by Bob Goddard
“Oh good, you’re awake,” said Cooper, as his screen blinked and a rumpled vision of his girlfriend appeared, still beautiful as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
There was an annoying three second delay while his words travelled the 384,000 kilometres to Earth, bouncing off a couple of satellites on the way, and her response came the same tortuous way back to him. He fiddled with the tiny speaker stud in his ear’s tragus while he waited. The soft cartilage at the entrance to his ear canal directed the sound to his eardrum. The microphone implant in his larynx was undetectable to a probing finger.
“Will? Is that you?” she groaned. “It’s the middle of the night here. I was asleep!”
“I know, I’m sorry to wake you, honey, but have you seen the news?”
Another agonising three seconds during which he could see Ginny yawn and push her dark hair out of her eyes.
“What news? You don’t mean the football, for Chrissakes, Will!”
“No! There’s a comet going to hit the Earth in six days, unless they can deflect it. Gonna land in the Pacific, they say. I’m real scared for you, honey.”
As he watched, her look of irritation changed to a deep frown.
“This is a joke, right? You woke me up in the middle of the night to pull a cheap stunt?”
“No! Believe me, Ginny, this is no joke – it’s for real. Something to do with the Chinese trying to mine a comet for its minerals, and now it’s heading directly for Earth. Our supply ship is being sent up to try to head the freakin’ thing off, and we’re running around up here, figuring out how we can survive until the next one can reach us.”
Her frown turned to surprise and then her eyes were wide open and she was leaning towards the screen.
“Oh my God! You’re not joking! Are you going to be okay, Will? When will they get to you?”
“Don’t know for sure,” he said. “The next ship will take three weeks or more to prep before it can launch. And if they can’t deflect the comet, there’s no knowing how long it could be. This could be a real freakin’ disaster for planet Earth, Ginny. I’m scared, don’t mind telling you.”
He saw her eyes go down and her hand come up to touch the bottom of her screen. Then she looked up and blinked.
“I’m calling up the news channel, Will.” Her mouth slowly fell open. “Oh my God... it’s true! It’s all over the news.” she was speechless for a few seconds, “Oh dear God, no! They’re showing simulations of stuff hitting the planet... tsunamis… whole cities being wiped out... oh God, no!”
“Honey, I’m sorry to wake you up to see this. I’m sure it’s just the media exaggerating, like they always do. This thing will get deflected and we won’t need to worry. Not once our next shipment gets up here anyway.
“I just needed to talk to you – to tell you I love you – and how much I want to be there with you... right now.” Something caught in his throat and he found it hard to talk. The call timer in the corner of his screen said he had two minutes left.
Then Ginny was speaking again: “They’re saying there’s an international mission to head off this comet...” she paused, watching her screen.
“They’re speculating on how it will work – some sort of nuke, they’re saying. No mention of Chinese miners though…” another pause.
“And you’re right, Will, about your supply ship. They’re saying another one will be sent up to the Moon colony around a month late. That won’t be so bad, will it sweetheart?”
“Aw, hell, I might have to eat lentils for a coupla weeks,” he said with a forced laugh. He’d remembered, a little late, the Governor’s advice about keeping spirits up.
VIDCALL – 1 MINUTE REMAINING
“I’ll be okay Ginny, but I want you to take good care of yourself, honey. I’m counting the days till I get back home to you sweetheart. And then I’m staying home for good. I’m through with sitting on a rock out in space, babe.”
VIDCALL – 30 SECONDS REMAINING
“Look I gotta go. Only allowed five goddamn minutes for this call. Love ya Ginny!” He stopped talking to let her have the last word.
Her face filled the screen as she moved forward to blow a kiss at the cam. “Love you too, Will,” she said. “You take care up there honey. I’ll be down here waiting for you, Will.” She smiled, her green eyes sparkled… and the picture froze.
