FARSIDE
“I feel stupid,” muttered Harvey Henderson as he smeared machine oil across the face of the mirror lab’s airlock.
Josie Rivera, working alongside him, said, “You’ll feel a lot worse if the airlock springs another leak.”
Ten engineers and technicians were industriously covering the airlock’s titanium-alloy face with oil. Every man and woman at Farside was coating every titanium surface in the base with oil or margarine or even liquid detergent.
“The Ulcer’s gone off the deep end,” Henderson complained, “ordering us to do this.” Still, he assiduously swept his oil-soaked cloth across the face of the hatch. His hands felt greasy, slimy, and he knew that the coveralls he was wearing were getting stained with oil.
Several of the technicians were on ladders, reaching to the top rim of the hatch, rubbing away and dripping oil down on them.
Rivera reminded him, “Dr. Cardenas says the way to stop the nanobugs from eating holes in the titanium is to coat the metal with oil. The bugs attack bare metal; if the metal’s covered with oil the bugs won’t bother it.”
“That’s what she says,” Henderson grumbled.
“She’s the expert.” Rivera turned to the oil dispenser lying on the floor at her feet and bent down to soak the cloth she was using again. Suddenly she broke into a giggle.
“What’s funny?” Henderson asked.
“My grandmother,” said Rivera, still chuckling. “She worked all her life as a housecleaner. If she could see me now! All my education, my degree in engineering, getting a job on the Moon—and here I am, doing the same kind of work she did!”
Henderson didn’t find it funny. “I still feel stupid,” he groused.
* * *
Kris Cardenas stepped into Professor Uhlrich’s office, looking intently determined despite her faded, wrinkled coveralls. Her golden hair was tied up in a no-nonsense upsweep and she carried a plastic container tucked under her arm.
Carter McClintock, sitting at the table abutting the professor’s desk, stared at her.
“Dr. Cardenas?” he asked, looking surprised. “What are you carrying?”
“Cooking oil from the cafeteria’s kitchen,” Cardenas replied with a tight smile.
“Cooking oil?” Uhlrich asked from behind his desk. As usual, he was wearing a dark jacket over a turtleneck shirt. His silver-gray hair and beard were combed impeccably.
“For you two gentlemen,” said Cardenas, putting the container on the table in front of McClintock. “You can start rubbing down the emergency airlock hatches along the main corridor.”
“I?” Uhlrich blurted. “You expect me—”
“Everyone else is working at it,” Cardenas said firmly. “Even Edie Elgin’s out there swabbing away at the exposed metal parts of the space suits hanging in the lockers.”
McClintock slowly rose from his chair. Like Professor Uhlrich, he wore a businessman’s jacket and slacks. “I get it.” Turning to Uhlrich, he explained, “This will be good for the staff, Professor, to see us at work alongside them. Shoulder to shoulder, working together. That sort of thing. I’ll get this Elgin woman to take photos of us. Good public relations!”
Cardenas almost laughed. “I hadn’t thought of the morale aspect. I need every hand available in this base. There’s a lot of metal that the nanomachines can attack. I just hope we have enough oils and greases to cover all the exposed metal around here.”
Uhlrich slowly stood up and came around his desk, the fingers of one hand brushing the desktop. Very reluctantly, he stepped up to Cardenas.
“Very well,” he said, like a man forced into a distasteful chore, “tell me where you want us to work.”
“Down the main corridor. Cover the emergency airlock hatches and any other exposed metal surfaces you see.”
“I’ll work with you, Professor,” said McClintock. “We’ll be a team.”
Uhlrich hesitated. He asked Cardenas, “Have you heard anything from Simpson? I thought he’d gone out to Korolev to confront Mrs. Halleck.”
Cardenas shook her head. “No. Not a word from Grant. I wonder what’s going on out there?”