'I always add
the salt and pepper as the eggs cook, not afterwards.'
'Delicious.
Tell me about bread. What was it like?'
Cragg chewed
his food, thinking back nearly forty years to the last time he ate
bread. Some things are never forgotten. 'Well. For a start. Not all
breads were the same. There were so many varieties and flavours.
Rye. Corn. And then there was hell of a difference between
commercially produced and home made. My mother often made her
own.'
Dillow was
amazed. 'Your mother made bread?'
Cragg sat back
in his chair. 'The smell. I tell you. If you weren't hungry, when
you had the smell of the baking waft over you, you would soon be
drooling. As a kid, if I went to touch the bread, she'd slap my
hand. She would boil me an egg so the yellow would ooze out when I
broke the shell. But the best part was when she got the bread knife
and sliced off the crusty end bit. I can remember the sound of the
bread knife cutting through the crust. Then she would spread a big
dollop of butter...'
'Butter? You
had butter?'
Cragg sighed.
'Yes. Creamy and yellow. And I would break little pieces off the
buttered bread and dip into the runny yoke...' He smiled and his
eyes glazed over as he was sitting in the kitchen with his mother,
egg yoke running down his chin. 'It's a tragedy your generation
missed out on simple pleasures like that.'
'I heard that
it will take another twenty years for the soil to fully recover on
Earth.'
Cragg gave her
a look as he gathered the plates. 'You believe that, do you?' he
said as he placed the plates and cutlery in the carboniser. The
flash of intense heat reduced the food residue to a fine ash which
was extracted away.
Dillow had
heard the talk. The Earth was dying faster than it could ever
recover. For years, what was now known as just the West and the
East, had around three to four million people between them. Left to
their own devices, ignored by their so called governments, some
reverted to primitive, barbaric tribes, living off anything they
could find. They were the forgotten people.
Pockets of land
had been spared from the hydrogen wars but the intensity of farming
was killing even that. Food distribution was strictly controlled.
The black market flourished. People lived and died over the food
wars. It had become a brutal and dangerous place to live.
'Craggy. You
know stuff. What's really going on?'
'On Earth?'
'I need to
know. My father tends to protect me from the truth.'
Craggy sat back
down. 'I've a few friends in important positions both on Earth and
Moon. Now and then, I'll sit and have a drop to much of the
moonshine with those on Moon and they would tell me things. You,
me, all of us are being fed bullshit by the politicians on Earth.
No change there, then. But the truth is, they're as lost as the
rest of us. Diseases are popping up all over the Earth. New ones
all the time. Antibiotics, what few they can produce, aren't
working. Containment camps are growing exponentially...'
'They have to
isolate the sick.'
He fixed her
with a stare. 'Isolation is one thing. Eradication is another.'
This was
dangerous talk. 'No.'
'You did ask,
Fawn. It's true. I've a couple of pals. Number crunchers for the
West government. What they told me was that each camp has a strict
quota of people to care for. But more are being sent to the camps
every day. The thing is, the populations of the camps hardly
changes.'
'People die.
They are sick, so they die.'
Cragg shook his
head. 'To a degree, yes. But not the exact number of people dying
as new patients are added.'
'I don't
understand.'
'I think you
do. Say a camp has five thousand. Some as you say will die off
anyway. Hundreds of new sick ones are sent there each week. The
population of the camp stays almost exactly the same.'
Dillow couldn't
face him. 'No. I can't...'
'Some of them,
the sickest, are helped along to make way for the new ones.
Sometimes, not only just the very sickest. It gets worse.'
'How could it
get worse?'
Cragg sighed.
'Not all those sent to the isolation camps are sick. Some are just
old.'
'I don't
believe you.'
'I know it's
hard to accept, but it's true. Why do you think I kicked up a stink
about being pensioned off early? Old timers like me are a drain on
what resources the Earth has left. Oh, if I was sent back to Earth,
I'll be okay until I fall crook and some toady doctor taking
backhanders from the government puts his signature on a form; next
thing you know, I'm in a camp.'
