Gravitational Constantly: A Novella

by Weddle, J. A.

  “Home! Er … residential,” she gasped in between kisses. “Will you come?” she whispered. “You don't have to, I'd understand if you—”

  “Residential,” I said as I looked over her face and studied its lines: two perfect crescent moons met to posture ornate blue orbs, with a nose sculpted by Donatello and a mouth beset by lips that were thinly traced from an Audrey Hepburn cutout.

  The shuttle car pulled away into the dark as we slipped into each other’s shadow.

  Chapter V

  I awoke from a kind of sleep that if I had the choice, I'd never wake. Deep, dark, and soothing. It was the kind of sleep that makes you lose all sense of self—your body, mind, and soul. Wisps of green seawater churned and massaged my remaining thread of conscious, back and forth like a tidal pull. Just as the Moon pulls the tide on Earth, Earth was pulling the strings of my mind. I dreamt I was falling through a sea of emerald green water with a light seafoam bubbling and fizzing all around me. The water wasn't quite liquid though. It had a strange viscosity and weight that made it feel like some mixture of liquid and gas. Every time I got a glimpse at what I was falling toward, I twisted or turned and tumbled until it was out of sight again. The frothy, dense seafoam began to dissolve and eventually disappeared. The liquid evaporated and left me falling more rapidly. Nothing but a thin, almost non-existent gas arrested my fall. Soon the gas thinned out and nothing at all separated me from the dark nothingness that I plummeted toward. I could no longer see myself distinct from the void. I came to rest in the vacuum of absence. I was awake.

  When I opened my eyes I found my green ocean. It was spraying and sloshing against semi-clear, plexiglass walls and tubes in the inner workings of the water treatment facility that was opposite of Cara's apartment. The Residential district was utilitarian at its core. It served its purpose, housing workers and semi-permanent guests of Luna. There were no extravagant condos or individual houses. Everyone that lived there had apartment-style quarters that were simple and modest, but in that regard they were also elegant. There was no wasted space for backyards with white fences. No patios with barbecue grills and umbrella-covered tables and chairs. No place to park the lawnmower or put away gardening tools. It was housing for people who had left Earthly desires behind. The accumulation of things was not encouraged there.

  Cara's apartment was on the corner of the third floor of a long building that looked identical to all the others that lined the blocks of the Residential district. Everyone on Luna used the shuttle service for transportation, so there were no driveways with oversized SUVs, or mini-vans with the stereotypical family stickers on the back windshield. Each apartment had a simple metallic door with keypad entry and a white mailbox with a blue lid. I wondered how people found their way home each day without getting lost and winding up at a stranger’s doorstep. At least Cara's apartment was identifiable by being the last on the block, and being opposite of the water treatment facility and the oxygen garden.

  I watched the water spray back and forth over the gardens in the distance. Green leaves and some flowers shook as they received their morning shower. The vegetation garden grew food and doubled as an oxygen garden, harvesting the precious gas that the flora produced. The water treatment facility was a buzz, always in spurts, as water would shoot through tubes and into turbines that held some special function. Tanks churned and splashed as the organism functioned as a whole. It was quite mesmerizing to watch and though probably an eyesore to long-timers on Luna, I came to enjoy it.

  Cara slept so quietly that I started to worry she may never wake. Her lips curled ever so slightly into the hint of a smile. Her face gave no indication as though she had had any worries, now or maybe ever. She had an energy about her, an aura that seemed to surround and penetrate my very being. I lay there for half an hour watching the water rush by. Cara slept soundly, nestled in the curve of my arm and the pillow. When I felt the warm wet tears roll down my cheek, I was surprised and had an overwhelming sense of clarity wash over me. This moment would never come again. It was possibly the happiest I would ever be. I wanted to stop time and put it in a bottle—everything: the room, the soft green and white light fluttering through the window, the feeling of completeness that came with lying beside a lover, and most of all, Cara. I'd put the cork on so tight that no matter how hard time and gravity tugged, it would never open. We'd be safe and together forever.

  Without me noticing, Cara had awoken. She reached a small, fragile finger to my face and wiped the tear from my cheek.

  “Good morning,” she whispered.

  “Hi …” I said awkwardly.

  She didn't bother to ask me about the tears. I thought it was out of either respect or disinterest, or was it that she already knew what they signified. She sat up next to me and we watched the mechanized dance of equipment and water in the plant for a time. After a while we were both showered and eating breakfast at the table.

  “So, you are going to stay and work for Jayce, huh?” Cara asked. “I thought wandering romantics like yourself never stayed in one place for too long.”

  I'd almost forgotten that Jayce had offered me a job working for him, and that I'd accepted. “Yeah, I'm going to have to do something about that, or he might actually make me do some work,” I said with a chuckle. “I'm supposed to be on sabbatical while I 'find' myself.”

  “Well that may be a very long sabbatical then,” she teased.

  “That was the plan you know. I've never been cut out for too much of this work stuff,” I jested, although it was somewhat true. No one likes to work, but I'd always been a daydreamer and could never focus on doing any one thing for too long.

  “So you'll be staying on Luna then? You're not Earth-sick?”

