“I’ll take a few samples here, too,” Kenjiro said. “But I bet we’ve already got him.”
January 8, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
“So?” Jonathan asked.
Kenjiro gave him a thumbs-down sign. He looked grouchier than Jonathan had ever seen him before.
Jonathan checked their surroundings. They were alone in the kitchen. “What is it?”
“Nothing. All clean,” Kenjiro said.
“Even what Mike collected?”
“There were some meteorite fragments in his material, nothing that could be attributed to an Earth trojan, but also absolutely no explosive residue. Nothing that didn’t belong there. There was only one thing that was strange.”
“What?”
“This time it wasn’t an iron meteorite, but a carbon one.”
“Maybe this was a real impact, unlike the others,” Jonathan said.
“It’s possible. And bad luck for us because, unfortunately, we don’t have any evidence against Mike.”
“The vote is the day after tomorrow. Do you think we should bring this up with the others?”
“It won’t help. Everyone will think we’ve turned into conspiracy theorists. And without real proof, it is just a theory. It would only cause bad blood between us and everyone else.”
Kenjiro was right. They didn’t have any evidence against Michael. “I’m going to vote against him, anyway,” Jonathan said.
“Me too, but I’m afraid we’re going to be in the minority.”
January 10, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
“I’ll summarize our choice. Mars offers more protection and more resources and would enable us to establish a prosperous colony,” Maxim said. “The moon, in contrast, would allow us to help the Earth much more quickly if we ever got that opportunity. Does anyone else want to say anything?”
Jonathan could sense it. He and Kenjiro were in the minority. Michael had once again spoken for his plan, and most people seemed to agree with him. Michael had even made sure to put the spotlight on Judith and praise her so that he appeared completely selfless, as if he only wanted what was best for humanity.
He ran his fingers across his chin. Whiskers were already poking up out of his skin again. Should he get up and spell out all the strange events and coincidences that he and Ken had uncovered? The others would only think of him as a sore loser, since they still didn’t have any hard evidence.
“Good. Then I’d like to ask you all for your votes,” Maxim said. “I’ll walk around with my cap, and you can place one of the two slips of paper into it.”
Jonathan looked at the two pieces of paper that everyone had received. In beautiful script, Yue had written ‘Mars’ on one and ‘Moon’ on the other. That way, they could vote quickly and anonymously.
Maxim held up his cap and shook it. “See, it’s empty.”
Jonathan looked closely at his two slips of paper. Yue could write a beautiful ‘M.’ The ‘s’ was not as elegant, though. He folded the ‘Moon’ paper in half and placed the ‘Mars’ paper in his pants pocket. When Maxim came around and stood in front of him, he threw the folded paper into the cap.
“So, thank you, all,” Maxim said. “I’ll now pass the ballot box to Yue to count.”
Yue took the cap with a theatrical gesture. Wayne laughed. The tension in the room was palpable. One by one, Yue took a slip of paper out of the hat and read what was written on it.
“Moon.”
“Mars.”
“Mars.”
Jonathan started singing a children’s song to himself. Five little ducks went out to play in his mind. That way he didn’t have to listen to Yue’s words.
“The final count is three votes for the moon, seven for Mars,” Yue said. “The result is clear.”
“Thanks, Yue,” Maxim said. “So, I will still be the commander of the moon base for four more weeks. We will all work hard and disassemble everything that we will need to take to Mars. Then I will pass the command to Judith, who will fly us all to our new home. There, we’ll select new leadership, the first government for a new branch of humankind.”
New branch of humankind. What nonsense! Michael had filled his colleagues’ heads with crazy, utopian ideas. He’d even convinced Yue, because he guessed the third moon vote came from Judith, not his girlfriend. They hadn’t talked about it, and he also couldn’t hold it against her. Michael had managed to stir up their primal fears of survival through his simulated meteorite impacts, and when people are afraid, they tend to select the easiest solution.
Was he admitting that Mars was the easier solution? Probably. But the old branch of humankind, which was at that moment struggling for survival, deserved for them to be there to try to help until the very last minute.
January 22, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
“So, was it all worth it?” Jonathan asked.
Atiya stopped and put down the support bar that she’d just disassembled. “What do you mean?”
“Well, all this here. A while ago, you told me how you were going to use the FST to unravel the mysteries of the universe, and now we’re unraveling the telescope itself.”
“Yeah, well, the universe will have to wait. I’m sure we’ll be able to find a good location for the FST on Mars too.”
“None as perfect as this. No atmosphere, no light pollution.”
“And fewer meteorites.”
“Mars’s atmosphere is not so thick that it’ll provide much protection, either.”
“True, but all these micro-meteorites won’t get through. And like you said, the Mars atmosphere is rather thin, so it should also provide good conditions for observing the skies.”
“When there’s not a dust storm.”
“Oh, come on, Jon, why are you being so pessimistic? I never would’ve thought you’d be such a sore loser. And what makes you think I voted for Mars, anyway?”
