by Maggie Allen
“Papa? Papa!” Luis’ voice echoed in the shed. Normally pigeons would have fluttered from the roof at the sound, but there was only more of the awful silence. “Mama! Ma-a-maaaaa!” He ran out of the barn. “Where are they? Where’d they go?” He pulled at Esperanza’s jacket, his voice shrill and panicked.
Esperanza couldn’t help it – her gaze was drawn to the side of the shed where she could just see the ends of the rock mounds.
Luis’ gaze followed hers. His soft gasp sounded like a firecracker in the still air. “No,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. He backed away. In his eyes, Esperanza saw horror as the memories finally returned.
“No. No. No.” He turned and ran.
Esperanza chased him. She thought for a minute he was going to run off to who-knew-where, but when he saw the bus, he headed straight for it. He threw himself on the bottom step and scrambled up.
Clarence started the engine. As Esperanza climbed the stairs, Clarence shot her a disapproving look.
Luis huddled in the seat, hugging his lawn chair to his chest.
“Luis, mijo,” Esperanza said, laying her hand on his shoulder. Luis jerked away, and that hurt almost as bad as hearing Mama rasp out her last breath.
She flopped into the seat behind Luis and Prophet. Clarence started the bus and headed back to town.
“Esperanza?”
“Yeah, Prophet?”
“The rains will come.”
“Yeah? When?”
It was Clarence who answered. “Soon,” he said, watching Esperanza in the rearview mirror.
Esperanza got a shiver, the kind that Mama used to say was from someone walking over your grave. She was probably turning over in hers right now, from the mess Esperanza’d made of things.
She missed both her parents so much. They’d have known what to do.
Mama with her gentle patience. Papa – well, he was the strongest man Esperanza knew. He’d look a person right in the eye and tell the truth, no matter how much it hurt.
They’d both taught her what to do.
She crawled around the seat and knelt in front of Luis. “Luis, you listen to me.” Luis huddled against Prophet with his eyes shut tight, but Esperanza didn’t let that stop her. “We can’t bring back Mama and Papa. They’re gone. Papa wouldn’t want us to just give up and cry for what’s gone. He’d say to pull ourselves up and keep moving on. Together, as a family.”
Luis opened his eyes, but still wouldn’t look Esperanza in the eye. “I want it the way it was,” he whispered.
The want in his voice was naked and raw. “I do, too,” Esperanza said, her voice all raspy and tight. Her eyes watered, but she swallowed down the tears. “Our old life is gone, Luis. And it isn’t ever coming back.”
Luis chewed on his lip for a while. Esperanza took his hands. “I told Mama I’d look after you, and I will. Everything’ll be all right. It won’t ever be like it was, but we’ll do okay.”
Luis looked doubtful. But at least he was listening.
All of a sudden, Prophet jerked up from his seat. “Stop, Clarence!” He pushed past Esperanza and pulled on Clarence’s shirt. “Stop. Stop!”
Clarence stomped on the brakes and the bus squealed to a halt. Prophet hopped down the steps and banged on the door.
Clarence watched him with a considering look for a moment, then nodded. He opened the door, and Prophet jumped down and ran a few steps out. He spread his arms and looked up at the sky.
They were stopped beside Esperanza’s garden. “Prophet, what’re you doing?” she hollered.
“A rain dance!” Prophet twirled around, his face turned up to the sky, arms splayed. “Rain, rain, rain,” he chanted.
Esperanza jumped down from the bus. “Prophet, get back here.”
Luis pushed up against her arm and leaned into her. The contact felt good. Luis watched Prophet for a full minute, then hopped down the stairs.
Prophet grabbed Luis’ hands and pulled him into a twirl. “Rain, Rain!” he chanted, gathering speed. Before long, Luis was chanting too. They whooped and hollered, spinning a cloud of dust.
A movement caught Esperanza’s eye. Clarence stood aside, his bright green eyes shining like they were full of diamonds. He wiggled his fingers at the sky.
A wind swept up, raising dust and a chill across Esperanza’s neck. Her hair blew into her eyes.
Prophet dropped Luis’ hands and stopped spinning, turning his slack-jawed face to the sky.
