The Moon and the Other

by John Kessel

  The inset in the corner expands to take over the entire screen, showing a woman in a laboratory peering into a genetic sequence on a three-dimensional display, then a team of Cousins bioengineers in green hazmat suits in some sort of factory.

  “The Society of Cousins,” Sirius narrates, “is famous for its expertise in biotechnology and environmental design. Other lunar colonies frequently hire Cousins teams to regulate their biospheres. The Apollo colony did so just two years ago—and in the last three months their ecology has suffered a catastrophic collapse.” Images of hazy air, citizens wearing respirators, a hatchery full of dead chickens.

  “Some speculate that this might have been sabotage. And what of reports that Cousins scientists have stockpiles of biological agents? Can you tell us anything about this, Tyler?”

  “I don’t doubt it’s possible.”

  “—that they could wipe out human life on the moon, should they choose?”

  “Sirius, believe me when I tell you there are women among the Cousins who are capable of such an act.”

  “Don’t they realize that they would suffer a retaliation too terrible to contemplate?”

  “You have to understand the depth of the hatred these women have for what they persist in calling the ‘patriarchy.’ To them simple masculinity—the fundamental nature of the male of our species, the result of the millions of years of evolution that have taken us from primitive apes struggling to survive on the savannahs of Africa to the point where we stand prepared to leap from the cradle of the solar system—this, to them, is the ultimate threat. They would rather die than see the human race, and the demon that is the male, spread to the rest of the galaxy.”

  Dasha shakes her head. “A sobering thought, Mr. Durden. Thank you for being with us today.”

  “It was my pleasure, Mrs. Mohseni, Sirius.”

  • • • • •

  Only when it was done did Erno realize he was barely breathing. Amestris, sitting beside him, turned off the wall. She took his hand.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “His real name is Thomas Marysson,” said Erno. “He was my hero. He was funny, and he mocked all the things that deserved mocking in the Society. I got caught up in his movement. He used me. I helped him pull a prank that panicked the whole colony. My mother, a constable, tried to get me away from him, but I wouldn’t listen—until he asked me to create a virus that would have infected all the women in the colony and spared the men. When they tried to arrest us, we blew a door open into the vacuum, escaping; a dozen people were injured. My mother died.”

  “That’s terrible,” she said. She squeezed his hand. “But it’s the past. He can’t have any effect on you anymore.”

  “You saw it. They’re trying to gin up a war.”

  “The news lives on feeding viewers’ paranoia,” Amestris said, looking him in the eyes. “You shouldn’t take it too seriously.”

  “I have friends back there. My sisters, my aunt, even my father.”

  “They exiled you.”

  Her gaze was so calm, so confident; he could fall all the way into it if he let himself, and it would be a relief. She had already healed him in a half dozen ways, cooled his anger, restored his belief in himself.

  She adjusted his collar. He could smell her perfume, and he flashed back to their afternoon in the office. His life was here, with her. He would never see the Society again.

  “You’re right,” he said quietly. He stood. “We should go. We’ll be late.”

  She took his arm in hers. “I am excited about this evening,” she said. “I think you will like Saman.”

  On their way to the restaurant Erno’s thoughts were drawn back to the interview. Marysson looked older and thinner. He had let his hair grow out, but he still affected the coveralls of a mita worker. These were tailored now, and had never seen a day’s work. The more Erno thought about the sociopathic Marysson finding a new audience, the more worried he got.

  Marysson could not have any effect if no one gave him a platform. The Persepolis media powers who put him on the news had their own purposes. But few of the viewers were sociopaths—what would lead them to credit such a man?

  He tried to put it out of his mind.

  The Heart of Forugh was named after the iconoclastic twentieth-century poet Forugh Farrokhzâd. Erno had read her rebellious verse. Taking dinner at this restaurant was another sortie by Amestris in her long war with her father.

