With technical people coming and going pretty much constantly, Autumn Belfontaine was glad that she’d learned early in her broadcast career how to work in chaotic circumstances. Some lines of work, you could count on a nice quiet office to retreat into, but broadcast journalism wasn’t exactly one of them.
At least this set of problems hadn’t disrupted Shepardsport’s connections with Earth. She could still do her usual checks of various TV and radio stations’ websites, searching for patterns of events that someone seemed to be trying to put a cone of silence on at the national and international level.
Not to mention the help that her old colleague Dan was giving her. He seemed to be pretty well plugged into the rumor mill wherever he was, and had picked up some really interesting bits of information. In particular, he’d been a bit of a CB enthusiast long before he decided on radio as a profession, and he still kept a base station at home, albeit only to listen to the truckers on nearby highways.
Autumn had to agree that listening to radio chatter could be interesting — more than a few times she’d gone to websites that allowed a person to listen in on air traffic and space traffic control channels. If nothing else, the jargon was fascinating.
However, Dan’s interest was less in the lingo that had developed over the decades since CB had originally become popular. Instead, he was more interested in what the truckers had to say to one another about travel conditions. These men and women drove thousands of miles every week, crossing the country to deliver critical goods, something that couldn’t be suspended.
Everywhere they were reporting a eerie pall over the cities and towns through which they passed. Stores were closed, even many that should’ve been essential like gas stations and grocery stores. Even where businesses were open, people would keep their distance, as if afraid to get too close to a stranger. Shipments had to be dropped on loading docks and left, and all bills of lading had to be handled in digital format.
The latter was reminiscent of the protocols that had been developed up here to supply the various outlying settlements, especially the small research habitats. The biggest difference was the simple fact that most terresetrial businesses couldn’t just send out a robot to collect what the pilots had dropped off, typically using one of the lander’s robots.
But then again, terrestrial businesses wouldn’t have the additional layer of protection that was provided by the lunar surface environment. If the diablovirus could survive on surfaces, packages dropped off on a loading dock could remain a source of contagion for hours, even days.
Even more concerning was the increasing difficulty truckers were reporting in meeting their basic hygiene needs. Truck stops might be open for them to pump gas, since pay-at-the-pump had been common back when Autumn was still a girl. But more than a few had closed their stores, and with them access to restrooms and showers.
If the truckers were having to resort to makeshift hygiene solutions, how long would it be before those took a toll on their health? Even if they could avoid the diablovirus, getting ill from fecal-borne illnesses or succumbing to skin infections from being unable to shower could take them off the road just as thoroughly. And if too many truckers began falling ill, what would happen to supply chains already strained to the breaking point from the closure of the production facilities?