Seeds for Time
Antarctica (the very near future)

Raj Patel steps off of the altar. Some months ago, the technicians had dubbed the time portal platform as the “Altar.” The name has stuck. Across the room a lone technician is powering down the time stream activator. “Time check.” The technician orders.

Raj checks his wrist band, “Seventeen minutes this trip.”

In a stern voice the technician announces, “Over an hour has transpired here while you were gone this time!”

“As we have already witnessed, with each mission more time is passing in the present time zone. It’s that damn quantum fluctuation that the activator’s inventor wrote about. The effect seems to be more extreme with each trip. I don’t exactly get it! I’ve stretched my brain to understand it. I’ll work at shortening the missions’ schedule.”

The technician replies, “If this keeps up, with a few more completed jumps, we will all be senior citizens here and you will still be young.”

“Let’s hope that you’re not right, but the project must continue. We must attempt to save as many plant species as possible.”

A senior technician enters the room. “Welcome back Raj! How did it go?”

Raj holds up the leather pouch, “An indigenous man gave me some seeds.”

The technician frowns, shaking his head, “So much for following protocol. What part of ‘do not interact with the human population’ do you not understand?”

“It couldn’t have been avoided. He discovered me as I arrived. I kept contact to a minimum, and I even managed to avoid the tip of his spear.” Raj boast.

“Still,” the technician barks, “You’re supposed to write a report...”

Raj glares at him, “As I shall. Hey, open up the scanner and let’s check out what the old man gave me.”

He takes a seat next to the technician and pours out the contents of the leather pouch onto the glass screen. “Besides, the old guy got to witness magic. He saw me leave! Perhaps the memory of that will give him some fantastic stories to tell, and just maybe some hope in his final days, albeit false hope.” Both Raj and the technician know that the Amazon’s complete ecological collapse will occur within the indigenous man’s lifetime.

The screen display announces that the small brown football shaped seeds are of the cocoa plant and the smaller round seeds are cannabis. Both men laugh out loud. Raj says, “I say we add these to the Project’s inventory list.”

The technician in laughter agrees, “Medicine for the future. Some new species may someday thank us!”

Raj smiles and holds up a finger, “How about this, we start some cannabis plants in the green house lab?”

The technician frowns, “But you- know -who has to approve it?”

“Remember, I got him to let me add salmon to the growing trays in the protein lab?” Raj adds, “While we race towards the end of our species, shouldn’t we be allowed a few creature comforts.”

The technician slaps Raj on the back and laughs, “I couldn’t agree more!”

The Project was started less than five years ago. Everything accomplished thus far has been performed at break-neck speed. Most populated habitat zones have succumbed to the extreme temperatures of the warming planet. The oceans cannot support any major life forms. The death odor of ocean creatures is still in the air. Island size masses of plastic waste fill the seas making it almost impossible to navigate.

Multitudes of terrestrial species have already perished including several billion Homo sapiens, and that number keeps ticking upward as each day goes by. It will not be long now until they are all extinct, every last one of them.

Originally, over a dozen world governments contributed to this effort to preserve flora for the future. Scientist from various countries have combined their efforts at facilities scattered around the globe.

Currently, it’s unknown if any functioning governments still exist. Of the dozen Project labs, only two have reported in the last month. Raj and the few technicians at the Antarctica Lab realize that they may be the last group that still has the resources and energy to continue the missions.

The Project is an operation that many nation states opposed at its onset. Most world leaders believed that all resources should be used to preserve the current world order for as long as possible, and not an attempt to save the flora for a future that will probably not even host humans. Still, those involved with the Project have dedicated the rest of their lives to this effort.

Everyone on the team understands that complete human extinction will occur in just a few years, if not sooner. The dedicated team has a love for all life, not just human life. Their work is in the hope that some type of life will survive. Perhaps someday, in the very distant future, the Earth will recover, become fruitful and replace balance again, with or without humans.