'No. They can't
do that.'
'You know
history. This is nothing new. It's real and it's happening right
now. It's irrelevant, anyway.'
'What makes you
say that?'
Cragg took her
hands in his. 'Fawn. If I couldn't keep being useful on Moon
somehow, and I was sent back to Earth, I'll not see one hundred and
fifty. Heck. I'll be lucky to see a hundred. Even if I stayed
healthy and out of the camps. The planet has gone over the edge.
Ten years tops and that's being optimistic.'
'That'll make
me forty three if I lived on Earth. That's no life at all.'
Cragg nodded.
'I agree. That's the real tragedy. Youngsters like you. And it's
all my fault. Mine and all those that went before you. Only when it
was too late did we even try to save the planet. For that, I am
sorry.'
'So what do I
do?'
'Get yourself
on Mars. Sooner rather than later. The best I can hope for is to
get a little job on the Moon so I won't get sent back to Earth, if
I'm lucky. You deserve so much better.'
Confused and
depressed, Dillow had nothing else to say. She felt as if her world
was crumbling around her. She had gotten to know Craggy over the
last few months and she knew that although he had a strange sense
of humour, he was a straight shooter. What he had told her was
true, perhaps not even the half of what he knew. And that thought
scared her more than anything.
It was tense as
they sat together for the full systems check.
'Equilibrium,
stable.'
'Check,' said
Cragg.
'Thruster
emissions, balanced.'
'Check.'
'Internal
pressure. Stable.'
'Check.'
'Air quality.
Good.'
'Check.'
'Systems within
normal parameters.'
'Check. All
good.'
'Craggy.'
Cragg saved the
information on the ships log and turned off the recpad. 'You've
been thinking. I can tell.'
'The thing is,
my father told me he was sure we still had some distant relatives
alive on Earth. Our rare flesh and blood. After what you told me,
I'm scared for them. I can't just abandon them. I might get a place
on Mars, but I can't take my relatives with me.'
'Neither can
you tell them, either.'
'What?' Dillow
gasped. 'If I can find a way, I have to tell them. Warn them so
they can at least look out for themselves.'
Cragg shook his
head. 'Fawn. Don't make me regret I confided in you. If your family
kicks up a fuss, they might be in danger.'
'I find it so
hard to accept it's like you say it is. Are we from the same Earth,
because I'm beginning to wonder?'
'Sadly, yes.
The Earth's two governments are trying to keep a lid on it, feeding
Moon a pack of lies and half truths. West and East are as bad as
one another. It's just a matter of time before it all blows up. In
the meantime, they are using progressively underhand and nastier
ways to protect what's left for a select few. Older people are
disappearing completely by the thousand. Only the young and fit
will be okay. Don't let your relatives be involved.'
Dillow's eyes
began to water. 'I can't...Craggy. What should I do?'
'You won't like
it.'
'Help me,
Craggy.'
'Stay well away
from Earth. And by Earth, I mean your family down there as much as
possible. The more you try to contact them, the more you'll want to
warn them. If I were a youngster like you, I'd make a new life for
myself on Mars; start my own family.'
Dillow wiped
away a tear. 'We have to fight back. Get our planet back.'
'That's what my
Uncle Bennet said. He could see what was going on. He was a hundred
and eleven. Years left in him. Caught some new flu bug. Went into
hospital, he never came back.'
'He died?'
'He
disappeared. I was on this, heading for Mars. When I got back he
had vanished and nobody knew what happened to him. From the Moon, I
called the hospital he'd last been in on Earth on a vidcam. A
doctor at the hospital looked terrified. Best not to pursue it, he
said. I'll never forget the fear I saw in his eyes. He cut me off.
Fawn. You say save our planet Earth. What planet? If there was
anything worth fighting for, I'd be right there with you. The human
race has only one chance. To start again elsewhere, and this time
get it right.'
