Visions of the Future

by Brin, David

  The library is still here. In fact, we’ve improved it quite a bit. I had the bed and dresser removed, and replaced them with armchairs and reading lamps. The mural has been preserved within glass frames, and the books have been rebound inside plastic covers. The Phoenix disk is gone, but its contents have been downloaded into a couple of comps; the disk itself is in the base museum. And we’ve added a lot of books to the shelves; every time a cycleship arrives from Earth, it brings a few more volumes for our collection. It’s become one of the favorite places in Arsia for people to relax. There’s almost always someone there, sitting in a chair with a novel or story in his or her lap.

  The sign on the door reads Imperial Martian Library: an inside joke that newcomers and tourists don’t get. And, yes, I’ve spent a lot of time there myself. It’s never too late to catch up on the classics.

  LUNAR ONE

  jasper t. scott

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  “It’s beautiful,” Emily said.

  Blake stood behind his daughter, smiling and nodding as she used Lunar One’s telescope to gaze at the mottled blue and green orb shining bright above them. The Moon’s orbit had brought the day side of Earth into full view. It was hard not to marvel at the bold beauty of their world—harder still not to feel a pang of envy for the people living there. Emily turned away from the telescope with wide, bright blue eyes. The look of awe on her face reminded Blake of his own sense of wonder upon reaching the moon base, Lunar One.

  “What’s it like up there? On Earth?” Emily asked.

  Blake smiled anew. Up was a relative term. It certainly felt like the Earth was up, thanks to the Moon’s gravity and the seeming amplification of that gravity that their magnetic boots provided. Still, Blake couldn’t help but remember when he’d been a child back on Earth, gazing up at the Moon and wondering the same thing—what’s it like up there? Now with his curiosity sated, he was anxious to go back home.

  Answering his daughter, he said, “Earth is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. There are vast green forests, creaking in the wind; boundless blue oceans, deeper than the deepest crater on the Moon, and so far across that you can’t see the other side; there’s crystal clear rivers cascading from soaring mountains that are bundled up in green blankets of trees and wearing thick, white caps of snow and ice called glaciers. The atmosphere…” Blake sighed and closed his eyes, remembering. “You don’t know what a wind feels like, but on Earth the air moves about as if it had a life of its own. And then there are the cities, millions of them. Each city is like a lunar base, but much bigger, and each one is completely different, with its own people, food, and sights to see.”

  Emily was silent for a long moment. “I can’t wait to see it!”

  Blake smiled. “I can’t wait either. You’ve never been, so you don’t know what you’re missing, but I do.” He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “I think I’ve been up here too long.”

  Emily nodded sagely, as if she knew just what he meant.

  Blake turned back to the telescope and adjusted the height so that he could look through it more comfortably. Then he made further adjustments, magnifying North America and zooming in as far as he could on the eastern coast of the United States. He tried to imagine his parents down there, in their home in New Jersey, getting ready for Christmas. Knowing his mother, she would be busy running around cleaning and bringing out the Christmas decorations, trying to make everything perfect. His Dad would be outside stringing lights and wrestling their giant Frosty the Snowman into position on the front lawn. This year would be the biggest celebration they’d ever thrown. It wasn’t just Christmas; it was his welcome home party, and a chance for his parents to finally meet their granddaughter. It had been almost eight years since he’d been home. He’d had to wait until Emily was old enough for the return trip.

  People weren’t supposed to get pregnant on the Moon, not without a license. Population controls in the colonies were strict; they had to be. A growing population meant that infrastructure had to expand. Things like water and soil for growing food had to be shuttled up from Earth, and that was beyond expensive. But Blake’s girlfriend, Celeste, had defied all of those concerns, as well as the hormonal injections that should have prevented her from getting pregnant in the first place. She’d wanted a child so badly, and somehow that desire had been strong enough for her body to beat all of the odds. Then, just two days after Emily was born, Celeste had died in the medical wing of Lunar One. She’d lived long enough to see her dream come true, but not long enough to live in that dream. Blake often reflected on that irony, wondering if it were somehow axiomatic of life.

  “Why would anyone come live down here if the Earth is so great?” Emily asked, interrupting Blake’s thoughts.

  “Because…” How could he explain to a six-year-old the necessity of establishing colonies on the Moon when the Earth was clearly the more habitable of the two? How could he explain the novelty of it, the research opportunities, the increased access to space, the bragging rights it gave one country over another… After eight years, the reasons all seemed petty and pointless, and maybe they were. Maybe it was just pure hubris that had driven humanity to colonize the Moon, something humans did just to say that they could. Blake shook his head. “I think people come up here in order to appreciate the Earth more.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Emily folded her arms over her chest, and she gave him that skeptical look of hers, the same one her mother had practiced to perfection.

  Blake smiled and tousled her hair. “No, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s human nature to appreciate things better when they’re not there.”

  “You must appreciate Earth a lot, then.”