“What’s that?” Luis asked, pointing up.
On the horizon, a wall of towering purple clouds piled up against a blue sky. The clouds advanced with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. The sky turned purplish gray. The air chilled.
Rain smacked down with honest-to-goodness great globs of water so big they danged near hurt when they hit. Esperanza turned her face to the sky. Raindrops splattered her face, wetting her hair to her head. The musty smell of damp earth rose from the hard-packed ground.
Prophet grabbed Luis’ hands again and they danced around some more, laughing and sticking their tongues out to catch raindrops.
Esperanza’d felt for a long time now like her heart was nothing but a big patch of ice, but as she watched Luis and Prophet act like kids again, something broke free. She took a deep breath, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, it didn’t feel like it caught in her chest.
Clarence put an arm around Esperanza’s shoulders. “Mind if I stay for a few days?”
Esperanza shrugged. “It’s a free world.”
“Maybe it will be now. It’s time to rebuild.”
There he went again. Esperanza pulled away to look him in the eye. It wasn’t that he didn’t look human, ’cause he did, but there was something strange about him that Esperanza couldn’t put a finger on. “Who are you, really?”
“It’s not important right now who or what I am. I’m here to help you find your way.”
He didn’t flinch from Esperanza’s gaze. There was something pure in his expression. It reminded Esperanza of Mama’s look when she was tending the garden. She’d walk down the rows, touching each plant, checking it for bugs. If she did find one, she wouldn’t stomp on it, she’d just pick it up, take it off a ways and let it go.
Esperanza guessed if she saw something in Clarence that reminded her of Mama, it couldn’t be all bad.
She looked over her garden. The seedlings were flattened to the ground. They hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to the battering raindrops.
Meanwhile, there was her brother and Prophet, dancing around like wild things. They’d all made it this far. They’d all been strong enough to make it so far – even Luis. His chair leaning against the bus caught Esperanza’s eye.
One of Mama’s favorite sayings came to her – never let hope die, even when it all feels hopeless. ‘Cause without it, you’re just an empty shell. Esperanza had been feeling empty like that ever since Mama and Papa died.
The rain turned gentle, soothing, dripping down Esperanza’s face, washing away the grime and sweat. The parched earth soaked up the moisture and turned a healthy dark brown.
Their world had changed, and all of them with it. But she and Luis still had each other. They were still a family – smaller, yes, but also bigger, with Prophet, Nate, Alice, and all the other kids.
Tomorrow she’d get more seeds from the store and replant. But for now, maybe it was time to let go of worrying.
Esperanza ran and tackled Luis and Prophet. They fell together and slid, scrabbling and laughing. The mud was cool and soft, slippery as butter. A glob landed in Esperanza’s eye, and the smell and taste of good earth filled her with a joy she hadn’t thought to ever feel again.
And for the first time in a long while, Esperanza dared to hope again.
Child of Luna
Ralan Conley
Ralan Conley writes, run his writers’ resource (ralan.com), and does a spot of icedragonship piracy. His work has appeared in print and electronic publications too nu
merous or obscure to mention. Some of which, to the consternation of his former writing coaches, have won contests, awards, and reader’s polls. Among these, three nominations for the Bram Stoker Award and a finalist for the Sapphire Award. Always a bride’s maid....
Doran Kelisar ignored the discussion in his classroom to read his Ballistic Orbit Guide on the sly. He liked the ninth-grade well enough – he just hated remembering long lists of chemicals, atomic structures, civil emergency procedures and DNA codes. Things he’d never use, and most of all, historical people. Why did you have to study everyone who’d ever sneezed? And not just people on the moon, but boring Earthers, too.
Engineering. That’s what he liked and did well at.
“Doran?” His teacher’s question pulled him back into the classroom with a jerk. Mr. Jaqobi stood beside Doran’s console array desk.
Several of his classmates giggled. They enjoyed having a laugh at his expense. He’d never understood that.
