by Niko Perren
Tania yanked her pants back around her waist. Officer was crawling behind the vehicle, his own pants still around his ankles, his blood watering the sand. He fumbled inside the passenger door with his remaining arm, reaching for something. Tania didn’t hesitate. She yanked the bloody gun out of Scar’s stiffening hands. Spun. Officer stared into the barrel. He raised his good hand in front of him, as if it could fend off the bullets. He looked into Tania’s eyes, begging.
She squeezed the trigger. When the noise stopped, she threw down the gun and curled up on the ground, hugging her arms around her knees, her vision clouded by red tears. An insect buzzed, attracted by the carnage in the sand. Tania didn’t recognize the species.
Chapter 19
“SUIT AIR, EVERYONE,” ordered Sharon.
Jie pushed the air scrubber cylinder into its receptacle. It didn’t fit, so he reversed it, then reversed it again, pushing harder. It’s always the third way you try. The scrubber snapped into place with a solid click and the indicator showed eight hours of surface time – more than enough for the walk to the station.
“Say hello to your fans on TV,” said an unfamiliar voice. Now that they were on the moon, communications had been handed to Earthcon, a team of specialized controllers that would change depending on the team’s activities.
Jie suppressed an urge to wave to Cheng. He checked his helmet connections, then cross-checked with Sally. How can these snaps possibly hold my gloves on?
“Earthcon, we are crosschecked and ready for EVA,” said Sharon.
Earth was now 400,000 kilometers away, so the communications delay lasted over two seconds. “Copy that. You are go for EVA.”
With a hiss, compressors started pumping air out of the capsule. The hundreds of woven tubes that made up Jie’s suit swelled like balloons as the outside pressure decreased. He stretched his arms and legs, testing the fabric’s flex, amazed at how supple the material was despite the pressure differential.
Sharon pulled the hatch inward. Light flooded into the cabin, but from his position Jie saw only black sky. The moon. Fewer than a hundred people had been here. But after three days, it was the toilet that excited him the most.
“See you on the ground,” said Sharon. She worked her feet through the hatch. “Earthcon, the new gloves are great. I’m having no difficulty maintaining a death-grip on the ladder.” She vanished out of sight.
Rajit climbed down next, bright blue against the lunar night. Isabel followed in scarlet. Jie’s heart had never beaten so fast. If something goes wrong… His suit suddenly felt clumsy and restricting.
“You’re up, Jie.” Sharon’s voice echoed, strangely distorted in his helmet.
Just this one short walk. And then I’ll be safely inside for the rest of the mission. Jie crawled to the hatch and looked out. Sharon, Rajit, and Isabel stood a body length below him, the only splashes of color on an undulating plain of fist-sized rocks and gray dust nearly a kilometer across. Dozens of abandoned landing vessels littered the surroundings, the remains of previous expeditions, a junkyard of dreams. Mountainous crater rims rose out of the shadowed valleys like islands from an ocean of black ink. The high vantage point, combined with the moon’s smaller size, brought the horizon closer, giving the whole scene a mild fish-eye effect.
“Jie?”
“Coming.” Jie worked his way downwards, probing for each step through the thick soles of his boots. He maintained three points of contact like he’d been taught in the water tank. I fell twice in the simulator, remember. Four steps. Three. Two. One. Moon dust puffed under his boot, as if he’d stepped into flour.
I’m standing on the moon! He flashed a double thumbs-up at the cameras on the spacecraft’s exterior. He could almost hear Cheng’s cheers.
Hisssss. Huussss.
The only sound was the air filters. He stepped away from the capsule, awkward despite all his attempts at caution. The dust felt slippery underfoot, and he skidded when he landed. I’m on the moon!
Sally, who was the last one still in the capsule, lowered six boxes out of stowage under Sharon’s watchful eye. Then she climbed down to join them. Sharon relaxed and looked around. “I'd forgotten how beautiful this is,” she said.
“It’s so quiet,” whispered Sally. Her voice echoed in Jie’s helmet, sounding distant and mournful. No movement in the landscape. No breeze to shift the dust. No atmosphere to hold a cloud. Treaded tracks crisscrossed the surface, so crisp they could’ve been made minutes ago. Most of them seemed to head towards a higher plateau beyond the far end of the landing field. Jie could just make out the two rounded mounds of the habitat. Past those, at the top of a narrowing ridge, distant solar panels bristled on what was clearly the summit.
