Steam rose off the boiling pots. He stirred quickly, in the tight, cramped kitchen alcove. Outside echoed the clamoring of hungry grunts, greasy and smelly from patrol duty on the Outside. Rough techno beats rasped out of the anounce speakers. Even here, in Pylon 9, there were artists, he mused. There were some things in the human spirit that you couldn't change. Give some men a shitpile like this and eventually they'd make it a home. How they got time to make music or do anything except work and sleep, he didn't know.This 2x2 meter alcove was his workspace 10 hours a day, and there were few respites from the steady stream of dirty, hungry men and women coming in from their own grueling labors. Perhaps it could even be compared to the mythical place called "Purgatory" he read about in his history books. On Pylon 9, life was indeed like rolling rocks up a hill each day only to see them fall back down each morning. It took all they had just to keep things running till tomorrow, but for that, he felt a fierce pride. Everybody here did what they could. Everybody belonged, was a part of their great struggle to survive on a world that demanded more and more for the right to live that had once been taken for granted. Just think, men had once been masters of this world. But now, it had no masters, except the rocks and sand and sun that could melt the flesh from a person's bones. But we still survived. We would not give up our right to live so easily. And for that, we could be proud.

A shout awakened him from his reverie. A dusty, sun-scorched face stared in at him. 

"Hey, Bono, you sleepin' on the job? Where's the food?"

Her name was Kala, engineer 3rd class. She worked on the struts and cables that kept Pylon 9 anchored to the canyon walls against the constant seismic activity of the tortured earth. Anchors were constantly coming loose and had to be redrilled, replaced, tested. It was a full time job. Rings of sunburn circled her eyes where sunshades and mask failed to protect. Out on the surface, the sun would burn you red in 5 minutes, and kill within an hour. You felt it cut into your unprotected flesh like a red-hot scalpel.

"Me and the crew been waiting here 10 minutes, our break's almost up. Make it snappy, k?"

He nodded quickly. 

"Be right along, miss. Just got to salt the sauce."

"Good! 'Bout time!" 

She ducked out of the cubicle.

He shook his head, stirred the soup, and added salt. They didn't blame him, really. He was a decent cook, and in the cubicle one had little to do except daydream. None of the others wanted his job. The outside, hellish as it was, was at least a change from the claustrophobic metal-and-stone corridors of the Pylon and its associated farming and moisture mining tunnels.

He took out the soup pot, and began to ladle it into the trays of the waiting grunts and engineers. His arrival was greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic noises. It was sympro and worm protein with some chicken boullion and onions, a delicious treat well appreciated. Everyone was getting tired of that chalky-sweet cellulose hydrolysate they'd been putting in everything lately. Alcohol fuel consumption was down, so it might as well be used to feed people, but after a while it gave even a tough gut the runs. Plus, how many different ways can you eat sugary chalk? He'd tried baking it, but real flour was in limited supply. He'd made candy out of it, but nobody likes chalky sweets. Finally, he made ice cream and it was a hit. Everybody liked ice cream after outside duty. Too bad there wasn't so much cream to be had...well, there was always ice and soy, and various flavors could be conjured by the magic of chemistry...

He stood watching them eat. There wasn't much talking. Slowly people filed out of the room in twos and threes with their empty trays, thanking him as they went. 

"Well done, Bono"
"You're a miracle worker, Bono"
"Thanks, man"
"Hey, good meal"

Kala stopped by on her way out.

"Yo, Bono, you're slow but the best I ever tasted. People like you really make the morning worth waking up to. Keep it up, k?"

He nodded. She turned to go, then stopped.

"Say, me and the boys are having a little event down on Tech 2. You look like you could use some R & R. Bring something and I'm sure you'll be accepted..." She winked.

"Uh, I, um, hey...thanks", he managed.

"No problem. We need to see some new faces once in a while, anyway", she grinned, and left, stretching her sore arms to sky as she walked. Without her gear and dirt, she was quite a pretty one, he thought. Then the change of shift buzzer sounded and he had to rush back to the kitchen to work his culinary alchemy for the next clamoring mob of hungry gullets.

* * *

Poor sap, thought Kala. He means well, but is so clueless. He's better than the kitchens, but doesn't seem to realize that his too-good hard work dooms him to be there forever. It's not healthy for a person to live that long without human contact, either. They begin to forget what they live for. And that's what we here need most to remember, when every day is such a struggle. Sometimes he had such a faraway look on his face. Kala worried about him. But he did accept her invitation. Hopefully, it'd be an occasion to remember. There wasn't much chance to party on Pylon 9, so when it happened the stored up tensions exploded like a long-dormant volcano erupting. Quite a sight to behold, and a very good thing the section leaders permitted them. There were times when she thought Pylon 9 might well owe its existence to partying. Humans were such funny creatures sometimes.

