The Next Continent (8 page)

That's more like it
, thought Sohya. He folded his arms across his chest and nodded. But Feng's words might not have had quite as much impact coming after Tae's remarks.

Jiang and Cui, the two base members who came to meet them, saluted Feng. “Commander,” said Jiang, “we are ready to reorient the cargo vehicle.”

“Very good. Aomine, Tae—please stand clear.”

The two passengers moved away from Xiwangmu, and the Chinese astronauts began the difficult post-landing procedure. The cluster of modules comprising Kunlun Base was one hundred meters away. The cylindrical units were joined at a central core, like the petals of a flower. Xiwangmu 5 would be linked to the end of one of these modules. But before the giant module, tall as a five-story building, could be transported to its final position, it had to be laid on its side. On Earth, this would have called for a crane. The moon's low gravity, however, allowed for alternative procedures.

“Mass distribution data received, Commander,” said Jiang. “Ready to deploy shock mat.”

A flatbed automated moon rover, looking like a low-slung buggy, approached the landing site. Jiang hoisted a white, pillowshaped object off the rover—it was nearly as wide as his outspread arms—and placed it on the surface. He squatted by the object, triggered a switch, and quickly moved away. In an instant, the “pillow” inflated explosively to a drumlike shape five meters across.

“It's just like a pancake,” exclaimed Tae.

“It's a shock-absorbing mat. A gas cartridge takes care of inflation,” said Sohya.

“Is that where the module is going to fall?”

“That's right.”

Feng operated a remote control. A small, bird's nest–shaped thruster near the top of Xiwangmu began firing. The module started to list like a huge tree being felled. Feng immediately applied full power to the opposite thruster, minimizing Xiwangmu's lateral motion. It took a full twenty seconds for the huge cylinder to topple over onto the mat. Jets of gas erupted around the perimeter of the compressed cushion. Sohya muttered skeptically, “Pretty basic. What happens if they miss?”

Feng's voice came over his headset. “We never miss. Thruster control is completely automated. Xiwangmu is built to withstand this sort of handling. The mat was originally designed to raise overturned battle tanks. Compared to that, Xiwangmu's three and a half tons of effective mass is light as a feather.”

Feng toggled the remote, and gas began slowly escaping from the mat. Xiwangmu quietly settled onto the surface. The Chinese walked around the module, visually inspecting to confirm that no projecting elements had been damaged.

“This might seem primitive to you,” continued Feng, “but believe it or not, NASA used the same method to drop a probe onto the surface of Mars. It functioned flawlessly. Compared to that our method is quite gentle, don't you think?”

“How do you transport it to the base?”

“Simple. Watch.”

The four astronauts moved to the vehicle and rapidly fastened thin wires to reinforced attachment points. Their practiced motions suggested previous experience in a low-G training pool. The anchored wires were joined in a bundle and attached to a winch on the rover. Sohya asked in disbelief, “Are you going to roll it? You can't be serious.”

“That's exactly what we're going to do. Any objections?”

“No. But isn't that extremely risky? What happens if it snags on a rock? Or a wire breaks? Or you punch a hole in it? Just one mishap could end your plans to stay for another year.”

“The first Xiwangmu was positioned to avoid those problems. We chose a flat area free of rocks that might interfere with later modules. Since then we've attached three more modules without a hitch. Even if we're unable to move a module, there's no need to abandon it. We just leave it in place as a stand-alone unit. Going back and forth will be a little inconvenient, that's all.”

The rover shuddered as power was applied but barely seemed to be moving. Since it was smaller and lighter than a compact car, very slow speed in hauling the huge Xiwangmu might have been unavoidable. Still, it looked like the two-week lunar day would be over before it reached the base.

Feng confirmed this. Connecting the module would take at least till the end of the lunar day. Sohya felt a strange admiration: after four thousand years of history, the Chinese could be amazingly patient.

“We carry out the transfer in units of one revolution. Today we level the interior floor and we're done. Let me show you to the base—then I must return here.” Feng motioned toward the cluster of modules partially buried in lunar regolith. Sohya and Tae began walking toward them. Suddenly Sohya noticed that Crew IV member Cui was staring at them. Feng scolded him. “Cui! Stop wasting time. The only one who'll suffer is you!”

The man turned to his work, but several times his glance drifted back to Sohya and Tae.

THE SOLAR DAY
on Mare Imbrium was perhaps a third over. The surface was bathed in dazzling direct sunlight. With no atmospheric scattering, the flat surface scintillated in pure white. The dividing line between light and shadow on the distant Apennines was stark, but portions of the base in shadow could just be made out in the reflected light from the surface.

