by Garon Whited
“And the alternative? You said something about ‘fiddling’ with it.”
“I think,” she began, slowly, “that we can rig something up for a lower-capacity flow. I think. If Max will help me, that is. I’ll need some parts that we don’t have. Max? Can you make pipe fittings and valves?” Everyone turned to me. I thought about it.
“I’ve looked at the machine shop. Anything that can be made out of metal, I can make,” I agreed. “The Moon has lots of aluminum, and there are mining and refining ’bots.” I looked at Julie. “Just don’t ask for anything but aluminum, please. There’s a lot of iron on the Moon, but we’re not set up to mass produce it. It rusts, see? We can use titanium if you want, but we have to avoid any really high-temperature applications; it burns in both oxygen and nitrogen, and we don’t have nitrogen to spare.”
“Aluminum will be fine.”
Carl cut in with a nod. “All right. Max? How is our house looking?”
“Solid as a brick outhouse, sir, and with about as many windows. I tested to make sure all the toilets flush, and boy, are my kidneys tired.” Everyone smiled or chuckled. “I think we did a good job when we built it. If there’s a flaw, I can’t find it without destruction testing.”
“We’ll hold off on that,” Carl replied, deadpan. “Katherine? Communications?”
“We’re live, sir. The base arrays are all intact; most of the comm gear was in shutdown anyway. The one transceiver that was live was the base telemetry link; the EMP gave it the galloping willies, but I think I’ve got the diagnostic phase done. I can get it put back in order. I think. I’m trying, anyway.
“Aside from that, we had no damage to our electronics that I can find. The other base transceivers are now live; I’ve tested them. We can send to anybody you like. We can even hear them if they’ve got anything stronger than a cell phone.” She bit her lip and paused for a second.
“Sir, with the EMP from the warheads, nothing in near-Earth orbit is likely to have operable communications gear. If there are survivors on any of the stations, they won’t be able to send or receive. They’re a lot closer and a lot more vulnerable than we are here, and their systems were, in all likelihood, active when the warheads went off.”
“But if they do find a way to send anything, we will hear them. Am I correct?”
“Well… Yes, Sir.”
“Good. While you’re going over the rest of the base electronics with Max, you can be thinking about how you would cobble together a transmitter after an electromagnetic pulse has reduced your space station to a ballistic tin can. Then you can figure out the best way to listen for it.”
Kathy looked glum. “Yessir.”
“Meanwhile, there is good news. I have examined the Luna. She’s in fine shape, aside from the outer airlock door. I’ve also checked our supplies here in the base, and we can make another door for her.” He smiled at me. “Commander Hardy, you’re going to be a busy man. A new door for the Luna, pipes and fittings for lieutenant Lewis, assistance to colonel Edwards with the base wiring…” he trailed off, shook his head, looked around the room. “If it does not interfere with assigned duties, I expect everyone to give him any possible assistance. That includes me, Maxwell. I’m a decent carpenter and I can use power tools without slicing off fingers, but I haven’t the faintest notion of how to weld aluminum. Can you use unskilled labor?”
“I can’t tell yet, sir,” I said, smiling back. I noticed that he called me by my first name. “I have to get a better idea of the problems we need to solve. But I will be glad to have some help when it’s time to muscle the door up for fitting to the lock. Even in one-sixth gee, it’ll be heavy and awkward. The construction robots aren’t programmed for repairs on the Luna.”
“Consider it done. Now, other good news. In the… government committee’s wisdom, they decided that an emergency supply of fuel for the Luna would be prudent.” He looked at Julie. “A good thing, I think. I’m glad they thought of it.” Julie blushed a brighter pink this time. “I’ve already refueled the Luna and she’s otherwise ready for liftoff. Without that outer door, she’s strictly an orbital vehicle. So when we hear from one of the stations, we’ll assess their situation and see about rescuing survivors.”
I noticed that he said “when,” not “if.” I think we all noticed. We didn’t comment on it. But it seemed strange—very strange! —to be considering the idea of rescuing anybody! I mean, us! Rescuing people! It was hard to grasp.
