Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  Something tugged softly at O’Keefe. At first he couldn’t place it, but then the realisation amazed him all the more because of the simplicity of the explanation. Gravity! For the first time since they had set off from the Isla de las Estrellas, excluding acceleration and braking manoeuvres, he was no longer weightless. He had a bodyweight again, and even if it was only a sixth of his weight on Earth, it was still wonderful to weigh something again, a relief after all the days of just drifting around! Hasta la vista, Miranda, he thought, that’s an end to the acrobatics. No more somersaults, no more elbow attacks. A gust of noise ebbed away in his ear canals, a synaptic afterglow; the engines had been turned off long before, but he just couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Black, a little dramatically, ‘congratulations! You’ve done it. Nina and I will now help you put on your life-support systems, show you how to regulate the oxygen, cooling and pressure and activate your walkie-talkie systems. After that we’ll go through a series of leak tests – you should already be familiar with those from the external expedition on the OSS, and if not, there’s no cause for concern. We’ll supervise everything. As soon as the checks are done, I’ll pump the air out of the cabin, and we’ll explain the process of disembarcation. Please don’t think I’m being rude if I climb out first, it’s only to further the preservation of your heroism, because I’ll film you as you leave the Charon and we’ll also record your comments for posterity. Does that all make sense? Welcome to the Moon!’

  On the Moon.

  They were on the Moon.

  They had really landed on the goddamn Moon, and the satellite’s one-sixth gravity pulled O’Keefe down to it with the tenderness of a lover, his limbs, his head, his inner organs and bodily fluids, oh yes, the fluids, pulled and pulled and pulled something out of him, and it was out before he could clench his butt cheeks. Warm and happy, it flowed into the bag put there for exactly that purpose, a fountain of joy, a high-five to gravity, a gift to the grey, crater-covered guy whose surface they were to inhabit for the next week. He threw a stolen glance at Momoka Omura, as if there were the possibility that she would turn round to him, look him in the eyes and see it, know it.

  Then he shrugged, thinking of the others who had probably pissed themselves beyond the Earth’s orbit. There was worse company to be in.

  Peary Base, North Pole, The Moon

  Leaving behind footprints was a pioneer’s privilege, and one which made life a little easier for those of the custodian type, who were aware of the risks, but without being exposed to them. They were familiar with natural phenomenona, the appetite and armoury of the local fauna and flora, knew how to adapt themselves to the defiance of the native inhabitants. Their knowledge was all thanks to the feverish, potentially suicidal curiosity of the discoverer type, who neither could nor wanted to do anything other than spend his life walking the narrow line between victory and death. Even in the days of Homo erectus, and the anthroposophists were sure of this, humanity had displayed a tendency to split up into a governing majority alongside a small group which just couldn’t stay put. The latter had a special gene, known as the Columbus Gene, Novelty-seeking Gene or just D4DR in the extended version, code for an extraordinary willingness to cross borders and take risks. Naturally, all of these adventurous types were less suited for the cultivation of the conquered regions. They preferred discovering new areas, getting themselves bitten by new species of animals and fulfilling all the prerequisites so that the more conservative types could make advances. They were the eternal scouts, for whom a footprint on terra incognita meant everything. In turn, it was part of the nature of the custodian to subject lime, mud, sand, gravel, silt and whatever other kind of amorphous unspoiled state there was to the dictatorship of smoothed-out surfaces, which meant that when Evelyn Chambers, awestruck, walked down the gangway of the Charon and stepped on to the surface of the Moon for the first time, she left no lasting impression behind her, instead finding herself back on solid concrete.

  For a second she was disappointed. The others, too, were looking at their feet as if walking on the Moon were inextricably linked with hallmarking the regolith.

  ‘You’ll leave your stamp behind soon enough,’ said Julian’s voice, switched on in all their helmets.

  Some of them laughed. The moment of unmet expectations passed, giving way to amazement and disbelief. Evelyn took a hesitant step, then another, bounced – and was carried over a metre in the air by the force of her thigh muscles.

  Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!

  After over five days of zero gravity she felt the familiar burden of her weight, and yet she didn’t. It was more as though some ominous comic-book radiation had given her superpowers. All around her, the others were leaping wildly around. Black danced attendance amongst them with his camera.

  ‘Where’s the star-spangled banner?’ boomed Donoghue. ‘I want to ram it into the ground!’

  ‘Then you’re fifty-six years too late,’ laughed Ögi. ‘The Swiss flag on the other hand—’

  ‘Imperialists,’ sighed Heidrun.

  ‘No chance,’ said Julian. ‘Unless you’re planning to blast your flags into the ground.’

  ‘Hey, look at that,’ called Rebecca Hsu.

  Her ample figure shot past the others’ heads, her arms windmilling. If it was Rebecca, that is. It wasn’t that easy to tell. You couldn’t really make out anyone’s face through the mirrored visors; only the printed name on the chest section of the suit betrayed the identity of its wearer.

  ‘Come on then,’ laughed Julian. ‘Don’t be scared!’

