George and the Blue Moon

by Stephen Hawking

  But already, Kosmodrome 2 workers were tapping trainees on the shoulder and motioning to them to follow. At first, those selected grinned confidently as they trotted after their designated Kosmodrome 2 worker, thinking that this meant they had made it to the next stage.

  Then Rika spoke again. “Only twelve girls and twelve boys will go through to the Challenges stage of the process. If one of my wonderful Kosmodrome 2 staff approaches you now, it means it is time, regretfully, for you to leave us. You will depart, safe in the knowledge that you were selected to participate in this extraordinary process—and that you did your part to ensure humanity progresses out into the Solar System.”

  The recruits started glancing around nervously, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t feel the tap on the shoulder that meant they had to leave. Annie and George looked at each other, wondering what would happen. George almost expected to feel the light touch of a hand on his shoulder! But it didn’t come and, very soon, only a much smaller group of trainees stood in the much emptier Mission Control.

  “You will now be paired up with your companion astronaut for the next stage of the process, the Challenges!” purred Rika. “We have already chosen who goes with whom, so listen for your names. I repeat, it is vital that you go through this next stage together. Until now, you have been trained and assessed solo—but when you get to Mars, you will need to work closely with your fellow astronauts to found the new human colony on the red planet. Remember, you are not just visiting Mars! You are not a tourist! You will live there and create a new human habitation, the first off–Earth civilization in the Solar System! For us to choose you, we must know you can work as part of a team.”

  Annie and George expected to be paired with each other, so they just stood there, perfectly relaxed. All the other trainees were eyeing each other, but not Annie and George. They’d come together—and they were always together. They’d even done all the training so far together. They trusted each other in a crisis, they’d been on any number of extraordinary cosmic journeys together, and so it never occurred to them that they wouldn’t go into the astronaut competition as a team. Which meant they were totally shocked when it turned out they weren’t paired with each other after all!

  First Annie’s name was read out and George assumed his name would be next—but it wasn’t! Instead, “Leonia Devries” was announced as Annie’s partner.

  “Oh, no no no no,” whispered Annie. “I’ve got her!”

  Leonia Devries turned out to be the blank-faced girl with the pushy mother who had made such a scene at parents’ day. She looked over at Annie, and apart from the shadow of a sneer, her expression didn’t change.

  More names were read out, and young astronauts paired up with each other, forming a row across the front of the banks of computers in Mission Control, facing the big screens. George took his place with his new partner, a very small, very shy Russian boy called Igor.

  “Now, astronauts,” cajoled Rika in her charming manner.

  Annie looked at her and suddenly had the strangest feeling. George was too far away for her to ask him, but Annie suddenly just knew that somehow, somewhere, they had met Rika before. She couldn’t place where or when, but she knew without a doubt that they had come across this person before. And it wasn’t at Kosmodrome 2. And her name hadn’t been Rika Dur—

  Annie’s thoughts were interrupted. “It is time for the challenges to begin!” cried Rika.

  The screens behind her, which had been filled with extraordinary cosmic images, suddenly turned bright red, orange, and yellow, and started broadcasting the ear-splitting noise of a spacecraft during the first few seconds of a launch. At the same time, all the young astronauts’ pagers started beeping furiously. Annie twisted hers around so she could read the text scrolling across it.

  But to her surprise, before she had even registered the words, she felt her wrist being encircled as though in a cold grip of steel as Leonia pincered her with her long cool fingers. Then she was pulled along at great speed as Leonia gracefully started forward, her limbs scissoring like blades. Somehow Leonia seemed to know exactly where they needed to go. She dragged Annie down corridors, up stairs, across empty courtyards between buildings, occasionally pausing to check her pager to ensure they were headed in the right direction.

  Finally they came to a standalone building on the far edge of the Kosmodrome 2 compound—they seemed to have run and run for miles, and Annie was panting and thirsty. Leonia, however, showed no sign that she had even broken a sweat. Her marble-white face remained expressionless and serene, her hooded eyes showing no emotion or excitement as she flung open a large double door and pushed Annie inside. Annie caught the faint acrid whiff of chlorine as Leonia relentlessly charged forward… .

