by Bob Goddard
The lights of Loming twinkled to the south before the beacon-fire atop the harbour tower passed behind them. Mammed soon uncovered the food, stored in a barrel in the stern of one of the canoes. He handed bread, cheese and cooked meat to the starving men, who took turns to eat voraciously while the other steered with a paddle. A second barrel contained fresh water.
The breeze freshened and their peculiar vessel made good progress, with only the occasional wave slopping over them. The lights of Loming, on the north west corner of Dominion island, soon slipped astern. Finally the light on top of the harbour tower dipped below the horizon, just as the sky in the east started to lighten with the coming dawn.
Yonaton was relieved that the light from the tower beacon had disappeared before dawn gave them away to the guard on watch. Unless they were below the horizon, their white sail would be visible as a bright speck in the west, lit up by the early morning sun. In the gathering dawn light Yonaton took a tour of inspection around their cranky, two-hulled craft. He had to admit, his sons had done a good job, notching the sides of the canoes to take the wooden cross beams which were lashed firmly in place with strong ropes. The craft flexed with the waves and creaked alarmingly, but that was to be expected.
The mast was fixed to the forward cross beam in the left hand canoe and the sail they had raised in the dark was pulling them along nicely. He looked down between the planks spanning the gap between the two hulls. Foam from the bows was creaming between them.
The tops of the log canoes were covered with a heavy waxed canvas, held down by the planks nailed across them. Only at the stern were the canoes open, with just enough room for Mammed to wriggle inside. There was, by now, a steady wash of seawater slopping to and fro inside the canoes and Yonaton put the youth to work scooping it out to lighten the boat and speed their progress.
Satisfied they were not in imminent danger of sinking, with Ben steering and Mammed bailing, Yonaton laid his weary body down on the planks and was soon lulled to sleep by the rocking motion and familiar sounds of the sea.
The sun was much higher and hotter when Benyamin squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry to wake you, Yonny, my friend. But there is something I think you should see.”
The captain blinked and shook his head to dislodge the sweetest of dreams. He had been lying in his bunk in the Pelican, with Esther’s warm, sleeping body rolling gently against him with the swell of the ocean. They had been young and newly married once again, in that first year before Lucy was born, when they had thought they would sail across the seas together forever.
He coughed and rolled over to look up at Ben, and saw in his eyes a look of concern.
“What is it, Ben?”
“See for yourself,” said the navigator, as he grasped Yonaton’s arm and helped him to his feet. He pointed at the horizon directly behind them and as they were lifted by the waves, there was the tip of a familiar brown sail rising into view and dipping out of sight.
“No!” gasped Yonaton. “Not the Pelican! How can it be?”
“It is my fault.” Ben sounded distraught. “I left the rope hanging from the tower window.”
“Not your fault. It was caught fast.”
“They must have discovered it at first light.”
“They would have found us gone then anyway, Ben.”
“The tower guard must have spotted the top of our sail as the sun came up.”
The captain rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Or that fat devil simply guessed. It wouldn’t take a genius to work out that we had fled to sea. Without a proper ship with a keel, we would only be able to head downwind. Easy for a devious mind like the Cardinal to figure out which way we were headed.”
“Maybe.”
“It makes no difference,” added the captain with a sigh. “The fact is they can see us from the top of the Pelican’s foremast and they can make twice our speed. They will catch us before sunset. We have no hope of outrunning them and reaching The Frigate Bird Islands now.”
14. One Month After Impact
Moon, 2087: Friday, 14th March
Lian Song had never felt so alive. It seemed crazy to her that only a month ago she had been very nearly dead. These past few weeks had been a revelation. She felt as if she had cast off a skin, crawled out of a cocoon, opened her wings for the first time and begun to fly.
At first it had been awful. As she lay half-paralysed in the sick bay and watched the news unfold on her screen, she had seen the full horror of the comet impact. She had watched the CCTV channel as they described earthquakes in Sichuan province. Her home city of Chengdu had been utterly destroyed. The new underground shopping mall in the city centre, where hundreds of thousands had been sheltering, had collapsed under the weight of tower blocks falling from above.
She had known right then that her parents were dead. It was almost how she had seen it in a terrifying nightmare. She remembered thinking: I should be weeping now. But she’d felt numb, cold and empty. Her grieving would come later.
And then that lovely African woman, Tamala, had burst in full of life and warmth and smiles and told her she would be part of a brand new family! She was to be godmother to Tamala and Darren’s child. A new life, a new future. She would be like a special auntie, a sister to Tamala and a part of her wonderful world of hugs and smiles and kisses. It was like a dream.
But the most amazing thing had started when the tall Californian, Will Cooper, had come to visit. He was more embarrassed than she, but his fingers and thumbs had worked a magic on her lifeless feet and legs. Small sparks, like miniature bolts of lightning, had begun to tingle in her calves, thighs, hips and spine. Slowly a glow had spread to the centre of her being. It was heavenly.
All too soon he had finished and was standing, preparing to leave, muttering some apology in that awkward way of his. And she’d heard someone begging him to come back the very next morning and massage her feet again. After he’d gone she realised that the someone had been her.
