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Strangers at the Door

Page 18

by Dan Eaton


  Willie sat down and said, “Okay.”

  “When I was at LL1, I heard the worst possible things about the situation here. I thought there was a really good chance my family and friends were going to die—”

  Willie interrupted and said, “But that’s not what happened. That’s not even close.”

  “I know Willie, I also know now that you guys had a totally different view of things than what I saw and heard. I held that against all the Chinese and not just their government like I should have. If we had talked back then maybe things would have been different. I—”

  Willie laughed and interrupted by saying, “Then there was Nina. You know my uncle Tony would say bros before hoes.”

  I laughed too and said, “I know, I get it.”

  I looked at Willie and marshaled all my wit to get this right.

  “The point is, I really don’t hate all the Chinese. I’m not happy with some of the decisions their government made, although I’m not holding that against the Zhangs. Because of my experience at LL1, I reacted poorly to the Zhangs at the reception for the UN Monitors. People, including Yang, took what happened as proof that I’m some kind of racist. I’m trying really hard to change that, although it’s not easy.”

  Willie thought about it and then said, “Look Bryce, I’d like to believe you, but what about all the stuff that happened. You’re always involved some how. What’s up with that?”

  “Willie, all I can tell you is that it wasn’t me. If Sam could prove it was me, don’t you think she’d do something about it?”

  “She would if she could, however, that doesn’t prove you didn’t do it.”

  I took a different tack and said, “Look Willie, maybe I can’t prove to you I didn’t do it. For old times sake could we keep talking until the time comes when I can prove it to you?”

  Willie thought it over a minute and said, “I guess Bryce.”

  With that, he headed off to eat with his parents. Part of me was really happy about the outcome, yet the other part was questioning the value of a friend that needed absolute proof I was innocent. I realized, I’d just have to do the same as I was asking him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.

  After dinner, we headed over to where Denali had a special kiosk set up. This time you didn’t need a ticket and what they were handing out was ice cream sundaes with all the toppings. The vanilla ice cream struck a great balance between icy and creamy with the vanilla notes coming through as sweet and mild. I had strawberry topping on mine and the fruit was tangy on my tongue. I hadn’t had anything so good since last year’s banana split. It was a great way to end a meal and was so good, I even forgot to worry about the reporter Willie had mentioned.

  We were just sitting there enjoying the moment when a vaguely familiar looking guy approached the table.

  “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Burns, Bryce. I hope you remember me from last year.”

  Mom must have remembered who he was because she quickly said, “Why yes, Mr. Evans, it’s a pleasure to see you again. What can we do for you?”

  It finally clicked for me, that this was Dave Evans, Henry Chang’s executive assistant. Mr. Evans said, “Henry was hoping to say hello to you while he’s here. He’s extremely busy this visit, nevertheless, he can carve out fifteen minutes to visit with you in about ten minutes from now. That is, if you are interested?”

  Ten minutes later, we were ushered into a conference room in the Denali office down in the Grand. There sat Henry Chang looking pretty much like I remembered him from last year. He greeted us all and asked us to have a seat. He asked Mr. Evans to serve us some refreshments and very efficiently, a glass of Coke appeared in front of me while Mom received a great smelling cup of coffee and Dad had a cup of tea. Henry chatted with Mom and Dad for about ten minutes about our lives at the Habitat and then turned to me.

  “Bryce, I know from talking to Sandy that you are facing a bit of adversity this year. Hang in there. There’s a quote by Thomas Carlyle that I think applies here. He said Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with. You’ll get through this, I know you will.”

  I appreciated Henry having faith in me and said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “Despite what’s been going on, you’ve achieved some impressive accomplishments this year. Sandy told me about you gaining your suit certification. I hear you are also certified to pilot one of our CLT30’s. Very impressive for someone your age.”

  “Thanks. The suit certification wasn’t that hard. The pilot certification was all due to Commander Davies. She pushed me hard to keep me busy.”

  Henry smiled at me and said, “What’s important is not that Commander Davies pushed. What’s important is that you responded. Bryce, I wish I had longer to talk to you this visit, however, I must be on to my next appointment. Let me leave you with this. You’re tougher and smarter than a little adversity. It may not be pleasant, yet I know you’ll come through this. Let’s hope the next time we talk, you’re having brighter days.”

  With that, we said our goodbyes and Mr. Evans lead us out of the office.

  It was the end of the week and Sandy had joined my dad and me for dinner. Mom was still putting in crazy hours on the Grand extension so Sandy’s company helped fill the void left in her absence. She and I really needed to sit down and talk, unfortunately the few times we were together, Mom was tired and I didn’t want to drag her down any further by getting into an argument with her.

  The three of us found a table to sit at and Sandy said, “Bryce, you still keeping up your suit certification?”

  I had a certificate that rated me safe to wear a pressure suit. I had gotten it for the trip out to LL1, however, that was the last time I had needed to wear a suit. The certification was good for a year, although, you had to actually use a suit on a regular basis or it would expire. Sam taught a refresher course that allowed you to maintain the certification and Dad had insisted I stay current so every two months I got to sit through Sam’s course.

