by Bob Goddard
“Oh! Thank you.”
“You look like you had a rough night, Lian. What’ll I getcha to eat?”
“Eat…?” Lian looked around, amazed to see several other tables were now occupied by colonists who were tucking in to their first meal of the day. “Oh. No food, thank you.”
“Aw, you ought to eat something. Set you up for the day. Some eggs, perhaps? With toast?”
“Oh. Eggs… with toast. Hmm, okay then. But small, please. Not much hungry. Thank you.”
Now, at supper time, it seemed as if that breakfast exchange had happened in another lifetime. As Lian sipped her soup, she knew she’d had a busy day, but couldn’t remember the details of it. She glanced up at the big screen on the wall of the Lunar Lunchbox and saw the enormous Chang Zheng 33 rocket. The ISCOM broadcast had been showing the same scene for an hour or more. The rocket was trailing wraiths of vapour into the black pre-dawn sky. Frantic floodlit activity surrounded it on the ground. The Shenlong space plane, itself massive, appeared tiny as it sat piggy-backed on the side of the giant missile.
In two hours from now, she mused, it would be blasting off from Xichang in the south, carrying all the hopes of mankind with it. And sitting inside the space plane’s cockpit would be those two brave taikonauts.
She had met one of them, Chao Yeung. He had been one of the pilots when she flew up to the Moon 20 months ago. A lovely man with a wife and baby son. Now he and Zhihuan Kwok had to give their lives to try to put right what her country had done wrong. It was horrible. A human sacrifice to atone for the nation’s sins.
“Hi Lian. Are you okay?”
She jumped at the voice of Tamala Ngomi, who was sliding into the seat beside her, putting down her food tray and smiling her big bright toothy smile.
“Oh! Sorry. Thinking about things.” She realised she must have been sitting there with her spoon halfway to her lips for the past several minutes. She put it down shakily.
Tamala looked up at the screen and the vapour-spewing rocket. She turned back to Lian with a frown. “You can’t take responsibility for any of this, Lian.” She reached over and squeezed Lian’s hand. “None of it had anything to do with you.”
“But I knew, Tamala.” Her eyes searched Tamala’s face imploringly. “I was part of that secret. Protecting the Great Chinese Dream.” She turned away and shook her head. “I don’t know what to think any more.”
“We all have secrets… even me.” Tamala slipped her arm around Lian’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “But this one is not a secret any more. Will and his girlfriend are on every news channel across the world tonight.”
“Oh!” Lian’s hand came up to her mouth. “So sorry for them.”
“It’s okay.” Tamala smiled. “You should have seen Ginny roaring off on Will’s motorbike to evade the news hounds. It was brilliant!”
“It was?”
“Yes, it was. I think Ginny can look after herself. And the story is out there now, so you don’t have to worry about it any more, Lian. It’s up to your government to answer the questions now.”
“But… I will never be able to go home. Such disgrace for me and my parents.”
“Nonsense, Lian. Of course you will go home. This whole thing will be forgotten by the time you are due to leave here. How much longer is it?”
“Nearly one and a half years. But… I don’t know if I can stay here.” Lian was looking down into her soup bowl, her hair hiding her face. “I feel I don’t have the right to be here any more.” Her voice was small and sad.
“That’s just crazy, Lian. You have more right to be here than anyone. Look at all your fantastic work and achievements! And the great discoveries you’ve made since you’ve been here. Besides, we need you here. Now more than ever. Your knowledge and skills are vital to improving the Biosphere, upgrading our production and nutrition, making the colony self-sufficient. We can’t do it without you, Lian.”
The Chinese woman still didn’t look up. Tamala reached forward, used an index finger to gently tuck Lian’s hair behind her ear then leaned in and kissed her softly on her exposed cheek.
She whispered in her ear: “And we don’t just need you Lian, we all love you too.”
“Love?” She turned to look at Tamala with pleading eyes. “I don’t know what it is, Tamala. Tell me what this love feels like, please.”
