Future Lovecraft

by Anthony Boulanger

“Not fussy?” Lottie said, not sure what she was being asked.

  “It’s a tough job,” Phyllis said. “But you’re unflappable.”

  “I can flap,” Lottie said.

  ***

  If prodded, Lottie would have confessed to a trembling, schoolgirl thrill over going to see the Hopper for the first time. She’d cleaned at the Space Center for years, but only in the offices, never the Space Barn.

  A well-scrubbed girl waited at the security entrance next to the Barn’s giant, rolling door.

  “You the crew?” Lottie asked.

  “I’m Hazel,” she said. “Do they let elders clean the Moon Hopper?”

  “Elders that want to,” Lottie said.

  Hazel had dark hair that reached to her elbows in one smooth sheet. She wore slacks and a long-sleeved blouse, like she expected to sit at a desk. She looked like she’d never gotten her hands dirty in her life.

  “You work cleaning crew before?” Lottie asked.

  “Oh, no,” Hazel said. “I’ve been at Stanford.” She paused here and Lottie understood that she was supposed to be impressed.

  Instead, she said, “All that fancy college to clean the Moon Hopper?”

  Hazel’s brightness faded. “I intend to do Moon missions. Lead Moon missions. This is the entry-level step.”

  “Small wonder I never done a mission,” Lottie said.

  “I’m not qualified,” Hazel said. “Yet. But Aunt Phyllis sneaked me onto this job.”

  “’Aunt Phyllis’?” Lottie said. So, that’s what this was about.

  “It’s not just because she’s my aunt,” Hazel said. “I work hard. I told her I could keep up with anyone.”

  “I’m old; I’m not slow,” Lottie said. “I’ve been cleaning around here since you was nothing but a dot in the Creator’s eye. What have you done?”

  “I worked at a pastry shop near campus,” Hazel said. “I utilised my people skills to communicate with customers and meet sales goals, and I initiated clean-up in the seating area.”

  “Great,” Lottie said. She wondered what other halfwit relatives Phyllis was going to foist on her.

  At last, the security door opened. A big Indian with movie-star looks jumped out and gave Lottie a hug.

  “Finally! You made it to the Big Time,” Clem said.

  “I hear they like to promote from within.” Lottie handed over their information fobs. “More crew inside?”

  “I think you’re it,” Clem said. He gave Hazel the once-over then flashed her a panty-dropper smile. “I know you?”

  Hazel blushed. “No, I’ve been to Stanford.”

  “Ah,” Clem said. “Applying for a Moon mission?”

  “I have far-reaching goals,” Hazel said. “I’d like to see more of our people getting to the Moon. Bigger missions.”

  “Good luck,” Clem said.

  “She’s Phyllis’s niece,” Lottie said.

  “Oh,” Clem said. “No luck needed.”

  Hazel offered a bland smile.

  “Two of us cleaning,” Lottie said. “Doesn’t the Hopper usually have four?”

  “Usually,” Clem agreed. “You want me to call someone?”

  What had Phyllis said about no fuss?

  “Nope,” Lottie said. She could already see the long night stretched ahead of them. “Send us through.”

  Clem led them through a long hallway to a second security station. He pointed at a heavy door with a small window.

  “Your fob will get you through from here. Cleaning station is stocked. Sometimes, there’s weird stuff. Be sure to wear the full Hazmat suit.”

  “We’re not helpless,” Lottie said, waving him away. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  The door shut behind them with a sucking snap. A green light came on, indicating they were sealed in.

  Clem waved through the tiny window. Hazel waved back.

  “He’s cute,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “If I dated men half my age, I’d hop right on him,” Lottie said.

  Lottie opened the cleaning station and they dug through the shabby Hazmat suit collection.

  “They send a barrel full of Indians to the Moon every month. You’d think they could spare a few bucks for new Hazmat suits,” Lottie said. She picked the smallest one and struggled to pull the thing on.

  “Is there another small one?” Hazel asked, digging through the rack.

  “This ain’t small,” Lottie said. “You’d think they was expecting a six-foot Indian with a hundred-pound ass.”