  “Yep, Sandy. Dad thought it was worth the effort for me to stay current so I’ve been keeping it up. What’s up?”

  Sandy finished gulping down his first chili dog and said, “So, uh, I need to go out and inspect the work on my new buildings at Peary. I thought if you two weren’t doing anything tomorrow, you might like riding along. You’ll have to wear suits, but I’m not expecting us to have to seal up.”

  Dad spoke first and said, “I’m in. I’ve been wanting to take a look at what the accelerator’s neighbors have been up to. Bryce, do you want to go?”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice to escape this place for a while. When are we going?”

  “Why don’t you guys meet me in the suit locker at nine tomorrow morning. We’ll suit up and head out from there.”

  Dad said, “Hmmm, Sandy could you pick me up at the accelerator? I keep my suit out there. I’ll just leave earlier on a transport and be ready to go by the time you and Bryce get there.”

  We finished up the meal talking about the various projects underway at Peary and when I went to bed that night, I was really looking forward to our little expedition.

  I had breakfast with Dad in the morning and then he walked me over to the suit locker where we met Sandy. Dad headed off to catch a transport to the accelerator while Sandy and I pulled some suits out and got dressed. Eventually, Sandy and I finished dressing and doing all the checks and cross checks to make sure the suits were safe. Sandy had said we wouldn’t be sealing up our helmets, nevertheless, we still popped the helmets on and checked to make sure they were functioning properly. With that done, Sandy led the way out through the Maintenance section’s auxiliary locks and into the Vehicle bay. Sitting waiting for us was one of the Habitat’s original rovers

  Her name was Megan II and she was based on one of NASA’s early rover designs from before anyone had gone back to the Moon. She kind of looked like a bug with a rounded forward cabin with multiple windows for good visibility followed by a more squarish rear cabin. Off o
ne side of the rear cabin, hung a standard air lock so the rover could mate up to other vehicles or an emergency station. Below the cabin was a frame that supported three, two wheel bogies on each side. The bogies were capable of independent steering, which allowed the vehicle to travel in any direction, regardless of which way the cab was pointing.

  Sandy and I climbed aboard and Sandy sealed the lock. He took the driver’s seat while I climbed into the observer’s seat. There were two more seats in the rear. When Sandy finished going through the checklist for the rover operation, he turned to me and said, “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  As Sandy maneuvered Megan through the outer locks and up the ramp, I asked him where the rover’s name came from and what happened to number one?

  “Megan was the name of the girlfriend of Jake Carter. Jake was one of the original crew of the habitat when it was first established. He liked to go on wilderness adventures with Megan so when the original team started exploring around here, he named the rover Megan. The original Megan had been a smaller rig with just four bogies and a couple of seats. No cabin. Eventually, we rebuilt Megan I into Megan II.”

  Sandy had pulled us out onto the road leading West to Peary crater. He put the rover into auto mode and notched the speed up until we were rolling along at the rover’s maximum of thirty five kilometers and hour.

  “I hope your Dad remembered that this thing doesn’t have the legs that the transports do. It’ll take us about twenty minutes to get there.”

  With that, we sat back to enjoy the trip. The lunar scenery was stark yet beautiful and hanging low on the horizon was the Earth. It was almost a full Earth and I could make out the shapes of the continents where it wasn’t cloudy.

  It really didn’t seem that long and Sandy was pulling up to the cable attachment station on the rim of Peary. Since Megan was an exploration rover, the seats had five point harnesses to hold us down on the steep slope. Once down, and the cable was detached, Sandy pulled the rover over to the vehicle lock for the accelerator facility and we went in and picked up my dad. I was going to move to the back, when Dad came in the rover, however, he said, “Stay there, Son. I was in the front seat plenty of times over the last year. You should enjoy this.”

  Sandy spoke up and said, “Welcome aboard Desmond. I was planning on taking Main Street out to the site if that’s okay with you. “

  “Sure, that’s fine. Let’s get rolling.”

  With that, Sandy sealed up the lock and then started driving Megan deeper into the vehicle bay. We were almost to the end of the bay when I saw a large lock, coming up on the right hand side. Sandy pulled Megan through the lock sequence and when we emerged on the other side, we found a wide tunnel angled away from the accelerator facility and sloping downward at a gentle angle. When we reached the end of the slope and the road flattened out, it also curved back towards the North.

  Dad said, “Bryce, just so you have your bearings, from the facility, we’ve come back far enough South that we’re clearing both the cable lift and the end of the ramp road. The road has also dropped below ground as most of the structures being built are below ground to provide for shielding. Welcome to Peary Habitat’s Main Street.”

  Main Street was the same size as the surface roads and headed off to the West for further than I could see.

  “Dad, how come the roof looks different here. Are they building it differently?”

  “Yeah, instead of the barrel vaults, they’re using 3D printed roof trusses and roofing sections, all printed in place. After that, there’s a bunch of autonomous robots that are up top, paving the roof with layers to build up the shielding. By the time they are done, these roofs will be much stronger and offer better shielding compared to the barrel vaults. Sandy pulled Megan to a halt and pointed to a large set of doors in the first section of Main Street.

