Scott Mackay: Phytosphere

Ian looked away and sighed, gripping his Jack Daniel’s as if it were the last one he would ever have.

“The truth is, Gerry… I don’t care if you drink or not. I just want to talk to you. I’ve got something on my mind, and I thought if you had a drink… you’d be a little more receptive. What I’ve been meaning to tell you… ever since you got here, but didn’t have the guts… God, it was crazy seeing you in the civic pool the other night. After seven years! And up here on the Moon. That was really something. And I didn’t want to put a damper on things at that particular moment, so I thought I would wait a couple of days… but I was meaning to ask you… even despite the recent circumstances you told me about… I mean… how good, really, is your financial situation? The reason I ask is that AviOrbit’s reducing my retainer. They do that to pilots who turn fifty in the calendar year… it’s just their policy, and there’s nothing I can do about it, but it still caught me by surprise, even though I knew it was coming, and now… now my own personal budget… I find I’m running a bit short, so I was just wondering… If you can afford a trip to the Moon, you must be doing something right. Especially if you’re staying at the Buena Vista.”

“Ian, it’s really nice meeting you here, and it was a big surprise… but the only reason I came to the Moon, and didn’t go somewhere else, was because my parents bought the trip for me years ago, when the Buena Vista was having a big promotion. Package-deal vouchers with no time limit. My parents gave me the voucher when I graduated. Neil got one too. Without the voucher, I wouldn’t be here. As for my money… I already told you, North Carolina State let me go six months ago. Glenda and I are hardly making our mortgage payments, Hanna’s asthma medication is killing us, and my severance pay is running out.”

Ian now looked hangdog. “I just thought if you could afford a trip to the Moon… I didn’t realize you had the voucher.”

Gerry had a closer look at Ian and could hardly believe his old friend was here. He wore a rawhide jacket with huge shoulder pads and silver-flake detailing. Old Ian Hamilton, the god of good times, the prophet of empty pockets, with his seat-of-his-pants religion. And was he truly surprised that money had finally found its way into the conversation? It was always money with Ian. And with him as well, come to think of it. And now this ridiculous trip to the Moon. He regretted the old package-deal voucher. He wanted to be with his family.

His anxiety came back. He couldn’t stop thinking of Glenda. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty in

North Carolina. What was she doing? She would be getting ready for bed. Was she thinking about him?

Or, after his most recent performance, did she even care about him anymore?

“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” asked Ian.

For someone so insensitive, Ian sure could be sensitive at times.

“All the things we fought about, Ian…. Do you know I actually had the gall to accuse her of fooling around with the neighbor? You see what a ridiculous man I am? And it wasn’t only about the neighbor.

The finances… the move to Old Hill… never having enough time for each other. And the drinking… it’s still like a nightmare to both of us, even after two years.” Gerry shook his head. “She really took it badly when I blew up about the neighbor. God, I regret it. Now I’m up here, and she’s down there, and I have no way of getting in touch with her. Did you hear anything on TV about AT&T Interlunar getting things up and running again? I don’t understand how they can get things going if the Tarsalans are causing the problem.”

Ian raised his eyebrows. “I understand Mayor Hulke’s office is getting official communications. Us plebs, though… forget it.”

“I sure would like to talk to Glenda and get it straightened out. We walked right to the brink, Ian. I told her I was sorry before I came up, and we both thought it was a good idea I use the old voucher so we could have some time apart, but… she had this look in her eyes, like she was making plans—like she just wanted out—and it’s scaring the hell out of me. You don’t know what you have until you’re in danger of losing it.”

A special report came on the TV. Both men looked up.

Mayor Malcolm Hulke was making an announcement. The anchorman disappeared, and a shot of the Nectaris Civic Center’s Council Hall came onto the screen. It was a round chamber three times the size of the Buena Vista’s largest meeting room, blasted right into the gray rock of the Moon, the surface laminated with polycarbonate, the space lit by a galaxy of halogen lights. Various council and media members sat in the chamber. Locals and visitors filled half the public gallery.

Hulke emerged from a doorway to the left. He wore shorts and a T-shirt emblazoned with the latest tourism logo for Nectaris: a crescent moon drinking a piña colada with a big smile on its face, and some dice in the foreground with the dots made to look like craters. Hulke was a slightly overweight young man with a patch of tawny hair combed over his narrow pate, close-set eyes that reminded Gerry of mole eyes, and the oddly smooth complexion of a man who had spent his entire life in the Moon’s weak gravity. He climbed the steps with an ease of motion an Earthman simply wouldn’t have on the Moon, his slender bones the product of Ossimax—the low-grav anti-bone-leaching compound they put in the water here. He stopped at the podium, took a waferscreen from his pocket, unfolded it, then tapped his temple three times to activate his automatic contact lenses.

The mayor looked at those in the public gallery, then turned to the cameras, to his waferscreen, and at last to the members of the media. “Just before we get started, I want to say I won’t be answering any questions about the alleged Oxygen Production Unit kickbacks, so if you’ve come to dog me with that old horse you might as well go home. I’ve surrendered all appropriate documents to the special investigator’s office, and until he makes an evaluation, I’d appreciate it if you’d just drop it for a while.

We’ve got real news to talk about tonight, this whole shroud thing around the Earth.”

The noise in Tranquility Base subsided as people turned to the TV.

“The Tarsalans unilaterally suspended immigration negotiations a couple weeks ago, and now they’ve gone and put this shroud around the Earth, and who knows when they’re going to take it down?

Generally, communications are intermittent. We’re getting a few special drops from the United States, messages-in-a-bottle-type things, and we’re doing our best to reply…so it’s not like we can’t talk to them, and find out what’s really going on… because we can, at least on a limited basis. And I see Richard Glamna already has his hand up, but I’m going to ignore you, Richard, because I can tell you’ve been saving up another OPU zinger, and if you go ahead, you’ll just embarrass yourself. So put your hand down, and let’s concentrate on what’s important. Like I say, some of these drops are making it through, so we’re getting the… the gist of things. And I guess the gist of things… how can I put the gist of things?”

Hulke paused, and his face settled into a slightly comical, questioning, but ultimately benign expression of disbelief, as if he were surprised and even mildly amused by the gist of things.

“The Tarsalans are telling us…or at least the U.N. is telling us… that our good buddies in the Tarsalan mothership won’t come back to the table until they get their way.” Hulke had to pause again, his shoulders rising, his brow pinching with incredulity, as if he found this notion ridiculous. “The G-15”—and he said this with a kind of ass-kissing reverence—“along with the other developed nations of Earth, have made a final offer: the Kanem Region of Chad, the Arnhem Land Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia, and the Chattahoochee National Forest in the state of Georgia.” He looked around, his face frozen in a mask of beneficence, as if the offer of these small land packages to the aliens was the best deal anybody could ever hope for, like getting a complimentary night in the presidential suite at the Buena Vista. “Unfortunately, the Tarsalans aren’t playing ball. It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”