The Moon and the Other

by John Kessel

  Kayasdaughter offered Mira a perfunctory hug. “Pleased to meet you,” she said. “You knew Pamelasson back before his exile, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re glad to have you here today.”

  Kayasdaughter spoke with Eva for a moment, then returned to the other Board members.

  Mira ended up on the back of the platform, in the second rank. She glanced across the hall through the glass walls of the lobby to the crowds outside. Unheard, they chanted, raised their arms, waved signs, as good an image as you could want of a bunch of people working at cross purposes.

  In the aftermath of the election, the Society was in ferment. In refectories and classrooms, young men and women argued until late into the night. Protests sprang up in the park and public spaces. Music, most of it having more to do with dancing than politics, blasted from clubs. Fowler teemed with more life than it had at any time in Mira’s memory.

  In the back of every public meeting stood a constable. At every club a curfew. On the tram any woman who wore a Reform Party armband could count on being questioned by some Matron. On the other side, fatherhood proponents grew tiresome in their one-note use of Carey’s custody battle as a cover for generalized resentment, and a handful of Spartans drove every online discussion into chaos.

  Erno had been all over the news: images taken from his and Marysson’s trial a decade earlier, recent vids from the patriarchal nets. There he was at age seventeen, standing on the stage in the amphitheater while some Matron described how his mother had been asphyxiated in a dark tunnel trying to save him from himself; here he was a month ago—older, quieter, a certain watchfulness in his eyes—interviewed with his wife, Amestris Eskander Pamelasson, the daughter of one of the most powerful capitalists on the moon, poised and beautiful in the soigné Persepolis fashion. About as different from a Cousins woman as you could get.

  All over the moon people speculated whether Erno was working for Cyrus Eskander. A year ago he had been invisible, a man without a home, and now he was at the heart of the biggest political conflict in decades. The majority of Cousins saw him as at best a troublemaker and at worst a terrorist; a minority claimed he was a champion of human rights driven to radicalism by the repressions he had fought.

  To Mira, the trouble Erno brought was the memories he awakened. One of those trial videos showed Mira testifying how, at a party, he had slapped his girlfriend, helping to guarantee his exile. Back then, she had thought of him as a loner not so very different from herself, if perhaps a bit more self-involved. He seemed more interested in writing bad poetry than in politics. His being drawn into the group of young men following Tyler Durden surprised her, and his getting involved in the prank that panicked the entire colony, a fake explosion of the crater dome, made her wonder how he had moved from the kind of complaints that all Cousins boys made to threats of violence. His unhappiness with the Society turned in a way that hers—or Carey’s, in Lune et l’autre—had not.

  What might he think of her now? If the reports were accurate, until his alliance with Eskander, Erno had spent more than a decade living at the bottom of a dozen lunar colonies. He had to know some things, to see things differently. Even if he resented Mira, and more than for the reasons Hypatia had entrusted to her, she was determined to speak with him.

  Vibrations beneath her feet indicated that the cable train had entered the tunnel. From a distance came the sound of pressure doors closing and a whoosh of incoming air. Ten minutes later the forward trainlock doors slid open and the train drew up to the platform. Three cars, one cargo and two passenger. The windows were opaqued. A bridge extended itself from the platform to the doors of the passenger car.

  The doors of the car slid open and from it emerged not one of the SCOCOM team, but an uplifted capuchin monkey. She wore a jumpsuit with “Consortium of Lunar Media” across the breast and carried a small satchel slung over her shoulder. The monkey paused before the platform, reached into her pack, and flung a handful of camera midges into the air. The midges formed a cloud hovering over the platform.

  Kayasdaughter and the others in the welcoming party stepped back. Ubiquitous video recording was a violation of Cousins notions of privacy. As the monkey paused at the end of the ramp, a large Doberman trotted out of the train: Sirius, the media reporter, wearing a tight black vest, black trousers, and black gloves. His forehead was high, the hair over his skull sleek, and ears alertly turned forward. “No cause for alarm,” he said to the constables in his curious mutter. He approached Kayasdaughter, sat on his haunches, unfolded his canine handpaw, and held it out. “Board Chairperson Kayasdaughter,” he said. “Good day.”

