For Fifty Years

A piercing shriek penetrated his head and he woke up to the mother of all headaches.

Where am I?

A red light was flashing on his right and he realized it was the oxygen alert inside his helmet.

Oxygen? How long was I out?

He tapped on his wrist control and he saw a blurry "22:43" appear in a reflection that appeared to be beyond his visor. He had been out for twenty-three hours.

No wonder my oxygen is critical. How long have I got?

There appeared to be an hour's worth of oxygen at the current consumption rate. Since he had been unconscious for so long, the average was likely to increase.

Where is everybody?

"Pat? Anyone? This is Ron. Come in, anyone."

He consulted his message buffer, but it was empty. Not a whisper for over twenty-three hours. This could only mean he was out of range, or something massive was blocking his reception.

My head! Think! Focus!

He started scanning his environment but his helmet lights revealed only rock, on all sides, with the exception of a small opening right above him. Or was it below him and he was upside down? Or maybe he was lying down?

I can hardly move. I must be inside a crevice.

He started scratching the surface in front of him and observed in what direction the dust was settling. It was floating very slowly towards his feet.

At least I'm the right side up. I need to get out of here. If no one has found me by now, I'm my only hope.

This wasn't the first time he was in an accident, of course, but it had never involved unconsciousness, and rescue teams had always shown up within minutes. He suppressed the creeping panic. A quick tap on his wrist showed him his thrust control panel.

Minimal upward thrust. Here goes nothing.

He pressed his arms against his body in order to take up as little space as possible. The gas thrusters in his boots shot into action. He moved. His suit grated against the rock's surface as he aimed his head carefully at the opening. For a moment he feared his backpack might get stuck, but he cleared the opening without effort. Now his helmet lights only showed distant dust. No walls. Dust on every side. And utter darkness.

As long as I can go upward, I'm not stopping.

He put his arms upward in case he would hit a ceiling. His helmet projected an ascension rate of one meter a second. One meter a second was enough to hurt your head when colliding with solid rock. Or lithium.

One week to retirement. It's such a classic.

"Rescue team. Come in, rescue. Ron Miller for rescue. Come in." In the back of his mind, the silence didn't come as a surprise, and fighting a panic was taking more energy.

Eighty meters. I don't remember falling eighty meters. I must have lost consciousness before that.

His helmet indicated "DT: 132 m" when his arms collided with solid rock. He pushed away from the wall behind him and the ascent continued unhindered.

After another two agonizing minutes, he gathered enough courage to try again. "Rescue team. Come in! Mayday!" His heartbeat increased. He closed his eyes. And he was bathing in screaming silence. And dust.

It took him another two minutes before he spotted the stars. Bitterly few brighter stars. His helmet projected the distance travelled since activation of the thrusters was two hundred and seventy meters.

I was at work at level six, so I fell one hundred and fifty meters?! If this hadn't been Pluto, I'd be apple sauce.

He reduced his upward thrusters to keep him level and activated a side thruster in order to touch down on the edge of the mine. He took a very deep breath and closed his eyes again. "Rescue team. This is Ron Miller. Come in!" He tapped his wrist control and a communications diagnostic screen showed up in front of him. To his horror, all test results were nominal.

Why is it still so dark? Where are the floodlights?

The entire site was usually bathing in light, but all he saw were the surface right in front of him and the brightest stars, among them the Sun.

They're gone. These lights are never turned off.

There was as much dust floating above the surface as there was in the mine.

Dust hasn't settled yet. This could only mean something major happened. A massive explosion. A meteorite impact?

There was virtually no atmosphere around Pluto, so dust settled purely by gravity. Even though that was a tiny force on this planetoid, if any particles were still "airborne" after twenty-three hours, it meant they were descending from a tremendous altitude. Only a major impact could explain it.

Can't wait for the dust to settle. Oxygen will last maybe forty minutes.

It was impossible for him to orient himself without any visibility, so he called up the homing beacon locator on his wrist.

Please. Please. Don't let it be dead.

After three seconds a down arrow was projected in front of him. The tag next to it read "ABL9006". All his muscles tightened and his throat started to feel dry.

ABL9006? For the past two years this has been LMP003.

He turned around until the arrow indicated upwards and started to stride in that direction. He knew he had to hurry, but with limited visibility this was a deadly undertaking. The area was littered with sharp rock and cracks.

He saw no trace of any human or mechanical remains for half an hour.

Why did they change the beacon? The old one got damaged? So somebody is still alive at the base and their radio equipment is out.

