Bubba Less, christened Bertrand Ferdinand Morrison Less, 46 years ago on good old planet Earth is not a happy colonist. His spacesuit smells like old farts and sweat, and the moment the airlock door opened his nose started itching. There is no way in hell that you can scratch your nose when wearing a space suit.

Bubba, known as Bubbs to friend and foe alike, woke to various alarms sounding and flashing. He is always on call. The irrigation system in the east fields is plugged again, the third time in as many days. The blockage appears to be outside the domes adding to his irritation. Working outside with a standard issue pressure suit is the worst!

He must unscrew and manipulate a bunch of valves and pipes wearing gloves that resemble oven mitts. It is infuriating! The fucking HOA is too damn cheap to provide those newer, lighter and off course more expensive suits used by the security team. With those suits you regain the dexterity of your hands because those use mech assisted gloves with individual fucking fingers!

Bubbs sighs loudly and immediately regrets it when the inside of his face shield fogs up. The Habitat Operator’s Association allotted these cheap ass suits to the maintenance crews, and so far, have remained completely dismissive of the numerous complaints about its impracticality. As far as they are concerned the maintenance gets done so all is fine. Of course the maintenance gets done! If neglected all their lives are in jeopardy!

The next HOA meeting is in a few days and Bubbs resolves to bring the matter to their attention again. The current HOA is due for reelection in a few months, and he will remind them of the percentage of the vote held by the maintenance crews and their spouses. Everyone here has a say in who they want to represent them!

The shield clears up and Bubbs uses the controls on his chest to adjusts the nose and mouth shield to cover his breathing more completely. These stupid chest controls are another aspect of the suits that cause difficulty. Maintenance work requires crawling and climbing, often in close quarters, and it is very easy to rub or bump the controls, causing unwanted adjustments. Bubbs push these thoughts from his mind, it’s time to get to work, and he pilots the buggy towards the blinking dots visible on his heads-up display.

***

Planet HAD35 is a mars sized body orbiting a sun comparable to Sol in size and energy. Hades, as it is colloquially known, floats inside the Goldilocks zone of its sun, but is a barren world, a proverbial blank canvas. It was chosen because it has lots of subterranean water making terraforming possible.

Bubbs and his partner Barbara live and work in one of twelve habitats scattered across the equator of this brown world. He is well aware that people refer to them as Babs and Bubbs, or even double B!

Babs is a horticulturist, and she often comes home with dirt under her nails and in her hair, smelling like earth. Bubbs love that about her. She is fiercely smart with a cracking sense of humor and a body to die for. They do not have kids, and they never will. Sterilization was a requirement to join the ranks. There is much to be done to Hades before there will be children. The first few generations of offspring will come from carefully selected frozen eggs and sperm brought from Earth, carried to term by surrogates.

Bubbs is not an astronaut. You need a science-based master’s degree and years of training to become an astronaut. Bubbs is what astronauts call an ‘asternaut’, a derogatory term used for someone that is not a scientist and passed the most basic physical exam. Asternauts are blue collar astronauts, hired for their needed skills to keep these habitats maintained. Bubbs is not bothered by this, he has long ago learned that people act like shitheads on all levels. From cleaning staff to boardrooms, there are always assholes present.

***

The obstruction in the water supply is easily found. There are digital pressure sensors all along the pipeline, spaced at half mile intervals. When all is well, they all show green, and at night the crisscross of green lines is quite a beautiful scene. Bubbs parks the buggy at the first red sensor he sees and takes a second to admire the rows of domes that fill the valley.

Those domes are his wife’s domain, each dome filled with trees and plants that will one day cover the planet. That is still decades away, the algae pools are just now ready to come online, and just like on Mother Earth, most of the oxygen will come from these single-cell organisms.

Bubbs sighs heavily and this time his visor remains clear. Before long, this pristine planet will be a single giant habitat for humanity and serve as a steppingstone for homo sapience to spread further into the universe. The thought of all the assholes who will accompany those settlers and undoubtedly set the tone makes Bubbs cringe. ‘Can’t be helped’, he mutters to himself while he unbuckles himself from the driver’s seat. He is only here because of his wife. He will follow her anywhere!

***

The need to manually remove obstructions from water supply lines was expected and planned for when the pipelines were designed. Bubbs plugs his suit into the datalink that runs the length of the line and accesses the application that monitors and controls the pipelines. The system already shut one valve further upstream, and one downstream to effectively isolate the obstruction. Bubbs enters his id number on the line and selects ‘clear obstacle’ as the task he is about to perform.

The downstream habitats will be fine for days, water is stored in massive tanks. The engineers thought of everything. With his id and task entered in the system, Bubbs disconnects from the datalink and returns to the buggy to fetch his equipment.

***

Removing obstacles is relatively simple for someone with the proper equipment and skill. The automated system locates and isolates the blockage, and all that remains is to cut open the line, remove the mass that is causing the obstruction and then install a door on the line that can be used later to access the pipe again if needed.

