After an initial wave of destruction, a foot-crew yanked up the turf, disentangling the roots of a massive network of vines, revealing black crystal underneath. They stripped the land until it looked bare and naked, like a giant had chomped down and bit off a colossal chunk. Once the bio team cleared the designated area, construction crews put up the smoky glass of the colony’s new greenhouses, in rows. Mom twiddled her fingers by the sight panel, impatient to expand her crops. She’d already introduced the black crystals to the soil in the biodome and had enormously successful results. Although we’d learned Earth plants withered underneath the naked purple rays of this planet’s sun, the smoky glass of the greenhouses would filter the blazing ultraviolet light. “Go on, Annie. Try it.” A ripened tomato, twice as big as my palm and plump as a baby’s bottom, lay on the countertop. My mouth watered just looking at the shiny red sheen.