A small window opened in the middle of her face
VIDCALL TIME ELAPSED
2. Down To Earth
Moon, 2087
“Of course, the various scientific teams will help in any way they can,” said the Chief Science Officer, Englishman Dr James Robinson, as he sat stiffly in Sokolova’s office. “But you can’t seriously expect them to start digging for ice in the bottom of craters, like some sort of navvies. It’s preposterous!”
“They will do whatever is necessary to help us to stay alive and healthy up here,” said Sokolova. “Right now we need more people out on the surface, mining for ice, and more people in the Biosphere increasing our farming output. We need more people inside the mountain, turning out plass and PV panels and vital components. Our survival might depend on it.”
“But many of these scientific studies require constant monitoring,” said Robinson. “Years of vital scientific endeavour may be thrown away if you pull my people away from their work. Their hearts and souls have been invested in these experiments.”
“If their work is that important to them, they can monitor their experiments when they are off shift, Doctor Robinson, in their spare time,” said Sokolova. “Keeping everybody in this colony alive and well is my top priority. You can choose who works where. Please let me have your recommendations at 18 hours.”
“And if I decline…?” he raised his eyebrows.
“You will be relieved of your post. Any other questions?”
“Er…” he hesitated. Then, with a sigh of resignation, “No.”
“Very well. I will see you at 6pm. Please see yourself out.” Sokolova had already turned to her screen to call the five Moon tourists to her office.
* * * * *
Moon, 2087
“How’s it going?” Cooper shouted over the hum of the plass plant’s huge electric motor, into the ear of Danny Gallagher. He was still breathless from the sprint back to the colony’s industrial facility which spread through the cavern and maze of tunnels left over from a Chinese mining operation in the sixties. The energetic run and rushing air had helped clear his head. Now he was determined to do all he could to return to Ginny as soon as possible. Helping make the lunar colony self-sufficient seemed like the best way.
“Ah! So there yer are.” Gallagher turned away from the inspection window with a broad grin. “Thought you’d gone to get a rollickin’ from her ladyship. But I hear we’ve a bigger problem on our hands…?”
“Yeah. Our supply ship is being sent up to head off this comet.”
“Pleased that’s not my job!”
“Me too. Could be tricky,” agreed Cooper. “In the meantime we’ve got to crank up production here so we can grow more food.”
“Speakin’ o’ that…?” Gallagher looked at his comm and raised his eyebrows.
“Ah… sorry your lunch break is a little late, Danny.”
“A little!”
“Can you give me ten more minutes while I have a word with these guys?” Cooper jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the main workshops, which filled the rest of the cavern.
“Okay. This one’s nearly done.” Gallagher nodded towards the vast tube being extruded on the other side of the pressure wall. “You can have the pleasure of suiting up and finishing off out there.”
“Thanks Danny.”
“Ye’ll owe me a pint.”
“How many’s that, now?”
“A pub full, at least.”
“I’ll settle up with you, back in sunny Dublin.”
“Nothin’ sunny about Dublin, Will. But the Guinness is grand, so you’ll not notice the rain.”
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“Hahaha, thanks Danny,” Cooper turned to go.
“Ten minutes, mind,” shouted Gallagher after him. “Me stomach’s thinkin’ me throat’s been cut!”
It was seventeen minutes later when Cooper returned to receive some more good-natured ribbing from the Irishman before he headed to the canteen. In that time Cooper had spoken briefly with the engineers and technicians who were creating the colony’s essential hardware and infrastructure. The prospects for increasing production did not look promising.
Photovoltaic panels were laser-cut from sheets of wafer-thin plass then coated with graphene, phosphorene and organic polymers. They converted a respectable 73% of sunlight into electricity but making them was a slow process. He could set up a second production line with a three-shift work rota to crank them out round the clock, but it would not be popular. Installing PV panels on the mountainside was also tricky, due to the steep and dusty surface. It was a job that could not be rushed without compromising safety. The Governor had made it clear that was not an option.
