Luke Marusiak - Lifeboat Moon

“Agreed, be careful.” Mark raised his arm and lined up the light. It was located to the left of the cave and he wanted it on the other side. “Can you move to your left about fifty meters? That would be the best position.”

“Fifty meters? Okay, wait one.”

The light flicked off and again Mark and Sally waited several long minutes. The light came on again, this time angling downward to the right of the cave. “Perfect Thad,” Mark said. “That’s the perfect placement. Can you secure it there?”

“Already ahead of you. We’ve put climber type anchors into the crater edge and used Zeke’s sealant to fix them in place. The solar powered light is anchored well. I’ll seal its base if you’re happy with the placement.”

“I am. Good job.”

“It was Chuck’s idea to use the sealant. We’ll finish here, get Zeke, and bring the remaining supply containers to the base. We’ve used most of our backside crater allotment of air.”

“Sounds good. We’ll start our mapping and meet you back at the hangar.”

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time,” Sally said. Mark and Sally stood side by side and stared at the shining light. That light was a beacon of hope. It was a tangible symbol of coordinated efforts, of the place where their second precious air reactor would go. It was a small but essential step in saving humanity.

“Ready to start mapping?” Mark asked.

“You bet. It’s nice to see you back in charge.”

“Did I have you worried?”

“After I pulled you into the hangar I wondered if you’d make it back.”

“It took a while but I’m back.” The two used the staircase and climbed up to the cave entrance. Mark looked up and smiled. “I still see that beautiful light. Now let’s map this lifesaving cave.” He used his eye implant to switch communications channels. “Doug, log that the second air reactor light is operational and in position. Sally and I are beginning our detailed cave mapping.”

“Got it Mark. Zeke’s got the archive record and the backside crater crew’s loading up to come back.”

“Sounds good.”

“I know I don’t need to say this but watch your air in there.”

“Will do.”

Mark switched to Sally’s communications channel and the two turned on their videos and magnetic imaging mapping radars. “Let’s get to work.”

“Wow. This is the first time I’m in here,” Sally said. “The pictures don’t do it justice. I can’t believe how big the cave is.”

“Let’s start mapping from left to right. We’ll follow a branch together to the very end.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster for us to do one each?”

“Yes but we don’t know what we’re going to run into. Some of these branches branch out several times. We’ll approach this exploration and mapping like scuba diving. Always stick with a partner.”

“Makes sense.”

“The last time we were in here our radios didn’t communicate to the station. There’s too much interference.” The two circled the large entrance, mapping as they went. The roof of the cave angled upward from the floor with a ceiling, per their mapping radar, of twelve meters high. They entered the leftmost branch which had an entrance twenty-nine meters wide and six meters high.

“Privacy isn’t such a bad thing from time to time,” Sally said as they went down a sloping incline.

“Other than these trips, there’ll be little privacy.” Mark examined the walls. “These look solid but I wish the floor would stop going down. It’d be nice if it flattened out into something like a room.”

“This cave and these branches were formed by ancient rising bubbles.” She carefully mapped the adjacent side. “Mark, did you see all of the director’s post gamma ray plan?”

“I did.”

“Including the breeding plan?”

“I saw it.”

“It’s funny Art didn’t say anything about that in his email. It was far more likely that Tina’s Agriculture Pod would produce enough lettuce, potatoes, wheat, rapeseed, and soybeans to grow the colony. The director wanted me to have four to six children each from different fathers. Did you know about that?”

“I did. Since we’ve been in such a desperate fight for survival, I didn’t think much of it.”

“The director thought we couldn’t wait long to start breeding. She gave me a year and that’s why she asked you to shadow me — so you could take over as First Shift Manager. I was supposed to be barefoot and pregnant for six or seven years.”

“We don’t need to worry about that plan anymore.”

“Why? Once we get things settled we’re still going to need children. We’re still going to need a plan to grow the colony.”

“Sally, what are you suggesting? I don’t believe the men of the colony could handle a plan for their partners having children with multiple men. It should be a choice… and it should be about love.”

“Love? Do you really think a quaint idea like love is important compared to the survival of humanity?”

“Our scientist Zeke does. He and Habi publically display their love for all to see.”

“They do and, I have to admit, I like that.”

“Sally do you feel that?” There was a sliding grinding vibration from the floor of the cavern. “Whoa!” The bottom gave way and the two dropped five feet into a pile of moon dust. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

Mark looked up toward the branch entrance. “I’ll get my pick so we can work our way back.”

“Mark! My legs are fixed in this moon dust. I can’t move.”

Thad drove the moon buggy far below its rated speed of fifteen kilometers per hour as he rounded the backside of the crater and headed for the hangar. The buggy was laden with three people and towed a trailer stacked with the remaining supply containers. Moon dust, a growing concern in Thad’s mind for fouling spacesuit seals, churned up on either side of the buggy.

“Can’t you go faster?” Chuck asked. “I’m already down thirty percent on my last air tank.”

“I don’t think so,” Thad replied. “I’m nursing the remaining battery power of the buggy. We’re going to be fully discharged by the time we make it back.”

“It’s all about power,” Zeke said. He clutched a bag containing the precious human archive and, something that took more time extracting than he wanted to admit, his hardback copy of the Talmud commentaries. “Electric power is everything. It’s more important here than on earth. It makes our air, our food, our ability to move. That’s why we’re at Shackleton Crater.”

Thad was puzzled by the professorial commentary. He eased the moon buggy up to ten kilometers per hour as he rounded the curve and followed the tracks back to Moon Base Armstrong. “We know all that Zeke.”

“We haven’t done electric power calculations since the burst. There’s a minimum amount of necessary power for the base, for the air reactor, for the battery charging, for ice extraction… for all of it. We need to make sure we have enough capacity before turning on the second air reactor.”

“You don’t think we have enough electrical generation capacity?”

“I think we need a second solar array with inverters right next to the new air reactor. The electrode of the current reactor takes a third of the first solar array’s generated electricity. We need to connect the electrode of the second air reactor to a different source of power.”

The moon buggy tilted side to side as it rolled over the uneven terrain. “Do we have enough panels for the second array?”

“I don’t think so. We’ll need to do the calculations.”

“There’s more solar panels and the remaining equipment for the second air reactor in the orbiting supply pods,” Chuck said. “When we get them down we’ll have what we need.”