Chapter 29: Australian Mandarins

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Australian Mandarins

The rain went on all night, and by the next morning it was still coming down steadily.

Benjamin and Isabella didn’t leave the house either, and just sat together in one place discussing how to adjust the color.

Liam slept until seven in the morning before he got up. Once he had washed and dressed, he went downstairs yawning one yawn after another. Seeing her younger brother come down, Isabella stood up at once, and went into the kitchen to bring out a cup of synthetic milk for pregnancies, a plate of about twelve fried Grass Worms and two eggs along with a plate of boiled cabbage.

Liam caught the smell of the synthetic milk, and his expression suddenly changed. He covered his nose and mouth, and hurried into the bathroom to retch.

Benjamin and Isabella started and ran in after him, and anxiously took hold of him. Once Liam had finished, Isabella handed him a cup of water to rinse his mouth. Benjamin asked:

"Has the morning sickness started already? You were perfectly fine yesterday?"

Liam finished rinsing, and put a hand over his stomach. The smell of the milk still drifted faintly in the air, and he frowned in discomfort.

"I don’t think I can stand the smell of milk. Take it away, please."

Isabella jumped, and rushed to the table to carry the milk out of the house. Benjamin switched on the house’s air filtration system as well, and at that the smell of milk gradually disappeared. Liam’s color gradually improved too.

He let out a breath: "It’s fine now, I don’t feel sick anymore."

Isabella and Benjamin helped him to a seat at the table, and then carefully helped him eat his breakfast. Liam was waited on by his brother and sister like an emperor, and didn’t have to lift a hand for anything at all. He waved them off:

"I’m only pregnant, I haven’t lost an arm or a leg, let me do it myself."

Benjamin brushed it aside: "No, you’re at a critical stage right now, you mustn’t be careless."

Liam tried to resist a little longer, but it had no effect at all. He had to let his brother and sister "wait on" him.

Once Liam had finished eating, Isabella went outside and drank the cup of synthetic milk down. Then she rinsed her mouth thoroughly, sniffing herself over and over to make certain no smell of milk clung to her before she went back into the house.

She sat on the sofa opposite Liam, and said gloomily: "Normally a pregnant person needs to drink synthetic nutritional milk to supply nutrition for the body and for the baby. What do we do if you can’t drink it?"

Liam blinked: "That’s because those people can’t eat fresh food, or hardly ever, and I eat it every day, so what do I need milk for? The nutrition in that plate of Grass Worms alone beats several tubes of synthetic nutritional milk outright."

Isabella slapped her forehead: "Oh, you’re right, I completely forgot. If I’d known I wouldn’t have bought the nutritional milk yesterday. There are nine whole tubes left."

Benjamin rubbed his chin: "Then put them in the time-freeze box, and save them for the baby."

"That works." Isabella rallied at once, and carried the smart tablet over to sit beside Liam:

"Liam, look at this. The video I posted yesterday already has over five thousand views and one thousand two hundred and three likes. There are a few hundred comments too, but they’re mostly criticizing us for doing pointless work, insisting our soil can’t grow a thing. The few that aren’t are all cheering us on." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Liam took the smart tablet, and clicked into the video first, then switched over to the engagement figures. The vlog channel was registered under Benjamin’s name, and after the first video it had already picked up two hundred and eleven followers. That was a reasonably good showing, because all they had filmed was a few small beds of vegetables and one barren, deserted planet.

He gave his analysis: "These figures are reasonably good. The two of you have got the hang of operating the smart camera by hand, and the footage you’re getting is far more artistic and creative for it. The color is acceptable, you just need to watch the exposure range.

However, if we keep filming ourselves working like this it will be very dull, and people will drift away fast. We need something fresher."

Benjamin blinked: "Then what should we film?"

Liam looked out the door, where the Sawtooth greens had been carefully tended, and had now been bathed in rain, so by tomorrow the first crop could probably be harvested. Looking at the rain outside, Liam suddenly said:

"Film the rain, and then get close-ups of the vegetables under it. Do one overall sweep, then set it to slow motion, and capture the moment the raindrops land on the leaves."

