The moment Darian was able to come to the conclusion that the Prism-glass ferns can talk to each other, he started to study them deeper with the help of Pax.
In the first few days, they both kept sending each other multiple texts through them, they wanted to test if they could turn off somehow. Darian grabbed from a drawer in his laboratory another plant charged by a Cryscharge gem; he immediately brought it outside.
"Come on Pax, I'll put it here, you'll reach the other!" shouted Darian. Pax nodded and immediately rushed to the other plant on the ground. Darian slowly put this other plant into another small hole right at the entrance of the laboratory, while Pax remained in the small garden behind the building.
"Whenever you're ready, give me a signal," shouted Darian, waiting for Pax to touch the roots of the plant. The moment he did that, Darian could hear the pulse coming from the plant again.
"Mhmm…" Darian heard the pulse becoming stronger, in fact, it was exactly like the first time he had moved the plant from the drawer into the ground.
"Pax… tell me if you hear the pulse stronger," shouted Darian as he immediately began to press, as he always did, on the roots. Pax heard the pulse but realized that it wasn't strong at all, in fact, as the day passed, the sound of the pulse received by this other plant was becoming weaker.
"Darian, the pulse is becoming weaker like we noticed yesterday," answered Pax, focusing on the pulse and trying to see if it was different somehow, but nothing like that had changed.
"Damn…" Darian slowly got back on his feet and remained there thinking for a moment. 'This plant could hear the pulse stronger than the one yesterday, while this one is hearing it weaker as the days pass'. Darian kept thinking until Pax arrived behind him.
"So? What do you think this is for?" asked Pax. Both of them had been studying these plants for so long, but it felt like they were only able to understand them from the outside, not from the inside yet.
Suddenly, it felt like Darian had an idea. "Pax… I've heard the pulse stronger than any other time, it felt like the first time I buried the plant after the gem charged it," he said. It felt like Pax understood what he was thinking.
"Wait here and tell me how you hear this other pulse." Pax immediately rushed back into the garden to touch the roots of the plant again, but now, not the one that had been in the drawer with the gem, he reached for the one that Darian had already planted in the ground.
Darian kneeled down to hear the pulse of the roots. The moment he heard it, it was exactly the same as before; nothing had changed. "Pax, nothing… it's the same," he said. The moment he turned his head around, Pax was already there. "You touched the same plant, right? What did you think would ch—" Darian was getting up on his feet, but Pax interrupted him in the middle of the sentence.
"I didn't touch the same one, Darian," he said. After hearing these words, Darian's heart immediately began to beat faster. "Wait… so this means that the roots always create the same energy…" With that, Darian realized one of the secrets behind these plants. The moment he spoke again, both he and Pax said it together:
"So the only thing that changes is how they receive the message!" shouted both of them together.
"So this means that charging them will help us communicate even further away from us…" said Pax, as he remained there thinking about what would happen if tons of gems charged these plants, maybe they would be able to contact Earth with enough gems.
"Still, we need to see if these plants can send information to others… SONARRR!!" shouted Darian, realizing that he needed more plants, and the few that Sonar had brought him were nowhere near enough.
Darian rushed inside the rocket just to call for Sonar again. He pressed the button and began to speak. "Sonar, I need you to bring me some of the Prism-glass ferns." On top of the buttons, there was a display where the robots' answers appeared, and the answer from Sonar came immediately.
'Sir Thorne, just give me a few days, the path to go back will take around three days.' Reading that, Darian realized that it had been many days since Sonar had returned. Unlike the others, who would return to charge themselves every few days, Sonar hadn't been charging himself for a long time. Darian had a worried look on his face; Pax saw it from behind him and reassured him.
"Don't worry, Sonar is the one with the battery that lasts the longest; he won't have any problem," said Pax, positioning one of his hands on Darian's shoulder. Hearing that, Darian could only feel more relaxed.
"Well Pax, then we have plenty of time to work… come on, I've got something in mind." With that, Darian headed out toward his small garden just to take the newest plant he had just buried. The moment he took it, he entered the laboratory and grabbed a knife.
"Master, what are you doing?" asked Pax, confused by the sight. It looked like Darian wanted to kill the plant, and the moment he got the knife closer to it, Pax's suspicion seemed true.
Darian was slowly removing a root from the plant, but not by cutting it directly; it felt like he was peeling it, removing only the external part.
"I can't follow you, Darian… why are you doing this?" asked Pax, but Darian didn't answer him. In fact, no answer arrived from Darian, who was too concentrated on his work.
After some minutes, he completely removed what looked like the skin of the root. Only a small part remained, which was a blue clearer than the sky on sunny days.
"Pax, can you go into the rocket and get the magnetometer for me?" Pax nodded and immediately went inside the rocket to take what Darian asked for.
While Pax was gone, Darian grabbed the skin in his left hand and touched the root with his right. He remained concentrated to see if something would arrive, but he couldn't feel anything. "Dammit, there must be a way." He left the root on the table and tried to see if he could feel anything, but it wasn't happening.
