Stop and Orbit the Flowers

     An Aurora Lily bloomed at one bench with the colors of a campfire - yellow and orange flames reaching upward. Green bamboo stalks stood stoutly in their pots, standing guard and at attention with their thick green stems. Blue Fan Flowers were just beginning to bloom and show the beginnings of blue sky radial petals. A Cheery Plant was overflowing its pot with bright green leaves nodding heavily on stems, their unique smiling faces turned upward. It was a strange site among the sterile gray environment of electronics that made up the rest of the ship. The flowers grew silently among the beeping and booping of the electronics boards.

     Currently tending to the collection was a Mechanized Laboratory Assistant Petpet, a mechanical invention that gently hovered among the rows wielding a watering can. Scintilly devoted most of her work nowadays to tending to the Atrium, as Dr. Landelbrot was caught up in complex calculations all the time now.

     "*beep*" Low moisture detected. Supplementing water source now," Scintilly stated to no one in particular as she monitored the vital rates of all the plants under her care.

     The Atrium was a very important experiment being conducted aboard The Coincidence. While they were always running multiple experiments at a time, they had recently been contacted by The Seeker's Guild in Neopia to carry out a special set of experiments designed by the academics back on the planet. It seems they were interested in how well Neopian life grew in space. Of course Dr. Landelbrot was always interested in carrying out new projects so he agreed immediately.

     And so, now Scintilly was in charge of a whole garden's worth of plants to take care of. As if monitoring The Coincidence wasn't enough! She sighed as much as a robot can sigh, and set down the watering can, preparing to write up this week's report on the plants. Her single purple viewing apparatus flickered as she opened up the files.

     "Neopian Botanic Life Space Experiment #001, current status: normal. Year: 199X

     Cheery Plant: normal.

     Blue Fan Flowers: commencing blooming.

     Bamboo: normal.

     Aurora Lily: ..."

     Scintilly leaned over the benches to take a look at the lily again. She noticed a bit of browning at the edge of the leaves. And she noticed that the plant had not put out any new blooms recently. Maybe it wasn't doing well.

     "*beep* Add reminder to ask Landelbrot about the lily's needs." Scintilly wasn't really an expert on organic life, being inorganic herself. She operated the best when querying computer data systems. Being done with her work for the day, she decided to inquire after Dr. Landelbrot, who was well known to ignore his own biology and frequently miss taking breaks, resulting in crashes later that she would likely have to deal with.

     Scintilly hovered to the main bridge, where the Green Lutari was always working. As usual, Landelbrot was in the midst of a series of calculations being carried out across four computer screens. He also held a pencil and worked on paper at the same time, with an additional pencil shoved behind an ear - he probably forgot about that one - and yet another pencil held in the curl of his tail.

     Scintilly hesitated to interrupt him in this state, so gently removed the tail pencil before someone got accidentally stabbed and stepped to her own computer on the bridge, where she monitored communications.

     It was some time later that Landelbrot finally shouted "Eureka!" and put down the pencils. He had worked on a new randomness configuration for the Random Events simulator. He immediately turned his attention to the next problem, which was Void-related. While he worked he conversed with his Petpet companion.

     "Scintilly, how goes the work on the plant business? Anything to report?"

     "All work has been taken care of, beep. No issues, Landelbrot. Although, may I query your knowledge on living systems?"

     "Of course Scintilly, go ahead."

     "Some of the botanical specimens appear to not being flourishing as well as they were in the past. I have monitored soil moisture, nutrients, and UV light and report no issues. What is your recommendation on this, bzzrt?"

     "Hmm, good question. I myself am also not an expert on the living world so much - maybe we've both spent too much time traveling in the deep space, hm? Report back to me if conditions begin to worsen."

     "Affirmative."

