Ким Робинсон - Red Moon

“What’s that?”

“We have to suit up and get under the rover. Storm this big, we need all the protection we can get. We don’t want to get sputtered.”

“Sputtered?”

“That’s what plasma does to the lunar surface,” Ah Q said. “That’s what made the layer of dust you see all over the moon. Sputtering. Very bad for people. There’s a lot of sieverts in an X5 storm.”

“Not sintering?” Fred asked.

“Sintering is when you laser dust into a solid. Sputtering is when light knocks a solid apart into dust.”

“The auroras around Earth will be pretty,” Xuanzang offered. “You can see them from here really well, on the near side I mean. Anyway let’s get out there and under the car. The really hard X-rays won’t last long.”

So they got into spacesuits, and the two miners checked Fred’s and Qi’s seals. Qi could barely fit into a spacesuit now, they had to put her in one that was two sizes larger than her true size. It wouldn’t have worked very well for walking around, but for crawling under the rover it would be okay. Into the rover air lock they went, then outside.

On the surface of the moon: it was Fred’s first time. As advertised, he felt hollow and clumsy, and was sure he was going to fall over. The two prospectors led them around to the front of the rover, where the gap between ground and car was higher. After a couple of inadvertent pliés, Fred managed to get down on his knees without actually falling on his face, although he came very close. But the g was so light that crumpling to his knees and catching himself with his hands had no consequences. Big puffs of gray dust shot up into the non-air around his knees and hands, then slowly lofted down, making minuscule impact craters to add to all the rest. He wondered how much dust would stick to their suits and get back into the cabin with them. The sputtered fines of the moon were said to be as fine as the wind-milled fines on Mars. Maybe they were so fine they wouldn’t hurt you, would pass through you like neutrinos. Unlike hard X-rays, which crashed through you like little bullets, wreaking untold genetic damage if they didn’t luckily pass between your cells or at least miss any important ones.

He followed Qi as they crawled on their hands and knees under the rover. The dust looked black on their spacesuits, and slightly coated their faceplates.

“Get right in here,” Xuanzang instructed them. “Lie together like logs. We’re under the rover’s water and fuel supplies here, we’ll be good.”

As they lay there a light appeared on the horizon.

“Is that the flare?” Fred asked.

“No, that’s Earth. It’s rising.”

“We’ve reached the near side?” Qi asked, sounding surprised.

“We’re just into the libration zone. The far edge of it. Earth won’t even get all the way above the horizon. From here on the ground we’ll only see a sliver of it.”

“At least we’re close. I’ve got to send a message to my friends in China.”

“For now you’ll have to be patient.”

This was not Qi’s strong suit, and Fred wondered how well she would do. That bright spot on the horizon, which looked to be only a mile or two away, turned distinctly blue. A paring of blue, wedged between black sky and white world. It rose so slowly they could not see its movement. Home sweet home.

When Xuanzang declared it safe to emerge, they crawled back out. A couple of hours had passed, and the Earth was as thin a sliver as when they had gotten under the rover. Luna’s Earthrise was slow.

In the rover’s air lock, a combination of electric charges and blasts of compressed air blew the dust from their suits. When the process was over they bounced carefully into the next lock and took their suits off while keeping their helmets on; only when they were ready to get into the main cabin did they take helmets off and hurry in. Xuanzang checked the gauges on his suit and in the cabin and nodded. “We took about ninety micro-sieverts,” he said. “Not bad!”

Qi headed straight for the rover’s little bathroom.

Moving through the libration zone toward the near side, the land became a little less rough. They circled the rims of some big craters, staying on their aprons when they were flat enough to allow that. This route brought them eventually onto an intersection of two big rims, the contact zone between craters Phillips (very big) and Humboldt (immense). Here they came to another little wall cave under a boulder, with its open side facing Earthward. They had driven far enough toward the near side that Luna’s big blue moon bulked now entirely over the horizon, a sliver of black space separating it from the white hills. Earth was about half lit, and Fred thought he could see Africa in the part that was lit, but he wasn’t sure, because it was upside down and there was a lot of swirling cloud cover. The dark half was dusted here and there with clusters of pinprick lights, as if a tiny Milky Way had been caught inside that half circle. It was huge compared to the moon seen from Earth, much bigger than it looked in the photos Fred had seen. He felt stunned by the sight, it was hard for him to grasp. Hard to believe it was real.

The three Chinese were also mesmerized by it, but soon Qi said in Chinese, I want to send that message. You have a laser communication system?

Sure. We use it all the time to send messages to friends.

Good. Find me China, please. They are in Sichuan. I have got an attachment with me that will code the message.

Remember we can only send if China is facing us.

Oh curses! But that will happen within the next twelve hours at most, right?

The two prospectors looked at each other, then peered up at Earth. If we just missed it, it could be more like twenty hours, Xuanzang said. We need to resupply pretty soon. We need battery charges, fuel, air, and food. Pretty much everything.

What I need to do will not take long. I want to tell my people to strike. In case they are waiting on me, which I hope they are not.

The two men stared at her. You are sure it is the time?

Yes! I just hope they are not waiting on my word!

Xuanzang said, Dear cousin, the billion is certainly waiting on you.

No! she cried. Why?

They think you are Mao, dear cousin.

Or the Maitreya , Ah Q added. Or the latest version of the Dalai Lama. You are the newest reincarnation, they say.

No!

Yes.

No! I hate that bad feces.

Xuanzang waved a hand in front of her face. Cousin! Please! No matter Ah Q’s mystical tomfoolery, the point is, if people believe you are an important leader, then you are. And leaders lead. So now is the time.

“That’s Australia,” Fred guessed, pointing at the blue ball. “Australia upside down. How weird is that. So but China must be facing us too?”

“Yes. Good.”

Qi consulted her wristpad. My people will make a daily check in an hour or so. I can catch their laser and get a point-to-point aimed.

Unless it is cloudy over your people , Ah Q said.

Why? What then?

Then lasers do not work.

Curses.

Have faith, dear cousin. Fusion efforts have rendered strong lasers. We should be good to go, except in very worst weather.

The prospectors got to work. They often had encrypted laser conversations with their investors and allies on Earth, they said, so they knew the drill and could make the contact. Qi had the data for her code in a small hard drive in her daypack, which she took out and plugged into a port in their rover’s computer. The laser projector was mounted on the roof of their rover. It looked just like a beer keg, the prospectors said.