Mother Moon

by Bob Goddard

  A richly-accented Australian female voice said, “Sorry for the silence. We’re all a bit overwhelmed by what we are seeing here at ISCOM’s base in New Norcia, Western Australia.

  “We hope you are getting these images up there on the Moon and in ESA’s offices around the world. We’ve lost some satellites this morning, so transmissions may be a bit affected. There is still more debris in the comet’s tail to come, but the surface impacts from Comet Santos and its eleven large fragments are over.

  “We are awaiting reports from the main impact zones, but as you may have seen, some of the drone-cams got fried by the radiant heat and others were knocked out by the shock wave from the blast.” There was a pause.

  “Okay… we’re getting reports of seismic shockwaves reaching London, Paris and Rome. Oh my goodness. Richter scale readings of 8.2, 8.3 and 8.5. That’s not good.”

  Tamala looked up at Darren and said: “Can we go now, please? I don’t think I can take any more of this.”

  * * * * *

  Moon, 2087

  Will Cooper was struggling to breathe. He had to get to the forest. He could see it in the distance, but something was holding him back. His legs wouldn’t run and his chest felt heavy. He was carrying something. No, somebody.

  He had to rescue someone but he couldn’t work out whether it was the person he was clutching against his chest, or the person in the forest. He was closer now and could see the trees. Big trees. Sequoia.

  Ginny! He had to get to her. She was in the trees and the trees were swaying back and forth. He tried to call out to her but he couldn’t get his breath. Why wouldn’t his legs work? Panic started to seize him…

  He woke with a start and realised he was lying flat on his back on his bed. And there was something on his chest! He raised his head and saw glossy brown hair. It moved and a pair of almond eyes peered up at him through long lashes.

  “Oh God. Rachel.” He groaned. “Sorry, bad dream.”

  “I gave you bad dream?” She sounded upset.

  “No! No, not you, Rachel.” He sighed deeply. “Been a tough time. Head’s full of nightmares.”

  “You not angry with me?”

  “No, not angry. Guess I needed company last night too.” He turned his head to see his window screen. “But it’s nearly ten now, Rachel. I gotta get going.”

  “Ohhh!” She was disappointed. “You work too long hours, Will.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed as he sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. “But it stops me thinking too much.”

  “Thinking about your girlfriend? Ginny?” She still had her arm around his waist.

  He lifted her hand away gently. “Sorry. Gotta go, Rachel.”

  “You love her very much, don’t you, Will?”

  “Yeah. I do.” He pulled up his jog-suit pants.

  “She’s very lucky,” she said sadly. “Nobody ever loved me like that.”

  Will retrieved his sneakers from the pile of clothes on the floor. “It’ll happen one day, Rachel. You’ll find the right guy.”

  She looked up at him with a sorrowful face. He reached down and tenderly brushed her hair from her eyes.

  “Sorry, Rachel. It ain’t me babe.”

  He bent and kissed her forehead. Then he was gone.

  * * * * *

  Moon, 2087

  Tamala Ngomi was lying safe and warm wrapped in Darren’s strong arms, but her thoughts were half a million kilometres away. She tried to picture her mum and her dad in their house in Lilongwe, but she couldn’t decide what it would look like inside with all the windows boarded up.

  It was easy to imagine her sister Elina. Her face was never far from Tamala’s thoughts and she could hear her voice, her laughter – could feel her moods too. It had always been that way with her twin. But what was she doing? How was she coping with the aftermath of the comet strike?

  She would be organising their parents, that’s for sure. And getting their cousin, his wife and kids, busy on some project or other. She always was the bossy one. They were all okay, Tamala felt sure of that, although her attempts to call Elina, when she had crept out of her room to go to the bathroom an hour ago, had failed. That was to be expected. There was no signal near their house in Lilongwe so unless Elina was at a hot spot, like the Sunshine Restaurant, she would be unable to connect.

  In the absence of news from home, Tamala had tuned her comm to the ISCOM broadcast while she sat in the toilet cubicle. The signal was broken and patchy at times, due to satellites being struck by meteoroids, they said, but there had been a steady stream of reports from around the globe.

