Callisto 2.0 by Susan English (e novels to read online .txt) 📕

CHAPTER EIGHT

One evening a few days later, I went to the dining room alone. Several women were sitting at different tables, eating and chatting. Zoe, whom I had met at the farm when I first arrived, was at the buffet table, filling her bowl with food blobs. Tonight’s menu was Ethiopian wat, a thick, savory stew, and, as usual, packaged in little balls, with separate balls of injera, the traditional Ethiopian sourdough bread.

“Hi,” I said, glancing over at her as I filled my bowl, shy like the new kid at school.

“Oh, hey, Calli! Come, sit with me.”

I followed her to a table, and we settled into our chairs.

“So, what’s your story?” Zoe asked.

“My story?”

“I don’t know, tell me something about yourself.” She popped a food ball into her mouth and chewed, looking at me expectantly.

My mind was a complete blank. “How about you start?”

Zoe laughed. “Fair enough! I put you on the spot. Okay, as you know, I’m the resident botanist.”

“Uh-huh.” I took a bite of food.

“My specialty is microgravity hydroponic cultivation. I don’t know if you noticed, but we grow everything hydroponically here.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it’s a good system, though the biggest challenge is pollination.”

“Ah yes, no bats, bees, or birds?”

“Exactly. I’ve been using bots, but it’s not the same. The yield is so much better when the bees do the work.”

“It’s hard to compete with a hundred million years of evolution. So, I guess the bees aren’t an option?” I placed a water blob in my mouth, bit through the membrane, and swallowed.

“We tried, but so far it’s been a disaster. Do you know Yasmin?”

“Yeah, one of the botanists at Arcadia.”

“Uh-huh. She’s put a moratorium on sending bees here. They get too confused and disoriented. She said the problem is the lack of a gravitational field.”

“Micro-g isn’t for everyone, I suppose.”

“It does take some getting used to.”

“I like it.”

“Me too.”

“How long have you been on the station, Zoe?”

“Since they finished construction a couple years ago.”

“You’re one of the pioneers.”

“You could say that. It was, let’s say, interesting, for the first few months, while they 67

were working out all the kinks.”

I tilted my head, waiting.

“You know, the filtration systems, the toilets, the lighting, everything. It was a work in progress for a while, but now things are much better.”

“I guess I’m lucky to be here now. Everything seems to be working perfectly.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re lucky. You missed out on a real adventure.”

The door opened and I glanced over to see a woman entering the dining room. Zoe waved at her, and she gave Zoe a nod.

“Quinn and I always try to eat dinner together on Wednesdays,” Zoe said.

Quinn, bowl and chopsticks in hand, came over and sat down next to Zoe. “Calli!

So nice to have you on the station. I know Hadley’s thrilled.” Quinn was in her mid-fifties, with fair skin and kind, blue eyes framed by thin, expressive eyebrows. Her accent was sub-Saharan African, but I couldn’t place the country.

“I’m happy to be here,” I said.

Zoe looked at Quinn. “I was just telling Calli about our adventures the first six months or so living on the station.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Ha! ‘Adventure’ is a generous term. It was stressful in ops.”

“Aw, come on, it was a bonding experience!” Zoe poked Quinn lightly in the ribs with her index finger.

“That it was.” Quinn smiled, a faraway look in her eyes. “But now things are going smoothly, knock on wood.” She touched the top of the table with her knuckles.

“More like knock on polymer resin.” Zoe laughed, tilting her heat toward the table.

“Always such a literalist!”

Zoe stuck out her tongue at Quinn.

“So, Calli,” said Quinn, “tell us about yourself.”

Zoe burst into laughter. “I already tried that! And before I knew it, I was talking about myself.”

“Not much to tell. I’m from California, and spent the last ten years focused on my studies. Pretty boring.”

“I rather doubt that you’re boring, but okay for now,” said Quinn. “Because you’re new, we’ll give you a pass.” She winked at Zoe. “But one day we’ll have to sit down and talk, one-on-one.”

“Looking forward to it,” I said with a grin. “So, Quinn, where are you from originally?”

“I’m from Mwanza, Tanzania.”

“And what’s your role in ops?”

“My official title is Filtration Specialist, which means I’m responsible for clean air and water.”

“It’s a huge station, so that must keep you busy.”

“Oh, she was very busy in the beginning,” said Zoe, giving Quinn a sidelong look.

“Remember the nitrous oxide incident?”

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Quinn gave Zoe’s shoulder a good-natured shove, then turned to me. “Okay, there was one time,” she held up her index finger, “one time.”

Zoe attempted to keep a straight face, then broke into uncontrollable laughter.

Quinn glared at Zoe, her expression reminiscent of my third-grade teacher when we students were a bit too rambunctious. She cleared her throat, then looked back at me.

“One time, when I inadvertently switched a container of oxygen for one with nitrous oxide. Apparently, everyone in the dining room was getting a little punchy. I didn’t know what was going on because I was all the way in the station ops module.”

“You should have seen us, Calli!” Zoe cut in. “We were all dying with laughter. It was during lunch, and at first no one noticed that something strange was happening.

Everyone had a huge case of the giggles, and then things started getting out of control.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I heard about it later,” said Quinn. “How I wish I could have been a surveillance bot on the wall!”

“Yeah, you missed it. Diana started throwing water balls at Naomi, who knows why, but they were both laughing so much I’d be surprised if they didn’t both pee their pants.

Finally, someone thought to contact station ops.”

“It was Izumi,” said Quinn.

“Yeah, okay, Izumi called Quinn and told her everyone was going crazy in the dining room.”

“I checked the air quality monitors and realized the error immediately. I entered the code to shut off the valve as fast as I could, and initiated the emergency filtration sequence, with Annie chastising me the whole time.” She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t truly lived until you’ve been scolded by an artificial intelligence inside your own head.

It didn’t take more than ten minutes to clear the air and bring everyone back to semi-normality.”

“Yeah, but even so, Diana managed to put a few water blobs down Izumi’s jumpsuit.

And that was after the air was clean. I think she was having too much fun to stop. She’s so serious about her work, I imagine it was a relief for her to let go, even for a few minutes.”

“Anyway, now we have protocols in place so that particular incident won’t be repeated,” said Quinn.

“But it makes for a great story,” said Zoe, wiping her eyes.

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