Bubbs have cleared many obstacles from many different lines. These lines are susceptible to the buildup of sediment that eventually forms a plug, just like plaque in human arteries! The sediment is always collected to study, and this is the only messy part of the job.

He welds a pressure release valve body onto the pipe, installs a new bit in a drill, then screws the drill into the body. The drill is designed to fit perfectly in the place where the actual valve would go, and it will make a two-inch hole in the pipe wall. Once this is done a secondary valve on the freshly installed valve body is turned to release the pressure from this section of the pipe.

It takes two hours to complete this crucial step. Two frustrating hours dealing with oven mitts for gloves! With a better suit he could have been done in half the time! Once the pressure is released it takes another hour to cut an eighteen-inch round opening in the waterline around the release valve he just installed.

Bubbs uses the buggy’s crane to swing the pipe cleaner into place. It is a coiled steel cable that will be fed into the pipe and forced through the obstruction. Once through, thick metal fingers will extend from the tip creating a very rigid pipe cleaner. This cleaner will rotate as it is pulled back, loosening and dragging the sediment out. It usually takes just a few passes to get the pipe squeaky clean.

The cable uncoils and moves into the pipe easily, and Bubbs watches the camera feed on his HUD. He can see the blockage ahead, and when the cable reaches it, the electric motor pushing it along whines a little louder in protest to the sudden resistance. Eventually the steel cable pushes through, and the extraction begins. This mass of sediment and debris comes along easily, and when it reaches the opening in the pipe Bubbs can see why. At the end of the line there is a body, folded at the waste with its head and feet pointing upstream.

It is not a human body. Humans do not have beaver tails. The spinning brush did a number on the bodies’ limbs, but the head is unscathed. Not human, but not entirely fish, or animal. There is a prominent backbone, buttocks, neck, head and torso with limbs and tail attached. It is humanoid, but not human. It has no eyes, and the top of the head looks like it has four petals, like that on a closed seed pod. Hades is supposed to be void of life, and on the surface it certainly was. This thing came from the subterranean ocean.

Bubbs loads the body and the rest of the debris into the bed of the buggy, then makes two more passes to be certain the line is clear in both directions. With the pipe cleaner stowed he used the crane and swings a new trapdoor into place that he welds into the hole he cut earlier. He checks the weld with a handheld device that uses x-rays to detect weak welds and finds it satisfactory. He indicates completion of his task on the system, and the automated system floods the now clean section of pipe and starts a timer to monitor the pressure for the next 30 minutes.

Bubbs must remain at the site until the system reports all clear. He is not worried; he does his job well and this weld is as good as any he has ever done. He does worry about the thing in the buggy. What is it? What does its presence mean? What will happen to him, Bubbs? Surely the authorities would want to keep this quiet for a while, and since he knows he might be considered a possible leak.

As a precaution Bubbs uses the helmet mounted camera on his suit and records video of the being from all angles. These older suits still have auxiliary storage, and Bubbs often uses it to make videos of his work for Barbara. Fucking ancient suit has one good attribute at least! When the line flashes green and his HUD shows he is clear to go with a ding and a green flickering light, Bubbs is already strapped in and ready to return to the habitat.

***

The body causes lots of consternation. Bubbs is summoned before the HOA and basically interrogated. He does not know the answers to their questions and is only concerned about what they will do with him. He does not want to be placed in quarantine or anything like that.

‘You need to be quarantined’, fat Krystal pronounces without looking up from her notes. Bubbs does not understand how this woman maintains her obesity. Hades is a hard place and food is strictly rationed. Maybe it does not apply to HOA members. He again wishes for them all to be voted out of office come the next election.

‘What for?’, Bubbs objects, ‘I was inside a suit the whole time, and after I deposited that thing me and the buggy were both subjected to decontamination’. He leans forward and waits for Krystal to look up, looks her straight in the eye and plays his trump card. ‘Them ancient suits you punish us with has one nice feature. It can store media offline, and I uploaded a detailed video of this thing to my personal storage. If I am not home in the next hour it goes on the general feed, and I made sure to add the date, time and colorful commentary.’ He leans back and smiles, ‘You lot should have upgraded our suits months ago. The new ones cannot do this. This is what you get for being cheap. You always pay more in the end.’

Krystal’s eyes bulged dangerously, and before they burst out of her head, she shouted an obscenity followed by a derogative. ‘Fucking asternaut! Always causing trouble you lot are! You deserve no better than you get. If I had my way all of you will be sent packing!’ She stops for a second, breathing hard, gathering her thoughts, and continues, ‘What do you think will happen when we announce that Hades has life in its oceans, and we sucked one of them up into our water system? The galactic treaty prohibits colonization of inhabited planets! If there is even the slightest hint that these fish fuckers are sentient we are finished, and all we have done is for nothing!’

Bubbs crosses his legs casually, but in his head, he wants to scream right back at her. He does not, she would welcome that, and instead he calmly responds, ‘That is not my concern. My concern is going home tonight. Keep me here and the world learns of this dead alien, leave me be, and they do not. And I am not a fucking asternaut!’

