Luke Marusiak - Lifeboat Moon

“We never completed the first branch. The floor gave way and we were stuck for the rest of the time digging ourselves out.” There was a long pause as Mark and Sally climbed in the buggy.

“Is cave stability suspect?” Chuck asked.

“We need to explore more of it,” Mark answered. “It’s too early to tell.” Mark and Sally got strapped in and used the last of their precious air for the slow trek back to Moon Base Armstrong.

Doug heard that the cave expedition consisting of Mark and Sally were on their way back. That, combined with the optimism of the return of the backside crater expedition, drove him to distraction. There was no way hope should be alive after all that had happened. There was no way the crew should be motivated to survive. But they were. Against all odds, the hastily promoted major was keeping the crew together and focused on survival. He had to change that.

“That’s a shame about the cave,” Chuck said as he looked at the video Mark had sent ahead to the control room. “But it still looks airtight. We’ll just have to be careful of floor collapses on the next explorations.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, we need the cave.”

“You made more sense when you were cutting Mark’s air supply short.”

“Doug, I told you about that. I wanted to take Mark down a notch, not kill him.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Murder’s wrong.”

“Same question, why? I’m not saying I agree or disagree with your reasoning. I just want to ask why?”

“You’re asking why murder’s wrong? It’s wrong because Mark is a person — a living breathing person with hopes, dreams, and aspirations like the rest of us — that’s why.”

“All of humanity and all of the things that made life worthwhile are wiped out. What survived for several millennia and was universally considered supremely significant is gone. How many do we have left on the moon?”

“Moon Base Armstrong started with 137. We lost eight due to the pod crash and then Art so we’ve got 128 here.”

“And Japan Station has sixty-four for a whopping total of all of humanity of 192 people.”

“That makes my point. All humans are vitally precious.”

“How does that make your point? If the smartest and greatest that humanity ever produced are already gone. How are we so presumptuous to think we’re better? How are our measly 192 humans so presumptuous to believe that we’re precious? A purpose to do nothing but survive is no purpose at all.”

“You’re wrong. That’s why Zeke got the archive. That’s why we’re capturing all the pictures that we do have of mother earth. It’s of the highest moral imperative to save what little we have of human culture.”

Doug shook his head. “I still ask why? All of the moralities and –isms and religions espoused on earth — including my favorite, environmentalism — are reduced to absurdity. How can anyone still believe in God or social systems or mother earth when all that’s gone?”

“What are you asking?”

“Since all that’s gone, what’s the point?”

“The point is to live and survive so that someday we can go back.”

“Are you kidding me? There’s two things wrong with that. One, our precious 192 humans don’t have a chance in hell of surviving as a species long enough — through something like ten or twenty generations — to go back when the earth’s not a boiling radioactive cauldron. And two, even if we could, there’s nothing to go back to. But let’s play your thought out. If we try, we’ll have to stay motivated all those generations with only one aim — that of survival. That’s never been a basis for morality. It couldn’t be.”

“You’re saying there’s no purpose to surviving and, even if we do, there’s no morality in how we live.”

“How could there be? The director’s culling plan displayed that front and center.”

“Hmm… I wonder how Art got a hold of that.”

“Again, who cares? What difference does it make? They used to ask what’s right and wrong with the world gone mad? I’m asking what’s right and wrong with the world a brunt cinder?”

“The ones who saw no purpose to life and no difference in right and wrong were nihilists. Is that what you are?”

“That word means nothing up here.”

Chuck laughed. “Yeah, that’s kind of the definition.”

A beeping light announced the arrival outside the hangar of Mark and Sally. “You asked what I am. What I am is Shift Manager Douglas Graham running the second shift of Moon Base Armstrong.” He pointed to the monitor. “Our fearless leader and Shift Manager Henderson have arrived.”

Mark was pleased to see Chuck and Doug waiting when they returned. On the slow moon buggy trip back, Mark collected his thoughts and calmed after the cave floor collapse. In the end , he thought, it’s probably good that there’s an area with powder. We’re going to want to start growing food in a cave based agriculture section as soon as we pressurize and get our water supply. His hope remained.

Inside the hangar both he and Sally were startled to see the amount of wear the abrasive moon dust caused on the leg portion of their spacesuits. “There’s going to be a point where we can’t clean these anymore,” Sally said.

“It was a lot different from when I just walked the plexiglass tube to check the air reactor.”

“Those days are long gone.”

But it wasn’t just their spacesuits. Both were drenched in sweat and, when they removed their suits, that perspiration mixed with the abrasive dust. Mark looked at the rub marks on the knees of his jumpsuit. “I need to clean up.” He saw Doug approaching from the control room.

“All okay over there?” Doug asked.

“Yeah, I need to get cleaned up and get some rest. That was a tough walk.”

“What was the difficulty?”

“The cave floor collapsed under us and we spent most of the time we were in there digging out.”

“We saw that from the videos you sent. Did you send all the videos to control?”

“The videos and radar map files should be there now,” Sally answered. “I want to look at them but I need to clean up as well.”

“I’m going to get a few hours of rest myself,” Doug said. “Your new twelve hour overlapped shifts are exhausting.”

“Maybe we can rearrange the work to better staff the control room.” Mark moved toward the hatch for the Nexus with Doug and Sally.

The three bounded at different times creating what Chuck saw as an odd undulating dance. He laughed. “I’ll analyze your files, you guys rest up.”

“Thanks Chuck.”

The three went into the Nexus and Doug secured the hatch behind them. “So you and Chuck buried the hatchet, huh?” Doug asked.

“We did,” Mark answered.

“I’d still keep an eye on him,” Doug said. “He’s still under that black cloud of depression.”

“Yeah, so am I but we still have hope.”

The three went separately to their quarters. Mark entered his quarters, sealed his door, and turned the knob to make the view windows opaque. He stripped naked and apprised his nicked up body in the mirror. His knees were chafed raw, his armpits and neck had red abrasive rub marks, and his eyes were bloodshot. I look like hell.

He took his sanitation sponge and carefully dabbed off the moon dust that transferred from his spacesuit. He flipped the sponge over and cleaned his skin. Mark shivered but padded across the room to his water locker naked. He opened the locker and downed a pint ration in quick gulps.

Only then did he fight against the chill and pull on his composite lined jumpsuit. The inner lining was a clever NASA concoction that felt like flannel but wicked away moisture. He wondered if Zeke or Manufacturing Pod’s Jerry Papadopoulos had managed to reproduce this from the regolith.