Girl on the Moon

by Burnett, Jack McDonald

  She ignored that, and said, “Please come pay your respects.” In Basalese, to Luan: “You will say words? Eulogy?”

  Luan spoke in Chinese, but it was clear from his manner that he sincerely mourned his comrade. Conn hadn’t thought about it until then, but she was sure a billion or more Chinese were watching.

  When Luan finished, the four astronauts held a moment of silence, or prayer, depending. Then Luan shook Conn’s hand and thanked her for her help.

  # # #

  Conn, Daniels, and Eyechart pooled their labor to plant the components of a large sensor array that would perform the most thorough survey yet of an area of the lunar surface and subsurface. Afterward, the three assembled and installed a probe at the base of the Apennine mountains that could lift from its dock and hover its way up the mountain, or down into Hadley Rille, a range of about three kilometers. At the same time, the probe’s sensors would map the elements on and just below the surface. Humankind would know more about the Hadley Rille region on the moon than it did about some well-trafficked parts of the Earth.

  Conn learned as they worked together that Daniels, in fact, was not happy with the negotiations with the Basalese. He was not at liberty to discuss what he expected or how the results fell short, but Conn could tell he was angry. Mostly, it seemed, at her.

  She guessed that he had asked for tech to benefit everybody, but wasn’t authorized to offer anything the Basalites wanted. She thought he would appreciate her having come through for him—even though she did it because it was the right thing to do, as well as benefiting Dyna-Tech. He did not appreciate it. The three and a half hours the three of them spent working together were awful, especially with Eyechart being his normal, charming self.

  They were on the moon, for God’s sake. They had just met aliens. Couldn’t these two lighten up a little?

  Eyechart and Daniels were scheduled to lift off Monday evening, about twenty-four hours after their collaboration thankfully came to an end. Luan was scheduled to stay an additional day, but the Chinese were considering keeping him on the moon even longer to give him more time to complete the mission on his own. The trouble was that part of his mission depended on the rover wrecked at the bottom of Hadley Rille.

  So the Chinese rented Conn’s lander/rover for ten hours. Conn was to drive. If Conn wanted some encouraging news about Peo, this was it—she would have been the one to make the deal with the Chinese.

  Conn was torn between feeling terrible for what Luan had been through and pissed off that she had to drive him around for ten hours instead of doing her own exploration. She wished the European mission had sent a rover, and that they were leaving it behind—then Luan could have one to himself, and so could she.

  The first of two sojourns was four hours long, with Conn taking orders and driving where Luan instructed. They were hemmed in to the east of Hadley Rille, between the canyon and the mountains—Conn was pretty sure the aliens had chosen the site for that reason—so there wasn’t much variety to the scenery. She was grateful that at least she and Luan had a common language now, although he didn’t seem in the mood for small talk. Conn could hardly blame him.

  She kept the lander depressurized so he could go in and out as he wished. That meant they were both in full pressure suits: what Conn wouldn’t have given for one of the Basalite pressure fields. Her suit seemed even stiffer and bulkier to work in now that she knew there was “pressure field” tech.

  There was no time to do any work of her own. Instead, when he got out, she did, too—to take pictures. But she felt that being relegated to Luan’s chauffeur was providential when she got to see, and photograph, a lunar sunset.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Goodnight, Moon

  September 5, 2034

  Conn parked the lander close to the Chinese base and slept for seven hours. After breakfast, she spent a few hours performing triage on the geological samples she had gathered so far. She had a weight limit, and she couldn’t bring back everything. She examined each sample, then showed it to geologists and other scientists via her comm link and her helmet camera. It went in a “keep” or “throw back” pile, depending on their verdict. The scientists at first wanted to keep absolutely everything, until Skylar Reece, who, for reasons unknown, was lurking during the triage, told them that three-fourths of what Conn had collected so far had to go into the “throw back” pile, and they could either decide which or she and Conn would decide for them. They got their act together after the ultimatum.

  After triage, Conn went outside for a scheduled eight hours, at the end of which she would watch the European lander take off for orbit, and home. Eyechart and Daniels were at the end of a six-hour EVA, Luan in the middle of eight hours. She found Luan—he couldn’t stray far from his lander with no rover and no sunlight—and talked him into coming with her to say goodbye.

  She gathered everybody together for a group picture. She cordially shook pressure-gloved hands with Eyechart and Daniels, and wished them Godspeed on their return. The two climbed back in their lander, leaving the surface of the moon for the last time. They would sleep four hours, then lift off.

  Conn returned to her own base. The sun had set on Hadley Rille, and she didn’t want to stray too far on foot with only artificial light. Luan’s helmet light bobbed to the west, near the Rille, so Conn headed for the foot of the mountains.

  She shut off her light.

  The sunless sky was spattered with billions of stars. It was a familiar sky, but there was so much more of it. There was so, so very much above the darkened moon. And this was with a gibbous Earth floating serenely in the sky. Without its light, she would have been able to see even more stars.

  She felt very small.

  She recalled that Peo had scheduled her own moon landing so that after a few days she would be in darkness as well. She wished she could be sharing the sight with Peo, that Peo was with her. There was no way even her highest-resolution cameras were doing the scene justice.

