Chapter 8

Dear Jim,

The seasons change more slowly here. It seems like we have now arrived in the middle of summer. It is again a hot day. The sun is a blazing white spot in the flawlessly blue sky. We have not seen a cloud in days. Longingly everyone looks at the lake, which seems to call us with its cool water. But work must go on, or that's what we're told. Even the birds in the sky seems to rest, there is only the constant humming of insects. Not even the trees are making a sound on this windless day.

The air smells of dry grass, which is brought to the tent at the meeting place and fed to the OMR in large quantities. The machine produces board after board, plank after plank, all under the watching eyes of Laszlo, who inspects each of them carefully. Nodding to himself, frowning, sorting, making piles accordingly. Others carry them away to the river.

Mr Pollak has brought a folding chair to the shade of the large tree next to Maia's and Arthur's pod and is watching the goings-on. Although it is hot he refuses to take off the fancy uniform jacket with the tassels but he has it unbuttoned. Next to him stands a large bottle of water and in his hand he holds his cap which he uses as a fan. Today a bridge will be built. We will not have to use rubber boats to cross the river anymore.

I watched all this while I waded through the grass which grows up to my hip. I was on the way to pod number 37, which as you may remember is occupied by Candy and Loreley. The latter called me this morning, explaining that there is something wrong with the waste water processing unit in their pod. I was asked to please come and have a look. This was my chance to escape the task of feeding the OMR and carrying stuff. I am slightly ashamed of thinking like that. But not too much. I feel like I did my part by building the smegging machine a few months ago.

For a moment I stopped, looking over to the other side of the river, watching the others work. Everyone is wearing short uniform trousers, we have unpacked our standard-issue orange hats and sunglasses. Only Laszlo still wears his black hat and has added a respectable tool belt to his outfit. He is going topless to fight the heat. Judging by his tan it isn't the first time.

I walked on along the river, past the spot where the bridge would be built near the river bend. I looked over to Gerald's pod. All the young chickens were in the shade behind their coop. Next to the chicken coop, Gerald had an experimental vegetable patch. I could see even from afar that his tomatoes and zucchini were doing great. In the distance there was the predators' hill. During the heat of the day they were hiding in their den. They are wiser than we are, it seems. In the evening we can often watch them lying on the warm rocks, surveilling their surroundings. Gerald says they have cubs, which must have been born earlier this year. They already explore the area.

When I arrived at pod 37, Loreley – who had promised to wait for me – was at work in an improvised lab right at the staircase which led up to the habitat. She had built a makeshift tent from the pod's parachute and used boxes and crates as tables. On them were various devices with blinking lights and displays and a few labelled containers filled with water. Loreley was humming a tune while she worked.

When she turned around to greet me I could not help to notice that her hair seemed to grow faster than mine. She was of a natural beauty which even made her look pretty even in her white and orange uniform trousers and white tank top.

'You're a limnologist, shouldn't you be able to deal with your water problems yourself?' I laughed.

Loreley rolled her eyes at that but did not answer. She accompanied me inside. I started to take the wall panels off at the water processing unit's control system. Of course I had to stand on the tips of my toes to loosen the upper fixtures. Then I connected it to my wrist pad for a diagnosis. The water pipe from the river was working as expected and was correctly connected to the filter and purification unit below the pod, which also worked within normal parameters. The water storage tank was full and water quality was looking good. All fresh water pipes within the pod were free of any blockages. This was to be expected, of course. I continued with reading how the other side of the system was doing.

'Well... it seems like there is something stuck in the waste water processing unit,' I sighed. Suddenly, carrying planks didn't sound so bad anymore.

'There are supposed to be plumbers on the Boreas, right?' I tried t confirm.

Loreley just shrugged.

'Did I already tell you that my sister is on the Boreas, too? I'm so looking forward to seeing her again. I read all the automatic status updates we receive from our sister ship. So far things go as planned, it seems. That means I will meet her again in five years. Isn't that great?' she said. Then Loreley went on telling me about her sister while I went to the bathroom to gain access to the waste water processing unit.