  If Cyrus Eskander was annoyed at the choice, he did not show it. Dressed in a pearl gray suit and white shirt with a Russian collar, he stood when they approached the table and greeted them in Persian. Erno replied in kind. He bowed to Afroza Eskander, who wore a long red tunic, intricately embroidered, over loose pants. Amestris introduced Erno to Saman Kazedi, short and broad-shouldered like someone from Earth. They sat around a low octagonal table on an elaborately worked carpet. Amestris was on Erno’s left, and Saman on his right. Cyrus and Afroza sat opposite. They began with a prayer and washing of the hands and face before eating.

  Servers brought out course after course. First an appetizer of yogurt and minced cucumbers. A stewlike lentil soup. Flatbread. A large bowl of rice prepared with red onions and grilled tomatoes—Persepolans were very proud of the common availability of rice and tomatoes, requiring vast amounts of water for their cultivation. A platter of spiced trout filets. With this came grilled vegetables. And for dessert several sticky pastries with thick, sweet, fragrant coffee.

  The conversation was light. Cyrus was ebullient and witty; his elaborate puns and literary references flew past and Erno had trouble keeping up. Afroza spoke with Amestris about her sister Leila’s latest film. Cyrus and Saman gossiped about a scandal in the Prime Minister’s office. Erno noted the crosscurrents between Amestris and her parents. He observed Saman.

  Saman was not as old as Cyrus, perhaps sixty. His intelligent eyes were set close together. Dark, unkempt hair, a blade of a nose, a small mouth. Amestris had warned Erno that Saman was undemonstrative on any subject other than his pianos. He sat quietly as the meal was served, but as soon as Erno asked him about his work he loosened up. He spoke English in a pleasing baritone.

  “An acoustic grand piano, Erno—I may call you by your given name, may I? Please call me Sam—it is a great, ungainly beast. Such pianos are massive, at the same time fragile. Makes no sense to ship acoustic pianos from Earth, eh? When synthesized keyboards already one hundred years ago are so perfect, the acoustic is a relic or a personal extravagance.

  “But I am a lover of music. Any music lover will tell you there is a difference between even the finest electronic and a traditional acoustic. So thirty years ago I decided to make pianos on the moon.”

  As he warmed to his subject, Saman used his hands to illustrate, almost as if he were playing a piano right there. His enthusiasm was magnetic. Before he’d begun, he said, there were no acoustic pianos on the moon and no demand for them. But Sam noticed that several of the requisites for constructing pianos were more available on the moon than on Earth. The best pianos used cast iron harp plates produced by vacuum casting into a mold of moist sand. Sam had the lunar regolith, finer than any sand on Earth. He had water from the South Lunar Pole. And he had, for free and in infinite supply, a more perfect vacuum than any manufacturer on Earth.

  Low gravity was a problem—the traditional mechanism of the keys would not work in low-G. But Sam perfected an action that took account of the one-sixth gravity. He began constructing pianos for lunar use, and found a market among the increasing numbers of the wealthy on the moon. Later, he adapted his pianos for Mars gravity. Today, Kazedis were the only acoustic pianos to be found anywhere in the solar system besides Earth.

  But he was not satisfied. “On Earth, they laugh at my pianos. A mockery of the great Steinways and Yamahas, you see? Ironic, since the descendants of those great companies are uninterested in craft and the instruments they manufacture are unworthy of the great names.

  “The one thing I’ve lack
ed to make a piano equal to any ever produced, Erno, is wood. The pinblocks of my pianos are made of synthetics. The soundboards, the hammers, the hammer block. Some of these things are not as important as others. But anything that has to do with the sound—that’s a different matter.

  “I have tried using pressed bamboo. No, no good. Tried importing wood from the Earth, but the cost of lifting wood out of Earth’s gravity is too high. And besides, to use Earth materials vexes me. I make lunar pianos. No, you see, what I need is a large and steady source of hardwood grown on the moon. What I need, Erno, is for you to grow me a forest.”

