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!
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment