Space Hobos by Justin Fulkerson

Author:Justin Fulkerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Justin Fulkerson
Published: 2021-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Part 3

USS HUBRISTIC

hu·bris·tic

adjective

excessively proud or self-confident

“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation...”

-Albert Einstein

Chapter 10

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

-Albert Einstein

1

The air inside the suit coats his tongue and throat with a metallic residue. Henry gags for a moment and thinks about raising an alarm among the group. He looks around and no one else seems to react. He nudges the man next to him. The terrified looking man looks at him in shock.

“Do you taste that or is it just me?”

“Tastes like a copper penny,” The man laughs. “Just like a sweet lady’s tight little asshole.”

Henry hears several other men laughing at the response. He wants to ask someone less vulgar, but the group is moving forward to the open hatch.

His anxiety tells him it is not normal, but he has no other choice but to breathe in the coppery air as they step off the ship and set foot on Martian soil for the first time.

Reminded of the first time he tried LSD as a teenager, he is light on his feet like a ballerina. His body weighs one-third of its normal weight, and he wonders if this is what death feels like. Detached from the surrounding reality, the only actual sensation comes from the fabric of the suit rubbing against his skin. His stomach lives in his throat. He swallows back the vomit rising. There is no way he is going to let himself drown inside the spacesuit.

“Look at that,” the vulgar man says, pointing at the sky. Henry looks.

A large moon is visible above them.

“That’s Deimos,” another man to Henry’s right says. “Mars has two moons. That is one of them. The other one is...”

“Let’s keep the conversation for later, gentlemen,” Morton says, leading them from the spaceship. Morton and three other soldiers corral the group. “We’ve got several hours of work ahead of us.”

Henry can see their destination. The Hubristic stands open in the distance. Henry sees hundreds of metal beams and building materials inside. The cargo ship itself resembles a skyscraper on its side. The materials have been on the surface for a while. A heavy dusting of orange soil has settled atop the ship.

Getting closer, Henry feels dwarfed by the ship. The structure of the colony sits inside, just waiting for assembly like a giant Lego toy.

“Our mission today is to find all parts color-coded in green. Those parts will be taken north, to your right. There are markers on the ground indicating where the pieces should be placed. We will load the parts onto the haulers a pallet at a time.”

“Once we have all the parts, we will separate them into structural, electrical, and supportive and protective. These will be color-coded also with green-blue, green-red, green-yellow, and green-green.

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