  Erno took a sip of coffee. “We do environmental design, Mr. Kazedi—Sam. Creating a forest is an entirely different enterprise. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but—”

  Sam said, “Amestris tells me you are a brilliant practical biotechnician, better than any on the nearside. And I am prepared to pay a large sum.”

  Cyrus watched them. Erno said, “This can’t be done in a rack farm in some warehouse. We would need to create a large biosphere. Is that much space available?”

  “I have already purchased a vacant lava tube. We will modify it to provide up to sixteen hectares. Depending on your needs, I could perhaps expand further. I would need you to produce more than one variety—for instance maple, hornbeam, basswood, beech, spruce—all these would be useful, some absolutely necessary.”

  “That’s a tall order. A forest, even if I can create one, will not produce wood for many years.”

  “Might biotechnology shorten that time?”

  “Perhaps we should let the young man think about this for a while, Saman,” Cyrus said. “It may be something that is at present beyond the reach of his firm.”

  Eskander was the picture of composure. Erno turned back to Sam. “In fact, I have particular expertise in genetically modified trees,” he said. “The Baldwin juniper is an invention of the Society. My mentor, Dr. Odillesson, was especially interested in forced-growth trees.”

  “Is he available for consultation?”

  In truth, Erno’s involvement in Odillesson’s tree experiments consisted mostly of organizing samples of the genomes of various Cupressaceae. He had never tweaked the genes of a single species himself. “I should not have to consult.”

  “Splendid!” Saman said.

  “We’ll make your dream come true,” Amestris said.

  Sam looked at her warmly.

  “It will be tricky,” Erno said. “But give me the resources I need, and we should be planting by the end of the year, and you will be harvesting usable wood within five years. Perhaps as soon as three.”

  Under the table, Amestris touched Erno’s leg. He laid his left hand over hers, his palm acutely sensitive to her warmth. He could almost feel her excitement through his fingertips, and it made his head swim.

  All the way back to the apartment, she clung to his arm. She could hardly contain her pleasure. He had passed a test. He was elated.

  But for one thing: When they’d left the restaurant, Saman had leaned in to embrace Amestris. It was an intimate gesture, not common even in freewheeling Persepolis. It lingered in Erno’s mind.

  The next day, while Amestris visited her friend Sima, Erno set about discovering what he could about Saman Kazedi in the lunar databases. Saman, born sixty-seven years ago in Tehrangeles, had emigrated to the moon at the age of nineteen. He sponsored the Persepolis Symphony Orchestra, constructed the Kazedi Concert Hall, and sat on the board of the Persepolis School of Music. And twenty years before, he had been instrumental in the performing career of Amestris Eskander.

  That Amestris had such a career was news to Erno. Two decades before, she had been a promising concert pianist, and Saman had been her greatest supporter.

  He replayed Saman’s embrace in his mind. In the Society such contact was so common as to be invisible, the bare minimum of polite behavior. Though he’d learned a lot about Persepolis, it was hard for Erno to read how much it meant here.

  Erno found and purchased a full sensory recording of one of Amestris’s performances. He loaded it into the virtuality deck and pulled the cap onto his head. After a moment his senses shifted and he was seated in the front row of a darkened theater, before a spotlit piano on a low, circular stage. Around it on all sides sat a well-dressed audience. To polite applause, Amestris came down an aisle and seated herself on the piano bench. After a hushed silence, she began to play.

  The piece was by an Earth composer of almost three hundred years ago named Alkan. Erno knew little about such music, but he was stunned by Amestris’s virtuosity. The audience sat rapt.

  And Amestris—Amestris, in a long, simple black gown, was so lovely that it almost hurt to watch her. It was not just her physical beauty, it was the intensity and control with which she played, her absorption in the music. Her strength, her boldness. It evoked his admiration, his wonder—even envy.

  It made him sad. She had never said one word to him about this hidden career. There was no piano in their apartment, hardly any music at all.

  He watched the twenty-three-year-old woman play, and noticed that in the front row, a quarter way around from him, sat a younger version of Saman. Erno studied him. So clearly it might have been written on his forehead, Saman Kazedi was deeply in love with her.