She was right. He was a sore loser. He had trouble admitting when he was wrong. That was mostly because he was almost always right. But the others didn’t want to understand or accept his point of view, which was frustrating.
“I... I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to project my bad mood onto anyone else. But disassembling all this, which took so much effort to set up... It hurts.”
“I feel the same way,” Atiya said. “But to build something new, sometimes you’ve got to tear down the old.”
He thought about Atiya’s words afterward as they were driving back to the base on the rover. Was all they had built here on the moon really the ‘old,’ which they needed to tear down? They were gathering resources, because when they got to Mars they could never have enough, especially at the beginning.
What about later? Would Yue, Atiya, and Judith want to become the first mothers for a new humankind, as Michael had described earlier? There’d been no more talk about that vision recently. But why else should they move to Mars? The three women would have to sacrifice themselves for the future of humankind. Would any of them be willing to do that?
“Atiya?”
“Yes?”
They descended the mountain quickly on the new road that Wayne had built. Jonathan was sitting in the passenger’s seat. The heavy cargo, tied down with ropes, moved back and forth.
“Do you really want to be one of the mothers of a new humanity?”
The Kenyan burst out in laughter. “You want me to have your babies, is that it? I think it’s best to forget about that idea.”
“You’d have to, if humankind is going to survive. Weren’t you listening to Mike?”
“He can think that all he wants, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“So why are we moving to Mars then?”
“Man, Jonathan, when will you stop? We took a vote, you lost, and now we’re carrying out our decision. That’s it. No more. I’m done talking about this.”
January 29, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
Maybe at least Yue would understand him. They shared a bed. Shouldn’t he try, at least once? Jonat
han rolled back and forth restlessly while his girlfriend snored quietly. Since the vote she had slept very peacefully, but he often lay awake for hours.
“Yue?” he whispered.
She didn’t respond.
“Yue?” he said more loudly.
Her eyes snapped open and she appeared to be wide awake almost immediately. That was one of her most amazing abilities—she seemed to need at most a second to wake from even the deepest sleep. Maybe it was an ancient instinct that she’d preserved, the instinct of the prey, who needed to be wide awake immediately when there was any sign of danger.
“What is it?”
“I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Couldn’t it wait until morning, Dear?”
Oh, boy, if she was already calling him Dear, then she couldn’t be in a good mood.
“No. It’s about Mike.”
“Of course. Him again. It seems like all you think about is Mike. What is it this time?”
“Kenjiro and I, we’ve got proof that he faked the meteorite impacts with explosives.”
Yue sat up straight. “Really? Why haven’t you told anybody?”
“I’m telling you right now.”
Yue started to get out of bed. “We’ve got to go to Maxim right away.”
“We don’t actually have hard evidence. It’s more circumstances, theories.”
“Oh, Jonathan. I’m sorry that this decision is stressing you out so much. I admit that Mike made me a bit afraid at first, too. He was so... evangelical. But that’s in the past. He’s changed. I like that. I like it when people grow.”
“But with him, it’s all an act.”
“I don’t believe that. I trust my gut. He seems honest to me.”
“But our proof—”
“—circumstances and theories? You said that yourself. And why would he even do that? What would he gain from it? Do you really believe he would put us all in danger over and over again, just to get his way?”
Yes, he said in his mind, that’s exactly what I think. But Jonathan had to admit to himself that it didn’t sound convincing. Too bad. Yue didn’t know him well enough to trust him unconditionally. Did he know anyone well enough? No. He was no different. Just like Yue, he would demand evidence too. Why had he believed Kenjiro so quickly? Was it simply because he couldn’t stand Michael and his cocky personality? He didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, Yue,” he said.
“What for?”
“For waking you.”
“You can wake me up anytime if you’re worried about something.”
Yes, but you won’t believe me, he thought.
February 5, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
“Today’s schedule includes the last two greenhouses, numbers 5 and 7.”
As always, Yue gave everyone the work schedule in the morning. It wasn’t a straightforward thing to pack up an inhabited base into a spaceship. Life had to go on at the same time. So, they had alternately dismantled one of the greenhouses and then gone to the power plant to collect the no longer needed solar panels. They would still have to leave some things behind, of course. The astronauts would still need power and oxygen up to the last second.
Jonathan marched over to Greenhouse 5, where he was assigned. He wasn’t the first one there. Maxim was already standing in front of the transparent housing and was looking at his flowers. After the meteorite impact, he’d set up his flower garden in Greenhouse 5.
“Can I help?”
“Thanks, Jon.”
Maxim turned toward him. Jonathan noticed that his face was wet—the commander had been crying! Because of his garden? When they turned off the power, everything here would wither to gray dust.
“Could you give me a little more time here? I want to... say goodbye,” Maxim said.
“I understand. Sure, I’ll just go help in Greenhouse 7.”
“And... pull!”