  Kayasdaughter quickly gathered herself. She shook the dog’s handpaw. “Welcome to the Society of Cousins. But where is the delegation?”

  “Sorry for the confusion. Did our staff fail to alert you? We wish to get the arrival on vid, so that all of our viewers on the moon—and on Earth, Board Chairperson Kayasdaughter, all the way back on Earth!—shall see this historic moment. If you will?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Gracie,” Sirius said to the monkey, which came to his side. The dog mumbled something to his Aide, and out of the car came the SCOCOM team.

  First was a woman, red hair pulled back, wearing a gray suit. Smiling, she approached Kayasdaughter, who stepped forward to greet her.

  “Ms. Kayasdaughter,” she said, extending her hand. In the wake of the dog’s handshake, it was all Mira could do to keep from laughing. “I am Myra Göttsch.”

  Kayasdaughter shook her hand, then embraced Göttsch and kissed her cheek in the Cousins manner. Göttsch did not look comfortable in Kayasdaughter’s hug. When they separated, Göttsch turned to Eva. “Professor Maggiesdaughter!” she said. “I am honored that you would come to greet us. So pleased to meet you at last.”

  Three others, all men, got off the train. Martin Beason, tall with an impressive black beard, broad-shouldered like the cliché of an Earth-bred human; then a lunar man, Li Chenglei from New Guangzhou. The last—slender, fair—was Erno Pamelasson.

  He looked older, of course, his hair longer, his face gaunter than years before. Göttsch brought them forward. “Let me introduce Martin Beason”—the tall man bowed to Kayasdaughter—“Li Chenglei—and you perhaps know Erno Pamelasson.”

  Beason and Li shook hands and were embraced; Erno ignored the handshaking and embraced Kayasdaughter directly.

  “Good afternoon, Kayasdaughter,” he said, as any Cousin would, without honorific. His eyes passed over Mira, in the back of the platform, but showed no reaction.

  When Kayasdaughter suggested that they move to the hall, Mira sidled over to him. “Hello, Erno,” she said quietly.

  “Hello,” he said as they walked side by side. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Funny—I expected you.”

  Erno smiled tightly. “I guess Alicia couldn’t make it.”

  Alicia was the woman Erno had slapped.

  “No,” Mira replied. “I think she’s unhappy with you.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  He did not seem very contrite. Before Mira could decide which of the witty, ironic, or cutting rejoinders she had rehearsed to put into play, they emerged from the platform to the arrival hall and Beason pulled Erno away to join Göttsch and Li. The crowd outside saw them and chanted louder. A van drew up in front of the doors. When they opened, the cloud of cameras floated outside, some of the midges hovering and the rest scattering out under the dome. Sirius stood up on his hind legs and scanned the crowd, muttering aloud, probably commentary to his Aide. Gracie stood at the dog’s shoulder. The nearest protesters fell back in surprise.

  A third of them held up their books, calling Erno’s name. They surged forward against those falling back, and the people in front were forced, stumbling, toward the delegates. Mira glimpsed Cleo’s face among them. A chant of mostly male voices broke out: “Er-no, Er-no, Er-no . . .” The people in front pushed back; others took offense at
this cheering.

  The constables worked to clear an aisle from the station entrance to the van. The chanting grew louder. “Er-NO! Er-NO!”

  The SCOCOM delegation, surrounded by a phalanx of constables, looked about in curiosity, taking in the crater. Sirius fell into stride beside Göttsch. Jeffersdaughter waved her arm to the Reform Party supporters, who shouted back. The constables struggled to keep the crowd back.

  They reached the van. Kayasdaughter said something to Erno. Erno moved up onto the first step of the van, turned to the people, and raised his arms. “Cousins! Please!”

  Cheers and catcalls. Shouts. “Go away! Traitor!”

  “Let him speak!”

  “Er-no! Er-no!”

