Luna

by Rick Chesler

  The entire crew sat on the floor in a circle with their legs crossed, “Indian style,” Caitlin thought of it, reminding herself of her grade school days. She had no idea why it was called that, but right now that was the least of her worries. Whoever lost this game of chance was going to die. On the moon. As alone as a human could possibly be.

  “What can we use for straws?” Kennedy asked.

  Takeo moved to another part of the cabin. “I’ll look for something in the hardware bin over here.”

  Kennedy nodded. “I think we probably have a length of spare wire over there that we can cut up into different lengths.”

  Blake snorted. “Spare wire? I didn’t think we had spare anything on this ship.”

  Kennedy shot him an angry glance. “Apparently we have a little more to spare than your ship, which is why you’re here.”

  Blake’s retort was cut off by Caitlin putting a hand on his shoulder, a silent reminder to calm down, now is not the time to start another fight. Blake still seemed like he was about to keep at it though, and Caitlin was glad when Takeo returned to the group carrying a length of electrical wire in one hand and a pair of cutters in the other. He handed both off to Kennedy, who looked around at the group, counting heads aloud.

  “...eight. So we’ll need eight straws.” He held out the wire as if considering it. It was yellow, about two feet long. Blake picked up the wire cutters.

  Caitlin stared at the wire. “If we assume that length of wire is thirty inches, then the average length of each straw should be...” She stared up at the ceiling while calculating in her head. “... Three point seven five inches, so one of them has to be significantly shorter than that.”

  Kennedy nodded as he eyeballed the wire, held in his left hand. Then he put it between the cutter’s blades, moving it left to right before coming to a stop almost four inches from one end. He made the cut and the first straw fell to the floor in front of him. Everyone looked at it while he moved the wire along the cutters again, this time snipping off another four-inch length.

  All eyes watched as Kennedy lined up the first two straws he’d made so far on the floor in front of him. Then he returned to his cutting, snipping off more pieces of wire to make the next five straws. He set down the cutters and then proceeded to line up the five new straws next to the first two, the eyes of those present still watching his every move. He then brought the remaining strand of wire to the cutters again. “Now to make the short one.”

  He clipped off a three-inch length and held it up for the group to see before placing it on the end of the row with the others. He pushed them into place so that the ends were exactly aligned, the short straw easily apparent. He looked up at the group, the hum of air handlers and various electronics the only noise.

  “Here we go.” Kennedy gathered the straws until they were all clutched in his right hand. He used his left to carefully pat down the tops until they were all even. None of the straws protruded below his clenched fist. He stood and held out his hand with the straws.

  “Are there any objections to me holding the straws? If so, any of you may volunteer.” A few glances were exchanged but no one said anything. “Statistically, there is no advantage or disadvantage to holding the straws,” Kennedy reminded them, or informed them, as the case may be for the non-astronauts who were not as mathematically adept. “If I’m holding the straws and all of the long ones are picked first, then I lose.”

  James Burton appeared confused, or at least highly concerned. “But for those drawing in later rounds, they have fewer straws to choose from, increasing the odds that they’ll pick the short straw, right?”

  Kennedy and the astronauts, including Caitlin, shook their heads. She explained it to Burton. “That risk is equally compensated for by the chance that someone who draws before you will pull the short one.” There were no further disagreements about this and so Kennedy proceeded.

  “Now then... In case you’re not sure of the rules,” he said with a smile, “a different person picks a single straw until the short one is pulled. That person is the loser...” He appeared to think better of that choice of words and paused while he rephrased his statement. “...that person loses the game, I should say.” No one said anything. They all stared at his hand with the straws.

  “Why don’t we go clockwise around the circle?” He looked at Caitlin, who stood immediately to his right. She took a deep breath and reached her hand out toward the straws. She inserted two fingers into the tight circle of wires and plucked one out. Her knees nearly buckled with relief as she heard someone mutter the word, “safe,” and she realized she had not drawn the shortest straw. I won’t be left behind to be ingested by those things...

