Excerpt from Familiar Moon, early colonists deciding on a site for the new moon colony. “I’m telling you, man. This is it.” Jeremy Townsend pointed at the data currently displayed on the array of monitors in their surface jumper. “Here. Right here.” The moon’s rugged surface passed by slowly in one monitor while other monitors displayed relief maps, thermal readings, and other data about their current location. Jeremy wasn’t watching the moon’s surface. At this altitude and speed, it all looked pretty much the same. Andres didn’t even look up from his tablet. “Is this the same kind of ‘it’ it was the last time it was ‘it’?” Andres was lounging at his own console typing in the recent readings on surface radiation and comparing it to the readings from Tycho crater. “No,” Jeremy sighed, “it’s not, smart ass.” He turned away from the monitors and stood, reaching across the center console to yank the tablet out of his friend’s hands. “At least do me the courtesy of looking at these readings.” Andres Itou was trying his best not to smile. Andres was yanking Jeremy’s chain and Jeremy knew Andres was yanking his chain and yet he still let his chain get yanked. They had known each other since they were undergrads and in all those years it had never quit being fun to irritate his friend. The man was normally the epitome of cool and yet Andres could make steam come out of his ears. Jeremy was so worked up that Andres decided to cut him some slack. “Okay, okay, I’ll look. Just give my tablet back so I can save that last entry.” Andres reached over to grab the tablet, just missing it as Jeremy moved it out of his reach. “There,” Jeremy said, touching the tablet, “it’s saved. Get your ass over here.” Andres started to unfasten his safety harness but then looked up at Jeremy, “You’re going to goose it the minute I move, aren’t you?” Jeremy just glared at him. Andres smiled at his friend. Jeremy took his hands off the controls and held them both up in the air where Andres could see them and Andres’ smile broadened. Andres vaulted up and over the console allowing himself to float down into the other side of the center console next to where Jeremy was looking at the environmental readouts. Andres studied the readings, nodding and then looked at the navigation console. “Dios mio, Jeremy, Bailly crater? I thought we wanted a small crater and this is the biggest one on the near side.” He looked at the thermal readings and then grabbed his tablet back from Jeremy to do a search. “Don’t bother. The ejecta is indicative of the type of volcan-ic rock we were looking for. More porous than we wanted but that could work in our favor.” Jeremy turned back to navigation. “Besides, these readings are from Bailly B.” “Really? Hmmm, why not Bailly A? It’s even smaller.” “Yeah, but libration could take us out of LOS with earth.” Jeremy had the jumper hovering over the target crater. “Where do you think we should set down?” Andres shook his head, “I believe we should do as you suggest and use the northeast rim of the candidate crater.” Andres looked at the readings again, “Or, maybe not. It could be too cold. Let’s go northwest.” Jeremy turned back to the navigation console and started setting up the computer to land the jumper at a spot near the circumference of the crater about 320° from north. Andres started readying the sonar equipment for the next phase. They had several marginally good candidates already but, if they could get a decent size cavern or lava tunnel to start with, it could make all the difference. As soon as they landed, Andres guided the robots out onto the surface. For the next six hours, their conversation was limited to occasional reports about possible caverns and lava tunnels. Jeremy thought he might have a candidate for placement of the first habitat, under a natural overhang in the crater’s rim. Andres looked up and saw Jeremy looking smug. That would not do. Andres got up, stretching hugely and then walked to the galley area, “Are you hungry?” He stretched again, yawning as if he was bored. “I can get you something, too. I mean, since I’m up.” Jeremy kept looking at Andres expectantly, “C’mon, man, say it. This is it. Say it.” “Well, I don’t know,” Andres reached into the reefer for a drink, “I thought Schickard looked pretty good.” Jeremy’s face fell, “You’re kidding, right?” Andres grinned, “Of course, I’m kidding. You’re right. This is it. This crater is more perfect than we could have expected.” He picked up the tablet. “According to the criteria we set for a feasible colony site, this one scores even better than our optimal requirement.” Andres grinned at his friend, “In fact, we could probably just stand back and say, ‘be a colony’ and it would be so.” “Sure, you try that.” Jeremy turned to the console yet again, this time reaching for communications. “Meanwhile, I‘ll get a message ready to send to the committee that we finally have a go.”
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 22:44:43 +0000
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