  After the performance concluded Erno turned off the player and paced the apartment. He got a bulb of pomegranate juice and threw himself onto the settee, the sound of the sonata echoing in his ears. It was very complex music. It made him think of Earth and the burden of its complicated history, billions of people—civilizations, wars, and nations, art forms and philosophies rising and falling, conflicting, snarling and unsnarling. The music contained that, and Amestris had mastered it. Her soul was older than his, not just in years, but in apprehension.

  All of them on the moon had come from that dead history. Much as they might have sought to cut themselves off from it, it was still there, even if somebody like Erno was ignorant of it. It was there even in their misunderstandings, their myths, the things left out. The lies that Marysson told about the Society, the desire to dominate that fuelled those lies.

  Erno lay down on the floor on his back, put his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, the way he’d lain in the Hotel Gijon years before. These walls were apricot, the ceiling white. Along the top of each wall ran a line of crown molding. It was not made of wood. Wood was precious.

  Amestris had to know that Sam was still in love with her. Was she indifferent to the pain it would cause Sam to be in daily contact with her? Was she going to sleep with him again? Perhaps she had already. How did he feel about that? It was not like sexual jealousy didn’t happen in the Society, but in his years of exile, Erno had learned that it ran down different channels here.

  The door opened and Amestris came in. She saw him lying there. He tilted his head a little and met her eyes. So beautiful.

  Hers flicked to the virtuality deck. On the screen were the words: “Alkan, Grande sonate: Les quatre âges. Amestris Eskander, 41:16.”

  She looked back at him. “So. How did you like it?” A little anxiety in her voice.

  He got up and took her hands in his. “You are wonderful. It’s as if I haven’t known you until now.”

  She smiled warily. “You know me as well as I do you.”

  He thought about Saman’s forest and how blithely he’d promised to create it. He pushed the worry aside.

  “You didn’t need to hide this from me,” he said. “It’s beautiful. I want to hear about it, what it was like, what it meant to you. Why you gave it up.”

  “Isn’t there work to do?”

  “Not today.”

  They went to a café and drank dark coffee and talked the rest of the afternoon. Amestris told him about her music and the wild life she had led. As she tried to explain what it felt like to play, her voice grew husky. He touched her hand and felt her vulnerability, as if he had a window to her heart, and swore to himself that if he did nothing else
, he would keep his promises to her.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  A SPARTAN MANIFESTO

  The Society of Women is an evolutionary dead end. The evidence is plain to anyone willing to open their eyes. Consider these facts:

  Men are 40% of the population and do 70% of the menial work of the Society.

  Cousins men have an average life expectancy of 111 years, vs. 120 years for the average Cousins woman.

  The suicide rate among male Cousins is twice that of women.

  Psychological violence against men occurs every day and goes unnoted.

  The natural expression of male vitality is criminalized.

  Under the current repressive regime, only 23% of males vote. If you live in the Society of Women, have XY chromosomes, and want to vote, your only options are to become a drone or to literally cut off your balls.

  Under these circumstances:

  • We demand the franchise for all men.

  • We demand full and equal parental rights for all men.

  • We demand an end to Effeminacy Culture. To Unmanliness. To Softness. To Delicacy. To Weakness. To Slavish Deference.

  • • • • •

  It’s the same dream Carey has had since he was fifteen: He’s crossing the dead, sun-blasted lunar surface, wearing his pressure suit, bouncing along in slow motion, no other person in sight. He does not remember why he is there. On his phones is the sound of his own breathing. He steps around a boulder and finds a body in a pressure suit. By the micrometeoroid pitting he can tell it’s been out here for decades. Not wanting to, he gets down on his knees and looks through the dead person’s faceplate. The desiccated face he sees there is his own.

  Carey awoke, heart thudding. Hypatia stirred beside him.

  He lay there for a moment, then got out of bed. In the bath he drank some water and went to check on Val. When he pushed open Val’s door he found his bed empty.