Captain Carl’s a smart man. With one little statement, he changed us from the staggering refugees of a broken planet into the last, best hope of all mankind. We would be the ones who saved other people from a cold death in the vacuum of space. We would be the ones to keep people from becoming meteorites.
We didn’t need saving. We’re the ones who do the saving! Maybe it was just a way of looking at things, but a shift in perspective can make a lot of things look better.
The morale at lunch was a lot higher than I’d thought it could be. Conversation picked up, mainly discussing our specialties and working out more details on the base schedule. It had a cheerful quality to it, almost a playful one. We’d come through the initial blow of losing our planet. Now we had a whole new planet on which to start over—we wouldn’t mess it up this time. How could we? It’s a lifeless ball of rock. Things could only get better.
Like I say, Captain Carl is a smart man.
* * *
There aren’t enough clocks on the Moon. I think I already said that. There is a distinct shortage of sunrise and sunset, too. About every two weeks, the Sun rises or sets. This does not fit a human circadian rhythm! Fortunately, you don’t see it very well from a hole in the ground. I spent several days—Earth days—on both hatch and piping.
I confess I ran myself ragged. There was suddenly a lot to do and I was the only person with any skills for taking bits of metal and forcing them into specific shapes. Anybody could fit pipe together; none of us are stupid. Stupid people don’t get selected for lunar duty. But who makes the pipe? We can’t just nip down to the local building supply store. If we don’t have it or make it, we do without.
What we could use from the base’s supplies, we did. Some of the fittings for Julie’s microbrewery of a waste-reclamation unit I had to custom-build. Nothing on base would do.
That thing! I’m glad she knows what she’s doing! The reclamation facility takes up about twenty percent of the whole base—it’s a big honkin’ huge mess of pipes and tanks! —and is a lot more complicated than I ever thought. I always thought of it as a big still, burbling and bubbling and turning waste into component substances for re-use.
“Sure, there’s distillation involved,” Julie told me, standing at a nearby control panel. I was under a section of feeder pipes, measuring before cutting. “Distillation is a vital process. But there’s also electrostatic filtering, heat cracking, recombination, even some combustion. The main thing is the SWOX, but everything that comes out of it has to be separated and sorted, and there are some other processes involved as well.”
“SWOX?” I echoed, echoingly. The recycling bay is big and full of metal and smooth rock. It echoes nicely.
“The supercritical water oxidation unit,” she clarified. “It’s a high-power method of breaking icky bits down into not-so-icky bits. Combined with the rest of the mechanized recycling, we can duplicate in minutes was old Mother Earth took years to do—and some things she would never manage. This piece of hardware is the most advanced and versatile rig ever built for turning worthless goo into useful stuff.”
“It’s also a power hog,” I noted. My voice sounded tinny from the metallic echo.
“Well, true,” she admitted. “But, like I said, it does things the planet normally couldn’t do without volcanic activity. You don’t usually see plastic wrap breaking down into fertilizer!”
“Fair enough, I guess.”
“Right,” she said, nodding, and shut up. I finished my measurements—measure twice, cut once—and slid out fr
om under. Julie had seated herself in a rolling chair and was facing away, hunched over her laptop schematic.
“So what next, O Hurried Version of Mother Earth?”
She sniffled and ran a hand over her face before she turned around. Her face was so serious! I thought she might start to cry—and immediately, I wondered what I’d said.
“Max?” she asked, softly. “I was thinking about Earth… Do you really think that there are other survivors? I really want to know.”
I hesitated. She’d obviously had it on her mind for a while. I didn’t think about it much; I was busy and happy to be so. But she asked…
“I think there are,” I admitted. “Probably some on the ground, surely some in orbit. If they’re in orbit, they can live for a long time. Stations are designed for that. On the ground… I don’t know. I don’t think the destruction of Earth was total, but I really haven’t given it a lot of thought. I’ve been occupied. I know it’s not going to be easy down there for anybody, no matter where they are.”
