Original Short Fiction: Fly Me to the Moon, Part One, Moon Colony Orion

Reporter Ardy Schaeffer has been sent to Moon Colony Orion to get the truth, but nothing is as it seems.

Ardy Schaeffer stepped down from the shuttle; the ground was surprisingly familiar, with a pungent spring-like aroma of growing things.

She had not expected that. She was on special assignment from the blog desk of the Universal Courier, and Moon Colony Orion would be her home for the next 24 hours. She looked up.

She’d been warned in her briefing, not to expect views of earth from this point, but high above her head; the crystalline carbonite dome did a remarkable impression of an earth sky, lighted evenly from horizon to horizon in a pale blue. She knew, from the vidscenes she’d watched the night before, that just on the other side of that inches-thick, nanobot-constructed shield, the vast gulf of infinite space spread out in all directions.

An officious looking man, just a little shorter than Ardy was moving aggressively up the gangplank, his hand outstretched to shake, about three steps before he arrived.

She thought about removing her glove, but decided she shouldn’t take any chances on bringing home a plague of some sort. It was the moon, after all, you never knew.

“Ms. Schaeffer, we are so pleased to have you here, welcome to Orion. Today, we’ll be giving you a tour of our A I labs, and you’ll get to meet a few of the students who are preparing for the next hop. I’m Arthur Funke, headmaster of Deep-Space Academy. I’m in charge of testing new AIs to see where they’ll fall in our training program. I am authorized to provide you with the answers to every question.”

Arthur took her hand, much gentler than she had expected and lifted it just a bit, bowing his head toward her slightly, and for one awkward moment, she though he intended to kiss it, before he let it go and spun on his heel. He looked at her expectantly, her cue to follow; she assumed. Ardy reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a soft covered notepad and pen. She was hopelessly old fashioned, but she loved the feel of pen on pages.

Truth be told, it was all about crossing things out.

It gave her a sense of power to edit with a pen, as if she were issuing death sentences to a sentence or two that didn’t quite meet her very high standard. Then, of course, it would all be digitized, everything was. Had been for almost a hundred years.

“Oh, I wasn’t aware that paper was still allowed,” Arthur stammered, looking at her notebook, suspiciously.

This was another reason Ardy preferred paper, harder to make disappear. Through the years more than a few of her stories had turned to so much binary dust before reader's eyes had been laid on them. With paper, they’d at least have to pry it out of her grasp before they could do that.

Ardy smiled, in what she thought was a reassuring way, but came across as slightly smug, “It’s hemp paper, a rapidly renewable byproduct of the medical industry these days.”

Arthur sighed, if not satisfied, he was at least resigned to allow her this little idiosyncrasy.

They walked down the ramp and onto a pathway made from modular pads. They reminded Ardy of sidewalks she had seen as a young girl in old cities of the East Coast of what was then the North American States.

Arthur kept up a brisk pace as he led her past a series of low, dome-like structures, each with its own path, branching off from the wider one they were on. It gave the impression of walking through the campus of a modern school back on earth, a green lawn, and some infant trees filled the area between buildings, and young students could be seen moving about.

As they passed the third dome structure, the path took a turn to the left, and behind the dome and just past the edge of a large rocky outcropping, stood a larger structure, more traditional in its architecture.

Large windows covered the front, stretching up what must have been three stories.

A wide set of low stairs, with a large portico above, supported on curving brackets that ran back to the face of the building, shielded the landing at the top of the stairs from the “Sky Light” that Ardy had noticed was decidedly warmer than she had first realized.

Arthur gestured to the building, “This is the hub of our whole operation; the A I birthing center. It started as a lab, but has grown into so much more.” They had reached the bottom step, and he paused, looking up, “It always gives me a rush to come here. I live on the other side of the colony, so I don’t make it over as often as I would like.”

He smiled, small crinkles folding up around his eyes. Ardy also noticed a touch of grey at his temples, something that only the oldest humans had these days, given the nutritional consistency of their diets and genetic rejuvenation regimens that could keep a human healthy for up to 200 years.

When they reached the top of the stairs, a tall glass door slid open silently, and Arthur gestured for her to go ahead of him, then followed into a large atrium, filled with so many plant species, Ardy couldn’t guess how many there were.

“This is the most protected space for starting new plants, so, our horticulture teams use this as a sort of greenhouse. A lot of these plants will be moved out into the colony soon. Plants are our most valuable resource. We have enough plant life now to replace about 70% of our oxygen, and we intend to be able to take our oxygen scrubbers offline by sometime next year.”

Arthur crossed the atrium and stepped into a waiting lift.

The doors closed and Ardy was surprised to feel the car dropping, instead of the upward motion she had expected.

“We’ll start our tour in the embryonics room, which we’ve placed underground. It’s rare, but we do get the occasional meteor shower and having these protected in case of dome breaches is essential. This whole facility is powered by a solar array that stays in orbit above us on a tether. We have a large, bio-diesel generator that hasn’t been run since a year after the colony was launched.”

The lift stopped dropping, and they stepped out into a dimly lighted corridor with glossy white ceiling and floor.

The walls were lined with large glass panels, with laboratories and nurseries stretching back behind them. Arthur stopped before a door just a few steps down the corridor.

“Now, I am afraid I will have to insist that you put on a paper gown and booties in these spaces. We can’t be too careful,” he smiled and handed Ardy a plastic wrapped package, containing a simple paper gown and elastic topped paper booties from a box on the wall.

He took an identical package himself and sat on a bench, protruding from the wall, to slip the shoe covers on, then stood and pulled the gown down over his neat suit. Ardy followed his example.

They walked through the door into a glass hall, with a glass ceiling that extended back from the main corridor, past another door and into the lab. As they passed each door, cool jets of air pulsed around them to decontaminate their clothing and thin green lines, scanned across their bodies, before the next door opened with a ding.

It was all a part of the elaborate security put in place to provide a sterile environment inside the lab. Ardy was intrigued by all of the technology, although, nothing she hadn’t seen, this much all in one place was a new experience.

She wondered if she would be able to get the answer she really came for.

She was sure Arthur suspected her ulterior motive, after all, it wasn’t typical for a reporter to come all the way from Allied New Jersey to see all of this first hand. It was common for drones to record these types of interviews remotely, allowing the reporter to see what they needed without making complicated trips to the moon. Even now that it was a daily occurrence, there were still risks involved, not to mention the cost.

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