Wayne gave the command, and together they pulled on the steel cable attached to the transparent roof. The individual parts had been welded together when they erected the greenhouses. Now, Wayne had to separate them from each other again with an electric circular saw before they could be taken down. The thin, carbon dioxide-rich air had already escaped from the inside of the greenhouse. Jonathan looked around at all the withered remains of the plants.
The roof panel detached and came falling toward them. A thin, whitish cloud followed it, the remains of air moisture that had immediately frozen. Wayne caught the panel and placed it on a stack with the remnants of Greenhouse 4, which they had dismantled yesterday. Judith would later use the landing module to ferry all the collected materials to the ARES in orbit.
The plants had lost their color. The vacuum had frozen them and sucked any moisture out of them completely. Now the soil in the greenhouse had also started to change. The rich, almost glossy black was turning into the same gray that dominated the moonscape everywhere else.
Jonathan bent over and grabbed a gloveful. The soil still stuck together, but his fingers could crumble it very easily, like weathered sandstone. They had just committed the mass murder of millions of bacteria that had been living in the soil. But they wouldn’t go extinct quite yet, because they had their own arks—the astronauts’ digestive systems. So, together they would soon colonize Mars.
If Michael’s grand project failed because nobody wanted to become the original mother or father of a new civilization, all that would live on from humanity would be these bacteria in the new greenhouses the crew would build on Mars. Many of those bacteria would also die, but some might adapt and survive in Mars’s harsh conditions.
Was something similar happening to the people left on Earth right now? In the end, would those who could best cope with the darkness be the only ones to remain? He would never know, because they were setting off for Mars in three days.
“Done,” Wayne said.
Where there had once been growing cabbage and spinach in Greenhouse 7, now there was only a gray area that looked like a crop field in winter.
“Maxim needs help with Greenhouse 5,” Jonathan said.
“Then let’s help him.”
They walked to Greenhouse 5, finding it already half-disassembled.
“Ah, thanks for coming,” Maxim said.
Jonathan looked for the remnants of the flowers, but there was only bright gray ground. Maxim’s mood, however, seemed to have improved.
The base’s inner airlock door squealed as it opened. Jonathan noticed the smell, even while he was still walking down the steep entrance corridor. It smelled intensely of flowers. And then he saw them, too. They were spread around everywhere, in the corridors, command center, lab, and workshop.
Maxim had moved his entire garden inside the base. It was wasteful and unnecessary, but it was also a grand and beautiful sight. The base had been all but transformed into a flower garden. He tried to fix the sight in his mind, because he probably would not see so many rich colors or smell so many wonderful smells all in one place for many years.
Involuntarily, Jonathan’s eyes filled with tears. He retreated to his cabin. Now he was the one who needed some time for himself. And even there, in his room, Maxim had placed a large bouquet of asters.
February 8, 2036 – Moon Base Unity
Jonathan was sweating. He had just finished on the exercise bike in preparation for his EVA. Everything looked the same as ever, as if he was maybe just going out to check the solar panels, but everything was far from the same. It was his last moon-based EVA. He would exit the airlock, walk to the landing module with the others, and then launch off the moon and fly to the ARES. He would never return. None of them would set foot on the moon again. That much seemed certain.
He checked the position of the absorbent pad and his LCVG. Then he climbed into the lower part of his suit and pulled on the HUT. All that he needed now was his helmet. Next to him, Wayne and Maxim were putting on their suits, too. Yue was standing in front of the base’s main computer, but she was already in her space
suit, and everyone else was already on the ARES.
“Now switching the station to sleep mode,” Yue said.
It sounded comforting somehow. If, at some point in the future, space travelers found their way to the station’s airlock, the central computer would let them in. They would find a breathable atmosphere, as long as they breathed oxygen, and nourishment, as long as they were a carbon-based lifeform. The likelihood that a human would request entry seemed remote. But maybe humankind would find some way to free themselves from their trap someday.
“That’s it,” Yue said. “We can go.” She calmly secured her helmet in place. They had time. The base would very slowly shut itself down.
“I’ll go last,” Maxim said.
Jonathan couldn’t quite imagine how he must feel. When they left the base, he would no longer be a commander. But that wasn’t Maxim’s main problem. He didn’t need power, not like Michael seemed to. But the base was his child. He was responsible for its creation and development, and now he had to attend its last hours.
Jonathan followed Wayne and Yue. They walked past the innumerable bouquets that would not remain in bloom for much longer. A future visitor would probably wonder about the withered plants. Or maybe the visitor would be some kind of plant-being who would look in horror at the display of mass murder of its fellow kind.
They reached the airlock. Jonathan turned around, but Maxim wasn’t there. They opened the airlock and moved into the chamber. Nobody said anything. Jonathan positioned himself so that he didn’t have to look at either Yue or Wayne. He didn’t want them to see him tear up.
“So, now we can go,” Maxim said suddenly.
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 22