Eulogy for the Moon

Command Room 119 was a frenzy of inactivity. None of the hundred or so personnel could take their eyes from the wall of monitors, struck immobile it seemed. But, all the while, they desperately reached out to one another, clutched in a painfully grasping, shifting milieu that seemed wholly unconscious of their actions. Every one of them were mindlessly desperate to hold on to all they could, while they could.

At least, that’s how it looked to Ishtar, sitting invisible in the risers at the back of the room.

General Aram Hannerly, in command of Habitat 119, the Heartland Habitat, during the Lunar Impact, stood unmoving at the front of the room, staring up at the monitors. His expression was stoic despite the tears that left dark tracks down his mahogany skin. He had a white-knuckled grip on the hands of his wife and teenaged son at either side of him. Below Ishtar’s perch, two women sat on the floor together, quietly sobbing as they held one another crushingly close. One stared out at the screens, absently rubbing the other’s back while she buried her face, as if to hide from what was coming. A group of five men and women near one of the computer banks clung to each other in a kind of group hug as they watched the wall of monitors, mindlessly absorbing another into their embrace without glancing away. A much larger group held hands and quietly prayed, still while watching the wall. Some few sat alone, rocking, arms wrapped tightly around themselves, or hands gripping one another, as if yet seeking the solace of human contact that their solitude denied them. Every face in the room bore the stamp of terror, defeat and devastation.

On the wall that held the people so captive were various monitors, each with their own display. One prominently displayed a clear image of the moon, again and again, from different camera locations. Three on the left displayed news broadcasts from unmanned cameras stationed around the world, scrolling through feed after feed; deserted gray city streets, gray buildings adorned with huge dead, black windows; thousands singing and swaying together as they held small lights aloft in a huge square before an immense and ornate building; city streets lit with colored lights, and people wearing colored lights, in the midst of a maniacal celebration; tens of thousands filling a huge, open bowl-shaped amphitheatre, all in white robes as they simultaneously raised small glasses to their mouths, and then all began dropping bonelessly to the stairs and landings, a handful spilling over a high railing to land sickeningly on the field below. With each location, a name. Times Square. St. Peter’s Basilica. Rio De Janeiro. Soldier Field. The scenes went on and on.

Two large monitors on the right displayed habitat information. On the top one, faintly luminescent blue lines picked out the shape of the continents, randomly dotted with green lights, and two flashing red ones. As she watched, first one red light, and then the last, stopped flashing and turned green, the word ‘secure’ appearing beside them. The monitor below reassured them that all systems for Habitat 119 were online and functioning properly.

The largest screen of them all, in the center, bore an illustration in glowing primary colors of Earth, Moon, and approaching asteroid, each ticking along their colored line of trajectory. They moved inexorably toward the point where the blue line for the moon and the massive asteroid’s red line came together. The clock counting down at the top of the screen in huge, blood-red numbers read 00:00:05:38. Five minutes before Impact.

The rogue asteroid, large enough to be classed as a dwarf planet, had been flung towards our solar system by some far off collision. It had only been luck, and the asteroids great size, that had allowed scientists to detect its approach ten months earlier. Initial reports claimed that the stony object hurtling towards us would strike Earth with an impact that would sterilize the outer surface of our planet, if not crack the crust like an egg. Soon after, those reports were corrected, determining that it was to be our trusty satellite that would receive the punishing impact, largely sparing our planet. Of course, the expected debris fall and resulting atmospheric occlusion from this collision was still expected to eradicate ninety-nine percent of the life on Earth, creating too hostile of an environment for humanity to survive on the surface of the planet.

But humanity had been given some time to prepare, and the nations of the world had joined cause, combining their resources to build the habitats, and give our species a chance for survival.

More and more now, the camera feeds revealed scene after scene that was still, the faces in them turned up to the sky. Ishtar watched the last minutes of the painful scenario play out as the numbers counted downward.

When the clock reached zero, a small chorus of cries and a few weak screams erupted in the otherwise quiet room, and time seemed to stand still. The red cartoon asteroid met the blue cartoon moon. The screen, like the zeros above, began flashing. But every eye in the room, including Ishtar’s, was watching the camera image of the moon with baited breath. A blur of motion, a blinding explosion, and the screams grew in crescendo. Otherwise, there was no sound. Such a massive event, and you’d think it would make a sound. The moon, if there was still a moon, was hidden behind a massive cloud of dust.

Nothing else happened. No one moved for several moments. It was anticlimactic. Some seemed to shake themselves out of it, moving toward their computers. The General didn’t move; he just watched the wall. The flashing screen stopped flashing, now showing a handful of flashing objects moving away from the moon, each with their own path of trajectory. Military and civilian personnel spoke with people at other locations, recieving initial reports. The camera feeds revealed people still watching the sky, pointing, screaming, crying, hugging, covering their mouths in disbelief.