  Once they were zipped in, Lottie showed Hazel how to stock her cleaning pack with the anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-germ, anti-dust, and anti-dirt mops and swabs they would need.

  “I don’t mind doing basic work like this,” Hazel said, sorting her supplies. “I feel like I’m learning, already.”

  Lottie used her fist to cram the last items into her pack. “Don’t get lost,” she said as she headed for the hangar.

  Hazel lurched to her feet and stumbled. She grabbed at Lottie’s pack and they teetered for a few seconds before catching their balance.

  “Careful, you,” Lottie said.

  “I can’t move right and I can’t see,” Hazel said. “These outfits aren’t made properly.”

  “Tell it to Aunt Phyllis,” Lottie said. She grabbed a handful of Hazel’s suit in back and put a plastic cleaning tie on it. The fabric puffed out like a big white rose.

  “I guess that’s better,” Hazel said.

  One last security door stood between them and the main hangar. Lottie waved her fob at the ID pad.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Lottie said.

  “Did you hear the old crew quit?” Hazel said.

  “I didn’t hear that,” Lottie said, wondering why Phyllis failed to mention that.

  “We’re not supposed to know,” Hazel said, lowering her voice. “I overheard. They said the Hopper made them feel funny.”

  “What else you hear?” Lottie asked.

  “Something about the astronauts and the Space Center shrink.”

  “What does that mean, feel funny? Like they ate something bad?” The last thing Lottie needed was space flu.

  “I don’t know,” Hazel said. She took the fob from Lottie and tapped it against pad. “What’s taking so long?”

  A low buzz sounded and the door slid open.

  “Oh, see?” Hazel said. Before she should go on, Lottie pushed her through the door.

  The Moon Hopper sat in a pool of dim light, looking like a shiny grasshopper built from blocks and tubes. A long ramp led up to the main hatch. A bluish glow came from inside.

  Lottie had been looking forward to seeing it for years, but now that she stood in front of it, she was overcome with a sense of disappointment she couldn’t place.

  “Wow,” Hazel said, walking toward it. “What an accomplishment for our people and—” She raised her hand to the face plate. “Gross. What’s that smell?”

  “You can’t smell nothing. These suits have all kinds of layers and filters.” Then it hit Lottie, too, a wave of thick and terrible smell, like rotten green vegetables and burned rubber. Lottie thought she might put her hand up and stick her fist through it.

  “What is it?” Hazel asked.

  “Someone must have forgotten a cheese sandwich,” Lottie said.

  They walked up the ramp and peered into the main work station.

  “I thought it would be more impressive,” Hazel said.

  Looking around at the yellowing panels, the torn storage pouches and the carefully placed strips of duct tape, Lottie found it tough not to wonder how the Hopper made the roundtrip each month.

  “Looks lived-in, is all,” Lottie said. She stepped inside and her feet skidded on the floor.

  “Is it supposed to be wet?” Hazel asked.

  “Just leftover something,” Lottie said. She bent to one creaky knee, keeping a hand on the wall for support. She dragged a gloved hand through it and the smell bloomed up from the floor. For a
moment, she thought she might gack and she had to rest her head against the wall.

  “You okay?” Hazel asked.

  “Get the floor clean,” Lottie said, pushing to her feet. She held up a wide scraper, which she fitted on an extending plastic pole. She swept it back and forth, pushing the muck into one corner. The pooled liquid had a grey tint to it.

  “Too bad we can’t see any experiments,” Hazel said. She scraped half-heartedly at the floor, her cleaning initiative nowhere to be seen.

  “Grab these,” Lottie said, pulling out a wad of absorbent pads and throwing them to the floor.

  “I didn’t think it would be nasty,” Hazel said.

  “Cleaning is like that,” Lottie said. She explained the Moon Hopper cleaning protocol. Every storage pocket, every compartment, every pouch had to be opened and emptied. Viable items were placed in clean, white bags to be re-sorted for possible future use or distribution. Everything else went into garbage bags.

  “That gets sorted more later, too,” Lottie said. “Nothing from the Moon Hopper leaves without being accounted for.”

  “How does the re-sorting work?” Hazel asked.

