EXILE

The ear-piercing shriek of the alert-siren blasted its way through Moshe Arons’ subconscious. A strident sound, it was two notes exactly half a tone apart. Moshe’s crew had been asleep for about five hours. To them, anything more was a luxury.

As the siren sounded, the crowded dormitory slowly came to life. Outside, in the rest of the dormitory unit, crews in other dorm-cells could be heard stumbling into wakefulness. Lying in his bunk, Moshe slowly woke up, mentally battling to keep a hold on his fast-retreating dream. Like so many others, he dreamed, perhaps too much. Trapped forever in his memory, the life that he had known kept returning to him every night, a self-inflicted torment that he could only avoid by not dreaming. For Moshe, that was not an option. Since he had arrived at Quadrant Six eight years before, he had seen many men do things, and become people that he had never before imagined could exist. And he had not exactly led a sheltered life, either. One of the worst, yet most common causes of death was lack of sleep. The lunar environment was unforgiving at the best of times. Combined with a heavily industrialised workforce, there was little room for error, and even fewer second chances.

It was commonly accepted that of all of the trials and hardship that waited for them at the Quadrants, the worst was what they brought themselves. Lives, loves and lost causes all created an emotional baggage that was uniformly shared. To dream was human, and as dehumanising as the colony life was, the dreams were always there to remind them.

Lying with his eyes shut, Moshe let the dream slip away with the fading sound of the siren. He had had the same dream many times, and he would doubtless have the same dream many times to come. As he lay, he listened, now fully awake. The siren had gone, to be replaced with the sounds of shift-start. There was no longer any sense of time, of day or night. In the central Quadrant Six canteen there was an updated dirtside calendar, but the lunar day was one month long. Although lunar time was measured in terrestrial hours, no days were marked. Only hours one through to twenty-four, and the twelve-hour shifts. Always, the shifts. Work twelve, rest twelve. What you did during your twelve hours off was up to you. Most people ate quickly, then slept. Those who didn’t sleep ran the risk of being more psychologically imbalanced than when they arrived. Around him, Moshe could hear groans, coughing fits and scattered sobs. Certain that he was where he thought he was, he opened his eyes.

The bottom of the top bunk was inches from his face. And grey. Actually, the same dull, shiny grey of the concrete wall that the bunks were bolted to. Turning his head, he saw that four of the eight crew were already standing, or sitting on the edges of their bunks. Others were stirring. Moshe reached across to the edge of the bunk, and pulled apart the wide, velcro straps that secured him to the bunk. Although the moon had an appreciable level of gravity, it was barely enough to make human life comfortable on a routine, daily basis. There were still plenty of opportunities for a person to come unstuck, as it were, and injure themselves.

Free to move, he rolled over onto his side, and swung his legs out into the common space between the bunk tiers. Bent over, he pulled himself into a sitting position, and got his bearings. Eight years in reduced gravity still hadn’t totally acclimatised his inner ears, which had been evolved for life in a gravity several times the strength of the lunar force.

Although few admitted it, Moshe was certain that very few people were totally comfortable with the lightweight environment. They just learned how to adapt their movements. Newton’s basic laws of physics were visibly on display up here, particularly when humans who were used to terrestrial workloads unconsciously applied the same effort on the moon. “Newboys”, as recent arrivals were tagged, stood out from the crowd, always either being over-forceful or over-compensating as they learnt the right moves. Gradually, as they became used to the action-reaction roundabout for a weaker gravity, they would soon blend into the crowd, becoming less obvious. Usually, when the newboys learnt how to move, a new cargo of Earth’s human refuse would arrive, and they would no longer be new.

Moshe looked around himself at the faces of his crew. For the last two years he had been the senior crewman, and he had taken a certain interest in their well-being. They had, on occasion, held productivity records for Quadrant Six, and had been compared to teams from the technically-superior miners of Quadrant Four. Across from him, Tom Billings was yawning and scratching his paunch. The armpits of Tom’s grey fatigue tee-shirt were soaked with sweat. They always were, regardless of how chilly the concrete walls made the hab-space. Standing in front of Tom was the trim, muscular form of Joe Sloan. Joe was the crew’s anchor-man, and was often called upon to take over and manhandle much of the excav-gear. If every chain had its weak link, Joe was the strongest. Moshe looked towards the door, and knew without looking where the sobs came from. On the top bunk behind him, Graham Winters lay, trembling. A newboy, he was the least suited for the crew’s work. Until two weeks ago, he had been a filing clerk for the Department of Agriculture, quietly skimming the tax accounts to finance a group that was sympathetic to one of the many illegal political factions. His conscience money had cost him, with a term of ten years labour in the lunar colonies.

