical room. Once inside, her dark eyes honed in on a bright reddish waxy flower that looked like a scalloped tail. She reached into her pocket and produced a folding knife. Digging into the soft damp soil she found the root of the ginger plant, slicing the skin and releasing sharp, pungent odor. 

Ester flicked her sharp knife, cutting paper thin pieces from the thick root. She lay it back down in it’s hole, flicking the dirt back over it with the back of her hand. She rushed back to where Naomi had lead Pauline, sitting on a wooden bench under a pair of fragrant eucalyptus trees.

The young woman leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her head dropped between her shoulders as she tried mightily to keep those two lone figs exactly where they were in her belly, and unspeakably glad she’d foregone making a glutton of herself. The crisp, slightly minty scent of eucalyptus helped a little as Pauline tried to catch her breath, the cold sweat of nausea turning her pale face paler still, the cold chill of a sudden sweat giving her forehead and upper lip a most unhealthy sheen.

“So sorry Naomi,” she whispered, though she tried to laugh a little, “I’m swearing off the figs. You’ll be proud of me… “

Ester hurried to her side, holding out a thin sliver of ginger root, “It’s quite strong but it should settle your stomach. Spit it out if it’s too much.” 

Naomi stepped back, “In a month or so you won’t have to worry about swearing off figs.” 

She smiled, recalling her own bouts of morning sickness and how she could not stand the smell of coffee for that time even though she had always liked it.

Pauline smiled weakly up at Naomi for her good-natured encouragement that figs were not going to be permanently deleted from her world; and then to Ester for her offer of the wafer thin slices of… Something. She didn’t ask, but only did precisely as Ester told her. 

The young woman’s pale blue eyes widened in surprise, though she’d certainly been warned this was ‘strong’ - but she managed to keep the biting ginger exactly where it was on her tongue. “Oh, well then!” Pauline managed with a sudden, quick laugh, wiping the sheen of sweat from her forehead with her fingertips. “If the ginger root doesn’t keep the nausea at bay, it must be the pure shock of it all doing the work!” 

She giggled a little, breathing in through the pursed little “o” of her mouth for a moment before grinning up to Ester. “[i]Thank[/i] you,” Pauline said sincerely, “Unexpected, but this will do perfectly. Naomi said you were a genius. Not that I doubted, but I feel pretty good, seeing it all in action. My stomach will too I imagine, soon enough.”

Ester shook her head, “I’m far from any genius, I just had spotted the ginger plants earlier and recalled it’s use. It’s better as a tea but it seems to have done the job.”

Pauline laughed softly again, shaking her head. She hadn’t known Ester long, but she doubted the woman would simply take the compliment, no matter whether she pushed it or no. And so she simply let it rest, decided in her mind on Ester’s worth, and paid the woman another, subtler compliment she felt sure couldn’t be denied quite so easily. “You’re absolutely right, Ester.”