It was wonderful what the six of them had accomplished. What impressed Jonathan even more, though, was how much a simple physical pleasure had changed them.
“What did you mean by a smell?” Giordano asked. “Don’t you need to wear a mask when you’re in there?”
“You need a breathing mask, but not a pressure suit,” Wayne explained. “The air in there is mostly carbon dioxide, which is good for the plants. But when you get oxygen through a breathing mask, the smell still gets through because the mask isn’t airtight.”
“Have you tried gardening in a spacesuit?”
“Of course, Giordi. When we started, the beds were still in a non-pressurized atmosphere, so we had to work in our suits. It was an even worse ordeal.”
“I bet. Well, I guess we’ll see if a gardener’s life suits me or not.”
“We need a plumber, too. We’ve still got to lay the supply lines from one greenhouse to another and within each greenhouse—electricity, water, gas—almost like on Earth.”
“You’re just missing the shit line there,” Giordano said.
“So far, we’ve been mostly plant breeding,” Wayne said. “But we need waste for that too. When we first started we had to inoculate the soil with it, and then we’ll need to use it to fertilize the soil now and then.”
“So, are we producing enough organic waste?” Giordano asked.
“Without you four, our shit supplies had already run dry. That’s the main reason we were so anxious about you all returning. Okay, just kidding.”
Giordano laughed. “Okay, then I’d like to know how you’ll manage if the rest of us go to Mars.”
“Are you then?” Wayne asked.
“Are we, Judith?” Giordano asked.
“We’ll talk about that later,” the commander said.
“Now that we’re all back together again, I’d like to clear up an important question,” Michael said. He was pacing back and forth in the command center, his arms crossed behind his back like a professor. Jonathan sighed. He hadn’t even had time to take a shower, and Michael already wanted to start discussing their fundamental issue. Everyone in the command center already knew what he wanted to clear up, so nobody asked what he meant.
Michael stopped and let his gaze scan the room. Doing that didn’t make him look very poised—in fact, he seemed to project an air of arrogance. It wasn’t the way to win anyone over.
“Okay, well, if nobody’s going to ask, I want to talk about Mars. There are many reasons why we should fly there as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the more problems we’ll have establishing a new civilization, because we’re wasting too many resources here on the moon where it’s not doing anyone any good.”
Just like that, Michael had insulted the entire Unity crew. Even Wayne, who liked to tease and joke around, had been so excited about the new greenhouses that he must’ve felt personally attacked by Michael’s words.
“Before we decide anything, we should first wait for the results from LISA,” Yue said. She spoke quietly, but with a firm voice.
“The satellite could also send the results to us on Mars. You don’t think that anyone is still alive down there, do you?”
“And what if there is, and they need our help?”
“Right now, we’re the ones who need help. If we can establish a stable Mars colony, maybe we can help our old home in the future, in a few generations.”
“At the moment, we cannot fly to Mars,” Judith said. “That would be much too dangerous. We don’t have a spare propulsion unit.”
Michael’s pacing jerked to a stop. The color drained from his face.
“You mean the main drive failed?” he asked. “Why isn’t anyone outside repairing it? I understand if you wanted to take a quick break first, but someone’s got to immediately—”
“No, we needed it to repair the LISA probe,” Judith interrupted him. “It’s waiting for us at the Lagrangian point L1. After we get the results, we’ll retrieve it.”
“You did what? That’s treason!” Michael’s voice cracked. “You’ve gone way beyond your authority, Judith. You have orders from the President to raise the American flag on Mars. Your command is done! You’re a criminal!”
Michael ended his tirade, and nobody said a word. Almost everyone had their arms crossed. Michael immediately recognized that he was alone. His lips twisted into a wry smile, and a manic look came into his eyes.
“You’re going to be sorry about this, Judith,” he said. Then he left the command center. A short time later, they could hear loud classical music.
This isn’t good, Jonathan thought. If Mike feels like he’s trapped in a corner, he might lash out in desperation and try something that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
But, Jonathan could not bring himself to go talk to Michael yet.
May 10, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
Jonathan yawned and stepped out of the airlock. ‘A walk in the morning will keep away worries and concerns,’ his grandmother would probably have said. But at the moment, he felt utterly carefree. The Earth and the uncertainty and unease associated with it were far away, at least until it rose in the sky again. He’d gotten used to not even looking.
The ground at his feet, the moon’s surface, however, was also fascinating if you stopped long enough to look at it. The area around the airlock was always covered with footprints, but he could tell that he wasn’t the first to go outside that morning. It was probably Maxim already at work in one of the greenhouses again. The commander almost seemed addicted to the gardening work. His steps had stirred up the lunar dust, and it was very slowly settling back down to the surface.
If Jonathan bent down to see the dust with backlighting, he could detect tiny, fine clouds a few millimeters above the ground. He felt like an animal tracker. But he needed to hurry. Maxim didn’t like it when someone was late to start a shift. The plants needed their order, he kept saying. It was news to him to hear that Mother Nature kept to fixed time schedules, but he didn’t want to contradict Maxim. Maybe he should walk a little faster.
