EXILE
Chapter 23

Moshe led the four newboys down the tunnel to the siding where, during their wait in the customs hall, an extra three bogeys had been delivered by some guards. The squaddie that marched at Moshe’s side guided him to a pair. Turning, he saw his four close behind. What a mixture. One of the men was obviously unfit for work in the mines, and Henry was known to have a rougher crew than Moshe’s, a crew that pushed themselves hard and took pride in the sheer physicality of their work. Although the two crews worked in tandem with the same workload, Moshe’s crew relied more on intelligent teamwork and the efficient use of organisation, planning and multi-skilling to achieve the same results as their gung-ho counterparts. Two different men, two different leadership styles, each reflected in the characters of the men that formed each team.

Captain Dinsdale was good at his job, and the make-up and success of the two teams reflected this. By studying and learning the personalities of his team leaders throughout the colony, he was able to match the profiles of incoming convicts with the work teams that they were best suited to. The expense involved in shipping the convicts made it imperative that close matches were made, as bad ones often ended in death or solitary, roughly translated as a bad investment.

Of only medium height and less-than-medium build, the newboy’s black-rimmed spectacles seemed oddly anachronistic with the supremely technical environment that he had arrived in. With corrective eye surgery routine for the last thirty years, to have someone opt for old-fashioned facial furniture suggested that the wearer either refused surgery, or else was in direct personal contact with other people so rarely as to make the spectacle issue a dead duck. After all, why should someone who never ventured out of an apartment be concerned about his appearance? Moshe immediately made the same leap in logic that Abe had made several days earlier. A computer jock would be handy to have on the crew, particularly for reprogramming the scav-gear.

Seated, the shuttle began its journey down the long tunnel towards the colony ring-line, and onwards around to the Q6 dormitory units. Two of the other newboys were typical arrivals, obvious team material. Shouldn’t be too many surprises there. The fourth newboy would be interesting. Moshe was quite sure that this one was Stein - he looked like a Stein. The confidence of his body language spoke volumes - he was a man who was highly organised, who knew exactly what was going on, who was doing it and what the risks were. He was the only one of the seven convicts who showed no real surprise or nervousness, as if he had fully expected this outcome and harboured no shock at his sentence. Moshe knew that very few men willingly planned and put into action a plan that they knew would certainly lead to exile on the moon - Stein was evidently one of these men, men who were prepared to sacrifice everything. If Moshe was right, then Stein would also be an asset, a possible successor should Moshe be put out of commission. Men with an in-built leadership bias were few and far between, and Stein, if that is who he is, would be as useful to the team as the byte-jock.

No-one spoke during the journey. Moshe did a quick countback, and estimated that he had been away from his crew for no more than half an hour. His crew would be in the canteen for their three-hour food and recreation period, the remaining nine hours of their shift being for ablutions and dormitory confinement. The guard signalled ahead, and the lines switched, allowing the shuttle to shoot aside down a curved rail to join the axial ring. All travel along it was in a clockwise direction, eliminating the chance of collision with another bogey. They zipped along at a steady thirty kilometres per hour, enough to rush a cool breeze through their hair. The trip took less time than Moshe remembered it; Abe remembered every minute of it. Nearly thirteen hours had passed since Moshe had left the dorm unit to begin his shift, and he had been working hard for most of them. He was weary, and with four wide-alert newboys in tow, he didn’t really feel like running through the screw routine with all of them. Moshe usually did the induction bit himself, as his crew normally only ever had two newboys at a time, and on the odd occasion that they received three they weren’t as pressured as they were now.

Moshe knew that he would have to delegate two of his crew to be trainers, leaving him with only two to take care of. Tom Billings was his automatic first choice. Despite three years of hard graft, Tom was still paunchy, and had the deceptive appearance of a shaved teddy bear. An experienced team player with a coldly sensible work and life attitude, Tom’s demeanour came across as comfortably non-threatening, suitable for at least two of the men sitting behind Moshe. Probably the shorter, softer guy. He’ll find out soon who was who, and what they were good at. On that point, he trusted Lonnie Dinsdale. Let’s face it - the man knew what he was doing.

Moshe ran through his possibilities in his mind, and had them more or less sorted by the time that the shuttle eased to a halt at the siding outside the Quadrant Six network. Moshe almost slid off the seat, his body programmed by the same movement repeated regularly for so long. Sort of like brushing your teeth while you try and think of a way to tell your wife that you pranged the new car. He was already walking on the platform while the others were still swinging their legs over the central seat spine. The squaddie who controlled the shuttle didn’t get off - instead, he waited until everyone else was off, and then eased the empty shuttle back towards the ring-line, and disappeared around a bend, off on another mission.

As they walked into the main gallery of Q6, Moshe thought about how easy his newboys were having it. Henry’s own crew were already at work, having relieved Moshe’s crew at the scav-space. Henry would be taking his men not to a dorm, but straight to work. The two men who were returning from Moshe’s crew never left the scav-space, instead having a six-hour rest in the temporary canteen unit in the transition area, before rejoining the crew for the rest of the shift. Together, they walked down the hall, turning off into the canteen space. There was a slight incline that led through a tunnel-like hallway for some twenty metres, opening out into a large, rectangular chamber that had a window roof, made of latticed duralumin girders framing large, hexagonal panels of five-centimetre thick plexiglass, UV tinted, of course. Moshe walked on in to where his crew were relaxing, many eating their evening meal. Sensing that he was alone, he turned to see the four newboys standing still, gazing at the star-speckled honeycomb above them, the roof of the cavernous gallery that was now the Q6 canteen area. Now his home, Moshe broke the spell.

