Hallam 836-2

[Shulsky]

Camp Lakewood, Hallam, Pennsylvania
Crew Chief Sloan, Jack
26.04.836

---

The fan was mumbling.

Jack knew it wasn’t mumbling. He knew it didn’t mutter about there being dirt under his fingernails, though he checked his fingernails anyways. There was dirt there, but it wasn’t because the fan knew. He knew that the fan had just had some problem or another, even though he’d checked it three times since the start of their rotation. He knew that mechanically speaking, there was nothing wrong with the fan, it just was like that. It was just all in his head, that the whole thing was broken. He knew that he could check it a fourth time, and verify that it wasn’t broken, and then it’d stop mumbling for a few days.

An eye grazed over his toolkit. Yeah, he could do that. He could do that, and dirty his hands with the grease that he’d need to re-apply after cleaning it off to do a proper inspection, and then have to clean under his fingernails. The water kept pouring. He’d cleaned them enough that his hands were red.

But - the fan was mumbling.

It was the kind of under-the-breath mumble, the kind that you got after handing a service worker a five when they need a twenty, the kind where you punch in the wrong code the first time at a terminal with a line behind you. It was paranoia, though, Jack knew that. They hadn’t been there for that long for him to be paranoid. So…was it mumbling, then? The man swallowed. It felt too hot in the room for the fan to actually be working.

Turn off the sink. Take two steps and look at that thermometer. Yeah, the room was fine. It was just him that was the problem. The man sighed, scratched at the stubble on his chin. Did he really want to shave? Did he really need to shave? The answer to both those questions was no. Walk back past the bathroom to the desk, and try to not look at the mirror. It was too late for that, of course, and he glanced long enough once the light glinting off had caught his eye. Goddamn, there were shadows under his eyes. Sleep wasn’t easy.

They hadn’t been on for that long. There was a reason why the last crew had left a month early. Things just seemed to love breaking, and this time it was their communications system that was out of alignment. No NeuralNet streaming for anyone, it was just all with the comms pass-ons when the freighters came down to pick up their cargo. Yeah, that was regular enough for communications reports but not quite good enough for sanity. He’d watched the five downloaded shows three times each, already. It wasn’t a great look.

The chair creaked as he sat down. It was metal, but it still creaked. The last Crew Chief must have been a fatass and bent the thing. He was glad they hadn’t met for the turnover. That would’ve been a fucking pain, considering that some engineer or another had left five cases of cigars behind. They’d been doused in something or another; Jack hadn’t risked keeping them around, had the whole thing tossed into the incinerator. Yeah, the last thing they needed was for some poor schmuck to overdose because they had a cigar laced with something and was forty pounds lighter than the guy who laced them. He’d detailed that in the report last time, too. Hopefully they found out who the fucker was and fired him. Jack didn’t have time for druggies.

The Libertonian - well, sort of, really - leafed through the reports. It was all pretty spotty, just enough material and ore that they knew there was something, somewhere but never enough for them to know they’d hit a good spot. ‘Exploratory Mining’, someone had termed it. Really, Jack was sure that they’d decided on the name because it sounded better than giving out the easiest-to-move stuff to a bunch of employees and telling them to just spread around and see what they find. It wasn’t costly enough to make any severe loss, and they always found enough to keep the operation running. A few kilos here, a few there, that’s all it ever seemed to amount to.

Jack sighed, leaned back in his chair, listened to it creak. He’d asked for a survey, a proper survey, a bit back with the last communications link. Hopefully it’d get to Hallam soon. He was eager to figure out what the hell there actually was on the moon.

As he did, the fan mumbled. The Crew Chief’s eyes darted to his toolkit, exhaled long and slow.

---

Operation Have Sea