* * * * *
Earth, 1504
“Look there, Yonny, my friend.” Benyamin pointed to a bone sticking out of the ground where the soil had fallen away.
“I see it, Ben,” said Yonaton, stepping forward and bending for a closer look. This edge of the grassy mound was exposed and crumbs of brown earth were falling down to the piles of rocks below. Besides what looked like a human arm bone, there were three smaller bones that could have been ribs protruding from the soil.
“I think the ice must have been here once, years ago,” he said. “That would explain the piles of rocks down there. But why would anyone bury their dead up here?”
“Let’s find the stones and see if they can provide an answer.” Ben shivered despite the recent appearance of the sun. He was keen to be gone from this spooky place.
They stepped on to the grass and immediately spotted a dark grey triangle of rock sticking up oddly from the ground ahead. Up close it was clear this was no local stone. It was polished smooth and perfectly flat. On its shiny face were neat columns of carved symbols that slanted down and disappeared beneath the soil.
Yonaton knelt and ran his fingers over the cold stone surface. “Whoever made this had iron tools,” he whispered in awe, “and some real skill in working ice-rock.”
“I’ve never seen ice-rock that colour,” said Ben. “White with pink veins, yellow even, but nothing this colour. It’s almost black.”
“The Dasony have only had iron tools since we started trading with them, Ben. They couldn’t have cut this, let alone carved these marks into it. Even our stone masons couldn’t produce something like this.”
“Who then?”
“I have no idea.”
He traced the carved symbols with his fingertips, marvelling at their perfect symmetry and sharp edges. He pulled back the grass to see more of them.
“And I have no idea what these carvings mean either, Ben. It must be some kind of message for the dead, I suppose. But it’s nothing like our language. And the Dasony write only in pictures…”
“Look over here, Yonny. There’s another one.”
Yonaton followed the direction of Ben’s pointing finger to a light grey stone. He got to his feet and walked to where it lay at a drunken angle. There was a hand’s width of square-cut rock protruding above the turf.
“Different stone,” he said. “This is like the granite cliff where we left the boat with Mammed.”
He brushed his fingers over the lichen-covered surface. “Doesn’t look like there are any carvings on this one, unless they are on the other side. Let’s see if we can lift it up, Ben.”
“Are you sure about this?” The navigator had an uncomfortable feeling that disturbing this site would be bad luck.
“Yes, of course. We need to see if there are more carvings. See if we can find a piece small enough to take away so we can try to understand it at home. Grab that side and pull, please Ben.”
They both heaved on the stone, but it didn’t move at all.
“I don’t think we’d be able to smuggle that on to the ship,” Ben caught his breath, “even if we managed to get it out of the ground.”
“You’re right. We need to find something smaller. Come on, let’s look around a bit more, see what else there is.” Yonaton was already striding away over the grass.
The close-cropped turf and piles of pellets told of many rabbits. Near the centre of the grassy area the mariners came across the entrance to their warren. Piles of spoil from the animals’ tunnels surrounded a sunken area capped by a rectangular black stone. It appeared the rabbits had been tunnelling underneath the stone for generations. They had ex
cavated a pit as the stone had sunk into the softened ground.
“This looks more like it,” said Yonaton, as he clambered down into the depression. “The rabbits have unearthed this one for us.”
He stroked the smooth surface of the ink-black stone and pushed some loose soil off the top.
“There are no carvings on this side, but we should be able to turn it over, Ben. Maybe if we can see the whole thing we will figure out what it means.”
Benyamin trudged down to the other end of the stone. They got their fingers underneath the edge and lifted, slowly turning it over.
“Oh God,” groaned Ben. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Yonaton, who was looking at the vertical lines of carved symbols on the newly-revealed side of the stone, looked down and saw what had unsettled his shipmate. Grinning up at them from the rich brown earth was a human skull.
“Ah. I see what you mean.”
“This is bad, Yonny, my friend. Chief Masceola told us not to touch the bones.”
“We are not touching them, Ben.”
