Lessons in Space Floristry

When they call it a 'verdant moon in exotic unexplored space', be exceptionally wary. Especially because, in my case, that turned out to mean a grassy rock orbiting a fart at the arse-end of the Milky Way. Traders might swing by once a month, if you're lucky, and you'll swell with excitement at the latest innovations in dehydrated fruit (they all taste like sultanas now!). 

Kore is a moon that orbits the gas giant Libera, and as you may have guessed by now, it was not what I expected. Down on my luck, with no money to my name, I had accepted the offer to be an assistant horticulturist without a second thought. If I had ventured to a third however, it might have been "you have no relevant skills or experience, why are they offering this to you?"

Five years on, I lived in a lightsteel cottage on the edge of the only town on Kore with a functioning spaceport. My contribution to the local horticultural scene involved cultivating what looked like a large tulip with a fat stem, that had puce coloured petals with streaks of grey. The things were so prolific they'd escaped the greenhouse to lounge languidly in the window of my living room and absorb all the sun in there too. Other failed experiments withered in small pots between them. Perhaps the local flora just didn't take well to growing indoors, or perhaps it was my lack of experience. I told myself it was the plants' fault though.

The open laptop on my coffee table displayed an email in reply to my latest report to my boss: "Looks great Laina. You coming to Margarita Wednesday?" She had long since given up - we could grow Earth staples here well enough, why bother with anything else? I closed the lid and sank into the sofa, clutching the warm mug of coffee close to my chest; the only variety we grew had a sweeter taste than back home, but I'd become quite fond. Arnie, my fluffy ginger cat, darted past at full post-poo top speed with something stringy dangling behind him. 

Yes, I was going to Margarita Wednesday.

an AI rendering of an off-planet greenhouse

All the steps between the third margarita and arriving back in my greenhouse clutching the arm of a tall, muscular trader woman are fuzzy. 

"I like them," she spoke softly. I wondered if I would look as good with one side of my head buzzed. "They're ugly. But they have a kind of presence to them. Character."

"Remind me, Rae," I slurred, "Why did you wanna see them?"

She shrugged. "Curious. My dad is a hobbyist florist, he likes to make weird arrangements. He would be obsessed with these."

"Take a couple, if you want? Dunno if they'll travel well for long though."

She looked briefly surprised. "Can you just do that?"

I shrugged. "Already some gone offworld, why not?"

As she chuckled at that, the first glimmers of the approaching morning lit up the sky, her face framed against the purple black suffused with hints of orange. As the scent of soil mingled with the musk of her perfume, she brushed a fingertip over my hand. Distantly there was wailing. Then less distantly. Arnie wanted breakfast.

an AI rendering of space floristry

Over the next month I had surprise success with a flower that looked like an Earth daisy, but with chevron shaped petals and an overwhelming cocoa-like scent. Three individuals stood proudly in their pots, displaying their blooms to the early evening sun when my phone vibrated. A message from Rae. 

"No idea when/if this will make it through (interstellar comms, you know?) but dad LOVES the flowers. Attached some pics of the bouquets!" 

Said photos featured the most adorable old man with the biggest glasses holding a floral arrangement with one of my flowers at its centre. It still looked odd, but intentionally so with sprigs of red-black foliage and bundles of baby's breath, all wrapped together in a light fabric of gunmetal grey.

Another message followed momentarily, "Gonna be on Kore 13/4/13 - 16/4/13 by your date. Let me know if you wanna hang out? Cool if not though." 

It was the sixteenth. I definitely wanted to see Rae. In a feat of athleticism I've mirrored neither before or since, I bolted out of the door and sprinted towards the H-tram stop. It was at least half a mile from my house, but it travelled straight through town.

She answered as I rounded a corner into the town proper, onto the reddish saltstone paved streets.

"Hi, you're still onworld?" This sputtered out between my gasps for air. 

"Just final checks. So… For another hour?" She paused. "Are you running somewhere?"

"Don't leave?" I hung up. Better not to know what she said.

I reached the end of the street with the H-tram stop, my breath full ragged wheezes, as I charged up to it and waved my card around the reader. It was empty save for a startled teenager wearing huge headphones who watched me with wide eyes. Briefly, I considered collapsing to the floor until I reached my destination. But I held firm.

Gliding quietly through the streets in the metal box, I began to consider what I was doing. Buildings crowded together closer as we whizzed along through town, and I grasped my face with one hand. I was going to seem insane. Two more stops, and my travelling-companion exited outside a block of flats - a mix of local stone and lightsteel, as the newer buildings tended to be. As the avenue widened out, trees lined the road - that had been one of our earlier projects when there was more buzz about Kore. They were tall things with thick trunks, bulbous little bundles of leaves at their very top. She wouldn't want to see me after this, certainly.

Further the little box pushed on, and a few more people joined me in the car, but we stopped less frequently as we powered on towards the spaceport. The terminal towered just in view, a square box of titanium and glass. As we slowed to a stop, I hesitated. Maybe I should just go home. As I drew in one last trembling inhalation, it stopped moving and I stepped out. The terminal building seemed unnecessarily massive this close up.

Taking steps gingerly along the pavement, nothing I formulated in my mind to say seemed cool enough. Or even remotely convincing. I hoped that she would be flattered, I assumed that she wouldn't be. As the doors swished open and I looked up, I realised I hadn't asked which hangar her ship was stationed in. Far too embarrassing to call her now and ask.

