Red Moon

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  But they were primates. Kissing cousins to the other primates, with obvious family resemblances, especially when newborn. Actually this girl looked nothing like other primates, he was just fooled by her size and the redness of her skin; she even bore a resemblance to Qi in the shape of her mouth. She would be fine. Hopefully. There was no way to know, and no point in worrying about it now. This last thought seemed like something he could say to Qi, if she brought it up again. But then he stopped himself. Worry about it later—never a welcome piece of advice, now that he thought of it. When you suggested to people who were worrying that they worry about it later: that was never well received. He finally saw that. He even saw why it might be that way.

  “What are you going to name her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the, you know, are you going to, I mean, is there any place for the father in all this?”

  “Oh I don’t want to talk about that.”

  He watched her for a while. “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure. It was a mistake.”

  “Well—”

  “It was a mistake!”

  “Okay.”

  While the babe slept on Qi’s chest, they started listening to Qi’s radio feed. Everywhere the crises were still ongoing. At first this seemed strange, then they realized that only a day or less had passed since they had last paid attention. In the US, Congress had finished nationalizing the major banks, and the markets were in free fall. Currency controls had been slapped in place to keep dollars from fleeing to other countries or into cryptocurrencies. Demonstrators and some legislators were demanding a universal basic income, guaranteed healthcare, free education, and the right to work, all supported by progressive taxation on both income and capital assets. Supporters of this program were in the streets; opponents were calling it a catastrophic mutiny of the irresponsible half of the citizenry. Media had so much content to report there was hardly time to froth over it. But it seemed still that armed violence caused by all the disruption was minimal. People were in the streets, but mainly to celebrate a return to democracy, or object to it. It was hard to shoot such crowds.

  In that fundamental sense, it was the same in China. The army and security forces were so far holding off, taking their positions and then remaining in place without further actions. It looked like the strategy used in Hong Kong was being tried again: just wait until people got tired and went home. No more May Thirty-fifths. Whether it would work this time no one could tell. Many people were in fact leaving the big demonstration in Beijing. Recently another manifesto had appeared on every screen in the country, a botware storm that again appeared to have originated within the Great Firewall. In stilted antique language, reminiscent of Mao Zedong or Sun Yat-sen, or even Confucius or Laozi, the previous iterations of reform lists had now become the Seven Great Reforms: return of the iron rice bowl, legal standing for the ecologies of China, reform of the hukou system, an end to the Great Firewall, full equality for women, an end to gross income inequality, and the return of the Party to the people.

  “Interesting,” Qi said. Some of these demands, she told Fred, would be supported by urban youth, some by the rural populace, some by the migrant workers, some by intellectuals and the prosperous business class. Netizens or farmers or migrants, everyone wanted something from the Party, and no one outside the Party was convinced that it had been doing the best it could. President Xi had made valiant attempts to right the ship, some said, but after him there had been too much infighting to replace him, too much corruption, too much controlocracy, too little action on behalf of the people. The Chinese people were sick of it, things had to change. And there was a long Chinese tradition of going out and overrunning the authorities—a tradition three thousand years old at this point. Young people who had never experienced such a revolutionary moment seemed to have a desire for it. This too was part of the China Dream, Qi explained.

  Fred shook his head. “It sounds awful.”

  “What do you mean?” Qi said. “It sounds great.”

  “You might want it if you’ve never seen it, but then if you get it, you won’t want it.”

  “Revolution?”

  “Chaos and disorder.”

  “But the order was bad. The order was disorder. Think of it as dynastic succession on a global scale. The old world order was wrecking everything, so this had to happen. After these troubles there’ll be a sorting out, and then a better order will come into being.”

  Fred shrugged, looking at an image on his wristpad of the National Mall in Washington, DC, packed with millions of people. Inspiring? Frightening? He wasn’t sure.

  “I’m hungry,” Qi said. “How much food does this place have?”

  “There’s quite a lot. It’s all dried or frozen or canned.”

  “That’s all right. But what will we do when it’s gone?”

  “I don’t know. Hopefully Ta Shu will figure out something, him and those Americans he was with. Someone who will help us.”

  “If it comes to it, we’ll have to call for help. With some margin to spare, in terms of food and air.”

  “Ta Shu knows we’re here.”

  Then, as if called up by one of the old man’s dragon arteries, the station’s control panel pinged three times. Fred tapped it and Ta Shu’s voice was suddenly there with them.

  “Fred and Qi, hello! Sorry to say this, but our China source is telling us that you’ve been found again. The people who destroyed your rover intend to do the same to the shelter you’re in. You need to leave there immediately.”

  “We can’t!” Fred objected. “We don’t have anywhere to go, and we have no way to get there! And Qi’s had her baby!”

  “Nevertheless! Be that as it may! You still need to get out! All this turmoil at home is causing a really violent backlash. It’s a big fight, and you’re in the crosshairs.”

  “What about Peng Ling?” Qi asked loudly. “Is she on our side or is she trying to kill us?”

