Skylar sat on John's bed with his phone. Scrolling through the list of all the plants they had cataloged over the past couple days, they were trying to figure out which plants would be the best for Qwortar to rebound from the famine. There were stats on soil fertility, amount of water, amount of sunlight, how long to mature, how fecund one plant could be, and of course nutrition values. A Qwortarian had vastly different needs than a human.
Hours passed as Skylar found themselves trying not to get distracted by things like the opinions on whether or not a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable. While Skylar did their research John and Emily say at the desk, planning the other details of the road trip.
"So," John spun his chair and looked at Skylar. "Have you figured out what to bring back yet?"
"Grapes, watermelons, oranges." Skylar handed John his phone back. "But…” Skylar pursed their lips as John tilted his head at her. “How do you grow them if all the fruit is seedless?” Skylar’s question wasn’t answered at first. Instead John was turning to his phone and trying Google out. “I mean, those other ways limit the biodiversity.”
“Yeah.” John admitted quietly. “And that’s a problem isn’t it?” Skylar nodded.
“Well, what can we do to change that?” Emily tapped the desk.
“The easiest, multiple cuttings.” John admitted. “From multiple sources.”
“How do we keep them alive on the ship?” Skylar asked. “I’m not sure what the other ship’s capabilities are.”
John crossed his arms, using his toes to swivel his chair back and forth. Emily put her feet up on the edge of John’s bed. She wiggled her purple toes that Skylar had painted earlier.
“Well,” John rubbed his face, “I guess we’ll have to figure it out when we get the ship.”
“And you hate that don’t you Mr. Plan every Detail.” Emily said, pushing the back of John’s shoulder.
“I certainly don’t love it.” John grumbled. “But it’s not-” John yelped when Skylar lurched forward to yank his phone out of his hand again. “What?”
After a quick search Skylar held out the phone.
“Indoor growing systems?” John said. “Well, it would probably work. Like, how long would the trip be?”
“Depends on the ship we find.” Skylar shrugged. “But at worst it would take years.” Skylar cleared their throat. “Decades.”
“Well,” Emily flung her legs back to the floor and jumped up. “We won’t know until we find that ship!” She pointed to the door. “We can leave as early as tomorrow!”
John spluttered and Skylar clapped.
“Well, I mean,” John started to protest, mostly about packing and finding last minute supplies, but Emily assured John the three of them could get everything done in time.
“The sooner the better right?” Emily insisted.
“Yeah yeah.” John pushed himself up and held his arm out towards Emily. “Let’s finish up all the last minute things then.”
“And then onward!” Skylar pointed east.
Word count: 499
