this is... homework, yeah.
i had to write something about two guys/people/whatev on the way to the moon.
tell me what you think if you want, yeah.
cold. the second thing after her always on Sift's mind is this. the bitter, snapping, ******* cold. thoughts squirm through him in sine-waves, slick, black, heavy snakes of tar. they can afford to, not confined to the tiny space he somehow managed to cram himself into. all he could move were his hands and toes, in their thick protective mittens, and his boots. he had to, to keep warm - even though it did not do much to lessen the sense of cold. it was nowhere close to the absolute zero that lay undisturbed outside the tiny fold of space - but still, the man thought it could - and did - fool him.
Sift gave in, and hugged the stiff body to himself. through the thick, heavy space-suit material, he could not feel more than the volume of the corpse pressed against his chest. he could have been hugging a board, it would have had the same effect - but there was nothing else he could hug - the tiny tube of space he was entombed in held just him, his cargo, and now her, and so he held on, and after a while the dreams came, as they always have.
Sift longed to stretch his arms, and flex his legs, but - bound to his one possible position, still as the frozen corpse beside him - he let his mind race through the endless, boundless space, with it's fields of tiny flames he knew were distant stars, shining almost as brightly as its promises, just as plentiful, and just as unfulfilling - and he let the small vessel swirl through space, crashing down on it's way towards the Moon.
i'm not a killer. even though i'm a smuggler - and a thief. have always been one. i guess some people are just born this way, drawn to things that should be ours - but for some obscure reason, glitch of fate, really, happen to be in some other guy's possession. so... it's making amends, really. putting things right, yeah? and hey, don't give me that look - i am not a bad guy. i am not a killer. well. unless it is in self defense. gotta protect yourself, you know. and i am not one of these petty buggers, mugging old folks around shady corners. i guess you could say that i have a bit of talent, and... how does it go, that beat cliche' about wine and men and all good things - ah, yes. men like me only get better with time. there's a price, of course. you owe things people. sometimes vice versa. get a comfortable first-row spot on a few lists. accumulate acquaintances you'd best avoid. what could i do?
an offer of my life. a clean slate with the Suits, AND my future secure, and if i refuse... you know. got me with my back against the wall. hey, we too have to retire at some point. i would be able to pay back the debts... and who doesn't dream of a secure, comfortable spot in their black days?
truth is... i'm getting old.
the silence in the tiny space around the corpse and him annoyed Sift, keeping him constantly at an edge. he tried to bully the beat 'puter into playing something. anything but this infernal silence. barely able to move his frozen fingers, he managed to turn the music on. the recording was old, and too familiar, the crashing cymbals and the rasping cellos, and the soaring violins. Hello music, my old friend. my only friend right now, in the night.
Sybelius died off into static a few moments later, and nothing would convince the old machine to play anything else - or silence the annoying noise. Sift kicked the wall, and swore.
the cheapest trick in the book, that's what it is.
they'd pick 'em in the streets. homeless, or just down enough on their luck. sometimes they'd catch one of my "colleagues", har har, if you pardon my freedom of expression, and the next thing the poor bugger knows - he's signed the contract, and there he would be, chained to a hundred other suckers like 'im, in a line, waiting for a boat off-planet.
see, they know how to pull you in, the Suits. they know when to approach you. like vultures, creeps. they await the opportune moment - that is all it takes.
a man would jump to anything, grab onto anything - just to avert that end they dread. sometimes, the end is less bad than the thing they grab onto. but they don't know it yet, the poor ********. promises shine out to blind, when all around you all lights die out.
but mining is a tough job, out in the asteroids. these things, you know how they are. no atmosphere. the equipment is old and worn out - there's no way the company ******** would cough up decent equipment for these guys. you know. there are a lot of cheap workers. and oxygen doesn't just grow on trees. what? out there - it doesn't. so... accidents happen. a lot of them. but the contract binds them - and anyway they don't have anywhere to run.
Sift shook and shivered in his space-suit, even asleep. in his dreams, the asteroids were covered with a flimsy layer of ice, no doubt real cold seeping through his closed eyelids into the dreamworld. in reality, there could be no ice. no atmosphere on these tiny black boulders, chunks of precious metal stumbling through space. no water to form ice. and if there would have been - it would have been stripped off - to be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen, for fuel, or used up by the company as h2o.
in his dream, he remembered Heisse. the first time that he saw her. boy, the way that girl could move. his first impression of her was of just how short she seemed to be. Sift was a quite-respectable 6' 1''. she barely pushed 4' 9'' with the top of her mess of dark red, curly hair. but oh boy, she could move. slim, graceful, deceptively resilient and strong, she clocked in her 12 hours' work-shifts with the best of the guys, and it was back-breaking work. no one knew her history, how her consent to slavery was wormed out of her, or coerced, or bought. all they knew was that the woman's fiery temper earned her that name. Sift and Heisse shared their tiny space-craft, just a tiny boat, only fit to carry the equipment, and the two of them. in the craft, Sift was glad for his partner's svelte form. he could hardly imagine just how crammed the other guys would be. their job would be to drill into the desired boulders, and plant the explosives at the right spot in the ore. Heisse had a keen eye for that. then, the piston would break the rock into more-manageable pieces - and those would be held by the netting, and towed by Heisse and Sift's boat to the main ship.
after a while, what began as friendly banter between the two lonely humans, stranded in this star-salted, oppressive black, blossomed into real closeness. Perhaps just out of boredom, or perhaps to have a last, careless swing, a shake-of-fists at the black hole of backbreaking, unchanging routine that gulped their days and years, Sift and Heisse slowly opened their minds to each other, carefully treading dusty paths. they had no hearts to give, for both were tried, and tested, lied to and betrayed too many times, and have long since learned to avoid and then ignore the sharp splinters and the paper thin, jagged shards somewhere between the sternum and the spine. neither had faith, or comfort to offer, any trust to share, or much warmth to show - but there must have been something, for one majestic sunrise found them in their tiny cabin, naked bodies pressed against each other, missing the best sunrise of their lives in starved thrusts, pushing for closeness, throwing up their stale defiance in the faces of the gods, and out at men, offering each other their momentary triumph as a desperate aegis against thoughts of old age, memories of missed opportunities and wasted youth, and hopeless lives.
when, a few hours later, they were tired and shaking, holding on to each other with closed eyes, Heisse and Sift knew that their lives are going to be that much harder - for now they had, once more, something that could be broken, and taken away from them, and lost.
you see, apparently it was possible. even though i have no idea how that broa.... kghm. sorry, habits an all that. not used to talking to posh folks like you. anyway. i don't know how she did this, all by herself, with only that man there to help her. perhaps she had children already. but that doesn't matter. i don't know how the Company found out. sooner or later, they have. the kid was taken, of course, and of course, they stationed them apart from each other. took "measures". that's what this is called. well, yes it's like that. how they don't know of that earth-side? well. for two reasons. first, cause the company is government property. and they can do whatever they will. see, buggers are all criminals, or people that got their last chance not to end up dead on some curb earthside. who cares, righ'? and second... well. because they all drown each in their own misery... no one wants to shake their leaky boat for some slim hope, for a ******* dream.
Until that girl came along. The most dangerous men are those that don't have anything to lose. and bitches are the worst by far in this respect. never offend a woman. men may, one day, forget. but them bitches...
closer and closer now. the company's main site is on the dark side of the Earth's little sibling. his fuel will be just enough to carry him that far. an old man, a corpse, and a debt, to be payed in full.
Sift's body ached and burned now, no doubt the radiation starting to show it's effect. he threw up time and time again, and even though the self-cleaning mech still worked, the sour vomit lingered in his mouth, and his nostrils. Sift peered into the growing shape of the Moon with burning eyes, striving to keep them open as long as he could.
see, what the woman did, was to hijack one of them tiny boats, and little by little, she managed to get enough of them sick and tired enough, with nothing better to do. they managed to take one of the main ships, and started a whole revolution going on. don't ask me how. see, they would not use their nukes, the ones they used to break up the ore against manned ships. ideals. and when the company realized they have a problem growing, they had to find a quiet and efficient way to shut it up. pulling reg'lar troops would give them guys publicity. even the suits are scared of you press guys, see? once the story gets to you guys, there's no shutting it down. they had far too much to lose.
men like me get around. they didn't suspect an old thief. sure, they suspected i was there to secure some benefits and whatnot. but not this.
so i got close enough to her to put three bullets in her chest. they were so stammered that no one even chased me, can you believe? what? conscience? yes, i guess. see, i lived, and will die just pond-scum. but i was never a killer. and i have to somehow get this off my chest.
the thick clouds of the Moon's artificial atmosphere burned the tiny vessel in it's wild nosedive. the outer ceramic panels were not built to withstand such a descent, and Sift felt the whole thing shake so hard, that the tremors of his own body seemed like half-reflected tremors of the ships own frantic spasms.
he held onto Heisse, hard as he could, and once sure the vessel, stuffed chock-full with the small nukes they used in mining would hit home -
---
what do you mean, why am i doing this? how come i'm not afraid? don't make me laugh. i'm not a hero. see, the Suits, they never intended to let me get away, were i to pull it off. so.. i had nothing to fear that wasn't coming anyway. besidesÉ i'm an old man. we all will have to pay for our sins. sooner or later, it will come. so i figure, i'll lessen my own burden. folks will know what un-lit hell their crap comes from. maybe, with the Moon headquarters raised, and the story getting out - maybe they will be too busy to chase after me. who knows. or maybe as you said, it's the last remnants of my conscience kicking out hemp fandango.
see, them bloody idealist heroes have it easy. never have the tough choice to make in the first place - they don't have a chance atÉ well. a normal life to begin with. their choice is made for them. it's us regular guys that stand something to lose. see, there's no heroism in this ******* world. not really. ever.
wait, what are you....
ah s...sshit, you corporate *******... every dog... will get...
i had to write something about two guys/people/whatev on the way to the moon.
tell me what you think if you want, yeah.
cold. the second thing after her always on Sift's mind is this. the bitter, snapping, ******* cold. thoughts squirm through him in sine-waves, slick, black, heavy snakes of tar. they can afford to, not confined to the tiny space he somehow managed to cram himself into. all he could move were his hands and toes, in their thick protective mittens, and his boots. he had to, to keep warm - even though it did not do much to lessen the sense of cold. it was nowhere close to the absolute zero that lay undisturbed outside the tiny fold of space - but still, the man thought it could - and did - fool him.
Sift gave in, and hugged the stiff body to himself. through the thick, heavy space-suit material, he could not feel more than the volume of the corpse pressed against his chest. he could have been hugging a board, it would have had the same effect - but there was nothing else he could hug - the tiny tube of space he was entombed in held just him, his cargo, and now her, and so he held on, and after a while the dreams came, as they always have.
Sift longed to stretch his arms, and flex his legs, but - bound to his one possible position, still as the frozen corpse beside him - he let his mind race through the endless, boundless space, with it's fields of tiny flames he knew were distant stars, shining almost as brightly as its promises, just as plentiful, and just as unfulfilling - and he let the small vessel swirl through space, crashing down on it's way towards the Moon.
i'm not a killer. even though i'm a smuggler - and a thief. have always been one. i guess some people are just born this way, drawn to things that should be ours - but for some obscure reason, glitch of fate, really, happen to be in some other guy's possession. so... it's making amends, really. putting things right, yeah? and hey, don't give me that look - i am not a bad guy. i am not a killer. well. unless it is in self defense. gotta protect yourself, you know. and i am not one of these petty buggers, mugging old folks around shady corners. i guess you could say that i have a bit of talent, and... how does it go, that beat cliche' about wine and men and all good things - ah, yes. men like me only get better with time. there's a price, of course. you owe things people. sometimes vice versa. get a comfortable first-row spot on a few lists. accumulate acquaintances you'd best avoid. what could i do?