Pax returned a few minutes later holding the magnetometer. He moved carefully through the cluttered laboratory, stepping over multiple wires and plant leaves that Darian had accumulated over the year. "You should probably clean this…" pointed out Pax while positioning the magnetometer on the desk.
"I'll do it once I have time." Darian immediately took the device and hovered the sensor over the tiny skin he had extracted from the root. The values made both Darian and Pax gasp in surprise.
Even if they were at the bare minimum, the moment Darian began to touch the root of the plant, the numbers on the display changed from a single flat line to some extremely small lines going up, in fact, the numbers were fluctuating between $0.001$ and $0.003$ micro-teslas. Both of them knew it was almost nothing, but it meant that it was working! Even if the root is detached, it will somehow receive information.
Darian tried to write in Morse code, but it wasn't visible at all; in fact, no one would ever be able to even read it, probably not even the most powerful AI of the time.
"It's receiving…" Darian whispered, his voice trembling with excitement. "Even with the skin off, the wire is actually working; it's like a living wire. It's picking up the pulse made by this other root… but look, normally they should be able to receive pulses from other roots too… but look." The moment Darian removed his finger from the root, the number on the display returned to zero.
"Maybe it's because it doesn't receive enough strength? We already proved that the length doesn't matter…" pointed out Pax. Darian tried to figure out a solution.
"The signal is there… but it's not enough. We might be able to send messages across just a few meters if the soil is perfect, but we want to shoot it directly into the stars. How are we supposed to upgrade the signal?"
"Maybe we should try to charge it up with the magnetic field generated by the gem?" Pax opened the drawer in the desk, inside, the gem was still there. Darian, without hesitation, put the skin inside and closed the drawer.
"We just need to wait for Sonar to bring us more plants… for now, let's wait a day." With that, Darian and Pax began to chill out a bit, and now that they had time, Darian showed Pax what happened to the gems creating electricity in his house and in the laboratory.
As the year passed, the gem in the house was only attached to a light bulb, but as Darian went to check it, the gem was slowly losing its original color; it looked like it was slowly losing power.
But while this gem looked like it could still last for at least two years, the one in the laboratory, attached to more things, was almost entirely gray. "It is a good source of electricity… but it can't be truly reliable," said Darian.
Darian and Pax spent the whole day taking a small walk around, now that there weren't any more dangerous animals around. They wouldn't even need to pay attention or call Aegis.
The following day, Darian and Pax grabbed both the root skin from near the gem and the one they used yesterday. They put them a few inches away from each other and began testing.
"Come on, Pax, press that root," called Darian. Pax accepted the command and pressed the root. Darian realized that the values weren't as low as last time, it finally reached 0.0001 teslas. It still wasn't much, but it was significantly higher than the last time. Pax, seeing Darian's face, realized that it was going better, so he tried to write a Morse code. Darian was barely able to read it.
"It can be read!" shouted Darian. After realizing what was written, he immediately lay back on the grass, happy. Pax walked closer to Darian. "So, is it enough?" he asked.
Darian's face immediately became serious again. "It's nowhere near enough to send it directly into space… come on, we don't have time to lose." With that, Darian and Pax remained outside, working to find ways to boost the signal. First, he put the root in the ground and laid one of the gems next to it so that it wouldn't run out of power.
Darian and Pax tried everything. They tried braiding the roots together to create a thicker "cable." They tried soaking the soil in a mineral-rich slush to increase conductivity. The following afternoon, they even tried to "jump-start" a cluster of ferns by hooking them directly to the starship's emergency battery. The result was a terrifying screech that echoed through the valley, followed by the smell of ozone and burnt sugar as the plants shriveled into black husks within seconds.
"Maybe the place is wrong?" suggested Pax. Darian, hearing that, felt he was finally able to understand something.
"Wait… remember that Sonar found them in those caves, in that specific small cave?" said Darian.
"Sonar told us that the walls were practically made of magnetic ore and that these types of plants were ten times bigger than the ones we have here," whispered Pax, but Darian could hear it clearly.
"Maybe that cave is the source of the power…" Darian smashed his fists together. "Then, if we can't bring the power to the plants, we have to take the transmitter to the power source." Suddenly, they heard heavy mechanical steps coming from behind them. It was Sonar, and he had multiple Prism-glass ferns in his hands.
"Sir Thorne, I've brought them for you," he said. Darian immediately rushed toward him, breathing heavily. "S… Sonar… you need to bring me there…"
Sonar looked at him confused. "Sorry, what do you mean? Where?"
"To the caves where you found these flowers… I need them."
"It won't be an easy travel, and it will definitely take some days for someone like you. Are you still willing to do it?" asked Sonar. Darian, without hesitation, nodded.
"Then tomorrow we will go. You'd better get ready with as much food as you have," said Sonar. With that, Darian let him go, and the robot returned to the rocket to recharge himself.
"Pax, pack up the things for me…" Pax followed him from behind. "Should I remain here, or do I come with you, Darian?" asked Pax. Darian thought for a bit before answering.
"No, no, you can remain here. There is no need to worry; I'll take care of everything," said Darian, grabbing a small leaf of the Prism-glass fern from one of his multiple pockets. "I've understood what I have to do."