19

As the quarters continues to be drilled out and insulated, you meet again with the stakeholders. The group of representatives takes a stroll around the latest building site, where the powerful ice drills are cutting and melting ice. The pumps hum as they draw out the meltwater into a series of pipes leading up through the shaft to the surface. There it sprays water that freezes as gently falling snow on the surface. You have been ruminating on a fragmented, broken-up message from General Wigwe, asking when you're going to install a decent way of communicating back with Earth.

"We simply must build the laboratory next," Professor Li insists, already impatient at the meeting barely begun.

"Nothing happens without a submarine bay," Marcel Temaru points out.

Sungura Kikwete listens to what the others have said and adds, "Everyone will be happier if they're able to express themselves creatively. We should consider putting in a real fabrication workshop."

"We're going to make a laboratory next."

"It has to be the submarine bay next."

"It's time for a proper communications center and observatory."

"We should build a workshop."

Next.

Being able to see the stars and examine up close Jupiter and its other moons should help alleviate the claustrophobia of living beneath the ice. The colonists should also appreciate being able to more easily communicate with Earth by maintaining a permanent outcropping above the ice. A huge elevator shaft to the surface will be required, but that will make any further surface expansion easier.

Messages take at least three hours to arrive back and forth between Earth and Europa, so it makes holding a steady conversation impossible. Your next short missive from General Wigwe states "PROGRESS IS ACCEPTABLE." As work begins, Marcel Temaru, together with a hardcore cadre drawn from the aquanauts and marine scientists of the colony, chooses to begin working on building the submarine bay in their spare time.

Second Interlude

Interlude Two: The Dream

Three months pass beneath the ice. Every few weeks, the colony shudders and the sound of cracking overwhelms all other activity as the ice shifts and cracks. The ice experts assure you that the Asterion and its place in the ice are not in any danger, but you find it hard to shake the unsettling feeling the sound always brings.

Above the Asterion, an elevator shaft leads up to a surface just below the the jagged spires of Callanish Crater. There, a small observatory dome juts out onto the otherwise untouched surface of the moon.

Everyone now has a bedroom, dug into the ice in a sloping spiral around the tower of the Asterion, with new openings added to the ship which remains as a central hub.

[You may now access the Colony page on the Stats screen for a complete look at the colony at any time.]

Next

A warm summer day, the sun rising over the horizon, a deep breath of fresh pine air. Standing amid a wooded grove, a slick black tentacle wraps around your leg and pulls you into the earth. Deep into the earth, the walls now ice, you're trapped, crushed in a dark and cold expanse.

Try to wake up.

Embrace the dream.

Try to take control of the dream.

Next

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