Hearing that, Benjamin’s eyes lit up at once. He stood up immediately and adjusted the smart camera, then let it fly outside. First the rainwater running down from the roof, then slowly moving outward, flying into the curtain of rain.

Benjamin then took the camera up high, and tipped the lens straight down. From that angle, the raindrops fell straight down from above, and looked far deeper. Liam watched the monitor, and couldn’t help his eyebrows rising.

Say what you liked, his brother genuinely had a gift for filming. An ordinary scene of rain like that, and he still made it look thoroughly cinematic.

Just watching was a little dull, so Liam pulled a heap of Australian mandarins out of the spatial bracelet. Isabella picked one up curiously, and examined it from every angle. She brought her nose close to smell it, and found a fairly faint fragrance.

"Liam, what fruit is this?"

"This is a mandarin, a fruit with no mental energy in it but a great many vitamins that are good for the body." Liam picked one up as well, pulled off the stem and dug a fingernail into the top, and peeled the skin away expertly.

A sweet and fresh fragrance spread instantly through the air. Isabella’s eyes went wide with astonishment, and even Benjamin who was concentrating on his filming couldn’t stop himself swallowing once.

Liam broke off a segment, and handed it to Isabella: "We eat the flesh inside here, and remember to spit the seeds out. Mandarin seeds are very bitter."

Isabella took the segment, and looked at it for a while before putting it in her mouth. The first chew tasted sour, and then sweetness threaded through it. Remembering what Liam had told her, Isabella spat the seed out into her palm.

Liam peeled a segment for himself and put it in his mouth. The mingled sour and sweet together with the fragrance and the juiciness lingering on his tongue made every last neuron in him seem to burst open. Liam couldn’t stop himself eating a second segment, a third...

By the time Benjamin had filmed the last shot, and came hurrying inside, all he found was a table piled with mandarin peel and mandarin seeds, and the mandarins themselves eaten clean by his younger brother and sister. He said sulkily:

"Hmph, the pair of you are something. Now that there’s good food you don’t even think of me anymore."

Liam snorted a laugh: "Not at all, I saved you a share right here. I still have more, but these mandarins are heating, so you can’t eat many at once."

He took five more mandarins out of the spatial bracelet, and handed them to Benjamin. Isabella taught him how to peel one, and didn’t forget to remind him to spit the seeds. Benjamin was conquered by the fruit as well, and put away all five in one go.

Liam looked at the heap of mandarin peel and mandarin seeds on the table, and said as he rubbed his chin: "This peel can have essential oil extracted from it, and it can also be dried to brew as tea. It’s a cold remedy in itself, but it works rather slowly, so we may as well just use it as fertilizer. As for these seeds, they can be planted, but a tree grown from seed takes a long time to fruit, and second-generation mandarins turn out much more sour. If the two of you want to, you can try growing some."

Benjamin said at once: "What if we soaked the seeds in restoration fluid? Undiluted concentrate can actually improve seed stock."

Liam’s eyes lit up. He asked Benjamin quickly: "Brother, can restoration fluid turn seeds with no mental energy into seeds that have it?"

Benjamin nodded firmly: "Of course it can. Otherwise, why do you think it costs what it does."

Liam broke into a grin, and immediately hauled every mandarin out of the bracelet. He pulled out the corn as well, cucumber seeds, potatoes, sweet potato slips,... In short, whatever seeds he had traded for yesterday came out today. When he was about to take out the chicken eggs, his hand suddenly stopped. He asked Benjamin:

"What about the eggs of animals? Can those be improved?"

Benjamin was still absorbed in studying the strange seeds on the table, and didn’t catch what Liam had asked. He had to lift his head and ask again. After hearing Liam repeat it, he shook his head:

"It can’t be done. The Research Institute tried and failed, and to this day nobody has heard whether they’re still running the project."

"Oh." Liam made a disappointed sound, but took out the fertilized chicken eggs anyway: "These are fertilized chicken eggs, they can be hatched into chicks, and raised for eggs or for meat, either way."

Isabella and Benjamin leaned their faces close to those eggs no bigger than three fingers, and question marks filled the air above their heads.

Chickens? What were those? Could it be the name of some new species of star-beast?