  Blake chuckled. “Yes, I do. More than you’ll ever know.” He twitched the telescope by just the slightest fraction of a degree, and he went from looking at New Jersey to New York. A lack of clouds over the city gave him a clear view, straight down to the metropolis. The magnification wasn’t strong enough to see individual buildings, but it was close. He could see the cityscape, a corrugated gray. Central park was a solid green square. The ocean all around Manhattan was a brilliant blue. Blake couldn’t wait to show his daughter around the city. What would she make of it? All she had ever known were the narrow corridors of Lunar One. She got to see the hydroponic gardens almost daily, so she knew what plants looked like, but she’d never seen miles and miles of civilization—crowded city streets, cars, people, restaurants, stores… She didn’t even know what shopping was. On the Moon, the colony provided people with all of their needs, but only the most basic ones were met. The rest… Emily just had no idea. A lump rose in Blake’s throat and he found himself trembling with excitement.

  “I wish Mom could have gone back with us.”

  That dulled his excitement. “So do I, Em.” He turned from the telescope to squeeze her shoulder and offer a reassuring smile.

  “What are you looking at now?”

  Grateful for the change of topic, Blake said, “I’m looking at the places we’re going to visit. The United States, New York City, New Jersey—that was my home before I moved up here.”

  “Don’t you mean down here?” Emily asked.

  “That depends which planet you’re standing on.”

  “Well, we’re standing on the Moon.”

  “True.”

  “So Earth is up.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Can I see?” Emily asked, looking up at the telescope.

  “Sure.” Blake adjusted the height of the viewing apparatus once more, giving his daughter a chance to see where they would be going. “You see the green spot? That’s a giant park in New York City called Central Park.”

/>   “It doesn’t look very big.”

  “No, it doesn’t, not from here, but it’s almost the size of Lunar One.”

  “Wow. What’s all the gray stuff around it? It looks like the Moon. I thought you said there were forests and rivers and mountains everywhere…”

  Blake laughed. “Those gray parts are skyscrapers. Tall buildings where people live and work.”

  “Taller than the control tower?” Emily asked.

  “Much taller.” The fifteen story landing control and communications tower of Lunar One would be dwarfed by even a small apartment building in New York.

  “Ow!” Emily backed away from the telescope, rubbing her eye.

  Blake frowned. “What happened?”

  “It’s too bright! It hurt my eye.”

  “Bright?” Blake shook his head and adjusted the telescope one more time so that he could see. What he saw was a giant, blurry cloud over the city. “Where did that come from?” he wondered aloud. “You didn’t move the telescope, did you?” he asked even though could see that the settings were all the same.

  “No,” Emily replied.

  Blake withdrew from the hands-on viewing apparatus and walked over to the computer console behind it. He needed finer control over the telescope, and some real hard data to understand what he was seeing. He eased into the chair and booted up the computer. Moments later the scene from the optical viewing apparatus reappeared for both of them to look at, now reproduced on the computer screen. The giant white cloud still hovered over New York, but now other details were coming clear. Around the edges of the cloud, black wisps of smoke were swirling, and thousands of small, bright orange pinpricks of fire raged. Blake’s insides turned to ice, and he gasped.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  He just shook his head. The uniform gray of skyscrapers and city streets was now a blurry, molten mess. Add to that the sudden appearance of the white, mushroom-shaped cloud, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. Blake reached for the communicator in his ear. Tower Control answered.

  “Lunar One Control, Lieutenant Rogan here.”

  “Control, this is Blake Evans. I’m in the observatory. We need to contact Earth immediately! Something terrible has happened.”

  “One moment, please.”

  There came a pause, and then the gruff voice of Commander Thales growled at him, “What’s going on Evans?”

  “Sir, I’m looking at New York and…” Blake’s voice cracked, and he trailed off.

  “Spit it out, Evans! I don’t have all day!”

  “The city’s gone, sir,” Blake croaked.

  “What do you mean it’s gone?”

  “I mean there’s a mushroom cloud rising where Manhattan used to be! The whole city is on fire!”

  Another pause, this one longer. In the background Blake heard people swearing and yelling at each other. Then came a crackle of static and Commander Thales was back. “I’m sending someone to the observatory now. Stay calm Evans, and keep an eye out for further developments.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Blake zoomed out until he could see the whole country.

  “What happened, Dad?” Emily asked, tugging on his sleeve.

  Blake opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out, just a strained whisper. He felt like he was suffocating. It was a bad dream. Any minute now he was going to wake up.

  “Dad?”

  “Nothing, darling. Just… we’re still trying to figure things out.”

  Another bright flash of light washed across the screen. This time Blake saw it, too.

  “Look! That’s what hurt my eye!” Emily said, pointing to the bulbous white head of another mushroom that was busy sprouting up to the south of the first one.

  Blake’s hands began to shake, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest. He let out a strangled sound and his hands flew over the controls to see where the second blast was. He checked the latitude and longitude, and the computer cross-referenced that with the name of a city.

  Washington, DC.

  Blake stared at the screen, his bottom lip quivering, his eyes unblinking. “This can’t be happening…” he breathed.

  An hour later, the observatory was crowded with officers from the control tower. Everyone watched as the twelfth blast hit the twelfth major US city. Not long after that, explosions began to hit other parts of the world. Russia was lit up from top to bottom and from east to west.

