Luke Marusiak - Lifeboat Moon

“Yes,” Mark said. “Every one of us is precious. If Chuck isn’t the saboteur, we must save him. If Doug isn’t the saboteur, we must save him.”

“I doubt Japan Station’s leadership would agree,” Jim said. “Those guys are doing great work out there.”

“Do you plan to tell them what we just found?” Sally asked Mark.

“Yes, but after we’ve had a chance to vet Chuck and Doug.”

Jim stood. “Major Martelli I will support you to the hilt. You can count on me. But you’re risking all of humanity’s survival on your ability — and Zeke’s ability — to read minds. That’s a hell of a risk.”

“The risk will be worse if we act without knowing,” Mark said. “It’s possible Chuck’s involved. It’s possible Doug’s involved. It’s also possible someone in the Manufacturing Pod organization is involved. We could detain Chuck and Doug and give the real saboteur free reign. We have to know.”

“Mark’s right,” Sally said. “The last thing we want to do is motivate more Arts. We have to know.”

“You could help Jim,” Mark said. “Was there any telltale fingerprint in the encryption or the code of the algorithm that leads you to believe it’s one or the other?”

“Not that I could find but I’ll keep looking.”

Zeke, Doug, and Chuck entered the hangar. Both Chuck and Doug looked puzzled. Zeke looked worried.

“What’s going on?” Doug asked.

“I just got here,” Mark said. “The cave’s in good shape.”

“Are we bringing down the supply pod with the air reactor components on our shift?” Doug asked. “Jim’s qualified to place the beacons.”

Jim gave Mark a deadpan stare.

“No,” Mark replied. “We’re still doing diagnostics on the pod crash and I don’t want to bring another down until those are complete.”

Zeke cleared his throat. “Yes. I’m going to spend time here reviewing logs.”

“Didn’t you already do that?” Chuck asked.

“I’m going to go months back. All the way to the gamma ray burst,” Zeke replied. “Since the University Pod was destroyed, the only place left with these records is the control room.”

“I don’t see what that’s going to prove,” Chuck said, “but suit yourself.”

“We should have a quiet shift,” Sally said.

“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Doug said. “I’ve just about got Jim up to speed on Art’s duties.” He turned to Jim. “We’ll continue our lesson tomorrow. I’m turning in.”

“Doug,” Mark said. When Doug turned with an exasperated expression Mark wondered what person to person combat skills a civilian like Doug had. “I’d like to cover future plans with you. Can you spare a minute?”

Doug glared at Mark. “Sure Major Martelli. I’ll spare as much of my precious personal time as you need.”

Doug’s quarters were austere in the extreme. Mark noted an absence of paper books, virtual reality rigs, and electronic picture screens. The one thing that was there, providing a constant stab at what was lost, was a meter by meter square framed portrait of planet earth before the gamma ray burst. Mark noted the detail on the picture was exquisite — the blue oceans, verdant land, and rich swirling atmospheric clouds were a sharp reminder of the precious lost world, their precious lost home.

“So you’re not bringing the supply pod down,” Doug said facing his sanitation cubby. “That’s going to extend our future plans quite a bit.”

“We have to be sure we don’t have another crash,” Mark said. “We wouldn’t survive a crash into the Nexus.”

Doug kept his back to Mark. He peeled his jumpsuit off and washed. “I’m not sure we survived the last pod crash. We’re hanging by a thread.”

“I wouldn’t want to think one of Moon Base Armstrong’s Shift Managers lost all hope.”

Doug pulled on a clean jumpsuit, turned, and faced Mark. “What gives you hope?”

“Our potential to survive. That’s a noble struggle.” Mark grinned. “The thing most gratifying about the pod crash is that it gave us a future. There was no way our moon bases would survive long term but the cave the crash uncovered? That cave’s been around since our ancestors were swinging on branches.”

“You think the cave is our salvation?”

“I know it. And we can pressurize it without bringing another pod down.”

“I saw your garden hose plan. We’re going to accelerate the loss of regolith oxides from the air reactor. We’ll have to recharge the reactor with tons of new moon rocks much sooner with your plan.” Doug smiled. “We never planned to operate with only one reactor.”

“You forget. Japan Station has a reactor as well.”

Doug’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t forget. This new partnership with Japan Station is unexpected.”

“No it’s not. We always planned on linking up Shackleton Crater between us.”

Doug stood and walked to the framed picture of earth. He pointed to the perfect rendition of the bright blue marble hanging in dark dead space bracketed by stars. “That made sense when we had governments back home to direct us. That all made sense when this irreplaceable earth was still around.” He sighed. “After the burst, Director Collier believed we had to be cautious so Japan Station wouldn’t take over.”

“She never told me that.”

“Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you thought. She had no intention of ceding Moon Base Armstrong crew’s autonomy to a foreign entity.”

“We’re all of the same entity now. We’re all part of the last of humanity.”

“Art didn’t think much of our plan to save humanity.”

“Culling was never my plan. That was never Japan Station’s plan.”

“So you say.” Doug stared at the impossibly beautiful picture of the living earth. “What is it about humanity that’s so worth saving?”

“Humanity itself. Every life is precious. Every breath, every thought, every record… it’s all for us to preserve and for us to savor in a new future.”

Doug turned to Mark. “You really think living on this barren rock in a cave is a meaningful purpose?”

“Yes. We should cling to each other and chart a future.”

“You don’t think we lost our future when the earth was destroyed?”

“We were put here for a reason. Not just to survive and mine minerals, but to colonize the moon. That reason hasn’t changed. Now we’re the last of humanity on a lifeboat called the moon.”

“Lifeboat Moon?” Doug sighed. “The problem with that description is those in a lifeboat always get rescued. There’s no rescue for us.”

“Colonists survived months and sometimes years without a visit from the mother country. We have what we have — our lives and our god-like minds.”

Doug looked at Mark with calm reserve. “God-like? Does that term mean anything anymore? Which gods would do this to all life on earth? Which of the gods would strand us like this?”

“Zeke reminded me that every religion had a legend of God wiping out all but a few of humanity in a flood.”

“Yes and there was the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah which held that people were so evil they all had to be wiped out.”

“Is that what you think?”

Doug nodded. “There was a lot of evil, no doubt. But there was a lot of greatness too. I was an environmentalist. If we believed in a diety, it was in a naturalist god — Mother Nature or the earth herself. But Nietzsche was proved right. If Mother Nature was god, god is dead.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I came up here to sear in my mind this harsh place so I would treasure the earth all the more when I got back. It was like the old saying that you can’t enjoy something without first being deprived of it.” He looked at the picture. “That deprivation was never supposed to be permanent.”