At least, Moshe thought, no-one could say that he isn’t regretful. As Moshe sat thinking, Joe reached over and clapped a meaty palm onto Graham’s thin shoulder. “Come on, Gray. Shape up. Keep it to yourself. For your own good, don’t attract attention to yourself.” Graham looked at Joe, and started to deep-breathe. Stable, he pulled himself off his bunk with the agility of a crippled sea-elephant. “Thanks, Joe. I’ll try.”

“Yeah, well, you’re part of the team. But we can’t look out for you all the time, okay?” Graham nodded, and looked for his contacts case. Finding it under his overalls, he opened it and took his lenses out. Passing them through a saline sponge built into the case lid, he popped them onto his eyeballs. Graham hated the moon, and more than that he hated himself for getting there. He had little enough confidence as it was, and had let himself be bullied into diverting the funds in the first place. Looking back, he realised that he had been bullied into every significant act of his life. “Let’s face it,” he thought. “I’m a born target.” Admitting it didn’t help. Quite the opposite, it only made him feel more wretched. His self-esteem was as bankrupt as his integrity.

Faced with another day, or shift, at the rockspace, he groaned and turned to face the door. The time since the alarm had sounded was only a couple of minutes. Moshe and the others were already standing, a dirty, sweating line of eight men clad in uniform fatigue shirts and shorts. From outside the door could be heard the sounds of the wardens opening the other three dorm-cells of the shift’s crew. Presently, the noises outside grew louder, until the warden reached their own door. The security keypad on the inside lit up, to show that it was being used. The inside pad was a dummy - the hatch could only be opened from the outside. One by one, the four red lights on the pad winked green - with the fourth green light, the pneumatic seal against the door was released, and the mag-drive pulled the door sideways into the wall recess along frictionless tracks. Instantly, the small cell was bathed with the harsh white light of the main Q6 domicile unit.

The Quadrants were the centres of the lunar colonies. Numbered in order of age, the basic format was an external entry port of modular construction, leading down into chambers that were dug out of the solid basaltic rock of the lunar landscape. None of the quadrants were in, or near to, any crater. The principal reason was that the substructure of each and every crater was stressed and fractured from the impact that formed the structure. No secure habitat could be formed in a fracture zone, as each fracture was a zone of weakness. As a result, each quadrant base had been formed in what was undoubtedly the most difficult of geologies to excavate successfully, the preferred rock being a continuous, massive basaltic laccolith.

Moshe, according to habit and his own custom, was the last man out of his dormitory. Graham had been the first, and although Moshe had still been inside the bunkroom, he had heard scattered murmurs from the other crews when Graham had stepped out to take his place in the pre-shift parade. Tom, in front of Moshe, whispered quietly that he didn’t like the sound of it. Graham’s presence was now known to most of the guys in Q6, and Moshe knew instinctively that there would be a major problem sometime soon. Weak personalities who broadcast their availability for target practice made up over half of the casualty list, some thirty percent of those being newboys.

Moshe stepped out of the dorm-cell, and took one step forward to fill his space in the parade. All of the number-two shift of Quadrant Six were lined up along either side of the domicile unit. Twenty-four convicts stood, two rows of twelve facing each other in their fatigues. The four dormitories all had their pressure-seals open, exposing all of the dorm-cells to the scrutiny of the guards. The space was silent, except for the ever-present humming roar of the two main ventilation ducts that ran the length of the space. The ducts, one painted blue for exhaust uptake, and the other painted red for the delivery system, provided the only colour in an otherwise grey world.

Two guards were posted at each end of the dom-unit, all four armed with plasma-bolt weapons. No projectile weapons were permitted in the colonies, owing to the varying risk of weakening the habitat shell by localised impacts from within. The standard weapon used charge that was stored in a battery backpack. Plugged into the charge, the weapon internals would totally ionise a central chamber, which would then be discharged through a narrow cone of space that extended ten metres from the weapon discharge electrode. At maximum range, the charge would be dissipated over a circle half a metre in diameter. The weapon was potentially lethal if the maximum charge was delivered to a target standing within two metres of the discharge point. At parade times, the guards would have the peebees on maximum charge.