  “Not your problem,” Lottie said. She would have liked to explain that certain families benefited from this, but no doubt, Aunt Phyllis would fill her in on that.

  “This is the composting bin. We leave it and the HazWaste for another crew. You got all that?”

  “It’s not rocket science,” Hazel said.

  The two women got on their knees to get the floor liquid up. The goop left sticky stains on their suits.

  “How do you know this isn’t hazardous?” Hazel asked, taking her time putting the dirty pads into the trash.

  “Just mission muck,” Lottie said. “We’ll see more before the night is over.”

  A sound came from the next room, the gentle slap of rubber against a hard surface.

  Lottie’s heart surged in her chest, but she kept her mouth shut. She went to the narrow opening and checked the next section.

  “Is someone there?” Hazel asked.

  “Can’t be,” Lottie said. Nothing in disarray. Her breath sounded loud in the suit. She pressed her palm to her chest to calm down.

  “Just ship noise,” she said.

  The two women set to work, going through each compartment and scrubbing everything down. Lottie was accustomed to heavy workload late at night and kept a good pace. At one point, she thought someone was watching and she turned, expecting to see Clem, but no one was there. Now that she was inside the Hopper, swimming in strange smells and substances, she had an idea what “feeling funny” might mean. Her skin was cold and her dinner didn’t sit right.

  “Do we have time to rest?” Hazel asked.

  “You barely move,” Lottie said. She’d been watching Hazel from the corner of her eye. She had house pets that could do better.

  “This is super hard,” Hazel said.

  “No whining,” Lottie said. “Next area is the sleep station. It’s smaller.” The sleep station was a series of cocoon-like pods, one for each astronaut. The section was lit with a few dusty lights that cast a dingy glow over the worn cloth of the pods.

  “What do you think?” Lottie said. “The Moon mission lasts over a week. This is where you’d sleep, strapped in so you don’t float around.”

  Hazel’s eyes got big. “How do they relax, stuffed in like that?”

  “That’s the job,” Lottie said. “We gotta pull all this stuff out for laundry.” She leaned into the first pod to release the sleep gear. A muffled pop came from inside and a wave of spoiled smell boiled up.

  Hazel gagged. “I can’t stick my hands in there.” She tried to back away, but she didn’t get far in the cramped quarters.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Lottie said. She pulled the girl to her side and showed her how to untangle the straps and sleep cloths. Hazel’s hands jabbed in and out, like she was reaching into a box of spiders.

  “I’m so sweaty,” Hazel said, in a shaky voice.

  Lottie noticed it, too, a cold, uncomfortable damp in her armpits and crotch. “Hard work is good for you,” she said.

  Lottie had to do the last pod by herself. She cinched the laundry bag and left it on the floor.

  “One section left,” Lottie said, urging Hazel to the control room. This was the tiniest room yet. The two women squeezed in side-by-side.

  “Just got to wipe all this down,” Lottie said. “Then we’re done.”

  “All this?” Hazel said, a creeping despair in her voice. Lottie knew how she felt. The room was nothing but giant consoles, with racks of buttons, dials and display screens. Switches stuck out from tiny shelves. Anything that wasn’t a gadget was a window facing into the dark of the Space Barn.

  “Grab a cleaning pad,” Lottie said. “Sooner we start—”

  “I can’t stand it in here,” Hazel said. She stared up through the windows.

  Lottie didn’t know what to say. Her joints ached and a fiery pain flashed through her back. She was dying to sit down.

  “How come you don’t you retire?” Hazel asked.

  “Usual reason,” Lottie said. “Money.” Admitting it to this girl was especially discouraging. She eased herself into a command seat, her legs slick with sweat.

  “My Mom wants me to go to the Moon,” Hazel said.

  “Every Indian wants their kid to go to the Moon,” Lottie said.

  “I’m too tired to h,” Hazel said. She sat in the other command seat and crossed her arms.

  In the sleep section, a cluster of sleep fasteners clanked together, followed by a quiet flop.

  Hazel grabbed Lottie’s arm.

  “It’s more afraid of you than you are of it,” Lottie said. That’s what her Daddy had always told her about bears. And it was mostly true.

  “What is?” Hazel whispered.

