Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group

by Lionel Woodhead

  The cereals and potatoes were harvested in time though separation of the grain had to be performed manually and much of this work was performed in semi darkness by those wearing wet, crude, cloth filters against the dust that was by then very prevalent. The potatoes were stored wherever we could find storage in the nearest shelter.

  All our other crops were similarly harvested though with increasing difficulty. It soon became necessary to dress in overalls and masks for external work. These were removed in the airlock systems the dust being positively extracted with fans to reduce the amount of this dangerous material entering the accommodation.

  The communication system worked but the increased distance, between the two shelters, told on the quality. At one time it was so bad, for reasons unknown, that we actually considered converting to a Morse code system. Fortunately this was never required but there were difficulties for our telephonists who had been chosen for the clarity of their speech and hearing over the medium of the cable. Our best speakers, over this medium, were all women.

  Frying (a noise that sounded something like eggs frying in a pan) resulting from the use of the old fashioned carbon granule elements in the telephones was an ever present irritant for these workers. The very old fashioned cure of gently using the telephone itself as a hammer on the desk would relieve, for a short period, this aggravation. Using these old fashioned techniques our communications were maintained in spite of all the problems encountered.

  We were starting, in a different scenario, our second incarceration within our prison. There was, however, no instant danger as had been the initial nerve racking initiation of the impact event. We were, however, presented with a renewal of a potentially long term, incarceration. We all had experience of the problems; some having experienced more difficulties than others. In both shelters there were insufficient beds and rooms but we had the materials to improve things. All that was required was hard work and that would help morale.

  It was now that we lost the pharmacist Fidel to suicide. In his note he explained that he suffered from claustrophobia and could not face another period within the shelter. Another of our originals had been lost and I felt that loss. My heart went out to his partner, Cristina, who was heartbroken. We were also advised that one of the servants in the other shelter had suffered a serious stroke and was partially paralyzed. This presented another problem as we had not considered storing wheelchairs and the only real treatment available to us was aspirin. A crude wheelchair was made for him using pram wheels but in their shelter they had no modern treatments not even wolverine, but aspirin was provided in the hope that his problem was not hemorrhagic. Fortunately, so we heard, aspirin appeared to have been a good treatment in that he lived and the level of paralysis improved allowing him to walk with a stick and his speech eventually recovered to almost normal. Unfortunately he would require a small amount of aspirin every day which would not be good for his digestion. Fortunately their aspirin stock was sufficient into the new medium term by which time we could assist with our reserves.

  The original shelter inmates would, where possible, retain our homes but until we had provided reasonable accommodation for all we would have to share what was available. This was performed, initially, by the principle of warm bedding. We split ourselves into three watches (or shifts) of nine hours. The shelter clock would remain as twenty-four hours and hence a watch group would rotate around the twenty-four hour clock. The work watch would spend the last quarter of an hour of their nine hour work period advising the new work watch of any problems. They would then have eight and a half hours of recreation period followed by a meal then an eight and a half hour allocated sleep period in a home followed by receiving a quarter of an hour indoctrination of the system state when starting their new work period

  The guard would be obtained from those on work watch and would be changed as a new watch came onto their work period. During their sleep period those persons would sleep in the existing houses or on beds, once used for the storage of tinned food, in the food storage area. It was not ideal but it was the best solution under the circumstances.

  During the initial period many of our personnel would be allocated, during their work period, the task of making up new partitioned homes and readjusting the home area to maximize the number of houses available. The office accommodation was moved downstairs to the first animal floor as was the children recreation, with the associated adult relaxation area, and twelve housing units which were initially used as storage units. We would now have 92 homes on the old habitation floor with corridor separation of two point five meters allowing some relaxation area for casual walking and later sitting on benches when these had been made by the carpenter. The number of homes required that a few had to accommodate more than four persons but we managed to arrange that where this was necessary the homes were slightly larger. Where possible we made all the homes using our old partitioning facilities but when we ran out of this material we initially made do with our plastic sheeting allowing a dedicated family area if not the original level of privacy.

  The furnishings would, initially, be more basic than the original but every effort would be made to improve this in the future. We would have insufficient lighting to maintain the original level of this luxury throughout our abode. For this reason home lighting would now be a single unit allowing a few extra units to remain in storage as replacements. The beds were made of wood and the bed slating was made of our plastic sheeting nailed to the bed structure supported by fewer wooden slats. Fortunately tired people could sleep, with reasonable comfort, on it.