With all of the shift lined up, two guards walked slowly down the rows, inspecting the men and counting them. Satisfied that they were all there, the order was given for them to file out of the dom-unit towards the water unit for showering. The showers were in a communal space, with the water pumped under pressure from a series of shower heads in the concrete ceiling. The floor was sunken, so that all water drained away. Total recovery of all waste material was essential for the continued viability of the habitat ecology.

Heading out of the lower end of the dom-unit, the shift entered one of the main access halls. The floor was raised above the lower curve of the smooth-bored tunnel, creating space for condensate drains and heating ducts. Power and communication cables were fixed directly to the inside walls of the shaft, with the twin ducts suspended from the upper curve. All shafts and habitat spaces were excavated with an incline, to improve drainage to the hydro-units that were responsible for collecting, purifying and distributing water to and from all habitable parts of the colonies.

The hab-spaces were, on the whole, made by the crews in Q6. Naturally, differing sentences and the high mortality had ensured that the men in the crews were always changing - the veterans were those who had exceeded the average crew life expectancy of five years, six months. The oldest hand in the Q6 crews had been in the colonies for fifteen years, although he had only been in Q6 for the last two. Before then, he had been a leading hand in Quadrant Two, which specialised in fabricating sub-orbital platforms for solar energy conversion, and for zero-gravity research stations. That work had been relatively low-risk, but the extended periods in zero-gravity had taken its toll on the bodies of the crews, who were automatically transferred to other, ground-based quadrants when they turned forty-five. Moshe hadn’t had the luxury of transferring into Q6. He had been there since his arrival in the colony, a relatively naïve tank mechanic, eight years before. It was his strength of character, his physical resilience and a generous portion of survival instinct that had kept him more or less unscathed during that time. That, and never taking sides in any dispute, no matter how trivial. During his brief, mandatory stint as a teenager in the Israeli Defence Force, before Israel became the last independent nation to be absorbed by the Global Union, he had learnt first-hand how minor confrontations could have serious flow-on effects.

During the last series of tit-for-tat raids across the West bank, Moshe’s unit, while using SAM’s to shoot down a Union bomber, had separated from the main force and had been surrounded by the Union’s force only hours before the cease-fire. Forced to wait out the negotiations inside their armoured personnel carriers and bunkers, the tension increased to crisis point. On the fifth day, rations were down to dehydrated lamb, and water was limited. Moshe was bearing up well, but others were getting fractious. To pass the time, the six men played cards. Endless rounds of cards. Poker, gin, go fish, pontoon, and, as a last resort, bridge. This last was the killer. With the complicated points system, it became easy for the increasingly paranoid soldiers to start accusing the others of cheating. Moshe himself thought that the occasional pings of the APC’s armour expanding in the morning sun were secret signals between partners.

Playing the waiting game in the stifling heat, the inevitable happened. Moshe reached up to scratch the side of his nose, and his sergeant thought it was a secret signal. Mindlessly, he drew his service revolver and fired at Moshe, somehow missing, despite being at point-blank range. Locked inside the APC, the round ricocheted wildly, killing two of the unit outright before lodging in another’s thigh. Reflecting on this episode, Moshe always thought of the irony of the event - when the bullet finished its deadly journey, they received instructions to surrender to the Union soldiers, in return for their safe return to Israel.

What the soldiers were not told, that hot, fetid day, was that there would effectively be no Israel to return to. The Knesset had debated the pros and cons of continuing as they were, always in armed conflict with their neighbours. For too long they had been a nation at war, with the enemy always changing. The country was in debt to foreign countries, to the tune of billions of dollars. Now that virtually all of the other nations had come under the influence or control of the Global Union and its ruling Committee, Israel had found itself in the unenviable situation of being in debt to the same nations that it was at war with. This last series of eastern conflicts only served to underscore how drained the population had become. In the end, it was only their pride and sense of nationhood that kept them holding out from joining the union. For centuries they had longed for their own nation, and now they weren’t about to be absorbed at the cost of their identity.