Again, Krystal looks like she wants to explode, but before she manages that the chairman speaks up. ‘There is no reason to subject mister Less to quarantine, Krystal.’ He adjusts his spectacles so he can look over them at her, who has since abandoned her attempt to explode and is now struggling to breathe normally. ‘You are free to go home mister Less. When you get there, please hand the video to one of my associates who will accompany you, and then delete it from your store. I assure you; we will share this information with Earth, but first we need to examine the body you recovered and determine how to maintain our water supply without killing any more of these beings. Until we know more, we will continue like normal. Understood?’

Bubbs smiles broadly, ‘Crystal!’, he responds, earning him a vicious look from Krystal.

***

Bubbs is no fool, he has never trusted anyone with a position of authority. It does not take long for their power to go to their heads and then they use that to their advantage, without regard for those who gave them the power in the first place. His personal media store makes backups, and his backups have backups. The IT guy who accompanied him home removed the original and the backup but missed the backup’s backup! Fuck them, he knows he would need this information later. Fat Krystal has her eyes on him and would love to see him suffer misfortune. She must be upset about the prospect of returning home. There is no way in Hades that she can fit in any spacesuit on this planet in her current condition, and the prospect of losing weight must be terrifying.

Weeks go by and nothing happens. After the incident there was a lot of activity around the submerged pumps, and each intake got a cage around it covered in a fine mesh, presumably to keep larger objects, or bodies out. This had a positive effect on the number of blockages! It is surprising that it was not used earlier. Sometimes spending a little money in one place saves a bundle in other places.

Bubbs was expecting to hear something about the recovered alien, but not a word was to be found anywhere. It looks like the authorities want to keep this quiet forever! Since they believe there are no evidence of this ever happening, and there is little chance of ingesting another body into the water system due to the filters, all they must worry about now is Bubbs, and he is an asternaut, a nobody in their book. He decides to shake the cage and contacts the HOA.

***

Bubbs’ calls were not answered, and he left several voice messages. His email messages are read but not responded to. After a few days of being ignored he emails a snippet of the video to the HOA chairman. His phone rings almost immediately.

‘You were instructed to hand over the video Bubbs’, the chairman sounds petulant. ‘Why did you keep a copy?’ Bubbs can’t believe this man’s gall, ‘Because I knew you lot will not do a thing. You never do! And don’t bother to send someone to my house, I am in the lobby of the broadcast center. This video will be on the air in just a few minutes.’

Bubbs smiles when he hears the chairman shout instructions at someone, to get to the broadcast center asap and collect him and the damning recording. He is not there either. He took one of the buggies to the pipeline where he found the alien. He is plugged into the datalink, and from here he can upload the video if he so chooses.

The HOA chairman returns his attention to the phone, ‘What do you want Bubbs?’ No more ‘mister Less’ anymore. ‘The truth Gerald, nothing more. Were you ever going to tell Earth about this creature? Did you think that you could discredit me if I ever told anyone, now that I no longer had the evidence? Silly old Bubbs, just another asternaut that does not deserve to be here with us on this new world! Is that it Gerald?’ There is no response to this, Gerald must be waiting for him to be grabbed by the people he sent over to the broadcast center. He must have gotten word, ‘Where the fuck are you Bubbs? What are you up to? Don’t share that video, you will ruin us all!’

Bubbs press a key on the terminal he is connected to. It takes a few tries with his mitt covered hands. He added more commentary to the video, explaining what he found and where and when, and detailed the HOA’s response. A recording of this phone call is also attached.

These files went to various radio and TV stations, and to the general feed that goes off planet where anyone who wants to can see it, download it and share it. Like mister Universe from the movie Serenity said, “Can’t stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere. And I go everywhere”.

***

The news of the dead alien spread faster than the flu virus on a spaceship. The real authorities came down hard and fast on the HOA. Every one of them was fired, and Gerald and Krystal were arrested for crimes against a sentient species. It turns out these two shits bribed the medical examiner to bury his report on the creature. It had a brain to rival that of humans, and tools were found on a pouch it had around its waist. The pouch was artfully crafted, and it had symbols on it, suggesting written language. All of this clearly indicated that this was an intelligent species.

Hades was immediately declared unfit for colonization, and almost all the personnel were evacuated. Bubbs and the rest of the ‘asternauts’ were tasked to help with the disassembly of all infrastructure. Since they maintained it for years, they had the most in-depth knowledge of the facilities and pipelines. Barbara and her fellow arborists are also staying to help relocate the millions of plants they grew. The company is trying to salvage as much as it can. This will take decades, and the gig comes with a lavish pension.

***

Bubbs absolutely loves the new space suits that were given to the maintenance crews. Lightweight with mechanical assistance and actual gloves for your hands. The visor never fogs up, and if your nose ever itches it comes equipped with a device that you can use to direct a focused blast of air anywhere on your face!

Life is good on the planet Hades, especially for asternauts!