  Erno raised his hands higher. “There’s no need for this, if you’ll just—”

  His voice was drowned out by a huge, hollow, echoing boom.

  Mira felt the concussion in her chest. The sound came from above. The crowd hushed. Mira looked up.

  A jet of black smoke billowed against the blue sky. People pointed; some cried out. A breach in the dome! The people, already pressed together, surged against one another. A woman tried to leap out of the crush, hit her head on the roof over the station portico, and fell back on the ones below. Panicked people sprang in several directions—toward the station entrance, toward the nearest pressure shelter, toward the van—anything to get into a sealed space, behind pressure doors. Mira saw a man, bounding down the slope toward the crater floor, bowl over another man. Screams and shouts.

  Kayasdaughter and the constables hustled Göttsch, Beason, and the others back toward the station, but the doorways were already blocked by people trying to force their way in. Mira turned and took an elbow to her temple. She stumbled, was knocked sideways, and fell to one knee. Something struck her back and she was about to go down when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her up. It was Erno. He drew her toward the van. “This way!”

  As they moved, Mira realized that none of the colonywide alarms had sounded. Her Aide was silent. And she felt no pop of her ears that she might have expected in a real pressure breach.

  “Stop!” Erno cried out. “It’s all right! Look!”

  Up above, the jet of smoke had stretched itself out, moving purposefully. There was something wrong with it—it had no three-dimensionality; it was flat, an image. The black fluid—not smoke—ordered itself into huge letters, arranging themselves into words on the inside of the dome:

  Bang!

  You’re dead!

  By now others had realized that the explosion wasn’t real. It was a copy of the prank that Marysson had orchestrated a decade earlier, with Erno’s help.

  Someone had reproduced it, as either a mammoth video graffito fastened to the inside of the dome, or smartpaint, or some other simulation.

  “Into the van!” a constable shouted, pushing Mira and Erno forward.

  For a second Mira resisted, continuing to watch the words develop on the sky. Something new was added. A signature appeared below the threat: “Looker.”

  • • • • •

  Carey was calf-deep in waste water from the tilapia tanks when Marty Annesson rushed in.

  “There’s been a breach in the dome!”

  Jamal Emsson looked up from the dismantled aerator he had on the workbench. Carey waded to the edge of the pool and climbed out. Winston Alyssasson, bound for the trout tanks, set down the sack of fish food he carried.

  “What are you talking about?” Carey asked.

  “What happened?” Winston asked.

  “Someone set off a bomb. It was timed to happen with the arrival of the outsiders.”

  Jamal turned on the pixwall. On the screen was a video of a chanting crowd gathered around the entrance to the train station. Constables were trying to clear an aisle among the protesters from the doors to a van. The station opened and out came Krista Kayasdaughter and other Matrons, including Eva, plus an uplifted dog and a monkey. There was a sharp crack, an echoing boom. The image jerked. The crowd rushed toward the station doors. Carey caught a glimpse of Mira. The video abruptly went blank.

  Winston stripped off his gloves. “Taari was going there to see them.”

  Carey said, “If there was a breach, our Aides would all be screaming.”

  “The system must be down,” said Marty.

  “Or hacked,” said Jamal.

  Carey’s Aide had no information. He tried calling Eva, but got no answer and told his Aide to keep trying. The video on the wall had begun to repeat. A commentator’s anxious voice intruded: “This is all we have at present. We’re trying to link to security at the scene, but . . .”

  “Tell Sara that I had to go,” Winston said, leaving by way of the greenhouse.

  “We need to get to a pressure shelter,” Marty insisted.

  Jamal got up from the bench. “I’m going with Winston.”

  “If there’s really a breach, all of Agriculture will already be sealed,” Carey said. “We won’t even be able to enter the crater.” Carey thought about Val and his smartpaint bomb. “Something’s not right about this.”

  “Of course it’s not right!” Marty said. “Somebody blew a hole in the dome!”

  The pix switched to a face: a middle-aged constable. “We have a confirmation of the situation in Fowler crater,” she said. “Reports of a breach in the dome are false. Repeat: There is no breach in the crater dome. All pressurized areas of the Society are intact. There is no cause for alarm. Cousins are urged to resume their normal activities.”

