Chapter 33

Earth time: 6:05 PM Wednesday, October 1, 2024 (EST)

Aina time: 6:00 AM day 261 of 1425

"My cot! Where ever did you find it?"

"Oh, hi Lois! You're right on time. Did you have breakfast yet?" Mayoni looked up from her office desk and smiled. Outside a fierce thunderstorm had just rolled in and was lashing the window with rain.

"Sure, sunrise was more than two hours ago. It's hard not to get up early, this time of year. But my cot! Where did you find it?"

"Uh, it was in my closet."

"What?! In your... Oh, clever Hiapo! I would never have looked there!"

"Actually, it was Kalea who lugged it in here, way back in the winter of 1410, but yeah, it was Hiapo's idea. Want it back?"

Lois thought for a moment. "No, I don't think so. My long stay on Earth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of the days. I'm not the workaholic I once was... And it's been such a joy to interact with young children again! I love Sarah so dearly now, your children too. If you'd ever let Lynnea or Thomas sleep over at our hut, my whole family would be thrilled."

"Thomas is a bit young for overnight visits, he's still nursing, but Lynnea would love that! And Sarah's like a big sister to her. Maybe they can come over together... I'll ask Ura..."

"Wow, two young girls... We'd be thrilled... You don't know what Earth is like now, no young children at all... The place is so cold and empty... How old are the girls?"

"Earth-years? Let me think... Sarah turns five and a half in about an Earth-month, just about the time Lynnea will turn four."

"Wow... Thanks..."

Mayoni nodded thoughtfully. "So, you want your old job back?"

"Huh? Oh, I don't want to supplant you. Everybody I've talked with has told me what an incredible job you've done as the principal Ob-gyn for the tribe..."

"Oh, supplant away! I won't mind. Really. My first job is mother, I have a passion to continue my research, I'm caring for a full load of patients, and I'm thinking of running for Congress. Something's got to give!"

"Well, if you put it like that... Let me start talking with the hospital staff."

"Excellent! And now, the purpose of your visit. I have so much to tell you about Aina life-forms," Mayoni said with a smile. "Up for a little work?"

"Oh, you bet!"

"Come take a look at some analysis..."

An hour later, Lois just shrugged her shoulders. "Does any of this make sense to you? It just seems like a whole bunch of bizarre mysteries, one after another. They don't even agree with each other..."

"Actually, I have a theory to explain everything. It's pretty complicated."

Lois sat down and stared at Mayoni. "I'm impressed. No fooling, I really am. What have you got?"

"My theory calls for three completely different groups doing genetic work on Aina, or at least three distinct groups that had their work transferred to Aina. I call the three groups the gods, the wise ones, and the cookbook bozos..."

Lois smiled. "Okay. You have my curiosity piqued. How'd you pick the third name?"

Mayoni smiled back. "Let me tell you a cute story about Hawaii. There was a guy medical student from Massachusetts at my school, the first year I was there. It was November of 2013, Thanksgiving Day. This is so funny, I can remember it as if it were yesterday. The guy's name was Dan Stopper, but everybody called him The Plug..."

Mayoni sat back in her office chair, smiling and closing her eyes. "The Plug had never done any cooking in his life. Zero. But he wanted to take the plunge. So he bought himself a cookbook and invited all his friends over to his apartment for a Thanksgiving dinner... I was there with about six other people... The first course was a salad, which was fine, and Dan had already told us dessert would be ice cream. No problem there, just open the freezer and get out the bowls... But the main course! The Plug started bringing the dishes out of the kitchen. He had cranberry sauce, baked potatoes, cooked carrots, cooked green beans, cooked peas, some fruit drinks, I thought he was going to pull it all off... The only thing left to bring out was the turkey, and we were all waiting for him to come out of the kitchen with it so we could applaud him. And we waited... and we waited..."

A big grin swept across Mayoni's face, but she kept her eyes closed. "The Plug finally comes out of the kitchen very sheepishly, without the turkey. He says that he can't get the turkey out of the oven, that it was stuck. Ha! We all got up to help him. At first I couldn't imagine what the problem could be. Turkeys don't expand when you cook them. But then I got a look at the oven... Ha! Ha, Ha, Ha!" Mayoni couldn't stop herself from laughing at the memory.

"Mayoni, what?" asked Lois.

"His problem was that he followed the cookbook's instructions! He kept pointing to it. He was furious with the book! In the cookbook, it said to pre-heat the oven to 325F, and then to put the turkey on a rack... Ha! Ha, Ha, Ha!"

Lois looked puzzled for a moment, and then her eyes widened. "No! He didn't?!"

"Yes! He did, right on the oven rack! The bird had welded itself to the rack, and after all the hours of cooking, the spattering grease had welded the rack to the sides of the oven. The pile of grease at the bottom of the oven was hideous! And the burnt odors from the pile made the bird inedible. I helped Dan clean it up, while some of the others went out to get some pizza. Ha, Ha, Ha!"

Mayoni burst into laughter at the memory. It took her several moments to collect herself. Finally she said, "Here, take a look at these. These are all the top-level bio-control themes of all the super-food plants. Do you see how elegant it all is? Beautiful, beautiful design, so refined... These plants were designed by master genetic craftsmen. And the core structures, Earth! Not Aina, Earth! The proof is irrefutable."

Lois stared long and hard at Mayoni's layouts. Finally she said, "Your analytical grasp of all this is much greater than mine, but I think I can dimly see your major points. This is incredibly efficient bio-coding..."

"Oh yeah. No bugs in this code! This code has been polished. Many thousands of generations of refinement to get it this good. The end results are masterpieces..."

"So you think this code was created by your gods?"

"Oh no Lois. This was created by the wise ones. I say wise, not good. In some ways I think they were as evil as the bozos. But if you want to see the gods' work, take a look at this. Here's a view of what's going on inside an Aina sunflower plant..."

Lois stared for over an hour. Near the end, goose-bumps were breaking out all over her arms. "I feel cold, really cold. Mayoni, do you mean the name literally, that this was created by a divine being?"

"No. From pure science the power is so magical that my answer might be maybe, but from my faith in the Great Spirit my answer is no. I do believe the Great Spirit loves us, guides us, redeems us, and calls us to its purpose, and that its purpose is good purpose. But I don't believe this code is its direct handiwork..."

"The abilities, they're magic."

"Yes. To us, it'll never be otherwise. I see thousands of layers of physical insight into qualities of our universe that we haven't even imagined. Would a million, even a billion generations of human research be enough to produce such magic? My gut says no... Yet the plant exists... There's similar magic in the active ivy. Take a look at this..."