They would also need more lighting panels for the expanded farm. The spray-on lighting surfaces that illuminated most of Armstrong Base did not provide the full-spectrum light needed for efficient plant growth. They needed LED panels incorporating different light colours to suit specific plant requirements. Building them was labour-intensive. He would have to mechanise production to meet the new demand.
The rock wool needed to support many crops’ root systems was easy and quick to make in volume, so no problem there. But they would need hundreds more pumps and control systems for the hydroponics, more pumps for air management, and more filters and scrubbers. Many of the more intricate components for these had been shipped from Earth in the past. Now Cooper would have to find a way to make them with their limited resources on the Moon.
Fuel cells were a headache to produce and they’d need lots more of those. And he hadn’t started thinking about increased water retrieval out in the craters yet.
“Jesus H Christ!” he muttered to himself, as he wriggled his feet into the lower half of his surface suit and prepared to go through the airlock. On the vacuum side of the plass plant was a sloping tunnel that allowed the developing tube to grow to its full 50 metre length. Then it could be separated from the extrusion rotor ready to be towed into position alongside the rest of the colony’s surface accommodation.
He had already buzzed Hassan Khouri who was on his way back from Haworth crater in the tractor, towing a tank of water. Once he’d hooked that up outside the main pumping station, he would meet Cooper at the bottom of the tunnel. They’d haul the new tube to the north side of Armstrong, the lower end of the farm.
Tomorrow Cooper would get a team out there, welding the connecting tubes and doors into place. Then they could bury it, pressurise it and set about installing the plumbing, ducting, fans, pumps, staging and lamps ready for the hydroponics to go in. A week from now, Song could start planting up the new extension to the farm, increasing growing space by about three per cent. That left only another 30-plus tubes to make and install… “Jeeez, I wanna go home!” he sighed out loud.
Home seemed like a long way off right now. So he focussed on getting his arms up through the rigid torso and into the bulky sleeves of his suit top. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. Two and a half years of wearing the same surface suit had not improved its fragrance. The original synthetic odour had gone, replaced by the acrid stench of stale sweat mixed with the smell of spent gunpowder from the regolith dust.
The fine particles of lunar soil were silicon dioxide glass, with a texture like snow, left over from a million meteoroid impacts. Despite being vacuumed off in the airlock on the way back up to normal air pressure, the dust left a burnt chemical smell impregnated in the material of the suit. Fine powder from the regolith got into every crack and crevice. It ground away at joints and seals causing problems for suits and vehicles. Just one of the many trials of life on the Moon.
Finally he had the two halves of his suit locked together and was ready to fit his helmet. He called one of the nearby technicians over to check all the latches and to run through his system’s status – a strict rule before anyone entered an airlock. Then he was in the cramped cubicle feeling his suit balloon and stiffen as the pressure outside it dropped to zero.
Despite hundreds of surface transfers, Cooper felt the familiar grip of anxiety as the air around him sucked away. His heartbeat monitor showed his pulse was racing, but he ignored it and turned his comm to transmit.
“Surface Control, this is Will Cooper,” he said.
There was a fizz of static, then: “Oh, hiya Will. You goin’ somewhere nice today?”
He recognised the sing-song tones of Rachel Lim. He smiled as he pictured her sitting in the admin unit, painting her nails another hideous colour.
“Hi Rachel. Yeah, I thought I’d take a trip to Hawaii…” She always enjoyed his jokes. “But my flight’s cancelled, so I’ll be sampling the delights of Haworth Crater instead.”
“Oh, that’s nice. I hear the weather is very pretty down there today. You should get a good suntan for sure, Will.” It was the standard gag. Everyone knew the sun had never shone in Haworth Crater. That’s why they went there, to dig up the water ice that had lain frozen at the bottom for millions of years.
“I’ll show you my tan lines when I get back, Rachel.” Cooper enjoyed flirting with the Singaporean girl, but there was work to do. “In the meantime, I’m exiting from the plass plant airlock, meeting up with Hassan Khouri and towing a new tube to the farm. Then we pick up the water trailer from the pumping station and head on down the crater. Should be back in… oh, a little over three hours, I guess.”