  Resettling our accommodation provided us with work which allowed the personnel to become more interconnected and this appeared to reduced frustration. It was an interesting period keeping most of us usefully employed for about three months. We did not finish resetting our work bases etc for at least six months but our homes, though crowded, were as comfortable as we could then make them.

  We were isolated, from the politico’s shelter, by the dangerous volcanic dust and worsening external environment. Fortunately, however, we were able to maintain some form of contact via our communication link. We envisaged that unless some disaster occurred there would be no further direct physical contact between our shelters until the external atmosphere became more acceptably, whatever that meant, cleared of the deadly dust. In the event of an emergency, however, both shelters had vehicles which could be used to assist our compatriots. On closing the shelters we, in our shelter, had set up our version of improved air filters for both the engines and personnel cabins. These, we considered, should be sufficient to get us safely, in reasonable comfort, to the other shelter even in the earliest period of our new incarceration.

  Chapter 16. Doors Close Again.

  The weather outside became rapidly colder and we were soon able to start removing appropriate (that which required freezing) material from the buildings into this environment. This task was performed when we decided that individual items would store better, with less call on our generation reserves, in the cold temperatures outside our shelter. This material, as in our earlier incarceration, consisted largely of medicines from our freezer.

  We also used this external facility to freeze, in protective bags, appropriate vegetables, to preserve their freshness, and some of our butchered meat that we had been storing in the large freezer. We did not have much suitable material but what we had we froze outside our shelter.

  The remaining condemned horses were now humanely killed, butchered, skinned and this meat was frozen, in bags or closed plastic containers, outside the shelter. The skins were cleaned, tanned and later used in the making of shoes and sometimes coats. Many inmates remained sad at the loss of those beautiful creatures but most understood that it was necessary as we had to try and ensure that we had sufficient food reserves and space for our remaining animals. If they survived they would provide us with considerable future benefits.

  We were now inmates again with the external environment acting as our
guard. We were, for a further unknown period, in the situation of being imprisoned within a limited space with, to my great concern, much greater numbers than we had initially designed our shelter for but conversely with more experience of the physical and mental problems associated with such an incarceration. Within the shelter we now grossed only slightly more than twenty five square meters per person. This limited area was for an unknown period, potentially years, allowing little for personnel privacy. The lower animal floor now became our agricultural area with our library in one corner though the large swimming pool gardens, by necessity, remained on the upper animal floor.

  We were now even less able to produce even limited fresh food for all the inhabitants in these small spaces and the area had also to function as a relaxation area. The old food store had much of its material transferred to the outhouses to provide room for a further rest area. Having barely two meters of headroom it could only to be used for relaxing and such games as darts and footballin for which the necessary material had been transferred there from the extension area. This reallocation allowed the released area to be used for other purposes. The playing area available, in the food hall, was greater than had been available for the players in the extension area but had to satisfy a much larger clientele.

  The extension area provided an additional space of slightly greater than five point five square meters per person. The allocation of twelve square meters of home to four persons further reduced the actual free space available to all. By splitting the inmates into three watches resulted in only two thirds of the inmates using that space at any time allowed an apparentif not actual, increase in the available space.

  The outhouses and the cellar were arranged to provide considerable additional space partly by acting as a material and animal storage areas with further space for our research groups. This readjustment allowed greater use of our numbers even if it was somewhat less efficient in the results achieved. This limitation of results was not considered a problem as work was considered a distraction with long term physical benefit.

  The house, itself, was rather large having a ground floor dimension of about thirty meters by twenty which was largely used for recreational purposes. The upper floor provided additional research space and the roof space stored much of our bulky lightweight items and had the additional practical benefit of providing some insulation to the lower floors reducing the energy requirement. It also proved popular as a place of refuge where a few warmly dressed individuals might get away from the crowd for short periods.

  Reading was not allowed in this roof space and personnel lighting was limited to finding oneself a resting place or to leave that space. This area helped some of us a great deal but we had to be careful to ensure that it was not used as an escape from reality. Everyone had to accept the reality of our situation or psychological problems might have resulted.

  The number of toilets originally available for use was considered inadequate for the population now using the facility. For this reason we increased the toilet number by two. We did this by raising the floor of both the new toilets by five centimetres to allow a reasonable drop to the sewage pipe. We then added a two and a half meter enclosed masculine urinal to the left hand end of the toilet block by lifting one end of the urinal tray some sixty five centimetres above the floor again to allow a slope. We installed a pipe bend at the end of the urinal to prevent foul odours from the sewage pipe entering the shelter. The additional number of toilets increased the individual access to about an hour a day from about forty minutes and the masculine urinal would further reduce the demand on the toilets

  We hoped these arrangements would be sufficient as it was an important facility. We resisted the idea of using the portapoties for general use and these were now placed in the hospital where they could be used by any patients too ill to get to the toilets.