  *

  George and Igor were far behind, still dithering in the main entrance to Mission Control.

  “Let’s go!” said George, pointing to the other recruits hot-footing it toward a huge building.

  “To my mind, their supposition is not entirely correct,” fretted Igor.

  “You mean, they’re going the wrong way?” asked George.

  “Da,” replied Igor, nodding. He pointed in a different direction, where they could just make out two tiny figures in the distance, running at championship speed. “After them follow we need.”

  George wondered if Igor meant to speak like Yoda or whether it was translating from Russian that made his sentence order so odd. But he didn’t have time to ask. As he gazed in the direction in which Igor pointed, George caught the glint of sunshine on a blonde ponytail and realized that one of the distant figures could be Annie. If that was the way she had gone, he was ready to follow.

  “Yup,” he said. “Well spotted. Let’s get after them!” He bolted away, but then turned round and saw Igor plodding along slowly, his head drooping like a small donkey’s. “Can’t you go any faster?” he asked him.

  The smaller boy gave him a pained look. “Nyet,” he said, shaking his head. “I am a mathematician and not an athlete.” He sighed. “I have physical work done much week one, weary now.”

  “Okay, piggyback,” sighed George. “It will be quicker.”

  “What is this back of a pig?” asked Igor suspiciously.

  “Jump on and I’ll carry you,” said George.

  Even though Igor looked tiny, he weighed quite a bit, but George hefted him onto his back and started running after the two figures who might (or might not) be Annie and her partner. From the other side of the campus he heard a roar as the other candidates realized they had gone the wrong way. A cohort were wheeling round and heading back in the direction George and Igor were now puffing (George) along in… .

  *

  “Where are we?” Annie asked. She realized she hadn’t yet heard Leonia speak. But Leonia stayed mute. She didn’t need to say anything, for the answer was right in front of them. They had emerged into a vast cavernous room with a high vaulted ceiling where light played about the beams and struts in a liquid moving pattern.

  Annie gasped. But it wasn’t at the size of the room or the changing luminous display on the ceiling. It was something quite different. Where she would have expected to see a floor, there was just a shimmering blue expanse; a huge turquoise rectangle.

  A few robots stood motionless around the pool; these were the same type of tall, silver metallic bots that Annie and George had seen waiting to escort Ebot off the premises.

  “A swimming pool?” exclaimed Annie.

  Leonia looked at her with a very unimpressed expression. She cocked one elegant eyebrow. “Didn’t you do any prep for this at all?” she asked.

  The honest answer would have been “no,” but Annie didn’t think it was the moment.

  “Neutral buoyancy,” Leonia went on. “C’mon, we’ve gotten here first. We need to find the diving suits and put on weights. Tell me you can at least dive!”

  “Yes I can, actually,” huffed Annie. “Thanks.” She’d done a diving course with her school swimming club.


  “Good,” said Leonia. “Then you’ll know what this is about.”

  “I will?” said Annie, rather alarmed. She didn’t feel like she was keeping up at all.

  “Hush!” said Leonia calmly, holding up one finger. “Listen!” In the distance, they heard a sound.

  “What’s that?” said Annie, whose wrist was still held in Leonia’s merciless grip.

  “It’s the others,” said Leonia. “We got a head start on them—I studied the layout of Kosmodrome 2 before I came so I would know the quickest routes across the campus. But they won’t be far behind.”

  “How did you do that?” said Annie. “You can’t even see Kosmodrome 2 on Google Earth! Isn’t that classified information?”

  “It is,” said Leonia calmly. “There are ways.”

  She had led them into a changing room where a few weighted diving suits lay ready. Annie didn’t count them, but she felt pretty sure there were fewer than twenty-four suits in the changing room.

