New Kalamazoo, the city that had arisen on the ashes of old Kalamazoo after the disastrous bug wars of 2300. Mikhail Roxio knew this city liked the back of his own hand. From its spectacular ocean views to the magnificent slopes of Mount Kalamazoo, the semi-dormant volcano just to the left of the CBD. It could be a cruel town, it could be a harsh and unforgiving town but in his heart Mikhail knew that it was his town.
Today was a momentous day for Mikhail, despite the turbulent politics that had thrown the city into a quasi-revolutionary state, Mikhail had somehow managed to graduate from high school with outstanding grades and now was facing a golden opportunity: entry into the prestigious New Kalamazoo University of Engineering.
Mikhail dressed himself in his best engineering clothes. He patted the faceplate of the second hand spacesuit he had won in a poetry competition. He tossed a snack into the kennel of his alien bouncing semi-sentient blob pet and a plate of nuts and bolts into the kennel of his rapidly growing alien lummox pet, waved good bye to his parents and set off towards his bright engineering future.
Mikhail ignored the profusion of red-banners, revolutionary posters and marching radicals clad in head-to-toe red onesies. He knew that the People’s Social Revolutionary Justice Party had taken control of major parts of New Kalamazoo and that anybody not wearing the equality-enforcing red onesie would draw attention to themselves but today he didn’t care. Today was Mikhail’s day. Today was the day that he took a determined step on the road to become what, in his heart, he knew he could be: a heroic engineer. The kind of man who could puzzle their way out of any situation with nothing but gaffer tape, a crystal radio and a portable fusion reactor. The kind of man who knew where his socket wrench was and who could jury rig a warp-compressor with nothing but a can of solent-porridge and a paper clip.
Like the surrounding streets, New Kalamazoo University of Engineering was now festooned with red banners and surrounded by marching onesie clad radicals chanting slogans. Mikhail navigated his way through the agitators and slipped quietly into the admissions office.
The office was devoid of students but Mikhail was not perturbed. The last few days had seen a voluntary and unofficial curfew as sensible people stayed off the streets to avoid being harangued by the assorted revolutionaries and radicals patrolling the area. There had been bitter fighting in the southern suburbs as the remnants of the corrupt government, that had previously tried to keep the People’s Social Revolutionary Justice Party in check with bribes and concessions, now vainly tried to fight off the rising red tide of oppressive leftism.
“if tyranny has a face,” thought Mikhail, “then it is clad in a red onesie.”
Finally, Mikhail found an office staffed by a person with a “admissions officer” pinned to a red sash that they wore over a shabby suit. Under the suit the person was wearing the trademark red onesie of the People’s Social Revolutionary Justice Party. Mikhail did not let this dishearten him. H had known he would have to face a degree of bureaucracy today and it was no surprise to find that a mindless university pen-pusher was aligning themselves with the PSRJP.
“Good morning comrade citizen. Welcome to the People’s New Kalamazoo University of Engineering and Social Justice. What course would you like to enrol in?” asked the red-fabric glad bureaucrat.
“Engineering, please.” answered Mikhail.
“Sorry but that isn’t possible.” replied the bureaucrat disdainfully.
“But I have all the required grades! Indeed I have exceeded all the entry requirements for the course!” said Mikhail exasperatedly.
“There are no required grades any more comrade citizen. All courses are open to all comrade citizens regardless of discredited bourgeois notions of ‘grades’ or ‘intelligence.’ explained the admissions officer.
“Then sign me up for engineering!” exclaimed Mikhail.
“That is not possible comrade citizen. The only courses open are Revolutionary Poetic Studies or Studies of Revolutionary Literature. You strike me more as the Studies of Revolutionary Literature type. I’ll put you down for that, shall I?” said the admissions officer helpfully.
“No! I came here to learn to be a heroic engineer, to be the kind of man who could be stranded on Venus and rescue himself with nothing but a foil bag of peanuts and 1967 Morris Minor.” asserted Mikhail.
“I don’t like your attitude comrade citizen. Your aggression oppresses me. For that I am assigning you to a five week awareness course to help you understand how your privilege oppresses others.” stated the admissions office with some sadness.
“You can’t do that, I’m not even a student here yet!” replied Mikhail.
“For answering back, I’m assigning you to a five month global warming awareness scheme carrying rocks of carbon-dioxide into an old coal mine in the Appalachians.” said the admissions officer with a more angry tone.
“Firstly that is enforced servitude and forbidden by the constitution of the United States. Secondly you can’t have rocks of carbon dioxide at normal temperatures and pressures and certainly not in the ambient heat of an abandoned coal mine!” explained Mikhail didactically.
“Campus security?” the admissions office had picked up the phone on his desk and was summoning more revolutionaries to help. Mikhail knew he had to act quickly. He quickly calculated a trajectory in his head that would enable him to jump onto a small filling cabinet and then leap out of an unsecured window, bounce of a flag pole and land safely in the university duck pond. Without a second thought he put his plan into action and before the admissions officer could say another word, Mikhail had made his escape.