  For energy use per unit time limitations we were unable to increase the number of shower units but we increased the time allowed for the showers to be utilized to about three hours a day allowing a two minute warm shower for everyone every four days. Here again this increase was facilitated by the increase in energy now available from our external sources taking some of the demand off our diesel generators. The biggest gain was the continuous use of electric air pumps powered by our external generation facilities. With our greater numbers and accommodation area we needed to circulate more air over a greater area which would not have been possible using our original diesel generators alone.

  With our increased numbers the call on our medical services increased in proportion and these people were kept reasonably busy with, usually, minor ailments. Although most of our personnel were relatively young and none had any long term medical infirmities the close proximity of personnel meant we had to deal very carefully with any illness. An infectious agent could be very dangerous if allowed to spread into the general population.

  With our limited facilities and medicines this could have caused us major problems. For this reason I would have preferred an external hospital in an outhouse but I was overruled on the basis that the hospital already existed within the shelter. If we eventually required a quarantine area this could be made available in the house. Fortunately up to the present time this has not been necessary.

  We now had more personnel than real work and more jobs were make-work though, in all cases, these tasks were arranged that there achievements might be useful in the longer term. One profession that unexpectedly proved very useful, during our second period in the shelter, was our civil service. Their task was a little strange. Their objective was to help people in such a way that they could leave the little civil service office in the minimum time with the maximum satisfaction as clients whom, it was expected, would have had their problem solved or, at least, attended to.

  The civil servants were advised that they were to consider that any shelter occupant, who visited them in their office, was the most important of all people. Such things as a person’s shower queue position and time at the facility (the allocation had to be related to their “rest period” which could be a problem when the allocation watch period crossed the rest period. The resolution of this type of problem was the task of the civil servants). The date, if known, and time of access of an inhabitants bath (again a similar allocation problem) was to be resolved, without any bias, by the civil service. Their food allocation and point of reception could be a problem as we now had, from necessity, more than one food distribution point. Job allocation complaints (everybody had a task to perform from cleaner to research director) etc. This information was available on four large blackboards outside the civil service office using identity numbers rather than longer names.

  We were fortunate in having, within the inmate population, two ex, low level, civil servants who knew the principles of the organization of their work and accepted the new rules. The civil service was allocated ten additional volunteers. These personnel were separated into three watches so that the office was always manned.

  The civil service personal were advised, and fully accepted, that they were to be the servants off and were never to consider themselves leaders of the people. They were given the initial task of producing “how to do it” documentation, written in pencil and available to all, using some of our valuable remaining paper on the office wall. These wall documents would be modified as experience directed so that applications for assistance could be dealt with more efficiently reducing the workload of the civil service and the time lost by their customers.

  Inter personnel irritation, within any densely packed community, had a potential danger of exploding into violence. We wished to prevent this in our society as any friction could be disastrous. A good civil service, whose personnel were dedicated to assisting the people, was a relatively simple way of reducing such potential problems.

  I believe this group of dedicated civil servants worked well. The principle provided not only valuable work but thanks to the services dedicated efforts we rarely had problems that ha
d to be referred to other organizations. We had no police force but I remained an arbiter and I was supported by, only used once, the military personnel of whom, in spite of my injuries, I remained a member. It says much for the overall situation within the shelter that a requirement for actual physical force against an inmate or inmates never occurred.

  Unless there was a potential disaster, at the other shelter, requiring our assistance our team of external explorers would not be required for some time so we were allocated another task or tasks. I was put to work in our development of transmitters and receivers group. One of our first transmitter attempts had been a Morse code system in effect we generated a resistant short across a battery producing an electronic disturbance that we detected at a distance by a receiver. Building this transmitter and receiver was our first attempt at a home developed transmitter/receiver system. This unit had never been intended as a practical system but allowed us to test the principal of our receiver within the shelter and was of great interest.

  We also designed and built a simple amplitude modulation circuit. This unit generated a high frequency carrier (a continuous, tightly maintained, single frequency). Onto this carrier was implanted the modulating signal which was then transmitted via a current in an aerial. The transmitted modulating wave was recovered and amplified at the receiver which, in essence, removed the carrier frequency leaving the original signal. This form of transmission is simple but is, unfortunately, much disturbed by electrical noise. To transmit over a reasonable distance, using a simple isotropic (in all directions) antenna, required considerable energy. This was acceptable within our group as we only intended to use it for relatively short distance communications.