A Glibertarians Exclusive:  Listening Post, Part 4

Personal log entry:  25 May 2234, Mimas Listening Post

Last night, Golan Trev and Anna Simpko went down into the reactor space, opened up a shielded hatch, went in and closed it behind them.  The compartment is now too hot to go in, but the monitor system picked it up, and now we not only know what happened to them but also that we can’t do any maintenance on the reactor until the compartment cools off – in two or three thousand years.  When Commander Venko woke Chief Featre up and told him, he just nodded and closed the door to his cabin.  A half-hour later, we heard the airlock cycle.  Nobody bothered to go look.  We knew what it was. 

Five of us left.  We can’t really do any actual, you know, listening post work with that many, so we’ve gone down to half-time monitoring in the command suite, 0900 – 2100.  I’m taking odd-numbered days, Commander Venko, the even-numbered days.  The Commander’s looking pretty ragged now, but I guess we all are.  I’m avoiding the mirror in my cabin’s Necessary.  No reason to make myself feel worse.

Oh, and that weird magnetic anomaly was back last night.  I showed the data to Mord Delfino, but he didn’t have any idea.  But then, he isn’t really at his best right now.  None of us are.

Recorded 1348 hours station time, 25 May 2234, Chief Electronics Mate Bel Deveran, Coalition Navy

***

“The good news,” Commander Venko began the late-afternoon brief, “is that the reactor continues to work normally.  The bad, if something does go wrong, we have nobody qualified to do repairs.  So, let’s hope that nothing goes wrong.”

Behind him, on the main screen, stood the current roster:

Post CO:  Lieutenant Commander Ion Venko

Post XO:  Chief Electronics Mate Bel Deveran

Post Adjutant:  Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Qul Abend

Astronomy:  Astronomer’s Mate Fist Class Mord Delfino

Food Service:  Steward’s Mate Second Class Rober Vorta

Maintenance:  Vacant

“Tomorrow morning begins our half-schedule.  I’ll take the first day, Chief Deveran, you can have the day after.  We’ll alternate until…  Well, we’ll alternate as long as circumstances allow.  Are you in good shape to cover the rest of today’s shift, until 2100?”

“I am, sir,” Deveran replied.

“Good.  Well, then… good.  That should be sufficient.  Dismissed, all.”

The ‘all’ rings a little hollow when there are only five of us left, Deveran mused.

An hour later, Deveran was sitting, morosely watching the readouts, and occasionally looking up at the great, multi-colored expanse of Saturn through the suite’s tempered glass ports.  Qul Abend tapped on the hatch to the command suite and walked in.

The Chief Pharmacist’s Mate tried on a weak grin, which didn’t quite fit.  “I’m going around talking to who’s left,” she explained.  “I’m not a doctor, but I’m all we’ve got, so I’m trying to evaluate everyone’s psychological state.”

“OK,” Deveran nodded in agreement.  “Makes sense, I guess.  What shall I say?  What other psychological state could I be in other than ‘rotton?’  I mean, look at the fix we’re in.  Five of us now.  The last five human beings in the universe.  Five.”

“That’s fair,” Abend said.  “But the Commander wants us to hang on as long as we can.  And if someone else starts to crack…”

“Speaking of, how is the Commander doing?”

Abend frowned.  “I’m not sure I should discuss that with you.”

“You’d better,” Deveran snapped.  He spun his chair around to face the only medical person on the dwindling station staff.  “In case you didn’t look at the roster the last few days, I’m the XO now.  I’ve got to know the Commander’s mental state.  If he goes…”

Deveran silently realized how much of the posts’ conversations ended in lingering pauses these days, and almost laughed.  I’m not sure if we’re not saying things because they would hurt too much, or if we’re not saying them because it’s all so damn obvious, he told himself.

“He’s not good.  Commander Venko’s an old Service guy, he knows how to maintain, but he’s not doing at all well.  With every one of us that goes out the airlock, or into the reactor, or manages to find some other way to check out, well, a little bit of the Commander dies as well.  It sure doesn’t help that he has family on Mars.”

Had family on Mars, you mean.  Lots of us had family, you know.”

“You had a wife and two kids, right?”

“That’s right.  On Earth.  I was just thinking about them.”  Deveran leaned back in his chair and smiled.  “I was just thinking about the day I got married.”

Abend sat down and motioned for Deveran to continue.

“I was sick for weeks before the wedding.  Wonder sometimes if it was all in my head, but the wedding day, that fixed me right up.  Seeing her in that white dress, with the bells ringing, my brother as best man standing there in his cheap suit, a stupid big grin on his dopey face…  I had spent my sick leave writing poetry for Sara.  That’s my wife, Sara.  I gave the poems to her when we were in the tube on the way to Florida to go on our honeymoon.  They were pretty bad.  ‘Atrocious verse,’ she told me, ‘But beautiful sentiment.’  She kept them, as far as I know, until the end.”

“I’m sure she did,” Abend agreed.

Deveran was mortified to feel his eyes filling up with tears.  “I sure loved her,” he choked out.  “I really, really loved her.  Even when I was out on duty, even out here on this shithole moon on the far edge of nowhere, I never really felt like we were really separated.  And now, well, shit, it’s all gone.  Everything’s gone, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.”

They sat in silence for long minutes, until the main console let out a beep.  Deveran turned, looked at a meter as it rose, dipped, and rose again.

“What is it?” Abend asked.

“That magnetic anomaly again,” Deveran replied.  “Damned if I know what’s causing it, but it’s been back three times since that impact yesterday.”  He reached to tap the contact that would notify the Commander, but then didn’t.  What possible difference does any of this make now?  I’ll tell him in the morning brief.

Abend stood up.  “I’d better go,” she said.  “Still have to check on the others.”

She made to leave, then paused in the doorway.  “I had family, too.  Husband and a little boy.  On Earth.  I suppose they’re gone, now, too.”

“They all are,” Deveran said.  “We’re all that’s left.”

“All that’s left,” Abend repeated.  “All that’s left.”

She turned, walked out.  The hatch slid silently shut behind her.

***

I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells
I’d taken the cure and had just gotten through
Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writing “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for you

Sara, Sara
Wherever we travel we’re never apart
Sara, Sara
Beautiful lady, so dear to my heart