He’d almost reached the frontmost greenhouse when a rover sped past him and startled him. He couldn’t hear it coming up on him from behind because of the lack of an atmosphere on the moon.
“Man, Wayne,” he said over the helmet radio.
The rover left behind a cloud of dust. Wayne, its driver, had set himself the goal of redoing the path to the solar panel installation and farther to the FST in the Shackleton crater so that accidents like what had happened to Maxim would no longer be possible. It had apparently also awakened the racecar driver in him. Every night, Wayne gave updates on his new best times for covering the distance to the shelter. He’d given the new path the German name ‘Autobahn.’
The Autobahns and highways on Earth were probably already starting to get overgrown by plants. There it was again: home. His thoughts always landed there eventually. Then he lifted his gaze to the sky. Whenever he looked up, there was always a brief moment of hope. Was the bright shell gone yet? No. The disappointment lessened with each passing day, but it was still there. And there were also no messages yet from LISA.
Jonathan stood in front of the entrance to the greenhouse, then made his way through the airlock. Next was a low space that smelled like mildew. Here he took off his spacesuit and put on a breathing mask. Then he opened the door to the actual greenhouse. The dark green of the plants was a joy to his eyes.
“About time you arrived,” Maxim called.
The commander was kneeling on one of the paths between the beds and picking something out of the ground. Jonathan walked up to him, hunched over. As a greeting, Maxim held out to him a small leafy plant that was just developing a flowery shoot.
“Do you have any idea how this weed got here? NASA tested the seeds we use here for type purity. Nevertheless, this stuff is popping up everywhere.”
Jonathan smiled. That was typical of life. It didn’t like to be restricted to specific paths. It was always good for a surprise.
May 21, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Not here,” Maxim said and spread his arms out wide.
It looked strange to Jonathan to see a man kneeling with his arms stretched out, almost like a memorial statute. He lowered the spray arm of the fertilizing tool that they’d built from an old vacuum cleaner and asked, “What do you mean, not here?”
“Don’t fertilize here.”
“But the ground here needs nutrients just like all the other beds.”
“I’m taking care of that myself. This here is my corner. I don’t want anyone else messing with it. Off-limits.”
“Okay. What are you doing—?”
“None of your business, Jon. I’m the commander. Or have you forgotten?”
“As you wish.”
Maxim had never acted so strangely before. Hunched over, Jonathan moved away again. There were still plenty of beds he needed to fertilize with his sludge. But it was strange. He turned around and looked several times. Maxim was bent over in the corner and digging around in the ground.
Jonathan also saw a few green spots. Was Maxim attempting some illegal experiment? At least he didn’t appear to be assembling a bomb.
June 23, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday...” Eight people were standing in the command center and singing a birthday song to her.
Judith was touched. She hadn’t even remembered her own birthday. Her colleagues, who were now lined up and congratulating her one after the other, had to have awakened extra early for her. And at least two of them were even off duty right now. The last one in the line was Maxim, the base commander. He was holding his hands behind himself. Judith held out her hand to shake his, but he brought it forward holding a bouquet of flowers.
Madness. She accepted the flowers and held them up to her nose. The pretty, orange-red flowers had a strong fragrance! It was overpowering. Tears she couldn’t hold back welled in her eyes. Judith sobbed, and Maxim gave her a hug. She protected the flowers with her hands. Real, actual flowers on the moon! It seemed like a miracle to her.
“How did you do it?” she asked.
“They’re tagetes. In Russian, we call them barkhattsy. I think you call them marigolds. They’re not very demanding and need only a small amount of warmth.”
“But it must’ve taken a long time? And where did you get the seeds?”
“We brought the seeds with us. I started planting them back in March when it became obvious that we already had enough area for cultivating food. You were lucky that you were the first with a birthday while they were blooming. Some have been wondering what I’ve been doing in the blocked-off corner in Greenhouse 3.”
“This is a wonderful present, Maxim. Thank you so much.”
“It’s not just my doing. Without each and every one of you, we never would have made it to this moment here and now. These flowers are a project we did together.”
Together. That sounds good, Judith thought. She looked around for Michael, but he wasn’t there. Should she be worried? No, she decided, today was not the day for that. She held up the flowers again to her nose. They had such an intense fragrance, so much more intense than the marigolds she remembered on Earth.
She had to remind herself they were just flowers. She remembered seeing them often in parks and gardens, but nobody had ever given her a bouquet of marigolds before. If only Lisa had been here! She would have been so happy to show her the present. Lisa had the rare ability to truly share in someone else’s joy. She could be so enthusiastic. You couldn’t help but feel even happier, and the feedback loop fed the euphoria, so it just kept growing.
“So, is it time for cake now?” Jonathan asked.
It was true. The birthday kid usually provided the cake at the party. But, since she hadn’t even thought about her birthday, she hadn’t prepared anything.
