This Side of the Moon

I hid. They found me. “Don’t forget your toothbrush!” the armed guards had joked, after they had escorted me to my apartment, so that I could pack my hand-luggage.

I sighed. I’d yet to get used to how my newly-implanted haws functioned. It was a weird sensation, feeling them moving horizontally. I wanted to rub my eyes to get rid of what was not quite an itch… but I knew that my fingernails would probably burst my eyeballs, and where would I be, then? My employers told me that the nictating membrane was just the thing to stop me getting infections in the Orchard. I had done my research, and I knew that this particular body modification was as useful as it was important. But I resented it nonetheless. Oh, yes, I’d seen what happened to those who got something in their eye before the Operation happened.

A corneal injury was not pleasant. If sepsis, or what passed for such, set in, they would be relegated to the Underfloors, losing several castes in the process. The caterpillars we were harvesting were descended from Australian Lepidoptera. So sometimes, there was a throwback, and a couple of them developed one or two of those stinging hairs - fragile spines - which are really modified hairs anyway.

This happened, again and again, despite the careful genetic manipulation that was supposed to ensure it didn’t happen at all, ever.

Because to err was human, still. Stung by the splendour, to wreck a quote from Browning... Anyone whose skin came into contact with one of these urticating hairs developed a terribly itching, burning, skin irritation, and inflammation, and ugly papules.

There was worse: if the hairs were of the venomous kind, there could even be anaphylactic shock. Safety gear was supposed to be worn at all times. But you know how it is, sometimes you need to scratch your nose, and a gloved hand just won’t do. And of course, the bullies called you a sissy if they dared you to remove the gloves, and you didn’t.

One of the newest Operators, who’d had a panic attack and felt that the facemask was “stifling” her, had inhaled a couple of hairs, and I nearly died when they travelled to her lungs. She still had breathing problems – I could hear the slight wheeze when the girl was tired, nearing the end of the Shift.

But I pretended not to notice, and surreptitiously threw a couple of caterpillars into the girl’s pail every so often, to help her reach Quota.

If the girl told anyone she wasn’t feeling well, she’d have been demoted. I felt as if I’d been lumped with these...what had we called them back on Earth...? windscreen wipers…back in the day when vehicles did not have sensor-operated regulators for the Plexiglas...

Now I felt like an aardvarks, which, according to the Acroasia history tapes in the library, closed its second eyelid when raiding termite nests to protect their eyes – or a woodpecker, which closed them when pecking at tree-trunks to prevent their eyes from popping out of their heads because of the force.

I kept these thoughts to myself. Of course. It wouldn’t do to show I was a swot, a nerd, or a geek. I’d get bullied. Or worse.

Coming so soon after the titanium knee replacements, which were supposed to aid mobility and give staying power when I had to stand or walk for long periods of time, I assumed that the palpebra tertia insertion was almost a guarantee that the operation meant that I was destined to die here.

I would never be able to walk properly again in Earth’s atmosphere. To think what a good party-trick it would have been, though, to look directly into the sun and not blink. I envisioned a bleak future spent in picking fluorescent grubs off cabbages, with maybe a sabbatical when the weighing machine counted a billion strynes.

This was the stuff of legend, though; no one had ever managed it yet. And I didn’t like it one iota. But there was nothing I could do about it.

There were certain things androids could never do, despite the fact that the fine motor skills of this model were much better than those of their predecessors. Even though their pincer grasp had been improved, the wastage rate was way too high for the Company; so they had reverted to ‘hiring’ (read kidnapping) humans; one a year, from Earth.

Protein and trace minerals were important source of nutrition in a rarefied atmosphere. The caterpillars, which looked like animated jelly-beans, were genetically modified and imbued with added vitamins and minerals.

Ironically, just like the prickly pears of the Mediterranean climate for which I still yearned, the green grubs were the sweetest; the red ones the juiciest, and the orange ones the tartest. Colours had been introduced to make the caterpillars more attractive, and to differentiate the flavours. The Company had cornered the market. Gourmet packs of worms were sold by the millions. They were packed by the Model Granger Operators during the last shift of the day, nestled in a bed of pollen-sprinkled beeswax, and wrapped in gold film, because of the proven added medicinal properties. Gold is not inert here, as it was back on Earth. Talk about different realties.

Funny how the things you took for granted could be stolen from you in a split second.

Who would have told me that the contract I signed was mere doublespeak? Smoke-free environment. Employee benefits. Good Pay. Transport provided. Yeah, right.

All my fellow Orchard operators had been like me, back on Earth. Single, no family, between jobs. No one would file a Missing Persons Report for us.

Qualifications – or the lack of them – had had nothing to do with our being selected. Our situation was reminiscent of that horror story, in which a young medical student tries to buy a human skeleton on the Black market, and gets her own, delivered to her address, after she had been seized by the body-snatchers who had run out of graves from which to filch cadavers.

But at least we were still alive. For now. We cannot complain. We cannot join a Union. The Common Good Law saw to that.

