The Journey Begins

by Dan Eaton

  I had followed what he had asked me to do, but I had no idea what a Ghost was so I asked him.

  “So, uh,” he said, “a Ghost is a tele-presence operator for the VMC’s. I’d like to have you working more with our Ghost in the future. She’s really good at running the machines, but occasionally she needs a pair of hands. So she’s our Ghost but you’re her Monkey. Pay attention to the lady and maybe you’ll learn something.”

  A week later, I came into work and Sandy waved me into his office. He was talking with a woman whose image was being displayed on Sandy’s large wall monitor. “Bryce, I’d like you to meet Veronica. She’s our day Ghost. Veronica, this is Bryce. He’s been your Monkey for the last week.”

  “Hi Bryce, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” said Veronica.

  She was a pleasant looking lady with dark hair and eyes that looked to be around the same age as my mom.

  I said, “Hi” and looked to Sandy to see what was going on.

  “I’ve talked Veronica into working part of her shift the same hours that you work. I want her to start teaching you the CAM side of the business.”

  CAM stands for computer-aided manufacturing. I knew that involved taking a model designed in a CAD program and then doing some mumbo jumbo that turned the model into a language the CNC mills or VMC could understand so they could actually make the part. I’d been loading the VMC’s with pallets full of raw parts and it was Veronica’s CAM work that had been turning them into finished parts. It was pretty exciting stuff to be learning after all of the manual machining work Sandy had insisted I do before learning anything to do with CAM.

  “See what I mean about him needing to avoid a poker table?” Sandy asked Veronica.

  She laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it Bryce. We’re going to have fun working together and I don’t like playing poker.”

  Veronica started me off by having me load the VMC’s with the pallets for the overnight run. Sandy had given me a headset with a microphone attached and as I worked Veronica talked with me as she watched what I did through multiple cameras mounted on the VMCs and scattered in strategic places throughout the shop.

  She said, “The first thing we have to straighten out is you calling me Miss Veronica. You call me Veronica from now on, okay?”

  I was a bit shocked and replied, “But Miss Veronica, I mean Veronica, you look like you’re around my mom’s age, so I was calling you Miss as a sign of respect because you’re older.”

  There was just silence for a minute and I was starting to wonder if our audio link had failed when there was a short laugh from Veronica and she said, “Bryce, I’m starting to understand why Sandy cautioned me that you have girl problems. So make a note to yourself. Under no circumstances will you ever suggest by word, deed, or action that any female over the age of twenty one is old. There’s no female that you will ever meet that wants to be told she’s old and if you ever do meet one that claims she does you best ignore her and follow the rule.”

  I took a minute to take that in and said, “But Veronica, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Veronica just laughed again and said, “Rule number two is that people, not just females, don’t have to make sense.”

  Despite her laughing at things I said occasionally Veronica was fun to work with. She told me how she had grown up in a small town in Oklahoma and currently lived in a place called Hominy on the Osage Reservation.

  “Hey,” I said, “I had Hominy grits for breakfast when we first went to Houston. Do they make hominy in your town or something?”

  Veronica replied, “That’s hominy the food which was first used by Native Americans thousands of years ago and no one can say where it first originated. Rumor has it that my town was named for an Osage leader whose name whites pronounced as Hominy. Sorry Bryce, no connection to your grits other than you can get a side of grits with breakfast at the diner on Main if you ever visit here.”

  Eventually, Veronica got around to showing me how to run the VMC’s. Sandy had taught me how to run the manual milling machines and I had assumed that running the VMC’s would be just loading up a program and then punching a button to make it go. It turned out that while that was mostly true for a production run like what we used the pallets for, it was possible to manually control the VMC from the fancy control panel it had mounted to its side. For this first lesson, Veronica concentrated on getting me comfortable just using the panel to do simple things but I could see more manual control of the VMC was possible than I had imagined.

  We finished up the evening with Veronica showing me how she kicked off the production jobs that would run overnight. Veronica said, “Okay Bryce, I think we’re done for the evening, but before you go I want to hear what you thought was the most important things you learned tonight?”

  I thought for a moment and said “Always make sure the cabinet door is fully closed before enabling the flood coolant.”

  Veronica laughed and said, “Well, that will keep you dryer but seriously Bryce. That’s just about a machine and machines will come and go. There’s always going to be people in your life and probably half of them will be females. What was rule number one and two?”

  “Never say a woman is old and people don’t have to make sense,” I said.

  “There you go,” Veronica said, “Now get out of here and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Christmas on the Moon

  Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Friday December 25th, 2037.

  In Habitat news this morning those of you of Christian faith are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. A Multi-denominational prayer service will be held in the main cafeteria at 10:00.

  In other news, last night marked the sixty ninth anniversary of the reading of Genesis while Apollo 8’s crew orbited the Moon on December 24, 1968.

  In financial news today, on the Lunar Stock Market shares of Mussconny Machine are trading steady at $22.37 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $19.30 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are rising at $9.68. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is up at $14.21 a share and CDB Farms is trading steady at $6.85 a share.