an offer of my life. a clean slate with the Suits, AND my future secure, and if i refuse... you know. got me with my back against the wall. hey, we too have to retire at some point. i would be able to pay back the debts... and who doesn't dream of a secure, comfortable spot in their black days?
truth is... i'm getting old.
the silence in the tiny space around the corpse and him annoyed Sift, keeping him constantly at an edge. he tried to bully the beat 'puter into playing something. anything but this infernal silence. barely able to move his frozen fingers, he managed to turn the music on. the recording was old, and too familiar, the crashing cymbals and the rasping cellos, and the soaring violins. Hello music, my old friend. my only friend right now, in the night.
Sybelius died off into static a few moments later, and nothing would convince the old machine to play anything else - or silence the annoying noise. Sift kicked the wall, and swore.
the cheapest trick in the book, that's what it is.
they'd pick 'em in the streets. homeless, or just down enough on their luck. sometimes they'd catch one of my "colleagues", har har, if you pardon my freedom of expression, and the next thing the poor bugger knows - he's signed the contract, and there he would be, chained to a hundred other suckers like 'im, in a line, waiting for a boat off-planet.
see, they know how to pull you in, the Suits. they know when to approach you. like vultures, creeps. they await the opportune moment - that is all it takes.
a man would jump to anything, grab onto anything - just to avert that end they dread. sometimes, the end is less bad than the thing they grab onto. but they don't know it yet, the poor ********. promises shine out to blind, when all around you all lights die out.
but mining is a tough job, out in the asteroids. these things, you know how they are. no atmosphere. the equipment is old and worn out - there's no way the company ******** would cough up decent equipment for these guys. you know. there are a lot of cheap workers. and oxygen doesn't just grow on trees. what? out there - it doesn't. so... accidents happen. a lot of them. but the contract binds them - and anyway they don't have anywhere to run.
Sift shook and shivered in his space-suit, even asleep. in his dreams, the asteroids were covered with a flimsy layer of ice, no doubt real cold seeping through his closed eyelids into the dreamworld. in reality, there could be no ice. no atmosphere on these tiny black boulders, chunks of precious metal stumbling through space. no water to form ice. and if there would have been - it would have been stripped off - to be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen, for fuel, or used up by the company as h2o.
in his dream, he remembered Heisse. the first time that he saw her. boy, the way that girl could move. his first impression of her was of just how short she seemed to be. Sift was a quite-respectable 6' 1''. she barely pushed 4' 9'' with the top of her mess of dark red, curly hair. but oh boy, she could move. slim, graceful, deceptively resilient and strong, she clocked in her 12 hours' work-shifts with the best of the guys, and it was back-breaking work. no one knew her history, how her consent to slavery was wormed out of her, or coerced, or bought. all they knew was that the woman's fiery temper earned her that name. Sift and Heisse shared their tiny space-craft, just a tiny boat, only fit to carry the equipment, and the two of them. in the craft, Sift was glad for his partner's svelte form. he could hardly imagine just how crammed the other guys would be. their job would be to drill into the desired boulders, and plant the explosives at the right spot in the ore. Heisse had a keen eye for that. then, the piston would break the rock into more-manageable pieces - and those would be held by the netting, and towed by Heisse and Sift's boat to the main ship.
after a while, what began as friendly banter between the two lonely humans, stranded in this star-salted, oppressive black, blossomed into real closeness. Perhaps just out of boredom, or perhaps to have a last, careless swing, a shake-of-fists at the black hole of backbreaking, unchanging routine that gulped their days and years, Sift and Heisse slowly opened their minds to each other, carefully treading dusty paths. they had no hearts to give, for both were tried, and tested, lied to and betrayed too many times, and have long since learned to avoid and then ignore the sharp splinters and the paper thin, jagged shards somewhere between the sternum and the spine. neither had faith, or comfort to offer, any trust to share, or much warmth to show - but there must have been something, for one majestic sunrise found them in their tiny cabin, naked bodies pressed against each other, missing the best sunrise of their lives in starved thrusts, pushing for closeness, throwing up their stale defiance in the faces of the gods, and out at men, offering each other their momentary triumph as a desperate aegis against thoughts of old age, memories of missed opportunities and wasted youth, and hopeless lives.
