sight of a home you could only feel through gloved hands. A beautiful woman you could never touch.
At the center of all this was the HAB: men entombed, elbow to elbow; the cloying stench of old milk; the knowledge that every drink sipped or meal eaten had come compliments of your own recycled waste. All this was too much for some men. There were stories of failed missions. Atrocities. Outposts with bodies hacked beyond human reckoning. Three hundred years ago, they’d have called it cabin fever. Today they called it ‘the grip’.
It had become quite an embarrassment for CENTCOM, the grip. And why shouldn’t it have? They were perhaps the most powerful organization in the solar system with near unlimited resources and yet they suffered a mission failure rate of almost 50%.
Rumors had been swirling months before their own assignment that CENTCOM was secretly conducting experiments on the feasibility of replacing men with moids. A day, Cready hoped, that would never come. He’d met a moid once. All man on the outside and all wires and gears on the inside. Damn near spooked him senseless. The way it had glared at him with those two silver orbs it called eyes. As though… as though it had known…
“Hey Cready.” Chavez was studying the readout. “Ya look like you’re a zillion miles away.”
“Huh? No, no. I… uh. Visual tracking of the object should be online any second now.”
“You done a spectral analysis?”
“Yes,” Cready lied. Chavez could be infuriatingly thorough at times.
“Checked speed?”
“Uh huh.”
“What about trajectory?”
“Done! It’s all been done!” Cready snapped. “Who’s the captain here, goddammit!”
“All right, all right. Fine. So what are we looking at? Any word from the computer?”
Cready tried to slow his breathing. “No. But my money says it’s the same shit we see every other day, meteoroids, comets, take your pick.”
The control module shuddered and the lights flickered briefly. Both men caught each other’s eye, an expression of visible concern passed between them. A tremor on Earth wasn’t a big deal. Back home there wasn’t much a slew of experienced hands couldn’t fix. But out here, on the fringes of everything, there was no such thing as a small problem.
The computer’s cheerless voice returned not a moment later informing them of structural damage to the HAB’s mooring. They remained still for a moment.
“Wind out there’s picking up,” Chavez whispered after a long while. “On Ariel 6 I saw a sandstorm rip open two HABs like they were paper mache.” His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted.
“Well, this ain’t Ariel 6.”
“I’ve seen the specs, Cready. These modules weren’t intended for more than a six month stint on a surface like this,” he said. “Any luck getting hold of CENTCOM?”
Cready gave Chavez a look. Step on my toes one more time , I’m begging you !
“Hey, why you so touchy? You been getting down on yourself again?”
“I’m not touchy,” Cready answered flatly. “There’s probably a solar storm that’s blocking the signal, that’s all. I’ll keep an eye on this bird, you just gear up and check the moorings.”
Chavez left the room, muttering. “I warned ‘em a desert world can’t give a HAB like this the structural support it needs. I’ve seen it before on other worlds and it’s always ended badly. But those desk jockeys just shuffle papers, don’t they? And who gives a shit what happens to the guys on the front lines.”
“Stop it, Chavez.”
Cready could hear Chavez in the adjacent room, getting ready, pulling at the heavy suit, breathing hard. “You read your history books, Cready, and you’ll see.”
He wasn’t stopping. Wasn’t even stopping to breathe.
“Goes back to those Babylonian assholes. Minute they invented bureaucracy was the beginning of the end, if you ask me. And the end is where it’s gonna lead. Hell, for all we know, there’s no one home anyway, cause
At the center of all this was the HAB: men entombed, elbow to elbow; the cloying stench of old milk; the knowledge that every drink sipped or meal eaten had come compliments of your own recycled waste. All this was too much for some men. There were stories of failed missions. Atrocities. Outposts with bodies hacked beyond human reckoning. Three hundred years ago, they’d have called it cabin fever. Today they called it ‘the grip’.
It had become quite an embarrassment for CENTCOM, the grip. And why shouldn’t it have? They were perhaps the most powerful organization in the solar system with near unlimited resources and yet they suffered a mission failure rate of almost 50%.
Rumors had been swirling months before their own assignment that CENTCOM was secretly conducting experiments on the feasibility of replacing men with moids. A day, Cready hoped, that would never come. He’d met a moid once. All man on the outside and all wires and gears on the inside. Damn near spooked him senseless. The way it had glared at him with those two silver orbs it called eyes. As though… as though it had known…
“Hey Cready.” Chavez was studying the readout. “Ya look like you’re a zillion miles away.”
“Huh? No, no. I… uh. Visual tracking of the object should be online any second now.”
“You done a spectral analysis?”
“Yes,” Cready lied. Chavez could be infuriatingly thorough at times.
“Checked speed?”
“Uh huh.”
“What about trajectory?”
“Done! It’s all been done!” Cready snapped. “Who’s the captain here, goddammit!”
“All right, all right. Fine. So what are we looking at? Any word from the computer?”
Cready tried to slow his breathing. “No. But my money says it’s the same shit we see every other day, meteoroids, comets, take your pick.”
The control module shuddered and the lights flickered briefly. Both men caught each other’s eye, an expression of visible concern passed between them. A tremor on Earth wasn’t a big deal. Back home there wasn’t much a slew of experienced hands couldn’t fix. But out here, on the fringes of everything, there was no such thing as a small problem.
The computer’s cheerless voice returned not a moment later informing them of structural damage to the HAB’s mooring. They remained still for a moment.
“Wind out there’s picking up,” Chavez whispered after a long while. “On Ariel 6 I saw a sandstorm rip open two HABs like they were paper mache.” His eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted.
“Well, this ain’t Ariel 6.”
“I’ve seen the specs, Cready. These modules weren’t intended for more than a six month stint on a surface like this,” he said. “Any luck getting hold of CENTCOM?”
Cready gave Chavez a look. Step on my toes one more time , I’m begging you !
“Hey, why you so touchy? You been getting down on yourself again?”
“I’m not touchy,” Cready answered flatly. “There’s probably a solar storm that’s blocking the signal, that’s all. I’ll keep an eye on this bird, you just gear up and check the moorings.”
Chavez left the room, muttering. “I warned ‘em a desert world can’t give a HAB like this the structural support it needs. I’ve seen it before on other worlds and it’s always ended badly. But those desk jockeys just shuffle papers, don’t they? And who gives a shit what happens to the guys on the front lines.”
“Stop it, Chavez.”
Cready could hear Chavez in the adjacent room, getting ready, pulling at the heavy suit, breathing hard. “You read your history books, Cready, and you’ll see.”
He wasn’t stopping. Wasn’t even stopping to breathe.
“Goes back to those Babylonian assholes. Minute they invented bureaucracy was the beginning of the end, if you ask me. And the end is where it’s gonna lead. Hell, for all we know, there’s no one home anyway, cause
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