She turned a corner and began to descend the ladder to Rec 1/Dorms, where most of the children stayed. Thanks to the intensive effort of the mothers-in-residence, Rec 1 was cleaner and more wholesome-smelling than other decks. The hot metal / grease / human smell was less present, and the air was cooler and moister. Engineering spent more power here to ensure the life of children was slightly less harsh than that of their parents. At age 10 the training began, but they were allowed to return here until their work unit was mobilized and assigned dorm room elsewhere. Still, all adults had their childhood memories of comfort in the carpeted halls of Rec 1, and many would return there from time to time to play with the children and reminisce.

Kala had a child here, her name was Teri, an ancient name, and she was six years old. Her curious gray-blue eyes belonged to her mother, but her wavy brown hair and compact build definitely came from her father, a caver she'd last seen in the moisture mines. They'd met in a canteen on Observation 1 and struck an intense affection over the course of a week, his furlough from mine detail. He'd spoken of the danger, the adventure, the intense boredom and the days that bled into weeks underground, away from sun, seeking doggedly those drops of fresh water that sustained green and life for their precious community. He said the amazing thing was, after awhile underground, you began to think life above was a dream, that it didn't really exist. Images floated before your eyes and you didn't know anymore what was a dream and what was a memory, or if there was even a difference. He said he wanted something to hold onto, a memory strong enough to light the darkness for him. And she consented. 
His last night aboveground, they made love. She, an inexperienced 16 year old. He, an equally inexperienced 30. It was everything they both dreamed it would be. Then, he left. Nine months later, Teri was born. His name was Terens. She didn't see him again.

Kala didn't have much time to take care of Teri, but she visited when ever she could. Very few mothers in Pylon 9 could afford the luxury of personally raising their children, so they covered for each other. Pregnant mothers who couldn't work nursed them and the old people who stayed inside raised the children and tought them. Every child in Pylon 9 had a whole family of mothers and fathers and grammys and grampas. Every one had their favorite, but no child was left alone. And Kala did what she could to be with Teri. Right now, Teri treated her like an older sister, full of awe, peppering her with questions of what it was like on the outside and in the caves, eyes shining with adoration. Thinking of her made Kala's eyes water. Child...memory of past, promise for the future. 

"Kala!" It was a child's voice.

"Kala! You came!" Teri's voice.

"Teri! You're here!" Kala swept her up in a hug. "I missed you!"

"Kala! What was it like?" Teri asked. "Outside..."

"Ah", Kala sighed. She put Teri down and sat. "I've told you a thousand times. You know."

Teri jumped on her lap and looked up into her face. "But how was it this time?" She waited, beaming.

Kala couldn't help but laugh "The same as last time, love! Hot, dry, poisonous, sore, tired, dangerous. We were working to repair number 5 sling to the East Face, where the last time the earth shook some wires got detached. Simi fell but his harness caught him and we took him back inside. He's got a sprained ankle. The earth shook when we were on a line and we lost a wrench, a splicer, and two dozen anchor splints."

Teri's brow wrinkled. "Kala, why does the earth shake?"

"Didn't your grannies tell you?"

She shook her head. Kala knew she just wanted to hear her say it. She missed her big sister.

"Well, Teri, here is an active fault line. The earth rubs here, and when it moves, it shakes"

"But why do we live here?"

"Teri, I know the grannies told you this"

"But I want to hear you tell me!!"

Kala smiled. It was nice to be needed. "Because, my little monkey wrench, here is deep, and not poisonous. The moving of the earth removes the ancient poisons and makes it safe for us to live here. Also, it opens the rock, so we can find water deep beneath the ground without so much digging. For us, these things are so important that they are worth the danger of the earth shaking. Water and no poison are our life. You see, we really are lucky to be here."

Teri smiled. Then she frowned. "But why did the ancient people poison the earth?"

Kala was about to respond, then the lights dimmed. Then the neon yellow earthquake alerts began to flash and wail.

"Teri, get down!"

The earth shook.

Clinging like a spider to its web in a hurricane, Pylon 9 was bounced and shaken mercilessly as though by a giant hand. Rocks fell from the cliffs and bounced off the barrier plating and avalanche nets. Wires snapped with musical twanging and metal and wood parts scattered from where they had been left on the Pylon and the cave mouths. Halfway down the Pylon, a cave mouth belched dust from a cave-in.

5 minutes of pure terror later, it was over.