by Dan Eaton
She looked angry and said, “What, your new girlfriend’s done dancing with you so soon?”
I just stood my ground and offered her my hand. She stared at it for a couple of seconds and then relented. She didn’t say a word, just took my hand and followed me out to the dance floor. The music started and we started dancing. I said, “Just for the record, I’m sorry my dancing with Jocelyn upset you, but I’m not sorry I danced with her. She—”
“She’s a loud mouthed know-it-all who ran you down for months.” That probably came out louder than Nina had intended because several other couples were looking our way now.
“You are right. Instead of making a scene with her, I just wanted to avoid the drama. I’ve had too much of that. So I danced with her just to get it over with and she apologized for her behavior.”
“So you like her now?”
“No, although I don’t dislike her either. This whole boy girl thing is complicated—”
“Tell me about it.”
“I think I’m going to take a break for a while, and just have friends who are girls.”
Nina didn’t say anything for a while and then in a small voice I heard her ask.
“Bryce, can I still be one of your friends who are girls? I’m sorry about how we turned out.”
“It depends.”
“What!”
“Easy, it depends on if you can calm down Ananyu. I really don’t want my date to hit me tonight.”
She relaxed and laughed and the rest of the evening was fun. No more drama which worked well for me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Back on track
Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Saturday, July 16th, 2039.
In Habitat News, The monthly Gogo tournament will be held in the main cafeteria at 15:00 this afternoon. New comers and spectators are welcome to attend. There will be a short class offered at 14:30 to teach the basics of game play for anyone interested in joining the fun.
In financial news today, on the Lunar Stock Market closed Friday with shares of Mussconny Machine trading at $35.01 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $39.16 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are at $33.10. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is at $28.29 a share and CDB Farms is at $28.55 a share. MM Brewing is at $2.99 a share, and Daniels Designs is at $2.46 a share. Psuche Neural is at $13.05 a share.
I knocked on Nina’s door and waited for her to come out. This whole having Nina as my friend after having her as my girlfriend took some feeling out. She had gained a lot of her confidence back, especially now that the spring quarter grades were out and once again, she was back on the top of the GPA rankings. I needed to ask her a favor, and I wanted to do it in person, and talking at her house still felt a little strange, so I’d asked her to go for a walk with me. She came out smiling and looking great as usual. It had taken me a while to convince her to go with me, time she questioned if she could put to better use studying, but I finally convinced her and now that we were walking, she didn’t seem to regret it.
I said, “Nina, next Saturday will be the eighth anniversary of the founding of NLH.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, there’s a big Gogo tournament scheduled for that day.”
“Oh, well good luck, I’m sure you’ll do great.”
‘Here’s the thing, I was hoping you’d be my partner that day.”
“What! Why me? Don’t you usually play with Willie?”
“I did. I used to before the mess. Somewhere in the middle of that, Willie started playing with Yang. He’s entered into the tournament with Yang so I don’t have a partner.”
“Bryce, I get it, however, I can’t be your new Gogo partner.”
“Okay, I’m not asking you to be my Gogo partner all the time. I know that would take up too much of your time. I’m just asking you to be my partner for this tournament. Please?”
“Why, why is this tournament so important to you?”
“You know I’ve forgiven Willie right? We’re back to being friends and I’d even call Yang a friend now.”
“Yes, so what’s that got to do with the tournament?”
“So back in the middle of the mess, I was supposed to be in a tournament with Willie and he dropped me for Yang. It hurt, and I guess maybe that I need a little revenge to help my forgiveness along. I’d like the two of us to beat those guys in the tournament.”
“I’ve never played Gogo, how are we going to beat the two of them?”
“You’re smart, you can learn quickly, and you have a great head for strategy. I think you can beat Yang. I was always a little better than Willie was at the game so between the two of us, I think we can stomp them.”
“Stomp them, what happened to a little revenge? I don’t know Bryce, we’d need to practice this week and—”
“It’s okay, I know I’m asking a lot. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just have to go ask the second smartest girl I know….”
Nina just looked at me frowning for a minute and then smiled. She said, “Fine, I’ll do it. If you fight that dirty during the game, I don’t see how we can lose.”
The tournament was great. I think Nina even enjoyed herself. Willie and Yang came in a distant second place, right after Nina and I in first place. Balance was restored to the Universe, and I felt very good.
The almost full Earth shone brightly on us from low on the northern horizon as Miss Gayle completed the Memorial service for Sabrina. She said, “Thank you all for coming. We had Sabrina with us for such a short time, yet I think she touched everyone of your lives. We were lucky to get to know her.” With that, the service broke up. I wandered over to window panel seven and looked down at the regolith below. This was the first time I had been to the Viewing Room since the incident where Buddy had ended his life. The cleanup crew that had removed his body from below, had also removed all signs of the disturbance by raking the regolith smooth. As I stood there, staring down, I heard a small “mew” and looked down to find Kat was staring down at the same patch of regolith. She looked up at me then and uttered a plaintive “meowww.”
I looked around for Myra and found her talking quietly with Mai. I looked down at Kat and said, “She’ll be with us in a bit. Just be patient.”
