The Odin Chronicles • Episode 37: “Odin Speaks in Flowers” • by Travis Burnham ~ Stupefying Stories Magazine

Odin III was a harsh place to live for humans and plants alike.

Vujadin Novaković—Voya to his friends—knew this better than most. He’d emigrated to the remote mining colony with his wife, Becca, and daughters, Poppy and Aster, to study Odinium mariscoides, a species of sawgrass that lived in the mineral-heavy soils of Odin III. Its population had been decimated by an introduced fungus. Voya hoped to splice together genes and exo-genes to solve alien ecological problems.

But in an ugly twist of fate, the first things Voya placed lovingly in the soil of Odin III were not engineered rye grass or Indian mustard, but his daughters—swept away by a nitrogen leak in their cabin just before arriving. Becca survived the trip, but not the broken heart. And then he was alone. Voya cursed fate that he wasn’t buried beside his family.

Though they’d never lived on Odin III, Voya felt his family everywhere—the red in a bar coaster was the exact shade of the tutu that Poppy had worn on her first day of hip-hop ballet, or the jingle of someone’s key ring struck just the same note as the tiny, metal dandelions on Aster’s charm bracelet. Missing Becca was a different pain altogether. He missed the music of her laugh and the way her elegant fingers plucked at banjo strings. Or the taste of her skin and the warmth of her stretched out beside him.

So Voya just went through the motions on Odin III, oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, half-heartedly studying the indigenous and now nearly extinct O. mariscoides sawgrass along the eroding banks of the Eligar River, which was just one of the many ecological challenges facing Odin III.

More and more often, Voya spent his evenings at Weber’s Place, hoisting a brew. He usually sat with Duncan Strasser. Most others found Duncan’s company unbearable, but when Voya found out Duncan was a fellow widower—his wife Elke had died a year and a half ago—his annoyance with him was tempered.

“Yo, Voya,” Duncan shouted a bit too loudly before ordering a Valkyrie Lager for Voya.

“Hey, Dunk.” Voya raised a hand in greeting, but then hesitated. “Something’s different with you.” Duncan hid his misery behind pointless rambling and bluster, but the two of them were both miserable. “You look…happier?”

“I started a painting class at the community center.”

“Yeah? You any good?” Maybe that was why he seemed happier, Voya thought. Had Duncan found that he had a gift?

Duncan’s face broke into a wide grin. “Horrible. But I’m painting for Elke. I’m terrible at all things art, but she knew that. I like to think she’d love every crooked line and messy smudge.”

Voya lay in bed that night, thoughts tumbling.

He couldn’t paint, and he was too much of a perfectionist to embrace the chaos Duncan apparently slapped onto canvas.

What Voya did know was how to modify genes. Though he had since regretted moving to Odin III with every cell in his body, after the conversation with Duncan, Voya felt inspired like he hadn’t in years and he set out to create something worthy of his family.

He’d design two species whose characteristics would replace the decimated Odinium mariscoides population that prevented erosion along the Eligar River. He leaned heavily on genes from the native Odinium mariscoides, but also extracted genes from favored Earth species. He wasn’t sure it could be done. Previous attempts to merge the disparate genetic material had failed.

Voya and his AI, Arthur, ran hundreds of thousands of gene insertion and protein folding simulations, as well as hundreds of ecological calculations and hundreds of environmental models, but still there were things that couldn’t be predicted in the real world.

At the end of four months, Voya and Duncan—he’d insisted on coming along—drove out to the test site and sowed the seeds that would hopefully hold the river’s banks steady. But if they were fertile, then the possibilities for some of Odin III’s ecological problems were endless. On the trip there, Duncan’s obnoxious rambling faded to a dull, background hum as Voya’s thoughts turned to Becca and his daughters.

Even though it was only Duncan, Voya was glad he wasn’t alone as they sowed the seeds.

There was nothing to do now but wait.

From stem to sepals to petals, the days passed in a blur.

Clouds scudded across the leaden Odin III sky.

The twin suns rose, fell.

And then, one morning dawned a little warmer, the sunlight lasted a little longer.

Voya climbed into the work hovercar and headed out towards the site. As before, Duncan came, this time carrying something covered under his arm. Despite Voya’s thirty-eight years, he felt like a sad old man at the end of the universe. But he hoped he still had some beauty to offer the world.

Stepping from the vehicle, Voya was greeted with something that wildly exceeded his expectations. Despite heavy spring runoff, the Eligar River’s banks had stayed true.

And where there had once been a nearly barren, eroded river bank, there was a blanket of flowers—two different species growing side by side.

Both flowers’ genus was Becca, and the first species was pappoides, from the Latin for ‘resembling a poppy.’ The Rebeccaea pappoides’s bright, delicate petals were hip-hop-tutu red and danced in the gentle spring breeze. How Poppy had loved to dance, Voya thought. He’d woven characteristics into the flower’s genome that reminded him of Poppy. She’d been kind and helpful, and her namesake flower had the ability to send out tillers like ryegrass that cooperatively shared nutrients like Odin sawgrass. Voya also used sequences from kudzu to reflect Poppy's competitive nature—she had really, really hated to lose.

Aster’s flower, Rebeccaea asteroides, had a corona of lavender petals splayed out from a dark brown center the exact same shade as Aster’s eyes. R. asteroides was resilient like Aster—and like yarrow could survive poor soil and drought. Aster was the older sister, and she’d been so undemanding. Even when Voya had been insanely busy with his PhD thesis, Aster had never been clingy. How he wished he had the time back to spend with her instead. She’d been the most like him, and he’d always imagined her following in his academic footsteps.

Duncan hung a painting from a tree overlooking the flowered bank’s of the river. “Just so Elke can join in,” he mumbled. “I used all biodegradable inks, ‘cause I know you’re into all that crap.” Voya caught a glimpse of the man Duncan must have been when Elke was alive, keeping his more obnoxious urges in check.

Voya reached into the hovercar and turned up its sound system to play an old recording of Becca’s, a cover she’d done of an old Earth song, “Wagon Wheel.” Duncan and Voya sang along quietly and Voya could imagine notes thrumming out from Becca’s banjo, and his daughter’s voices, high and bright.

As the sound washed over the river and through the flowers he’d made, Voya smiled through his tears—instead of just seeing shadow memories of his family in the dark corners of Odin III, he would now see them everywhere.

Travis Burnham is an SF&F writer and science teacher. His work has or will soon appear in Far Fetched Fables, Hypnos Magazine, South85 Journal, Dream of Shadows, and Stupefying Stories, of course, among other places. His most recent previous story for us was “10 Ways to Survive an SF Story.” If you have not read it, you should check it out.

Originally from New England, he’s lived in Japan, Colombia, Portugal, and the Marianas Islands, and currently teaches science at an international school in Malta. He’s a bit of a thrill seeker, having bungee-jumped in New Zealand, hiked portions of the Great Wall of China, and gone scuba diving in Bali. He’s got some novels currently looking for homes and can be found online at travisburnham.blogspot.com, or infrequently on twitter @Darwins_Finch.

Coming Tuesday: Episode 38: “A Time to Wait,” by Carol Scheina

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The Odin Chronicles: The Complete Episode Guide (So Far)