(Photo by RF ._. studio)

Sigurd, it turned out, was Chester’s ticket to finally getting the chemicals he needed. He didn’t work directly in the lunar mining, manufacturing, or refining facilities, but it was his job to coordinate between them, making sure there were enough raw materials to go around while they all waited for the next resupply.

“I’ve set up their schedules and limited the amounts they’re each allowed to take,” Sigurd explained to Chester. “Refining will be the heaviest user of the chemicals you want. They have a three hour window every other day when they can use up to fifteen kilograms of chemicals. As soon as they open the valves on their end, you send the signal to activate the valves Vinay has installed. As long as you don’t take more than five to ten percent of what Refining took, I doubt anyone will notice.”

“That would only get me around a kilogram at most,” Chester muttered, “but it’s a start. Enough to begin experimenting with, anyway.”

“You’ll still need to wait for Vinay to be sent back into the chemical storage to do inspections before you could collect the chemicals,” Sigurd reminded him. “By then your chemical canisters should be full.”

“Right,” Chester nodded and rubbed his face. He was tired and needed to get to bed but he was too eager to sleep currently, now that there was an answer to this problem. “Is there a way to get Vinay back in there sooner rather than later?”

“I could volunteer to go,” Vinay said, “but I don’t know if that would raise suspicions. People here don’t usually swap assignments so I’d need a reason to do that.”

“What if the person who was supposed to go do it wasn’t able to go?” Chester asked.

“I think the supervisors handle those situations.”

“And when are you next scheduled to inspect the chemical storage?”

“No one’s scheduled to go in until after the resupply,” Vinay said, making Chester scowl.

“That’s too long to wait,” Chester said.

“He could just lie and say he thinks he forgot something in there,” Siffronia chimed in.

It was rare for her to speak up and it took Chester a moment to recall who she was. Most of his other drones were more proactive and spoke up during these discussions but not Siffronia. Unlike the other drones, she’d been moved from one job to the next in the colony. Currently she was helping to maintain the computer networks throughout the colony, performing maintenance and doing visual inspections for damaged wiring from rodents.

“That could work,” Vinay agreed with Siffronia. “I could go in real quick, grab the canisters, and be out in just a few minutes. I could even do it on my way back to the hab after my shift so I could have my tool bag with me.”

“Alright, do that once we’ve collected enough of each chemical to begin experimenting,” Chester said, and then added, “I think I can finally get to sleep now.”

He stretched and the neural connections went quiet.

Next week he should have enough, if Sigurd’s plan works out. That would only give him a week to experiment but it was better than nothing. He would be cutting it close if he wanted to be ready to get off the moon as soon as the port reopened but that would have to do.

As he drifted off to sleep, he could hear the faintest hints of scratching on the other side of the wall. His mice were more active than usual. They couldn’t know what was about to happen to them, but he imagined they were getting anxious being cooped up in the wall for so long. They were running out of room as it was.

Soon they would have plenty of room.