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Ken McConnellabout 5590 words
“Lunatic”by Ken McConnell“Alert, Alert. Contact lost with communications relay four,”the computerized female voice said in my ear piece. She soundedvaguely Japanese and spoke in a dispassionate tone.I was outside, repairing a mesh antenna that had beenpierced by a tiny meteor. It didn’t happen as much as you mightthink; in fact, in over five years of living on the far side ofthe moon, this was only the second time the array had beenstruck by a meteor. I continued to work on the antenna; thecomputer was always losing contact with the communicationsrelays. After a few minutes of trying in vain, it usuallystarted the realignment routine and then established contact. Iwaited for the usual retraction that came after the initialalert, but it never came.I started to wonder if I had lost contact with the computer.I looked up at the antenna high over my head. The Free SpaceOptical laser antenna was pointing at my habitat on the far edgeof the crater; it converted my suit communications into lightbeams and sent them back to the computer.I couldn't use radio signals because they interfered withthe giant radio receiver that encompassed much of the crater itwas built into, and because radio signals gave me one mother ofa migraine.“Computer, what is the status of the communications arrayalignment?”“The communications array is offline. Realignmentprocedures are continuing.”That was odd; it never took that long to reacquire themirrors. They must have been blasting again at the new base onthe near side. I started wrapping up my repair operation. Therobot mule was standing to my left, patiently waiting for me togive the word to head back. It had limited AI, about as much asa real mule would have, but it was considerably more obedient.It had four legs that let it scramble up lunar landscapes betterthan I could. I let it carry my extra oxygen and various piecesof heavy equipment that I couldn't easily carry myself. I hadnamed it Gem.
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I looked down at Gem and slid some tools into the toolpouch. With my attention away from the habitat, I didn't seethe meteor strike, but I saw the flash and I felt the groundripple under my feet; it tossed Gem and me like rag dollsagainst the floor of the crater. My face mask was completelycovered with moon dust as I lay upside down and sliding down theinside of the crater. Pieces of metal and other debris impactedthe regolith around me, but luckily didn't hit my suit. Ifrantically smeared the gray dust away from my visor in aneffort to see what had happened.I could see the black of space and the top of the near rimof the crater, but I couldn't see my habitat. Parts of theradio antenna were gone and those parts were coming back downlike deadly metal arrows. I covered my head, expecting to benailed and have my fragile space suit ripped open. Nothinghappened. I opened my eyes and saw the silent metal rain comedown around me but somehow it all miraculously missed me.I tried to right myself by spinning around on my back andthen rolling over to push up with my arms. It took me a whileto get upright because of the bulky spacesuit, and when I did, Inoticed Gem struggling to get back over to me from a few metersaway. There was a jagged piece of metal stuck in the robot'sside like a horse struck by a spear. Aside from beingcompletely covered in gray lunar dust, the robot appeared to beotherwise fine. It stopped beside me and stood somewhat shakilyon its four animal-like legs.I reached out with my gloved hand and patted it on the side.Something made me treat the damn thing like it was alive and Ican't explain why. Maybe because it was the closest thing to acompanion that I had on the far side of the moon, maybe becauseof the way the robotics engineers mimicked a real animal indesigning its legs. I pulled out the metal fragment and tossedit aside. Gem didn’t seem to be much affected by its removal."Looks like it's just you and me now Gem," I said to thething, even though it could not hear me now that the computerrelaying our communications was destroyed.I looked back up at the rim where the meteor had hit. Icould see a new secondary rim where my habitat once stood. Notgood.It took us a while to hike up the crater wall from where wewere. It was only a few kilometers away up the graded slope tothe new crater. Gem ambled along beside me and then movedforward a bit to more firm ground. I stared into the hole thatused to be my home. I wondered how long it would be until I wasrescued.
If
, I were rescued. I was the only person living on
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the far side of the moon.Contrary to popular belief, there is no dark side of themoon, but there is a quiet side. For years astronomers hadwanted to build radio antennas on the far side of the moon. Byusing the entire moon as a buffer from the radio noise comingfrom our pale blue transmitter, scientists were allowed tosurvey the depths of space without interference from man-madedevices. The first array was about the size of a football fieldand was unmanned. The second array filled most of the largeDaedalus crater and required a full time maintenance person tokeep it running. That’s where I came in.They'd needed someone to work alone for extended periods oftime, and not go insane from the solitude. I was the man forthe job. I was born with an unusual condition which left meultra-sensitive to radio signals of any kind; I was forced tolive in a RF free bubble for most of my life. I couldn't leavethe protective confines of my specially built home on Earthwithout being crippled to the point of inaction by all theextraneous radio waves that bounced around the modern atmosphere.In order to experience life outside my home, I had to go tosome of the most remote places on Earth, and even then, I stillsuffered low grade migraines. For a long while I lived in adeep sea habitat, but even that was insufficient to shield mefrom the constant transmissions. When I heard of the opening onthe far side of the moon, I applied for the job and got it.Once here, for the first time in my life, I experienced quiet.I'd finally found a home.#Because of the radio silence required by the huge telescopeI maintained, there were no radio links from my habitat to thenear side of the moon. Instead, there were a series of laserrelay stations from crater rim to mountain top from Daedaluscrater to Montes Cordillera. The first relay point was atopIcarus crater close to two hundred kilometers away. My onlyhope was to jack into that relay and use it to send an SOS tothe near side. I needed the moon buggy to make that trip, butthe buggy had been parked next to the habitat and was completelydestroyed by the impact.I looked around on the ground and could see the rays ofejecta that extended away from the new crater in all directions.It was beautiful even knowing that it used to be my home. Themoon was the harshest environment I had ever encountered. Justwhen you thought you had command over it, something happened toremind you that you were still at the mercy of the cosmos.
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