  I looked out the window to watch the garden for a moment. A combine was processing barley and in the distance stars and the blackness of space. “Earth-sick?” I asked, shaking my head. “No. No, I like it here. I've never felt more at home. There is something different about me here. Ever since I've arrived, something has just felt different. Does that make any sense?”

  Her eyes flared and had a curious shine to them, but before she could answer I changed gears. “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  Cara's visage seemed to darken and sink with that question. She looked at her coffee and slowly stirred the spoon around a few times. “Long time,” she said eventually. “I was born on Earth, but I don't really remember it. My parents left Earth with me when I was only four, but when I made it to Luna, it was without them.”

  “Without them?”

  “We left Earth on New Year's Eve, aboard the Cheers of Jupiter,” she said as she stared off into a place that wasn't visible to anyone but herself.

  The Cheers of Jupiter was an early flight between Earth and Luna. There were few who didn't know of its infamy. On its second trip to Luna, it reached the Moon's orbit but had a catastrophic engine failure that tore the ship apart. Almost all of its passengers were lost, some two hundred people. It is the worst accident in space travel in the past one hundred years. The ship was now referred to by most as the “Tears of Jupiter.” You couldn't tell by looking at her, but she was one of the famed New Year's Orphans. A handful of children, Cara included, had been thrown into the escape pod and launched into space on the dark side of the Moon. It was days before search and rescue was able to retrieve the pod and bring it back to Luna safely.

  I stumbled for the right words, but all I could find was, “I'm sorry,” which I said to her softly.

  She glanced up at me from her coffee and just smiled a sad smile then gazed back down at her mug. “I've never left Luna,” she said in a small voice. “Maybe I'm scared to, I don't know. Somehow, I thought that if I stayed here I would find what my parents were looking for. Just maybe I would find what it was that made them leave the blue-green Earth behind and come to a place that shuns the very existence of life.”

  “Have you?”

  “You asked me if it made sense that you felt differently her
e. Well, no, it doesn't make sense to me. I've been here almost my entire life. I don't remember Earth, but I do know one thing: myself and those that have been here for many years are different than those who have lived on Earth. I'm not sure exactly how, but we are. If that is what my parents were looking for, then I'll stay until I know why.”

  Chapter VI

  The work I did for Jayce was laughable at times. I played the role of glorified assistant. Usually, we just hung out while checking on various projects that Futura was working on. I didn't really mind, as it required little work and Jayce was never boring. He said that just having me around to bounce ideas off was worth my salary, which I doubted. Sometimes I attended meetings of importance, other times he would just tell me to take the afternoon off or go “have fun” on the grounds. On those days I would visit the VSA or the solar fields. I would ride the shuttle car to the furthest stop on the line, out to the construction zone where sites were being leveled and cleared for a new lab.

  The foreman in charge of the construction team was an old man by Luna's standards. He was in his early sixties, the best I could tell. He had jet-black hair being invaded by a horseshoe-shaped balding pattern. His facial hair was peppered with gray and was coarse. It looked as if it would scrub like sand paper if raked across skin. There was a diagonal scar running from atop his left eye over the bridge of his nose to his right cheek. When I once asked him how he got it, his only reply had been, “slagging shit for brains crane operator!” in a tone that brooked no more questions.

  Between shifts or sometimes on his breaks, the old foreman would tell me stories of the early construction on Luna. He had said it was like nothing you could imagine. The amount of laborers brought in to do the work was baffling. Shuttles orbited the Moon with fresh workers in case there was an accident or someone couldn't cut it in the close to zero G environment they had to work in.

  “It tested you, boy. Mind and body, it did. I saw men crack out here in the dark, under the weight of stress, pressure, and most of all, fear,” he said to me once. “I worked on an oil rig on Earth when I was no older than eighteen, a rough neck I was. Had a buddy that was a chain hand, a damn good one too. When we heard about the jobs and the money here on Luna, we were chompin’ at the bit. We both came up and started working exo-structure plating. That “glass” you see above your head, we put it there, and all the nuts and bolts that connect together in interlocking framework.”

  The orbital elevators would take us up…” he paused as he looked into the heavens, through the roof he had built himself “…almost two thousand feet up, about as high as any man has ever been, I figure.” For a moment I thought I saw him begin to tear up, but then he took a deep breath and continued. “My buddy was as good as any man on the job, and better than most. One day, though, it was just one day too many for him, I suppose. He let his mind wander while up there and lost his cool. Kept grabbing at his helmet and banging on the sides trying to get to his ears. When I got tethered off and started over to him, he was begging me to get him out of there. Screaming about music in his ears. Before I could get close enough to grab him and reel us in, he flailed himself into the hydraulic release lever holding the frame part that he was working on. The damn fool hadn't even locked it out like he had done a hundred times before to prevent that sort of thing.” He shook his head and spit.

  “I'm sorry about your friend,” I said.

  Foreman looked at me and gave me a curt nod of respect then looked back up to his roof and smiled. “Me and Bo were buddies, we licked oil together,” he said with another nod, “but it was stress, pressure, and most of all, fear, that crushed Bo's head like a beer can that day.”