And then the sky started falling. On the Habitat map, green lights began turning red in singles and in small clusters. And then all the screens went dark, the communications went silent, and the real fear set in.

Last surface contact, Ishtar realized, as the room faded around her.

Ms. Chronos’ familiarly comforting form materialized at the front of the classroom, where Ishtar now sat in the midst of her fellow students. They were a motley group to behold. While they weren’t allowed any appearance deemed too distracting for the other students – flashing lights, excessive size or objects floating more than fifteen centimeters from the body, for example – their only other limits were their imaginations. Typically for the young, the students’ Skins were in a constant state of flux, changing with the teenagers’ whims as they exercised their self-expression.

The History teacher never changed, beyond Costume or Adornment. Today, she wore her waist length silver hair loose, with flowing white robes that enhanced her air of wisdom. But her Skin never changed. She always looked like herself, and she had always taught history. Other teachers came and went, and some lasted much longer than others, but Ms. Chronos was eternal. Even her parents said it. Ishtar wondered idly at the purpose for this for a moment before deciding that it didn’t matter. She was glad. She loved Ms. Chronos; she was practically family.

Ms. Chronos passed her sharp, dark gaze slowly over the room, gathering the attention of the class. She let the moment swell dramatically before addressing them in her melodious voice, intense and slightly accented. “Just imagine, for a moment, what it must have been like for those people,” Ms. Chronos entreated us, her gaze taking on a faraway look behind the gleam of her magically perched gold-rimmed spectacles. “In all the course of human evolution to that point, our kind had dwelt beneath the sky.”

The wall behind Ms. Chronos became an image of an old earth surface landscape, but most of the screen was colored the soft blue of the planet’s former atmosphere as seen from inside of it. The edge of our star, the Sun, was just spilling over the jagged horizon in the distance, bleeding brilliant color across the bottom half of the screen. ‘Sun rise’, Ishtar mentally labeled the phenomenon.

“The most ancient peoples made use of small caves in the planet’s surface to take shelter in at night, or to protect them from dangerous weather during the cold half of the year.” Ms. Chronos flowed to one side as the image behind her zoomed in briefly to illustrate what a surface cave looked like. (Which resembled the rough walls of the big cavern containing Sweetwater Lake, only smaller and open on one side to the vast, sunny vista of Earth surface.) The wall returned to the previous view. “But they were all peoples of the sky.”

The Sun suddenly rose with surprising speed, burning white and gold against the pale blue backdrop. “The bright Sun lit and warmed their world during the day. During the warm half of the year, it caused the plants to grow and bear fruit, which allowed the animals they raised for fats and proteins to multiply and become plump. Sun was their symbol of warmth and bounty, of security. Earth’s moon and the twinkling of billions of distant stars gave them light in the darkness, when the Sun was shining on the other side of the planet.”

The Sun swiftly set, replaced by a glittering expanse of tiny lights against an inky black field, the pale, shining disc of the moon reigning over them. “The moon’s gravitational pull created the ocean tides…”

‘Ocean’; body of salt water that submerged seventy-five percent of the earth’s surface land, Ishtar dutifully noted.

“…which oxygenated the waters and allowed them to teem with all manner of aquatic life. Water rained from the sky in droplets, sufficient to irrigate all the plants and animals of the world. This is, in fact, where we get the word as it’s used today, for they called this water from the sky ‘rain’.”

She gazed around at the class, an expression of sad benevolence on her ageless face. “To these people, they were being forced to abandon the home they knew, the fixtures that had protected their lives on this planet. The thought of coming here into the deep earth to live, forevermore away from the open sky, was for many unbearable. Hundreds of millions chose to remain behind, to die with the earth they knew, or believing they could take their chances.

“The rest of humanity all over the world braved their fears to take refuge in the ‘habitats’- what is now Heartland Metropolis and the thousands of other Metropolises just like ours. If not for those brave pioneers, we would not have the flourishing civilizations of humanity that we have today.

“No, all of mankind would have perished together in the Lunar Impact Event. Humankind would be long extinct, along with ninety-nine percent of the rest of the life on earth.” Ms. Chronos paused significantly, white robes melting into a black gown of mourning. Her noble features were grave as she looked slowly about the classroom, assessing our reactions as she gave the statement time to sink in.

“What about the people they sent into space? Wouldn’t they still be alive?” a young male voice blurted out, not waiting to be called on.

The teacher paced slowly across the room. She didn’t look at the boy as she answered his question. The stock answer was well known to us all. “The Builders sent manned seed ships into space in the hopes that should humanity not survive on Earth, that there might still be some small hope that our species would survive somewhere. The chances that any of those launches succeeded in surviving space long enough to find a new home are very, very slim, the chances of them being able to make a return trip to Earth are even much more so. After over six-hundred years, it is thought that if they had been able to return, they would have, and are presumed lost to us.” She continued her pacing, watching us expectantly.

