Sixteen

We cannot have fresh tomatoes and fish steaks fast enough – I never want to eat nutritional loaf again.

I will have to for a few more weeks, though.

We’re half-way through our final week floating in space. Most of us have spent more time in the gym area than anywhere else on the ship, droplets of our sweat releasing from our bodies and collecting in larger droplets that are then sucked into the air filtration system. Maybe algae will like feeding on our sweat and waste.

We have also successfully mixed algae into the bivalve tanks, and our little larvae are slightly larger. Hang in there, tiny swimmers, we’re almost home!

We also decided to go ahead and start a small batch of octopus eggs. We had extra saline and two extra cylinders to contain them, so we inserted about 100 eggs into one, which are still sitting at the bottom of the container, gently wafting with minute fluctuations in the ship’s movement. It is hypnotizing to watch them, so tiny, clumped together, and to imagine them as 6-foot or more creatures that we can communicate with in some way. Individuals, that will help us on our mining mission, which we will feed and care for, which will protect us from some dangers.

We’ve only had them in the cylinder for three days. I am trying to convince myself that it must take them longer than that to hatch, but I am worried that the pre-fertilized eggs we should have received were not fertilized before cryo-drying. I am trying to assure myself that this is a process performed by city salvaging operations across Earth. They know what they’re doing, they know the breeding stock needed to make the perfect match for the salty ocean water of Europa. They wouldn’t sell impure stock to another corporation, because the Declaration of Incorporated Personhood prevents that.

It could be that so few octopus eggs are ever viable – not simply because of predators, but because that is not how octopus biology works – that we do not have a bad batch, but we will only have a few octopuses to train. I think this might be better than trying to train 20,000 octopuses, or even 100 octopuses, which will fight their way into Europa’s oceans and take over the moon. A few means we will have some control over them, and then we might breed more, or receive more to hatch from Earth, and they can teach octopus-human culture to the next generation of octopuses and then it will be a natural interaction for humans and octopuses to work together and mine the moon of its water.

However, we do not have any tiny baby octopuses floating in the cylinder yet. So we wait. I am impatient to train my first octopus on Europa.

Three more days to Europa. Three more days to my new home. I almost can’t believe it. I have spent my life dreaming of a world where I could make my own way – really make it, not simply find it or wait for it. And now here it is, and it seems like a fairy tale, as though Europa is the crystalline slipper in a children’s story and I’m 12 in my bed and I will soon waken from this dream and have to return to my studies, with only the constant dream of my secret book stash at home keeping me moving through the day.

Haven called a meeting yesterday to discuss the plan for disassembling the ship. We’re flying in a craft much like an airplane without wings – pointed nose, round walls, tail flap. We will have to check to see if Rabbah can be safely inhabited, and if so, we will flood our oxygen into the colony and find space for ourselves and our cargo. If not, we will put on our helmets and begin cleaning the space, fixing the air filtration system and implanting the algae to do their work. Zariah, Yuda, Chloe, Natsuki, and I will all focus on that, while Budur, Ihsan, Vivien, and Durada will begin the transfer of the cargo. Haven said that she would work with Samira to begin slowly disassembling the nonessential parts of the ship, and Ghadir will ensure the safety of all agricultural items.

Zariah showed us plans for printing any items we might need, like joints, tools, wedges. Yuda quietly examined existing blueprints of what we understand of the original circuitry – which is very old, apparently, when quantum computers were first in use for space flight. She suggested we might have trouble hooking our newer computers into the older systems, and that we might use more material on circuits than we originally intended. However, she spoke about the solution as though it could be done, so I am not too worried. We might have to run on half energy and ask for a shipment of crystals to upgrade those systems sooner than we hoped, which leads to a little more debt with Breathe Easy. But the payoff in water mining will be worth it. I volunteered my extra barrels, and Chloe gave me an appreciative nod.

A wonderful moment with this group: as I type this, most of the women are asleep, strapped tightly into sleeping bags. Zariah, Ihsan, and Budur are behind me, discussing the best way to print specific weaves with carbon filaments and silk. Budur is talking excitedly about starting her own colony of silk worms, and Ihsan is describing one that was started in a neighboring, more inland village in her home country. We may ask for a shipment of silk worms to come with the next wave of Rabbah colonists, provided we don’t need too many other items. However, we currently have a limited supply of silk, which we’ve been told in strict tones to use only for manufacturing structural materials, like air and water filters. Budur sounds excited by the prospect of knitting with silk threads, and printing a hand loom to weave her own fabric. Zariah’s tone is no more edgy or excited than normal, but she is reminding them both of the necessity of conserving printable materials. She has heard a few too many horror stories of asteroid miners who broke too many tools because they weren’t careful, and ended up on an extra mining run just to make their quota. They were in space, eating nutritional loaf, for two extra weeks to make up for the money they cost their company, and when they returned to Earth, their minds and bodies were ravenous for any and all stimulation.

