Borgina read through the schedule, setting up reminders at every point necessary. Since one day on MoonEx was literally fourteen Earth days, the concept of day and night as Nathan knew it was gone. The Ruling Council designed a time frame to split that time into 'manageable pockets'. That's what they called it but quite frankly, there was nothing manageable about those pockets. Each one was nineteen hours long, accompanied by a five hour 'lights out'. That meant everyone had to stay up for nineteen hours daily, only to have five short hours of sleep afterwards.
When Colonel Ford first ordered everyone to get used to the timing on MoonEx, Nathan thought he was being ridiculous. Everyone knew the human body required six hours of sleep daily for optimum performance. However, the documentation stated that the colony could not have everyone 'sleeping off useful hours' when there was a lot of work to be done to enable the colony support everyone living in it. Nathan ignored it for the most part, sleeping whenever he felt like it but it seemed that decision had come back to bite him.
In the schedule Borgina read out, every one of those eighteen hours was scheduled for activities ranging from gardening to water extraction. Any time without a survival campaign activity was scheduled for eating, taking a shower and getting the preventive shots. That meant he had to take time out of the five hours scheduled for sleeping, if he wanted to do any illegal snooping.
"This is so unfair." Nathan blurted out.
"Would you prefer to run out of resources and die?" Borgina asked.
It was a harsh question but Nathan knew she meant well. He also knew he would feel even worse if he found out he was doing all of this for somebody else's selfish interest. The answers he sought were very important and he had to do whatever was necessary to get to them.
"I'd take two hours off the lights out twice weekly to search for the answers I need." He announced to Borgina.
"Earth or MoonEx week?" She asked.
"I mean twice every seven manageable pockets." He replied.
"Sounds fair." She stated. "Week is a much better term than manageable pocket though."
They both laughed.
YOU ARE READING
MINE
Science FictionOne million years into the future, a young man stumbles upon the truth about the destruction of humanity's first home, Earth. But did he really? Nathan Ross is one of the few thousand survivors of the disaster that will- forever remain in the hearts...
