Page 64 of The Lottery

The door opens, she lingers in my vision a moment more, then strolls through and moves toward her suite.

I allow myself just a few seconds more of basking in this feeling of near-crippling adoration for the woman who just walked away, then let the left side of my brain take control.

I am the leader of a crashed ship on an alien planet.

One hundred and eighty people are under my care and require my attention and coordination. We have landed on our new planet under less than optimal circumstances and there is much that needs to be done before this will truly feel like home.The ship was meant to be a hotel for the next few weeks, and it will still have to serve as such, but in a much more limited capacity.

In addition, our cargo container could be a hundred kilometers away. It might be closer, but I need to prepare for the worst. We can manage without it, but only if preparations begin immediately. If we delay, provisions will be depleted far too quickly.

And… a woman is dead.

Already I have failed at keeping my people safe.

I would never imagine myself as the owner of our little colony, nor would I claim this as my fiefdom, but these are indeed my people. This is my society, for better and worse. I take it upon myself to make sure we succeed in surviving, and any lives lost count as a failure by me and me alone.

I strip out of my tuxedo and put on clothing more conducive to work--jeans and a blue cotton shirt. I trust the integrity of the ship has withstood the crash—but the people within might need more help.

The gravity lifts still work fine, with numerous generators providing backup power even if primary engines and power systems on level two have gone offline. Elspeth and I would never tell the passengers or crew as much, but a crash landing was always a strong possibility. With the financiers requesting a flying hotel for their voyage instead of a proper space shuttle, we quietly expected reentry to be a bit dangerous. All things considered, Elspeth did her job perfectly.

Now we play the hand dealt to us.

On the bridge, one crew member sits on the floor with a bloodied towel held to his head. Everyone seems a little flustered but otherwise healthy. Elspeth, bless her soul, is propped up against her command console about fifteen feet away from her wheelchair.

“Don’t even think of helping me to my seat, Marek,” she says the moment she sees me. “I can reach my controls from here just fine.”

“Understood,” I say with a grin. Our captain has never needed anyone’s help, and a little crash landing on Mars is unlikely to change that.

“Is everyone okay?” Elspeth asks. Like me, she assumes an enormous amount of responsibility for the safety of our passengers.

“One woman, a passenger, failed to reach a harness in time,” I say, averting my eyes from Elspeth’s stare, feeling a surge of shame that I have to report such a tragedy.

Elspeth stares at me in silence for a moment, then quickly pounds her fist on the floor before immediately regaining her composure. “She’ll need a burial, some sort of ceremony. Sooner than later.”

I nod in agreement. Sadness and regret first hit me when Metis delivered the news, but now I feel something greater. Even though I knew nothing about Ms. Larsen beyond her Lottery profile, there is a profoundness to her loss. She was one of our few citizens. Her life was part of our hope for the future. A unique thread in the tapestry that we are weaving.

This catastrophe makes something abundantly clear: there will be more deaths, and each will be unspeakably tragic. In this little pocket of the universe, we will be forced to feel it all. To bear witness in visceral detail to the impact our actions have on the community.

“What else?” Elspeth asks, eager to break free from the somber silence and move ahead. We have no time to dwell, especially if others sustained injuries Metis has not yet detected. I also have an intense yearning to get myself down to the fourth floor. Each second out of Azalea’s presence is an hour too many.

“This is my first stop,” I respond. “Beyond Metis’ report that all is in mostly working order, I know no more than you.” I pause. “We must find a place to exit the vessel. No more bay doors on the cargo level… so we use the single doors along the crew level, correct?”

Elspeth reaches up to the control console and pulls herself up. She is impressively strong for a woman in her seventies, and I find myself staring hard enough that she takes notice.

“Think I’ve never done a pull-up? Stop gawking and get me my chair.”

I do as she says, eternally grateful for her talents and humor.

“Our starboard side hit first, which is either good or bad,” she explains. “Bad if the main door crumpled in on itself, good if our maintenance exit is close to the ground.”

“And if the main door is inoperable?”

Elspeth shrugs. “You’ll have to repel down from another level, a hundred meters above the ground. Then you’ll have to figure out a way to extract people like me.”

“You are one of a kind, Captain Millard,” I respond as I start toward the door. “And the only person I would repel for a second time.”

Even though I speak in jest, my mind flashes to Azalea. I would climb the circumference of the planet if she asked it.

“I will gather passengers on level four,” I call over my shoulder as I step toward the lift. “Please have the crew prepare for exit, and let them know they are about to get invaded by a bunch of frightened billionaires and Lottery winners.”

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