At the cease-fire talks, a deal had been brokered. In return for ceding and joining the Global Union, they would be permitted to govern themselves with certain conditioned restraints. When Moshe and his unit were returned west, it was not the Israeli nation, but the new global province, that greeted them. The main apparent consolation was the freedom of religious practise. But within six months of ceding control, the unforgivable blow was delivered. The Committee, having secured control over the Earth’s political scene, had secured global control over all Earth. There were no countries. No nations, only administrative provinces. And no threat would be permitted to exist. The breaking of Israel was the signal to the rest of the world what an irreversible mistake had been made in handing over unrestricted power to what had started life as the central council of the United Nations. Israel’s nationhood was its identity, which was its culture and religion. To permit religious practice, then, was to permit nationhood, and to surrender the new-found control. Realising this, the Committee outlawed the practice of all religion in Israel. Similar edicts then swiftly followed in Italy, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon; soon after, the entire world.

But to expect people to surrender their identity and culture has never worked. As in the past, all that the edicts served to do was to create an underground movement of secret meeting places, worship and education. As time went by, many people did yield to the pressure of maintaining two lives, and gradually stopped the remembrance of the past, in favour of a secure but featureless, grey future in which they became numbers to do as the state dictated.

But others clung fervently to who they were, and nurtured a dream of restored nationhood. Moshe was one such person. He was demobilised from what had been the Israeli Defence Force within days of returning from Jordan. His growth as an adult consisted of a rigorous education in active deception, psychological warfare and countermeasures, self-defence and survival training. Central to his free adult life was the need to know, and to reinforce, his knowledge and understanding of who he was. Also, to not trust anyone, for anyone could surrender information that would cause his downfall. His was a game that only the most alert and intelligent had any chance of surviving to the end, and Moshe was good.

His downfall came about in an unexpected fashion. A mechanic by trade, he had been spotted as having the skills and the abilities needed to train to understand and maintain the new fusion-drive shuttles that provided the link between the orbital transit stations and the developing lunar penal colonies. To be upgraded from first-class mechanic to Able Technician was an enviable promotion, but it meant leaving Haifa for Southampton.

There were not many Jews in Southampton, and Moshe attracted more attention than he would have liked. His discomfort showed, and he was placed under surveillance. Nine weeks provided no insights for his shadows, until one saw him enter a private house, and make a phone call. The phone was duly tapped, and his next call was taped, as were several after that.

Ultimately, there was enough evidence to prove that he was an unrelenting Zionist. With minimum fuss, he was arrested, tried and deported for life. The CSA line was “Once a Nationalist, always a Nationalist.” In itself, not a capital offence, but one that warranted permanent removal from Earthly society, for whom he would no longer be the threat of populist uprising and secession form the Union, thereby weakening the Committee’s hold over Earth.

Now, eight years wiser and less able to return Israel to independence, Moshe walked in line towards the shower block. These men around him were his family now, his brothers. He looked out for them, but without treading on any toes. It was very much every man for himself, but there were plenty of opportunities to defuse situations that might escalate into lethal confrontations. Much of his motivation was to keep himself safe, and by extension his surroundings and those around him. At the end of the day, though, without having actively sought it, or even imagined its possibility, Moshe found that he held the respect of the crews in Q6, and that he was considered to be their informal leader, in as much as he represented their interests when deputations were called by the Quadrant and colony Governors. Each quadrant had at least two such de-facto leaders, one for each shift. Each leader was the top of an informal pecking order that extended down to the newboys.

A short distance down from the dom-unit that they had left was the shower space. Leaving the shaft behind them, the men paused in the laundry space to undress. Graham Winters shivered in the ten degree chill. Since arriving, he had found little to like about his new home. The conservation of energy was rigid, and heating the air of the habitats was considered extravagant. The work shifts digging into the solid rock of the moon warmed him, and the dorm-unit warmed itself by the mens bodies. The showers had a welcome warmth, as the water came straight from the turbo-alternator condensers in the energy plant. To be naked before the other crew was of little consequence, for Graham had already been stripped of his dignity and identity years before. Rubbing his forearms in front of him, he took a couple of high steps into the shower. Still not used to the low gravity, he bobbed loosely up and down, trying to find a firm foothold. He was the first in, and as the water began to be sprayed like hard, hot hail at him from the ceiling nozzles, his contacts began to fog up.