“But we can’t take this huge stone back to the ship. So let’s just put it back like it was and get away from here. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place, Yonny.”
“Okay, Ben. We’ll do just that. But first I want to copy these carved symbols.” Yonaton reached inside his jacket and withdrew two rolled pieces of white buckskin and two lead drawing sticks. He offered one of each to Ben.
“Help me make an accurate copy and then we can get going. You do that half…” he drew a line across the stone with his finger, “and I’ll do this. Then we can go, eh?”
Squatting down in the bottom of the pit with the sun warming their backs, the two men set about their task. Every line and curve, every squiggle and symbol, was copied in neat vertical columns on their buckskin sheets. They had almost finished when a dark shadow fell across them making both men jump and turn in surprise.
“Ha! Caught in the act!” spat the fat Cardinal. “Now we see your true calling, Captain! Necromancer and Satan worshipper! Assisted by your accomplice in evil, Benyamin the Navigator. And in front of all these witnesses…” he turned and gestured to four Convertors standing close beside him. Behind them two more were holding the struggling form of Mammed, his mouth bound by a gag.
* * * * *
Moon, 2087: Sunday, 9th February
Cooper wasn’t great at mornings. He’d admit that himself. There were some who wanted to strike up a conversation and be bright and sparky before they had coffee! What was wrong with them?
He had a routine now: Roll out of bed when his alarm went nuts. Do a hundred press-ups on the floor (Moon press-ups were so easy!). Then he’d change into his jogsuit and sprint down the corridor tube to the bottom end of the farm. From there he would cut through the last unit and jog back up the corridor on the other side. The slight incline on the way back was just enough to get his lungs and heart pumping.
He’d do his session in the gym later. All colonists had to put in an hour of gravity-sim weight training each day to slow muscle and bone wasting. The time and effort he expended in the gym would be logged and used to tailor his rehab when he got home, but Cooper didn’t rely on that. He used every opportunity to keep fit, like sprinting up and down the corridors before the rest of the colony started work each day.
Back in his room he’d grab his ISCOM-issue coverall and jog to the showers. Fortunately he was billeted next to the gymnasium which had toilets and showers attached, so no queuing for him like the poor saps in the Ghetto.
Forty minutes after the bell he’d be in the Lunchbox just as the first coffee of the day was brewed and he’d be ready to speak to people. He’d finally switch his comm back on and check out his priority list for the day as he chomped through a bowl of cereal. He couldn’t get his favourite Crunchy GM Grahams up here. He made do with a Swiss concoction of nutritionally-enhanced nuts, oats and fruits they called Numuesli.
Will was surprised to see a waiting message. Nobody called him at night. He could see this was from Karl Bergmann, ISCOM’s media relations manager, who he’d been somewhat brusque with yesterday. He pressed play:
“Hello Will. I called Ms Antoine yesterday like you asked and warned her that the press might soon be on her doorstep. She said they had already arrived and had blocked her driveway so she couldn’t get her car from the garage. Then she said she had another idea to get past them. Did you see her go on that motorbike and escape from the news guys? That was wonderful!
“Later on she called to say she had ditched her comm as the press would be sure to hack her account and trace her location. She’ll call you later this morning from her friend’s screen and let you know where she is. Your motorbike is safe in her friend’s garage, so you don’t need to worry. That is some machine you have there, Will!
“Anyway, you don’t need to concern yourself about the media any more. I’ve spoken to Governor Sokolova who has explained the background to this. After the hatchet job Caltel did we have imposed a ban on all media contact with colonists until after the Comet Santos issue is resolved.
“The deflection mission launch went perfectly last night so hopefully this will all be history in a week or so. Take care up there. Goodbye, Will.”
Cooper brushed his hand over his short cropped hair and blew his cheeks out. He felt sick with guilt that his careless comment to Ginny had forced her to go on the run from the media and seek refuge at a friend’s house. But Ginny couldn’t hole up there forever. She had to get to Arcata on the shuttle for work on Monday.
