Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (6 page)

As Cedric sits pondering his work, more news can be heard fading in from a tower in the center of campus quad.

“The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 19 points after a late afternoon rebound from morning losses.  The price of gold rose by a mere .17% per troy ounce, while silver fell a few points to close the day at 223.67.  You’re listening to K-DOT news on the Quasar Network.  The time is 2:37.”

Moonliner
1:10

              “How do you see time?” a deeper, older man’s voice is heard asking from the darkness behind a row of spotlights shining directly at Cedric.

              “I see time as a paradigm,” Cedric answers; “a matrix of measured motion.  Time is the perpetual flow of unexpended energy, outward, flowing from more dense to less dense objects throughout the universe.”

              “And you think it can be manipulated?” another man’s voice asks from the darkness.

              “It’s possible,” Cedric answers; “it’s all in my notes, but it’s theoretically possible,” he adds.

              “Can you explain how?” a distinguished woman’s voice is heard asking.

              “What I think is that with laser echoing we can boost a transmission to exceed the speed of light and essentially program it to re-transmit at its accelerated velocity, thus sending the signal into a temporal medium, or through time itself.”

              “How far can a transmission travel through time?” the first voice asks.

              “I don’t know,” Cedric answers.  “I don’t.............

Cedric suddenly awakens to the sound of thunder.  He’s been sweating in the heat of the summer night.  He rolls to check the time on his nightstand.

              “Where is she now Phaedra?” he asks aloud. 

              “She’s nearing the moon and will soon dock with Moondock,” Phaedra answers.

              “Can you project her location?” Cedric asks.

              “Projecting,” Phaedra responds.

A holographic model of the earth and moon on a grid fills the room, which slowly zooms along a trajectory between the two bodies.

              “I still can’t see her,” Cedric says.  “Can you intensify brightness by 127?”

              “Intensifying,” Phaedra responds.

Right then, a tiny light appears, suspended motionlessly in the center of the room. 

                “There she is,” Cedric says, looking at the light.

Moonliner
1:11

Nikki sits deep in thought, racing away from the planet at unfathomable speeds.  She stares out her round, bay window at the endless stars.  Her hair drifts upward in the weightless cabin.  Zero-G nevertheless, doesn’t seem to bother her.  Her mind is elsewhere.  She can see the glow of the Milky Way and more stars than she ever has.

The captain’s voice comes over the intercom

“Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain.  We’ll be entering the moon’s gravitational field in just a few minutes.  We’ve passed out pouches of champagne or sparkling soda to celebrate crossing the line.  In accordance with ancient maritime, equator-crossing customs, at the time of crossing the honorable sons of Neptune, or those who’ve already crossed, will be welcoming the pollywogs into the fold.”

The Andromeda Galaxy appears ever so faintly in her window, but undeniably visible.  It takes Nikki away.  She stares at it as her moonliner gradually riffles closer to the moon.

A soft female voice comes across the intercom.

“Entering the moon’s gravitational field.  All objects now fall toward the moon.”

A sensation overcomes Nikki, far greater than anything she’d expected.  She has truly left her world.

Moonliner
1:12

Cedric swiftly makes his way across campus to the Communications Building.  The air is clean and cool from last night’s thunder storm.  It’s so fresh you can taste it.  It’s a Saturday morning in the middle of summer and the campus is dead, just the way Cedric likes it.  In the Comm Building, he pauses for a minute to catch a news report being played on the wall of a coffee shop in the lobby.

“Today’s headline news is sponsored by
Moonliner
, offering safe passage to the Moon for over a decade.

“WHO
,” a reporter announces; “the World Health Organization has issued a travel warning for Taiwan after confirming that the deaths of hundreds of migrating geese that mysteriously washed ashore just south of Kaohsiung were in fact due to the H9N1 strain of avian flu, rather than navigational errors in the wake of the Chilean earthquake as previously suspected.

“Watch
the Oval Report
with Ryad Nighbar, Sunday nights at 9 PM Eastern on the
Quasar Network
– your choice for news & entertainment.”

Cedric finds his favorite spot to study; a little concrete cubby-hole that most people don’t realize is part of the common areas of the building.  It’s secluded, quiet and very private. 

He places his sunglasses on a cubic table at the foot of his favorite plush armchair and presses a small button on the side of the sunglasses.  Images project from them onto the concrete wall in front of him.  He watches data stream before his eyes, taking it in frame by frame, image by image.  He sits in another world, on a different plane.  He does this a lot when he has a problem to solve, searching through complex pools of information, hoping to see something he hasn’t seen before.  It’s his way of fishing.