Being the first Lunaborn should count for something, but his classmates seemed to hold it against him. His gangling frame, pale skin and white hair made him a comic figure to the emigreens, as he called all Earthers who moved to Luna. He got along okay with most of them, kind of liked them really, but he had no close friends.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
Doran’s finger shut off the screen he’d been reading before his teacher noticed it. “You said, uh...”
“We were discussing being lost. Like Alexsi Golaenski?”
“Alexsi Go...” He remembered something about him from his homework, another useless historical person. “That old miner who never came back from a prospecting trek? He should have had a field radio.” His classmates laughed out loud.
The teacher frowned. “He did take a radio with him, but no contact was ever made. He died out there.” The laughter stopped in an instant. “Right. We also talked about the field trip tomorrow.”
“Field trip?” Doran sat upright, beaming. “A day away from in this boring old classroom?” Doran grimaced as he realized how disappointed Mr. Jaqobi looked.
Nervous giggling spread around the class.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it that way.” Doran flashed a warning look that quieted most of his classmates, who relied on his safety skills, except for Nedidi and Stan, his worst critics, who no doubt started this disturbance.
Mr. Jaqobi quieted even those two with a look of his own. “Meet outside the school’s main vacuum hatch at 0700 hours tomorrow, suited for full lunar on the mare. Be sure you’ve read and understood the assigned chapter.” He nodded toward the main view screen at the front of the room.
“Yes sir, the ‘Finding Your Way’ chapter. No problem.”
“Just make sure you know how to observe the sky at lunar noon, placing the circular filter in your helmet to block out the sun’s disk so you don’t blind yourself, and determine your compass points based on Earth’s location in the sky.”
“Sure as exhaust, Mr. Jaqobi.”
“Considering your grades in Astronomy, I hope so.” The teacher turned and headed for his desk. “Class dismissed.”
Doran breathed out slowly. He liked Mr. Jaqobi, but sometimes he was a pain in the jets. Calling him out in front of the class was one of those times. Doran didn’t need more attention.
Nedidi and Stan crowded around Doran as they exited through the Mark IV Air Beam hatch that connected the school digs with the main L-City lava tube. As usual, tourists in colorful clothes and Lunarians in their drab coveralls crammed the main tube. As they came through, the smell of sweat, perfume and deodorant engulfed them.
“Busy day,” Stan observed.
“Yeah,” Doran said. “Shuttle landed last night.”
“Oh goody.” Nedidi quickly rubbed his hands together. “Hope there’re some new girls.”
The activity level around them matched any big city anywhere, but without any cars, trains or buses. Everyone walked on the moon. At one-fifth of Earth’s gravity, walking came easy once you got the hang of it. Even tourists managed it, in time. To walk safely you had to moonshuffle, a blend of skating and skipping. If you took big steps you’d hop up high and land hard. Of course, the low-grav kept the number of serious injuries down.
Luna City boasted the largest pressurized lava tube on the moon. All lunar lava tubes held a natural constant temperature of -20ºC, or -4ºF. After they got sealed and leveled for habitation, solar-powered space heaters warmed them up to +15ºC. That’s why all Lunarians wore thermal underwear under their coveralls. It proved a practical solution for people who had to contend with both pressure and vacuum environments.
“What’s up for tonight?” Nedidi asked Stan as they shuffled towards Doran’s exit, bumping into him on purpose.
Doran knew they were only staying close to annoy him. Their favorite hobby, it seemed.
“There’s a new Sensi at the bio,” Stan suggested. “A real ghoul-fest, I hear. Just the smell makes strong men puke.”
“Or we could meet at the arcade,” Nedidi said. “They repaired the tether shuttle simulator.”
“After you broke it,” Doran said.
Nedidi punched him in the arm. “Because you didn’t listen to my order!” The blow from the strong Earther teen almost knocked Doran off his feet.
Doran rubbed his arm. It’d turn black and blue sure as gravity. “I did listen. You gave the wrong order. Anyway, I gotta help my dad fix our ice defroster.” In fact, this pleased him. Doran liked working in vacuum.
“We weren’t asking you, Luna monster,” Nedidi said.
“Why would we hang out with a freak like you?” Stan asked.
“Yeah, you can hang out with the other Lunaborns.”