Another student, a fellow victim of naming trends, a boy called Loki, gave a small tap of his finger and waited for the teacher to acknowledge the little green light above his head.

She did, raising her brows in inquiry.

He allowed a slight swagger to his voice, warning of what may be another impertinent question. “How do we really know that any of the other habitats still survive, or developed civilizations at all? We lost contact with all but two of them hundreds of years ago - of those we hadn’t already lost in the debris fall after the Impact, anyway. The last communication we had was from the Appalachia Metro, and that was over forty years ago.”

It was impertinent, but also valid.

Ms. Chronos ignored the swagger. “The travel and communications networks that were established by the Builders have always been notoriously susceptible to damage by meteorological and geological forces. There was just not enough time for such an undertaking, greater than the Habitats themselves.” She threw an arch glance at Loki. “Appalachia was closed off to us by an earthquake that caused many miles of the tunnel to collapse and misalign. I am certain their people are working just as hard to reach us on their end as our own people are on ours. We might break through to them any day. While it is quite possible that disasters may have fatally struck some of the habitats, the odds are very good that for most, just as for Heartland Metropolis, civilization continues to flourish despite the lack of outside communication. The fact is, it makes sense to believe this scenario to be true until it is proven untrue.

“Our scientists and engineers pour great effort into developing a means of reestablishing communication with the other habitats, near and far. Just imagine, should they succeed, the knowledge and innovations of each civilization shared among one another, the technological leaps we are likely to achieve, for it is without doubt that they have been busy discovering their own advancements all of this time, just as we have. It could bring in a new age of technology, and who knows what, united in our knowledge, humanity might accomplish.” She looked around, once more fishing for student participation.

To Ishtar, the rest of the class looked just as wearily attentive as usual. She glanced forward to find Ms. Chronos’ sharp gaze pinning her.

“Ishtar, any thoughts?” she asked with a small smile, kind and knowing both.

The girl shrugged in her best attempt at nonchalance, feeling the heat rise to her face. She was sickeningly grateful no one could see her blush. She should have known better than to let her eyes stray. She groped for something to say. “But didn’t a lot of Pioneers die after the Migration? Suicides, killings, crazies, riots…? It sounds like they were right to be afraid.”

Ms. Chronos’ smile now indicated a small victory. “Of course they were right to be afraid. Do you know what the Builders called humanity’s Migration into the Earth?” A brief pause, in case anyone did. “The Internment.” She smiled tightly, seeing the blank expressions, followed by a brief subvocalization or flitting of the fingers, followed by expressions ranging from horror to disbelief to amusement as the class accessed the unfamiliar word.

“That’s right. They associated moving into the habitats with their custom of burying their dead. It says much to their frame of mind. It’s clear that many expected their experiment to fail. And still they migrated.

“Do you know what the histories name the fifty years following the Migration?” She looked around expectantly. Though a few were attempting to look it up, she answered for them anyway. “Historians called this period ‘The Winnowing’.”

“You see,” she went on to explain, “left to its own devices, evolution works slowly. Humanity had evolved - all higher life had evolved - on the planet’s surface. Mankind was moved to force evolution’s hand, and the adapting didn’t come easily. Many could not adapt psychologically, and were lost to us. But many did adapt, and their descendants should give proper appreciation for their sacrifice and strength.

“We owe them more than our mere existence, however. From those troubled times arose our own system of justice, which has brought greater peace and safety than any other period in human history.

“The origins of today’s Birth Program began then as well, as scientists began to study and isolate certain genetic markers that were indicative of various diseases and behavioral disorders and considering how to breed them out. Today, every child is born in perfect health, and can look forward to a long life without fear of almost all of the horrible diseases that the Pioneers and their antecedents had to suffer from.”

“Which brings me to your assignment for the week. In remembrance of Pioneer Day, I want a thousand word report on a technological advancement we use today that had its roots in pioneer technology, and the history of its evolution from then to now. The rest of your assignment is more subjective. I want you to imagine that some unnamed disaster forced you from your homes here, to migrate as the Pioneers did. Only, I want you to put yourself in their shoes and reverse the circumstances. You and everyone you know will die if they don’t migrate to the planet’s surface; a living surface like the pioneers came from. What would it be like? What might scare you, or interest you? What challenges do you foresee? What would you miss about your life in Heartland?”

“I suggest a visit to the Young Earth Museum, in person, so that you may take full advantage of experiencing environmental effects of the Earth’s former surface that are not available on the virtual tour.”

The students were quiet as they all considered the assignment, until the chime announcing the end of class sounded. The room was thrown into brief chaos as students hurriedly organized virtual materials and popped out of existence.