Losing sight of where he was, he quickly became disoriented, and then fell. Or was tripped, he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that he was about to be hurt. As he tried to find his bearings, he balanced himself on all fours, until two strong, rough hands grabbed him by each arm and pulled him up. Instead of bringing him to his feet, he was roughly hauled up and slammed face-first against the smooth, seamless grey concrete of the wall. The impact knocked one of his contacts out, but still all that he could see was grey fog. Someone pushed his head against the wall, breaking his nose with a pinging snap.

As the blood mixed with the shower water, it ran in swirling rivulets down the concrete. Through the pain of his face Graham was jolted upright by the hard, tearing rupture of his anus. The rapist was brutally forceful, caring little about any hurt that he may be doing to himself. Graham gasped as the next few thrusts were pushed home, his anus burning with pain. He was soon able to catch a few stuttering breaths, before the assault continued. Too late, he realised that it was another. This one didn’t move too much, impaling himself deeply in Graham’s bloodied arse. Leaning forward, the second bit his victim’s ear, tearing it as he hung on like a rabid dog. With the ragged earlobe still between his teeth, he gave Graham one last, vicious thrust before he was hauled off, leaving Graham to slide wretchedly onto the floor, blood washing away to the drains in the centre of the room.

As Tom and Joe entered the shower, they heard a splintering, mushie crunch and turned their heads to the sound. It was a sound that they had each heard many times before, and what they saw did not surprise them. Blocking their way was Jan Heigelmeister, a brutish German thug who had been sent to the moon for life on charges that included beating his wife into a permanent coma. Behind him, they could see three men assaulting the newboy. Winters was barely breathing, and they could see the streams of blood down the thin man’s face and legs. Moshe, coming in, saw the three and Winters, and Jan confronting Tom and Joe. Joe turned, and one look was enough. Not giving a damn about the rapists, Moshe turned and called for the guards. The rest of the crew were wise enough to not intervene until the guards arrived. That way, there would be no doubt as to who did what to whom.

The pair of guards arrived swiftly, without their peebees. As soon as they were inside, Joe and Tom leapt onto Heigelmeister, one on each arm, and pulled him aside. Two others charged past, pulling the second rapist out of Winters and onto the floor. The two who were holding Winters against the wall, one of whom was the first assailant, turned and dropped him a brief instant before the guards clubbed him with their drawn nightsticks. The water-laden air prevented them from using the plasma discharges, as the bolt would be spread broadly and unpredictably through the conductive space.

The rapists had picked on Graham for much the same reasons that he had been bullied for all of his life; he was a natural target. Weak in character and in body, he was easy picking for those who liked to feel powerful over others. Jan had not actively joined in because he was still on probation for an earlier offence. A breach in conduct would land him back in solitary confinement. The other three were new to Q6, and Moshe was fast learning to dislike them. One of them, the first rapist, was a newboy until Graham’s arrival. It was clear that he had fallen under the influence of the other two and Jan, as they were encouraging him to answer to the guards as the leader.

Taking the rap was an established acceptance ritual, as was initiating any power assault. The other two had, two months earlier, transferred in from Q1, supposedly at the request of the Q1 crews. Evidently, they weren’t welcome. Quadrant One had the most contact with the Q6 crews. Whereas Q6 excavated the lunar rock for new habitat space, Q1 made the spaces habitable by doing the heavy construction work. Together, the four men had become increasingly distant from the rest of the crew, working as their own unit. None of the old hands had much idea of what they talked about, but their lack of involvement with the main crews sent unspoken signals loud and clear to the crew - approach at your own risk.

The only sounds were the hissing rush of the shower sprays, and the shallow, broken sobs of Graham Winters. Crumpled in the corner, blood streamed from his nose and ear, mingling with the slowing flow from his buttocks. No-one moved. Ted Pinker, restrained by two of the younger crew, glared at the guards, and spat out Winters’ mangled ear lobe. It hit the wet concrete floor with a dull, splashing thwack. Two more guards arrived at this time, and cuffed Jan first, freeing Tom and Joe to move and pick up Graham. With one guard beside Jan, two of the guards then cuffed Ted and Jack Smithy, followed by the sheep of the flock, Gavin McLeod. The crew stood back as the four were then led back into the hab-space.

