The Journey Begins

by Dan Eaton

  “Yes,” Christine answered, “it gets a little busy sometimes, but it’s not as bad as you might think. People are on different shifts so there’s never a time when everyone has to shower at the same time. Plus, even for the shifts we can stagger people’s start times. Bathroom or showers are not the only resources in short supply so we try to be very flexible to deal with the issues.”

  We reached the end of the corridor and Christine commented, “On the right is a hallway leading to the Habitat Maintenance bay and Mussconny Machine, one of the private firms renting space here at the Habitat.” She led us down the corridor to the left until we passed through a doorway and entered the second section of the Habitat where she said, “The second section currently holds nineteen bunk rooms, a Shower/Bath room, and the Habitat’s second cafeteria, Cicely’s Grill that you see here. Dr. Burns, two of the Hydroponic bays are also located on the far end of this section. I’m sure you’ll be spending some time in them.” Mom gave Christine a thumbs up before Christine led us down the corridor and through the next door.

  The next section was very different from the previous ones. This was set up as a large cafeteria that looked like it could hold three hundred people. Christine said. “As you can see, section three is set up as a cafeteria. It was originally set up like the first two sections, but we recently changed it over to this configuration to better support the habitat. Beyond the wall at the far end of the cafeteria is a kitchen/storage partition. This is where you will normally dine, but of course you’re welcome to use either the Northern Grill or Cicely’s Grill if it happens to be convenient for you.”

  She led us on across the cafeteria and through the door opposite of the one we came in through. She stopped us just past the door and said, “Section Five is also a little different than the first sections. In this partition, we’ve started a business hub where a number of companies have opened offices. We’re standing outside of the Hotel Whipple where visitors to the Habitat can get lodging. Just to the South of the hotel is Margarita Mamas which is very popular with people who like karaoke. Sorry kids, but it is a bar so you can’t go there. For the adults, all I can say is just be prepared for sticker shock when you see the price of a drink there.”

  Christine led us further South along the long hallway running the length of section four. We walked past the offices for Denali Aerospace, Trans Astonautica, and SpaceX. Christine mentioned, “On the other side of this partition there’s a couple of places you should be aware of. The Habitat Laundry and Habitat Supply are both located in the far corner. You’ll need to bring your dirty clothes to the laundry and pick up your fresh clothes there. Habitat Supply is where you can order new clothing or any other supplies you may need. You kids should note that our only conference room is located over there and finally there is a business on that side, O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company.”

  She led us through the door in the wall separating the partitions and said, “This partition is entirely hydroponic bays and is where most of the fresh food for the Habitat is grown. Bryce, if you ever need to find your mom when she’s at work I suspect here would be a good place to start. There is something else down this way that I think you’ll enjoy. Before I take you to your homes, let’s go take a look outside.” At the end of the hallway was a door marked with the Yellow Hazard sign. Christine pulled her phone and called Security. Sam granted them access and they followed Christine through the doors. The short hallway on the other side ended in a circular chamber with stairs leading up along the walls of the chamber.

  At the top of the stairs was a viewing chamber high above the lunar surface. We spread out along the windows looking at the amazing view. Christine told us, “The Habitat sits on the Northeastern rim of Whipple crater. You can see the near crater rim just to the South of us. The far rim that you can see in the distance is about fifteen kilometers away. The lunar North pole is over that way to the Northwest about twenty five kilometers away. Just below us on the crater side is the haul road. You’ll notice all of the solar collectors just to the North of the road. The Habitat lies beneath them. The depth of the regolith over the habitat varies from two to five meters to provide protection from energetic particles.”

  “To our East along the haul road you can see the Regolith Reclamation module where they extract volatiles and metals from the regolith and then the smaller structure nearer us is the Regolith Sintering facility where they create the stones used in the construction of the roads and habitat. Just to the North of the Regolith Reclamation module you can see the main road that runs out passed the landing pads you arrived on. The partially buried structure beyond the pads is the fuel storage facility and if you follow the main road on past the pads the buildings you see there are the ice reclamation facility and manufacturing module. Beyond that is the historic base where the first manned landings occurred.”

  I appreciated Christine providing us the commentary on Man’s efforts here at Whipple but I hoped she understood, we didn’t mean to be rude by ignoring her. The view beyond the roads and buildings was stunning. It also very much drove home how far away from Earth we were. The world of my birth was low on the Northern horizon. Whipple was located on the far side of the Moon and it was only due to its closeness to the lunar North Pole and the nearly one half kilometer height of the crater rim that we were able to see Earth at all. It wasn’t quite a full Earth as there was a slim sliver of dark to be seen on the globe. It was strange to be thinking about the phases of the Earth instead of the phases of the Moon. The Sun was shining low in the South and Whipple’s crater was filled with a silky blackness for all we could see. To our West lay the much larger Peary crater with the mostly flat floor of its crater stretching out to the curiously close horizon while its crater walls marched off on either side as a curving chain of mountain peaks. I could have stayed there for hours, but it had been a long day and it would be nice to see where we were calling home.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Home is where the heart is

