Then and Now (ss), Page 3

  "I wish we had time and permission to visit one," Lois mused. "Planted fields there. Woods, towns. A lake. Twenty-thousand inhabitants to each cylinder."

  "And the first were built from lunar substance," Horton amended. "Until the people already living here stopped that abomination. We had better plans for our world. Let the materials come from the relatively useless asteroids."

  In a moment, Arnold drawled unaggressively, yet with mordant belief: "Sure—a temporary solution. Till the asteroids are all gone. Then?... Someday all the substance of the natural worlds of this solar system is going to be broken up to make such cylinders, till they are a swarm orbiting the Sun, as do the lumps of the Rings, going around Saturn. This beautiful garden-sphere will be grist, too, when the need for more room becomes sufficiently compelling. And none of all this will be anywhere near enough to contain the expanding human population."

  Horton had no wish to contradict these fateful pronouncements. There was the accepted prognosis for the future of mankind, if it was to survive at all. Joined with adventurous curiosity, this prediction was already the mainspring of the push outward into the universe. Beyond surface-intellectualizations, that drive was as primal, unthinking, right, and beyond willful control as any other natural phenomenon. Like a super-nova explosion. You were carried along. For any regrets, the one saving knowledge was that the time spoken of was yet a good ways off.

  Below the terrace, down near the beaches of the Imbrium Sea, the lights of distant traffic hurried. Overhead, a patrol-heli throbbed past, on electronic watch for any disorder or irregularity. Horton had noted that the two were wearing their monitor-flower-clusters dutifully. Now he sensed how they drifted into privacy. He felt a chill of loneliness so unusual that it made him smile. More forcefully, once more, he had that warped, poetic double-view of them. Apart, he saw how the girl's hand crept into the youth's. Might those hands really have been different?...

  With a low thunder-rumble, the rain began. A muffed, plopping beat on thatch and foliage. In the glow from the terrace lamps, you could see the drops. Lois skipped from beneath the roof, drawing Arnold with her.

  "Big—and slow-falling! Like—like—Earthly snowflakes?... Though warm!... Arnie!..."

  The two, tough for certain mature, cool, and knowledgeable in many exacting duties, none-the-less cavorted, screamed, and roared like happy small children released from confinement to a new, marvelous pleasure. They were quickly, joyfully soaked. At last they stood quieted, a shabby pair, each with an arm across the other's waist, facing the night together. Their gaze shifted toward a moment of jewel-shine from the dripping dark. Eyes of a deer, reflecting? There was a scamper and rustle on the wooded slope, as the creature retreated. The boy made some gruff, low-toned comment; the girl chortled in delight..

  From his detachment, Horton still watched them with fond good humor, yet with anguish. In his numerous years, he had experienced much of life, death, and necessary risk, and accepted the facts, even gloried in them. But above this hardness, the strain wrenched him more sharply, as he found how deep was his affection for these people, feeling the strange, convoluted truths that enveloped them, and seeing their aliveness in these present moments. How could it match that all this must end so soon—though compelled by need for vaster reaching? Joyful movement to deep frost. When even to him, at his age, a minimum hundred-and-twenty years seemed very long indeed... They had suffered hardships... And in mere days they would be deprived further. Arnold should speak clearly... If their minds have changed?... And just what should he, Chester Horton, do then?...

  But now another thought came to Horton. Their heads were together in the ponderous, gentle rain; their attention was toward the forest. A stance for plotting? Tempted in an ideal land. What difference if they didn't even have sleeping-bags? Slip away. Live off the wilderness that had been encouraged to grow naturally, undisturbed... Hide. An extra month. Three. Six... It had been done before... No real penalty for capture... Still firm ejection. But delayed by whatever time it was possible to steal. That much, at least. These two were surely resourceful... Maybe they preferred to act alone, not wishing to involve him... Was that why Arnold hadn't said any more?...

  Horton felt dishonorable, but relieved. Though his affection was undiminished. He wasn't tired at all. But most likely, they didn't even want his presence. So he called out softly:

  "A busy day—bed for me. Good night!"

  They seemed not to hear.

