“But you know that I’m an envoy of the Eurasian Prime Minister herself. I’m sure you understand that the security restrictions to which I’m subjected come from much higher levels than me.”
So don’t probe,
she added silently. She turned back to her blank softscreens. “And if you don’t mind—”
“More studying? I think it may be a little late for that.” He glanced out the window.
Her view of the looming crescent Moon was gone, replaced by a mottling of deep black and glowing pale brown that slid past the window.
Mario said softly, “You are looking at Clavius Crater, Professor.”
She stared. Clavius, south of Tycho, was a basin so huge that its floor was convex, pushed out by the curvature of the Moon itself. As the shuttle descended she began to resolve smaller craters on that tremendous floor: craters of all sizes, craters overlapping craters down to the limits of her visibility. It was a strange, ripped-up landscape, like a Great War battlefield perhaps. But there, just emerging from the shadow of the wall, she saw a fine line, a shining thread of gold laid over the Moon’s gray floor. That must be the Sling, the new electromagnetic launch system, still incomplete but already a mighty rail more than a kilometer long. Even from here she could see that human hands had touched the face of the Moon.
Mario was watching her reaction. “It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?” And he left the cabin to prepare the descent protocols.
10: Contact Light
Clavius Base was built around three big inflated domes. Connected by transparent walkways and subsurface tunnels, the domes were covered over by Moon dust for protection from the sun, cosmic rays, and other horrors. As a result, seen from above, the domes seemed part of the lunar landscape, as if they had bubbled up out of the gray-brown regolith.
Shuttle
Komarov
landed without ceremony half a kilometer from the main domes. The dust it kicked up fell back with disconcerting speed onto the airless Moon. There were no pads here, just many shallow blast craters, the scars of multiple landings and takeoffs.
A transparent walkway snaked up to the shuttle’s lock. Escorted by Captain Mario, with her smart suitcase rolling behind her, Siobhan took her first footsteps in the Moon’s dreamy gravity.
Her first glimpse of the Moon, slightly distorted by the walkway’s clear, curving walls, was of a gently rolling surface. Every edge was softened by the ubiquitous dust, the result of eons of meteoritic churning. It looked almost like a snowfield, she thought. The shadows were not the deep black she had imagined, but softened by the reflected glow of the ground. She shouldn’t have been surprised: dark as it was, the light reflected from this lifeless soil was, after all, the Moonlight that had shone over Earth since the great impact that had shaped the twin worlds in the first place. So Siobhan was walking in Moonlight herself. But this bit of the Moon was littered by surface vehicles, fuel tanks, escape bunkers, and equipment dumps; it was a human landscape.
The walkway terminated at a small blocky structure. Siobhan and Mario rode the elevator down to an underground tunnel. Here an open cart mounted on a monorail awaited them. The cart was big enough for ten, she realized, the shuttle’s full complement of eight passengers plus two crew, and their baggage.
The cart slid into silent motion.
“An induction drive,” Mario said. “Same principle as the Sling. Endless sunlight and low gravity: the physics behind this little electrical cart might have been invented for the conditions of the Moon.”
The tunnel was narrow, lit by fluorescent tubes, and the fused-rock walls were so close to the cart she could have reached out and touched them—and in perfect safety, for the cart’s speed was little more than walking pace. She was learning that away from Earth, caution ruled:
everything
was done slowly and deliberately.
At the end of the
So don’t probe,
she added silently. She turned back to her blank softscreens. “And if you don’t mind—”
“More studying? I think it may be a little late for that.” He glanced out the window.
Her view of the looming crescent Moon was gone, replaced by a mottling of deep black and glowing pale brown that slid past the window.
Mario said softly, “You are looking at Clavius Crater, Professor.”
She stared. Clavius, south of Tycho, was a basin so huge that its floor was convex, pushed out by the curvature of the Moon itself. As the shuttle descended she began to resolve smaller craters on that tremendous floor: craters of all sizes, craters overlapping craters down to the limits of her visibility. It was a strange, ripped-up landscape, like a Great War battlefield perhaps. But there, just emerging from the shadow of the wall, she saw a fine line, a shining thread of gold laid over the Moon’s gray floor. That must be the Sling, the new electromagnetic launch system, still incomplete but already a mighty rail more than a kilometer long. Even from here she could see that human hands had touched the face of the Moon.
Mario was watching her reaction. “It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?” And he left the cabin to prepare the descent protocols.
10: Contact Light
Clavius Base was built around three big inflated domes. Connected by transparent walkways and subsurface tunnels, the domes were covered over by Moon dust for protection from the sun, cosmic rays, and other horrors. As a result, seen from above, the domes seemed part of the lunar landscape, as if they had bubbled up out of the gray-brown regolith.
Shuttle
Komarov
landed without ceremony half a kilometer from the main domes. The dust it kicked up fell back with disconcerting speed onto the airless Moon. There were no pads here, just many shallow blast craters, the scars of multiple landings and takeoffs.
A transparent walkway snaked up to the shuttle’s lock. Escorted by Captain Mario, with her smart suitcase rolling behind her, Siobhan took her first footsteps in the Moon’s dreamy gravity.
Her first glimpse of the Moon, slightly distorted by the walkway’s clear, curving walls, was of a gently rolling surface. Every edge was softened by the ubiquitous dust, the result of eons of meteoritic churning. It looked almost like a snowfield, she thought. The shadows were not the deep black she had imagined, but softened by the reflected glow of the ground. She shouldn’t have been surprised: dark as it was, the light reflected from this lifeless soil was, after all, the Moonlight that had shone over Earth since the great impact that had shaped the twin worlds in the first place. So Siobhan was walking in Moonlight herself. But this bit of the Moon was littered by surface vehicles, fuel tanks, escape bunkers, and equipment dumps; it was a human landscape.
The walkway terminated at a small blocky structure. Siobhan and Mario rode the elevator down to an underground tunnel. Here an open cart mounted on a monorail awaited them. The cart was big enough for ten, she realized, the shuttle’s full complement of eight passengers plus two crew, and their baggage.
The cart slid into silent motion.
“An induction drive,” Mario said. “Same principle as the Sling. Endless sunlight and low gravity: the physics behind this little electrical cart might have been invented for the conditions of the Moon.”
The tunnel was narrow, lit by fluorescent tubes, and the fused-rock walls were so close to the cart she could have reached out and touched them—and in perfect safety, for the cart’s speed was little more than walking pace. She was learning that away from Earth, caution ruled:
everything
was done slowly and deliberately.
At the end of the
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