  Christine led us down from the viewing chamber and left out of the doorway we entered. We passed another black doorway that she indicated was Life Support #2. We turned right at the end of the hallway, ignoring the Hydroponics bays on the right side of the corridor and passed through a door on the left into an unusual space. The room had an odd wedge shape. It was about four meters wide at the South end and ran about 33 meters down to the North end, which looked to be around five and a half meters long. The shape was unusual, but what set the room apart was it was a small park decorated with flowering plants and shrubs. Mom was delighted with the room and asked Christine about it. Christine said, “As you saw from the viewing chamber, the Habitat lays along the rim of Whipple crater. We can’t build too close to the crater wall and we can’t get too far away from the wall before the rim starts to fall off too much. So there’s this narrow zone, we can build on and keep everything on the same level. The Garden, as we call this room was built to bring the track of the Habitat’s next phase of construction back closer to the rim.”

  She continued, “The four doors you see along the West wall of the Garden lead into the newest and largest occupied section of the Habitat. This section is about four hundred meters long and composed of four joined barrel vaults that run the length of the section. Each vault is divided into ten segments and within each segment we’ve put three homes. Between each segment we have a connector tube spanning all four vaults and additionally connecting to a large corridor we call Grand Boulevard.” She then led us through the Garden to the door on the North end that led out into the Grand Boulevard. It was actually a fifth barrel vault running the length of the previous four vaults only this one wasn’t segmented. It was one long clear space and gave access to the residential area via the connector tube doorways running along its South wall. I’m not claustrophobic, but I was glad to see the open area since much of the Habitat lacked any vast vistas unless you counted the view in the roomy cafeteria.

  Christine halted and gave us a better descript
ion of the Grand Boulevard, “We wanted someplace very open that would serve as a counterpoint to the warren the housing section can seem. It’s also a good place to get some exercise as you can tell by the folks hopping by.” As she spoke a couple loped by taking the kind of bunny hops anyone who had watched the Apollo astronauts on the Moon would be familiar with. There appeared to be several people taking the same advantage of the space. Christine continued, “On weekends, people with crafts to sell set up little booths along the wall and there always seems to be some kind of interesting activity going on in this space. Now let’s take the Patel’s to their new home.”

  She led us down the boulevard to the second cross corridor and then East into the second segment. She stopped at the first house and after everybody had gathered announced, “Everyone, please welcome Abuyomi, Kiara, and Ananyu to their new home. You’ll find instructions in the kitchen on how to log into your accounts on the local network. From there you should be able to find everything you need to get settled. As I mentioned earlier your luggage has already been dropped off and there’s a meet and greet this evening in the large cafeteria that I hope you can attend. I’ll take the others on to their houses now, but please reach out to me if you find you need something.”

  Next we dropped off the Schubeler’s at the Eastern most house in the fourth segment, third vault in. Adam and Willie got to be neighbors as we dropped them off at the Eastern most houses in the fifth segment, second vault in. Finally, Christine led us to the Eastern most houses in the sixth segment, third vault in. Myra was going to be the girl next door. Myra was nice, but part of me couldn’t help wishing it had been Nina ending up as the girl next door.

  Christine reminded us again about the meet and greet and then bid us goodbye. We walked into our assigned house to see what our new home was going to be like. The outside reminded me of a shipping container. They were a two story affair about three meters wide and a little under six and three quarters long. You entered through a door in the middle and came into a small room that served as an eating nook. The right wall was taken up with a door into the master bedroom and a stairway leading up to the second level. The left wall of the room had a door leading to a bathroom with the remainder of the right and back wall taken up by a counter. Underneath the counter were storage cabinets and a small refrigerator. There was a small sink but nothing that even looked like a stove since meals were meant to be taken in the cafeteria.

  Going up the stairs to the second level there was an open area that served as a family room and then my bedroom was on the right side of the house above the bathroom. My room was fine but by the standards of our house back in Saint Charles this house was tiny. Then again, thinking about all those bunk rooms we had passed with eight people in them and a separate communal bathroom to share I guess we actually had it pretty good. After checking out my room I came out to find Mom over at the desk logging onto the system. Dad had opened our “luggage” and brought up my share for me. We weren’t allowed much but then again the Habitat would provide most of the common stuff we would need. I had settled on bringing my lucky Cardinal's shirt and given the rest of my weight allotment to my mom. My Dad had given her all of his allotment and she had used it to bring along all of the seed packets she could. She was going to have a garden somehow but that couldn’t happen unless she had something to grow.

  I stashed my shirt in one of the storage cabinets in my room and went back out to the common room. Mom was done with the computer and Dad was just sitting down to open his account. Mom looked at me and said, “Bryce, I confirmed the order I had placed with Habitat supply before we left is ready. Would you mind coming with me to pick it up so we all have clothes to wear tomorrow?”