He got startled by a loud signal inside his helmet, accompanied by the frantic blinking of the oxygen warning. He realized that if he didn't reach the base within ten minutes, his life would end. Four point seven billion kilometers from home. One week from retirement. Ten months from being reunited with his family.

His younger colleagues might have been relocated to another mine on one of the Jupiter moons, but for those above thirty, this was it. The market for lithium had collapsed since the introduction of the Q-cell, nearly a year ago. Mining on Pluto had become so horrendously expensive, only one company was still hanging on, but corners were being cut on all fronts. Their Pluto freighter was on its last set of engines, and any setback would mean a premature end of the company's Pluto enterprise.

The freighter. I can't see it through the dust. Or maybe it's behind the asteroid.

Five minutes. "200 m to beacon" his helmet indicated.

It's straight ahead. I should see it any second now.

He strode on for another minute.

Where is the base?

The old beacon was located in the middle of the base, which used to be a compound of different-sized structures.

Did they put the new beacon outside the base...?

A small structure on his left caught his eye. He moved towards it and discovered it was one of the miner quarters. Two minutes.

He turned the airlock's handle and pushed it open, entered, and pushed it shut behind him. The panel inside was illuminated, which indicated it was still being powered by the module's RTG generator. Ironically, it was based on decaying plutonium. He slammed the large button on the panel and immediately air was rushing into the lock.

He snapped off his helmet and took a deep breath. His head was pounding and he was more exhausted than he had ever been.

When he woke up, ten hours later, his head was still hurting, and he avoided looking straight into the soft tritium lighting. At least he had managed to get out of his suit and enter one of the ten bedrooms before passing out. When he looked through his window he noticed all the dust had finally settled.

This must be one of the old crew modules at the outer rim of the compound. I can't make out any other modules. I'm not even sure where my quarters were. There are no points of reference.

He left the bedroom and went to a window at the other side of the container. His suppressed fears suddenly transformed into the crystal clear realization that this was pretty much the only remaining structure of the compound. He could make out some smaller transport containers and two or three disused vehicles. The usual compound floodlights were gone and the only artificial light in the area was shining out of the windows of his crew module.

The last shuttle must have taken the central command module with it. I'm lucky they left this first-generation crew container. It must have been more expensive to retrieve than abandon.

After gathering some breakfast, he spent the next hour taking stock of the module's remaining supplies. Water was recycled for over ninety percent and the remaining tanks would last him for decades, if he lived soberly. Food supplies, he calculated, would keep him alive for at least fifty years. It wouldn't be a gourmet's dream, but he'd be alive.

He left the airlock at 11:10 and proceeded towards the nearest vehicle.

I have no idea what I'd do with a CTV if it worked. It's not like I'd be making trips to the grocery store and back.

He needed to do something. Get a grip on his situation. Anything was better than sitting it out in the module. For fifty years. Or less. Alone with his thoughts. "Anyone? Come in, anyone. Ron Miller...alllll alone on Pluto." He felt it couldn't hurt to beam out some UHF waves. It's not as if they lasted over a kilometer or two. The suit com system was designed for intra-crew communication only.

The first crew transportation vehicle he found had a shattered cockpit. Apparently it had encountered one of those sharp rocks at high speed. He might have been able to fix it over the next two decades, but right then it was useless. He spotted a second one, almost a kilometer away, at the other side of the compound.

They must have looked for survivors. Most of the men and women at the mine's entrance must have bought it, though. Some of them down below with me might have survived. Maybe some were lucky enough not to get swallowed by a freaking crevice and got rescued.

The CTV seemed in operational shape, but the panel at the cockpit door wasn't illuminated. It had no power.

The RTG is busted or they took it out to service a more recent vehicle. Or they put it in one of the drills at the mine. This operation was clearly running on its last resources. This meteorite or whatever calamity was clearly the final straw.

A faint flash in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He turned his head towards it. A small bright dot was rapidly rising on the horizon.

The freighter. It was behind the asteroid...

He felt his heart beat in his chest.

I need to get back to the module.

As he turned around to head back, he was overwhelmed by a bright light passing overhead. It was accelerating upward.

A cargo shuttle...

He noticed it had a cargo container attached underneath and wondered why they were still hauling lithium to the freighter. Unless...

...it's the crew module...

Fifty years later, the Abandoned Base Locator beacon sent its last signal. No one would ever see the perfectly preserved frozen human leaning against it.