  Kennedy wasted no time and looked next to Arnie. The injured astronaut extended his hand almost eagerly, as though he was competing for a chance to win a baked good at a raffle instead of a one-in-eight (one-in-seven, now, everyone knew) chance at death.

  “Wait a minute.” James Burton raised his hand like a kid in a classroom. Kennedy’s eyes glared at him. “What is it, Mr. Burton?”

  “If one of the astronauts loses, are we still going to have sufficient expertise to fly the spacecraft back to Earth?”

  It was a fair question, everyone knew it, but Kennedy acted as though it was the silliest thing someone could ask. “Of course! It’s not ideal, but then this entire situation is far less than ideal, am I right? Our astronauts can do each other’s jobs in a pinch. Correct me if I’m wrong.” He looked at the astronauts.

  The professional spacemen –and woman—appeared uncomfortable as they eyed one another. Perhaps there was an unspoken communication in those looks: If we say, No, our jobs are too specialized, then we’re all safe! But whether out of sheer honesty or professional pride (we’re astronauts, we can do anything!), that’s not what they said.

  Arnie addressed Kennedy. “Depending on who it is...if one of us loses...that person might have to provide some specialized training, but it could be done, to be fair, sir.”

  Kennedy nodded. “Thank you for confirming what most of us already knew.” He glanced at James Burton, who shrugged. He was looking forward to his retirement, and if he thought of something that seemed like it could affect the likelihood of his getting to live it out, he was going to say something, reactions be damned. Kennedy went on.

  “Now...where were we? Ah yes...” He extended his hand to Arnie. “Draw, please.”

  Kennedy’s employee reached out without delay and pulled a straw from his boss’ fist, eyes bulging as he examined its length.

  “Not the short straw,” Kennedy said, his voice level.

  Stenson was next. Kennedy held his hand out to the Black Sky FAA rep, who, perhaps subconsciously, recoiled, his hand shrinking back from Kennedy’s. “C’mon, Mr. Stenson, dragging it out doesn’t make it any better. Let’s get it over with. Please.”

  “All right. I thought I was going out of turn for a second, is all. I’m ready.” His hand shook as he brought it toward the remaining straws. Kennedy held his fist rock steady in the air. Stenson hovered his fingertips over it. He dropped them down, only to raise them back up again, then plunged them into the lot. He quickly yanked his hand back clutching the selected straw, then slowed his movements so that he could see the results of his actions. His hand froze in mid-air as his mouth dropped agape. He rolled the little piece of wire between his fingers and flipped it this way and that in his hand, but it didn’t change the fact that he had drawn the short straw.

  The cabin was silent as all of them gawked at the short piece of wire in Stenson’s still unmoving hand. He had lost the game.

  He had lost his life.

  Stenson snapped out of it, jerking his head up to look at Kennedy, who still maintained his closed fist held out in front of him. “Let me see the rest of them.”

  A simple request, but one that carried with it so much weight. Kennedy turned his hand palm up and opened his fist, revealing the four remaining wires of obviously equal length. Ste
nson stepped forward, eyes widening as his gaze bored into the long wires, the symbolic straws that meant life over death. “They’re not lined up evenly. Let me see them lined up.”

  One of the astronauts put a hand gently on Stenson’s shoulder and said something meant to be soothing that was not audible to the wider group. Kennedy’s reply was matter-of-fact.

  “I’m afraid you drew the short straw, Mr. Stenson. Lay it on the floor, here, and I’ll show you.”

  Stenson dropped the wire so fast it was like it was burning a hole in his hand. He eyed Kennedy’s hand with the long wires as he eagerly waited for them to land next to the one he’d chosen, so he could see beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had in fact picked the shortest straw. Maybe he hadn’t, after all. Maybe it just looked like the shortest one because of some trick of the light and he would be vindicated... But Kennedy shook his head at Stenson, as if reading his mind, pitying his delaying of the inevitable, extending his hand to let the five wires fall to the floor.

