The Girl They Sold to the Moon (15 page)

“Cowardice, you say?” said the miner. “You reckless assholes will get yourself killed out there.”

One of them answered, “Better to find out what's going on out there than to waste away in here with no guarantee of rescue.”

Six men gathered up a dozen supplemental oxygen masks and headed for the hatch.

“You're taking the life's breath from us,” Tilly protested. “It's safer in here. You don't know what's out there!”

“Shut up, little lady,” said a miner. “You can stick it out here if you want but we're leaving.”

Tilly shook a fist. “I'll reserve a spot for your corpse in the refrigerator, ‘cause that's where you'll end up!”

The six miners left, slamming the hatch behind them. It took a while for the decorum to return to normal.

Fia orchestrated a late lunch by assigning wards who had experience in the kitchens. Tilly, Dorothy, and three others served the dehydrated meals of slurry soup and syntho crackers. Each cot came with a fold-up side table, making it an easy chore to pass out the food trays.

The three women sat on the kitchen counter after serving the last of the meals. Cries for seconds rang out but went ignored.

Dorothy nibbled on a cracker and looked around. “I can't believe how disorganized this is.”

Fia took a sip of fruit juice and dabbed her mouth. “Stupidity abounds. It's a miracle anyone survived. That Rose Class ward is on her last legs. I don't expect her to make it through the night. Not much I can do about internal injuries.”

Tilly thought about Sue Lin and her chances of surviving, especially after what she'd seen in the dome area. She wondered if her instructor still remained out there somewhere, trapped or cowering in another emergency shelter.

“You heard what the miners said,” Tilly reminded them. “This whole facility is a bust for us. That means we'll be evacuated if they ever get us out of here. The million dollar question is will they get to us in time?”

“They must have some kind of contingency plan for this,” said Fia. “After all, it's a Moon base. The engineers must have had a failsafe backup plan for something like this. Anybody with enough brains to build this complex had to have known what could wrong and how to handle it.”

“
Really
?” said Dorothy. “A God-damned meteor strike like this? The builder of the Titanic said they had an unsinkable ship. Look what happened to that piece of shit.”

“Think of the law suits,” said Tilly with a shudder. “Who knows how many dead are out there? Besides, what in the hell are they going to do with us? Won't we be released because of some contract clause?”

Fia fielded that one. “You have no idea how powerful FTALC can get when it comes to enforcing a contract. I'll bet they've already been notified and started a cover-up, exempting them from any wrong-doing—act of God and all that. I'll lay you odds, as long as we're still breathing and healthy, we won't be cut loose. Doing that would implicate them and expose the tragedy. They'll start shuffling code numbers and logging reassignments. Then they'll start a major evacuation. That's if they can pull off a quick rescue.”

Tilly pushed too hard on her plastic spoon and snapped it. “Damn. We are
so
screwed.”

“It's the luck of the draw,” said Fia, and hunched her shoulders.

Tilly heard some commotion over by the flat screen. She looked in that direction. The screen had blinked on with a picture. Several people leaped from their cots and rushed toward it. Tilly and her friends jumped down from the counter and climbed some bunk ladders to get a view. They saw the face of a well-groomed spokesman who had green eyes and slicked-back gray hair. A caption in the upper left corner read,
J. Michaels, Public Relations Director, United Western Mining
. His speech began in a deadpan voice:

“I am sure you know by now that we have suffered a catastrophic incident at the Tranquility Harbor Mining Complex. I can assure you that all attempts are being made at the present to rescue and recover individuals who have been injured in all areas, blocks, domes and sectors. A meteoroid swarm of unprecedented size and destructive energy is responsible for the multiple breaches of our facility, including the main dome rotunda, spoke corridors, A, B, D, F, K and L, with sub-domes A-1, B-3, B-4, E-6, and J-9. Damage was sustained in Block Wards 13, 19, 23, 33, 41, and 42. Perimeter sections affected include Beta, Gamma, Echo and Lima. Rescue evacuations have been successfully implemented for all emergency shelters, with the exception of 006, 007, 008, 009 and 011. If you occupy any one of those shelters, we urge you to remain patient and sustain yourselves—we have emergency crews who are patching routes to reach you. Our receivers are down at the present, so we cannot accept any transmissions or acknowledgments from survivors. Please stay where you are. It is unsafe to move from your present locations. You have rations and power enough to sustain you through this emergency.