Cooper checked his comm: 13.25. He would be pushing it to get back for his meeting at 17 hours in Sokolova’s office. “Gotta get going, Rachel…”
There was a pause while she keyed the details into her screen. “Okay, I got you checking out from airlock number two now and checking back in before three and a half hours. And I’ll let you take me for a drink when you get back…”
“Haha, yeah sure, Rachel. But not tonight. I’m dead beat already.”
“Oh, you always make excuse!” She giggled. “Okay then. Take care out there, Will.”
His pulse was back down to normal, so the small-talk hadn’t been a complete waste of time. The exit light above the door to the tunnel blinked from red to green. He punched the release key on the airlock touch screen, spun the door’s lock-wheel to withdraw the six bolts and pulled to break the seal.
There was always a tiny amount of air left. No pump could match the hard vacuum outside, but he could only imagine the gasp as the final wisp of gas escaped. Other than the background hum of his suit’s pumps and his own breathing, he was now in a world of utter silence.
As he turned to exit the airlock, he caught the briefest glimpse of a girl with green eyes and dark curly hair. Ginny! It took his breath away and his pulse raced again, the thump-thump of his blood magnified by the silence.
He stood still for a second, until reason overcame his panic and he started breathing again. He turned his shoulders slowly so that his visor made the same movement as before and there it was – a green and black flash as light refracted through the triple-skinned glass.
“Jesus Christ! I’m losing my mind.” The words echoed inside his helmet.
He was waiting for his pulse and breathing to slow down when his comm chirped in his ear.
“Cooper,” he said, a little too loud.
“It is Hassan here, Meester Will. You are okay?”
“Yes. I’m just locking out of the plass plant. Where are you Hassan?”
“Just leaving the pumping station now. I’ll be at the end of the tube tunnel in five of your crazy Earth minutes.”
“Okay. I have to cut the tube and change the nozzles. Should be with you in ten.”
“I will wait, no problem. This taxi charges by the second, so take as long as you like.”
Will smiled at the Syrian’s joke, repeated for anyone who hitched a ride on the tractor. He’d heard it a hundred times.
“Okay, Hassan. Be right with you, buddy.”
He wasn’t crazy about the man’s driving style, but Hassan Khouri loved his work. He made the tedious trek to and from the crater an exciting white-knuckle ride. Hassan slid the caterpillar tracks around the rocks and hollows, churning up the dusty regolith on the turns.
Cooper swung the airlock door inwards, ducked through into the rock-lined tunnel, then shut and locked the door behind him. The retina-scorching blue flashes of the electrode rotor were gone. He had powered down the extrusion machine fifteen minutes ago.
The brilliant glow of the new plass had dulled to orange, then red and finally faded to grey. But it was still hot, as were the nozzles he had to change, so he’d have to take care. Burn a hole in his suit and he’d find out what the vacuum really felt like. He was in no hurry to try that experience.
* * * * *
Earth, 1504
The Pelican was now high and dry since the tide had ebbed away. It had left the ship tilted over far enough to make life on board uncomfortable. It was also just enough to allow Yonaton to inspect the cracked plank that had given way when they ran aground.
He knew it wasn’t too serious and they soon slowed the leak to a trickle with some cloth and a brace against the planking from inside. But he had convinced the Cardinal that the ship was in danger and needed repairs before they could continue. He would have to inspect the damage at low water, he said. And then go into the forest the following morning to find a suitable tree and cut a new plank.
Now, after measuring the damaged plank, Yonaton sat on the sandbank and watched the tide creeping towards him. The incoming sea sparkled like a thousand diamonds in the early evening sunlight.
He loved this time of day: the softly soughing wind, the faint hiss from the advancing water. Above it came the fluting warbles of seabirds as they waded through the shallows on matchstick legs, picking up tiny shrimps and worms with stiletto beaks, tossing the morsels down their throats.