Dinner was a sad affair. His parents tried to cheer him up with their exciting (and lurid) tales of their past careers as time-agents.
“Don’t worry son. You can join the Time Agency just like your mother and I did.” explained his father.
“I know you had a great time in the Agency pop, but I really don’t think it is for me.” explained Mikhail.
“You’ll come round eventually.” said his mom.
“He’ll have to, if we are to close this infernally confusing time loop we are stuck in.” said his father with a resigned tone.
“Well, you can’t stay here,” explained his mom, frowning. “The People’s Social Revolutionary Justice Party will be looking for you now. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find yourself in a re-education camp learning the speeches of Hillary Clinton off by heart.”
“I need to get off planet ASAP.” said Mikhail.
“Well in that case I have good news!” said his father in a more cheery tone. “I received a letter just this morning from your uncle Jubal who lives on the libertarian colony on the moon. He needs somebody with a good head for engineering to help him take cargo to one of the outer space colonies.”
“That could be the chance I’m looking for!” exclaimed Mikhail.
The Moon. Home to a million souls. Mavericks, renegades, individualists, people who knew their own minds and minded their own business. The Moon. A promise in the sky for all of humanity. Bright and shining a light outwards in the long night of social-justice oppression on Earth. The Moon, a tiny world of extremes, dust and the gateway to space.
“Mikhail, my boy!” cried Uncle Jubal as Mikhail stepped off the shuttle.
“Uncle Jubal!” said Mikhail as he hoisted his duffel bag onto his shoulder.
“My spaceship is just over here. I live on board to save on rent.” explained Uncle Jubal as they walked over to an old but solid looking cargo-hauler.
“So, Uncle, Pop said you have an amazing mission planned. Tell me all about it!” said Mikhail, his eyes bright with dreams of space adventure.
“You are one lucky young man!” enthused Uncle Jubal, “I am planning on making a run to Beta-Carotene 3. We’ll take much needed supplies to a human colony but with clever planning we will be way ahead of all the competition!”
“Aren’t you afraid of space-pirates Uncle?” asked M
ikhail.
“Well the economists say that as a system interstellar trade is an economic absurdity then it naturally follows that there can be no profit in a system of interstellar piracy and hence without any substantial financial motive there is no endemic piracy at all. Now factor in the huge vastness of space and the impossibility of one spaceship finding another AND that if it did it would be expensive and difficult physically for one space ship to change course and intercept another AND that an approaching spaceship would have no effective way of sneaking up another, then apparently, space piracy is an all round physical, economical and practical absurdity. But I don’t let those eggheads confuse me, my lad. We may well run into space pirates and hence I keep a handy revolver under my bed.”
“I see,” said Mikhail a tiny bit perturbed. “So what is the plan.”
“Well, we will be heading off to Beta-Carotene 3 well before any other cargo-hauler thinks to even attempt to travel there. Being the very first ship to fly there we will have a head start on everybody.”
“I don’t understand. The first ship? Surely the colony ships were the first ships to fly there?”
“That’s the genius of the plan my boy! We set off years before any colony ships even think of going to Beta Carotene 3.”
“That makes no sense. There won’t be a colony there when we arrive.”
“Don’t worry about that. You see space drive technology is improving exponentially. We will head off in this ship but while we are travelling, spaceships in general will be getting faster. So, long before we get to the system, new much faster colony ships will have set off at higher speeds and will get there before us!”
“But, won’t we have to be in space for a long time for technology to improve that much?”
“Beta Carotene 3 is hundreds of light years away. The trip is going to take us at least a hundred and fifty years.”
“But we’ll be dead by then!”
“No, no. While we are travelling advances in anti-ageing will be taking place back here on Earth. We’ll receive transmissions from Earth with plans for anti-ageing technology which we will implement thus extending our life spans and enabling us to make the journey. Not to mention we will also be retrofitting the ship with new faster engines as we go. That’s why I need a brilliant and flexible thinking engineer on board.”
“With all due respect Uncle Jubal but you are a deluded and dangerous idiot.” said Mikhail picking up his duffel.
“Now just hold there nephew. You think this will fail because you’ve lost your faith in humanity down there on Earth. Up here on the Moon we still have the old pioneer spirit. Pioneers don’t just give up - they can’t because giving up is never a viable option and failure is something that we cannot tolerate if we want to live free and independent. Pioneers do the work that needs to get done and they do it before it needs to get done. And they do that because they are working to make a better place for people like you Mikhail. We are doing it for the next generation of pioneers, not for ourselves. The people back on Earth have suppressed that pioneer spirit because pioneers desire and understand liberty and the alternative is tyranny and that is exactly what you’ve ended up with.”
Mikhail nodded. He had let his scepticism overwhelm his sense of destiny. He put down his duffel back and shook his Uncle Jubal’s hand.
“To space!” cried Uncle Jubal launching the cargo-hauler.
And sure enough they did have many adventures in space including one with a mutant walrus with a bazooka and also some space pirates and maybe a space squid. Which is a better ending than the one Camestros suggested where they are both found as emaciated frozen corpses in orbit around the Moon.