Runaway World

The Life Hutch

     Andrew envied him. He, Andrew, been only five years old when a broken axle had forced his family to leave their hab-rover and get a lift back to the city. Too young to really understand what was happening and appreciate the walk across the uneven, icy ground to the rescue vehicle. Having been outside once, his father had then thought nothing of taking him with him on many other occasions, so that by the time his ability to appreciate new experiences had fully matured the surface of their world had become totally familiar to him. David, on the other hand, was getting it all in one go and it would take him a while to process all that he was experiencing.

     Suddenly there was darkness where David had been standing and Andrew spun around in alarm. "David! Where are you?"

     "It's okay, dad," the boy replied. "I just turned my helmet light off. I wanted to get a proper look at the world."

     Andrew sagged with relief. He'd done the same thing during one of his first trips to the surface. With one's helmet light on, the brightness washed out everything else. There was only pitch blackness outside the small puddle of light it spilled on the ground, but if you turned it off and waited for your eyes to adjust to the darkness...

     Even from six billion kilometres way, the sun lit the landscape as brightly as a darkened room with the curtains half closed. Hills, even mountains, could be seen on the horizon; a dull, slate grey against the star speckled blackness of the sky. The vista stretched an impossible distance. Distances that couldn't be imagined when the insides of tunnels, caverns and roving vehicles were all you had ever known. Even virtual reality didn't prepare you for it. Andrew knew what his son was experiencing, therefore, and was prepared to cut him a little slack for that reason.

     Only a little, though. This was still the surface, and the surface was always looking for ways to kill you. "That'll do now," he said therefore. "Turn your helmet light back on now."

     "Just a little longer," his son protested.

     Andrew began striding anxiously towards him. There was vapour beginning to rise around the boy's feet, he saw, where even his superbly insulated boots couldn't keep a little heat from leaking out. "Walk around," he said. "Never stand in one spot too long. Remember your training."

     "I'm getting cold," David complained.

     "You're losing heat from conduction, it's all the vapour around you. Walk around."

     David did so, and Andrew relaxed as the boy turned his helmet light back on again. He saw his son wanting to run, to take advantage of the wide, uneven surface around him. Back in the city there were wide open spaces, caverns dug large enough to give the illusion of being outside, but the ground was always flat. Tiled walkways or neatly trimmed grass. Here, though, there were hummocks to run up and hollows to jump over. And jagged outcrops that a running boy might trip over causing him to tear his suit or shatter his visor. A tempting element of danger that few children could resist. Andrew tensed himself to give chase if his son did suddenly take off, therefore, but to his relief the boy restrained himself, climbing a low rise to see what lay beyond, only to turn back when he saw only darkness.

     "Come on, David," said Andrew. "Time to do what we came out here to do."

     David reluctantly turned back, retracing his own footsteps, the white scratches in the blue ice, the way he'd been taught. Following the path that had been proven to be free from threats and dangers. Only when he was three quarters of the way back did he turn aside, heading not for the familiar bulk of the hab-rover but for the smaller structure that stood about fifty metres from it. The life hutch. A safe refuge for anyone who, for one reason or another, found themselves marooned on the surface without transport back to the city. A place where they could wait until help arrived.