when, a few hours later, they were tired and shaking, holding on to each other with closed eyes, Heisse and Sift knew that their lives are going to be that much harder - for now they had, once more, something that could be broken, and taken away from them, and lost.
you see, apparently it was possible. even though i have no idea how that broa.... kghm. sorry, habits an all that. not used to talking to posh folks like you. anyway. i don't know how she did this, all by herself, with only that man there to help her. perhaps she had children already. but that doesn't matter. i don't know how the Company found out. sooner or later, they have. the kid was taken, of course, and of course, they stationed them apart from each other. took "measures". that's what this is called. well, yes it's like that. how they don't know of that earth-side? well. for two reasons. first, cause the company is government property. and they can do whatever they will. see, buggers are all criminals, or people that got their last chance not to end up dead on some curb earthside. who cares, righ'? and second... well. because they all drown each in their own misery... no one wants to shake their leaky boat for some slim hope, for a ******* dream.
Until that girl came along. The most dangerous men are those that don't have anything to lose. and bitches are the worst by far in this respect. never offend a woman. men may, one day, forget. but them bitches...
closer and closer now. the company's main site is on the dark side of the Earth's little sibling. his fuel will be just enough to carry him that far. an old man, a corpse, and a debt, to be payed in full.
Sift's body ached and burned now, no doubt the radiation starting to show it's effect. he threw up time and time again, and even though the self-cleaning mech still worked, the sour vomit lingered in his mouth, and his nostrils. Sift peered into the growing shape of the Moon with burning eyes, striving to keep them open as long as he could.
see, what the woman did, was to hijack one of them tiny boats, and little by little, she managed to get enough of them sick and tired enough, with nothing better to do. they managed to take one of the main ships, and started a whole revolution going on. don't ask me how. see, they would not use their nukes, the ones they used to break up the ore against manned ships. ideals. and when the company realized they have a problem growing, they had to find a quiet and efficient way to shut it up. pulling reg'lar troops would give them guys publicity. even the suits are scared of you press guys, see? once the story gets to you guys, there's no shutting it down. they had far too much to lose.
men like me get around. they didn't suspect an old thief. sure, they suspected i was there to secure some benefits and whatnot. but not this.
so i got close enough to her to put three bullets in her chest. they were so stammered that no one even chased me, can you believe? what? conscience? yes, i guess. see, i lived, and will die just pond-scum. but i was never a killer. and i have to somehow get this off my chest.
the thick clouds of the Moon's artificial atmosphere burned the tiny vessel in it's wild nosedive. the outer ceramic panels were not built to withstand such a descent, and Sift felt the whole thing shake so hard, that the tremors of his own body seemed like half-reflected tremors of the ships own frantic spasms.
he held onto Heisse, hard as he could, and once sure the vessel, stuffed chock-full with the small nukes they used in mining would hit home -
---
what do you mean, why am i doing this? how come i'm not afraid? don't make me laugh. i'm not a hero. see, the Suits, they never intended to let me get away, were i to pull it off. so.. i had nothing to fear that wasn't coming anyway. besidesÉ i'm an old man. we all will have to pay for our sins. sooner or later, it will come. so i figure, i'll lessen my own burden. folks will know what un-lit hell their crap comes from. maybe, with the Moon headquarters raised, and the story getting out - maybe they will be too busy to chase after me. who knows. or maybe as you said, it's the last remnants of my conscience kicking out hemp fandango.
see, them bloody idealist heroes have it easy. never have the tough choice to make in the first place - they don't have a chance atÉ well. a normal life to begin with. their choice is made for them. it's us regular guys that stand something to lose. see, there's no heroism in this ******* world. not really. ever.
wait, what are you....
ah s...sshit, you corporate *******... every dog... will get...
