Leaving Home

This Blueflame Series is � copyrighted as of November, 2016.

I have added footnotes. Public Domain material. Just respect me as the author.

Lunar Radiance

by Fineblueflame

Part I

Chapter 0 : Meditations on a Hole by Anthony Perera

People who think they know me feel that I love roots of mountains, like trolls in old fairy tales. But I am indifferent to close spaces. I work there, organize others digging and tunneling. I feel much better on my footstool foothill looking to heavy dusty machinery moving about, conveyor systems humming.

The zero and tunnels have something in common. The disappearance of distance and space. New possibilities. They lead man where he could not go before. Worm holes are tunnels. They aerate the soil, eliminate galactic distance and cross-pollinate civilizations.

Roots have secrets. Events going on in there. A different size and time scale. There is damp down there; cold and heat. Rivers flow through caverns hidden. Seams of iron, crystal and gold waiting.

We have not begun to explore this, our home planet Earth. They are friendly beings, long and interesting. They grow, reign then dwindle to rocky shoals. The constant change in the consistency, metamorphic, sedimentary, igneous and primarily if water and ice have been messing with it, causing havoc with the tunneling machines, TBMs.

Here on my knoll, I sit working, reading plans. Keeping the operation going anticipating hazards, accidents, ordering parts. I keep a list of people with different skills, so any breakdown will not slow the operation. I am in touch with my foremen at all times.

My regency has reached a threshold. This moment will teach me that thresholds mean change.[1]

Chapter 1 : Mountain Roots

Ali and Alex McLean went to China in 2030 at the request of the Chinese authorities. The last four years they have been very busy in their government space program, developing the stages of their Moon mission. It was this young couple, that established the Habitat Lunar System. They made the program a reality in their mind.

The McLean family had started out in Calgary at Highwood Space University. Married, they produced four children, girls. Studies for Ali ranged in the social direction. For Alex it was the biological studies, with specialties in plant (vegetation) transfers from Earth to the Moon and Mars. But he would disappoint many by taking a 100% interest in Lunar studies. Or so it seemed.

That is the main reason they slipped away to China during their doctoral studies. The news reports made a big thing of their disloyalty. Strictly speaking, they were free to go where they wanted. When mineral and manufacturing companies in Canada started getting large space contracts, because of McLean influence, the news people moved on to badger other free spirits.

For the Chinese, equipment and supplies were needed. A double railgun was built in the Hinggan Mountains (China) along with a new railroad line to transport the freight capsules to their Lunar destination. It was based on the rail ring system. A double railgun was also built in the Rockies not far from Prince George, a back up to the Hinggan machines. (What was double? One gun could be down for maintenance or be getting ready for launch, while the other was free to sling freight rockets.) These guns required a large electrical pulses, magnetically pushing the scram-jet freight carrier down a 5km long rail. The ring was completed with a ramp rail aiming the flight into an east-south-east direction and up to high earth orbit above the equator.

Deep in the mountains of British Columbia, the Telkwa airport was growing large fast. New runway and storage facilities. This allowed heavy freight planes to land hourly. Into the near mountains, a facility was built using temporary work crews from China to complete the railgun. Equipment was trucked in from Prince Rupert, where ships unloaded cargoes. This is really the backwoods of western Canada, not known well by your average Canadian. German tourists however trek the mountains paths at all times. But not this year. Restrictions kept all tourist at a distance from Telkwa and the mountain to the west.

I lived not far from Prince George. My work kept me there. I have worked with the Kamloops Tunnel Corporation for the last five years and I (Anthony Perera) am now the expert with those machines, drilling the mountain roots, shortening the road routes and rail-lines. I heard the rumors of the many Chinese working west of me. But that had nothing to do with my work. Or so I thought.

It was me that Ali approached one morning in May, 2036. I, standing by my portable work table, facing north along a newly constructed route, off the Farwell Canyon Road.

I was just turning thirty and was still single without any local family ties. I had a recent loss, my last girlfriend. The wilderness and hard work were my medicine. It was hard, but work filled my lonely periods.