  “Put one on,” said Leonia. She shrugged off her outer layer of clothing to reveal a silver bodysuit that covered her from ankle to neck. Swiftly, she slithered into a wetsuit while Annie was still trying to get out of her flight suit. A few minutes later Leonia, who was already changed, grabbed Annie and unceremoniously stuffed her into a diving suit and plopped a tank of air on her back. She shoved a mask on Annie’s face and motioned her to head back to the pool. The suits, which had extra weights fitted so that when they were underwater they would feel the same sensations of movement as they would on a spacewalk, felt very heavy in Earth’s gravity.

  “What now?” Annie removed her mask to speak. She wasn’t used to being told what to do—she was more used to being in charge than being a follower. This was a very new experience for her.

  Leonia checked her pager, which she had transferred to her wetsuit.

  “Inside the pool,” she said, “there is a full mock-up of a spacecraft like the one we will go to Mars in. Our mission today is to dive into the pool, where we have to try and mend a solar array that has been dented in an impact with a meteorite. Look!” She showed Annie a small diagram on the pager. “It’s not difficult—we just have to get down there and get a solar array straightened out. Are you ready?”

  Annie nodded and fitted her mask properly, putting the air pipe into her mouth and checking she could breathe from the tank.

  Leonia put on her own mask and then held up a wetsuit-clad hand and counted down on her fingers—three … two … one! When she reached “one,” the two girls jumped into the pool. As they flew through the air over the turquoise water, they just caught sight of the main doors opening, and a couple of other hopeful astronaut trainees dashed in.

  *

  Even though George ended up carrying his partner, Igor, the whole way, they were still the second pair to arrive. Everyone else got confused or lost and took much longer to work out where they should be. Running into the changing room, George saw Annie’s fluorescent sneakers under a bench. He breathed a sigh of relief. So it must have been her he had seen in the distance! Quickly he found a small wetsuit and chucked it at Igor.

  “Put this on!” he said. “We’re going into the pool!” He had a thought. “You can swim, can’t you?” He pulled on his suit very quickly and attached his breathing apparatus—it wasn’t hard to figure it out when you were quite used to wearing a space suit with an air tank.

  “Of course,” said Igor, to George’s relief. It was one thing carrying Igor on the ground, but underwater? Igor, however, was struggling with his suit, so George took over, treating him as though he was one of his little sisters making a mess of putting on her school uniform. Other trainees were pouring into the changing room now so George dragged Igor toward the pool, checked his diving gear, gave him the okay sign, and pushed him into the pool.

  *

  The two girls had already sunk to the bottom of the pool, where they had righted themselves and checked each other and their equipment. They gave each other the okay signal and swam down toward an enormous tubular structure. It looked like a real spaceship on the bottom of the pool!

  Leonia moved quickly and confidently to one side of the submerged spacecraft. Annie felt very much like an “also swam” as she watched Leonia’s deft movements and decisive turns and spins in the water. Trailing a stream of bubbles behind her, Annie swam rather unenthusiastically after her, heading for the solar array—a space version of the kind of solar panel that some people have on their roofs—which was bent at a very strange angle. She supposed it must have been left like that deliberately, to see which of the astronauts-in-training would be the first to put it straight.

  She swam toward it, just thinking that if every task was this easy, she and Leonia were bound to come out of it with top marks, when she felt something—or rather someone—grab her ankle and pull her sharply backward. She looked round and saw an adult-sized figure in a wetsuit right behind her, determined to pull her out of the way.

  At first, Annie thought she was being sabotaged by her own partner, but looking sharply around she saw to her horror that Leonia, on the other side of the curved hulk of the spacecraft, had also been seized by another swimmer and was fighting to get free. These divers were clearly grown-ups, so they must be Kosmodrome 2 workers who had been waiting in the pool for the trainees to arrive, to see if they could ruin their chances of being first to the solar array! This didn’t seem fair, thought Annie angrily as she fought free. On a real spacewalk, they wouldn’t encounter aliens trying to drag them off the outside of the spacecraft they were trying to mend! She felt betrayed—she had thought the challenges would be mock-ups of situations they might actually experience! This wasn’t right.

