Sorry for any delays, everyone. We’ve been dismantling the
ship, which I’m glad to say is going well, thanks to the training that Breathe
Easy provided for us. We’re about half-way through that process, and we moved
all of our personal items into Rabbah, and are living there full-time now. A
few days ago, we had a problem with the air filtration and had to wear our
helmets until the system cleaned itself up, but we started another few colonies
of algae to help generate oxygen for us, and we know to clean the filters every
other day, rather than simply twice a week. We will probably have to go to
every day, once the other round of colonists arrives.
The waste management system took a lot of work, but we fixed it in a reasonable amount of time as we began moving into the colony. It’s gross, but some of our waste flows through our garden, in which we’ve planted the spindly sprouts we barely managed to generate. I think, perhaps, they were choking for vitamins and gravity, because now our tomatoes, senna bush, spiky aloe leaves, and fluffy lettuces look much better. I’d like to get together with Ihsan and Durada and plant more when we can.
Earlier today, we released the bivalves in two giant nets, which are currently drifting along either of the largest sides of the station. It will take them a few days to attach to Rabbah’s outer layer, but I’ve been assured that they will find the metal lining familiar and will immediately want to congregate there. Natsuki told me that, while she worked in aquaponics on the coast, pieces of shipwreck and submerged ancient buildings washed up from time to time, covered with shelled creatures like barnacles and clams. She and her friends would gorge themselves on the tasty treasures.
There was a time in my life when I would have found that disgusting, but now, it sounds amazing.
We also put the kelp and some of the algae into the water. Individual algae can float through the almost microscopic mesh weave, but nothing else will. The kelp is mainly outside of the air/water lock, so that we can reach it for harvesting.
We’re still eating the last of the nutritional loaves. I look forward to peppering mine with the early lettuce leaves next week, when they’re big enough to pick without harming the underlying roots.
As far as the actual mining operation, we have removed all of our items from the barrels – our items are packed in neat rows in our storage rooms, and the barrels are submerged. Chloe and Haven have taken detailed inventory of our supplies, and as soon as Zariah and Yuda mend the communications systems, then we will make contact with Earth and request more supplies. We need more silk and carbon, of course – Ghadir has focused much of her energy on making storage containers for the food we’re growing, so we can begin preservation. We won’t store much except the few tomatoes we manage to grow hydroponically, but when the next colonists arrive, they’ll bring a luscious variety with them and we will begin planting with soil that we’re going to make ourselves. I’ll let you guess out of what.
Oh! And good news, our octopus eggs hatched. We only got four out of the 100 eggs we started, but I think that will be enough to get us going with the barrels. These guys can live about two years, and they will be grown in a few more weeks. I plan to take another 100 eggs and float them outside, in the midnight black ocean, to hatch. The first octopuses hatched on another world. I haven’t released our four into Europa’s waters yet, as I’m somewhat afraid that they might freeze and die. They’re used to temperature controlled environments, but I think I’ll let them float in the stream we created in the garden, so that they can get used to cold water.
Vivien and I have been like overbearing new mothers with these tiny creatures. We argued earlier today about what to name them. I suggested that we give them all “O” names – Olive the Octopus, for example, although I didn’t want to name any of them “Olive.” I just wanted to suggest to Vivien that we follow the naming pattern that seemed conventional.
She shook her head. “You never want to get too attached to animals you work with,” she said, “even if they’re smart, trainable, whatever. You may have to kill them for some reason, and if you get attached then you won’t be able to do it. Someday, they’ll die of natural causes, and if they have names, you could be too distraught to keep going.”
“But we’re training them to work with us. We need to tell them apart, and a name could be like shorthand for their characteristics. You know, if one of them is redder than the rest, instead of calling it Red, we just name it … Octavia,” I shrugged, “or something like that. Then we know. We’re going to end up naming them anyway.”
Vivien shook her head. “Aelis, we may need to eat these creatures at some point.”
“They’re for the mining operations!”
“I know, I know,” Vivien said. She put a hand on my shoulder, the most physical contact I’d seen her provide to anyone, ever. The Senfte are really the only ones who make physical contact with people, or at least are trained to. I glanced at her hand without thinking about it, and she snatched it away when she saw my eyes move.
“Anyway,” I continued, “if we expect to train them, we need to get used to treating them like employees, not like food. I’m going to name them, and you can call them Steak, Eggs, Bacon, and Hot Dog if you want.”
Vivien’s shoulders shook. I think she was laughing, but I couldn’t tell. She said, “Alright, but I don’t know how you’re going to name them when they all look alike.”
I looked closely at the thumbnail-sized creatures, whose tiny tentacles waved in the water of the cylinder as they swam back and forth. I wondered if they would eat the unhatched eggs at the bottom of the tube. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea, but I walked over to an algae sack and scooped a bit from the top, dropping it into the container before I responded.
“I’ll pick out names for them now, and we can see which names fit them best when they grow up.”
I admit, I got a little obsessed with the idea, and rather than eat dinner with the rest of the group, I’ve been sitting in front of the computer terminal, which Yuda hauled down from the ship just yesterday. My rear is beginning to hurt from being pressed into the floor for hours, but it’s the only way that I could get access to an encyclopedia. Because the next wave of colonists will be all, or almost all, male, we were sent with a “Baby Names” program. I don’t really know what to think about that, except that computer programs take up less space than seeds or resin, I suppose. Anyway, it’s serving my purposes now, so I suppose it’s not all bad.
Here’s my list so far:
Oliver
Opaline
Otto
Orpheus
Ophra
Othniel
Olga
Ottilia
Ove
That’s enough for another hatched group – if there’s only 4 in 100 – and I can’t find many that satisfy me. Maybe I should branch out into other names? Maybe I should just call them Thing 1, 2, 3, and 4? Or maybe I should do what I suggested to Vivien, and call them Ceviche, Fillet, Fishstick, and Gefilte?