“Uhhh, I’ve got a problem,” said Isabel. “My air indicator just dropped a level.” Her voice was calm, but the words came out fast. She rotated the scrubber assembly to her front so she could check the connection in the sunlight.
“Rajit and I have spare scrubbers,” said Sharon. “We could swap yours out.”
“Hang on, Sharon,” said Earthcon. There was a 30 second delay.
“Engineering says no,” said a different voice. “If it’s a connector problem, we risk breaking the seal completely.”
They formed a loose circle around Isabel, the landscape suddenly forgotten. “We could repressurize the LDC and attempt to repair it there,” suggested Sharon.
“Negative,” said the voice from Earth. “At current usage, Isabel still has an hour of air. Proceed to the habitat. Just don’t stop for sightseeing.”
Sharon set a deliberate pace, taking controlled steps. The sky was black beyond any night, the stars like holes in a silk cloth, solid and unblinking. And with no atmosphere to provide ambient light, the shadows gave the illusion that the surface was riddled with deep pits. Even with the suit lights, the effect was disconcerting, enhancing the surreal, almost intoxicated feel of the low gravity.
The tire tracks converged and soon they were walking on a road of sorts, heading steadily upwards. Footprints appeared. Tens, hundreds, thousands of them, frozen for eternity in the soft dust. The twin habitat domes grew nearer, polymer balloons stretched over an alloy skeleton, then buried under such a thick blanket of protective rubble that the artificial origins were visible only through the two airlocks sticking like turtles’ heads out of the gray dirt. Jie resisted the urge to check his air levels again. I could enjoy this if it wasn’t so scary. They’ll never simulate low gravity in a video game. Sharon headed to the furthest entrance, her steps lengthening as their confidence increased. She glided to a stop at an inward opening metal door
“I’m showing yellow now,” said Isabel.
“Isabel, you’re first in the airlock,” said Earthcon. “Jie, you’re bumped to second. Enjoy the views while you can.”
Isabel opened the habitat dome airlock and stepped into the cramped booth.
“Look,” said Jie, “you can see Earth from here.” Isabel paused for a moment, one hand on the latch. Earth had been behind the mountain when they’d landed, but from this higher vantage it was just above the horizon, shadowed but for a crescent of light, like a smile in the sky. It seemed enormous. Are Zhenzhen and Cheng looking back at me?
After a few moments of silent contemplation, Isabel closed the airlock. The door’s status light went from green to yellow. Out of the corner of his vision Jie noticed a puff of mist. What the…? Mist? It looked like condensation inside of his helmet, but as he turned, he realized that it was coming from the airlock. Vapor plumes shot from the edges of the doorframe, like steam from a boiling kettle.
“Hey! Something leaking!” Jie shouted in alarm. The airlock light flashed red.
“Earthcon, I assume you copied that?” Sharon sounded completely calm.
A delay, at least 15 seconds. “We confirm that the lock’s not pressurizing,” said Earthcon. “It may be a problem with the outer seals. Isabel, please switch to the cargo dome airlock.”
A grunt. “Earthcon
?” For the first time, Isabel’s voice carried an edge of fear. “Can you release the door?” Jie glanced over at the next dome, a scant 20 meters away.
“We aren’t holding the door,” said Earthcon. “The latch is mechanical.”
The handle didn’t move. “It’s stuck,” Isabel grunted. “Should I force it?”
“Please wait,” said Earthcon. “Jie, describe what you saw.”
“Plumes of air escaped all around door,” said Jie. “Maybe air pressure jammed something into the latch.”
“Please stand by – we’re reviewing Jie’s suitcam video.”
Everyone stared at the airlock. Minutes passed.
“I’m red now,” said Isabel. “Standing by isn’t working so well for me.”
“Isabel, switch to your spare scrubber,” said Earthcon.
“Sharon and Rajit are carrying the spares.”
Air hissed inside Jie’s helmet, each breath a gift.