“Mind if I join you, Will?” He looked up to see Nadia Sokolova standing next to his table with a tray and a smile. Okay, so it was only a crooked half-smile, but it was the first she had ever shown him and he was stunned.
“Er… oh, no. Not at all. Please sit down.” He shifted his coffee mug to make room for the Governor to set her breakfast tray on the table. He was tempted to blurt out ‘To what do I owe the honour…?’ but managed to bite the words back. He didn’t want to appear churlish and unwelcoming.
“Thank you.” She slid along the plass bench opposite him. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry your partner, Virginia, had such a tough time with the media yesterday.”
“Well, I’m—”
“And I want you to know that I don’t hold you to blame.”
“Really? I thought you were furious with me!”
“I was pretty mad, yesterday.” She half-smiled again. “But not with you, so much, as with the consequences of this getting out.”
She took a sip from her coffee cup. “We need cooperation between all the world powers and trust between everybody here at Armstrong too. It’s easy to point the finger at China when anything goes wrong. Fifty years ago it was America that people loved to blame. They were accused of all the world’s problems. But they were only responsible for half of them.” She smiled.
“Yeah,” he chuckled, “ain’t that the truth.”
She nodded. “But whether China is responsible or not, we need them to deflect this thing and then get our monthly supplies up and running again. And we need Lian to help us survive until they do. She seems to have a lot on her mind at the moment. We can’t afford for her to crack up due to some guilt complex.”
“I guess I was a little hard on her.” He stared down into his empty cereal bowl. “And stupid for shooting my mouth off.”
“It was bad luck your girlfriend got mugged by those TV people before you could warn her.” She took another sip of coffee then smiled. “But I was impressed by the way she dodged them on her motorbike. I didn’t realise she was a biker, Will.”
“The bike’s mine. It’s a ’53 Harley VS-Rod. Best bike they ever built, right before the factory went under in The Great Collapse.” He liked talking bikes.
“I taught Ginny to ride soon after we met and she really took to it. She normally rides a six hundred Ducati, but she takes the Harley out most weekends. Helps keep it running while I’m stuck here on the Moon. It
’s a bit heavy for her but she loves it.”
“I can see that.” Nadia swallowed a mouthful of her blini pancake. “My father let me ride his bike when I was growing up. When I went to the military academy in Lipetsk I had a 1200cc Honda GP Replica. It was fantastic.” Her eyes sparkled with the memory.
“But only in summer. Too bloddy cold for motorbike in Russian winter,” she laughed. Then the smile faded and she looked serious once more.
“Anyway, it’s done now. The media will do their worst to stir up racial tension. We have to keep things calm up here… and no bad feeling between you and me, Will, please.”
“Um, okay.” He didn’t know what else to say. There was an awkward silence while Nadia chewed her pancake and he shook his coffee cup to see if there was any left inside. A few drops flew out of the drinking spout and made brown spots on the back of his hand.
“Don’t worry.” She swallowed and her eyes twinkled. “I will still be ‘Bossy Bitch’ and you will still be ‘Grumpy Engineer’. But we work better if we don’t fight, agreed?”
“Is this a private meeting?” They both looked up to see Tamala Ngomi looking quizzically at them.
“No, no,” said Nadia. “We were just talking motorbikes. Please join us, Tamala.”
“You can sit here,” said Cooper as he turned and swung his leg over the bench seat to get up. “I gotta go check my boys are fixing the new farm staging in the right place. Please excuse me ladies.”
Tamala watched him go then sat and took her porridge bowl and orange drink off her tray. “Did I scare him away?” she asked.
“No.” Nadia smiled at her. “He was looking for a chance to escape. Will is happier when I’m being bitchy with him, I think.”
“Oh, I see.” Tamala’s eyebrows shot up. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No, not at all. I’m pleased you turned up.” Nadia moved her plass of orange drink and placed it next to Tamala’s. “Or I would have to drink this ghastly stuff myself. You still can’t get enough of it, I hope?”