Out in the dry habitat, the guards picked up their peebees and plugged them into their backpacks. Fully charged, they then escorted the four naked men back up the shaft to the detention centre. Two hundred metres of cold tunnel away, the guards deservedly cared little for the comfort of the men. Before leaving, the sergeant told Moshe to take Winters to the infirmary immediately. The sergeant, Moshe knew, was concerned not with Winters’ wellbeing so much as the preservation of evidence.

Moshe moved over to where Joe and Tom where pulling Graham up into a sitting position. “How is he, Tom? Able to make it to infirmary?” Tom looked around to Moshe.

“I’m not sure, Boss. Those guys hit him pretty hard.”

“Yeah, well, we all saw it coming. But the screws don’t listen to narcs.” Moshe crouched down, to Graham’s level. “Grey, it’s Moshe. Can you hear me?”

Graham heaved a sobbing wheeze. “What was that, Moshe?”

Graham coughed. “Ye-yeah.” Moshe looked to Tom and Joe.

“Okay, guys. Help him to his feet. Joe, help him to the infirmary.” Joe nodded, and the two men helped Graham to his feet. Joe took over, and as he supported Graham Moshe turned to the rest of the men. “Okay, guys. We need a hand here. Rob, get a blanket for Winters. The rest of you, finish up and listen up. We’re already five men down, six until Joe returns. The other shift are waiting for us. It should be a light shift, anyway, just tidying up the new enviro-space for the Q2 crews. Let’s to it.”

The other seventeen men stopped their aimless milling around, and got down to the business of getting clean. As the last spots of blood spidered pink in the warming water, to drain away as diffuse webs to the enviro-unit, the first of the crew began to leave the shower and dress in the adjoining laundry area. Ahead of them was a still-wet trail of spotted blood, leading back up the main shaft towards the infirmary. The sound of Joe’s slow whistling came to them through the thin air, echoing down the concrete walls.

Moshe was the last out, stopping to hurry on the stragglers of the crew. He was, though, not the last to be dry and clothed in the grey cover-alls that were worn when on shift. Joe was already there when he left the shower, taking his boots out of his locker. He looked up in time to see Moshe come in. “He’ll be alright, Boss. The medic is patching him up now.”

“Thanks, Joe. What about the guards?”

“Usual.” Joe shrugged. “They’re not worried about Winters, only the other four.”

“What about them, then?” Tom asked. Others were listening.

“Two guards saw the last. They’re already talking solitary.”

“Dirtside?”

“No, orbital.” Tom’s answer came from the door. Standing at the exit to the shaft was the Quadrant Warden, flanked by two guards. “Mister Arons, I understand that you were a witness.” Moshe stood up face the warden.

“Yes, Sir. But I was the last to see. Any of these other men could tell you what happened.”

“All the better. I presume you all saw the same thing.” No-one answered, as no-one was “invited” to. “Sloan, how much did you see?”

“Enough, Sir.”

“Good. I want you and Billings to come with me to my office. I need full statements from each you. Arons, your crew is needed in E8.”

The warden turned and started back down the shaft. Joe and Tom straightened their coveralls and joined the two waiting guards, who flanked them as they followed the warden’s passage.

After they had gone, Moshe pushed along the remainder of his crew, with some prompting by the guards. In single file, they left the laundry and locker area, and made their way up the shaft to the first main junction. Turning left, they arrived at the shuttle station. The shuttle was a small electric monorail with several six-person bogies on it. The depleted crew took their places, sitting on the bogies, with one guard at the controls and two more on the last wagon. All on board, the shuttle began to move with a hushed rush, taking the crew through a kilometre of tunnels. All of differing ages, the tunnels all lead to different parts of the male penal colony. The area that they were working on was relatively close, with only one quadrant between their own and the excavation.

The journey took only a few minutes, and ended when the shuttle reached a star-shaft station, where four other shuttles joined at a central terminal. As the men got off from the bogies, the guards’ radio flashed. The driver answered, listening to the message, and signed off. The guard said something quiet to the other guards, and called Moshe over. Moshe turned, and approached the guard. He didn’t say anything, but the guard flipped up his helmet visor so that he could talk more clearly. The crew didn’t hear what the guard said, but they heard Moshe’s response.