Red Mars, Grey Moon, Green Earth - Chapter 4

Chintu was thinking back to the time since landing on the Moon. He had to make fast decisions. Not everything worked well for him.

The cargo ship that Kavya and Chintu had traveled in from Mars had landed at the US base. Kavya had handed him to Gafur and asked him to take care of Chintu. 

Gafur was wearing his lunasuit despite being inside the base.  He grunted and nodded. Meera hugged Chintu and then went back into the cargo ship. 

Gafur probably saved him from Manoharan. But, his motives were not clear. He ran a side gig as a labor supply contractor for mining the asteroids. Since Chintu was coming from Mars, he assumed he would be well-versed in mining. If not, he always had a chance to learn on the job. Chintu was young and intelligent, as far as he could understand from his conversation with Manoharan. 

Gafur came to pick Chintu up for dinner that evening. He also wanted to speak to him about the asteroid mining gig. Chintu was missing. When he enquired with the boarding house attendant, he realized Chintu had left with another crew an hour ago. 

“All the best,” Gafur thought. 

Chintu had not trusted Gafur since he had met him. Chintu had overheard a conversation at the cafeteria. They were a crew of illegals who had also traveled from Mars. They learned they would be sent to an asteroid to mine instead of the Earth as they’d been promised on Mars. They were planning to enter an Indian base located at Shiv Shakti Point to escape this fate. 

Chintu thought this was a good opportunity to escape from Gafur. When Chintu approached them at the next meal with the idea of joining them, they did not take him seriously. He demonstrated his equipment by opening the gates of their lunar base. He promised it would open any door on the Moon. 

Chintu left with the main crew on a lunar metro. They traveled to the outskirts of the base, separately and in silence. They were told that 5 people would join them at the crater rim. They got off at a stop before Shiv Shakti Point. They did not carry documents that would let them enter. 

They went to the station’s bathroom, took bath, and changed into their lunasuits. They left the station and picked up a few moon buggies on rent. These were not the most efficient way to travel but it was the quietest. 

They reached the crater rim and waited for the others to join. Everyone was on time. Chintu thought they were all anxious to enter the Indian base. They used hand signals to define when they would destroy the observation outpost. Chintu realized that the other five had also been briefed. They all were running towards the explosion. They had to be there before the security teams could enter the instrumentation deck and repel the attack. 

When he reached the instrumentation deck, he knew they were on time. A person ahead of him was pulling at the door. 

“Please step aside,” he said. He used the instrument on the door and it opened. It opened all four doors. It was an interconnected system. That was so stupid, he thought. 

He was in the isolation room, thinking about what happened in the last few hours when Rajeev entered. 

“You are clear. No major issues.”

“Thank you, when can I leave?” 

“You have a daemon.”

“Yes, my mother had it installed in my head an Earth year ago on Mars.”

“You are from Mars?”

“Born on Earth.”

Rajeev was waiting for Chintu to continue while Chintu was waiting for Rajeev to ask more questions.

“Okay. We must format your daemon and train it for lunar mining.” 

“Do you have to? I think my daemon is trained in Martian mining. Why not train my daemon?”

Rajeev seemed confused. He exited the room. 

Chintu was left in the room for a few more hours before an engineer visited him to train his daemon. 

“Let the program run for an hour. It would be best if you slept. Do not use the daemon for anything else.”

The engineer left too. 

He was thinking about Meera. Who was she? Why did she show so much concern for him? He refused help from his daemon. He was using his brain to think. He fell asleep thinking about this. 

He woke up. His daemon reported that it had completed the assigned training and informed Base Admin. Base Admin asked Chintu to be present at the operations base at 9 AM (Base Time). 

The daemon told Chintu that it was 8 PM. Chintu did not have dinner and went to sleep again. 

Chintu was at the operations base at 9 AM. He was handed an access badge and told he could sit at his desk or stay in his room. 

Rajeev walked up to Chintu’s table. 

“Are you settled?”

“Yes,” Chintu said.

“Your intelligence helped us nab Gafoor and Ali. They will be in prison for the next fifteen years.” 

“Gafur helped me when I landed on the Moon one Earth month ago.” 

“Do you want me to ask for leniency?”

“No.”

Rajeev looked at Chintu curiously. He tapped his shoulder and left. 

Chintu wanted to go to the restroom but saw Meera walking towards him. She called out to him but he ran away to the restroom. He went into the restroom and locked himself in one of the cubicles.

He was only worried about how he could return to Earth and be with his mother. It had been an Earth month since he was separated from his mother. He did not even know if she had reached Earth safely.