  “You would have loved this,” Conn said under her breath.

  A little more than three hours later, Brownsville let her know that the European lander was getting ready to lift off. “Minimum safe distance: six hundred meters,” Gil said. Conn was pretty sure that was about double the minimum safe distance, but she was fine either way, about half a mile from the launch. She found a promising boulder to lean on, and faced the direction of the lander. The pinprick of Luan’s light was still visible far to the west. It stopped moving as Luan found his own vantage point for viewing the liftoff.

  Soundlessly, a glow appeared underneath the lander. What little dust and small rocks that remained after touchdown scattered as the lander became airborne and went fast on its way. Conn had pictured it happening more slowly. She wasn’t sure why—probably all her hours simulating her own lander’s liftoff, all the steps that had to be done in the right order, made it seem like it was happening in slower motion than it was.

  Eyechart and Daniels were gone. Eyechart would return a national hero, depending on what he was able to bargain out of the Basalites in exchange for Siberian land. Daniels? Hard to tell. There was no reason anybody had to know it was she who got the tech for the pressure fields and avatars released to the public. And anyway, he’d gone to the moon. Surely that still made a man a hero.

  She returned to her lander to sleep, then got up to drive Luan for another six hours. After that, their inside-outside schedules were synced. Conn thought it was a good idea, making sure one was awake and outside when the other was, in case of emergency. They both spent fourteen of the twenty-four hours outside, and six of the remaining ten sleeping.

  Conn’s own mission had been extended by the ten hours Luan had use of the lander/rover, plus another fourteen to make it a full day. She would be able to watch Luan lift off. Then, she would be alone on the moon.

  Before they retired to their individual landers at 10:00 a.m., Conn took pictures of Luan outside his lander. Then the astronauts shook hands and Conn brought Luan i
n for another awkward, pressure-suited hug.

  By 1:00 p.m., she had driven her lander with its outside lights ablaze due north to the base of the mountains three kilometers from the Chinese lander, well outside minimum safe distance.

  Her lander didn’t have a reverse gear—too much additional weight for too little utility. She was doing a wide turnaround to point the vehicle in the direction of Luan’s liftoff. She was thinking about being the only human being on the moon. Distracted, she slammed the lander into a waist-high boulder, head on, at about five kilometers per hour.

  She was thrown forward. Her radio, hanging from her neck, bore the brunt of the impact. She bruised her collarbone. She rebounded off the fore instrument panel and fell down in one-sixth-gravity semislow motion onto her rear end.

  It was her fifty-third hour either outside or in rover mode, and there was comparatively little communication with Brownsville. She tried to call and tell them that she’d had an accident, but the radio was bricked.

  She climbed out to survey the damage. The right front of the lander was caved in. Conn saw light through it. Inside light. There was a hole in the lander.

  She waved her hands frantically in front of her helmet cam—then realized that wouldn’t be broadcasting, either.

  She had to get to Luan. At best, she might need his help to fix her lander. At worst, she needed a ride home.

  It was 1:02 p.m. central according to the clock on her left arm.

  She took off toward the Chinese lander at as close to a run as lunar gravity and the rocky terrain would allow, doing the math on the move. She could average about eight kilometers per hour at her present pace; to cover three kilometers, that would take...twenty-two-and-a-half minutes.

  She prayed Luan was running late.

  As she ran, she kept trying her radio—trying anything to get word to Brownsville to have the Chinese hold Luan up.

  1:12. Her left foot struck a rock and she tripped. She landed on her outstretched hands. She got up and kept going.

  1:18. She had to pick her way through a particularly rocky field. The rocks were small enough for the lander to go over, but not small enough to step on without breaking stride, or hurting herself.

  1:22. Her legs were on fire. The backs of her knees were stretched painfully tight from trying to avoid rocks and crevasses at speed.

  1:23. Luan should be able to see her from the lander—if he was looking. She waved her arms as she kept running.

  1:24. She was going to make it. They had called the Chinese when they hadn’t been able to communicate with her. All she had to—

  The bottom of the lander erupted in silent flame. “No!” Conn shrieked. She was pelted with rocks and dust.

  She was jumping up and down. Stop the liftoff, stop the liftoff, stop...

  Please.

  The Chinese lander rose into the lunar sky.

  Conn felt the exhaust from the engines, warm through her pressure suit.

  That was how close she had been.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Alone

  September 5, 2034

  Getting back in contact with Brownsville, if at all possible, was at the top of Conn’s survival checklist. She thought she might be able to plug a cable from her radio into the antenna booster outside on the lander, and get a message out that way. If that worked, she might also be able to plug into one of the signal amplifiers in order to receive.

  Her walk back to her lander gave her plenty of time to think about what she should say if she could get a message out.

  She said: “Brownsville, Hippeia Base. I’ve had an accident with the lander. There’s a breach—there’s a hole in it. I tried to flag Luan down but was unsuccessful. Unsure of options. Have just now returned to the lander, and will be making a closer inspection shortly. Hopefully. My radio is toast, but I can plug directly in to the booster to send—if you’re hearing this, anyway—and will go from here to plug directly in to the receive amplifier. OK, give me a minute. Hippeia Base out.”