  Evelyn took a run-up and did a series of clumsy jumps, then sped upwards again and turned on her own axis, drunk on high spirits. Then she lost her balance and sank back down to the ground in a meditative pose. She couldn’t help breaking out into silly giggles as she landed softly on her behind. Overcome with delight, she stayed where she was, enjoying the surreal scene that was playing out before her. Within seconds the group of well-established movers and shakers had transformed into a horde of first-graders, playmates going wild. She came back to a standing position without any effort whatsoever.

  ‘Good,’ praised Julian, ‘very good. The Bolshoi Ballet look like a load of blundering fools compared with you, but I’m afraid we need to interrupt the physical exercise temporarily. You’re off to the hotel now, so please turn your attention back to Nina and Peter again.’

  It was as though he’d broadcast on the wrong frequency. With the defiance of children who had just been called to the dinner table, they finally trickled over in dribs and drabs to gather around their guides. The image of a bunch of ruffians gave way to one of a secret brotherhood as they stood there, searching for the Holy Grail against the panorama of flying castles. Evelyn let her gaze wander. The base could hardly be seen. Only the station platform loomed imposingly over the landing field, erected on fifteen-metre-high pylons, as Nina explained. Metal staircases and an open elevator led up to the rail tracks, spherical tanks were piled up all around. Two manipulators squatted at the edge of the platform like Jurassic birds, turned to face lobster-like machines with multiple-jointed claws and large loading surfaces. Evelyn guessed their task was probably to receive cargo from the manipulators or to reach it up to them, according to whether goods were being delivered or placed on the rails.

  She tried to regulate her breathing. The confinement of the landing module just then had become unbearable for her. She had dreamed feverishly the night before. Higher powers had opened up the Charon using a gigantic tin-opener and exposed its inhabitants to the vacuum, which had turned out to be just a bunch of humanlike creatures gaping in at them, and she had been stark naked. Admittedly it was all a bit silly, but still! The iridescent blue-green imprints of Miranda Winter’s heels had been immortalised in her hips, and she’d had enough. She was even more amazed at how big the landing module actually was when she saw it in the expanse of the airfield. An imposing tower on powerful telescopic legs, practically a
small skyscraper. More spaceships were distributed across the field, some with open hatches and yawningly empty insides, clearly intended for receiving freight goods. Several smaller machines spread their spider legs and stared straight ahead with their glassy eyes. Chambers couldn’t help but think of insect spray.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive the inhabitants of the base for not coming out to greet you,’ said Black. ‘You only go outside if it’s absolutely necessary here. Unlike you, these people spend six months on the Moon. A week’s worth of cosmic radiation won’t harm you so long as you don’t go out in a solar storm without protection. But long-term stays are a different story. So as we won’t be looking around the base until the day of our departure, there’s no reception committee today.’

  One of the lobster-like robots started up as if by magic, steered over to the Charon and took some large white containers from its cargo hold.

  ‘Your luggage,’ Nina explained, ‘will be exposed to the vacuum for the first time up here, but don’t worry, the containers are pressurised. Otherwise your night cream might turn into a monster and attack your T-shirts. Follow me.’

  It was like going underwater, but without the ambient pressure. Excitedly, Evelyn realised that she didn’t weigh 66 kilos any more, but just 11, which meant her normal bodily strength would be multiplied by six. As light as a three-year-old, as strong as Superwoman, and carried along by a surge of childlike happiness, she followed Black to the elevator, hopped into the spacious cage and watched the habitats of the base come back into view as they travelled out over the top of the barriers and onto the station platform. Several more rail tracks ran up here. A lit, empty train lay waiting for them, not unlike one of the magnet trains on Earth, but a little less streamlined in shape, which made it look curiously old-fashioned. But why would it have needed to be aerodynamic? There was no wind up here. There wasn’t even any air.

  She looked into the distance.

  A barrage of images confronted her. A great deal of the surrounding area could be seen from up here. A highland. Hills and ridges, the silhouette of long shadows. Craters, like bowls filled with black ink. A glowing white, low-lying sun dissolved the contours of the horizon, the landscape stood out like stage scenery against the backdrop of outer space. There was no mist or atmosphere to diffuse the light; regardless of its actual distance everything was sharply contoured, as though it were close enough to touch. At the other side of the landing field, the track for the magnet train led into a valley filled with blackness, held its own against the darkness for a while thanks to the height of its columns, and then, without warning, was swallowed by it.

  ‘We’re just fifteen kilometres away from the Moon’s geographical North Pole here,’ said Black. ‘It’s on a plateau at the north-western edge of the Peary Crater, where it borders on its neighbour, Hermite. The area is nicknamed “Mountains of Eternal Light”. Can anyone guess why?’

  ‘Just explain, Peter,’ said Julian gently.

  ‘Well, at the beginning of the nineties interest in the Pole really grew after it was established that the edges and peaks of some of the craters were in constant sunlight. The main problem with having a manned moon base had always been energy supply, and they wanted to avoid working with nuclear reactors. There was a great deal of resistance to it, even on Earth, because of the fear that a spaceship with a reactor like that on board could crash and fall onto inhabited areas. Back when the station was in the planning stages, helium-3 was still just a vague option, so they backed solar energy as usual. The only thing is, while solar panels are great, unfortunately they’re useless at night. A gap of a few hours can be bridged with batteries, but a Moon night lasts fourteen days, and that’s how the Pole came into the running. Admittedly the light yield is somewhat less here than at the equator, because the rays of light fall very obliquely, but on the other hand they’re constant. If you look over at the hills you’ll see entire fields of collectors which are continually aligning their position to face the sun.’

