Character Spotlight — Avery Clarke

Char­ac­ter Spot­light – Avery Clarke

Moon Dis­patch

The Luna­dyne man at the new sta­tion who tells arriv­ing inde­pen­dents that the facility’s needs come first, and not to be in a hurry.

Moon deputy hard sci­ence fic­tion from the trails around Con­rad Station.

He meets them at the new sta­tion, not on the trails. Avery Clarke is the Luna­dyne man already there when the inde­pen­dents come through the lock. The facility’s needs come first. Do not be in a hur­ry. That is the sen­tence. He does not walk them to a claim. He tells them the rules of the sta­tion, and then he fin­ish­es his shift.

Who They Are

Clarke is the lead­ing fig­ure of the station’s found­ing peri­od. He over­sees the orig­i­nal build. Four habi­tats. He gets them pres­sur­ized and run­ning. Hab A will become the social core, Hab B the liv­ing quar­ters, and Hab C the sup­port sys­tems. Hab D is part of the same con­struc­tion and nev­er receives a pub­lic func­tion. They sim­ply set it apart. Nils Carmike is told, ear­ly and clear­ly, to stay out of it.

The pres­sure is the sta­tion itself. A new facil­i­ty on the Ocean of Storms does not run on the sched­ule of men who just arrived with their own plans. Pow­er, air, water, the locks — those are Lunadyne’s before they are anyone’s. Inde­pen­dents want to move. Clarke’s rule is that they wait. The com­pa­ny eats first. He lives by the sen­tence he gives them, and by the cal­en­dar of his own shift. When the ini­tial shift ends, he leaves. He nev­er returns.

Across the Sequence

In The Luna­dyne Inci­dent and Oth­er Sto­ries, he is already gone. The sta­tion is up. The orig­i­nal four habi­tats are a giv­en. What is on stage is the result: a restrict­ed Hab D, a social core that will hold Alex’s Bar, and inde­pen­dents who have learned, or not learned, that the facility’s needs come before their hur­ry. Clarke him­self is the shad­ow of the found­ing. The paper trail goes qui­et after he leaves. No one offi­cial­ly con­nects his depar­ture to Hab D’s restrict­ed sta­tus. The coin­ci­dence keeps sur­fac­ing when­ev­er peo­ple dis­cuss the ear­ly days.

In Thun­der Moon Tus­sle, he is not in the room. The rule is. Prospec­tors still move on a sta­tion that was built for Luna­dyne at first. Nils and Milt work the trails as inde­pen­dents because the com­pa­ny seat would nev­er be theirs on their sched­ule. The facil­i­ty still eats first. Clarke stat­ed a pri­or­i­ty at the lock and then left it behind, so they nego­ti­at­ed water, pow­er, and a place to park a crawler based on that.

In Mask of the Joy­ful Moon, he is a name in the found­ing, if he is a name at all. Gen Miller inher­its a sta­tion whose orig­i­nal four habi­tats are still the bones under the station’s growth. Hab D is still the one peo­ple walk past. The com­pa­ny still sets the pace. Mason inter­ests and Luna­dyne argu­ments sit on top of a facil­i­ty that was pres­sur­ized under a man who told arrivals not to be in a hur­ry, and who did not stay to see what they did with the time.

If asked, Nils prob­a­bly knew why Hab D had a spe­cial sta­tus. He sur­mised that in the ear­ly days, Conrad’s lifeblood came from one thing — water. Keep­ing a prospec­tor — an inde­pen­dent that was not part of Luna­dyne — away from the water was a way of assert­ing a rule that kept Hab D as the heart of the station.

The Longer Shadow

What the sta­tion inher­its is the sen­tence. The facility’s needs come first. Do not be in a hur­ry. Inde­pen­dents inher­it a Moon where their claims, their crawlers, and their tabs are down­stream of air, water, and pow­er that the com­pa­ny already holds. Nils inher­its the instruc­tion to stay out of Hab D, and a life­time of work­ing around a pri­or­i­ty he did not set. Lat­er deputies inher­it a sta­tion whose found­ing shift end­ed and did not come back. The doors Clarke left are still there. Most peo­ple still walk past them with­out slow­ing down.

Avery took what­ev­er answers he had with him when he returned to Earth.

When the com­pa­ny still eats first, who is allowed to be in a hurry?

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Fur­ther Reading

• The Luna­dyne Inci­dent and Oth­er Stories
• Thun­der Moon Tussle
• Mask of the Joy­ful Moon
• Relat­ed site posts: Lore & Secrets — Hab D, Fron­tier Foun­da­tions — Gor­donville, Char­ac­ter Spot­light — Nils Carmike, Char­ac­ter Spot­light — Sher­iff Del Anderson

The Joy­ful Moon is still watching…

and the com­pa­ny still eats first.

— Torn MacAlester

Still rid­ing the trails with Nils, Gen, and the whole Fab­u­lae Lunae crew

🚀🌕