Ким Робинсон - Red Moon

May you joint us? Fang Fei asked Qi. I like introduce you these persons.

You are our hosts , Qi replied grumpily. Introduce us whatever you like.

Fred nodded and said, “Pleased to meet you,” to indicate that he was following their conversation.

These men are helium three miners , Fang Fei said and nodded at them. This one is Xuanzang, and this one is Ah Q.

Xuanzang stepped forward and began to speak in an urgent and expressive voice, like a TV announcer.

We have taken a most marvelous expedition to Mare Ingenii! he said.

Fabulous! added his friend.

We traveled by rover from Tsiolkovsky to Gagarin, by way of Jules Verne and also to Heaviside. It was a daytime trip. Sunrise to sunset two weeks very bright!

Very bright!

All the time we dragged a harvester behind our rover. It is our own design it worked very well! We only had to remove rocks several times per day! The surface was only disturbed a little! Lines we made will erode away.

Fang Fei said, In a million years or a billion.

Xuanzang said, A million at most!

They all laughed.

And what did you find? Fang Fei asked.

Helium three! Lots of many copious helium three!

How much is lots of many copious?

Ah Q pulled a silvery container like a small thermos bottle from his shoulder bag.

This much! This glass-lined bottle here is entirely full of helium three!

Is it compressed to a liquid? Fang Fei asked.

No, that can’t be done with helium three. It would have to be too very cold!

How cold?

Two Kelvin maybe!

So how much do you have in that?

Four and a half grams!

Four and a half grams , Fang Fei repeated. And how many kilometers did you travel?

Three thousand two hundred kilometers.

Fang Fei stared at them for a while.

Congratulations , he said.

Thank you!

And this helium three what will you do it now?

We will store it for the time when it can be fuel in fusion reactions.

And when will we have these fusion reactions?

Very soon! Twenty years.

Fang Fei almost smiled. All my life fusion has been twenty years away. It is like horizon. You move toward it and it moves away same speed.

Hopefully not, wonderful sir! We are told this time it is the real deal!

Fang Fei nodded. Meanwhile you have four point five grams of helium three. How long will that keep fusion reactor going when time comes we have such technology?

Depends on efficiency, but long time! A week. Maybe ten days.

And your expedition took two weeks.

Yes!

So you will need more of it.

Yes truly! But proof of concept! The helium three is there in the regolith.

We knew that before.

Truly! But not how easy it was to extract! All sorts of methods will be tried but ours is best!

Okay, good. Congratulations. We must celebrate your success.

Thank you!

Let us dine together tonight.

Thank you!

Now I must continue my conversation with my friends here.

Oh thank you! We will see you at dinner.

Yes. Let’s eat out here by the lake. For now go rest and put your helium three in a safe place.

Thank you we will!

When they were gone, Fang Fei’s aged face again cracked into the horrid gargoyle mask of his laughter, which emerged from him as a choked raspy ah ah ah ah .

“Very funny,” he said in English. “Helium three is in regolith at fifteen parts per billion, so they mined a lot of dirt to get that much, truly. And all for power plants that exist out there on receding horizon, like mirage. Still twenty years off, if ever. I like it.”

“I’ve heard that a spaceship full of helium three delivered every week would be enough to power all Earth,” Qi said.

“So have I!” Fang Fei said, and laughed again. Fred found himself wondering if his laughter would kill him. “That’s why this pair are out there. I funded them, I sent them out there. But it is a foolish thing.”

“People like the idea of cheap energy,” Qi said. “Maybe it’s the only one of the four cheaps that people can believe in anymore.”

“The four cheaps?”

“Cheap labor, cheap food, cheap resources, cheap energy.”

Fang nodded, lips protruded as he pondered this. “I suppose so. But no cheaps here on the moon, I think!”

“No. Unless it’s this helium three dream. Which has been part of the China Dream for a long time. One of the reasons for coming here.”

“Not for me,” Fang Fei said.

“Why did you come here?” Fred ventured to ask.

“I can make something new here,” Fang Fei said. “Also I have arthritis. So I like the gravity!” Again his catacomb smile.

“Unless you lose your balance and fall,” Fred suggested, in an attempt to make the smile go away.

“I do that at home! Here the landing is much less painful.” The smile remained. “And I am getting better at not falling here.”

He stood, in what Fred saw now was a five-part motion, and then did a little dance, circling in place while he tapped his feet to the sides, lofting and coming down with arms outstretched. Irish dancing? Geriatric ballet?

A few turns, then he stood huffing and puffing.

Must rest , he said in Chinese, and a car quickly appeared to take him away.

Fred and Qi sat there on the shores of West Lake. There was a slight breeze from upstream, which Fred was beginning to suspect might always exist, as there had to be some kind of air-circulation system in the tunnel. The peach trees were dropping their blossoms into the lake, and there was a mass of blossoms clustered on the water at the lake’s outlet, where water dropped over a weir. A filter of some sort appeared to be letting the blossoms downstream in a somewhat controlled fashion, so that the stream would have a steady supply. Fred couldn’t help wondering if they were visiting in the lava tube’s early summer, or if the peach trees had been genetically tweaked to produce blossoms year-round.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Qi announced again. “I hate this place.”

“The China Dream,” Fred reminded her.

“I hate it! It was always just the usual feudal shit, torture and foot-binding and starvation for the masses.”

“But good poetry?” Fred suggested, feeling an urge to contradict her.

“So what!”

“I don’t know. It’s a good look. And agricultural. You have to have agriculture. Given that need, what look are you going to shoot for?”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“You could shoot for this. A work of art that feeds you.”

She just frowned. He saw that she didn’t want to have new ideas coming to her right now. But she did want to change things in China. So there had to be a plan for that, some kind of goal. “I need to get out,” she said.

Then another little electric car drove up. The two helium miners jumped out of it and danced over to Fred and Qi with a careless loopy grace.

“Want to go helium mining with us?” one of them asked in English, smiling broadly.

All of a sudden Qi squeaked and rushed over to hug him. “It’s Cai!” she exclaimed, pushing back to look at him. “Chan Cai?”

“That’s right,” he said, grinning more than ever. “But now I am Xuanzang, the great traveler. I bring Buddhist wisdom back to you for your edification.”