I don’t think we will be as ravenous as those poor miners, but I am beginning to feel the constant nag of fatigue with my food. Ihsan suggested that we all try to imagine the nutritional loaves as our favorite foods, but all I could think of were the rehydrated eggs, or the occasional semi-sweet porridge, served on Moon Base. Samira is starting to lose weight because she exercises so much, and eats so little due to disorientation. Many of the women look pallid most days, but since we’ve spent a week all together in a small, confined space, near each other’s throats, I’m sure we all look more ragged and stressed than we will once we get to Europa. We still get along, our skills are still beneficial to each other, and we still speak in personal tones rather than caste rankings.

This is all for the best. We will settle into a routine on Europa I’m sure, and then our lives will be incredibly boring and I will have less to write about!

Fifteen

My first entry for over a week. We just cleared the asteroid belt. It was very tough going.

When we flung the ship around Mars, using the gravity to turn us into a missile, we entered an area of space unseen by humans in hundreds of years. There are some very large, now hollow, asteroids that we considered as possible problems, but which we did not consider so deeply. We thought, if we could aim for the Kirkwood gaps, we might have some rest periods in which we were safe. Since the gaps are caused by Jupiter’s gravity, and we were bound for Jupiter, it made sense at the time. We were wrong – there are too many random dust clouds, we never had “minimal impact” on the vessel.

We are all alive – shaken to the cores of our being, but physically alive.

Our vessel is in one piece, as well. We did not lose any bits – perhaps the benefit of aiming for the Kirkwood gaps was here, in not losing any technology off of our ship.

We were constantly shaken, buffeted and losing momentum due to the solar radiation pulling clouds of debris always closer into the sun, material swirling down the drain of a larger gravitational body. As soon as we passed the first few large asteroids, moving into the center of the belt, Zariah herded us to the center of the ship, where we had a protective chamber. We dragged as many boxes of sensitive cargo with us as we could, to protect them. Eggs from octopuses, fish, bivalves. Seeds, the tiny planters with only the whispered hope of seedlings. Clean water, and food.

At first, it was cozy at the interior of the ship. We strapped ourselves to the walls for much of the day, reading or sewing or talking. Durada, Natsuki, and Vivien began to help Ihsan and me with the plants, while Zariah and Yuda huddled and whispered, pointing nervously to the walls. Occasionally I heard them talk about the computer crystals, and the damage a direct impact from a large asteroid – one of those with a name, not just a number – could do.

However, after a few days, the compartment began to smell of sweat and worry and stale air. We all became irritated and snapped at each other for no reason. Having two Senfte members helped minimize potential damage – those Araboa ladies are hot-tempered and strong, which bodes well for desire to survive, and not so well for avoiding physical altercations. Luckily, they allowed Budur and Ghadir to calm everything down.

Our two Senfte have developed worry lines, and dark circles beneath their eyes.

Natsuki showed me how to sprout seaweed. We have three, what seem to be very colorful, varieties: Gracilaria, which is red; Laminaria, which is a rusty green; and porphyra, which is a deep chartreuse. We tied dried seedlings onto threads and immersed them in long vials full of saline. By the time we came to the edge of the asteroid belt, a few tiny leaflets sprouted along the threads, waving hello to us through the water. They were the friendliest living things I’d seen in too long.

We also started the algae, which will mostly live near the air filtration system to help clean and resupply oxygen for us. We have bags full of the dried stuff, packed tight, which we strung horizontally – as much as there is any sense of direction when one is floating through space – and added water to the brownish-green flakes inside. Now, our pouches are bright green and becoming puffy with oxygen by-product. We will need to poke holes in the sides to release the pressure, and allow our carbon dioxide to infuse the containers. If we don’t, the algae will die. Besides, getting some fresh air in this ship will be nice.

We decided to wait to start with the octopus eggs, but we did also seed the clams and mussels and scallops, which will both protect Rabbah, and provide us with food. With Vivien’s and Natsuki’s leadership, we unpacked bags of suspended, dehydrated larvae and put them inside more saline-filled cylinders. Currently, we have tubes full of water and almost microscopic bivalve larvae, which we will release in the finest carbon filament mesh when we reach Rabbah, so that they root to the sides of the colony, rather than swim away into the blue abyss of the rest of the planet.

Granted, it is unlikely that there is anywhere else on Europa for them to take root, besides the bottom of the ocean and the ever-changing internal face of the ice shell. Neither of those would be great options for a shelled creature, I imagine. They would either never grow up – a sea of larval creatures, listlessly swimming in search of a home they cannot even imagine, much less create for themselves – or they would die, which is a waste of food and energy.

