Custom Casket Company - The Southern Funeral Director Magazine

It was proposed that Mr. Tseng be cremated at the
refinery on Luna, and then his remains transported
back to Earth. It was hoped that the decreased weight
would make returning Mr. Tseng’s remains to his
family more palatable to the corporation’s bottom
line. However, then as it is now, fire is one of the
most dangerous threats to any enclosed environment.
The oxygen required to feed such a fire necessary
to cremate Mr. Tseng’s remains was also a costly
commodity in the early days of Lunar colonization.
There would not be a suitable Lunar Crematory
constructed until late 2116.
So, as the bureaucrats debated and haggled, the
workers saved by Ho-Wu Tseng ’s quick actions grew
more and more aggravated. They were ordered to
freeze dry the body in an air lock with the temperature
controls shut off, and package it up until further notice.
To this day what actually happened next is unclear.
According to popular folklore a memo was intercepted
by the refinery’s workers’ at RC-RF2 stating that the
body of Mr. Tseng was to be returned to Earth with
the next shipment of recyclable waste. This was
basically how the Rosenthal Consortium disposed of
garbage that was too valuable to be buried on Luna.
While a colorful story it is unclear just how the
refinery workers would have managed to get a hold
of an official company brief. Whatever the reason,
on October 20th nine of the seventeen workers took
matters into their own hands.
These, at the time, unidentified men violated several
company regulations in a flagrant display of defiance
and humanity. They disabled the recorders and
transponders on seven AECS (Artificial Environment
Construction Suits) so that they could not be identified
or tracked. They then gathered up excavation tools
and absconded with the remains of the man who’d
saved their lives. The men then exited the refinery
and entered the Lunar environment, with their tools
and the body of Ho-Wu Tseng. The body had been
placed in a plastic container which usually held
perishable food stuffs. The men walked about 2
kilometers away from the refinery, behind a rise so
that their actions would not be seen.
Here the seven men dug into the lunar dust, excavating
a hole big enough to bury their coworker, friend and
the man to whom they owed so very much. The
men recorded the burial although most of what was
recorded cannot be seen through the cloud of blowing
lunar dust. For a marker they placed Mr. Tseng’s
construction helmet perched atop the stolen digging
tool. This recording was broadcast back to Earth,
eventually reaching the family of the deceased. This
was the very first burial on a body anywhere outside
of the planet Earth. What should have been an act of
solemn respect was instead an act of defiance.
When the seven suits were later discovered, their
owners claimed that they were stolen. All workers
at the RC-RF2 refinery refused to cooperate with the
Rosenthal Consortium’s official investigation into the
burial of Mr. Tseng. They all swore to being together
and no evidence was ever found able to incriminate
any one of the seven members of the burial detail.
The seven suits all needed a thorough cleaning due
to the heavy lunar soil contamination (Lunar soil
has the consistence of talcum powder and can be
dangerous to equipment if not properly removed).
They also needed to have repairs made to their
damage tracking and recording systems. Lastly
was the cost of the impromptu marker, a high tech
hand excavator and a lunar work helmet. All this
proved to be very expensive to the Rosenthal
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