Moonlight is a Burning Light

The ground was so hot that Ronnie’s shoes were smoking, and his leather soles as black as charcoal. Regular rubber-soled boots would have melted like a Nazi in an Indian Jones Movie. He had to keep moving and doing his modified version of the Hokey-Pokey or suffer shoe ignition and have to body roll his way over the freshly cooled lava.

He and his companion Phillip were gathering fresh lava samples, cracking through the crust with a puny claw hammer, pulling out viscous, glowing molten rock like it was soft serve ice cream. They tossed the samples into a bucket of water where they sputtered deadly gasses and angry steam; threatening to shatter into shards of razor-sharp, fiery hot shrapnel.

The lava still inside the crater, fresh from the earth’s core, bubbled and churned like a hellish lava lamp, the sluggish movements masking the danger. But searing death was all around, and neither Ronnie nor Phillip could last more that half an hour in their silver reflecting suits, sweat trickling down their bodies and filling their boots with putrid man juice.

Fifteen minutes there and fifteen minutes back. Then hunker down for a moment behind the steel heat shield and hopscotch from shield to shield and off the crater. They could manage two or possibly three trips per day, but always had to take the following day off to recover. Going at night was much cooler, but sweat-filled eyes worked poorly in the dark, upping the risk of injury.

They were graduate students, spending an obligatory year collecting and analyzing the samples. The volcano was on a Hawaiian island so new it was only rock and a research station. The sun glinting over the ropey obsidian made things unbearably hot. The job of collecting lava samples was like walking on the sun and retreating to Mercury to cool off.

There was tantalizing ocean all around, but the razor-sharp glass-shard beach of lava chips could cut through Kevlar, so swimming was impossible. The station was a temporary building set up by NASA. It was a test living quarters for Mars, although it amounted to little more than a high-tech yurt. Propane-fired generators kept the air conditioners running.

Once researchers were free of the heat blast from the volcano, they would unzip their suits to dry off before reaching the station, looking like half-skinned animals. The lava buckets were equipped with GPS and as the students dumped their samples into collection bins, each was time stamped and the specific location noted. Ronnie did the minimum, at least two samples from two locations. Phillip did his best to cover as much ground as possible and usually returned with at least four samples.

Showers were set up outside to wash away the pickling juices built up from their hikes. Inside the station it was dark and cool, and the researchers wore fresh bathrobes, looking like Hugh Hefner wandering the catacombs of the Playboy Mansion. Everyone had long ago stopped asking about the conditions outside or making any jokes about the heat. Their dreams of academic glory had been reduced to gathering lava turds in blast furnace conditions. But if they completed their year in hell, grant money would fund them for years to come in comfortable, ivy covered laboratories. Many did not complete the year. Supplies arrived by helicopter each week, and about eighty percent to the students would fly back early and face academic shame rather than spend another day on the worst island on earth. The station had room for four, but since someone was always either coming or going, usually only had three people. One person stayed behind in case anything went wrong on a survey and had to call for help.

Phillip and Ronnie had arrived at the same time, so felt more competitive pressure than most of the graduate students. They had been on the island for ten months and had stocked an impressive number of samples, Phillip more so than Ronnie. The third student was Lily, who had only been there a month yet seemed much more tolerant of the heat than the men, and still had an upbeat sense of adventure about her time in the hell yurt. This made Phillip and Ronnie all the more determined to finish their twelve months.
All the students had to check in daily with the University, to upload environmental data and make sure everyone was still alive and willing to stay. The students gathered around the computer for their Skype session, and were told that the foundation funding the grants had made a slight change to the research criteria. To be sure their money was being spent wisely, they had added a merit component to the students’ field study requirement.

“What do you mean merit?” asked Ronnie.

“They’re going to look at the quality, quantity and variety of the samples you collect. If you don’t measure up, then you don’t get the grant money,” Professor Henderson said flatly.

“They can’t change the rules in the middle of things. That’s totally unfair. How can they do that?” Ronnie protested.

“They did. Good luck. Henderson out.”

“Fuck fuck fuck!” exclaimed Ronnie. “I’m fucked. Ten months for nothing!”

