Independent Means by Simon Kattenhorn

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Epilogue

Danziger lifted the spoon to his mouth and swallowed another mouthful of delicious hot soup. It felt like he hadn't eaten in days, which was rather appropriate, seeing as he hadn't. The Eden Advance crew were gathered around the evening campfire, chattering excitedly and for the first time in so many days, laughing heartily. True was hovering over him to the point of annoyance, but he let her carry on regardless. Devon had told him how True had watched over him while he was unconscious, and he couldn't help but feel intense pride at her reserve. "Elle would have been so proud," he thought to himself.

Bess and Morgan each had one arm round the other, and were wrapped in a single blanket that Bess had insisted Morgan keep around him. He wasn't even remotely cold, but his protestations had been met with a stonefaced look from Bess that he had long since come to know as the "do as I say or live to face the consequences" look. So he sat huddled under the blanket, trying his best to hide his discontent.

Uly sat between Devon's legs, squirming slightly in his mother's arms which were wrapped tightly around his torso, as if she were scared he might simply float away if she didn't hold him there. Julia and Alonzo were engaged in a slightly hushed conversation. Alonzo had one hand resting gently on Julia's knee as he spoke. Danziger watched as Alonzo leaned over and whispered something in Julia's ear, causing a smile to light across her face. Yale was lecturing Magus into submission on the ills of toxin contamination on old Earth while Cameron looked on in amusement. Devon looked around the crowd from one face to the next, elated that things were finally back to normal.

Danziger helped himself to another bowl of soup, fending off True's attempts to do it for him. "So let me get this straight," he directed at Julia. "You made us well using dirt?"

Julia laughed and shook her head. "Well, not exactly, but it was dirt that provided the magic ingredient for sure."

"The dirt contained a mineral we needed," Alonzo piped in, trying to recall what Julia had explained to him earlier.

"That's right," Julia continued. "The root contains a mineral that is high in certain harmful elements. It works its way into the bloodstream and attacks the leukocyte cells. Unfortunately for the males, it specifically targets either hormone-specific constituents or cell chromosomes that render the substance harmless to females, although it is still carried around in the bloodstream, which is why we all needed to take the antidote. What we needed was some way to neutralize the chemical substance to halt the attack on the cells, which was an ongoing process."

"And the neutralizing chemical was in the dirt?" Danziger surmised.

"Yes! I didn't realize it before. I thought the chemical existed in the skin of the root, which in fact, it did, although in amounts that were too minuscule to be of use to us. Fortunately for us, Bess realized that it was the soil that provided the mineral we needed, not the root or the water."

"That's right!" chimed in Morgan. "And if Bess hadn't grown up on Earth, we would still be in this mess, remember that." Bess hugged Morgan tightly. Even after all this time he still felt the need to protect her from the scorn of others because she hadn't grown up on the stations. It didn't seem to matter that no one here really gave a damn.

"So how did you get the mineral out of the dirt?" asked Danziger.

"Well first we had to create free radicals in the soil that would want to take back the toxic elements from the bloodstream." Danziger had no idea what that meant, but he allowed Julia to continue. "We used the water from the plains and titrated it through the soil to dissolve out the remaining toxins. Simple redox substitutions. That's how the plants got it, you see, by taking it out of the water after the water dissolved it from the soil. Anyway, then we used the resultant mineral to make the antidote by dissolving it in a slightly acidic medium and injecting it into the bloodstream. The reagents then substituted ions to take up the toxins again and replace them with harmless by-products."

Danziger nodded his partial understanding while Alonzo gaped at Julia in mock awe. "You're a hero!" he gushed with a teasing grin.

"Well I would still be wandering around on the other side of the planet if it wasn't for Magus," she reminded them.

Magus blushed. "Any time!" she said, secretly praying that in reality she never came within a mile of another spider tunnel.

"So did you ever figure out what that Terrian wanted?" Devon asked Julia.

"I think so," she replied. "At first, I thought he was trying to indicate a river in the desert. I thought maybe he was trying to tell me where the rest of you were. But after working on this antidote with Bess, I realized that he was trying to indicate the water *under* the ground. Maybe the Terrians know something about how chemical reactions work between the water and the soil and the vegetation. Also, I think perhaps the river in the desert analogy is pretty accurate in referring to the unusually shallow water table."

"Yeah," said Alonzo. "That's why we didn't see any Terrians the whole way across the plains. The sediment contains so much water that it's harmful to their skin. There are obviously some places on this planet where even they can't go. And that's why the dream plane was silent too. We were too far away from the Terrians."

"So have you heard from the Terrians since you woke up?" asked Devon.

"No. I think it's this mountain range. Maybe they don't like traveling through granite for some reason. It's certainly a very compact rock, according to Bess, unlike sandy areas. I'll try to ask them when we see them again."

Devon nodded, then turned her attention to Yale, who had started a new line of conversation. All around the campfire, smiling faces reflected the dancing light of the campfire flames in their eyes, and the Eden Advance crew reveled in each other's company, and the promise of new adventures that lay before them.

-The End-

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