She nodded and lowered her head again. “I… I wish…”
“So do I,” I answered. “I wish a lot of things. But we keep going. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So what’s next on our plumbing agenda?”
She shook herself and came back into focus. “That’s it, until you finish fabricating. Then we get to assemble everything.” She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Want to help me lay some pipe this evening?”
“Can’t,” I replied. “Got to finish modifying the Luna with internal dogs for the outer door. Then I’m going to grab some sack time.”
She pouted a little. “You have to let up a little, Max. Have some fun.”
“I’m having fun,” I replied. “I like working with metal. I was welding while I was still in high school.”
“I was thinking you might want to work with something a little softer.”
“Plastic?” I guessed. There was a lot—all of it shipped up—but not much to spare. She burst out laughing at my guess. I didn’t see what was so funny. I said so.
“Max, you’re a dear. A delightful darling that wouldn’t know a pass if it bit you.”
“You’re making a pass at me?” I asked, surprised.
She nodded. “Carl’s too old for me, and he’s all about discipline and authority.” She stood up and moved close to me. She smelled nice and her smile was both amused and a little predatory. “While I like being disciplined, he’s entirely too regulation. You’re the better option, Max. I thought I might try you out, just so I have an idea of what to expect in the future.”
Whoa.
“Uh… where does that leave Kathy? And Anne?”
“Anne likes the good Captain,” Julie replied, grinning. Then she leveled a finger at the bridge of my nose. “But if you let on to anyone, she’ll boil you in motor oil and use you for grease. As for Kathy,” she went on, lowering the finger to lightly brush along my breastbone, “I can do math. Two men, three women. I can’t say I’d like tohave a ménage à trois with her—she’s a cold fish—but I can share. Why? Do you like one of them?”
“Heck, I like all three of you,” I admitted, then paused. “Not all at once.” I paused again. “I mean… that is… that doesn’t sound… I didn’t mean it the way I think it sounded.”
Julie bit her lips, trying not to laugh. “You’re a sweetheart, Max. I tell you what—I’m available. If you decide you want to drop by my quarters some evening, I’ll just ask you to shut the door behind you. Is that fair?”
“More than fair.”
“Good. Because I might decide to stop by your quarters some evening—sometime when your duties aren’t wearing you down like an unlubricated gear. I want you feeling energetic, lively, and authoritative,” she said, and winked.
My face felt hot. I gathered up my tools and took off.
* * *
I’m not avoiding Julie. It’s not practical to do so. We have to work together closely. But I wish I could. She bothers me.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Julie. Julie is a fun person. She’s vivacious and energetic, even charming when she wants to be. And she’s pretty. All the ladies up here are pretty. You don’t get to the Moon by being out of shape! Besides, one-sixth gravity has decided advantages in keeping things from sagging, if you know what I mean.
I guess my big issue is that whenever there’s nobody else around, the conversation always has something sexual in it. Innuendo, if not outright propositioning. I should be flattered, but it makes me uncomfortable.
How do you file a sexual harassment suit when there’s no human resources department?
Ugh. There are very few human resources. Best not to think about that.
Is it possible I’m taking this too seriously? Could be. Maybe she’s really serious—or, the situation makes her jesting (if it is jesting) seem serious. Or could it be I feel a sort of attachment to Kathy? It’s not like any of us have solid commitments within the group… and Julie says that she’d “share.” I kind of see her point on monogamy winding up a problem for somebody!
Sexual mores for a planet full of people don’t seem to work so well in a small, unbalanced group.
I don’t want to offend her. I care about her—about all of us. We’re a team. We’ve trained together and worked together for over a year. But this never came up in training. I’m going to have to say something to somebody; this is really beginning to get on my nerves.
Both Kathy and Anne have noticed. Anne thinks I’ve been working too hard. She may be right. But Kathy, busy as she is, thought there was something else. She knocked on my door one evening and I felt a sudden surge of anxiety—I thought it might be Julie.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me. Kathy.”