Over the days that followed Will’s visits had become the highlight of her life. Each morning before breakfast and again before supper he had patiently, gently and thoroughly massaged feeling back into her feet and through them, into her legs. At times he had awakened dead nerves that made her legs jerk and tremble. On occasion his kneading fingers had started a throbbing that made her moan and bite her knuckle. It felt too wickedly delicious to tell him to stop.
And they had talked. At first it had been about fish tanks, propagators and hydroponics. Then, as they’d become more comfortable and confident with each other, they found themselves discussing their pasts, their upbringing, their homes and families. She had been surprised to discover similarities despite cultures as far apart as the vast Pacific Ocean was wide.
Will admitted that he’d always been intimidated by his mother who’d been too busy with her high-octane social life to find time to read him a story or give him a hug when he was a child. His father had loved him, but had been away on business most of the time he was growing up. So he’d tinkered with motorcycles and discovered that engines and physics were a world he could lose himself in.
Somehow he’d wound up on the Moon and the only woman he’d ever loved had retreated to the top of a giant sequoia tree in the Redwood National Park. Now he didn’t know if she was dead or alive. The uncertainty was eating him up inside.
She told him about her childhood, how she had grown up with the Great Chinese Dream and had devoted her life to it. She had never, as far as she could remember, been kissed by her parents and was astonished to see people greeting each other with hugs and kisses here on the Moon.
Her quest for success at school, at university and in the world of genetics had been at the expense of friendships. And now the dream that she’d been chasing had evaporated like the early morning mist over the Yangtze River. Her parents, aunts and cousins had all been in the Chengdu Shopping Centre, she thought. There was nobody left to go home to and Lian now felt as though she didn’t belong anywhere.
&
nbsp; Neither would admit it, but their loss and loneliness was drawing them together.
A week after her ‘accident’ as everyone was calling it, the numbness in her legs had turned to tingling and the doctor pronounced it was time for her to try to walk again. Will had made her a walking frame and had helped to steady her as she took her first tentative steps along the corridor to the Lunchbox.
She had been overwhelmed by the smiles and hugs she’d received from everyone they’d met. Nobody scolded her for her act of betrayal. It seemed as if they really cared about her. It was a joyous thought.
Now, a month after Will had rescued her from the Soupbowl Crater, she could walk again with no more than a stick. What’s more she was fully engaged in her job as Head of Biosphere and felt worthy of her position once more. The real excitement in her life these days, however, was not in the farm or her lab. It was the time she spent with Will.
As her recovery progressed Lian had been afraid he would end her twice-daily reflexology treatments. One morning, as she was leaning on his arm for their routine walk to the Lunchbox for breakfast after her massage, she said:
“Will?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Fire away.”
“Now that I can walk again… when will you stop giving me your lovely foot massages?”
“Just as soon as you want me to.”
“Um… how about if I don’t want you to stop?”
He looked down at her with his crooked grin. “Then I guess I’ll just have to continue.”
She limped along silently for a while. Then she said in a small voice: “Thank you. Please don’t stop.” And her heart did a little hop, skip and a jump of its own.
* * * * *
Moon, 2087
Tamala Ngomi came to the end of the fifteen-minute video she had been editing and sighed with a satisfied smile. It was a delightful reminder of a wonderful day, when she and Darren were married and the whole colony crowded into the Lunar Lunchbox to celebrate their union.
She was sorry her family had not been able to witness it via a live link, but this little video would be perfect for sending to them. Just as soon as the dust cleared enough for communications to be re-established. Quite when that would be was an unknown, according to Thijs Jansen, but she felt sure it must be before her baby was born in June.
She knew the birth would take place here on the Moon. Even if their shuttle emerged miraculously through the clouds tomorrow, it was already too late for her to fly home. Doc Rozek had confirmed on Wednesday that she was now at 26 weeks, two-thirds of the way through her pregnancy. It would not be safe for her or the baby to undergo the rigours of spaceflight.
It was no surprise. By the time of their wedding a fortnight ago, she and Darren had concluded that a lunar birth was inevitable and they were excited about making history with the first Moon baby. What had come as a shock, however, was Yasmine’s assertion that the baby would be unable to fly home until it was at least one year old. Just too risky to go any earlier, she said.
Tamala wouldn’t contemplate leaving her baby behind, so that meant she wouldn’t return to Malawi until June 2088 at the earliest. It would result in an extended period of rehabilitation for her – nobody had spent over four years on the Moon – and an uncertain future for her baby. No-one knew how a child conceived and born on the Moon would cope with such a radical change in gravity. Which was why, of course, pregnancies among colonists had been forbidden and resulted in rapid repatriation on the few occasions they had occurred.
Ah well, she couldn’t change any of that now and she was determined not to worry about it. Negative emotions could affect her baby’s development, as studies had long shown. At least she and Darren would be together for the birth. And they now knew that their baby would be a girl, following the latest scans.