Our machines were being built just outside of Calgary. I knew that the majority owner was a Hong Kong holding company. So when Ali came to visit my worksite, I was scrambling.

She was a rather skinny white long-tall-Sally type. But there was a presence about her. When she opened her mouth, I had no doubt that she knew her stuff. Head office had phoned ahead warning me she was coming, but that had only given me a half-hour to research her history. A medium sized Sikorsky S590CB helicopter flew her in, direct from a Vancouver airport.

Elsewhere, freight packages were being assembled in Earth orbit to be transported to Lunar orbit. She would be going with her family to help establish the Chinese colony near the Lunar North Pole. I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious and nervous.

She strode down the hill from the landing pad, with one large blue plastic tube under her right arm and a massive female bodyguard in tow.

"Hello, I am Ali Mclean. " She held out her hand.

"Anthony Perera," I responded. We looked each other over.

"Can I use your table?" she asked. Without waiting she pulled the drawings from the tube and spread them out over my papers.

She gave me a moment to take in the designs, "This is a new model tunnelling worm. Light weight and much smaller than the ones you use." she explained.

I saw the diameter was only 3.4 metres. Not saying anything I looked at her with questions on my face. Usually the machines, TBMs, have a 4 to 6m diameter. The one down the hill was six metres. Elon's was 3.6.

Ali said, "It is extremely light weight and is built to be transported to the moon. We simplified." she answered. "Two of these are already in Earth orbit. They will be assembled after all the parts have arrived, Moonside."

I still had not said anything.

"We need you Anthony!" she pointed at the sky. "Up there."

Boy was I stupid. I had not seen that coming. "Your not kidding?" I asked.

"There is going to be a thousand of us there, in about a year." Plato Crater, look it up. "All those souls will need a place to live. I will show you how we are going to do this, if you agree to join us." she was challenging me.

My life was only now finding a meaning. Clair was gone. My love and heart, gone from my world and I had a lifetime to live without her.

"How long before you need my answer?" I asked.

"Just mail me in the next two days. I will be in Calgary." Ali answered. We touched our pads together.

She rolled up the strange TBM plans and placed them back in the tube. Kissing me on the cheek, she whispered in my ear. "Going to be good friends. I can tell. I will have your back all the way." It was as if she did not want her bodyguard to hear. She turned and was on her way back to her ride.

The woman had caught me off guard. I did not have a reply. [2]

Chapter 2 : Native Fields

The following day I packed my things, stuffed my backpack with a few items and walked out of the trailer, to hop on my turbo-bike. Newest Indian model, electric and fast. It took me south the three hundred kilometres to Kamloops, where I headed straight for the company headquarters.

Frank was there in the office talking on the phone and sipping coffee. I said to him. "I heard I have been sold to the Chinese."

Frank put the phone down. "Charles is your replaacement. You trained him well enough."

"You could have consulted with me. Did she pay you?" I complained.

Frank said, "You are like a son to me. We will be supplying parts to the orbital station. Just think of us as another division of their company."

"It was not on my radar... This leaping around on the moon. You know if I am there more than a year, there is no coming back?" I stared at him but he would not look directly at me.

"She has arranged that you go to a native airfield over in Saskatchewan. An airship departs in two days with some of our equipment. You can hitch a ride."

"A slow road to China?" I asked. Or a Chinese colony.

"You will get there fast enough. That town is called Candle Lake. All native territory now. North of Prince Albert. They do the shuttle launches there." Frank explained.

I really was not complaining. I got good leave benefits, a pay rise and a change of venue.

I left the office, started the bike and headed for my old place. It was just a shack, but it looked out over the village, where my love had once lived. Clair was gone but neither I nor anyone who had met her could forget her voice and charm. I walked down to the cemetery, after cleaning myself up. She had been the centre of my world for six years. Slim, tall and black with a voice as sweet and tart as the best jazz singers. She was the local celebrity, story teller and spiritual leader.

