The Stopping

Third night, the long route out to the agricultural rings, Boll stopped walking. Just stopped, mid-tunnel, cart and all, and stood there facing the observation slit, the little reinforced window where the tunnel passed close to the surface. I said Boll we have a schedule. Boll said, in that flat voice, the dust is moving. And it was, I looked, there was a thin wind out there pushing the red dust across the rocks in long slow curls, the way it does, the way it has done every night I have run this route for nine years and never once looked at. Boll looked at it. I told Boll to move and Boll moved, no argument, androids do not argue. But the next night it stopped again, different spot, a patch of frost on a pipe. And the night after that. It was always something small and always something real and it never made us more than a few minutes late, and I kept meaning to take it back to the lot and get the attention loop wiped, and I kept not doing it.