  I woke up this morning and Mom and Dad and I exchanged presents. They weren’t much, just little things that had more value for the thought behind them than any intrinsic value they themselves had. I was okay with that, better than okay, I was happy. Back on Earth I probably would have been very disappointed by the presents I received, but here in the Habitat most of my needs were taken care of and I either didn’t need that much or couldn’t use what I wanted if I had it. It was weird, but one effect of being at the Habitat was I really appreciated my family and friends far more than I did on Earth. I thought I would miss material things a lot more than I did.

  We got dressed and headed down to the cafeteria for breakfast. We stopped by the Cherneski’s but they said to go ahead without them and they would be along later. When we got into line at the cafeteria, I could smell something different and I was very happy to see they had fresh sliced ham and eggs on the menu this morning. They even had real home fries and toast to go along with it. When I went to get my drink, I was surprised to see they had real orange juice in the drink dispenser. Mom and Dad went with the same selection as I did. Mom even went with the orange juice instead of her usual coffee. We found a table and sat down as I asked what the deal was with all of the fresh food.

  Mom said, “It’s the holidays Bryce and they can be depressing for some people, especially being so far away from home. The administration here requested a special resupply run with fresh food for the holidays to help cheer people up. There was a freight shuttle that landed Thursday with the fresh food. Enjoy it while you can because we’ll be back to the normal fare soon enough.”

  Hearing what Mom said, a little alarm started going off in my head and I bolted back to the serving line and went by the drink dispenser again. I guess I had stopped looking when I saw the orange juice because that wasn’t the only special drink they had on the dispenser. I
came back to the table with a smile on my face and a large glass of Coke. Now that’s the kind of Christmas present I’m talking about. Mom and Dad just looked at the smile on my face and with big smiles on theirs, said, “Merry Christmas Bryce.”

  The Cherneski’s showed up about then and after they set their food down, we all gave each other hugs and wished one another Merry Christmas. Myra came over to me and gave me a small present while giving me a kiss on my cheek and wishing me Merry Christmas again. I opened it up and it was a small Gogo scorekeeper tablet. Remember what I said earlier about the presents my parents gave me? This was the same thing, I probably had a couple of them back at the house, but it touched me that Myra had taken the time to get me one.

  I said, “This is really, really nice of you. I love it, but you shouldn’t have. I don’t have anything for you.”

  She looked at me and gave me a small, sad smile and said, “It’s okay Bryce. Don’t think of it as much as a present, but as a bribe. I want to go visit the Viewing room today and my mom and dad can’t take me. They don’t want me to go by myself and I was hoping you would escort me.”

  Clearly there was more going on here than she was telling me because I was coming up empty trying to think of a reason her parents couldn’t take her since all official and side businesses were closed today other than a skeleton staff working in Habitat Control. Myra was always doing little things for everyone and next to Willie she was my closest friend here.

  I told her, “Sure Myra, that can be my gift to you.” I teasingly added, “Can I finish my breakfast or do you want to go right now?”

  She hit me in the arm and said, “Boys. Always thinking about food. You can finish your food and then we can go.”

  I thought I had just screwed up because Mom and Dad had wanted to attend the multi-denominational prayer service that was going to be held after breakfast was over and I knew they wanted me to attend with them. I knew how Myra felt about me making a commitment and then not following through on it. Mom had been standing off to the side talking quietly with Myra’s mom. When she sat back down I told her I needed to do Myra a favor and would it be okay if I missed the service so I could help Myra out. Mom had a sad look on her face but told me to do whatever Myra needed and it would be okay if I missed the service with them. I hadn’t expected my mom to let me off the hook so easily, but it kept me out of trouble with Myra. I figured I’d find some way to make it up to my mom later on.

  With breakfast a pleasant memory, and after a brief stop at the bathroom so I could get rid of some used OJ and Coke, Myra and I walked to the Viewing Chamber. There was an older couple already there when we arrived and Myra walked to the opposite side of the chamber and just stood staring out the window. I wasn’t sure what was going on so I just stood next to her looking out towards the floor of Peary crater. Myra didn’t say anything. She just reached out and took my hand. We must have stood that way for about ten minutes. I didn’t know what to say but figured this was what Myra needed.

  The other couple left around then and I heard a small voice beside me say, “Just hold me, Bryce.”

  She put her arms around me and I held her and then the sobs started. Her body shook as she cried and cried. I didn’t know what to do other than keep holding her so that’s what I did. Something terrible must have happened, but I had no idea what.

  Eventually, she stopped crying and I gently asked her what was going on. She had a friend back on Earth named Jessie. Jessie had been her best friend since kindergarten. They used to celebrate their birthdays together because they were born only a couple of days apart. People called them the Twins because they looked so much alike. Even with Myra being on the Moon they still talked every day. Myra had wished Jessie a Merry Christmas yesterday evening and asked her how she was spending her evening. Jessie said her parents were letting her ride around and look at Christmas lights with her friend Julie and Julie’s older brother Mike and his girlfriend. Mike was seventeen and Jessie’s parents knew his family and trusted him.