When I was just 21, we met at the Night Club Kelowna. I was drinking iced-tea, she had a frapachino. Standing at the bar, we were drawn as two opposites. She was 45 but looked 30.

What she saw in me I don't know. But for me the world changed, the air shimmered and electrical currents flowed between us. I held her hand and stared into her eyes. It was only about once a week, that we were able to take time together. Each time we learned something special about our relationship. Two universes, exploring each other. The books have never been written that mentioned such a love.

I stood at her grave wondering what she was doing up there. I said some prayers and asked her to help me in my new adventures. One year ago she left me. She went fast, a heart attack. I stayed with her those last few days. No one else could match her.

* * *

The slow flight the airship made, did not take that long, but it was fighting a side wind most of the trip and the freighter swayed badly. It was a very uncomfortable 10 hours. The ship flew around the facility. Candle Lake, dozens of good sized industrial building and hangars below, two extremely long runways in an 'x' shape. No small operation.

I was to meet a Doris Ravenchild.

She was there, a small young girl, 18, surrounded by roughnecks that were to unload the cargo. She had the long black hair and the straight nose and strong eagle eyes. She walked up quickly to me and extended a hand. I shook it and looked her straight in the eye. She was doing the same.

"You are wondering why someone so young was sent to be your guide? I will explain it in time. Come to the cafeteria and we can speak over coffee." Doris explained.

I followed her neat small frame, to a nearby low-slung building. We sat in the early morning light coming through the windows.

I explained, "Ali Mclean instructed me to come here and told me a child would explain everything."

"Just her sense of humour. I am no child. Since I was 12, I have been involved in the politics and the sciences of this base. Those white people wanted nothing to do with us Dene and Cree, but it was our territory and we bested them. Now we run the show. The whole north has now centered its enterprises around this base. I see that your history is not very orthodox."

Doris was referring to my skin colour and my last name, Perera. My father's father and his mother were from Sri Lanka. My mother black, was born in Bermuda. They met in Toronto. I grew up in that big town, but left when I was 16. Most of my education was online MIT, U of Calgary and hands on. I settled in Kamloops, where I apprenticed with my employer. The last couple of years, I have made up with my parents and gone back to seeing them for holidays. I told Doris as much.

This Doris, girl, was about to give me the education of my life. Doris Ravenchild was as sharp as a knife and had a better memory than anyone I had ever met. She was the driving force behind all the changes that had occurred in Candle Lake. Every Native in the country was watching the changes here, and they were revising their education programs, to take part in the prosperity of the Shuttle Base.

Most freight could be flung into space at very high G forces, but people could not. Rail-guns were not for people.

For people they built planes using the strongest and lightest materials. These were the tugs. All wings and engines. The shuttles, were separate rocket planes carried underneath and flown to a height of 15km before the burners on the shuttle engaged and the tug made the release.

After the release the tug made a western journey as far a Happy Valley, on the coast of Labrador, where it glided down near-empty to refuel for the return trip.

Doris explained that shuttle hauling was only one part of the business. She and her mother had come south to work at making the spacesuits. Thousands were needed and the Dene people were especially skills with needle work and working heavy materials.

"There are a dozen different types of suits, depending on the work environment, floating in space, scrambling on the Moon's surface, working in the close environment of the tunnels. We help in the last minute design changes. Our people are not just laborers, and we are the first to take the shuttle up. Structures built with carbon-fiber struts are assembled in space, the Rigs, and just like the tall buildings in New York City, we are now doing the grunt work up there."

Her eyes looked up. "We design, they give us the specs and we make it work. We produce the canopy material, which protects the workers down in the crater. We invented the conveyor cloth material that is strong and light."

She continued. "We are now making electrical work vehicles, that will be used on the Moon's surface. Not that different than the backwoods motors, ATVs we use here but with lighter materials. Then, there is the need for specialized hand tools, dried foods and emergency rations. When the first rigs went into orbit around Luna, it was our expertise that allowed for the construction of landing vehicles, by reassembling the strut systems on the rigs, and attaching control equipment and small rockets we got people down safely to the surface and back up."