This is frustrating. I should find a different project to work on tomorrow.
The waste management system took a lot of work, but we fixed it in a reasonable amount of time as we began moving into the colony. It’s gross, but some of our waste flows through our garden, in which we’ve planted the spindly sprouts we barely managed to generate. I think, perhaps, they were choking for vitamins and gravity, because now our tomatoes, senna bush, spiky aloe leaves, and fluffy lettuces look much better. I’d like to get together with Ihsan and Durada and plant more when we can.
Earlier today, we released the bivalves in two giant nets, which are currently drifting along either of the largest sides of the station. It will take them a few days to attach to Rabbah’s outer layer, but I’ve been assured that they will find the metal lining familiar and will immediately want to congregate there. Natsuki told me that, while she worked in aquaponics on the coast, pieces of shipwreck and submerged ancient buildings washed up from time to time, covered with shelled creatures like barnacles and clams. She and her friends would gorge themselves on the tasty treasures.
There was a time in my life when I would have found that disgusting, but now, it sounds amazing.
We also put the kelp and some of the algae into the water. Individual algae can float through the almost microscopic mesh weave, but nothing else will. The kelp is mainly outside of the air/water lock, so that we can reach it for harvesting.
We’re still eating the last of the nutritional loaves. I look forward to peppering mine with the early lettuce leaves next week, when they’re big enough to pick without harming the underlying roots.
As far as the actual mining operation, we have removed all of our items from the barrels – our items are packed in neat rows in our storage rooms, and the barrels are submerged. Chloe and Haven have taken detailed inventory of our supplies, and as soon as Zariah and Yuda mend the communications systems, then we will make contact with Earth and request more supplies. We need more silk and carbon, of course – Ghadir has focused much of her energy on making storage containers for the food we’re growing, so we can begin preservation. We won’t store much except the few tomatoes we manage to grow hydroponically, but when the next colonists arrive, they’ll bring a luscious variety with them and we will begin planting with soil that we’re going to make ourselves. I’ll let you guess out of what.
Oh! And good news, our octopus eggs hatched. We only got four out of the 100 eggs we started, but I think that will be enough to get us going with the barrels. These guys can live about two years, and they will be grown in a few more weeks. I plan to take another 100 eggs and float them outside, in the midnight black ocean, to hatch. The first octopuses hatched on another world. I haven’t released our four into Europa’s waters yet, as I’m somewhat afraid that they might freeze and die. They’re used to temperature controlled environments, but I think I’ll let them float in the stream we created in the garden, so that they can get used to cold water.
Vivien and I have been like overbearing new mothers with these tiny creatures. We argued earlier today about what to name them. I suggested that we give them all “O” names – Olive the Octopus, for example, although I didn’t want to name any of them “Olive.” I just wanted to suggest to Vivien that we follow the naming pattern that seemed conventional.
She shook her head. “You never want to get too attached to animals you work with,” she said, “even if they’re smart, trainable, whatever. You may have to kill them for some reason, and if you get attached then you won’t be able to do it. Someday, they’ll die of natural causes, and if they have names, you could be too distraught to keep going.”
“But we’re training them to work with us. We need to tell them apart, and a name could be like shorthand for their characteristics. You know, if one of them is redder than the rest, instead of calling it Red, we just name it … Octavia,” I shrugged, “or something like that. Then we know. We’re going to end up naming them anyway.”
Vivien shook her head. “Aelis, we may need to eat these creatures at some point.”
“They’re for the mining operations!”
“I know, I know,” Vivien said. She put a hand on my shoulder, the most physical contact I’d seen her provide to anyone, ever. The Senfte are really the only ones who make physical contact with people, or at least are trained to. I glanced at her hand without thinking about it, and she snatched it away when she saw my eyes move.
“Anyway,” I continued, “if we expect to train them, we need to get used to treating them like employees, not like food. I’m going to name them, and you can call them Steak, Eggs, Bacon, and Hot Dog if you want.”
Vivien’s shoulders shook. I think she was laughing, but I couldn’t tell. She said, “Alright, but I don’t know how you’re going to name them when they all look alike.”
I looked closely at the thumbnail-sized creatures, whose tiny tentacles waved in the water of the cylinder as they swam back and forth. I wondered if they would eat the unhatched eggs at the bottom of the tube. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea, but I walked over to an algae sack and scooped a bit from the top, dropping it into the container before I responded.
“I’ll pick out names for them now, and we can see which names fit them best when they grow up.”
I admit, I got a little obsessed with the idea, and rather than eat dinner with the rest of the group, I’ve been sitting in front of the computer terminal, which Yuda hauled down from the ship just yesterday. My rear is beginning to hurt from being pressed into the floor for hours, but it’s the only way that I could get access to an encyclopedia. Because the next wave of colonists will be all, or almost all, male, we were sent with a “Baby Names” program. I don’t really know what to think about that, except that computer programs take up less space than seeds or resin, I suppose. Anyway, it’s serving my purposes now, so I suppose it’s not all bad.
Here’s my list so far:
Oliver
Opaline
Otto
Orpheus
Ophra
Othniel
Olga
Ottilia
Ove
That’s enough for another hatched group – if there’s only 4 in 100 – and I can’t find many that satisfy me. Maybe I should branch out into other names? Maybe I should just call them Thing 1, 2, 3, and 4? Or maybe I should do what I suggested to Vivien, and call them Ceviche, Fillet, Fishstick, and Gefilte?
This is frustrating. I should find a different project to work on tomorrow.
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