  I said, “Sure” and we headed back out to the Grand Boulevard. We hadn’t been walking long when Nina and Ananyu came loping passed us getting in some exercise. It looked like fun, but considering how graceful both girls looked I decided to try it sometime when there were fewer witnesses about. We made it to the Habitat Supply without getting lost and picked up the six boxes they had waiting for us. I was very grateful for the lunar gravity. Mom had ordered a week’s worth of clothes for each of us along with the linens for the bedrooms and towels and supplies for the bathroom. There was supposed to be an E-pad for each of us and pillows for the bed. We would have had to make multiple trips with the boxes back on Earth, but the lunar gravity let us each handle three boxes without too much of a problem. We saw the girls on the way back and I thought about going back and joining them, but Mom had me unpacking and then Dad insisted I sign in and activate my account. When I was done with that Mom handed me my new E-pad and the next thing I knew it was time to go to supper.

  On the way out we stopped at the Cherneski’s and asked them if they were going down to dinner. They were just getting ready so they joined us. Mom grabbed Wendy and started talking about the houses and Dad and Joe started talking about the Habitat which left me and Myra. We walked together and when we came out on the Boulevard I said, “I saw Nina and Ananyu doing the shuffle earlier. It looks like fun and I’d like to try it.”

  Myra spoke up and said, “That sounds like fun Bryce, maybe after dinner we could try it.”

  I said that sounded great and didn’t think anything more about it. We were passing the second segment when the Patel’s came out and joined us. Ananyu grabbed Myra and started talking to her about clothes and by the time we got to the cafeteria, I was sure they had forgotten all about me.

  I joined Mom and Dad in the line and started looking at my choices. They had a salad bar with a selection of fresh greens from the hydroponics section. The choices for the meal were Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, fried shrimp on a bed of rice, or a cheeseburger with fries. I decided to get a small salad to appease my mother and the cheeseburger dinner. Dad got a salad and the Salisbury steak dinner and Mom went with a salad and the shrimp. We sat down to eat and that was when the surprises began. The food all looked right, but the textures were off. The hamburger I had looked and tasted like hamburger, but whatever I was eating didn’t feel like hamburger. Dad had the same complaint about his Salisbury steak. My French fries were also off.

  Mom said, “You guys do realize that due to the price of importing meat from the Earth that what actually gets sent up here is meat protein in powder form. They print the burgers and steak out on food grade 3D printers. Bryce, they don’t have potatoes up here so any recipe using potatoes is using reconstituted dried potato flakes. Works okay for mashed potatoes, but for French fries they extrude the stuff and then fry it. Doesn’t do much for the texture making French Fries that way.”

  I had gotten a chocolate shake with the dinner. It tasted great and I wasn’t going to ruin things asking my Mom what it was made of.

  After dinner, Christine came in and introduced each family to the people still hanging around. It was a larger group of people than I expected. People came over and introduced themselves and Mom and Dad met some of the folks they would be working with. Everybody was nice to me, but it was clear that Mom and Dad were where all the interest lay. I was getting a little bored when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Turning around I saw it was Christine and she had Willie in tow.

  She said, “Hi Bryce, I’ve got some people that would like to meet you and Willie. Come with me please.” We followed her off to a table on the side of the room where there were four older guys and two women sitting. They looked up with smiles when Christine showed up and she turned to Willie and I and said, “Bryce, Willie, this is Annette, Joey, Roger, Joy, Tam and Jean Claude. They were wondering if you two know anything about some game called Gogo.”

  Gogo works really well with two teams of four. They’d been limping along with two teams of three for some time, so they were really happy to find two more players. Willie and I spent the rest of the evening talking to them about setting up some games. Willie and I could join the games from our E-pads, but we really need some gaming shades and controllers to actually play well. The guys h
ad a bunch of great suggestions for what equipment to have printed out. We would have stayed talking a lot later, but our parents came to drag us away, reminding the two of us that we actually had school in the morning.

  CHAPTER TEN

  First day at Luni High

  Mom had set her alarm and woke us up in time for us to enjoy a family breakfast together in the cafeteria before we all headed off to start our new day. We wandered down to the main cafeteria, where we had eaten the night before. It was nowhere near full today as some folks used the two older, smaller cafeterias if they were closer to them and some folks worked alternate shifts so were on different breakfast schedules. It was a room designed to be light and airy with two rows of the pervasive solar lighting found in most of the chambers running across the central portion of the chamber’s roof. Additional indirect lighting was supplied by LED lights in sconces along the walls. There were murals painted on the open walls that tried to give the impression that you were sitting in a field surrounded by a forest. It wasn’t great, but in my book it beat looking at bare walls.

  As you entered the room, the main serving line was at the back along the wall that segmented the section into two partitions. The selection for breakfast items was limited to oatmeal, pancakes, several brands of cereal, and scrambled eggs with home fries. I decided to try pancakes with a glass of milk from the dispenser. I really wanted some fresh fruit, but there didn’t seem to be any available. Dad went with the scrambled eggs with home fries along with a glass of some orange stuff called Tang. Mom got some cereal along with a cup of coffee. I loved the smell of coffee but never could get used to the taste of it the times I had tried it. Mom frequently liked to start her day with a cup of the stuff.