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From out of your mouth tumbles a cascade of words, washing over other arguments and flooding the attention of the room. Your ad-hoc speeches will prove popular with the millions of subscribers to the Europa Mission video feed. "What if we get fed up with each other?" you ask. "We can't just talk to ourselves. We need a fallback, another form of companionship. Or should I say, companion-fish?!"

The room groans.

You don't quite get your way, but the compromise leaves you looking good. You manage to convince the room that companion animals are necessary but, despite their benefit to aquaponics, nobody is convinced that fish are particularly good at companionship. Instead they opt for rats: sociable pets who can create human-safe compostable waste that can be used to grow plants (unlike the pathogenic waste produced by cats).

"I'm going to have my own pet rat and I'm going to call him President Wiggles," says Kosmo.

"No, no they're social animals, you can't just have one of them," says Marcel Temaru.

Professor Li rolls her eyes. "Can we just move on?"

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