  It had been raining for the previous three days and when Mike turned down a back road to get over to this subdivision with an award winning Christmas display he didn’t see the water over the road until too late. The car was swept off the road and into the swollen creek. Julie was found two hours later half frozen and clinging to a tree. No one else had made it out of the car. The car and the bodies had been found this morning. The Cherneski’s had received the news from Earth about Jessie about a half hour before we had stopped by. Myra’s mom and dad were worried about her, but all she told her parents was she wanted to go to the viewing chamber by herself. They didn’t want to let her go by herself so eventually she said she’d take me if they wouldn’t let her go otherwise.

  I told her I was so sorry about her friend. There were some benches there so we sat down and I asked her to tell me about Jessie. She talked for a long time and told me of Jessie’s life and the special friendship they had shared. When she had talked herself out I thanked her for sharing the memories of her friend with me.

  I said, “Myra, I don’t know how I would handle hearing something like this. I could tell something wasn’t quite right with you this morning, but you held it together really well at breakfast. What’s going on with you and why did you need to come here so badly?”

  Myra leaned up against me and said, “Whenever I come to this room and look out those windows I always feel like there’s nothing between me and God. Like if I could see far enough I could look right into heaven. I guess it’s pretty silly, but when Mom and Dad told me about Jessie this morning it wasn’t real to me. In my head, I felt like I needed to come here to see for myself because if anyone deserved to go to Heaven it was my friend Jessie. I didn’t want my parents with me because I didn’t want them thinking I was crazy. I figured the only way they’d let me come by myself was if I let the boy next door escort me. Sorry I’m being crazy and dragging you in here.”

  I looked at my friend and said, “It’s okay Myra. You’re not crazy. Thanks for trusting me enough as a friend to share this with me.” We sat there on the bench holding each other for a long time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Nina's Birthday Party

  The week after Christmas was hard for Myra. I noticed that she spent more time with Ananyu and Nina. I tried to be there for my friend, but I guess she was embarrassed from crying in front of me or something because it was almost like she was avoiding me. In the meantime, Sandy had helped me manufacture the parts for the Series II Blaster. We had assembled and tested it just before Christmas. Sandy had then taken it to a friend of his who was into painting scale models. His friend had used the photos we had captured of the prop from the show to paint and weather our version so it looked exactly like the one from the show.

  When I went into work Monday morning Sandy was there and had me come into his office.

  He pulled the Series II Blaster from the box sitting on his desk and asked, “So, uh, what do you think? I’ve been comparing it to the photos and I think we have this sucker nailed.”

  I picked it up and spent some time comparing it against each of the photos. Sandy’s friend had done a very good job in replicating not only the color of the blaster, but also all the little weathering and wear marks the prop gun had. Looking at the gun you would swear that Captain Ellie was going to come busting into the office any minute now and demand we give her blaster back to her.

  I put the gun in the box and set it aside so I could take it home and wrap it for the party tonight.

  I told Sandy, “Thanks for helping me with this. Thanks for hiring me in the first place. Thanks for putting up with me, Sandy. You deserve better.”

  Sandy smiled and laughed and said, “You’re welcome Bryce and you are correct. I do deserve better so get your tail end out there and make me proud cleaning up that mess.”

  There really wasn’t a mess since I had cleaned up the shop on Wednesday evening and the shop had been shut down since Christmas Eve on the following
day. Since we were on our two week quarter break at school Sandy asked me to spend some time learning the lathe with him. He set me up with a small project and then let me go to it unless I had a question.

  After work I took the box home and wrapped it up for Nina. I really hoped she liked it and had a good birthday. I knew this kid back in Saint Charles, whose birthday was on the twenty sixth of December and it really sucked for him. I imagine Nina must have had the same problem of people getting her a Christmas/Birthday present instead of separate presents. My buddy always felt cheated because he didn’t have a standalone birthday instead of one that always got combined with the Christmas holiday. Anyways, I was pretty sure Nina would love my present and I was curious what Sam Tanner was up to. Sandy knew, but he wouldn’t tell me other than saying it would make my present even more memorable.

  I went down to the party with Mom and Dad. We met up with the other families and guests. Everyone got hugs which is another change I had noticed. Back on Earth, we weren’t what you would call huggy people. Hugs were reserved for family, but here at the Habitat it seemed like the longer we were here, the more people got hugged. Along with the usual suspects like the other families, friends from our parent’s work, and Christine, of course, there were a couple of people here that I wouldn’t normally have expected. Sandy was here, which I guess was because he had helped me with the Blaster and I’m sure wanted to see Nina’s face when she opened the box. The other person attending that I found unexpected was Sam Tanner. I didn’t think she had any connection with Nina so I assumed she just wanted to see how well this mysterious idea she had discussed with Sandy worked out.

  The party went off pretty much as all the others had. Lots of people showed up and we all had a good time. After Nina’s parents had given her their gifts, Myra went up and gave Nina a small present along with a hug.