8
whoever they send along will help you out just right. Remember last year? That woman, what was her name? You know, she fixed Abram Copes’ waste disposal. I won’t be away long, and who knows, maybe I’ll impress them while I’m there, and we’ll get promoted to Grand Central.”
She thought about what she really wanted to say before she responded, but in the end, she didn’t say anything at all. By now she had learned that whatever she said to Ogdan would be responded to in the same way. She took a different tack.
“What about the oxygen pump I’ve asked you to fix? You know it’s your responsibility. Will you do it before you go?”
“Sure honey, just remind me anytime.”
Of course, the appointed day for departure came, and very little of what Ogdan had promised was done; he had been too busy packing and the farm seemed have kept him late for the last few days before he was due to leave. Then he had gone, and Neenah was once again left to herself and the never-ending labour of maintaining the habitation module and its various machines – apart from those tasks Ogdan always insisted on doing: the air supply, the buggy and the space suits; jobs that eventually got done, but not before they finally went on what he called his “red alert” list, when he knew she was getting annoyed.
Neenah lost count of the days that Ogdan was away. She started piece work at home for the colony’s robotics division: the components were delivered weekly to the VC in containers; she cycled them through, assembled the units, put them back in the container, and cycled them back out again. Meanwhile, Ogdan sent his usual cheery vidcards almost everyday. She sent a few back. She was too busy earning money, she wrote. Life went on.
Then one morning all the alarms went off in the module whilst she was assembling components. She walked to the living area, where the communications console was flashing in a way she had never seen before. The screen read:
Warning! Oxygen supplies are critical and will shortly be exhausted. Please leave this module and seek immediate help. Do not attempt to stay in the module for more than five minutes. Get into your vacuum suit immediately.
She was obliged to do just that, as it took almost five minutes to get suited up. She