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T ime passed faster at STS than Elara would have ever expected—faster than life on the farm world, at any rate. A new routine was formed pretty quickly. Early-morning classes were devoted to basic geology and the fundamentals of elemental research. Afternoon classes were divided between examining the basic building blocks of life and analyzing the mechanics of nuclear physics. It was all pretty basic at this stage, and Elara found the classes fun but not too challenging.
At the same time, Elara couldn’t forget about Beezle’s premonition from the first day. Almost everything uttered by the OverMind was generally considered nonsense, but it was stuck in Elara’s mind, anyway. It just felt... important.
“They were... lost... ,” she wrote down in her notebook, drawing a circle around the words.
Knot looked over her shoulder. “Elara!” she hissed. “Are you still worrying about that silly little poem? You need to pay attention to class! This is a pass/fail!”
The class in question was Theoretical Subatomic Studies—a basic introduction to manipulating matter on an atomic level. Turning one element into a completely different one.
“Ugh!” Elara whispered back. “But isn’t it odd? If it’s a poem or a song, I haven’t been able to find any evidence...”
“Do you know I once heard a Glonopegane spider tell a joke?” Beezle added. “The galaxy is a strange and mysterious place that rarely has any deeper meaning. It’s easier to stop looking for one.”
Elara slammed the notebook shut, feeling a bit grumpy that her friends weren’t as interested in getting to the heart of this mystery. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave it alone!”
“Good! Now, can we please pay attention?” Knot said in a rather gravelly voice. “I mean, you could talk about this freely in maybe twenty minutes when class is over, you know?”
Elara started to respond, when a shadow fell over her. Elara, Beezle, and Knot looked up in unison and saw the scowling face of the professor looming above them.
“Your attention, ladies.”
The girls slouched deeply in their seats. Catching the attention of Professor Thur’uer had long since proven to be a bad idea. Students who had fallen on the reptilian teacher’s bad side were rumored to have been quarantined in the Zone of Endings.
Elara gulped. It was probably all lies. But still...
“I’m certain you must be whispering about very important matters,” the professor hissed. “Perhaps you are so excited about today’s lesson that you cannot contain yourselves? Is that it?”
The girls managed to look sheepish, with Beezle’s blue skin pulsating a very dark shade that, as Elara had come to understand, meant deep embarrassment.
“Well, since that’s the case, I think I can make your lives more interesting.” Professor Thur’uer’s forked tongue slithered in and out quickly, testing the air, taking in the scent of her prey. The students were afraid, and Elara knew that the teacher could sense it. “Please come to the front of the class and display your skills for us all to see. Prove to me that I should not expel you from my class.”
Knot shot Elara a quick irritated glance, but it was too late. All three girls stood up and made their way down the stairs to the classroom floor.
The class was set up in the style of a small amphitheater, with a large circular platform built at ground level and seats swelling up around all sides. On the podium there was a large table, complete with an intricate series of plastic and glass laboratory equipment all connected to a large computer system.
“Since it’s obvious that you know so much about bio-atomic manipulation, I think it only appropriate that you provide a demonstration for the entire class.” The teacher picked up a test tube filled with pale orange algae. “This strain of algae is known to have some very interesting properties. Depending on the chemicals introduced, a wide variety of reactions are possible. Some good... some less than good. But all involve a manipulation of the basic atomic formula.”
The professor slid the test tube into a centrifugal vortex, spinning the tube rapidly and separating the chemical components of the algae. With a quick flip of her wrist, she ejected the tube and tossed it to Elara.
Elara looked at the tube. “Why is the algae glowing?” she asked.
Before anyone could answer, the orange glowing goop bubbled over and spilled onto the floor. Elara jumped back, and Knot cringed. Beezle was less alarmed and instead made a soft purring noise from the back of her throat.
