Short Story Moon And Planet

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Martin Yugaro was the most annoying, irritating man I ever knew. Somehow, everyone else thought the Sun shone out his backside. So did he. I seemed alone in identifying his endless Narcissism, and petty mindedness for what it was. I was reasonably well to do, and earned every penny the hard way, but I was always seen as the runt of the litter in Martin’s wake. I struggled to establish relationships, while Martin had ladies chasing after him, and though he could hold down a stable relationship, he preferred an endless chain of one night stands (which was what finally destroyed his marriage, with his ex being the only one apart from me to see through the facade). Sadly I had no way to contact her to express my solidarity. I just wished I could gain the independence she attained. Martin made me the brunt of every joke, interrupted my every conversation, and pedantically corrected my every error. He thrived on my casual humiliation. He latched on to me like a barnacle. Many took us for brothers, which he was amused by while I was revolted at the prospect. Martin told his admirers that I was the Watson to his Sherlock Holmes, He saw himself as my guardian and mentor, a role he refused to deny despite my protests. He regarded and treated me like an imbecile foil for him to show off his magnificence around. We went to the same school. I met the preposterous dandy fop there on my first day. Whatever I did, Martin did better and more. I got a B+ he got an A. He beat me in every race in athletics, and always got the lead role in school plays. I was his understudy in a production of Hamlet. I never got to perform. He won awards. I got a job with the Space agency, and finally felt free. I had a potential to get away anywhere in the cosmos. I announced my successful application at one of Martin’s oh so-perfect dinner parties, paid for through his near unlimited inheritance, (the real source of his easy success at all he touched). I thought everyone would be awed and impressed, but they awaited Martin’s reaction. He finished a few grapes and yawned, returning to playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano, and casually congratulated me with; “Well done, boy. Well done. I hope you enjoy your first flight into the void as much as I recently enjoyed my sixteenth.” I had no idea that he had ever been off-Earth. I said a much, and the room erupted in laughter. “Who hasn’t?” he asked. No one admitted they hadn’t flown up in the rockets. I was the last. It was just like the struggle to lose my virginity all over again. Martin had flown on several pleasure flights. He also informed me and his groupies that he was now to be gainfully employed as a CEO for the Ventozi re-colonization. I gasped and shuddered. I was working on that project. Martin was now one of my bosses. Martin had bought his way in to the top, while I was a clean-up-grunt. Ventozi’s colonists had fought themselves into a savage fusion war. The planet that had long been the Paradise Eden of the quadrant had been irradiated for an eon, but finally the radiation had decayed and it was a safe World to visit and inhabit once more. There had been little physical damage to property. The bombs sprayed cobalt and neutrons, but did no physical damage to the buildings. Life, including the flying trees and talking fish had perished. If not for off-world breeders they would now be extinct. The planet had become uninhabitable until the robots could suck the radiations out of the air. Now eighteen millennia later, their work was done. I was appalled at the prospect of working under Martin, however indirectly, as our paths were unlikely to directly cross often, if at all. I stormed off home, knocking myself to sleep with cheap whisky. I woke to find a letter in the post, my duty rotas and orders. I was assigned to the Purple 18th clean-up crew on Teleokh, the main moon of Ventozi. I punched the wall several times in fury. Teleokh! No! The Moon had no atmosphere. It was literally the dumping ground where the robots had piled up the unused war missiles. It wa vital the new colonists did not repeat the mitakes of their predecessors. My job was to maintain robots and check the missiles and launchers were fully decontaminated before disassembling them and ensuring that all their safer useful materials could be shipped down to Ventozi for use in non-military construction duties. I had three days to prepare for transportation to Teleokh, where I would be stationed for six years. I went to Martin’s, finding him in the Jacuzzi slugging cocktails with three naked floozies. He wanted to introduce them but he had no idea what their names were. I told him my plight and grovelling on my knees I begged him a favour, something I never humiliated myself by doing before. I wanted reposting to duties on Ventozi itself. He had the potential to make it happen. He laughed. “Teleokh is the absolute pits. Went there once, for five minutes. Hated it. I’m sure you’ll get used to it though. Be sure to write, and pop down to see us riding the sky trees on their migration South when you get leave.” That was the last time I ever saw him. To cut a long story short, that is why I spent my first months reprogramming the Moon robots to send the fully rearmed and primed missiles back to Ventozi, pointy ends first. It was quite a spectacular fireworks display. So I finally got to go somewhere Martin never went first, Death Row, but I guess it is my own fault that he got to Hell before me. Arthur Chappell