There was too
much icy tension on the compact ship to spend time together.
Eventually, Dillow stopped with the uncomfortable questions. Craggy
was in the bathroom, applying the shaving gel to his face. He had a
few lines on his wrinkled-up face that made shaving a challenge. He
looked in the mirror, and studied his face. The red cream made him
look more like a clown than usual. He thought his eyes looked
dead.
Talking to
Dillow had taken its toll, and he was feeling old. He couldn't help
himself, and he certainly would never tell her, but he thought of
Fawn as the daughter he never had. If he could protect her in any
way, he would. He wiped the cream off and his face was smooth and
clean.
'You should
grow a beard, old man. Cover up as much as possible.'
He went to his
bunk, picked up his PLAct, chose a play and hit start. The three
dimensional figure projected out by the side of him. The actor, one
of the previous centuries finest and dressed in full costume, was
giving the performance of his life. The PLAct, a series five, was
almost an antique and like its owner, was showing its age. It
flickered and wobbled, and the sound often faded in and out, but
the battered PLAct was a comfort thing. He stretched out and
listened to the familiar words.
“
To be or not to be. That is the
question.”
'You got that
right, pal.'
He drifted off
into an unsettled sleep with the actor still strutting his stuff.
He was woken up by the sudden jolt the ship made. Walking through
the projected image, he made his way to the deck. Strange things
were happening with the controls. Lights were flashing on and off
all over the place. Dillow was doing her best to respond but
nothing seemed to be working. There was another shudder which
almost had Cragg falling over. He staggered over to the copilot's
chair, grabbed the back of it and sat down, belting himself in,
something he rarely did.
'We hit
something?'
'Not that I
know of. Nothing was showing on the screens.'
The ship
settled and the control lights did likewise. 'Craggy. Is this the
ship just being old?'
'That never
happened to me.' He listened to the ship. 'She isn't right.'
'I can't hear
anything.'
'That's the
trouble. Neither can I. I can hear the thrusters. Nothing else,
though.'
Dillow strained
to listen. 'You're right. It's the same but...'
'...but
different. You sit still and quiet. I'll see if I can get to the
bottom of it.'
Cragg unbuckled
and went close to the walls, pressing himself against them one by
one, listening hard. He placed his hand on the wall. Things always
vibrated. It was a part of the ship's personality, just minutely
different from all the other freighters. After twenty years of
being together, he understood the ship better than anyone. She was
trying to tell him something.
Standing at the
back between where the thrusters were, he placed both hands on the
wall. This wasn't anything in any manual or procedure. This was
pure experience and a sympathetic relationship with his ship. He
closed his eyes and felt the old girl talking to him. The thrusters
were sweet. He was sure that wasn't the problem. He returned to his
seat.
'How's things
this end?'
Dillow said,
'Seems okay. You?'
'I'm sure the
thrusters are okay. But something is out of kilter. Ignore it for
now.'
They kept the
conversation light. She was interested in learning about Mars. Not
the guide book version. It was the interaction between the people
that intrigued her.
Cragg told her
an example of how uniquely different things could be on Mars. 'I
remember this one time, me and Pottsy were out in the buggy. This
was way back when he was just a section captain and I had not long
made freighter captain. Anyway, we were going to deliver some parts
to the mine to fix some machine. I only went along for the ride. We
were about half way between Base Three and the mine, when a storm
blew up. Dust storms are common and unpredictable. Watch out for
those.
This one was a
doozy. The buggy being uncovered offered no shelter. We got out and
buried ourselves under the buggy. Man, that storm just kept going,
and getting worse by the second. We couldn't see a thing or hear
each other. We must have been lying there for an hour, then the
damn buggy took off. The storm actually bowelled it over like a
kids toy.
Of course, we
were completely buried in sand. The storm stopped as fast as it had
started. Pottsy got out first, and set about digging me free. By
the time I was out, I was nearly a dead man. My internal air
filters were damaged, and I wasn't getting enough air.'