The Separatists orbited the icy white moon and smiled. A white planet for a white people. The symmetry was obvious.
"It's even named Europa," one of them quipped. "Obviously it was meant for us alone."
"Could there be life down there?" Another colonist inquired.
"No," The President reassured them. "Some microbial life, but nothing multicellular, much less intelligent. We've got the moon all to ourselves."
The drills were deployed and three perfect circles were cut in the thick ice of the moon's oceans. They sank to the rocky floor of the sea and anchored into the moon's core. It had taken decades of planning and trillions of dollars, but after the Himalayan Wars and the Pogroms of the Pacific, the world became a different place. Racial discrimination of every kind was abhorred, and the Separatists had felt it was worth every penny to escape a world that would no longer tolerate their ideology.
After the drills were deep in the rock, teams of builders dropped through the holes they had created and used the drill heads as a foundation for the colony. A steel pyramid rose from the bottom of Europa's ocean, the tip of which just barely cleared the moon's thick ice shell. It was perfect, the architects declared, and the ships were soon left with just a skeleton crew in orbit.
At the top of the steel structure, the president and his family lived in a penthouse that offered a view of the ocean, ice, and sky. It was the only one of it's kind in the colony. After their first night in the Pyramid the president's daughter asked her father an odd question.
"Do oceans sing?"
"Why do you ask?" Her father answered indulgently.
"Because I think I heard it singing last night. It sang to me in my sleep."
"The ocean's waves sometimes sound like music. The gravity of Jupiter pulls the water and makes tides under the ice, Or maybe it was the hum of the power cells. Is that what you heard?"
"No. It sounded like a song."
"And what was the song saying?" He asked.
"I don't know. I couldn't understand." She shivered before returning to her breakfast.
Later he would ask the engineers if the power cells could be heard from his chambers. No, they said. The power cells were incredibly efficient and conservative estimates had them lasting for at least fifty years. But the Quorum and People of Europa felt there was no time to waste in finding a permanent, planetary power source. On Earth, every source of energy was from the sun. Even petroleum was the result of organic material breaking down. However on Europa the sun was too far away to provide sufficient energy for the colony. But there were already alternative plans in motion.
The Pyramid was situated between several geothermal vents. The "black smokers" would provide warmth and energy to the colony.
"It's not the first time we used Blacks to build a colony. At least these won't want to vote later," joked one scientist. No one present was offended.
Teams of divers, in special insulated, pressurized suits, built generators that allowed the geothermal energy to power the entire colony. It was strange and surreal work, swimming in billowing black smoke, working in near darkness. Jupiter pulled the water into crushing tides, making the work dangerous. Several divers died in the process, all of them male. But the female divers were never harmed. What's more, they seemed to find serenity in the moon's depths, something often lacking among the Separatists.
It took six months to finish the generators. Right on schedule for self sufficiency, it was time to start the next project - breeding a new white nation to conquer the stars.
When the first pregnancy in the colony was announced the Separatists celebrated. Everything was going to plan. The mother, a diver, became a minor celebrity. The new Europa Empire was being born.
Her pregnancy was healthy and the woman was quite happy, until her growing girth prevented her from performing her job. Then the woman grew thin and wan. She longed to dive again, to swim in the alien ocean as before.
When her husband asked her what she missed, all she could say was "I miss the sound of the ocean. The song it sings."
She was restless and irritable. She spent long periods of time looking out of the thick glass windows at the black smokers, humming tunelessly. The baby would kick the most at those times, sometimes so strongly that it could be seen by others. Despite her strange behavior, it was obvious that the baby was healthy, so spirits remained high.
When she gave birth, the thing looked human. But it was pitch black. Instead of the firm limbs and lusty cry of a new born, it felt like a bag of pudding, just barely holding its hominid shape. It howled, deep and dark as the ocean its mother swam in. Her husband blanched and shook his head. Without a word, the doctor walked to the nearest water lock and shot it out into the ocean. The child - could it even be called that? - burst into a million tiny droplets, as though it had been sprayed out the door instead of placed in the water lock.
When the woman came to, her eyes were wild. She demanded her baby. They apologized, told her it had been stillborn, promised she would have another.
"You lie!" She screamed. "I can hear him! He's calling me." And before anyone could stop her, she ran from the medical suite, ran to the water lock, the same one the doctor had used to dispose of her child, and released herself into the sea.
The pressure differential crushed her eyes immediately. But the smoker's heat prevented her from freezing. In moments, her body disappeared into the inky plumes. It took them a week to remove the blood stains from the halls.
Afterwards, everyone agreed that it would be best to say she had died in childbirth and the baby along with her. They also decided that henceforth no women would be allowed to work on the diving teams. Satisfied, they continued their breeding plans.
In two months another pregnancy was announced. This time it was twins. "Like Romulus and Remus," the proud father would tell anyone in earshot. Tiny twin hearts beat strong in their own minuscule ocean. The mother had not been on a diving team, she had been a teacher. But she had to be relieved of her duties early in the pregnancy. She was constantly found at the same window, humming the same tuneless melody. Before long she stopped eating the food grown in the colony's hydroponic gardens. She insisted on subsisting only on the new experimental food that was being made out of the cultured microbes that lived on the ocean floor by the vents. She grew thin and anxious, but the children within remained robust. Even as the vessel that carried them faltered, hope remained for the ones within.
But the birth was like déjà vu for the doctors. The pitch black babies, the maternal instinct too strong for them to fool. This time they knew to restrain her. But the call of her children was too strong. Another woman disappeared into the black smoker
By now there were four other pregnant women. Could any be saved? No. It was a recurring nightmare in the medical suite. No way to stop it. No way to save them.
When a fifteen year old girl became pregnant, there was no more denying the nature of their predicament. She was unmarried! A virgin - the doctors confirmed. She joined the others in the sea of Europa.
They should have left then. Returned to Earth or taken their chances on another planet. But the Separatists were nothing if not proud. Give us more time, the scientists begged. We can save them, the doctors swore. So they stayed. And every pregnant woman was a broken promise and every dead mother was a shattered family.
When Dr. Front's wife gave birth, he froze at the foot of her bed, holding the howling infant in his arms. The medical staff watched him expectantly. But he did not go to the water lock. Instead he placed the child on his wife's chest and waited.
"If I put him outside my wife goes with him. I'm not going to do that. Not yet."
When she opened her eyes, she looked down at the infant. "Hello my baby," she whispered. The child quieted and in response to her caresses it opened its eyes. Shiny black orbs reflected its mother's face back at her. She smiled at her baby and herself. "Let's go see your daddy."
She got out of bed on wobbly legs and walked towards her husband. Dr. Front stood next to the door but she walked right by him. Out into the corridor, around a few corners, and she was at the water lock. Dr. Front lunged to stop her, but it was too late. Clutching her baby, she let herself out into the ocean. Her eyeless face smiled in postpartum bliss as she drifted into the smoker.
After three years all that was left on the colony was men, old women, and prepubescent girls. When the president's daughter reached menarche, she came to him crying.
"I understand now," she wept, her twelve year old body wracked with sobs. "It wants me. It calls me at night. I don't want to go!"
"We were wrong," the president admitted to the Quorum. It pained him to do it, but they could no longer stay. The colony was evacuated in 72 hours.
As the ships broke orbit and turned towards warmer skies, hundreds of eyeless sockets craned upwards to mark their departure. Below, they cradled tiny black clouds lovingly to their breasts.