“Isabel, we think that sunlight reflecting around the door frame caused UV degradation of the vacuum seal. Opening the door cracked the material, and the escaping air wrapped it around the latch. Force the door. Try to free the blockage. Rajit, you and Sally inspect the cargo lock.”
Jie and Sharon yanked at the handle, coordinating with Isabel. It didn’t budge.
“My air is critical!” Isabel’s voice held panic now.
“We’ll try a pressure override followed by an air pulse,” said Earthcon. “Isabel, if we can raise the pressure enough, even for a moment, you can slip through the inner door.”
Air puffed again, a hundred plumes. I’m getting a bad feeling.
“Oh, oh,” said Rajit. “This airlock looks bad too. The stripping is cracked and discolored. It resembles dried mud. Are you seeing this, Earthcon?”
Jie had a vision of Rajit stuck in the second airlock while he, Sally, and Sharon waited outside. Wǒ cào! What then? Trapped on the surface? We don’t even have an escape vehicle.
Another long delay, nearly 30 seconds. Isabel’s panicked breathing rasped in Jie’s helmet.
“Rajit, take all four suit repair kits. Glue down the gasket around the circumference of the cargo dome door.”
“Hey! Hey!” yelled Isabel. “What about me? Why aren’t you patching my airlock?”
Then, silence. “We’ve switched Isabel to a private channel so that she can talk to her family,” said Earthcon.
“Agreed,” said Sharon. “There’s not enough suit patch for both locks. We can’t risk the mission.”
Tā mādebi. They’re going to let her die.
‹Jie, watch your respiration rate,› his controller warned.
Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Just like in the training. I can do this.
Jie followed Sharon to the cargo lock and numbly handed over his suit repair kit. Rajit taped down the gasket with precise movements, overlapping the bits of tape centimeter by centimeter until the door’s entire perimeter had been reinforced. Hurry! There’ll be tools inside. Maybe there’s still time.
“How does that look?” asked Rajit, playing his camera over the gasket.
Isabel was dying – dead? – a few meters away. And in a moment their own fate would be decided. Jie felt powerless, as if he were standing in the middle of a field during a lightning storm, holding an umbrella. Rajit’s fix will hold. Or it won’t. Calm… Calm… Is Cheng seeing this? Surely Earthcon has cut off the feed. The airlock closed on Rajit.
“Rajit, we’ll bypass the dust scrub. Don’t take your suit off. Just get the repair tools and come out.”
“Copy that.”
Bypass the dust scrub? Dust control protocols had been hammered into Jie. The fine powder on the lunar surface was the product of mechanical shattering, like glass pounded by a hammer, but never smoothed by wind or water. Abrasive. Destructive. Possibly carcinogenic.
Jie’s eyes riveted to the airlock. Two puffs of air. Three. Five. Ten. Like a failing dam.
“Full pressure! Go!”
Rajit grunted, and a moment later the vapor puffs faded as Earthcon depressurized the lock. Jie’s bowels screamed in agony. Misery, stacked on horror.
Time blurred. Rajit emerged with tools, and they freed Isabel’s airlock from its hinges. Isabel lay inside, crumpled on the floor in her red suit. Sharon slung her body effortlessly over her shoulder and gently laid it in the sun, facing Earth. Rajit and Sally replaced the gasket and remounted the door.
“I’ll go first,” said Sharon. She stepped into the dome’s carnivorous mouth. This time the light went green. No mist. No warning alarms.
“I’m in. Send Jie through.”
Jie stepped into a round chamber little bigger than his body, and latched the door behind him. A hissing noise grew out of the vacuum silence, and his suit softened as air pressure increased. A steamy spray attacked him from all sides, drumming the fabric of his suit, covering his helmet in runnels of water. He raised his arms, instinct from his training, washing off the abrasive lunar dust. A blast of air left him clear and clean.
He pushed the inner door open and stepped into a sterile white chamber containing a long change bench mounted on improbably thin legs. Sharon waited, stripped to her underwear, her suit already hanging on the wall. Misery creased her face. She helped Jie peel off his suit. His skin sucked at the fabric, like a snail being pulled off glass. They both smelled of sour sweat mixed with the odd chemical odor of the suit.