  He was almost convinced that they would go. But after a troubled sleep, he awoke in the crisp sunrise-time of a thin atmosphere, and smelled coffee, and bacon and eggs. For once he ignored his rigorous hour of workout on an exerciser-machine, and hurried toward the sounds in the automated kitchen. Most agreeably Lois said:

  "Joining our early start. Chet? We were down the slope to the beach, for a quick dunking in the sea..."

  That morning, the heli took them the thousand kilometers to the highland edge of Mare Tranquillitatis, where the first asteroid had crashed at a shallow angle, applying spin-torque to the lunar bulk. Flying at low altitude, they looked down at that hundred-kilometer-long gash—also many kilometers broad—where rock had vaporized, to cool and settle as jewel-like particles of glassy dust. But the wound had scarred over, now, its jaggedness healed by stands of tall conifers.

  Horton saw the young man's scrutiny of the topography below, detail by detail, his narrowed gaze moving methodically. Horton was heartened once more, wishing that the kid was planning an escape after all, not at once, perhaps, but in his and his mate's own good time.

  Arnold landed the craft at the end of that gouged trench, where the nickel-iron alloy of the asteroid continued to be mined. Near the mine-buildings, Horton and his guests mingled briefly with a crowd of colorfully costumed sightseers, mostly lunar citizens, gathered at a viewing point at the lip of the gash. There were carnival smells and music, and the noise of children.

  "Where were you, Chet, when the impact came?" Lois asked.

  "Here on the Moon," he answered cockily, from vivid remembrance. "Well-east and north, by the Mare Crisium station. Spacesuited and out in the open, to avoid being caught in some shock-collapsed tunnel. We knew that many installations would be damaged. Few of us Moon-folk complained about this side effect. We'd lived in artificially maintained environments; new equipment and doings didn't scare us. Also we had learned that nothing is gained without risk and price. Earth, from which major assistance was coming, should benefit greatly, too—widened commerce, and especially an outlet for excess population. We had broad agreement from there. But on Earth, technology hadn't yet regained full respect as the principal saving force. There were still many vociferous people who worried that quickening lunar rotation might somehow disturb tidal rhythms, cause terrestrial quakes, even an axis shift, and thus, gross climate disruptions. The fantasies stirred up over so distant, and relatively slight, changes in celestial motion, were truly wild. But sensible opinion won out, on Terra, too. Oh, there were some bad hurricanes there, during increased-spin operations. Coincidence? I won't absolutely insist... Hey—why have I told you what everybody knows?"

  One thing, Horton hadn't recounted. It wasn't common knowledge: he hadn't been alone there, outside the Crisium station. Tana—pregnant with Ben, his eldest son—had been with him. Clad in metal-and-polymer garments, they had embraced, touching helmets. Waiting, they had said silly, laughing, tender things. The colossal, but distant impact had come, hurling them meters away, together. Not once, but several times, to-and-fro in huge, wide-spaced reverberations... They had rolled as one, laughing more—thrilled... Fearless, comical, lovely Tana... Gone from him not much later, by his own restless impatience and hers, in a broad and restless era... Like Emiko also, farther along...

  Back to this present, lunar noon-time: Not distant from the spin-scar was another, older gouging. Geometrical, rectangular, downward-stepped—greened-over now. The heli's passengers looked down on a square lake, and on gardens, orchards, and dwellings
set on different levels, angular at their edges, conforming to a huge ruin.

  Later, and nearer to Horton's home, as the hot sun declined, these three were making foot-tracks on a wet beach that, for three billion years, had been an arid dust of tiny, glassy beads, condensed out of the rock-vaporings of primal meteoroid impacts. But splendid surf surged and retreated here, now, sending pseudopods of bubbly water against bare toes. Tidal areas were considerable; had this sea been of anything like terrestrial size, the tides, pulled by the Earth, would have been enormous. Blue sand crabs scampered, unable ever to know that their kind had first spawned, ungraspably far back, on another sphere. While two kilometers away, a vigorous if leisurely stream poured into the waves from what had been a sinuous lunar rille.