“This is the Quadrant Six canteen, men. In the early days of operation, it was the first mine pit, also the closest to the original sectors. Worked out, it was roofed over and established as the Q6 canteen space. Most of the time, we get a pretty fair view of Earth. You’ll all get plenty of time to study the view.”

By now, they were looking around them, taking the measure of their new home, and the men with whom they were to share the rest of their lives.

Seeing them enter, several of the team stopped eating, turning to see who had come in with Moshe, who walked forward to meet them. “Tom, Harlon, I need your services.” Tom pushed another spoonful of flavoured protein mush into his mouth, and, wiping his lips on a paper napkin, stood up and walked towards Moshe. Harlon Reid killed the video game that he was playing, and joined the other two.

“Shit, Moshe, I was about to beat my high-score.”

“I wouldn’t worry, Harley. Doubtless you’ll beat that soon, anyway.” He paused, and glanced behind him at the newboys. “I can’t intro all four at the same time, nor would I want to. Tom, I want you to intro the tall guy. I think his name is Stein.”

“The bored one?”

“Yeah. If he’s as cool about the place as he seems to be, he could outlast all of us. My impression is that he’s a bright guy, almost as if he planned to get here on purpose, or at least expected to.”

“Makes a change.”

“Doesn’t it, just? I want you to find out about him - gain his confidence, the usual pap. We need to know who, how and what before we can work out his place in the network.”

Tom and Harlon knew what Moshe meant - the “network” was the unofficial line of command, communication and co-operation between the convicts of the different quadrants. Developed over many years, it enabled the different crews and quadrants to share information and to determine the plans and programs that the administration developed. Each crew was given only what knowledge they would need for their own job - by comparing notes the prisoners were able to put the jigsaw together and work out what the big picture actually looked like. In a way, it was the closest thing that the prisoners had to a de facto union, albeit an unofficial, underground version. For it to be successful, it needed the contacts between quadrants and teams. These contacts were usually friends who had been assigned to different duties. On occasion, the network proved invaluable when the convicts found it to be necessary to discipline one of their own. Such instances were rare, and happened only when a convict was placing others at risk needlessly.

Moshe continued. “Harlon, can you guess your man?” Harlon looked over at the newboys.

“Let me guess - the guy with windows.”

“Bingo. I reckon he’s a byte-jockey. Pretty much in your line of work. Assuming I’m right, he’s probably the only one here who could understand what you do with the surveying gear and the guidance systems for the heavies.”

“My God! you mean I get a deputy?” Harlon feigned shock.

“More like a protege’, Harley. If a rock lands on you, who would be there to tell us where to go?” Tom grinned at the exchange.

“So, boss, do we meet them, or what?”

“Okay, okay.” Moshe turned to the group of four, still standing just out of the doorway, waiting patiently. “Come over.”

When they were closer, he introduced himself. “Welcome to Quadrant Six, men. Again, this is the canteen and rec-room of your new home. I’m Moshe Arons. For want of a better description, I’m the crew foreman. In Q6 there are two crews - you saw the other foreman back in the customs hall. To help you to settle in, I’ve asked two of the guys to buddy with you.” He turned to Russell. “Who are you?”

Russell hesitated, and then found his nervous voice. “S-Scott Russell, Sir.”

“Moshe. I’m not Sir to anyone, okay? No-one is answerable to anyone but the prison staff, and no-one is paid. I just keep a eye on everybody, and do much of the organisation of the work teams. I’m also the go-between for the crew and the prison staff, namely the warden, Captain Dinsdale, who you’ve already met, and other crews. I do it because I can, and because I’ve been here longer than most people. Okay? I survive. Russell, meet Harlon Reid, our seismic surveyor.” Harlon stepped forward and shook Russell’s limp, cold-fish hand.

“Gidday, Scott.” Harlon grinned his best shark-smile. “Better come on over - you must be hungry.”

As the pair headed away over to the kitchen, Moshe continued, facing Abe. “And you are...?”

“Stein. Abraham Stein.” He sounded bored, but Moshe clearly saw how restless his eyes were, darting all over the place in a systematic scan. He hadn’t been on the moon an hour, and far from being overwhelmed in awe, he may as well have just checked into another Holiday Inn on Route 66 out of Oklahoma.

“Glad to have your acquaintance, Stein. I’ve asked Tom Billings here ...” Tom stepped forward to shake Abe’s hand, smiling, “to show you around. Tom’s been up here for a couple of years now, a veteran. And as for you two,” turning to face the remaining pair of newboys, “you’ll be with me.” He smiled. The two men took their cue.

“Bill Harrison.”

“Ed Flanders.”

Harrison looked soft, but his broad shoulders and heavy forearms suggested otherwise. Flanders was short and wiry, looked to be about forty and had a coldly nervous stare. Moshe had seen the same stare many times before, always on other faces. It always meant the same, was what was left after all emotional anchors and security had been stripped away by the tornado of the Justice Department. It was a milder, more subtle form of wartime shell-shock, later renamed to the fashionably politically-correct “post-traumatic stress disorder”. Moshe had no cure, nor did he care for one. For the safety of the crew, and for no other reason, he took it upon himself to make every newboy achingly familiar with the routine, with the new environment, their work, how to survive. Unless it was a suicide, most deaths occurred either in plural or with severe injury to others. And that hurt his men, placed his crew and himself in jeopardy. And most of them liked life too much. Those who didn’t died early, as Graham Winters had.

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