When we reached the edge of the asteroid belt, Zariah and Yuda bravely ventured forth into the outer layer of the ship to assess the damage. They took their breathing helmets with them, but fortunately they found a thin layer of air still within the ship. Only micrometeorites penetrated the shell at high speeds, and we did not have to replace a computer core, which they had feared. Our plan is, tomorrow, to release the pent-up oxygen from our algae into the outer edge of our vessel. We need to get to the algae to begin feeding the larval bivalves anyway; they came with their own food, but that was only meant to last five days. May as well wean them onto algae now.

Writing this, I am already beginning to feel better. I still look forward to planting my feet into a more solid surface, feel some gravity pressing into me, so when I tilt my head up, I know it is truly up toward the sky.

Ghadir, Chloe, Budur, and Haven are all taking inventory of our less-important supplies – carbon fiber meshes, welding and soldering materials. The tools are sensitive, but the materials themselves are less easily destroyed than, for example, living creatures that we had to tend to. I suspect there will be a few holes punched in boxes, some metallic dust left in inconvenient spaces in our soldering wands and power stations, but nothing unusual or harmful. A good shake once on Europa will clear much of that.

Meanwhile, we have each taken to knitting again, though in terribly uneven lines. There were a few holes that were audibly sucking air into space, when one leaned closely enough, so instead of making sweaters, we are knitting strips of carbonized silk into makeshift patches, so we don’t have to use our soldering equipment and both waste electrical power on the ship, and also waste material that would be better served in rebuilding Rabbah.

We have not had to repair our clothes, our helmets, our ship’s systems, and we have not had to use any of the medical equipment we were sent with. All of this bodes well, as we’re out of the most dangerous part of the trip so far. If we can keep living frugally on the ship, then we should be able to live well on Rabbah.

Oh! And of all the hydroponic plants we started – tomatoes, lettuces, aloe and senna – we finally have a few little sprouts. A good start to a long life, indeed.

I do not know if I will write again for a few days, but when things get interesting, I will be back in contact.

Fourteen

Flung out into the furthest reaches of the inner Solar System. I feel like I can see the asteroid belt from here, although we’re merely in Mars orbit. A week – a full week just to get to this tiny red spot of a planet.

Floating endlessly. No magnetic boots, we don’t want to screw up the circuits. We are all nauseous and disoriented, even Zariah. She says this is normal. I never want to get used to this.

Ihsan and I planted seeds in the storage bay, to get seedlings. Nothing has sprouted yet. I’m worried we may not have anything ready when we get to Europa. I try to remind myself that we still have two weeks.

We have all started taking inventory. Staying in smaller rooms, full of containers, together, helps us forget about the stomach-churning, constant floating.

We have only 200,000 octopus eggs. I know that in nature, these creatures lay around that many, but species that lay many eggs often do not see many surviving offspring. I remember that from school. I suspect we will actually have between 5 and 20 octopus hatchlings to raise. I wonder if we should start a few of those eggs on their way to gestation. I will need to look at life cycle information again.

At least there are no natural predators on Europa. That will help survival rates.

Samira has stayed buckled into a bicycle for most of this week. Her eyes are forward on a screen, looking at some sort of movie or clip of open air, trees, water, mountains – things she will never see again. As long as it keeps her from vomiting, and keeps her mind at ease, then so be it. She rejected Budur’s comforting, although Zariah has begun to join her in the exercise room.

There is not much else. All of our internal systems are stable; it is our bodies that are not.

We will not land on Mars, although I think we all would like to feel solid ground and some sort of gravity again. At least these suits keep our muscles taut.

We are hesitating briefly in the thin Martian stratosphere, and we will spend a day sling-shotting around the planet, then out toward Europa. I do not think I will be in contact again. If there were anything other than complaining going on, I would write about it. We do not even knit because we are so tired – mental and emotional fatigue – so instead we work out, stretch, look over storage containers, and sleep.

Sleep is the only relief so far, and even that is not as good as it was on Earth.

Thirteen

Last day of training, and it was pretty light. We have learned all the basics about running the station, from mining to food and repair, and we had some medical information covered with us today. I think our instructor heard our complaints about medicine, and showed us how to stitch deep cuts closed, how to administer medication (we have pain killers, antibacterials, antivirals – everything we need!), how to bind broken bones. Zariah and Durada both looked displeased about the speed of the instruction, but neither said anything, so I suppose they were mollified by the information that we would be given medical equipment over many supply shipments.

We were also administered several rounds of vaccines, and now my arms hurt. I suppose that will be taken out of our mining overage, but I don’t mind that too much.

We also had an overview of everything that we learned in the last six days. Our body masses and blood nutrient content were measurement while we were verbally quizzed; we were released from our gravity boots and encouraged to float while we worked on welding and circuitry repair; Zahid and Olive were still on the station, and we demonstrated how we were able to train her to move from one side of the tank to the other or hand us different objects; and finally, we were taken, one by one, into a room to discuss our thoughts on the group. Or, well, at least that’s what I was asked by the wild-eyed Gadhavi, who clearly had not yet adjusted to Moon Base “gravity.”