     ******

     Weeks later and The Coincidence was still drifting around the nearest outer edge star system. Scintilly had been monitoring the plant experiment entirely by herself during this time, as Landelbrot had his paws full in Void-related business. However, Scintilly's usual bright purple viewing apparatus was becoming duller as she surveyed her charges.

     The Aurora Lily was dropping petals from its once-vibrant leaves now. The Cheery Plant may well be renamed to the Concerned Plant, as the once-smiling faces on its leaves were beginning to droop. Scintilly was worried as she checked and re-checked the vital signs of the plants for issues. She had even pulled out their microscope to search for disease and tiny P3 pests that may be investing the garden. There was nothing that she could find.

     Scintilly had to approach Dr. Landelbrot immediately. The Lutari was concerned to see the Petpet so flustered, knowing that it must be a serious problem.

     "Bzrrt, Landelbrot, the botanic experiment is not going well. The species are not growing under my administrations, I fear it is something that I am doing. Requesting your immediate assistance with the project at once. Brzzt."

     "Ok, Scintilly, I'll take a look at it. Don't worry, we will figure it out together! You monitor these Void readings while I go survey The Atrium. Actually, I could use some help deriving a figure if you don't mind..." Landelbrot pulled up the equation he was last working on and let the Petpet take over. Scintilly was eager to work on the problem, feeling more at home in the realm of computer data. Maybe stretching his legs and viewing something green would be helpful for his mind after all.

     Inside the Atrium now, Landelbrot took a deep breath, ready to tackle a very different problem. Actually, it was nice to be among other living things - no disrespect to Scintilly, of course. But it was just nice to be among other Neopian life sometimes. He took a look at the plants among the tables and took note of several signs - wilting leaves, drooping flowers. Things were not looking so good. The Lutari pulled out the gardening supplies - clippers, shovels, and others - and got to work. It was nice working with your own claws sometimes, and Landelbrot lost track of time as he trimmed leaves, repotted plants, and made new soil mixes.

     He started at first only by humming to himself, to pass the time. Dirt in his claws and the smell of soil in the sanitized air system of the ship was making him feel alive again. His long tail curled a little looser and his whiskers twitched with interest.

     Soon enough, Scintilly was picking up a strange audio reading from The Atrium, so she queried their monitoring system to see what it was. As she listened in, Scintilly heard something she had never heard aboard The Coincidence before - singing! And it was coming from Dr. Landelbrot! She squinted her visual apparatus at first, but soon saw that the scientist was content trimming away at a bonsai tree. "Interesting…bzzrt". She queried this information away for future use.

     *****

     Some weeks later, Dr. Landelbrot was now spending everyday in the Atrium working with the plants, while Scintilly focused on their Void calculations. Amazingly, the plants seemed to make a full recovery. The Blue Fan Flowers had fully bloomed, resembling the beautiful blue sky of Neopia. The Cheery Plant had its normal happy demeanor back, and the Bamboo was standing stick-straight again. Scinitilly was amazed at the work Landelbrot was able to do.

     "But how were you able to do it, bzzrt?"

     Landelbrot pulled up a new monitoring system. "Simple, Scintilly. There was a factor we foolishly were not considering - carbon dioxide! Living beings produce carbon dioxide when they breathe and plants have to have it. No offense to you my dear Scintilly, but you usually don't output it from your system."

     Scintilly hadn't thought about it. She was so used to being around other Neopets she sometimes forgot she was entirely mechanical. That's the problem with being in space all the time: sometimes you lose perspective.

     In their new routine, Landelbrot was constantly exhaling carbon dioxide by breathing, and the plants were using it during photosynthesis to make energy and release oxygen. As a living thing, Landelbrot could breathe in the oxygen himself, so the cycle always continued. It was so simple, so obvious.

     She had noticed that Landelbrot was happier, too. Neopets like being around green, living things, so it made sense.

     "I think we should make this change permanent, bzzrt."

     Landelbrot laughed and took a deep breath, feeling more relaxed than he had ever felt. "I think you're right."

     The End.