  Just as Stenson started to rail about wanting to see the other two straws—the ones picked by Caitlin and Arnie before him—a sixth wire dropped from Kennedy’s hand to the floor next to the others.

  “Wait a minute!” James Burton said, inching closer to the pile of wires on the cabin floor. “Why are there seven wires on the floor?” He looked at Caitlin and the Black Sky astronaut who had already drawn. Both of them still had their chosen straws in their hands.

  “You still have yours?”

  They nodded, adding them to the collection on the floor, where the cut lengths of wire now totaled nine, even though there were only eight people. The extra wire was the same length as the other long ones. It was dropped with the other five, the unchosen ones, from Kennedy’s hand. The attention shifted to the Black Sky CEO, who looked to the floor and back up to meet Burton’s intense gaze.

  The entire group stared transfixed at the anomaly until Kennedy spoke.

  “You saw me count them out for you on the floor and pick them up into my hand,” Kennedy said.

  Blake pointed at the pile of straws that numbered one too many. “Then how did the extra long one get there?”

  Kennedy stared at the five straws without an answer.

  “Let’s see the other two!” The condemned man seized on the anomaly as a glimmer of hope. Caitlin and Arnie both placed their wire straws on the floor beside the existing row of six, including the short one drawn by Stenson.

  “So that’s all eight straws accounted for—seven long plus one short—except that there’s also one too many longs. A total of eight longs and one short!”Blake turned his gaze back to Kennedy, who still stared at the floor. Blake looked his rival carefully up and down.

  “None of us ever came into contact with that wire, with the exception of him.” He pointed to Takeo, who had given Kennedy the wire. The astronaut shrugged and nodded at Kennedy.

  “Yes, I brought him the original length of uncut wire.”

  Burton’s eyes were also fixed on Kennedy. “He did bring him the wire but he never touched it after it was measured—its length estimated, at least—by Caitlin.” The female astronaut nodded to corroborate this. Burton went on.

  “We all watched Kennedy cut the wire.” Everyone agreed, including Kennedy himself, who appeared unsure where Burton was leading.

  “So somehow either the wire was longer than we thought—maybe it was bent, doubled back on itself where he made the cut, creating two pieces?”

  Again, Kennedy was in agreement, nodding his head vigorously. “It’s possible. I was calculating how long each wire had to be, I wasn’t really looking at the wire itself that closely...”

  “Or...” Burton said. But he didn’t have to complete his own sentence.

  “You cheated!” Blake yelled, pointing directly at Kennedy.

  Suddenly, the entire space capsule rocked to one side and they heard a deafening noise from above.

  43| House Rules

  Kennedy puffed out his chest, indignant, while everyone else looked up at the ceiling. Something scrabbled around up there, outside, something on top of their craft. James Burton was first to break the silence.

  “One of those animals got up there somehow.”

  Caitlin traced the being’s progress across the ceiling. “We’ve got to get it down before it causes damage. Everything’s barely working as it is; we can’t have any more malfunctions.”

  “Pardon me, Blake? What were you insinuating?” Kennedy ignored this new threat, focusing instead on confronting Blake.

  Blake’s face went through several shades of red as he prepared to level his accusation, but it was Caitlin who said something next, her carotid arteries bulging as she got her point across. “Are you two listening? We need to do something about that damn worm or worms up there right now, or forget about choosing one of us to die up here, we all die.”

  At this, Kennedy raised his voice. “Only one of us is going to die, and that’s Mr. Stenson, because he lost the game. Fair and square!”

  But Blake argued back, causing Caitlin to abandon her attempts at reason with the two leaders and to turn to the others. “Listen! Listen to me!” she screamed. That did the trick and bought her the entire team’s attention except for the two CEOs, who continued to yell at one another. Caitlin pointed up through the roof. “In a few minutes, our Command Module will pass overhead in lunar orbit. If we miss this pass then we’ll have to wait hours for the next rendezvous opportunity, while the creatures attack the ship. I’m not sure we’d last that long, so we need to do what we have to do to liftoff right now.”