I felt a wash of relief and let her in. “Hi.”
She glided through the door, smiling at me. “Hi. How’s my favorite janitor?”
“That’s ‘space janitor,’ thank you,” I answered. “I’m fine. Tired, but fine.”
“I know you’re tired; you’ve had more to do than the rest of us put together. Can we talk for a little while, or do you want to sack in?”
“I’d love to have some beautiful, charming, sexy, intelligent, cheerful, redheaded company. Right after I have a shower; I’m sweaty and smelly.”
She wrinkled her nose. “So you are. How about I scrounge up a beautiful redhead and have her drop by in fifteen minutes?”
“I like this plan. Especially since there’s only one of ’em on base.”
She kissed my cheek. “Go shower.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am.”
Once she stepped outside, I took a quick turn through the shower. Just as a note, it’s hard to shower quickly in low gravity; water doesn’t run off as fast as it should. The water comes down just fine; it’s propelled by the water pressure. It just runs off in slow motion. By the time I stepped out and dried, Kathy was already back and waiting. She had a pair of ration packs on the room’s little table, open and warm.
“How nice!” I noted, distracting myself. “Dinner for two at the finest restaurant in the Moon.”
She grinned. “I think that’s why I like you, Max.”
I glanced down at myself. I was straight out of the shower, still wearing only a towel. The vital bits were decently covered.
“Because I’m hard to embarrass?” I guessed.
I swear, she giggled.
“No, I’d have to say that’s definitely not it. Quite the opposite, if anything. But mainly, it’s that delightfully skewed way you look at the world.”
“Doesn’t seem skewed to me.”
“It wouldn’t, would it?”
I thought about that one. “I guess you’re right. Mind if I get into something less comfortable?”
“Not at all.” She turned her chair around so her back was to me. I got into fresh underwear and a coverall, wondering if she was sneaking a look. If she was, did I mind? If she wasn’t, did I mind? Which would I prefer? Tough
questions.
“Okay,” I said, and settled into a seat. I sniffed at the ration. “Mmm. Chicken.”
“It’s pot roast.”
“Yeah, but everything in a quickie ration…” I trailed off.
She smiled slightly. “Save it for His Majesty the Captain, please.”
“Sure. Will Ma’am care to dine with a lowly subordinate? Or are the fraternization rules going to be trouble?”
“I think we can dispense with formality when we’re alone,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I will depend on your innate sense of gentlemanly behavior.”
“Thanks for the confidence. I’ll do m’best.”
“Now dig in. You’re thinner than you should be.”
I dug in. As I dug in, I wondered again if she’d snuck a peek while I was changing. The coveralls we have on base aren’t exactly baggy, but they don’t show body lines very well. Maybe she was paying more attention than I thought while I was wearing the towel.
While we ate, she kept making conversation.
“So, how have you been feeling?”
“Fine, fine. A bit rushed, but otherwise okay.”
“You sure?”
“Of course. I’d be down in the infirmary if I felt at all bad; I’m a wuss.”
She laughed in surprise. “Max! I never thought I’d hear that from an astronaut.”
“That’s because I don’t have an ego large enough to use for a heat shield. I can’t. I’m the space janitor, remember?”
Kathy paused and looked serious for a moment.
“Max, we appreciate you. You’re absolutely vital. You know that and we know that.”
“We’re all vital,” I replied. “We could lose any one person and still stagger on—we’re doing it. But we can’t stand to lose more people. I just happen to have a lot to do right now. Later, Anne will be vital—someone’s going to get hurt eventually. You’ll be vital—I can’t land a shuttle and expect it to get off the ground again. Julie will be vital—the recycler will break down. Captain Carl is vital—if for nothing but to be the guy in charge. Someone has to focus on the long-term while we handle the here-and-now. We’re a team.”
Kathy nodded. “Then I guess I want to say that we all appreciate the hard work you’re doing right now. I, for one, feel a little guilty that the heaviest work I’ve done for the past week is turn a radio dial.”