Title: to pour the coffee
Fandom: Avatar
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 254
Summary: Science thrives in collaboration. Of course it does. That's one of the basic tenants of the discipline; sharing knowledge. A trait that sharing space with the vast majority of base inhabitants is not compatible with. Not even close.

The pursuit of science is an endeavour conducted in a state profoundly isolated and at the same time, inherently social. That is the duality of knowledge creation and transmission - no one can know more than everyone, after all. Even if some know a great deal more than most.

Like herself, say, and the SecOps that makes up most of the base's inhabitants.

Despite the limited space in the outpost, life in the mountains, away from base, is the only way to get single a moments peace. It helps that the others on the expedition spend most of their time in nearest thing to a coma. Not that Grace doesn't take her turn in-Avatar, but she is head of research. A lofty title that gives her an allotment of twenty extra grams of caffeine per day (officially) and the equivalent of the Hallelujah mountains in paperwork.

Trudy is out flying recon (and taking sensor recordings - small species of flyer seemed to inhabit the local outcroppings, possibly related to the banshees; in the same way that a hummingbird was related to an ostrich) and nothing but the hum of machines. Settles her cup of coffee on the table in front of the largest window, and sits to admire the view. Even if the view is nothing but sky, with - every other minute - a stray edge of vine swinging into sight. Grace has the morning to herself, and she is going to make the most of it if it's the last she does.