  All but Kennedy and Blake took this to heart. Even Stenson, who only minutes ago wasn’t even sure he’d be alive to worry about it. While Caitlin huddled in conference with the others to discuss how to rid the craft of the creatures so that they would have a chance of making the rendezvous with the Command Module, Blake addressed Kennedy.

  “You’re the one who came up with the idea to draw straws. Or wanted us to believe you came up with it on the spur of the moment, I suspect is more accurate. I think you knew all along that’s what you were going to do. You were even the one who suggested using a piece of wire to make the straws! Which means that you had time to snip off a piece and stick it up your sleeve before we gathered to have the meeting and draw the straws.”

  “That’s preposterous! I did nothing of the sort. I don’t know how that piece got there. Maybe you anticipated the game and smuggled in your own straw. Could that be it, Blake? You’ve been accused of cheating before, as we all know. Remember the SensorSoft deal, Blake...”

  A crashing noise interrupted all conversation, a reminder that the creatures still rampaged around the ship and with every passing second the possibility of irreversible damage multiplied. Caitlin pointed and Williams donned his spacesuit helmet in preparation for leaving the ship to do something about the worms.

  Kennedy glanced over. “You’re going outside? Good, take Mr. Stenson with you, please. It’s time. Pete, I’m terribly sorry, but—”

  “I don’t think so!” Stenson yelled. “You cheated!”

  Blake took a step toward Kennedy. “Cheating means you lost.”

  “Mr. Stenson lost.”

  “You lost, Kennedy! You cheated, you forfeit by default! You stay behind!”

  “Absolutely!” Stenson chimed in. “I will not volunteer to be summarily executed when the integrity of the game has been called into question.”

  Blake beamed at this. “It’s you, Kenn—”

  He never finished his sentence because at that moment Kennedy’s fist slammed into Blake’s nose, breaking it. Blake staggered in place but managed to remain on his feet as a gush of blood sluiced down his face.

  Realizing he’d been injured and wishing to prevent it from happening again, Blake reached down, unclipped his spacesuit helmet from his belt and put it on, fastening it down in a surprisingly quick and smooth motion. But Kennedy, aware that his blows to the head would now be rendered ineffective, d
id the same. The two fighters now stood a few feet apart, fists raised, facing off in their impromptu armor.

  Blake swung first in this new round, a left cross that glanced off Kennedy’s space-suited chest. The Black Sky CEO reacted with a strike of his own, landing a jab to Blake’s midsection.

  At that moment, Williams came running back inside and took off his helmet. He brandished some type of blowtorch. “There was a huge one crawling around up there. Gave it a little incentive...” He held up the torch. “...and it scooted off. Those things have formed almost a complete ring around us. They’re maintaining some distance...for now...but I wouldn’t count on it lasting for long.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Caitlin said, moving to a bank of controls where she carefully eyed a display. “If we don’t lift off in the next five minutes, we’re stuck down here for another...” She paused while examining a different screen. “Ten hours and forty-four minutes.”

  Another astronaut shook his head. “Our oh-two won’t make it that long. The ride up to the Command Module is only about an hour if we hit it on this pass. That we have oxygen for. But ten hours...” He trailed off as if imagining all of them suffocating together in the ship.

  “Then let’s move.” Caitlin’s hands flew over the controls, but the other astronauts simply stood there watching the fight play out between Kennedy and Blake, who now circled one another, trading jabs and even the occasional kick.

  Burton made a move to come between them and break it up, but caught an errant elbow to the temple and backed off.

  “Forget them!” Caitlin said, turning around from the console but leaving her hands in position on the knobs. “Activate the launch systems, let’s go!”

  “One person has to get off or the ship will not make the rendezvous with the CM,” Takeo reminded.

  Caitlin fired back a reply without delay. “It takes five minutes to initiate the launch sequence. We need to start the process now or it won’t matter who’s going or not going because we’ll have missed the rendezvous.”