  “She’s on your side. I talked to her!” He sounded very happy as he said this. “Your father is working with her, and they’re working together with others to secure the army and make sure the entire security apparatus is backing her and the new standing committee. That’s going pretty well, they say, which only means the rightists still on the loose are getting more and more desperate. They’re trying to eliminate their enemies at the top, as a last chance at success. Peng herself has had to move to a secure location. You need to do the same, because there are people in China who want you dead.”

  “But I’m not even in contact with anyone!” Qi cried.

  “It doesn’t matter. The Red Spear is being crushed, so they’re lashing out. They can’t retaliate against the demonstrators in the streets, so they’re going for the leaders of their enemies, and you’re part of that. And they found out where you are.”

  “But we can’t get away!” Fred said. “The rover we were in was demolished.”

  “I know. My friends here say those roadside shelters always have little motorbikes in their storage lockers, for moving from one shelter to the next in emergencies like this. And there are spacesuits in all the refuges.”

  “For a baby?”

  “No of course not. But it will fit in a regular one, I guess. Fred, listen to me: you have to get out of there. The missiles are already on their way.”

  “What! From where?”

  “From Earth. They were launched yesterday, so time is short. You have to leave.”

  “Shit.”

  Fred and Qi looked at each other. So much eye contact, after all those weeks avoiding it! It was a very quick mode of speech, they were finding. Now they saw immediately that they were in agreement: they had to get out.

  “Fred, listen to me. Take the motorbikes, and ride south on that road ninety-seven kilometers to a mine station called Rümker. There’s a freight launch rail there, and the facility includes a passenger pod that can be loaded onto the rail. We can walk you through that and g
et you launched.”

  “But where will this pod go?”

  “It depends on when you take off. Right now that doesn’t matter. We’ll track you after you launch and someone will come get you. For now you just need to get off the moon as fast as you can. Anywhere is safer than here. Since they know where you are, nowhere on the moon will be safe for you.”

  “Do you think Peng can get control of the situation?” Fred asked.

  “I hope so, but she hasn’t done it yet. Until that gets resolved, keeping you alive is up to us. So get out of there. Leave as soon as you can.”

  With that Ta Shu cut out without warning. No goodbye, just a click.

  Fred and Qi stared at each other, then at Qi’s baby.

  “Shit!” Fred said. “So sorry about this!”

  “It’s my fault,” Qi said. “It’s me they’re trying to kill.”

  “But why? I thought you said you weren’t the leader.”

  “I’m a symbol. I made myself a symbol. I’ve worked for this for years, and a lot of people know that.”

  “So you think we should leave.”

  “We have to! I believe what Ta Shu is telling us, don’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “He was right last time.”

  “Yes.”

  “So we have to leave.”

  Fred didn’t want it to be true, but there it was. “Yes.”

  She sat up, turned and put her feet on the floor, stood up carefully beside her bed, winced.

  Seeing this Fred said, “How are you doing?”

  “Not good,” she said.

  Now that they were no longer in her moment of extremity, she didn’t want to talk to him about that, he could see. But if they were going to be riding some kind of lunar motorbike, well—it struck him as a terrible idea. But there wasn’t any other option. She was tough, and she hadn’t been bleeding onto the bed for a while now; the latest towels he had put under her were still almost clean. So hopefully that would be all right. Maybe the motorbike had a sidecar.

  They found a wardrobe full of spacesuits next to the air lock, and pulled a few out. Qi investigated the possibility of fitting her baby into her spacesuit with her, but it didn’t look like that would work; the babe would be trapped below the helmet ring, and there would be no way to reach her directly down there. Nor enough room to keep from squishing her. Nor a steady supply of air. Qi cursed and began poking around in one of the station’s spacesuits, sticking her arm up through the helmet ring and the like. Fred went down a hallway and found the storage room containing the motorbikes Ta Shu had mentioned. No sidecars, but luckily they were not actually motorbikes but rather motored tricycles, with two wheels in back, and a long duo of seats made to hold two or even three people. Their batteries were plugged into the wall, and there must have been a photovoltaic solar panel on the roof of the shelter, because the batteries’ gauges showed they were all fully charged. Emergency transport, as Ta Shu had said, and so always ready. Suitable for getting from one shelter to the next, if there were no other options. As now.

  Fred unplugged one trike’s battery and wheeled it into the main room. Its rear axle was short, sized to fit through the doors and air lock. They could both sit on it. Fred could drive while Qi held her baby in her arms. It seemed like it might work.

  “How does it look for getting her into a spacesuit?” he asked.

  “Scary.”

  “But you can do it?”

  “I guess we have to.” Her face was set in the masklike expression Fred had seen so often in China, now grimmer than ever. “Let me nurse her one more time, see if I have any milk. We’re going to have to keep her in her suit until we get to another shelter.”

  “I know. Ninety-seven kilometers, he said. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “It better not.”

  She sat and offered the babe a breast and the girl latched on hungrily. Fred got into his spacesuit from the rover and toggled through its gauges, saw that he had wrecked them when he had disabled its GPS. A pointless exercise. He pulled out one of the station’s spacesuits and checked it out. Looked like it had air for seventy-two hours, hopefully well more than they would need. “We should wear these,” he told Qi. They would be GPSed again, but it couldn’t be helped. He pulled one of the suits on, then a helmet; snapped it onto the suit, turned everything on. Again it all checked out. He got the trike into the air lock.