  Black paused and let them scan the hills for the collectors.

  ‘And yet even the Poles aren’t the ideal position for a base. The rays of sunlight fall obliquely, as I already mentioned, it’s quite far away from where the action is up here, and it would have been better to have the lunar telescope on the far side. Some critics also point out that by the time the building work began, the use of helium-3 had become a viable option, so ideally the plans should have been thrown out and the base built in the preferred location, where it could be supplied with energy around the clock by a fusion reactor. It’s actually a bit of a paradox that helium-3 wasn’t used on the Moon of all places, but they followed the original plans regardless. The Poles also have another advantage: the temperature. By Moon standards it’s quite moderate here, a constant forty to sixty degrees in the sun; while on the equator it’s well over one hundred degrees in the midday heat but at night the thermometer plummets to minus one hundred and eighty degrees. No building material can handle fluctuations like that on a long-term basis: it would have to expand and contract like crazy, which means it becomes brittle and leaks. And there’s one more consideration in favour of the Poles. When the sun creeps in as low over the horizon as it does there, wouldn’t that mean there are also areas which are never illuminated by it? If that’s the case, then there’s the chance of finding something there that couldn’t actually exist on the Moon: water.’

  ‘Why can’t it exist here?’ asked Miranda. ‘Not even a river or a small lake?’

  ‘Because it would immediately evaporate in the sun and escape into open space. The Moon’s gravity isn’t enough to hold volatile gases; that’s one of the reasons why the Moon has no atmosphere. The only possibility was of frozen water existing in eternal darkness, locked in a molecular bond in moon dust brought here by meteorites. The existence of permanently shadowed chasms like these was quickly proved, for example the impact craters at the base of the Peary Crater, right around the corner from here. And measurements really seemed to confirm the presence of water, which would have enormously favoured the development of a complex infrastructure. The alternative was sending water up here from Earth, which was sheer madness even just from a financial perspective.’

  ‘And have they found water?’ asked Rogachev.

  ‘Not so far. A great number of hydrogen deposits of course, but no water. The base was built here regardless because transporting water from Earth turned out to be a lot less complicated and expensive than expected thanks to the space elevator. Now it makes its way to the OSS in tanks, and from that point on mass doesn’t matter anyway. But of course people are still searching feverishly for signs of H2O, and besides’ – Black pointed over to the barrel-shaped objects in the distance – ‘they’ve started building a small helium-3 reactor anyway, as a reserve for the base’s steadily increasing energy needs.’

  ‘So, if I’m honest,’ grumbled Momoka Omura, ‘I was expecting the moon base to be a little more impressive.’

  ‘I think it’s very impressive,’ said Hanna.

  ‘Me too,’ called Miranda.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Nair added, laughing. ‘I still can’t believe that I’m on the Moon, that people live here! It’s incredible.’

  ‘Wait until you see the Gaia,’ said Lynn mysteriously. ‘You probably won’t ever want to leave again.’

  ‘If it looks like the pile of junk down there then I’ll want to leave immediately,’ snorted Momoka.

  ‘Baby,’ said Locatelli, more sharply than usual, ‘you’re insulting our hosts.’

  ‘How? I only—’

  ‘There are moments when even you should keep your mouth shut, don’t you think?’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Shut your own!’

  ‘You’ll like the hotel, Momoka,’ Lynn interrupted hurriedly. ‘Love it, even! And no, it does not look like the moon base.’

  Evelyn grinned. From a business point of view she enjoyed little spats like these, particularly as Locatelli and his Japanese muse usually joined
forces when it came to antagonising others. She had planned to ask Locatelli onto one of her next shows anyway, for which she was contemplating using the title ‘War of the World Saviours: How the demise of the oil industry is stirring up power struggles amongst suppliers of alternative energy’. Perhaps one or two private thoughts might punctuate the conversation.

  In the best of moods, she followed Black.

  Lunar Express

  They boarded the train via an airlock and took off their helmets and suits. The air was kept at a constant pleasant temperature and the seats, as Rebecca Hsu said with a heartfelt sigh, were the right size to accommodate even an overweight traveller. The remark was addressed to Amber Orley, whom Evelyn had hardly talked to so far. Amber was friendly towards everyone though, and even Julian’s son turned out to be a sociable sort despite his initial reticence – if you could get past his air of leaden concern when it came to looking after his sister. She was visibly spoiling his mood, and Amber’s, and on top of all this she seemed to be putting a strain on Tim’s relationship with his father. None of this had escaped Evelyn’s attention. She reckoned that Lynn had been faking that attack of space sickness in the Picard. Something wasn’t right about her, and Evelyn was determined to find out what. Mukesh Nair had latched on to Tim and was letting him know how wonderful life was, so she sat down next to Amber.