Some can't tolerate the sound of the metallic organ music piped in through the ducts: The cats all died. They didn't enjoy it.

There is at least a degree of warmth in the caves, and of course oxygen. We sleep on the steel floor. One by one, every few days, we suit up and head out across the airless desert outside. Nobody comes back. The food here is the same brown material day after day, and the water tastes of rust. There is the clanging, and there is the organ music screaming out of the pipes.

Our air tanks aren't large enough to reach anywhere on foot. Nobody knows we're here but the ones who keep us. They left us our vacuum suits. One by one we suit up and head out across the airless desert outside.