Kat wasn’t really a cat. Kat had come out of the labs of Psuche Neural and was a cybernetic organism tailored to look and act like a real cat. Wendy Cherneski had heard that Psuche Neural was running a beta test for a new product and was looking for a volunteer who liked cats. Myra loved cats, and missed having one so Wendy had pulled some strings and managed to get Kat delivered in time for Myra’s birthday, a couple of weeks ago. Myra and Kat had been constant companions since then and I had a feeling it was going to get ugly when the beta test was done if Psuche actually expected to get Kat back from Myra.
I was still staring down at the regolith when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard Miss Gayle ask, “You doing okay, Bryce?”
“Just thinking about things. This is the second time this year someone I know has died. I just…”
“You’re just feeling your own mortality. We all think we’re going to live forever, yet things like this come along and remind us that it’s not true. There is an immortality in the legacy we leave behind. Even though she was only with us a very short time, I think Sabrina will always be with us through the choices she made.”
“Meowww?”
Miss Gayle bent down to scratch Kat’s ears as I thought about what she was saying. Buddy had come to a brief violent end by his own choice, and I wanted nothing more than to forget about him. I had only talked with Sabrina a couple of times. She had a bright, inquisitive personality that belied the deadly disease that was wracking her body. She faced her pending demise with a courage I had found inspiring. We could tell she was getting weaker as the quarter went on. She missed several days right before the end of the quarter. When we came back to school, she wasn’t there and late on Friday, Miss Gayle told us that Sabrina had lost her fight with ALS that day and passed away. I hoped I nev
er forgot her.
Miss Gayle gave me a hug and said, “If this bothers you too much and you need to talk, give me a call.”
With that, she walked away to check on my other classmates. I looked down and saw that Kat was gone. Myra was still talking with Mei but Kat wasn’t with her. I knew Kat wouldn’t wander off too far from Myra so I searched around the room and found Kat on the eastern side of the room staring up into the sky. Charlise and Adam were standing nearby and suddenly she pointed out the window and said, “Look, it’s landing.”
We all looked out and saw a CLT30 touching down on pad number two. It wasn’t the normal supply ship and it wasn’t a tourist ship.
Monday’s morning announcement during breakfast cleared up the mystery of the recently arrived CLT30. It was a special charter for Denali Aerospace with a full load of Denali brass and special customers. I did a quick check of the posted passenger manifest and found that Dana Murphy wasn’t on board as either guest or reporter. Henry Chang had personally sent me a note apologizing for letting her on board the last Denali charter. I’d be avoiding all of the reporters if I could, but it was good to know I didn’t have to watch out for Dana and her gossip rag style of journalism.
Later, Miss Gayle led us on a field trip to the cafeteria, where Denali had scheduled a press conference for a special announcement. She had led us in early so we could get good seats. It sounded to me like a sizable portion of the Habitat’s population was going to turn out for this event if only to be on hand in case, Denali repeated its past performance of bringing in delicious treats from Earth for after the announcement. We were sitting there doing self study on our E-Pads when I noticed a familiar face approach Miss Gayle. I was too far away to hear what was said, but Dave Evans, Henry Chang’s executive assistant, was talking to Miss Gayle about something. He must have asked her a question she really wanted to hear because suddenly, her face broke out into a big smile and she was shaking her head yes. Mr. Evans walked away.
I was sitting with Myra who had Kat on her lap sleeping. Kat raised her head sleepily and yawned, then turned to me and said, “Meowww?”
Kat might imitate a real cat with behaviors like sleeping, however, she was clearly more intelligent than a real cat, yet still limited to a real cat’s repertoire of sounds. Even so I knew what she was asking and said, “I think the classes are about to meet Henry Chang.”
She looked on with interest as five minutes later, Henry Chang approached us. Miss Gayle called the classes to attention and said, “I have a special surprise for you, Henry Chang, head of the space division at Denali Aerospace, has asked to speak with us today. Mr. Chang, welcome and you have the floor.”
I’d met Henry Chang several times before, yet I’d never seen him speak in public. He was a captivating speaker and charmed Miss Gayle and the rest of the class. Henry spoke to us about the bright future, he saw for those of us living on the Moon and hinted that the upcoming announcement would have a big, positive impact on our lives. He then spent some time taking questions and impressed everyone when he answered Charlise, Yang, and Irisa’s questions in their native language. With the questions finished, he bid the class goodbye, but not before he stopped to shake my hand. He said, “Bryce, it’s good to see you again. Happy Birthday. I’ll see you later at your party. There’s something I want to ask you and your parents about.”
The conference was scheduled for 14:00 and the cafeteria was beginning to fill up. I saw my mom sitting with Dr. Belvert on one side of the room and a little further down I saw my dad and a group of guys that worked for him filling a table. I was surprised to see Joe, Marcy, and Tariq from work sitting with a bunch of the Fabrication crew I didn’t know at a couple of tables right up front. The was some activity near the speaker’s platform and I saw Christine take the stage and step up to the microphone. She said, “Welcome everyone. Denali Aerospace has a special announcement they wish to make today and they felt there was no better place to make the announcement than here at NLH. Please give a warm welcome to Henry Chang, head of the space division at Denali Aerospace.”
