Luke Marusiak - Lifeboat Moon

“Check that out,” Thad said pointing. “A supply container. When the pod crashed, it scattered its contents over a wide area.”

Mark drove the buggy next to the container. He surveyed the area and was surprised at the dispersion of the supply pod’s cargo. The group hopped out of the buggy and looked at the container. “It looks intact,” Mark observed.

“Makes sense,” Zeke said as he ran his gloved hand across the top. “These containers were designed to handle g-forces, shocks, vacuum — you name it. If the force of the crash didn’t puncture it, the landing in one-sixth earth gravity wouldn’t have either.”

“Can you read the markings that show of what’s in it?” Thad asked.

Mark brushed off a thin coat of moon dust. “It’s food. And I’ll bet its fine. We need to bring it back to the base.”

“We can use our trailer,” Thad said. “It’ll only take a minute to unfold the erector set moon buggy trailer. I’ll start stacking the supply containers and we can plan another trip to recover the one’s we don’t bring back now.”

“This is good news.” Mark said. “The crew will be cheered that the supplies weren’t destroyed in the crash.”

Arthur Sledge stared at the four high test Adderall amphetamine pills in the palm of his hand. It was all he had left. This was it, the last mind-blotting pills that would give him peace. He could stretch them for four days. Or he could take two a day for two days if he wanted to really blot the pain. Was it really pain he felt? No, it was something else. It was worse than pain. Art felt numb boredom. His mind descended into a bottomless pit of ennui for life itself.

His family was gone as was everyone else’s. The crushing loss of family was universal and there was little to hang onto. That’s why his new roommate was infuriated at losing the hardcopy pictures of family. Mementos and the memories they triggered was all that was left.

Art looked at his new roommate’s bunk and wrinkled his nose. One thing about sharing a room with an Agriculture Pod worker; he smelled like excrement. Another thing to endure, another thing to hate. At least his roommate was on shift. He snorted when thinking of their routine. What was a shift anyway?

The micromanaged daily task procedures that everyone still followed no longer made sense. They were doomed. The losses of family and of the sweet earth were so overwhelming, so numbing, that they all just went through the motions. The leaders tried to peddle hope while they secretly planned on culling the crew, on killing the least valuable of their supposed friends. And what else did Doug say? After the culling they would use those killed for food as fertilizer. That was not an end any human deserved.

If humanity needed to resort to culling and cannibalism, it didn’t deserve to survive. No one left here knows me. No one values me or anything about me… except the carbon in my bones. Tears welled in his eyes. They were all doomed but, among them all, to be so insignificant? Art wiped his eyes and shook his head. They were wrong. They were wrong to think he had nothing to offer, even in these final moments. They were wrong in failing to see him as the special human he was.

Art was worth nothing to no one. He stood and pulled the cover off the electrical receptacle that was adjacent to a seam. He stared at the secret check valve. These secret valves were in everyone’s quarters and, according to Doug, caused the hissing leak earlier. These secret valves would enable the culling of the crew. The leadership could remotely open the values so they would determine which quarters went to vacuum. Then they would close the valves and pressurize the quarters so they could extract the occupant for use as fertilizer. The leadership already determined which of the crew had value. The leadership already determined who would live and who would die. Art stared at the valve as the embodiment of the truth of Doug’s statements, of the truth of the evil plans, of the truth that his life meant nothing.

Art looked at the closed pneumatic door. He then stared at the four pills in his hand. He reached up and set his quarters’ check valve to slowly vent to vacuum. That should take an hour. He lifted his water bottle, popped the four pills in his mouth, and washed them down.

He ran in place to get his blood circulating. His feeling of worthlessness dissipated. Yes, this is better, much better. It’s like Socrates said after drinking hemlock. There’s no need to struggle. He opened his terminal and used the last of his consciousness to send a time-delayed email. Yes , he thought as he set the timing of the email, I will mean something after all. In their last moments, they will think of me. Arthur Sledge lay on his bunk for the last time and closed his eyes. Sweet peaceful sleep overtook him.

Mark, Thad, and Zeke put the supply container of food in the just assembled trailer, piled back into the buggy, and Mark drove to the center of the pod crash site. He drove as close as he could to the impact site, stopped the buggy, and the three got out. They stared at the destruction. The pod had come down on the circular dimple that was the director’s quarters and splattered its contents in a wide area.

They could see the two phase action that happened in Habitation Tube One’s final moments. There was a visible blow out of lunar material from the rapid venting and then the tube collapsed on itself creating a valley outline of where the director’s quarters, med bay, University Pod, and tube itself had once been.

“That was the worst spot it could have come down on,” Thad’s voice cracked.

“Yeah,” Mark stared for a long moment. He turned to Thad. “Thad take the buggy and police up all of the containers you can find.” He pointed to a relatively flat piece of terrain. “Stack them on that smooth area.”

“Will do.” Thad answered as he stared at the destruction.

Mark pointed to the valleys created by the habitation tube’s destruction. “Keep the buggy away from this.”

“Okay, I’m on it.” Thad answered. He bounded toward the moon buggy.

“What are we going to do?” Zeke asked.

“We’re going to the impact site to investigate,” Mark answered. “We need the pod’s recorder.”

Mark and Zeke moved to the nearest depression. Mark sidled up to the very edge. It looked as if a snowball was dropped off a tall building into a foot of snow. A round depression marked the spot where the destroyed quarters of Director Collier were.

Mark and Zeke slid down the bank. Mark was disconcerted to see a thick line of talc-like moon dust clinging to his spacesuit seam around his shoulder. He remembered that Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Gene Cernan nearly compromised the seals on their spacesuits with the gritty moon dust. He activated his visor controls and was relieved to see that the status screen indicated his seals were in good shape. There was a lot that could go wrong on the moon.

The disaster they were investigating showed as much. When something went wrong, and the demon of vacuum struck, people died. After the gamma ray burst, there were few precious people left. Mark pushed that thought from his mind. Zeke bounded in front of him and wrestled with a flat piece of metal. Mark followed and helped remove what was a piece of the supply pod. It was the top of the spacecraft. Underneath the cover, caked in dust, was the pod’s recorder.

“There it is,” Zeke said.

“Let’s get it out so we can take it with us.”

Mark and Zeke used the small digger tools they carried in their spacesuits and extracted the recorder, the pod’s black box, from its harness. “This should tell us what we need to know,” Mark said. He hoped it wouldn’t confirm their worst fears.