  She plugged in to the amplifier—and heard, “Hippeia Base, Hippeia Base. Hippeia Base, this is Brownsville. Come in, Conn.”

  Gil sounded close to frantic. They were looking for her. They hadn’t heard her. What was going on? Was the booster on a different frequency? How come the receive amplifier worked?

  She sat down and put her head in her hands.

  “Hippeia Base! Conn! We read you! Thank God. Message received. OK. Stand by.” Where would I go? she thought.

  “OK, Conn. First priority is getting the hole in the lander plugged, however necessary. You probably knew that. If you can take a picture of it and send, or if you can somehow plug your helmet cam into the booster, we can try and give you a hand. Over.” Useless. There was no way she knew of to send a picture or plug directly in to her helmet camera.

  She switched her cable to the booster. “I’ll see what I can do about getting you a picture. In the meantime, tell me whether Luan can come back and get me.” She presumed Eyechart and Daniels’s command module was already on its way back to Earth, and they already had three aboard anyway. She very much doubted the Chinese lander had enough fuel for another landing and takeoff. It might not even have saved fuel on account of not having Cai Fang aboard, if they had Luan load up on extra geological samples. But tasking Brownsville with getting her a ride let her focus on what was in front of her.

  It wasn’t a pretty sight. The biggest part of the hole was the size of her fist, and then there was a section about as high and wide as an outstretched palm. The thin aluminum alloy around it was crumpled. She could plug the big hole—maybe—but the crumpled hull might have a dozen more cracks she couldn’t see. She had practiced this in simulation, but only on clean tears. This was much worse. Epoxy and a patch weren’t going to do the trick: their usefulness depended on a flat, undisturbed surface around a tear.

  Unless she made the tear clean. She could cut away the damaged part of the hull and use a huge amount of patch material to cover the resulting larger hole. She dug out the patch material. There wasn’t as much as she hoped, and she hesitated. If it wasn’t enough, she’d end up with a great big gap, nothing to plug it with, and no air.

  She concentrated again on the damaged lander. She needed to plug the hole temporarily, somehow. Buy time to work out a permanent fix.

  She considered a sample pouch that she used for collecting rocks. It was the right size. OK, fast forward. Whatever she plugged the hole with, she would then have to use duct tape or epoxy to hold it in place. Neither duct tape nor epoxy would adhere to the sample pouch. She needed something like...duct tape itself.

  She could wad up some duct tape and plug the hole with it, then tape it down on both sides. That might give enough seal to allow her to repressurize the lander and let her breathe its air before the air in her O2 tanks ran out.

  But if there were cracks where the hull was crumpled...well, one thing at a time. At least she had plenty of duct tape.

  She would have given almost anything for one of Persisting’s pressure fields, so she could manipulate the tape with her bare hands. She tore strip after strip, wadding it up until it fit into the wider part of the hole. She repeated the process to plug the thinner part. It was difficult with pressure suit gloves to massage the wads of tape, compact them so they would fit, then stretch them out so they covered as much of the hole as possible.

  When she was satisfied she couldn’t do any better, she tore strips to tape over the plug, first inside, then out. She inspected her work. She was confident her fix would stand up to the repressurization of the lander—as long as there weren’t any smaller cracks around it.

  Her hands ached. She plugged in and messaged Brownsville: “I think I have the hole plugged. I’m worried about micro-fissures around it. The hull is crumpled up pretty bad. Am thinking about cutting it out so it’s smooth, then using the patch and epoxy. Not sure I have enough, though. For now, I’m going to repressurize the lander and get me some new air, unless you have contrary instru
ctions. Over.”

  A minute later, Brownsville told her to go ahead and try repressurizing the lander. She consulted the checklist for the procedure. She was trained to do that every single time so there was no chance she would forget something, or do something in the wrong order. She went through the list item by item, until she got the pressure reading 960.0 millibars. She stayed suited for five minutes, watching the reading to see if it went down, but it held steady.

  She was in better shape, but by no means out of the woods. She took off her pressure suit helmet and gloves. It was prudent to keep the rest on, in case she had to suit up again in a hurry. With her bare hands, she could take a crack at fixing her radio.

  It took twenty minutes and some creativity in replacing damaged components, but she got it working. She could communicate wirelessly again, and Brownsville could see through her helmet camera next time she was suited up.

  “Conn,” Gil Portillo said at one point, “we did ask the Chinese to hold up for you. They said they would wait a couple hours, until the next time their CM came back around. We asked them to send Luan back out to look for you, and they even sounded like they were willing to do that. Then they took off, no warning, twenty minutes later. I don’t know what happened.”

  That put everything in an interesting light. It was almost as if Luan had taken off as soon as he could see her. He should have been half-expecting her, if he knew she was without a radio and potentially in trouble.

  “Well, then we’ll have to get this thing running,” Conn said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Ascent

  September 5, 2034

  It was difficult to ballpark how much of the hull she would have to cut away to use the patch from inside. She suited up again and depressurized. Outside, now with Brownsville watching, she precisely measured the size of the hole she would have to make.