Henry spoke for forty five minutes during which he talked about the phenomenal success the company was having with the CLT30 product and the follow-on freighter version, the CLT-SB. He talked about the frustrations, his customers were having at the slow delivery times and his frustration as their supplier in not being able to meet their needs in a timely manner. To meet those challenges, Denali Aerospace was announcing a significant increase of their presence on the Moon. They would be building a production facility on the floor of Peary crater that would dramatically reduce the lead time on products like the CLT30 and CLT-SB while still allowing room for production of future products. Construction would start immediately and Henry said he was hopeful that the new facilities could begin production in as little as six months. The current Denali facilities at NLH would be converted over to a training and advanced development facility. Henry then announced that their first project would be the CLT180 which they hoped would make its first test flight in fourteen months.
The room went wild at this news. This growth could only be good for the lunar economy. CDB Farms had made some large investments in facilities at Peary Habitat. Mom had said it was better to buy the facilities while they were cheap, even if she had to leave them empty until growth caught up, however, now it was clear those grow facilities would be in use much sooner than expected. When the room quieted down, Henry said, “Thanks, I guess that meets your approval.”
That got a laugh from the crowd that was clearly in a good mood now. Henry continued, “Thanks again, that’s all I have to say today, so let me now introduce a good friend who I believe has some additional good news. I believe you guys all know Sandy Mussconny.”
Henry sat down and Sandy approached the microphone while the crowd went wild again with the guys from work at the tables up front cheering the loudest. Sandy wasn’t as good of a speaker as Henry so he kept it brief. His message was that Denali had awarded Mussconny Industries contracts for much of the tooling and infrastructure required for the new Denali facilities. The room went wild again and Sandy sat down with a big smile on his face. He had bet the farm when he built the new facilities at Peary Habitat and now his bet was paying off.
The rest of the day went by quickly. Once it came out that Denali was celebrating the announcement with fresh watermelon, Miss Gayle just let us stay until everyone had got their piece. Somehow, every melon they brought managed to yield the sweetest, juiciest slices of watermelon. Or maybe it was just that it had been so long since any of us had tasted watermelon that our brains made up for any imperfections. Either way it was fantastic and by the time Miss Gayle got us all back to the school, it was too late to do anything more than dismiss us anyways.
I walked Myra and Kat home from school. She’d drop Kat off and then make her way over to the Zhangs to study with Mai. Kat pretty much went anywhere Myra did, however, Mrs. Zhang was not a cat person and insisted she was allergic to Kat so Myra left Kat at home when she visited now. How someone could be allergic to the artificial fur and hair that made up Kat’s exterior was beyond me. It wasn’t like Kat shed or had dander.
Sandy had closed down the businesses for the rest of the day, so I had nothing to do until my party tonight. Mom and Dad came home after a while. Mom was very happy about the news today and decided that in honor of my birthday and the good news we’d eat out. She said she was really hungry for a cheeseburger from Margarita Mamas but when we got there it was packed. So was Selene’s Bistro but Ananyu was working and saw to it that we were seated at a private table in the smaller banquet room. We still had cheeseburgers, but they had Chef Patel’s special touch to them and were really good.
Ananyu said, “See you at the party, I’ll be a little late because it’s so busy today but I will be there.” She gave me a little hug and then we left to go get ready for the party. The party this year felt a little different than in years past, there was some tension running just below the surface.
Some of the folks that showed up had believed the stuff said about me during the last year and now either had the grace to act embarrassed or else acted like nothing had happened. I was just so over what had happened and wanted to put it all behind me that I greeted them all with equal enthusiasm and tried to put them at ease. The tension drained away and after that, everyone seemed to have a great time.
Later on, I was sitting there with my parents and Myra, when she said, “You know, I went to a lot of trouble for your present this year.”
She had caught me staring at Sandy’s present again. “I know, it’s a wonderful present. I really appreciate you getting it for me.”
She smirked and said, “Yeah, but you don’t look at my present like you do Sandy’s.”
I laughed and then tugged her chain by saying, “But his is all red and flashy.”
Sandy had shown up a little while before with Henry Chang. The party was winding down with the presents opened and the cake almost all eaten. Sandy walked up to me and handed me a heavy, colorfully wrapped box. He had a twinkle in his eye as he said, “Happy Birthday, Bryce. I asked Henry for a little help with your present this year and he obliged by smuggling this up here for me.”
I sat down and unwrapped the box and inside was a six pack of Coke. Back on Earth, this was a small present. Here on the Moon, each can was probably worth two or three hundred dollars. A genuine six pack was the equivalent of your rich uncle handing you a thousand dollar bill for your birthday. I loved drinking Coke, but said, “Sandy, you’ve always been generous but this is over the top. I can’t accept this.”
Sandy laughed and said, “Sure you can. Do you know how much it would cost me to return that? Look Bryce, you’ve had a rough year and I wanted to get you something I know you’ll like. I’ve been very fortunate this year and I don’t believe in being a miser with my good fortune. Take it, don’t worry about the cost, and enjoy it.”