  Sara Radhasdaughter came in from the office. “It’s okay. I’ve heard from my sister in the Matrons office—just some sort of prank. There’s no blowout.”

  Carey began to pull off his boots. “Maybe not, but my mother was at the station.”

  “There’s nothing you can do there,” Sara said.

  Carey didn’t bother to put on his street clothes, just discarded his gloves and tugged on shoes. Smelling of fish waste, he hurried from Agriculture toward the nearest concourse. He tried calling Val and Mira, got nothing, and added them to his Aide’s call list. The academy registrar did not show Val having logged onto school, and he was nowhere on the LPS maps.

  At a refectory people were watching another video. In this one, when the explosion happened the camera swung up to show a jet of black smoke against the blue sky, forming itself into words: Bang! You’re dead!

  “Marysson,” one of the bystanders said.

  “The minute Pamelasson comes back,” said another, “it happens again.”

  A warm female voice came over Carey’s Aide: Colony pressurization has not been compromised. We repeat: Colony pressurization has not been compromised. Please return to your homes and places of work.

  Around him other people went quiet, listening to the same announcement. Carey left.

  None of the pressure doors along the concourse were closed. Where the tunnel opened to the crater people stood looking up at the words written on the sky. Looker.

  It took Carey twenty minutes to get to the station by foot. The plaza had been cleared except for some stragglers and an influx of the curious. An ambulance stood by and an EMT was wrapping the ankle of a young woman. The nervous constables would not let Carey anywhere near the station.

  “I’m Carey—” he began.

  “Yes, you’re Carey Evasson,” the officer told him. “You need to go home.”

  “My mother was in the reception group. Do you know what happened to her?”

  She had her baton out, held at her side. “I don’t have any information. Go home.”

  He backed off to a little knot of people who were standing at one end of the plaza. Little blue books—actual physical books, with pages—lay on the ground.

  I’ve got your mother, his Aide reported.

  “Carey?” Eva said.

  “Mother,” he said, “are you all right? Is Roz all right?”

  “We’re fine. I’m with some people at the colony offices. Roz went to check on security in
Materials. Some people were injured in the panic, but as far as I know there were no fatalities.”

  “That’s good, at least.”

  “Is Val okay? He’s not showing up on the LPS.” Her voice was worried. A discarded sign lay at Carey’s feet. “OLS = Oppression Loathing Shame” it flashed, with a footprint on it.

  “Val is fine,” Carey said. “He was at the Glass Institute.”

  “You should stay in your apartment. Everyone should for a while.”

  “Do you have any idea who was behind this?”

  “Looker—whoever Looker is. A forensic team is on it, and maybe this time they can find some evidence that will lead us to them. I’m very busy now, Carey. I’ll say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Mother.”

  A van pulled up in front of the station. Some workers rolled out a carrier piled with luggage and shipping crates and, under the watchful eyes of the constables, loaded them into the van. Others moved bystanders away. The officer who had spoken with him before approached.

  “Look,” she told him, “if you won’t go home, go back and do your job. This area is interdicted.”

  Carey moved into the park and found a bench under a plane tree. On the bench lay one of the blue books. Stories for Men. He leafed through it. A collection of stories from the twentieth century, testament to a certain kind of lethal masculinity. Even the titles were sodden with testosterone: “The Undefeated.” “Fortitude.” “The Most Dangerous Game.” Another gift from Thomas Marysson. Carey had contempt for Marysson and his borderline personality, yet thanks to the custody battle some people were comparing Carey to him.

  His Aide had not gotten Val. Carey left another message.

  A sparrow landed on the pavement to beg for crumbs. It danced toward and away from him, opening its sharp beak, turning its head to pin him with its alert black eye.

  Should I go to the constabulary, bird? Another missing boy, another panicked colonywide search? That would certainly prove my reliability as a father.

  He looked up at the dome again. Bang! You’re dead!

  He called Hypatia.