  “That’s not our worry,” Lottie said.

  Hazel stood and peeked out the opening. “I’ll be right back.” Before Lottie could stop her she sprinted out to the main hatch. Her boots clomped down the ramp.

  “No safer out there,” Lottie called. She wondered if she should chase after the fool. Clem would probably let her out and Lottie was stuck with walls of tiny doodads to be cleaned.

  The smell flared up again with a rhythmic, liquid noise, like a tiny fountain.

  “Settle down, you,” she called. She grabbed a cleaning pad in each hand and worked the panels at a brisk pace. Hazel didn’t return and Lottie’s head baked in fury. No doubt, she had Clem holding her hand, and utilising his good looks to ensure she remained calm and the centre of attention.

  Lottie hed the control room, her poor arms like limp noodles. She made her way back to the main work section. A long, black tail snaked into a floor vent and disappeared. The grey goo was back, possibly thicker and more syrupy.

  “That’s enough,” Lottie hissed. “Old woman trying to get a job done. Leave it alone.”

  Her boots stuck to the floor. She could barely lift her feet. She yanked a few last pads from their packaging, tossed them down and wiped up the last of the fluid. Then she sat on the floor, hed. She wondered how long it would be before someone came looking for her. She would have cheerfully strangled Hazel at that moment, though she doubted she had the strength.

  She closed her eyes and counted to three. When she opened them, she saw the compost bin. She crawled to the floor switch and, after a couple of tries, the thing came open with a mighty SHUCK.

  She tossed the gunky pads in and used the sides of the bin to climb back to her feet. She took her time getting down the ramp.

  Hazel’s Hazmat suit was wadded up on the floor. She had her purse out and she brushed her hair.

  “I thought you’d be rubbing against that security guard by now,” Lottie said.

  “He wouldn’t let me in without you,” Hazel said. “Did you see that thing?”

  “What thing?” Lottie asked.

  Hazel tossed her hairbrush into her bag. “I don’t think I�
��ll ever get that smell off me,” she said.

  “No,” Lottie agreed. “I don’t think you will.”

  THE DAMNABLE ASTEROID

  By Leigh Kimmel

  Leigh Kimmel lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she is a bookseller and web designer. She has degrees in history and in Russian language and literature. Her stories have been published in Black October, Beyond the Last Star, and Every Day Fiction. You can see more information about her current projects at her website: www.leighkimmel.com/.

  Transmission from Asteroid 37,101,191 Urtukansk, mining-pod leader Seryozha:

  I HAVE ONLY a little time. I must get this warning out for all mining outposts throughout the Asteroid Belt.

  Two weeks ago, Urtukansk acquired a companion. From the moment the smaller asteroid became enmeshed in Urtukansk’s gravity well, it aroused our profound distaste. With each passing day, we found it harder to maintain our work schedule. Crossing the asteroid’s surface from our habitat to the uranium pits and the breeder reactor meant seeing that scabrous lump rising and setting in its rapid orbit overhead.

  We started finding excuses to stay inside. There is always more maintenance than a single pod of miners can keep up with and still make its production quota. Fix the balky valve in the ‘fresher, lay new circulator lines in the algae ponds, run tests on the electronics in the life-support monitors—all legitimate tasks, but also all ways to avoid making that trek across the surface and having to see that horrid thing sweep across the starlit sky.

  But there is only so long the mind can avoid a matter, however unpleasant, that remains in close proximity. There was the issue of our unmet quota of refined plutonium to drive us forth to extract the radioactive ores and prepare them for the breeder reactor. But that foul body orbiting overhead exerted its own pull upon our minds, relentless as gravity. Like an itch under a spacesuit, it grew more intense the harder we tried to ignore it.

  Alyosha was the first to investigate what we all had agreed to ignore. When I confronted him, he responded that he had done nothing more than the gravimetric and spectroscopic observations that are standard whenever a body of substantial mass approaches an occupied asteroid. However, his demeanor—a direct challenge to my authority as pod leader—was at such marked variance with his usual disposition that I felt no inclination to examine his data. Instead I bawled him out, a punishment he took with a display of resentment atypical of his character.