BRUDNOY
They had disconnected all the life-support tubes and wires. Lana Goodman knew she was dying and she was tired of fighting it. She was nothing but a shell of a creature now, fragile, shrivelled, each breath a labor.
Lev Brudnoy sat at her bedside in Moonbase’s tiny infirmary, his expressive face a picture of grief. Behind him stood Jinny Anson, gripping the back of Brudnoy’s chair with white-knuckled intensity.
“You know the one thing I regret?” Goodman’s voice was a harsh, labored whisper.
Brudnoy, tears in his eyes, shook his head.
“I regret that you never made a pass at me, Lev.”
For once in his life, Brudnoy was stunned into silence.
“You came on to just about every other woman in Moon-base,” Goodman wheezed, “except me.”
Brudnoy gulped once and found his voice, “Lovely woman,” he said softly, “I was too much afraid of being rejected. You have always been so far above me…”
Goodman smiled. “We could have had some times together.”
“Never in my wildest fantasies could I hope that you would be interested in a foolish dog like me,” Brudnoy muttered, letting his head sink low.
“You’re a good old dog, Lev. No fool.”
He spread his hands. “I’m nothing but a peasant I spend all my time in the farm now.”
“I know,” Goodman whispered. “The flowers… they cheered me up.”
“The least I could do.”
“I want you to bury me in your farm,” Goodman said.
“Not return to Earth?”
“This is my home. Bury me here. In the farm. Where what’s left of me can do some good.”
Brudnoy turned toward Jinny Anson. “Is that allowed? Is it legal?”
I’m a witness,” Anson said. “I’ll see that the forms are properly filled out.”
“In the farm.” Goodman’s voice was so faint now that Brudnoy had to bend over her emaciated form to hear her. “Always did believe in ecology. Recycle me.”
Then she sighed and closed her eyes. For a moment Brudnoy thought she had fallen asleep. But then the remote sensors started shrilling their single note.
A doctor appeared at the foot of her bed. Brudnoy struggled to his feet, a big lumbering man, weathered but still handsome, slightly paunchy, his shoulders slumped and his hair graying. There seemed to be new lines in his face every year; every day, he sometimes thought. A ragged gray beard covered his chin.
He felt Anson’s hand on his arm as he shambled out of the infirmary, leaving behind its odor of clean sheets and implacable death.
The tunnel was bright and cheerful, by contrast. People strode by as if nothing had happened on the other side of the infirmary’s doors. Young people, Brudnoy realized. All of them younger than I. Even Jinny.
“Well,” he said, trying to straighten up, “now I’m the oldest resident of Moonbase. I suppose I’ll be the next to go.”
Anson smiled up at him. “Not for another hundred years, at least.”
“At least,” Brudnoy murmured.
“Come on, let me buy you a drink. We could both use some rocket juice.”
“You?” Some of the old playfulness sparkled in Brudnoy’s sky-blue eyes. “You, the base director? You speak of illegal alcoholic drinks?”
Anson grinned wickedly at him. “What kind of a director would I be if I didn’t know about the still? Besides, I won’t be director much longer. My relief is due in another two weeks.”
She led Brudnoy to her own quarters, where she uncovered her stash of ‘rocket juice’ a gallon-sized thermos jug she kept under her bunk. She and Brudnoy had shared that bunk more than once; but that was years ago.
Now, as they sat on the springy wire chairs that Anson had made from scrap metal, Brudnoy sipped the homebrew thoughtfully.
“Is it legal?” he asked.
“The booze? Of course not. But as long as people don’t drink during their work shifts, there’s no sense trying to find the still and knock it apart. Damn little else to do for entertainment around here.”
Brudnoy shook his head. “I meant Lana’s request to be buried in the farm.”
Anson said, “As long as I’m in charge here we’ll honor her last request. There’s probably some relatives back Earthside; if they want her they’ll have to get a court order.”