So wrapped up in my internalisations, I barely noticed the voice calling my name. 

"Laina!" Rae was a few metres away, waving. She jogged over. "We have a bit of engine trouble, so gonna be here for at least another day. Wanna entertain me for a bit?"

an AI rendering of off-world flora

Rae came back more often after that, she smiled when she told me it was just a coincidence. Managed to snag me some rare offworld fertilisers,  and I started having a bit more success. Two more of the local oddities sprang to life in my little greenhouse: indigo bell shaped blossoms with glow-in-the-dark stamen, and a plant that bloomed into sprays of  tiny flowers that resembled tufts of yellow lint. The latter of which, Arnie decided, looked absolutely delicious. Dashing madly after the feline felon, I nabbed him as he ran for the hallway. My front door burst open and slammed against the wall, to reveal the scene of me prying open the little thief's jaws in a desperate attempt to stop him swallowing the thing. I did not recognise the man standing there. 

"Yes?" My fingers came free with the flower in hand, and Arnie wriggled away, darting off towards the bedroom. "Can I help?"

"Sorry. I heard you screaming thief? I thought-"

"The cat. Also I didn't realise I was doing that." I gestured vaguely. "What did you want though?"

"Rae showed me some photos of your flowers. Could I buy a couple?"

"You came to my house to buy flowers?"

He shrugged in half apology. "Two of the big ones?"

"I don't think I should-" I trailed off quietly as he pointed at two. 

"Forty credits?" He waved a card at me. 

"Uh." I considered it momentarily. "Do you want those cut and wrapped or as they are?"

***

Things snowballed from that point, and I found myself selling flowers from my house. My boss didn't care that much, and even bought an arrangement of the chunky tulips and lintflowers for her husband who apparently thought they were the funniest gift he'd received in ages. The megacorp that maintained our operations was investing more resources in a new venture on a snowy moon one star system over, seeming to have largely forgotten about Kore. So my rogue floristry went unnoticed. 

Rae was helping me put together some bouquets, the chocolate daisies and glowbells, having come to my door that morning with armfuls of ribbon and cellophane. Tying a strip of navy satin into a bow she held the arrangement at arms length and smiled at her work. The greenhouse was more crowded with flowers than it had ever been, with just enough space on the new workbench she had gallantly helped me assemble one night when she had found me crying over a pile of its parts and clutching a screwdriver. 

"Does your dad want any of the new variety of lintflowers? They've got a real bellybutton fluff colouration going for them.”

She smiled. "Thank you, Laina."

The air hung with silence as I finished off my own arrangement. She watched me, and the greenhouse seemed even warmer.

"You're on Kore a lot more often now." I stole a quick glance as I said it.

"Now I've become a regular at the spaceport, I get loads of custom. People trust a face they know, and not so many traders coming out here."

"Ah it's good for business. That makes sense." I tied the bow and handed her the arrangement. "Last one. The party's at Eleusinian Hall, shall we take them down?"

She took it from me, placed it back down and gently brushed a defiant hair behind my ear. Her other hand fell to my hip, pulled me forward with the softest of touches. When her lips then touched mine, the sweet scent of the flowers seemed a paltry companion to the sensation of her kiss.

When it broke, she spoke in a breath, "That was never the reason."

A year passed in a wonderful succession of days and nights with Rae. Grassy plains stretched for miles around the town, but not too far out there were pockets of wildflower meadows and marshes with huge fleshy mushrooms with gills that looked like rows of sharp teeth. Rae suggested visiting the arboreal forests to the north, but I thought I might die and said we should go out to the seaside instead.

After one such trip, I  fell through the door lugging home a case of  equipment and carefully collected cuttings and seeds. Rae picked me up and kissed my forehead. 

"I need clothes. I'll get Arnie on the way back. Need anything?"

I shook my head. "Seems silly that you're renting that shoebox when you're here all the time." 

She looked at me for a moment, as if waiting for something, then laughed. "Very silly. I'll grab dinner on my way back too."

Placing a hand on her arm, I stopped her. "Silly." The cogs whirred in my brain. "Oh. Do you want to live here? I mean.  I want you to live here. With me, obviously."

She grinned. "If I say no, will you chase me down on the H-tram again?"

"Hotwire it to follow you into space. I'll send Arnie out in a little pod rocket and he'll do the guilting eyes. Do it for him, if not for me." As she chuckled, I planted a quick kiss on her lips. "I love you."

"I love you too. And yes, I want to live with you."

***

More time passed in a giddy haze, we rented a small unit in town so I didn't have to keep selling flowers from my front door. New blooms and new varieties of the old favourites sprung to life more willingly than they ever had before. 

Floddities, we called the shop (Rae's idea, but I relented eventually). As I watched, Rae painted the last flourish of the 'S' in purple script on our wooden sign. Buckets of cut and arranged flowers filled the stands inside, brimming with all their alien glory. Jumping off the ladder, Rae took my hand. 

"Ready to open up?" She grinned at me, and I felt the smile spreading to my lips as well. 

Kore is a small moon in the outer reaches of the galaxy, bristling with odd little flowers that resist the attempts of hapless strangers to encourage them to grow under a roof. It was just the right place for me to be, on the occasion a trader swung by.