65

Professor Li takes tiny, controlled steps into the bridge. Marcel Temaru bounds with long stumbling strides. As they join you and the others, the two scientists are already in a heated conversation.

"I thought we agreed—" says Professor Li, in a clipped tone. Her voice is always loud and clear, a skill from her prior life as a corporate lecturer.

"You know we agreed no such thing," Marcel interrupts. Ordinarily good-natured and forbearing, the big man is struggling to hold in his annoyance.

"President," says Professor Li, "can you confirm for us that the first module of the colony will be the lab? We won't be able to profit from our findings unless we have one."

"It needs to be the sub bay," says Marcel. "There'll be nothing to study if we can't get to the ocean in the first place."

Sungura Kikwete looks unsettled and carefully smooths out a wrinkle in their robes. "I was under the impression it would be the ice garden? To act as a central hub for the colony?" they say. "We only get one chance not to make a sprawling mess of this."

Kosmo chimes in with a bell ring sound from his electric voicebox to cut through, "Just to muddy things further, President, but I think everyone would appreciate proper quarters sooner rather than later."

"I agree with Kosmo," says Virginia Rein. "I'd personally love the observatory to come first, especially as it'll double as a communications center and we could keep in touch with Earth much more easily. But my wife is asking for our own bedroom….