  Earthquakes had been cropping up almost everywhere, some of them huge. And volcanoes had started erupting all over the place too. That had been a surprise to her. Dust from them and from the impact would be sure to cause problems with transmissions, they said, but Tamala didn’t really understand why.

  Now, back in her bed with the sleeping Darren, she felt both exhausted and restless. Her window screen said it was 10.02, time she got moving. After the traumatic scenes from Earth there would be colonists seeking her help today and the morning was already half gone. She held her hand up, tapped her finger and thumb together then slowly parted them. The virtual window’s curtains slid aside to reveal the green slopes of Mount Mulanje, her choice for a soothing start to the day.

  The light from the sunlit mountain flooded into her tiny bedroom and roused the sleeping giant beside her.

  “Hmm? Wassa time?” he slurred.

  “It’s gone ten, sweetheart. I have to get up and be ready to see people in my office. I can’t have you snoring next door. Sorry.”

  “S’okay,” he said, pushing himself up on one elbow to see the scene she’d selected. “Where’s that?”

  “It’s Mount Mulanje, in the south, where they grow all the tea.”

  “Pretty country. But if you think that’s a mountain, wait ’till you see Mount Cook and the Southern Alps. They’re covered in snow and glaciers, even in the summer. I’ll take you skiing.”

  “It sounds wonderful, but I really do have to go now, Darren. Sorry, my love.” She lifted his arm and slid out of bed, kneeling on the floor until her head stopped spinning. “Besides, our baby is kicking me, asking for his breakfast. Can you feel it?” She held his hand against her tummy.

  “Yeah. That little fella’s gonna kick for the All Blacks, I reckon,” he grinned. “He’s not the only one who’s hungry.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips. “Race you to the Lunchbox!”

  He swung his legs off the bed and sat up, then groaned as his head spun too.

  * * * * *

  Moon, 2087

  Nadia had spent an energetic hour in the gym and was finishing her breakfast while she reflected on a busy night. After drawing the comet impact gathering to a close at 3 hours and urging the remaining colonists to get some sleep, she had called her parents in St Petersburg.

  It had been a fractured conversation due to malfunctioning satellites, but Nadia established that they were both safe and well in their nuclear shelter. They had been shaken by a series of earthquakes less than ten minutes after the impact, but their old Cold War bunker had remained intact and functioning. Buildings on the surface had not fared so well. The Winter Palace was in ruins and the glorious onion domes of the Church of the Saviour on Blood were now so much dust and rubble, they told her.

  The knowledge that they were safe had helped her sleep for a few hours, but the Russian Television news broadcast when she woke was disturbing. Tsunamis were wreaking havoc around the Atlantic coasts and further earthquakes – some of them apocalyptic – were cropping up around the world, seemingly at random. Among the list of countries hit, she had heard California mentioned and feared for Will’s partner sheltering in her tree.

  Then the Russian broadcast had stopped and she switched to the ISCOM newsfeed from Australia. It too was a poor quality transmission and she guessed there was more damage to satellites than anyone had anticipated. She made a mental note to ask
Thijs Jansen about the state of the eight Lunar Positioning System satellites orbiting the Moon when she next saw him.

  She was sipping the last of her coffee when Doctor Rozek showed up, looking weary and worried.

  “No sleep then, Yasmine?” she observed drily, noting the dark rings under the doctor’s brown eyes.

  “Oh, no. Not yet, Nadia. Lian was awake when I left you at 3am and I spent the rest of the night running tests and trying to comfort her. Fortunately her brain and major organs seem to be functioning normally, but her hands have some numbness and feet and legs are part paralysed. Recovery will take a long time, I’m afraid.

  “My main concern is her emotional state. She is deeply depressed and traumatised, as you might expect. I was hoping you might come and talk to her, if you can spare a few minutes?”

  “Of course. You want to stay here and get some breakfast?”

  “No. Not just now, Nadia. I will come and see how she responds to you.”

  “Lian. Look at me please,” Nadia took one of Lian’s hands and squeezed it gently.