  *

  Above Leonia, very near to the surface, Igor was having a real problem in sinking. His buoyancy didn’t seem to be neutral at all! He was stuck, paddling around in a whole explosion of bubbles. George had to waste precious time trying to help his training partner to descend to the bottom of the pool. He knew it wasn’t Igor’s fault, but at the same time he couldn’t help feeling it was very unfair that he had been stuck with a dud partner. He gave an annoyed sort of exhale that turned into a million bubbles as he finally managed to drag Igor down.

  *

  Over by the solar array, Annie was struggling. The other diver, who had hold of her ankle, swung her around by her foot and cast her away from the spacecraft, sending her across the pool in a flurry of disorganized limbs. Annie recovered herself and shot forward once more, so angry that now she didn’t hesitate to grab the other diver around the waist. Such was the force of Annie’s forward motion that she cannoned into the diver in front of her, managing to slap him or her against the side of the spacecraft.

  On the other side, Leonia had booted her assailant firmly in the stomach with both her flippered feet, sending the unfortunate diver spiraling backward and into the far edge of the pool. She reached forward, but as she did so, yet another diver arrived, intent on pushing her out of the way. Annie managed to shove the diver she was tussling with under the spacecraft, getting her foot on top of the other diver’s head and pushing down as hard as she could until they sank to the bottom on the pool. Freed from her opponent, Annie rose upward, heading once more toward the damaged solar array. As she did so, she saw a whole swarm of other divers plunge into the pool above her, until the water was alive with swimmers, all eagerly shooting downward toward the spacecraft. Annie knew that if she or Leonia didn’t get to the solar array in the next few seconds, they would have no chance. The water was so thick with bubbles now that she could hardly see where she was going.

  At that moment Leonia got free of the diver she had been struggling with. She and Annie dived together, from either side of the spacecraft, toward the solar array, both wanting to be the person who straightened it out and won the first challenge. For a second Annie wondered if Leonia was going to strike her out of the way so she could be the first. But as they rose together, as gracefully as though they wer
e performing a synchronized ballet underwater, Leonia motioned to Annie to pull the array back into place. Annie grabbed the support that held the solar panel—a vital piece of the spacecraft, responsible for providing the power that allowed life to continue inside the ship—and replaced it at the right angle, slotting it into the groove on the spacecraft.

  As she did so, she felt rather than saw a red pulsating light flash on and off above the swimming pool. Rising upward, she and Leonia broke through the surface of the water, now teeming with divers.

  They swam to the side and jumped out of the pool, Annie pulling her mask off as the curved space throbbed with the bright red light and the same howling alarm sound that had sent them off on their first challenge rang out again.

  Annie looked around for George. She really wanted to talk to him about her doubts concerning Rika. And she wanted reassurance from someone she knew, for this first challenge had been a horrible shock to her. Space camp had been really cool up until about half an hour ago, when it had changed completely and become something very different—something Annie wasn’t at all sure she liked.

  The other divers were surfacing, their body language already telling of their disappointment at an early failure. Despondently, wetsuit-clad trainees clambered out of the pool, removing diving equipment and grumbling that it hadn’t been at all fair.

  Two kids hadn’t even made it into the pool—they had arrived too late and found that the wetsuits had run out. These kids were already being told that they were leaving the process—anyone who had not even managed to get themselves a suit was immediately disqualified. “Transport home,” Kosmodrome 2 workers told them, “awaits you in the main reception.” They would get a certificate and a photo of themselves at Kosmodrome 2, but they definitely wouldn’t be going to Mars. The boy, who was very small, burst into tears at the news.

  The next shock for Annie was the reaction of the other kids. She had expected they would be grudgingly happy for her—lots of high fives and grumpy smiles acknowledging that she and Leonia had deserved to win. But the reaction was completely opposite: the other trainees gave Annie and Leonia sneering looks!