I was impressed. "This strut assembly holds all the equipment?"

"We just strap it down, the cargo, and rockets at one end push the whole mess up out of Earth orbit and into the nine day journey to be captured in the Moon's gravity." Doris explained. "When a shuttle goes up we just strap that on as well. We are working on attaching inflatable habs so the shuttles can stay local."

She spent the next week showing me every detail of the base. I met her mother, Helen, and her aunt Rosa, in charge of the spacesuit production. Our lives would depend on them and their teams.

Doris explained, "Among the local workers, blacksmiths are learning how to model non-traditional materials. The crews have been sending us samples of Lunar soil. We have brought in the best people to try and figure out how to create new products and processes. Ceramics seem the best solution. We were the people who used snow to build homes."

I said, "The cloth needs to be produced moonside as well. I am thinking that it can be used instead of walls. Decorated like the native structures." I suggested. "It could be a much coarser cloth that could be layered and/or spray-painted. You will need a place at the Lunar Base to get the best results. The vacuum will work to your advantage." I suggested.

She smiled as we walked now hand in hand. Every cell of my body tingled.

"I now want to show you what you are really here for," she said. "Every piece of equipment we sent off planet, has some kind of sensor or controller, computing device. These chips so far have been coming from Japan and Korea. The Chinese insist that this cannot be continued into the future. Security requires we make our own sensors our own electronics. We will get you the manufacturing equipment, and you must supply us a place up there. We need a deeply sealed tunnel, completely clean and airless. Robots will be sealed in to control all the processing."

I bent down as we found a private spot and I touched my right eye-socket to hers. She did not pull away, but was curious about what I was doing. Our eye sockets touched and the eyelashes kissed. I held her there for a while as her body began to quiver.[3]

Doris remarked, "You realize that you just made me come." We spent our last week going over all the details.

When I boarded the shuttle, goodbyes were sad farewells. I was not looking forward to long days without her.

Chapter 3 : Friends but only such

Ali McLean had arranged my wonderful two weeks with Doris Ravenchild. She had paid my old boss a lavish sum to get me free. I was now assigned to a seat on the shuttle sitting next to Ali. She was all smiles. Doris had told me, that the seats were all paired up. Whoever you shared the other seat with was your intimate for the next nine days. Curtains gave privacy but not with your partner.

I liked the woman, but coming down off Doris, my interest was not as strong as McLean's interest in me. She gave me the window seat but there was no window. She was all interest, as I settled in. The seats would be our beds and living room for the entire journey. I intended to make the best of it and drain her for every item of info I could get. But she might expect compensation.

Nothing much was special about the first two hours as we lifted off hanging from the shuttle tug plane. When the rockets fired, the seats automatically adjusted and the seats secured us in place. I was not eating anything because nothing had been offered and it was just as well. Hours later, loose items started floating by. We seemed to have stopped accelerating. After some time in maneuvering, we and the shuttle was secured into place, up front on what looked like a giant hydroelectric tower.

Strapped all about the Rig were large bags and cans of equipment. We saw this all on the monitors up front. The rig already had a multitude of rockets secured to the rear end. Folk were outside in Doris' mother's spacesuits, making sure everything was ship shape. About the time the rockets engaged, we were told it was rest time, and there was a small meal before bed time.

After the meal and a washup in the small washrooms, we readied ourselves for bed. There was only a little gravity and it was in the wrong places. So we used the handholds provided. Most of the other 46 men and women were Chinese and spoke what Ali told me was Mandarin. The most widely spoken language outside of English.

So this is how it went at sleep time. A curtain blocked most of the sound and all sight. It gave Ali and I privacy which she seemed to like and I not so much. The first time I slept, I woke a few hours later with her left hand over my legs. That started something I did out of self-defense. I held her hand every night for the rest of the journey. This only helped a little, as my grip would loosen as I slept and she slept lighter than I.

She told me that on the eighth day as the rig entered lunar orbit, she would go up front and I would get a new mate on the last night.