  “I am too ashamed,” wheezed the Chinese woman, who had turned her head away when she saw the Governor and doctor enter the sick bay. The plastic cocoon had gone and now Lian had a tube feeding oxygen to her nostrils and another dripping fluids into her arm. Patches on her throat and temples picked up her vital statistics for the ICU monitors.

  “Very well,” said Nadia as she folded her long legs under her to kneel beside Lian’s bed. “I will stay here until you feel you can look at me. You have nothing at all to be ashamed about, Lian.”

  Slowly Lian’s head turned until she locked eyes with the Governor.

  “I am ashamed of my life,” she croaked. “I am ashamed for being a coward and trying to end it. Ashamed for making Will risk his life. Ashamed for causing you all this trouble.”

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” said Nadia. “There isn’t a single woman here on the Moon – or anywhere on Earth for that matter – who wouldn’t be proud to have achieved a quarter of what you have done in your life. And yet you are ashamed of it.”

  Lian remained silent.

  “Your little escapade has turned Will into an international hero and is giving Yasmine here…” she turned and smiled at the doctor, “a chance to try out all her training and fancy equipment. So you don’t need to feel too sorry for them.

  “We are all allowed to make one mistake, Lian. But only one. I need you to make a solemn promise you won’t do anything stupid like that ever again.”

  Lian screwed her eyes shut as tears rolled from their corners. She shook her head slowly from side to side.

  “We can’t afford to lose you, Lian. Your knowledge, your unique skills, your brilliant inspirational ideas… they may be the difference between life and death for this colony over the months ahead. We are all in this together and we need you now more than ever.”

  Lian opened her mouth and struggled to force words out of it. “My. Whole. Life…” she closed her eyes and shook her head again.

  “Hmm?”

  “It… it’s been one big lie. All of it.” She looked at Nadia in despair.

  “All governments lie to their people, Lian. Every country is full of politics and propaganda, half-truths and deceit. It’s how the powerful stay in control and coerce their subjects to work for them. But the alternative is anarchy. That’s even worse.”

  “Not only government…” Lian’s eyes squeezed shut again as fat tears rolled.

  Nadia was thoughtful for a few moments, then: “Our parents only do what they think is best for us, Lian. They make mistakes too, but their generation faced different challenges to us. We shouldn’t blame them too much.”

  “But this comet—”

  “… had nothing to do with you… or your government. Has Yasmine not told you?” Nadia looked up at the doctor who shook her head.

  “Comet Santos was hit by an asteroid two weeks ago, Lian. A Chilean observatory captured the moment they collided. The comet’s change of course was a tragic act of nature, a billion-to-one chance encounter between a rock and an iceberg in space. It had absolutely nothing to do with the mining mission.”

  Lian was wide eyed now. “You are sure?”

  “Absolutely certain. The whole world knows it. China’s not to blame. Not at all.”

  “Oh! Oh, oh, oh.” Lian’s face collapsed and her body shook with wracking sobs.

  Nadia felt a hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough, Nadia. Lian needs to rest now.”

  Nadia nodded, raised Lian’s hand to her lips and kissed it softly. Then she got to her feet and turned to leave, but stopped when she felt the doctor’s hand on her arm.

  “Can we have a talk, Nadia? In private?”

  “Yes.” She sniffed and blinked watery eyes. “Come to my office.”

  Nadia was standing, bending over her desk screen when the doctor knocked and stepped inside.

  “Thank you, Nadia. I think you’ve just given that young lady her life back again.”

  “Let us hope so. Misunderstandings can be very dangerous.”

  “That’s… what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well… this is very difficult.” Yasmine looked down at the stethoscope she was clasping tightly in her hands. “You see… in my country, ever since the Koranic War, it has been forbidden to show any form of… of affection towards another person in public. Especially another person of the same sex. So… I might be making a terrible mistake. It may be a huge misunderstanding.”

  “There is no Sharia Law here, Yasmine. You can speak your mind without fear.”

