“I, um... I didn’t come here for that,” he said. “I swear.” His cheeks glowed bright red.
“Yes, you did. Don’t lie,” I teased.
“All right, you caught me.” He laughed, and it was contagious. When he stopped, he said, “I should get back to my humble abode. I think it’s getting dark outside.”
I thought for a moment, then in a hushed voice said, “Or you could just stay.” I don’t know if it was the feeling I got from the kiss, or the time spent away from Earth and any kind of social life, but I wanted him to stay.
“I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble,” he said. His eyes were devious, as his lips approached mine again.
“Why not?” I asked.
THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up to Garrett Wells sleeping by the coals of the fire in my hut. It was surprising to see him lying there exposed. It was always so easy for me to get caught in the moment, but after a night’s rest, it was jarring. Had I really slept with him? I liked him, but didn’t imagine it would go that far.
Sitting quietly against the fire-baked wall, I wrote in my journal about the times we’d had on Circadia, including the best, most recent event; the growth of the new sprout. They say that once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonized that place, which meant that we had officially colonized Circadia, and that was my goal. Now we had to sustain ourselves, and survive. I set my notebook down and moved towards Garrett.
I shook his arm gently to wake him up. “Garrett. Garrett. Hey, good morning.”
“Hey, good morning,” he said groggily.
“Hey, you should probably get back to your hut and get cleaned up. We have work to do, you know. I have to go make sure the fields are hydrated and taken care of. I’m sure you have stuff to do, right?” I asked the last question to make the room not feel so awkward. It didn’t work.
“Not really. You know, I’m a lunar astronomer—but this planet has no moons and Earth’s moon doesn’t have much effect on Circadia. So, I’m not really sure why I’m here. Maybe it was just so I would cause trouble for the TV show.” He shook his head in obvious disappointment. “Maybe I was for ‘just in case’ Earth’s moon affected Circadia. I don’t know.”
He was visibly lost. I felt terrible for him but didn’t know what to say. “I’m sure you'll find something to do,” I offered.
“Think I can go to work with you today? Maybe make up for the ‘farmer’ comment from Earth?”
He was sincere in his offer, and I couldn’t refuse him. I hesitated for a moment. “Yeah, that would be fine. We can always use extra help.”
Chapter Fifteen
I prepared for the day as Garrett waited outside my hut. When I stepped out, his smile spanned across his face. “Ready?” he asked.
“Ready if you are.” I bumped into his shoulder playfully as I walked past.
We walked side-by-side over the creek and to the large fields. When we arrived, the crew was already working the ground, removing any flower weed that had sprouted, watering the rows of crops manually, and providing support to any plant that was having difficulty. Garrett and I watched from the edge.
“You really have an operation going on here, huh?” he said.
“Yeah, I really do. We do,” I said bashfully. “Today we are positioning and testing out the center pivot irrigation system! I am so excited. It will cut down on a lot of manual labor. I’m sure everyone else is excited, too.”
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Well, you can’t just stand around, right?” I gave him a smile and got to work.
Together, with a group of about twenty-five people, we all pushed or pulled on the large metal bars to navigate it across the field. Once it was cleared through the field and brought to a place where it could be moved manually, we also cleared paths so that in the future it could move on its own with ease. The T-L pivot system I had requested provided manual movement by pumping the water through a hydraulic system. The hydraulic system continuously moved the outer wheels of the contraption to navigate across the field of crops.
Hooking up the pump and hose to the center pivot irrigation system that led to the creek, we started the solar-powered pump with no success. I worried for a moment the solar team had wired something wrong, or that the small solar panels located on top had been sitting in the shade somehow. Then, with one last try, it fired up. It sounded like a lawn mower at first, until it worked itself into a purr. We could feel water flood the lines of the hose, but it wouldn’t go through the pipes of the waterer.
It felt like all hope was lost, until Garrett unscrewed the hose from the pipe to discover a closure to prevent debris from entering the pipe. He removed this easily enough and hooked it back up securely. We heard the pipes fill with water, until it rained down from the sky onto the whole crew.
We all celebrated, drenched in water.
EVERY DAY AFTER THE center pivot irrigation system started, the crops seemed to grow half an inch overnight. The extra moisture in the rich soil of Circadia gave birth to enormous and abundant yields far quicker than any other crop grew on Earth. We were all amazed. When we realized how different crop seasons were on the new planet, we began to document growth rates and yields. The numbers were triple what we had previously seen anywhere else. Plants would grow inches overnight and yield the fruits of