  The three swam far out. They burst from depths, gasping, then laughing. Horton's antique clock was nowhere near, to remind, with its majestic tick, that the allotted terrestrial month had begun to dwindle. But Horton, at least, was aware.

  So it kept on. Two days less. Three... Five... These, the longer lunar days... More and more, it seemed natural to Horton to address his guests as Arnold or Arnie, Loey, or just Hey, Kids!—conforming to visible, existing fact. Perhaps with little strain from the start, they continued to call him Chet, Chester, or even Old Man. All play-names, in part... It may be that the boy humored his mate and Horton in much of this, but he cooperated, grinning or gruffing elusively...

  Thus, the arcane background element blurred and softened somewhat. Known, and surely still felt by all three, it kept on being jagged, comic, and quite unacceptable in one way, yet so agreeably fragile that—for this reason, too—they avoided saying it out, lest its spell be shattered.

  But if Horton was partly an enjoying romantic, there was that grimmer circumstance to contrast with shared pleasures more and more. It had become another unmentionable. Out of place. A flaw. Always nearer... Brittle breakoff. More chilled than loneliness...

  He had believed at first that these kids would run, effecting temporary self-rescue. Then he almost hoped that they would approach him, asking for the difficult, if not the impossible. Against his basic convictions, too... Neither had yet happened. He hesitated to inquire if they had firmly decided to let their course stand as fixed. He couldn't argue with the general rightness and honorable need-serving of that. Yet, in fleeting moments, one or the other of the pair might seem pensive, a bit depressed. And they were most of what was left of his own... Divided and—unlike his usual way—uncertain, he had still not spoken out, himself, offering whatever help. Besides, he felt oddly in awe of them. So he drifted on...

  Passing-time was well-filled. Based at Horton's villa, the three did much as any resident-host and his guests do, in whatever interesting region. Going to restaurants, theaters, ideally-designed hamlets, factories hidden underground and pollutionless, museums, sports events, other scenic or historical locations. Driving there, or flying...

  Also to stores. At Horton's insistent urging—his well-funded credit-credential in hand—the two, particularly Lois, acquired costly and decorative garments that they might never wear as much as once. But for this girl, to shop for such items was a joy of which she had had very little. Let her indulge fully... Even so, she was sparing and hesitant...

  Of course one day they all went up into the Descartes highlands, to the spot where the relics of one of the earliest human visitations to the Moon were preserved. Apollo 16. The site was sheltered by a clear, plastic dome, sealed, and with the original, spatial vacuum inside, for this cover had been firmly set up and ground-anchored, well before any atmosphere had been brought. There was no entrance for any bodily intrusion. Within, nothing had changed. The four-legged base of the Lunar Excursion Module stood empty of the departed ascent-vehicle. The battery-powered rover was parked just as the astronauts had left it. And the United States flag remained, plastic-encased and wire-stiffened, straight out from its staff. Even the innumerable rib-treaded bootprints were as fresh as a second after they had been impressed, those many decades ago. Fresh as they would have remained for at least a million years—eroded only by an occasional micrometeorite—had the Moon stayed the breathless, moveless place it used to be...

  On another day, Arnold and Lois flew, on a public plane, to the south-polar regions. Horton stayed behind, feeling that they should have time to themselves, without his aging presence. Let them enjoy low-grav skiing—majestic, lofty leaps, more so even than on Titan; while also being freer, more nimble on ordinary ski-costumes, no bulky spacesuits required for breath, and for fending off cryogenic cold. And on water-snow, not congealed gases... Arnold seemed particularly cheerful at the prospect—almost fiercely so. Till Horton thought with easy-going humor—maybe to be rid of me a while? Or—because strain was reduced by decision? Better chance to escape at last?

  If Horton hoped, it didn't turn out so, that time, either. On the second afternoon of the excursion, they arrived back at the villa in a rented heli, in good spirits, vividly clad, and full of tales of interesting events and people. Lois even displayed a small silver cup.

  "Arnie won this," she boasted. "For a triple-somersault in midair, coming down. He landed almost properly, too!... We would have stayed longer, except that elsewhere there's something that we've got to see, before we go to Earth..."