“You did well out there, Jie.”
“I did nothing.”
“Sometimes not panicking is all we can do,” said Sharon. “There’s a shower in the first room on your left. There should be clean clothes on the shelf.”
Jie hung his suit next to Sharon’s and hobbled down the hallway to a circular common area ringed by doorways. The first door led to a small washroom. He collapsed on the toilet, groaning with relief. When his bowels had stopped screaming, he stripped off his underwear and stepped into another enclosed booth for a ten-second blast of warm water and air. Clean and dry, he pulled a crisp white “China India Lunar Team 2029” T-shirt off the shelf and fled to his designated cabin.
The foldout bed was down, unmade. It must have belonged to one of the astronauts who’d died on Sharon’s last trip here. Jie lacked the emotional strength to call Zhenzhen and Cheng, so he sent an email. Then he lay back on the bed, the thin mattress soft as feathers in the low gravity. The hive. My new home. Death seemed to permeate the walls.
That could be my body out there. She did nothing wrong. Isabel was a casualty in an unforgiving game of chance. A game that was just beginning.
Chapter 20
ENEWS: APRIL 7, 2050
THE Dutch government announced today that it is abandoning plans to raise the height of Amsterdam’s sea defenses. “Dikes are not just walls that we can add to at will,” said Jan van Ieperen, spokesman for the Amsterdam Water Board. “They have a pyramid shape, so each meter we add to the top extends the base by five. Not only does the amount of material grow exponentially, but we’ve run out of space. Another round of construction is simply not cost effective. If the shield does not reduce surface temperatures to 20th century levels, Amsterdam will follow the fate of Venice.”
***
Khan Tengri’s assistant looked stoically ahead. “Mr. Tengri will be along in a minute. Wait here.”
“No problem,” said Tania. She walked to the window. Far below the First Avenue Parkway, pink with spring blossoms, vanished into endless skyscrapers. Workers were fitting the last colored blocks into the East River Levee at the point where it connected to the higher ground midtown. Just in time for the summer hurricane season.
A door opened. Tania caught Tengri’s reflection in the glass. He was wearing his gray suit as always, scroll slung across his chest, as if he’d just come from an important meeting. He probably has come from an important meeting.
“Tania!” said Tengri. “Nice job on the Witty show. I think you just bought yourself some job security.”
“That’s good news,�
� said Tania, “because we’ve got our work cut out for us. I was in Ethiopia, field-checking a UNBio preserve. I thought we should talk in meatspace.”
She turned to face him. Tengri pulled back in surprise, an instinctive flicker of disgust giving way to instant concern. “Tania! What happened?”
Tania wrapped her arms around herself.
“Ethiopia you said? Are you…? Were you…?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Tania blinked. Looked away. Her missing teeth made it hard to speak. “It could have been worse. I… I’d rather not talk about it.”
Tengri nodded. “Yes, of course…” There was an awkward silence. “What did you find out?” he asked finally.
“We’ll be lucky if 10% of native species are still harvestable,” said Tania. Her frown cracked her lip at the stitches. She felt blood beading. “Even if Ethiopia weren’t so corrupt, global weather patterns have changed too much: heat waves, droughts, floods. I’ll have to bioharvest a lot of preserves – even well-managed ones. And if we want to save what’s left, we need to act. We’ve got to start planning the postshield world.”
“Know who I just met with?” asked Tengri. “The Canadian Prime Minister.”
Tania groaned. “I hope you washed your hands afterwards.”
Tengri couldn’t hide his smile. “You’ve got to stop saying stuff like that. It doesn’t help our cause.”
“Come on, it’s not like you disagree,” said Tania. “Besides, I’ve been assaulted, and I’ll be signing a bio-harvest warrant on my first ecosystem this week. I’m not in a charitable mood. What did the scheming villain want?”
“Like you, he wants a plan for the post-shield world. He’s worried about the Northwest Passage shipping lanes. He wants assurances that temperatures won’t drop so far that they refreeze in the winter.” Tengri shook his head. “Getting the UN to agree on a shield plan isn’t going to be easy. And that’s assuming we can even build the damn thing. And assuming the US and China cooperate.”