The initial harvest of the Pancreatic Junction crystal nursery was rather meager. There were only a few luminescent nodules, approximately the size of a thumb, emitting a faint green-gold light. These were fragile, imperfect, yet alive with the process of growth. Maxine and Leo treated them as if they were infants.
Afterward, in the vat-cavern, they placed the newly grown crystals next to the old, broken ones. When Maxine activated the array, the noise was changed—more vibrant, and continuous. The substances in the large vats were heating more quickly, half of the usual time. The yield had been increased by fifteen percent.
The amount was not sufficient to lift the food rations. However, the narrative was altered from we are going to perish to we might survive. Hope, which is sometimes harmful, began to take root.
The council having noticed the positive results, gave orders to set up more nurseries. They discovered other small, insignificant body parts: the minuscule smell center, a spare lymph node, the old tailbone in the Spine Mountains. A group of ex-Carvers and Symbiote helpers were getting ready to wake these parts up for their new, common role.
Sanctum was evolving. It was no longer a city confined in a ribcage but a patch on a body. The borders between city and host became indistinct. Mycelium took over the rock walls, purifying the air and water, their gentle glow replacing the dim light of algae. The old Karu pipes were being cleared and used to transport fresh water from lymph.
One day, Lucien Gray invited Maxine, Bianca, Naomi, and Leo to the Scriptorium. In front of a large, new animal skin drawing, he was standing. It was a map, but not of a body. It was a flow chart.
"The Lobe's map of healthy pathways depicts a closed circle," Lucien said, with a sparkle in his eye. Energy and matter, he said, come and go in cycles. We have been doing it all wrong: take, use, litter. The Mycelium is doing it correctly: grow, share, decay, regrow."
He referred to the diagram. The idea that we should merge them is what I'm thinking. Waking the organs not only for crystal growth but also as living processors is how we should go about it. The Pancreatic Junction is capable of decomposing trash—our trash, mushroom trash—into edible substances. The liver spots are there to clean toxins. The lymph nodes can facilitate the distribution of the results. It is possible to create a small, closed system within Aethelrex's body. Just like a terrarium, living off its own waste, fueled by the heat of the god."
He proposed the idea of the dying god being transformed into a life-support system for the people. It was a mad idea. The reuse of all reuses.
Bianca was going to say something about the church, but then she changed her mind. "No," she said, "What if it does work?"
"It is only a little way along its course at the nurseries," Maxine commented, while examining the chart. The concept is right. But it's a vast one."
"It will require a lot of labor," Leo said. "We need intimate knowledge of both systems. Understanding what we need and what the Host can do through dialogue."
"We should not see ourselves as people, or even helpers, but… as the ones who are taking care of a big, sleeping machine," Naomi said, with a hint of hesitation. "Gardeners in a machine,"
That is exactly who we are, Bianca replied. Even if we hadn't intended to be.
They decided to go along with the plan. The name of their project was the Terraform Project, a term that Lucien located in the ancient papers from the time before Aethelrex, when people lived on something called a planet. Its meaning was making a world habitable.
The work commenced. It was not very fruitful, they encountered difficulties and problems. One type of mushroom would become too dominant and obstruct a lymph tube. A crystal thing would cease its operation, its buzz fading without any obvious reason. The people, still feeble, would lose their faith, longing for the simple, evil old ways.
However, they did not stop. The only way was forward.
Time was passing. It was measured not by the sun, but by the completion of works: the first mushroom farm in the old Palate gardens, the first instance of clean water from a lymph tap, the day when food lines finally got shorter.
And in the hospital, Joan Rhodes was starting to hear her son. She was starting to turn her head toward the light. Her skin was becoming a little rosy.
Things were still difficult. They were still experiencing hunger, fear, and sorrow over the lost god dream.
But they were not eating a god anymore.
They were becoming used to the presence of its ghost.
And through that work, they were becoming something real.