François came to her rescue. “This afternoon. I made a little something,” he said. “I had the feeling you might not have been thinking about your birthday, Judith.”
She took a deep breath. For all the misfortune they’d been through so far she was very fortunate, particularly for being with the people who were gathered around her now. No matter what the future had in store for them, this group was a reason to be hopeful.
September 7, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
Michael looked at the clock. It was five minutes to six. Atiya’s shift would be ending soon. “Still nothing from LISA?” he asked.
“No, nothing at all,” she answered.
“And the hardware is functioning?”
“Yes. Optimally. We’ve recorded three gravitational waves that we were able to attribute to colliding neutron stars, and one that we think originated from the time a black hole was formed at the end of a supernova.”
“That would’ve been a scientific sensation on Earth,” Michael said.
“Absolutely. I think we can safely say there’s no problem with the instrument’s sensitivity. LISA is working better than the ESA ever anticipated.”
“Thanks for your assessment, Atiya. You’ve confirmed my suspicion,” Michael said.
“That the Earth is dead? We can’t know that from what we’ve seen so far.”
“Not directly, but let’s not get started. I didn’t come here to argue.”
“That’s good,” Atiya said. She stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me. My work shift is over now.”
“But what if LISA sends data now?”
“The reflector on the shell just disappeared over the horizon from LISA’s viewpoint, so the instrument can’t measure anything for the next eight hours.”
“That’s very practical.”
“Yes. This way, we only need one person to manage LISA.”
“Understood. I won’t keep you from your free time then.”
“Thanks. Goodnight, Mike.”
Michael stooped down to tie his shoe. Looking under the table, he watched Atiya leave the room. Then he sat down in her seat and started the LISA control software. Before he made any decisions, he needed data. He had to be sure that nothing was going on here behind his back, like before when JR had simply sacrificed the second propulsion unit.
Her decision, in any case, was illegal according to NASA’s own rules, because aborting the Mars mission was permissible only with a simple majority vote among the crew—the original Mars crew, that is, and two of the original team hadn’t even been on board when the decision was made. Simply speaking, the problem was there was nobody here who could relieve the commander of her position. He was the only possible option, and he was definitely in the absolute minority.
Slowly, Michael went through the data collected by the gravitational wave detector. He didn’t completely understand the physics behind the data, but the results did not look as if they contained hidden messages. Instead, they looked like what he had seen for similar discoveries. Atiya hadn’t lied to him. LISA was functioning and was sensitive enough.
What now? They’d been waiting for five months for a message, a sign, any news from Earth, and there’d been nothing. He’d been very patient. But it was over—Judith’s strategy had failed.
Michael would try one last time to convince everyone else, and if that didn’t work, he’d have to come up with a new plan.
September 8, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Oh, Michael, haven’t we discussed all of this enough already?” Judith pleaded. She was sorry, but Michael kept bringing up the same topic over and over again. This would be the last time she called a general meeting on his behalf.
“How long have we been senselessly waiting for a signal from Earth? It’s past time for us to talk about other plans. Or do all of you want your kids to grow up in holes in the ground with artificial lighting?”
“Mike, I don’t know that anyone here is pregnant right now.”
“It’s a matter of perspective. We’ve got to let go of the Earth. What was once down there is no longer. You, Judith, you’ve got to let your family go. I t
hink you’re letting your feelings stop you from coming to the logical conclusion.”
She had anticipated Michael launching a personal attack against her. He’d targeted her weak point and everyone here knew it, knew how much she missed Lisa and the boys. And even though she had expected it, the attack still hit that nerve, because Michael was at least partially right—she didn’t want to let her wife go. She would fight tooth and nail against that. Did that mean that she was incapable of making a professional decision?
“I...,” she said, but then cut herself off.
Yue stood up. “I have no living relatives down there anymore,” she said. “Nevertheless, I also think it’s still too early to give up on Earth. We’ve been listening now for five months, which is not really that long. I imagine it’s pure chaos down there. People will need time to reorganize themselves under those conditions. And they must.
“It’s also not that simple to communicate with us. They’ll have to study the shell. They’ll notice that there are still tides, so the moon’s gravity must still penetrate through the shell. And then they’d have to manage to recommission one of the large particle accelerators, at best, the expanded CERN. For that, they’ll need a lot of energy that I’m sure is pretty scarce right now.
“Then they’d have to be able to generate tiny, unstable black holes that we’d be able to detect with LISA when they evaporate. For all that, five months is not long enough. We should give them at least two years.”
Judith took a deep breath. Yue had presented the correct arguments, and Michael couldn’t also accuse her of having personal attachments.
Michael jumped up and assumed the lecturer’s stance that he seemed to enjoy, slightly hunched forward, his arms behind his back. “Don’t act as if you’re entirely neutral in this, Yue. You and Jon are a couple now, and he has relatives on Earth. And your assessment lacks a consistent basis.
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