by Milo Douglas
Inspired by Of Mice and Men--by John Steinbeck
Minutes later, the shuttle approached the Crooks Comet mining site. George and the other dozen BiNDLed ice shuckers on Curly’s team silently breathed frost into the air and watched ice shuckers crawl over Crooks attacking its black surface with their tools revealing white veins of ice. A massive cargo ship—a skinner—lifted off with its bounty of water-ice.
George looked to see how Lenny regarded the action below, but saw him instead fondling the remains of a potted dwarf satsuma tree.
“Lenny, I told you to chuck that at the last rig!”
“I had it in my suit compartment, George.”
George took it. “Besides, you ruined it pullin’ and pinchin’ at it.” He shoved the tree behind some bulkhead paneling.
Lenny sagged in his BiNDL. “It was for our habitat. Tell about our habitat, George.”
“Okay,” George’s voice became rhythmic. “Guys like us work hard and keep our scratch airtight.”
“Airtight!”
“One day, we’ll undock, point our ship to the brightest planet—”
“And build a habitat-on-the-range! With trees that blow in the wind!”
“Sure, Lenny. Why not. We’ll have a million trees,” George teased.
A BiNDLed woman next to Lenny nudged him.
“I heard you can shuck some ice!”
The big man looked away. “We gonna earn some scratch.”
“My name is Lenina.”
Lenny turned back to her and snickered. “Our names are the same. I’m Lenny!”
“Close,” she acknowledged. “You know, I can help you two with your trees.”
Lenny beamed. “You can help with our habitat-on-the-range?”
“Ain’t polite to eavesdrop,” George interjected. “But no, thanks, all the same.”
“Ain’t wise to broadcast yer business in a tight shuttle,” Lenina retorted. “But apologies, non-the-less.”
“What you can do,” George said, “is tell us why Curley’s so sour.”
Lenina’s face darkened. “I’m a shucker. He’s my fiancé. He goes where I go. But he’s too small to shuck so he pilots the ship and vents.”
“He better not vent at Lenny.”
She sighed. “Curley vents at all of us.”
As the shuttle soft-landed in a rocky patch at the base of a massive wall of ice and BiNDLed shuckers leapt from the ship. They traversed the mining site in slow-motion, microgravity bounds seeking the richest deposits.
They shucked ice all day working their tools into the ancient comet, scraping through its black skin until they revealed white veins of water ice. Everyone steered clear of Lenny as he effortlessly sheered off giant slabs of ice, as large as a house, in neat, rectangular blocks. He used the gripper pads on his suit to load them into the waiting skinners. He shucked seven hundred seventy-thousand cubic yards himself.
George stopped his flurry of chipping and looked to the shuttle.
Curley stood in the window of the crew shuttle, glaring, hands on hips, as a reserve skinner landed to take Lenny’s excess loads.
George smiled.
Later, the crew dressed down to their jumpsuits and chatted their way to the mess hall.
Curley appeared and stood before Lenny, his face pinched into a snarl. His black jumpsuit seemed ready to burst buttons from his heaving chest.
“You damaged the reserve ship with them big slabs and now I gotta pay for it!”
Lenny realized the danger too late as Curley’s powered fist struck his head.
Lenny tottered, eyes rolling wildly in his head.
Lenina blocked Curley’s way, but he pushed past her and hammered Lenny’s gut.
Lenny bawled, “Are we in trouble, George?”
George cursed to himself, looked up at Lenny and shouted, “Get ‘em, Lenny!”
Lenny’s tear-streaked face became fearsome. He lunged and closed a hand over Curley’s glove.
A black blur whipped up over Lenny’s head, then shot across the mess hall where it crashed against the bulkhead. There, Curley slumped holding a bloody stump to his chest.
Lenny sniffled and dropped a crushed glove.
Lenina quieted everyone, looked at Curley’s flickering eyes and said, “Got his hand caught in Slim’s BiNDL. Got it?”
The crew nodded silently.
“George, come by my bunk in a half-hour,” Lenina instructed. “I’ll have Lenny there and something else I’ve gotta show you.”
Lenny sat on Lenina’s bed holding her helmet.
“I’m going on shift again,” she said. “I’ll cover for you while you lay low a bit.” Even BiNDLed up she was much smaller than Lenny was in just his jumpsuit. “George and Slim will be here soon.”
“We lost our scratch,” he said. “I’m ‘sposed to meet George at the Rabbit Hole.” He set her helmet on the bed.
“Forget it. You’ll get your scratch and I’ll do you one better.” She produced a small potted plum tree from a wall compartment.