“Ah. I see that perhaps you three did not pay as much attention to my lecture as I had hoped. You see, when agitated, the molecular composition of this substance breaks down and becomes unstable. Any minute now, the algae could reach a critical point of instability and fill this classroom with a fast-acting toxin.” She gestured toward a large table crowded with an overwhelming number of potions and powders. “The neutralizing agent can be found in that array of chemicals on the work desk. Good luck.”
And with that, the professor stepped backward off the platform and snapped a transparent energy shield into place, trapping Elara, Knot, and Beezle in with the glowing algae.
“Hey!” Elara yelled, hammering her fist on the energy shield. “You can’t just lock us up with this! It’s dangerous!”
The professor didn’t flinch. “Dangerous? You are training to be terraformers! Risk is part of the equation. Do you think all science will be performed under ideal conditions? That you will have time and resources abundant?”
The professor turned and looked at the collective classroom. “On that note, how much time do we have, class?”
The entire class answered in unison, “Two minutes, Professor Thur’uer!”
Professor Thur’uer turned her serpentine countenance back toward the intimidated trio. Elara felt tiny beads of sweat appear on her brow, while Beezle’s color was shifting to a previously unseen blue green.
“Two minutes,” Professor Thur’uer said. “The clock is ticking. But don’t worry. This toxin won’t harm you. It will simply affect your taste buds for a week. I do hope you like the flavor of Zebroniazin stinkweed. It will become very familiar very soon.”
With one last glance at the bubbling angry mass of growing algae, the girls grabbed vials of bio-liquids and went to work.
“Use the lattice inducer,” whispered Knot. “It should slow the chemical reaction!”
“But what about using a neutralizing acid?” Beezle responded as she searched frantically through the various tubes and vials.
“It’s not a base element!” Knot growled. “You have to stop the cellular reaction first!”
Elara scanned the tabletop. Powders and chemicals and gels and all sorts of things were strewn about, and any one of them might stop the out-of-control algae... or just as easily create a reaction that could level the building. Chemistry... chemicals... Elara had studied the basics of bio-manipulations since she was a baby. It was standard curriculum across the galaxy. But this... this was a real test. And it was all related to atomic conversion...
Elara slapped her forehead. “Listen! We don’t need to stop the algae from destabilizing! We can accelerate the atoms instead!”
“And achieve what? A massive explosion?!” Knot yelled.
“We can contain the explosion with the force field!” Beezle said.
“Oh, sure.” Knot shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like we’re INSIDE THE FORCE FIELD!”
“Thirty seconds,” Professor Thur’uer said with a grin. “Perhaps none of you are ready for such advanced education.”
Desperate, Elara looked for something to solve the problem. That’s when she noticed the large computer. The one that had emerged from the floor. The machine was a standard system you’d find in a school of this nature, designed to analyze and synthesize complex chemical components. They were also used in farming worlds when you needed to increase or decrease nitrogen and oxygen levels in the soil.
This all occurred to Elara in the flash of a second. “Beezle!” she yelled as she grabbed one of the computer conduits, ripping it from its housing in a shower of sparks. “Reroute the computer systems to produce a continuous feedback loop!”
“What? What are you doing?!” Professor Thur’uer said with a screech. “Stop that! You’re destroying school equipment!”
“Hey!” Elara shouted. “You said we had to solve this? So we’re going to solve it!”
Beezle looked up from the conduit she was grabbing. “Ah! I see. So this will induce an atomic fission event!”
Professor Thur’uer’s green skin went decidedly pale. “Wait. What? You can’t do that!”
With that said, Elara slammed the sparking conduit into the growing pile of smelly algae, shooting an electric current through the orange-and-green slime. With an explosive flash, everyone in the room was knocked off their feet, temporarily blinded by the bright flare.
As the smoke cleared, Elara picked herself up. The algae was gone. The computer was destroyed, overloaded with an infinite feedback loop.
Professor Thur’uer looked at the result, flabbergasted. In the center of the podium, floating about seven feet in the air, was a brightly glowing orb. “What... what did you do?” she said, the snarky hiss now gone from her voice.
“A star,” Elara said as she looked at the orange-and-green ball of energy. “We made a star.”