White Space

4

 Soon enough, the recreation room was bustling with life. Everybody was busy bringing food or cutlery to the table, like one big family. Yemon actually found it amusingly well-choreographed. These people must have been doing this for a long time, which, according to the little file Yemon had, was exactly the case. He also couldn't help but marvel at the amount and variety of stuff they had on the menu. Maybe it was partly because he had skipped more than one meal already, but the table resembled a good, old-fashioned thanksgiving feast rather than a research station lunch on a tiny ball of ice in the ass-end of the solar system. Probably it was the hunger, though.

 "You are a well-prepared bunch, aren't you?" Jaleel asked the guys working around the dinner table, already rubbing his hands together.

 "This is not the usual Mr.... Private?" Doc Comtois said. Jaleel shook his head at the botched attempt. "Mr. Narayanan was good enough to bring supplies with him when he arrived."

 "What, did he arrive on a food truck?"

 "Well, he had some transfers in the arrival section of his future luxury hotel thing, so when it all... When the tragedy struck, he and Anisim made a few trips to save the foodstuffs at least."

 Colin and Accacia brought out condiments and some refreshments, by the looks of it. The food looked beautiful, nothing like you'd see anywhere outside of Earth and maybe Mars, let alone on a busted old research station just about to go.

 "So what's the occasion?" Jaleel leaned closer to the table, that was already ready to buckle under the amount of food.

 "Hospitality." Accacia said without even looking at him. Yemon couldn't help but smile at this. Jaleel seemed to begin to pick up on Accacia's mildly hostile sentiments, but could do nothing about it. He would have found him pitiful if not for the fact that he knew Jaleel would work extra hard and eventually turn this around. He always did.

 The table was finally set, leaving almost no place for the actual people requiring the sustenance as Narayanan and a surprisingly clean, thus, to Yemon's surprise, strikingly handsome Anisim arrived at the scene. He was a tad chubby, sure, but he was somehow too good to be true. Accacia ushered their guests to the table and made everybody sit down comfortably around it. As comfortably as they could, at least. They sat in awkward silence for a few seconds until Jaleel started making room around his plate for all the prospective mouth-watering joy about to join in with his bodily functions.

 The rest of the group watched him for a little while and when he looked up, they all dropped their gaze back to their empty plates.

 Yemon looked at the others with a faint smile flashing across his face. "There's no need for concern. Jaleel is a big advocate of efficacy. If not always in the workplace, definitely at the dining table. Wait until you see the feeding process."

 "Nah man, you know as well as I do that all this needs good juice to keep running." Jaleel said, pointing at himself. He then turned back to the others. "What are y'all waiting for? This ain't going to last." This finally frightened everyone into grabbing whatever was closest to them. The recreation room was eventually filled with the clinking of glasses, and the clattering of plates and cutlery.

 "So tell me. What is it you are you researching here exactly?" Yemon looked at Accacia, cutting a piece of steak that he couldn't believe was on the menu until he got solid proof through the good old-fashioned tastebud method.

 "Several things, really," Accacia said, sipping a glass of lemonade, resting her elbow on the table, "Most important, at least what the base was made for, was research into the possibility of complex life on Europa."

 "Not that it came up with anything." Colin said, chewing on some asparagus with an absent gaze.

 "Well, no shit," Jaleel said between chews. "We would have heard about it by now, I guess."

 "That's right Private Sarratt, you should have. But you didn't. That's the most well-kept secret in the solar system." Accacia put her glass down and picked up a knife and fork.

Jaleel dropped his piece of steak onto the plate with a gaping mouth. "You have got to be kidding."

 "Of course I am, Private. We couldn't find anything. Not complex life-forms, not single-celled organisms, not even amino acids, nothing. Almost a century ago, people thought that if any place harbors life in the solar system, it has to be Europa. Or maybe Titan or Enceladus. Well, as it turns out, none of these do. Enceladus was out first and then Titan, because that's where all the money went first when the expansion started. We only started looking into Europa later, although it's the closest to the Earth of the three, but whatever. There's no life. Anywhere. Except for Earth." She put a large cut of meat in her mouth. Her face became tired, and her chewing was somehow dry and joyless to Yemon.

 "So what is it you do, then?" Yemon asked.

 "Fortunately, there's always a lot to research for the private sector, so..." Accacia shrugged, but trailed off right away.

"Well, we run experiments on existing life-forms," Colin said, "I experiment with single-cell organisms in the high radiation environment of Europa, we look at water, Yin is experimenting... She's a marine biologist so she studies the ocean mostly, she has some crabs and critters, she—"

"So what keeps this place afloat, then?" Yemon gestured to the ceiling.

 "Not much. I've spent almost twenty years as head of research, and hindsight is 20/20, but... I sometimes wish I choose a different place to do my science. There were no genuine breakthroughs here, so most people just came and went. I've been working here for almost the longest time. Except for Anisim, of course. He's been here the day this place was born, isn't that right?" Accacia looked over at Anisim.

 "It wasn't a simple birth either." Anisim said after swallowing hard, "Almost forty years ago, this was supposed to be cutting edge. You should have seen it. It was being built for almost a decade. Back then, they were still figuring it out, you know. How to build these things below so much ice. Also, this is basically the only place you can build shit really, the ice is the thinnest here. At some places it is only five clicks. Nobody knows why—"

 "Don't mind Mr. Sorokin Corporal, he can reminisce for days." Navin Narayanan said, still dressed in an attire perfectly serviceable at a royal wedding. He pulled out a bottle of hand-sanitizer and meticulously washed his hands before wiping them with a napkin and reached for his drink. "We had a good run, I'd say. There was a lot of successful research done here for the company. Mostly confidential research, mind you, but important nonetheless."

 "Mr. Narayanan. I have to tell you. I am a big fan of steak. And I can't help but wonder... How the hell do you have so much of it here?" Yemon asked. He decided to derail the conversation into less polarizing topics.

 "I have... had regular shipments coming in. I didn't want to go without certain necessities. Fortunately, when disaster struck at the building site, a transport had just barely touched down. The shipment was still in the cargo buffer on the surface. It was easy enough to carry here."

 "It must be nice though, being the son of the richest person in the solar system." Jaleel said with an enormous smile, his mouth full. "What I don't get is what the hell are you doing here all the time?"

 "I assume you aren't curious what business venture I am invested in, correct?"

 "No, we have been briefed about all that." Yemon said. "What he means is that surely there is a better place waiting for you to call home, is there not?"

 "I enjoy the scenery." Narayanan stood up and took a bottle from a fridge. He poured himself some Scotch. Real Scotch. Then he sat back down. "I am what you would call an adventurer. I like all that Europa has to offer. Climbing walls, the deepest crevasses in the Jovian system, driving my buggy on endless white plains under the stars, hunting. If you ever wanted to feel truly alone, here you can."

 "Oh believe me," Yemon said. "I know exactly what that feels like."