  Qi pulled the babe off, and with a kiss to her forehead inserted her headfirst into a spacesuit helmet, which she had lined with a towel around the back side, so that the girl now lay on a kind of pillow. She stared up through her faceplate, a very unnerving sight, evoking some dreamlike or cinematic memory, maybe the star child from the end of 2001, but also various horror-film nightmares. Qi’s face had turned to stone. She pulled the spacesuit up over the girl’s legs and snapped suit to helmet. The suit was nearly empty, so that Qi could fold up the legs, then on Fred’s suggestion wrap them with duct tape to make sure they didn’t inflate when they aerated the suit. The resulting pad could be used as a kind of cushion under the helmet. She would be able to hold the whole arrangement in her arms, though it made a bulky package.

  Qi then got into her suit, and they checked each other’s seals. They turned on her suit and the baby’s suit. All seemed well. Qi carried her girl as if in a wad of swaddling clothes, and they went to the air lock. They crowded in with the trike, closed the inner door, opened the outer door, felt the draft of air fly out into the vacuum. Fred pushed the trike by the handlebars out onto the lunar surface.

  When they were outside, Qi handed Fred the baby and got on the backseat of the trike, hissing as she did so. Again he was hearing her voice in his left ear, a weirdly intimate disjunction of the senses: she was inside his head again.

  “Do you want to ride sidesaddle?” he asked her.

  “No. Wait—yes.”

  She got off and got on again sitting sideways. Fred gave her the baby and swung his leg over the seat in front of them. Electric motor. Accelerator on the right handlebar, as on a snowmobile. In fact the trike resembled a skeletal snowmobile, now that he thought of it. He tried to give them the easiest start possible, keeping his feet on the ground until the trike began to move. It moved, he lifted his feet onto the running boards, and off they went. Qi reached her right arm around his waist and clung hard to him. The babe was cradled in her left arm and Fred could feel the babe’s spacesuit boots shoving him in the back.

  He drove them slowly back toward the main road, scared to death he would somehow tip them over or toss Qi off. The two rear wheels kept that from happening. Possibly a tricycle was more like a car than a motorcycle, in terms of stability. But it was a narrow trike and the g was lunar. Twisting the handlebar gently, which gave the thing a bit more speed, made it feel a little easier to steer. He tested the turn of the handlebars by making a few gentle S-turns, feeling the resistances and balances. The fact that they were on a smoothed roadway helped. Being in one-sixth normal gravity seemed helpful in some ways, dangerous in others, but he couldn’t be sure what was what, and didn’t want to test any aspect of it. Were they balanced, was he balancing them? It was harder to tell than he would have liked.

  He rode them onto the main road and turned left as gently as he could, which resulted in him almost running them off the far side of the road. He completed the turn just before that happened, straightened their course. No disasters so far. Now only ninety-five kilometers to go.

  It was near midday. Even seen through the heavily polarized and tinted faceplate of his helmet, the landscape was ablaze. The few shadows remaining were like cracks in white porcelain. If they had been riding cross-country they would have been doomed to tip over, no matter the extra tricyclic balance; he couldn’t see well enough to discern bumps and dips in time to avoid them. On the road it was easier, being nearly flat, though they did jounce side to side pretty often. The road was also reliably hard—not as solid as asphalt, but about like packed gravel, and spraye
d with a fixative. When he took a brief glance back over his shoulder, he saw that a small dust plume was lofting behind them despite the fixative, hanging there in testament to the light g and the fineness of the dust that covered everything. But it was behind them, and Fred was happy to ride away from it into the blasted clarity of the road ahead.

  Unseen bumps sometimes cast them hard to the side, and then he had to steer back the other way without too much of a panic or he would overcompensate them into a fall. Sometimes Qi’s arm around his waist clutched so hard it felt like she was trying to cut him in half. It was very hard to remember that everything had to be done about one-sixth as emphatically as it would have been done on Earth. That kind of touch took a lot of athleticism, and he hadn’t been a great athlete on Earth, not an athlete at all in fact, never comfortable on bikes or snowmobiles, and never once in his life on a motorcycle, a mode of conveyance he had always considered ridiculously dangerous. And yet here he was, gripping the handlebars as hard as he could and trying to see the road surface through the tint of his faceplate and the blinding glare. Too often it felt like the wheels under him were not quite in contact with the ground.

  The speedometer embedded in the handlebar dashboard said they were going forty kilometers an hour, and that felt a bit too fast, with the view ahead jouncing toward him, and the thing between his legs and under his hands vibrating and bucking—but he was in a hurry. Grimly he held the throttle in place and rode the dips and bumps as best he could. Despite the rapid succession of little panics jolting through him, they were not actually coming very close to tipping over. Although one time they went over an unseen bump and the whole vehicle launched off the ground and flew without warning, scaring him; but quickly enough they came down, and he jerked the handlebars through the teeny adjustments that felt necessary to keep going straight ahead, and on they went. He kept holding his breath for too long at a time.