When I passed through the bedroom I could not ignore the difference in the decoration of the two bunk beds. While the lower one had the standard-issue white bedclothes and a few pictures of family and friends stuck to the walls, the upper one was covered in pink silk and frills. There were sparkly stones and trinkets everywhere as well as a mirror.

I walked on into the tiny bathroom and found the hatch I needed to access covered with a pink fuzzy bathroom mat. Every possible place was covered in bottles of various shapes, filled with liquids in all possible colours. The mirror was encircled with lights. I looked at Loreley, who just shrugged helplessly. Then I rolled up the bathroom mat and opened the hatch.

This revealed several pipes of which – as the schematics told me – the widest one was for waste water. I went down on my knees and took a deep breath, put on my rubber gloves and opened it at the pipe at the pre-defined spot. This immediately led to dirty water spilling out of the pipe. Which according to the handbook was not supposed to happen.

'Bring me a bucket,' I said to Loreley while rummaging in my tool box.

When she was back I inserted a flexible picker arm into the pipe. It met resistance after only a short distance and I had to fight to pull something out. The picker arm returned with a lump, which on closer inspection turned out to be pink frilly underwear. I held it up for Loreley to inspect before letting it drop into the bucket. She let out a quiet growl.

Then I went back to inspect the pipe with the picker arm and pulled out yellow knickers. This time Loreley's growl was louder. I inserted the picker arm again, this time to get dark blue underwear with a flower print. I let each of those drop into the bucket. This time, Loreley screamed with rage. I turned around, sitting down on the bathroom floor. My knees already hurt. I looked up at Loreley.

'So, what is going on here? But whatever it is I tell you this: I will do this once, and only once, and if it ever happens again I will not unclog these pipes again, understood?' I told her.

Loreley was practically steaming.

'I told her that if I ever found her throwing her clothes into the recycler I would get nasty. Oh, and I was so pleased when I saw she didn't do it again. Man, was I stupid!' she exclaimed.

I just blinked at her, flabbergasted.

'Candy! She doesn't feel like washing all that underwear, she told me. Can you believe it? She brought enough to have fresh things every day for the five years she is staying! Sometimes I think I could. . . ' she made a hand movement like strangling someone.

'I really thought I had gotten through to her, but obviously I was wrong. She complains that they didn't let her bring all the clothes she wanted. That's why she tried to make me do her laundry. She hates me for not giving in. Who do you think does all the cleaning around here? Hah! Is there any way I could evict her?'

After listening some more of this rant while working on unclogging the pipe, I borrowed a ladder, went outside and opened another hatch on the underside of the pod. I'm not sure how the blockage didn't become a problem earlier. Some of the clothes were already partly decomposed.

When Loreley saw this she stormed off, through the high grass and down the river. For a few seconds I just stood there on top of the ladder, staring after her. I quickly closed the hatch again, climbed down the ladder and hurried after Loreley. She was no doubt heading towards the meeting place where everyone else was at work. With her long legs she walked much faster than I could. I saw her crossing the river on foot at a shallow place – as we hadn't had much rain the water is now much lower than it was in spring. I followed her, but unlike her I got my shorts soaking wet.

When I arrived, Loreley was already screaming at Candy, while Candy was screaming at Dough to stop filming. This had resulted in Mr Pollak leaving his chair at the tree and joining the shouting match, berating Loreley for not being nice to his daughter. Everyone else soon dropped whatever they were doing to see what the issue was.

It was a long fight with no real winner. Candy started to cry, feeling mistreated and was immediately backed up by her father – which I guess was her plan. Loreley however didn't back down and was supported by most of the others. Especially Maia spoke up for her. Candy started to whine to Mr Pollak about wanting her own place and how unfair it was that she had to share.

Mr Pollak promised he would take care of it, hugging his daughter and looking intently at Laszlo. At this, Laszlo shook his head laughing, and then clapped his hands to get everyone back to work. I took this as a cue to leave and have a shower back at my pod.

Love,
Sarah

Tavaron

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