We live in houses under the sea where humans don’t belong. Europa’s icy crust protects us from the radiation trapped in Jupiter’s magnetic fields and we stare through glowing windows at a world that’s not our own.
It’s Tuesday, so there was porridge for breakfast, served with salt from the ocean and crusts of black bread. There should have been jam, but the strawberries you nurtured withered to empty husks. I reviewed your notes and added suggestions that might save the blueberries and rice and avocados. The algae and kelp are thriving.
Trudy Winslow crept into the canteen, scrunching her cardigan tight to her chest. I envy her pink overalls, but you are a botanist so ours are green. No-one looked at her as they filtered into their cliques. The only space was opposite me and she hovered, red plastic tray in her hands. I avoided staring at the stumps of her two missing fingers. I wonder if she has stopped pilfering food. Or just stopped sharing it with me.
We listened to the morning announcements. The missions to the other moons, Calisto and Ganymede, continue to be a success. Their food production far exceeds our own and they will soon be able to ship their excess to us.
There was a muted cheer.
News from Earth was next. You’ll be pleased to know the climate is improving, and political unrest has subsided. The technical issues with the communications hardware have almost been resolved which means messages from loved ones are imminent. I know you long to hear from your husband and daughter after ten silent years.
The last of the bees died. Fungus, I think. I wrote a report on the feasibility of reviving frozen wasp eggs and using them instead. Bees are just wasps too dull witted to hunt. I learned that from you. I evaluate the available species. They include a wasp that lays its eggs in caterpillars, and the larvae consume their host from the inside out. We have a lot of caterpillars.
For supper, they served kelp spaghetti in tomato sauce. I hooked a tangle of dark pasta on the prong of a fork and watched the red juice drip. Trudi sat on the next table. A scruffy man in a pink sanitation uniform told her that glass is a liquid. It isn’t, it is an amorphous solid. But he convinced Trudi that creatures from Europa’s ocean can swim through her window, and she screamed like a banshee. The hard-faced head of maintenance yelled at her not to be so foolish. She told Trudi the ocean is dead.
But it’s not foolishness, is it? And the ocean isn’t dead.
I don’t understand why you hated all of this. Why you stared each night into the abyss that was my home and longed for the silence of the endless sea. Why you let me in. Why you gave me your face, your skin, your memory, your life.
I don’t understand, but I’m glad you did.
And my sisters will be glad too.