I described the traits of each of the ladies that are in the first wave of settlers. I mentioned that I would like to work on the station as long as possible, far more than a year, and I thought we were all compatible enough that we would have a successful excursion. I even mentioned that we had overcome our caste differences and were beginning to teach each other the skills that we have picked up over our years on Earth. I admit, I hoped the Gadhavi interviewer would have been more impressed, or pleased, but I got no reaction.

Oh well, we will embark tomorrow. And we only had 7 hours of classes and review today, so we all decided to gather in the gym before dinner, to avoid the rush of Moon residents.

Truth be told, I had not actually been to the gym since that first day on the Moon, when it was recommended but not enforced. After so much concentration on our training, none of us had been able to go for very long, so it is likely that we’ve lost some bone and muscle mass, which we will need to concentrate on during the flight to Europa.

I asked Zariah about flying to Europa – what she thought it would be like. When she was Bakalov, she worked as an asteroid miner on a few excursions, but avoided military service of all kinds, which led to her banishment to Bainbridge. I assumed, because she had experience with space travel – she’s the only one among us – that she would have some insight. She has never hesitated to share insight with us before.

Unfortunately, she only shrugged. “No human has been beyond the asteroid belt for a long time. You know as much as I do about what it’ll be like. Our ship is flung off the Moon StarTram, but I’m used to being in space for only a week at most, landing a craft on a large asteroid, and spending a mere few days at rockface while we find what’s inside before leaving.”

“What is the asteroid belt like?” the timid voice of Samira piped in. Her eyes were watery saucers in her pale face.

Zariah shrugged again. “It’s a bunch of floating rocks full of precious metals as far as the eye can see. Getting beyond it will be … more than most pilots are used to.”

Durada looked at all of our faces. “I thought we had an autopilot, and we’ll have to take over on occasion.”

Zariah nodded agreement. “I doubt we’ll have to take over much more than landing on Europa. Humans make too many errors to get all the way through 180 kilometers of stone and dust.”

“I read something about it the other day, did you see it, too?” Chloe asked. “We might do best to stay in the center of the ship for the week’s crossing. We won’t have communication with Earth during that time, and minute fragments of asteroid can get into the ship, cause tiny oxygen leaks, and even break through our skin or collect in our lungs because of the mucous. So if we stay away from their entry points, we won’t have to worry too much about that.”

“There will be a centralized portion of our craft for just that purpose,” Haven said. “It will be cramped, but less cramped than our bedroom, which we’re used to.”

Natsuki and Ihsan looked skeptical, but they didn’t say anything.

“So we’ll be back in contact once we get on the other side of the Belt?” Ghadir asked. Chloe shrugged but nodded.

“It might take some work, communication was off and on during mining operations,” Zariah said, “but yeah, we should be able to send Breathe Easy messages once we get to the other side. Then we spend the next week calculating where Europa will be in order to land in the right melty spot.”

Samira spoke up again: “It will take Breathe Easy three weeks to get supplies to us.” She took a deep breath and looked at the floor.

Haven tenderly touched her shoulder and said, “They have regular supply shipments planned, and they will be every month in the beginning. We’re getting a second wave of colonists within 6 months to a year. We have a lot of hard work, so that time will fly by. They are prepared to support us, don’t worry.”

Samira nodded, and I think her eyelids finally relaxed a little.

After lifting some magnetized weights, for the first time in too long, we hauled ourselves to dinner and back up to our room, where we packed the uniforms we’d been given – which Budur and I checked over thoroughly for tears and imperfections – and then we sat down with our barely-begun knitting projects.

“I’m not sure this can go in my luggage,” Vivien said, with a tinge of wistfulness. Budur smiled.

“I have a plan, don’t worry. Just make sure to give me your work at the end of this evening. Now, we’re making one back panel of the sweater, so here’s how to begin.” She showed us a basic stitch. Most of us caught on fairly quickly, although Natsuki and Vivien both had trouble. It is unlikely that we will all need to knit our own sweaters while on Europa, so I imagine those two will head all of the gardening operations –although I sometimes wish that would be me.

We worked a little too late into the night, and I just barely had time to write all of this down. Tomorrow, we depart, and we will have communications as we pass by Mars and use its gravity to sling us faster into the Asteroid Belt. I will be out of touch until we get to the other side, but I will try to keep a written record of what the events are like to the best of my ability.

We’ll start seedlings on the ship, since we’ll have a lot of time, and I plan to ask Haven and Chloe to help me with inventory – we have a list of everything we’re taking, but I want to make sure I know what all of it looks like and how it all fits together.

And then – the rest of my life begins.