The Bus Stop

The Mare Nectaris line bus was late, again.

Jac kept his helmet’s visor opaque, watched a video playing on the internal display. He hated waiting at the bus stop alone, especially when the bus was late.

Space was big, of course, but in practical, human terms, Space was small and cramped. Space as humans experienced it was tiny spaceship capsules and low sub-lunar tunnels. It was the smells and sounds of other humans, all the time. On Earth, you could get away and be alone, but in Space, you were never alone.

Except out here.

Out here at the #8943 bus stop two kilometers from the access tunnel to Mine Shaft 587b, it was just him. After sitting here for fifteen minutes, it was not hard to imagine that he was the only being in the universe, and the longer he sat here waiting, the stronger the feeling grew.

Maybe the bus wasn’t coming. Sure, the website he’d check before coming outside said it was on its way, winding the 170km through the cratered landscape from Valhalla Outpost. But anything could have happened. It could have had an accident or maybe the driver was sick or just decided not to come. He could be waiting hours or longer.

Jac cleared his visor and looked around. The moon was eternal and unchanging: there was no weather or seasons or anything to alter the landscape. Time could have stopped while he was sitting here and he would never know.

He started to pace and was seriously thinking of going back to the mine shaft and forgetting about his three days of vacation when there was a change far away. It was a glimmer of light moving up and down through the rock fields, blinking in and out of sight like a rescue beacon.

The central headlight of the bus got closer until the massive metal snake with balloon tires pulled up next to him. Jac stepped up into the bus’s airlock and heard the hiss as air and sound enveloped you.

“Am I glad to see you,” he said to the driver as he stepped out of the airlock and went to find a seat.