“Those jerks who worship you.”
After Doran’s unexpected and risky delivery, the colony issued a ban on new births until they finished the hospital. This meant all the other lunar natives were at least seven years younger than Doran, making him an unwilling loner.
They reached the Mark V vacuum hatch Doran used to get home. His pressure suit hung on a rack. Doran slipped out of his coveralls, stowed them in his pack, then removed his lower torso section and stepped into it, hiking it up to his waist.
“We’ll see how you guys do tomorrow,” he said as he ducked down, scooted under his upper torso section, stuck his hands into the armholes, and rose up until his head popped out of the helmet opening and his hands fitted into the gloves. He pressed the button that detached the upper suit from the rack and fastened the two sections together using the waist-locking ring. “I know how you both love vacuum.”
Nedidi’s face fell. “I hate field trips.”
“I hate outside,” Stan said, looking a bit green.
“But most of all we hate Lunaborns,” they said together.
Doran lived on a hydro-farm in a small lava tube two kilometers from L-City. Most Earthers, including Stan and Nedidi’s families, lived in apartment digs in L-City after emigrating to the moon. They viewed Lunaborns as freaks.
Of course, the Lunaborns had a similar dislike for emigreens, who were big and strong and feared ‘outside’ until they eventually got used to it. Some never did. Doran saw that dread in Nedidi and Stan’s faces. “See you tomorrow, Earthers. Outside.”
The two emigreens shuffled off down The Main for home without another word. Doran wished they could be friends, but it seemed impossible.
Doran shrugged and yanked his helmet from the shelf above the suit rack, eased it over his head, and twisted the seal shut. He punched the ‘Pressurize’ button and started a full diagnostic. Data ran before his eyes on the heads-up display to the hiss of air and coolant filling the suit. Air: 78%, which flashed red until it hit 100%. H2O: 60%. Humidity: 35%. Pressure: stable. ExchangeFan: nominal. CO2-Scrub: normal. Comm: on. Cool/Vent: on. LPS: await sat acq.
He’d make it home long before he needed to use it, so he didn’t hook up the excreta system, which meant ducking into a private suit-up room for five min
utes. One didn’t hook that up in public.
Subsystem data began to repeat on the heads-up. Everything looked green, so he shut the read-outs down except for emergency notices.
Doran shuffled to the Air Beam and pulled the lever to open the hatch. He went through into the airlock as the door closed behind him, muting the L-City bustle his external microphones had been picking up. He only heard the rush of air being expelled back into L-City. As that sound faded, a green light lit up over the outer hatch. Doran tugged the Vacuum Access Lever, the hatch opened to the outside, and he moonshuffled toward home across the familiar lunar landscape.
Doran met up early outside the school airlock. Nedidi, Stan and seven others – the entire ninth-grade class – came straggling out a minute before 0700 hours. Due to Doran’s long experience with vacuum gear, Mr. Jaqobi had made him the Safety Officer. He had to check all his classmates’ pressure suits and data. They all knew emigrants could make fatal mistakes, so they let him do this. Even though embarrassing, it was better than ending up dead. It didn’t make him any more popular, though.
“Great comets, Stan! You didn’t activate your CO2 scrubber. You’re not a plant, you know. You need oxygen, not carbon dioxide.”
“Yeah, yeah. Did you memorize that ‘Finding Your Way’ chapter, smart guy?”
“It took my dad and me six hours to fix our ice defroster. I just collapsed when we got inside.”
“So, you didn’t study? That could be dangerous.”
“I’ll be okay. I’m used to it out here.”
Doran turned to check the readings of one of the girls. “Ningela, how many times do I have to tell you to switch on your excreta system? You could drown in your own –”
“Thank you, Doran,” Mr. Jaqobi said, as he emerged from the school in his teacher’s red pressure suit. “Good morning, class! Well, it’s a sunny, clear day –”
“Every day is sunny and clear... and lethal on the moon,” Nedidi said.
“Ah, yes.” Mr. Jaqobi looked serious. “Just my point. The moon can be hazardous. You have to know what you’re doing. Today we’re going to run a little exercise on non-LPS navigation.”