  So the next morning they all flew in Horton's heli to a unique place just beyond the rim of what used to be the Moon's hidden hemisphere. It was probably the most significant site of all. Already, very long ago, it had been suggested that some such find ought to and just might—be made. This logic had been quite clear:

  What better recording-medium could there be than the dust of the Moon as it had been? The lightest touch of anything with as little substance as a feather should leave a mark. Yet, in the vacuum-ambience, the marking would last in that fragile, powdery stuff as if engraved on hardest stone. Therefore, if some intelligently motivated device or being had ever—in any fairly recent epoch at least—come to the local solar system, and had even only paused on the lunar surface—as, for good, tentative examination of this family of worlds, it must...

  Yes—an intriguing idea. Well before the lunar transformation, an exhaustive search had been made, in conjunction with other precise survey work. But only in this one, small spot had there been success. As with the Apollo site, the place had been put under a dome.

  Horton had frequently come here. Though his companions had seen photographs, and all other gathered data often enough, this was their first actual viewing. This would add nothing to their knowledge—except the intangible essence of having at last been here. Of course a constant stream of other viewers with similar motives was also present. But Horton's two did not laugh, comment or question, while they looked. Unlike their usual selves, too, they were quiet and solemn.

  Actually, there wasn't much to see, under that dome. Unnameable scrabblings and coilings in the unaltered dust. And many trapezoidal indentures. About these first, who really might guess with any accuracy at all? About the second, the simple suggestion was that they were foot-tracks. Utterly, emptily wrong? It was not what was visible here; it was the unimaginable that shadowed it...

  Affixed to the dome's flank was a white-enamelled plaque bearing explanatory paragraphs. Included in the information given—much publicized wherever humans had yet ventured—was the familiar statement that, from estimates of the rate of micro-meteorite erosion, these imprintings in the dust had occurred three-to-four million years ago.

  Beside the dome was a small display case, stout and well-guarded. It contained the two artifacts that had also been found here: A bit of something like dirty cotton-floss. But silicious. And, perhaps more significant, a ten-centimeter chip or shard, apparently broken from some larger object. There were also illuminated holographs that attempted to show details of the fragment's internal structure. Even under highest magnification, this remained intricately involved and orderly, a multiplied and re-multiplied lattice of cubes, tetrahedra, filaments, and spherical c
avities that may have contained some important unknown that had evaporated—rotted away—whatever...?

  In this park where the dome was—in the pastel-blue building just beyond the eucalyptus trees—computers continued, after numerous years, to analyze, sort, compare, reassemble variously—and thus extrapolate from—already tentatively pinned-down data. With frequent referrals back to the shard itself... . Progress, but very slow... Purpose of whatever parent-object from which the fragment had been shattered?... Kind of energy, if any, to activate?... What means of manufacture, or growth? Some dim intents almost grasped so far... Design and objective out of different minds and souls. Working with what might have been nothing like hands at all?...

  Presently the three were standing a short distance back from the crowd, but with the dome in view, glinting in the sunlight.

  Lois totaled the obvious, laconically:

  "Somebody, or something, once came from somewhere. Anyhow the message, hoped for from way back—'You are not alone'."

  Arnold's mouth curved in his wry, young way.

  "Uh-huh," he grunted. "And maybe better expressed than it was, earlier, by those nine minutes and eight seconds of organized radio signals, picked up on that single occasion—when was it?—back in the beginning twenty-hundreds. Not even enough years have passed, yet, for the first of many human attempts at replying to reach any probable source at lagging light-speed. To make just the barest start at finding out very much."

  He tugged at his sun-reddened earlobe, then went on:

  "As for what was found here, that also said, 'Interstellar travel can be done.' So our smart people devised means. Still, as far as could be learned from very careful lunar exploration, something came to this solar system only once in three million years. Apart from how mass is supposed to become infinite at light-speed, that pretty well proves that star hopping won't ever be swift or easy—which everybody knows."

  "But can't truly know—for absolute certain," Lois commented, just a shade less solemnly.