  “That section, up to the next set of doors is where the first plant will be located. When we get it under pressure, I’ll give you a tour of the insides.” Sandy started Megan back up and drove further along Main Street. The street was busy with all sorts of construction crews and robot vehicles all over the place.

  As we drove along, I noticed how the south wall of the street was regularly pierced by doors, some of them quite large.

  I asked Dad about it and he said, “Main Street forms the northern boundary of what will be the Peary Habitat. Right now, it runs for about two kilometers out west into the Peary crater. Eventually, it’ll run all the way out to mid-crater where the space port will be built. The Habitat is laid out as a grid with blocks that are 80 meters wide with roads between them running to the south. Every two hundred and seventy five meters, there will be a cross street. Where you see one of those large pressure doors, that’s one of the streets leading south. Out here where we are now, they are all closed because nothing’s been built yet.”

  Ahead of us was another lock complex that marked the western end of Main Street. Sandy said, “We’ll exit here and then drive back to the blocks where the plants are being built. None of it is pressurized yet, although we can see how far along they are on the roofing.”

  With that, Sandy pulled Megan through the lock complex and up the ramp onto the floor of Peary crater. There was a clearly marked road leading back into the construction zone, which Sandy carefully stuck to. Once we got back to where most of the construction was taking place, outside of the road’s boundaries was like a beehive with autonomous construction robots scuttling about, working on their tasks.

  Farthest south from Main Street were a group of robots chewing a trench to the south. Behind the trenchers, was another group processing the regolith while a third group used the processed regolith to build the forms the 3D printers used to construct the roof surfaces.

  I said, “Okay, I can see how they are building the walls that support the roofs and the roofs themselves, but what happens to all the regolith beneath the roofs?”

  Sandy said, “Once the roof has cured enough, they send in excavator robots to remove all the regolith and the final step is part of it will be used by the paving robots to build up the shield on top of the roof while the remaining regolith will be run through a reclamation plant to get the oxygen and other valuables out of it. Right now, they only have the small plant they used while building the accelerator running, so most of it gets carted off to the tailings pile you can see off to the southwest there.”

  With the tour done, Sandy drove Megan back to the Accelerator vehicle bay. It was lunch time and Dad invited Sandy to lunch at the accelerator’s cafeteria before we split up and headed back. Sandy was part of the steering committee guiding the development of the Peary Habitat so I learned a lot as we ate and Dad asked Sandy lots of interesting questions. The current plans for the new Habitat were for it to support about ten thousand residents with most of them employed by businesses like Sandy’s that would be building infrastructure that would be shipped into orbit by the accelerator.

  Sandy said, “It’s an exciting time to live, we’re building the first lunar habitat that’s not being sponsored by some government or coalition of governments. This place is ours.”

  I thought a lot about that on the trip back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Downhill Slide

  Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Saturday, February 12th, 2039.

  In Habitat News, Wendy Cherneski is celebrating her birthday today. Wendy invites all of her friends to join her tonight at 18:30 in the main cafeteria for a party.

  In financial news today, the Lunar Stock Market closed Friday with shares of Mussconny Machine are trading at $32.56 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $36.09 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are at $31.84. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is at $26.65 a share and CDB Farms is trading at $26.90 a share. MM Brewing is at $2.79 a share, and Daniels Designs is at $2.38 a share. Psuche Neural is at $12.79 a share.

  I had been hoping that Sandy would have a busy day for me so I’d have an excuse not to go to the party tonight. Mom and Dad
expected me to go with them to Myra’s mom’s birthday party.

  “Gee, have you noticed how dirty the smaller shop is getting? I could stay longer and get it cleaned up if you want?”

  Sandy made a show of looking the room over and said, “Well, I guess it could use some cleaning. I suppose you could stay behind and get some cleanup done only…”

  “Only what?”

  “Only, your mom called me earlier and said to make sure you were home in time for the party. No excuses. I like you Bryce, but I’m not pissing off your mother just so you can skip the party. I thought you liked Myra’s mom?”

  I sighed, resigning myself to going to the party.

  “I do like Mrs. Cherneski. It’s just Yang is likely to be there and even if he isn’t, half the people think I did that crap.”

  “So, it didn’t stop you before.“

  “Before, it was different. I was going with Nina. I still didn’t like it, but at least having Nina there made it bearable. Now, everybody’s going to be looking and talking about me, and I just have to sit there and take it.”

  “Bryce, all I know is you can’t hide away. That’s the surest way to convince people you’re guilty. You need to go, sit with your friends, and endure. You can do this.”

  Dad picked me up from work and walked me home. I asked him how his job was going.

  “Right now, I’m just a highly paid hand holder. The crew from the Habitat is going to put up this first official shot. We’ve trained them and now they have to strut their stuff. My crew is just monitoring things are being done correctly by the Habitat’s crew and looking for any signs of problems.”

  That got me thinking and I said, “So what happens after that? What happens when you’re done with the accelerator project?”

  Dad stopped for a second and said, “There are all sorts of opportunities here on the Moon, or, if you’ve had enough, I’m sure Transcor could find something for me to do back on Earth.”

 

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