It meant Darren’s dream of an All Blacks player son was dashed but she had agreed he could choose a name for their daughter instead. He already had one in mind, he said, but wouldn’t tell her what it was until she was born, as it was considered bad luck to know it beforehand. She was mildly annoyed at one more unknown in her future, but decided not to let it show.
“Well then,” she had said, “you had better make sure it is a good one,” and kissed him on his forehead moko.
She checked the time: she had twenty minutes before she had to meet him for supper in the Lunchbox. Enough time for one more review of her wedding day video. She loved looking at herself in that crazy wedding dress the canteen girls had made for her out of tea towels, her headdress of surgical gauze and crepe bandage from the medical stores. And she laughed again when she saw Darren in the badly-dyed coverall they had made into a bridegroom’s suit. Despite the blotchy grey and blue colour, he had worn it without a hint of embarrassment.
In the absence of her father, Tamala had been given away by George Niarchos. Lian, resplendent in a garland of paper flowers, looked radiant as her Maid of Honour. Will was Best Man of course, having manufactured two shiny rings out of lunar titanium. He referred to them in his short and self-conscious speech, saying he expected their marriage to be as strong and durable as the rings. She guessed he was thinking of Ginny and wishing he was slipping a ring on her finger instead.
For the colonists it had been a welcome distraction and a joyful occasion, aided by the narcotic patches that Doctor Rozek handed out as the guests arrived. There had been smiles and laughter and a three-tier cake to give them all a brief taste of luxury. Nadia, after performing the marriage ceremony, had used the occasion to promise everyone better times to come.
The dressing up and speeches had given Tamala an idea. In the two weeks since the wedding she had started a theatrical group and had been surprised at the numbers keen to join and perform. This had led to song and dance sessions using improvised instruments pending more musical items to be 3D printed when time and equipment allowed. Gradually, she felt, the colony was adopting the trappings of a fledgling society. And that was good.
* * * * *
Moon, 2087
Will was reviewing a home movie of his own. Alarmed to discover his comm retained past vidcalls for only 30 days, he had transferred the last three with Ginny to his screen. Patched together into a single 15 minute video, Will had decided to watch it before lying down to sleep in a bid to hang on to Ginny. He felt she was slipping away from him, little by little, as each day passed.
He had experienced several visual disturbances these past weeks, but lately it hadn’t been Ginny’s face that had set his pulse racing, just sudden flashes of light and colour. They were much less alarming but the implication was distressing: Ginny was no longer leaping out of his subconscious to remind him that she was still there, waiting for him.
The most disturbing thing had been the dream that shocked him awake this morning. He had been fighting his way through the forest with legs of lead, trying to reach Ginny’s tree. Even in his sleep he recognised this as his nightly struggle to rescue her from disaster. This time he could see her hanging in a tangle of ropes and branches and he was close enough to reach out and touch her. As he pulled her towards him, the red climber’s helmet turned and she smiled. But the green eyes and curly hair were gone. It wasn’t Ginny’s face. It was Lian!
He’d sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, for long minutes trying to make sense of it all. Nobody could ever take Ginny’s place. Lian was cute an’ all, but he was only helping her get back on her feet again, wasn’t he?
It was true that he enjoyed massaging her feet and it was obvious that she enjoyed it too. And he was able to talk to her without feeling pressured or uncomfortable, but he was just doing his civic duty, that’s all. Helping a sick colleague get well.
Then he remembered yesterday morning in the Lunchbox after he’d walked in with Lian holding his arm as usual. After getting her seated at a table, he was at the counter collecting their breakfasts when Rachel Lim had approached.
“Hi Rachel,” he
smiled.
She didn’t smile back. “So, you can forget about your precious Ginny for her…” she hissed as she nodded towards the table where Lian was sitting, “but not for me!” Her eyes were full of hurt.
“Hey!” he protested. “There’s nothing going on…” but she had already turned and bounced away.
Maybe that was it? Rachel’s jealousy had sown a seed in his subconscious and it had germinated into a bad dream. That had to be the answer to the dilemma that had troubled him all day. Now he was determined to dream only of Ginny, even if she was falling from a crashing tree. That nightmare was preferable to not being able to see her face.
He pressed play and hugged his elbows as Ginny’s green eyes and heart-melting smile came to life on his screen once more.
* * * * *
Moon, 2087
Nadia thanked the IT man and asked him to let himself out. She must stop referring to the Finn as the ‘IT man’ she thought, but his name – Väinö Särestöniemi – did not trip easily off the tongue.
Fortunately his recent work on their vast new store of data had made access to it far less tricky than his unpronounceable name. They were already delving into it daily for vital information and instruction. Everything from medical research to fish husbandry. Even the precise measurements of musical instruments.
Thanks to God she had thought of it and her father had devoted those last few days to gathering and sending such a valuable resource. She pictured him and her mother in their underground shelter and sent a silent prayer for their safety.
She checked the time. It was 21.44. She had quarter of an hour before Yasmine would come and they could both relax for an hour before bedtime. These past few weeks the doctor’s evening visits had soothed away much of the stress and helped her sleep. She still sent Yasmine to her own bed, insisting that their blossoming love must remain a secret, but each night it was harder to part.