  I didn't go back out to the construction pits after that for some time. I kept busy with my work with Jayce, and Cara and I were seeing each other regularly in the evenings. Sometimes Jayce would join us for a drink at Cosmos, or the three of us would play tourist and go to the casinos or the park. They did it for my benefit most of the time. The local attractions were not very attractive to them, but we always had a good time, it seemed. Some part of its excitement passed on to them vicariously through me.

  And that was how it went for a time. Those were the golden days of my time on Luna. I had a woman in my life that was more a friend than a lover, although we were lovers at times. I had a boss that was more a friend and brother than a boss most of the time. I had lost all track of time. I came to realize, however, that time was just the measure of being between states of happiness and unhappiness. And now a serpent did come. His name was Sebastian Black.

  Chapter VII

  “So, who is he?” I asked as Jayce and I laid out packets of reports on the conference room table. Normally, I'd set out twelve handouts for the executive staff, but today we set out thirteen. One for the newcomer that had been causing Jayce a good deal of anxiety, I could tell.

  “The Chief of Operations, Sebastian Black,” Jayce said with a touch of dislike.

  “Black … he's related to—”

  “Yes. The President of Futura's son. His one and only,” Jayce interrupted.

  “You don't seem enthused about him being here.” I probed the subject.

  “No, I'm usually not. Sebastian is an ambitious man. Most of the projects he brings to us are more science fiction than science. He also only shows up when something has peaked his interest, and his hunger for the subject is only satisfied after his dreams are shattered by days, weeks, or months of actual scientific research,” Jayce said with disdain.

  “So, he's just a dreamer with Dad's permission to play?” I mused.

  “You got it, Ace. And his dreams are usually reckless. That is why I like him least of all,” Jayce said as he placed the final packet at the head of the table, where Sebastian would sit in less than an hour and pose some new direction for Futura.

  “I always pegged you for a fan of science fiction though,” I said as we left the conference room.

  Jayce grinned. “When I was a boy perhaps, but look around you, Andy. The science fiction we used to know is now reality. I'm a man of science now, though I do enjoy a good dream, I suppose.”

  “Maybe today's science fiction dreamt up by Mr. Black will be tomorrow's reality,” I said with a mocking grin.

  Jayce looked in thought for a moment then shot me a serious glance that I didn't like. “We'll soon find out.”

  I took the rest of the afternoon off. Jayce's meeting was going to take several hours and I had no real work to do. A more ambitious man might find himself unfulfilled by the lack of steady, consistent, and rewarding work, but not me. I was never really an ambitious man. The end game always looked the same to me no matter how you played it, so why work up a sweat?

  I took a walk through the park and sat at my favorite spot near the Armstrong monument. Handfuls of tourists strolled by, but it was rather quiet. The evergreens there gave me peace of mind, and I liked their fresh smell. I also liked the smell of the fresh mulch that was put down in the flowerbeds and around the shrubs. They were earthy smells. Nothing has a smell in space, I thought, as I peered up at the stars. It was sort of confusing being on Luna at times. The part of you that was still human wanted to remember the sights and smells of Earth. The part of you that spawned from your humanity wanted to be free of those same senses. Sometimes it was like standing on a bridge, halfway between two places: behind you a place that is comfortable and familiar and in front of you a place you want to go, but scares you because you know nothing about it.

  Cara and I had dinner plans that night. I was to meet her at Cosmos and have a quiet meal on the top level of the bar that was reserved for dinner guests. I sent a message to Jayce's office, inviting him to tag along. I didn't really feel like I'd be exciting company that evening and part of me was curious to hear what Jayce would have to say about the meeting with Sebastian Black and the other members of the board. Something about the way Jayce looked when I left him made me feel uneasy, but excited still.

  I showed up early before di
nner. I had seen all I wanted at the park. I had gone back to my apartment and changed clothes. A suit and tie for dinner always seemed ridiculous to me, but the more I thought about where I was and what I was doing with my life, ridiculous seemed to suit me just fine now. The lower level of Cosmos was more of a traditional bar than above. The lighting was dim, but cheery colors of red and yellow glowed soft with the occasional blue or green flick of a strobe light. It reminded me of some of the hole-in-the-wall bars back home that I was more accustomed to and because of that had become my more frequent drinking spot.

  I ordered a couple of drinks and watched the news. Phil, the middle-aged bartender struck up a conversation with me in-between customers. He asked about Cara and me, what I did at Futura, and what I did on Earth. The whiskey obliged him, and I answered his questions about Cara and myself, Futura, and told mostly the truth about what I did on Earth. I embellished about some of the details of my past life out of sport more than anything. It's not as if he would remember any of it in a few days. When Cara came down to find me, I was sitting in the back corner scribbling on some cocktail napkins, watching transport shuttles move along outside the space port.

  “There you are,” she said as she sat down across from me. “Getting a head start, I see.”

  I smiled and went back to my napkin. I scrawled out a lewd suggestion and pushed it her way, raising my eyebrows as if I were waiting an answer.

  “Ugh, come on, Romeo, let's go. I'm starving,” she said with a laugh.