“Rescue teams will vector you to safe locations, where you will be cared for and evacuated. This applies to all civilians, wards, and visitors, only. You will obey and stay with your newly assigned groups, for immediate transport back to Earth-side ports for reevaluation and reassignment. We regret that we do not have the capability to answer the many other questions you might have at this time. Be advised that they will be answered as soon as we contact you directly. That is all. Good luck and God's speed to all of you. J. Michaels, United Western Mining.”

“I told you it had to be the control room that took a hit,” yelled a miner. “It took ‘em long enough to reroute everything. And they still can't receive messages!”

Tilly looked at Fia and Dorothy. Their minds converged on the same terrible news. Block 41 had taken a direct hit.
Their dormitory block
. If not for their decision to have a party for Tilly at the carnival, they might have been lounging in their bunks, reading old mail or books when one of the rocks hit. Most of her dormitory roommates were young females who Tilly knew and worked with in the Entertainment Division. She wondered what had happened to Leona Billings, her entertainment coordinator, and Abigail Rogers, the president of the Entertainment and Leisure Division. She even thought about Candy Cane Evans who had been out in the park doing a photo shoot when the sky had fallen

Fia blew out a sigh. “According to my calculations, about a third of the complex took hits. Do the math. We're looking at a major death toll. They'll try to sanitize it. I'm even surprised they admitted to that much damage.”

Tilly took a somber walk to the bathroom facilities. In the men's side, she found a steel ladder leading down from a hatch in the ceiling to the inside of a stall. When she opened the stall door, she jerked back, finding it occupied by one of the miners.

“I'm just watching and listening for them,” said the miner.

They made their rounds that night, checking on their regular patients. Fia's patient, the one with the internal injuries, had taken a turn for the worse. They made her has comfortable as possible and managed to coerce her to eat something. Other than that, there was little else they could do. The rest of the injured showed marked improvement, both in healing and attitude. It took two hours to get through all of them. When they were finished, the girls retired to cots in a small group next to each other. Exhausted, Tilly fell into a fitful slumber.

Fia's patient died on the third day during the early morning hours. At least thirty people gathered to recite words over the woman. They wrapped her in a blanket and gently placed her in the refrigerator next to the others. A few friends of the deceased lingered at the closed refrigerator door, somber and reflective.

The emergency service announcement played endlessly in a loop. None of the information had been updated. The continuous running film grated on the nerves of those who slept closest to it. One of the miners threw a wash bucket at it, bursting the screen. Half the occupants of the shelter applauded the act.

Tilly and Dorothy packed the last of the clean lunch trays under the counter, then washed their hands in the sink. A male voice boomed from the other end of the shelter.

“Attention all! We've got company. They're here!”

Tilly turned, recognizing the miner who had been sitting a shift in the bathroom stall. She knew the rescue team had arrived. People flooded toward the restroom entrance, shoving, fighting for position. Fia bulled her way through the crowd, ordering everyone against the wall in an orderly, single file line. She made those who were carrying packages and blankets drop them. Fia ordered the adults to handhold the children. No cuts in line, no bickering or fighting, and everyone was ordered to keep their mouths shut unless spoken to. Anyone in violation would be frog-marched to the back of the line.

Tilly almost smiled. It felt like a foreign object on her face. “She's a hard taskmaster, that one. Just what this place needs.” She also felt a deep sense of pride.
That's my Mom.

“I couldn't imagine it without her,” said Dorothy.

Fia joined them a moment later and then ducked behind the counter. She drug out a first aid kit and began stuffing supplies inside her suit, including some morphine packets and the small cardiac defibrillator kit.