  “Well. You see… last night, in the Lunchbox, when we were scared and you let me hold your hand, Nadia. I… I felt something. Something I have not felt for a very long time. And I wondered if – perhaps – you felt it too?”

  Nadia sighed deeply and stared at her desk for long, agonising seconds while the doctor bit her lip. Then finally she raised her head and looked Yasmine in the eye.

  “Yes. I felt something too.”

  “Oh! Th… thank you.” The Egyptian woman’s face lit up.

  “Something I thought I would never feel again.”

  “Oh.”

  “Something that I had determined that I must not feel while I am Governor here at Armstrong Base.”

  “Oh!” Yasmine looked crestfallen.

  “But times change, Yasmine. We all need some things we thought we could do without.” She walked around her desk and took the doctor’s stethoscope, placing it beside her screen.

  Then she took Yasmine’s hands in her own. “We all need some reassurance. Some comfort. Some love.” Very slowly, she bent forward and touched her lips to Yasmine’s.

  “Yes,” she said, “we all need some love.”

  * * * * *

  Moon, 2087

  “You’re not going to want to see this, Darren.” Tamala nodded at the screen opposite as the tall New Zealander dropped into the canteen seat beside her. “But you’d better turn your sound on.”

  He tapped his comm, then looked up sharply as his ear stud brought the news presenter’s voice: “… in New Zealand. Seismic stations in Australia are reporting a 9.4 quake centred in the Bay of Plenty.”

  “No! No, no, no,” he groaned.

  “This latest shock comes soon after the 9.2 in Indonesia and 9.6 quakes in Japan and China’s Sichuan province. We are awaiting reports of damage and casualties but quakes of this magnitude are unprecedented in these countries.”

  “Sichuan…” Tamala whispered to herself. “I think that’s where Lian’s parents live.”

  Darren was tapping at his comm. “Damn. There’s no service. My brother would know what’s going on, if I could only get to speak to him.”

  “How close is this Bay of Plenty to your family, Darren?”

  “Oh, they’re at the other end of New Zealand, out in the wops down near Dunedin. This quake’s right near the top. But I’ve never known one like this. C
ould’ve shook up the whole country. I’ll bet Auckland’s totally munted.”

  She didn’t know what this meant, but it didn’t sound good.

  “Look,” he said, “I can’t eat this.” He pushed his tray of cereal and juice towards Tamala. “If you and Tiny Tim can, then go for it. I’m gonna see if I can pick up a Kiwi news channel. I’ll catch ya later.”

  He stood, kissed her on the forehead and was leaving when Will entered the canteen. They exchanged a few words and Will slapped him on the shoulder before he left.

  * * * * *

  Moon, 2087

  “Dear colonists – dear fellow Lunies – this is Nadia, with your midday update.”

  She hesitated, trying to find the right words for the occasion.

  “For most of us today feels like the worst day of our lives. We’ve seen our beautiful planet assaulted in the most awful way. We don’t know when or where the destructive forces unleashed by Comet Santos will end. And we are all worried about the fate of our loved ones, especially now that communications are down and we can’t speak to them. I know ISCOM will be doing everything they can to fix this problem as soon as possible, so we will just have to be patient.

  “What I can tell you is that life is amazingly resilient and that human beings, in particular, are both ingenious and persistent in their struggle for survival. So, please, don’t assume the worst just because you can’t get in touch with your families at the moment.” Nadia fingered the crucifix at her throat nervously.

  “We know that many satellites have been damaged by the meteoroid storm following in Comet Santos’s wake. And that storm isn’t over yet. We expect the Moon to be out of the path of these high-velocity particles in the next hour or so. The Earth should be in the clear approximately two hours after that. Then work can begin getting communications going again. However, the dust from the impact plus the clouds of ash from volcanic eruptions may create further problems in the days to come.

  “My message to us all is never give up hope. Keep striving as hard as we can to make Armstrong Base self-sufficient. Work towards the day when we can all go home to our loved ones. That day will come, however distant it might seem today. For all we know, the Chinese authorities may be wiping the dust off the Shenlong Spaceplane right now, getting ready for a flight to the Moon in the next few weeks. We have to stay positive.