  It was hard to comprehend the decisions being made on Earth while they were on the Moon, completely cut off from the goings-on. Making the situation worse, Earth wasn’t responding to their hails. They were otherwise occupied, no doubt running home to get their families and get as far as possible from the nearest city center. It was everyone’s worst nightmare, and here they were, watching it play out via a lunar telescope, 284,000 miles from Earth.

  “Well, we’re fucked!” someone said. Blake turned to see that it was one of Lunar One’s shuttle pilots. “That’s it! We’re done!”

  Blake looked away and busied himself aiming the telescope back at the US. This time they watched not a dozen, but thousands of explosions flowering all across the country. Every city with more than a hundred thousand people got hit.

  “Why Russia? Why the fuck would they attack us?” the shuttle pilot asked.

  “Maybe it wasn’t them,” Commander Thales replied. “Maybe the powers that be just took an educated guess. Maybe they just wanted blood. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter who started it. It’s already over, and we’re all that’s left.”

  “What do you mean?” someone else asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Earth wasn’t ready for this. The lunar bases are self-sufficient. We have our own spacecraft, mining operations on the surface, hydroponic farms, air and water recyclers. We can live up here, but they sure as hell can’t live down there. There’s going to be a nuclear winter, famine, disease, endless wars of retaliation and squabbles over dwindling resources. If humanity has any chance at all, it’s us. We’re the future now.”

  “Are w-we still g-going up to Earth?” Emily asked.

  Blake turned to his daughter in a daze. “Going?” he echoed, her words not connecting to sense in his brain.

  Emily’s big blue eyes were full of tears. She blinked and they began to dribble down her cheeks. “You promised!”

  Blake couldn’t bring himself to reply, he just pulled her into a crushing embrace, and he began to sob. Emily began to wail when she heard him crying, but that was as it should be. It would have been wrong to watch the Earth die and not shed a single tear.

  “Sir, we’re receiving a transmission… it’s from Lunar Nine!” Blake heard an officer beside him say.

  Thales replied, “That’s the Russian base! What do they want?”

  “They received orders from Earth to launch their missiles at us.”

  “Is that a threat? If they do, we’ll retaliate, and there’ll be nothing left but two fresh craters on the Moon!”

  “It’s not a threat, sir. They’re suggesting we bury the hatchet. They’ve been watching the same thing as us. The commander of Lunar Nine has publicly denounced the Russian government’s actions. It’s all over the news nets. They’ve had trouble reaching us, because there’s no one in the control tower. The Japanese in Lunar Two had to forward their message to my tablet.”

  Blake emerged from his daughter’s embrace to see Commander Thales looking pale and shell-shocked. He seemed frozen with indecision. “They started this…” he said slowly, squinting up at the mottled blue, white, and green ball above their heads. “It’s time for us to end it.”

  Suddenly Blake was on his feet, furious. His chest was rising and falling quickly, his eyes were flashing and his face had flushed. “Sir, you said it yourself: we’re all that’s left! You can’t!”

  Commander Thales turned to him with a disgusted look. “What are you talking about Evans? By they I meant Earth, not the Russians. It’s that kind of thinking that got us into this mess in
the first place. Earth started it. Now we, the people of the Moon, have to put an end to the madness.” The commander turned away, back to his communications officer. “Tell Lunar Nine that we couldn’t agree more. Maybe humanity couldn’t have peace on Earth, but perhaps we can settle for peace on the Moon.”

  “I’ll have to get back to the control tower to send that message, sir.”

  “Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Blake watched as everyone hurried out of the observatory, leaving him and Emily alone once more.

  As soon as they were gone, Emily began tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. Blake turned to her, his eyes still bleary with tears.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Emily said, sniffling. “It’s like you said, I’ve never been to Earth, so I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ll be okay. Don’t cry.”

  Blake’s mouth cracked into a broken smile, and he got down on his haunches to hug his daughter once more. “I’m so sorry, Emily,” he whispered beside her ear. I’m so sorry. As that apology echoed through his head, he couldn’t help thinking to himself, Maybe you don’t know what you’re missing, but I do.

  I sure do.

  MY FATHER’S SINGULARITY

  brenda cooper

  Brenda got started by coauthoring Building Harlequin’s Moon with Larry Niven. She went on to write many other works including The Silver Ship and the Sea, Reading the Wind, Wings of Creation, Mayan December, and The Creative Fire.

  You can read her latest novel Edge of Dark at http://amzn.to/16IfFLV.

  In my first memory of my father, we are sitting on the porch, shaded from the burning sun’s assault on our struggling orchards. My father is leaning back in his favorite wooden rocker, sipping a cold beer with a half-naked lady on the label, and saying, “Paul, you’re going to see the most amazing things. You will live forever.” He licks his lips, the way our dogs react to treats, his breath coming faster. “You will do things I can’t even imagine.” He pauses, and we watch a flock of geese cross the sky. When he speaks again, he sounds wistful. “You won’t ever have to die.”