“It’s bullshit, man. Total bullshit,” said Phillip.

“Fuck you Phillip, you fucking brownnoser! You know I’ll never catch up! God Dammit! Just two more months and I’d be free!”

“Hey, nobody told you slack off Ronnie. That was your own idea.”

“Maybe you could let Ronnie catch up, so you’d both have the same,” suggested Lily. “Then you would both get the grant.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea,” said Ronnie. “Even Steven. Then they’d have to fund both of us.”

“Or neither of us. You think I’m going to just stop collecting samples so you can catch up?” asked Phillip.

“No, just collect one or two and give me all the rest of your samples for the next two months. I’ll work my ass off and catch up!” Ronnie said.

“What fucking planet do you think you’re on?” asked Phillip “There is no possible way I would help you. Partly because you just insulted me, and mostly because you’re a slacker and an asshole.”

“I’ll help you,” said Lily. “I can get enough samples to meet my minimum and for you to catch up.”

“Why are you helping this prick? It’s his own fault he’s behind, and he’ll be a lousy researcher. He’s just trying to coast, and isn’t serious about the work we’re doing!” Phillip said.

“He made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean his whole career should be destroyed. We should help him. If we don’t we’re as bad as he is, and maybe he can learn from our example.” Lily offered. “Sleep on it, and see how you feel in the morning.”

The next day, Ronnie was gone before Phillip and Lily had woken.  He had been making lava runs in the moonlight, hiding extra collection buckets behind the shield. Phillip suited up and saw Ronnie making clumsy runs at the shimmering lava, stumbling from heat exhaustion. Phillip caught up with him at the heat shield.

“You have to stop. You’re going to kill yourself.” Phillip yelled from inside his suit.

“You’re right, I’ve been an asshole. I’ve dragged my feet through this whole thing and planned to coast once I finished. But that stupid Lily got to me. I have to try.” Ronnie said.

“You have to go back, you’re done for today.” Phillip pointed to the three buckets filled with samples.”

“One more run!” Ronnie grabbed his empty bucket and ran back onto the lava flow. Phillip followed close behind.

Ronnie did his usual hot foot dance, shifting back and forth, but as he leaned to scoop up a sample the crust gave out under his left foot. His boot caught fire and he screamed in pain. Phillip heard him, and saw Ronnie’s foot sinking into the molten rock. He dropped his bucket, ran to Ronnie and grabbed onto him.

“Hold onto me!” Phillip yelled as he pulled on Ronnie they looked like two silver gum wrappers dancing on a hotplate.

Ronnie kept screaming, “my foot! I’m going to lose my foot!”

Phillip yanked Ronnie free but stumbled backward landing ass first on the blackened crust. He felt it crack and froze, laying still, the heat stinging through his suit like a million fiery hornets, but the crust held. Ronnie leaned over to help Phillip, and as he sat up the crust under his ass gave way and he was instantly up to his armpits in angry red magma. Ronnie pulled and pulled with Phillip screaming like a man on fire, which of course he was. But the suction held him, and he was burned to ash in under a minute. Phillip staggered back to the shield, then fumbled his way back to the station leaving all his samples behind. He went into the yurt, his suit still hanging off of him, looking like a lobster in the process of shedding a skin.

“What happened? Where’s Phillip?”

Ronnie fell to his knees, “There was an accident. He’s gone.”

Lily’s eyes widened. She covered her mouth and slowly backed away from Ronnie.

“I tried to help him, but it was too much. I couldn’t get him out,” Ronnie started sobbing.

Lily stared at Ronnie for a long while, and then said as calmly as her shaking voice was able “I’m going to call for help. You better lie down, and drink some water.”

She went to the computer and clicked on the Skype app, watching the pinwheel spin as it activated the satellite connection. She felt her head suddenly go sideways, and was on the ground, then felt two more blows to the head. Ronnie shut off the computer, put Lily in a suit, took her to the crater and tossed her in.

Back at the station he dumped his samples in the collection bin, showered, put on his robe and reassigned Phillip’s lava samples to himself. He put his silver suit halfway on, messed his hair and made himself cry. Then he contacted Professor Henderson.

“There’s been a terrible accident,” he sobbed.