I know that the haws do their work well, because I never had to rub my eyes because of the pollen here, as I had had to do on Earth, each springtime. However, I would gladly trade the previous discomfort, and more, with my air-foam bed and privileged status as Operator, here.

I pick a few more caterpillars off the cabbages, and smile wryly. Oh, the irony of it all. Back on Earth, the larvae were treated as pests. But on the Moon, they are worth their weight in platinum (there’s so much gold here that it’s practically worthless). The worms are a staple part of the diet in the Inhabited Planets in his Solar System and Beyond. I often wonder what the reaction would be, if someone keyed in the wrong coordinates on the delivery disc, and a package found its way to Earth.

The fattest, most succulent grubs were set aside for the Bosses. But there is nothing I like better than to pluck a particularly luscious-looking one and crush its head between my thumb and index finger, and then popping it into my mouth. It’s the same as how I used to eat limpets and sea-urchins when I went swimming. Didn’t some people eat locusts or octopus, raw?

Back on Earth, we said that a tailor was entitled to his cabbage. I knew that ‘cabbage’ referred to pilfering, not to the vegetable in Orchard Business. Wasn’t there a book by Harold Robbins which had this premise as the downfall of a merchant? The absurdity of my situation calls for a hefty dose of irony, does it not? It is my way of thumbing my nose at the Company, a silent protest for having been exported like a factory component and stripped of my dignity as a Human.

In the Mess, there had been gossip about how the Company was thinking of giving Orchard employees the tapetum lucidum, too. Were they trying to turn us into cats? Why on earth would we need yet another membrane in our eyes? What good would having reflective eyes be? And why should we be able to see well in semi-darkness? Were the Bosses intending to lower the level of light on the Orchard, yet again, to save on energy and power bills?

I was made of stern stuff. I had developed my own mantra to get myself through the humdrum repetitive work of endless days. I recalled the rhyme from my History Lessons, which was supposed to help children remember the names and order of British Monarchs; Willie Willie Harry Stee; Harry Dick John Harry Three; One Two Three Neds, Richard Two; Harrys Four Five Six….then who? Edwards four five, Dick the bad; Harrys (twain), Ned Six (the lad); Mary, Bessie, James you ken, Then Charlie, Charlie, James again…Will and Mary, Anna Gloria, Georges four, Will four Victoria; Edward seven next, and then, Came George the Fifth in nineteen ten; Ned the eighth soon abdicated, Then George Six was coronated; After which Elizabeth, And that’s all folks, until my death. The piped muzak gets on my nerves. I rarely talked to the other Operators. I do not want to waste time, and in any case, their conversations are mostly a mixture of inane chatter, their own interpretations of what they would have seen on the Videoscope the night before, and idle gossip. On their part, they think I am stand-offish, if not downright weird.

That Was Yesterday, as Donna Fargo sings.

…

But I always had a Plan; as they used to say back on Earth, “There’s an Application for That!” I am now the ultimate Model Granger Operator, one step up from Shop Floor Operator.

I meant to work my way up the ranks until I was no longer on the factory floor. The kitchen would do nicely.

Lunch on that particular day I am writing about was crowder pea stew, corn-on-the-cob, and cucumber raita. Most of the Operators grimaced; but I cleaned my plate; not because I really wanted the food, though. I wanted to make a good impression on the Company, for I sensed there were CCTV cameras hidden unobtrusively here and there, which caught every movement the Operators made during Recreation Time and Eating Time.

I had practiced my deadpan expression to a t. It was perfect. Not one muscle twitched as I put my plate, glass, cutlery, and napkin in the Chute. On my way out of the Dining Hall, I bowed reverentially from the waist before the Company Logo; I knew this would make a further good impression on whoever was watching.

Most of the Operators just gave the Logo a perfunctory nod. I bided my time. Operators came - and went, never to be seen again. Talking on this job, go figure friendships, was frowned upon. This suited me just fine. Each day was much like the one before it. Follow the instructions, and you will be all right. Walk, select, pluck, weigh, sort. Walk, select, pluck, weigh, sort. Walk, select, pluck, weigh, sort. Walk, select, pluck, weigh, sort. I hated being on the packing shift, where I just had to sit down… and I was not adding to my quota of plucked caterpillars...

The notice stuck to the door of my Cubicle caught me unawares. ‘You have reached a billion strynes. You are cordially invited to attend Company Office at your earliest convenience.’ It was an order, not an invitation, and I hied off to the Administration Block. Little did the Company know it, but this was the beginning of the end – for them. I was offered the choice of a Reversal Operation, with a view to working in an exalted position on the Moon. I refused it, saying I did not want to face the knife - the laser - any more than I had to. It would, in reality, spoil my plans. That impressed the Administration, so when I asked for a transfer to the Kitchens, they did not refuse my request. I wrought my revenge over five dirths - about two Earth years - by introducing certain elements into the food meant for the Administration, that left cumulative effects.

Even when the illness was rife, the Medics could not pinpoint the cause. It would never have occurred to them to link the insanity, followed by suicide, to the most-hardworking Kitchens Worker ever.

And that is how the Moon was reclaimed for Earth; and this is the story my grandma told me.