Tilly knelt down beside her, shielding her. “What're you doing?”

“Just taking a few things that might come in handy later on,” said Fia. “They won't miss them. I don't think they'll search me.”

“More power to you,” said Tilly. “They owe us at least that much.”

Three women came from the direction of the restroom. They wore white lab smocks and head bonnets. They each wore a respirator. One held an aluminum case. They walked down the standing line, examining individuals, asking questions. Tilly assumed they were medical technicians. When they finished inspecting the line they asked for the location of any dead bodies.

Tilly waved them over. “Over here in the walk-in refrigerator.” She wondered if the technicians doubled as morticians.

“What's your count?” asked one of the technicians.

“Seven,” said Tilly, and pointed to the large stainless steel door.

“You three go ahead and get in line for processing. We need everyone out of here.”

With no arguments, Tilly and her friends joined the others. The line moved swiftly. When they reached the stall they were asked for their code numbers and names and then directed up the ladder. The ladder reached another service corridor that led through a series of pressure hatch doors. They passed through a sub-dome that Tilly guessed served as a machine shop. Once inside another narrow corridor, the single file line backed up. People were ascending a ladder up ahead, presumably to the ground level of the complex. But where in the complex?”

“It might be a Habitrail up above,” said Dorothy, “but it's a rat's maze down here.”

“Miles of it,” said Fia.

When her turn came, Tilly climbed the ladder and ended up in the backroom of a gift shop. Dorothy and Fia followed behind. A guard directed her outside, where she had to recite her code number and name to a clerk. The clerk tore off a stub from a ticket and handed it to her, with the instructions, “This is your boarding pass. That group standing under the Rent-A-Cart Ad sign is group number three. You'll be departing out of gate seven, flight 40, aboard the shuttle, Adonis. First, do you require any emergency medical attention?”

“No.”

“Any questions?”

“Yes, how long will it be until the shuttle--”

“When it gets here. Move along.”

Tilly ran to her group and spun around to watch the progress of her friends. A quick glance told her that she stood in the shuttle port arrival-departure area in the perimeter ring—a miracle that this section hadn't sustained damage.

Much to her relief, Dorothy and Fia headed toward Tilly's group after being processed. Hand slaps and hugs ensued. They compared boarding passes just to be certain. They all had the same flight.

“It doesn't mean we'll end up at the same location,” said Fia. “They could still split us up.”

“Oh, I hope that doesn't happen,” said Dorothy, and rapped her knuckles on own her head. “Knock on wood.”

They waited. Although Tilly could not see the launch gantry from where she stood, she glimpsed the arriving and departing flights overhead through the clear panels. They looked like fireflies in a choreographed dance, swooping down in graceful arcs, and then darting off to fade into tiny pinpricks of light. The logistics of moving such a number of shuttles over such a confined port facility must have been giving the controllers seizures.

Tilly counted nine groups in the arrival-departure area so far, and they were adding them as they waited. Each group consisted of twenty people, the capacity of the smaller zip shuttles, except for one larger group which consisted of about 80 individuals. She could have sworn she saw Candy Evans at the extreme end of the hall. She scanned the groups for any sign of Sue Lin, hoping she might have survived and made it this far. She kept watching, especially when new groups were formed.

After two hours, their flight number flashed over the departure gate. Tilly's group was led by two guards, who took their boarding passes and then led them to the maglift buses. The buses mated with the shuttle cabins, and another line formed for boarding. The three girls boarded, taking seats close to each other. It all seemed so surreal to Tilly. The fact that she was alive was a miracle, when so many others hadn't survived. She now felt more contempt and hatred for FTALC than ever before. United Western Mining was on her shit list too.

Tilly took a window seat as she had done before, and a second after her seat bladder enveloped her, the shuttle rose to vertical, hissing exhaust gases. The next moment brought a mild G-force and a blast of the engines.
Audios Moon, you cruel Mistress
.