Suddenly he finds himself looking around, distracted by something; “he’s been here before, on this chair, in front of this wall, at this very moment.  He’s been here.  It’s still with him.  It’s usually gone by now, but it’s still with him this time.  He stands up, then suddenly looks at one of the light fixtures on the wall in the hall beside him. 

              “It shorts out,” Cedric mumbles to himself, staring intensely at the light for several seconds before finally allowing his eyes and neck to relax.

Moments later, the light flickers twice, then shorts out completely for three or four seconds.  Cedric is mind blown.  He had just emerged from a deeply prolonged moment of Deja-vu, in which he was able to foresee the flickering light.  The light flickered just as he had foretold.  This doesn’t make any sense to him, yet he can’t deny the moment actually occurred. 

He sinks back into his work, sifting through endless information.  He wants to finish in time to be home early this afternoon to watch Nikki broadcast from the Apollo Dome.  Her trip has made it really hard from him to keep his mind on his work; he’s too excited.

“Soon,” he thinks; “she’ll be back.”  He’ll have his PhD, and life will simplify, soon.

Moonliner
1:13

Moondock glides over the Plato crater in a frozen orbit.
[5]
  It’s absolutely breathtaking to see the moon from sixty nautical miles (110 km) above its surface; to watch it roll under your feet at a few kilometers per second, mountain by mountain, crater by crater. 

Nikki stands looking out at the moon from the large round windows of her docking bay, number nine.  Moondock’s main ring is rotating at one G, or one gravity, equal to the gravitational pull on or near the earth’s surface.  Like spinning a bucket of water, the centrifugal force of Moondock’s rotation creates a simulated gravity.

Barring some large scale freight-liners with gravity holds, and some rare, extreme luxury spacecraft with onboard G-simulation, flights to and from Moondock are weightless. The smallness of the crafts that can be put into a 1G spin prevents them from simulating Earth’s gravity very well.  Once docked with Moondock, however, gravity simulation improves significantly.  The sheer enormity of the main ring and its perpetual motion keep people nicely ground to the inner side of its outer wall.  On board, it doesn’t really even feel like you’re spinning.

Most of Moondock’s common areas, like the mall plaza, bars, hotel lobbies, cinemas, etc., don’t have windows to the exterior.  Many instead project live video from onboard cameras that gyroscopically adjust to remain facing the moon at all times.  You can even watch both approaching and departing vessels.  The views are mesmeric and real in the sense that cameras are attached to the station and filming the moon live from orbit, but you’re getting a far more stationary perspective than you’d get if you were to look out of a window at the spinning earth, moon, and stars. 

The docking bays, on the other hand, have large windows.  It’s important for travelers, when coming or going, to gain a real perspective on space and to understand their position in it.  People often experience motion sickness when having to adapt to the spinning view, but Nikki is perfectly fine with it.  In fact, she’s enthralled by the view to the point that her eyes even well a little at the brilliance of it all.  It’s far too much for her to take in lightly.

Nikki waits at bay nine for her detachment window.  Moondock takes just under two hours to orbit the moon.  Shuttles to surface destinations, like Apollo Dome, detach Moondock at optimal times and from optimal angles to point them in the direction of their destination.  If you happen to miss your window, you’ll most likely have to wait almost two hours for your next one.

Nikki decides to give Cedric a call.  Meanwhile far away, back on Earth, Cedric zips through the inner city on a Skytrain, unaware that Nikki’s calling him.  She gets his message box:

              “Cedric, it’s me,” Nikki says over the laser line.  There’s a delay in the transmission to allow for the beam to reach Earth; “I miss you.” she softly adds; “I really wish you could be here with me, seeing what I’m seeing right now.  It’s hard to believe this is real, and it makes me think differently about our place in the solar system, the galaxy, and everything.  You were right.  This is a truly unique opportunity.

              “Oh, and I sent your message,” she says.  “In fact, it made me run a little behind schedule and I had to sign up for the last media shuttle.  All other networks opted for earlier shuttles, so now I’ve got my own private shuttle to the surface.  How’s that for service!  I’m glad I’m not paying for this.

              “I hope someone gets your message,” she says in a softer tone.  “We’ll come back here together someday.  I love you Cedric.  Talk to you soon!”

Moondock glides into the dark side of the moon.  The moon is still visible in the bluish-purple galactic glow, but far less detailed.  More stars appear in the sky than were previously even imaginable.  Without atmospheric interference and light pollution, it becomes unreal how many celestial objects show up.