Out in space, the sun was perhaps thirty degrees from the zenith, surrounded by a fierce corona. Earth loomed hugely overhead, divided into equal portions of light and darkness. The stark clarity of surface, space, and Earth created an impression of intense three-dimensionality.

Sohya and Tae kept looking around at the landscape as they walked toward the base. Several times they stumbled. When they reached the air lock at the end of one of the modules, Tae murmured reluctantly that she wanted to see more, but Feng assured her there would be plenty of time for that later. They would be here for a week, and part of their stay would include observing operations on the lunar surface.

They climbed a collapsible stairway and entered the manholeshaped air lock about two meters above the surface. Each time the air lock was used, a certain amount of atmosphere was lost, so Sohya and Tae squeezed in together. There they waited for the air lock to be repressurized from the inside.

Once pressurization was complete, the inner hatch opened, and they removed their helmets. Base Commander Peng, the third member of Kunlun Crew IV, was waiting for them clad in a light T-shirt.

“Guests from Japan! We welcome you to Red Phoenix, the Kunlun Base lunar-surface research module.” Images of their arrival were being transmitted to Earth via a camera mounted on the ceiling. As if conscious of this, Peng grinned broadly and extended his right hand. Sohya assumed an appropriate smile and shook his hand, but Tae ignored him. Instead, she looked around and sniffed the air doubtfully.

Sohya whispered in Japanese, “Tae, don't forget your manners.”

“It smells like a ramen shop in here.”

“What?”

“The smell. I don't like the smell of cooking oil.” She frowned. Sohya hurriedly plastered on a smile again and tugged at her, forcing her to shake hands with Peng. Once the base commander's large hand enclosed her glove, she finally looked at him. In slightly stiff but clear English, she said, “I'm very happy to meet you, Commander Peng.”

“Welcome, Tae. Is something bothering you?”

“Well, it smells kind of—”

“Tae,” Sohya broke in, “it can wait. Let's get these suits off.”

“But…”

“Yes, that's a good idea,” said Peng. “You've been suited up since you transferred into
Chang'e
. You must be tired. And we've got some time before Cui hands off to Feng and comes back.” As he spoke, Peng moved toward the wall rack. Suddenly he slipped and, with a comical grab at the rack, barely prevented himself from falling. He clucked his tongue in frustration and looked up at the video camera.

“Beijing Control, I'm terminating the feed for a few minutes. Tae needs to remove her suit.” Peng entered a command on his wearcom, and the camera's indicator light went off. Without the observing eye, Peng's smile disappeared. “Now you can change,” he said in a businesslike tone.

Tae looked down at her suit and murmured, “Where do I go to change, again?”

Beneath their suits, Sohya and Tae were wearing just a spandex liner garment crisscrossed with thin tubing for coolant circulation. They would need additional clothing once they were out of their space suits.

“Uh-oh—our gear is still in Xiwangmu. We can't get to it right now,” said Sohya.

“Then you can use something of ours.” Peng went toward the rear of the module. Once he was out of sight, Sohya murmured, “That must've been embarrassing, losing his balance in front of the whole world.”

“The floor is wet.” Tae pointed. Sohya looked down at his feet. About two-thirds of the module's cylindrical interior was above the floor, which was composed of aluminum-alloy panels. The mesh panel was slick with some kind of liquid. Sohya traced the leak with his eyes and saw it coming from a patched pipe on the wall. He touched the liquid with a fingertip.

“Feels like glycol or something similar. Coolant for the airconditioning system. Not very tidy for the base entrance.”

“Sohya, I'm getting this weird feeling,” Tae whispered and grasped his hand. As he looked around, Sohya knew what she meant.

The entire space was a jumble of equipment. Peng's suit hung on the wall, along with digging tools, a crowbar, something that looked like a metal detector, and various other pieces of equipment, all of which seemed to have been carelessly stowed. Some of the gear was broken or damaged. Bundles of cables drooped from half-open cabinet doors like dead snakes. Several pipes were rusted, seemed about to come loose, or showed signs of having been patched here and there. Some of the pipes had been repaired with metal tape. The LED illumination panels in the ceiling were darkened with what looked like soot, and the mesh panels underfoot were gritty with lunar regolith. There was a strong odor of cooking oil and something else—a sweet smell, almost like honey. The module was large, probably thirty-five square meters, but the heaps of gear and materiel made for a gloomy and claustrophobic feel. Suddenly Sohya understood.

“I get it. Maybe he shut the camera off to hide all this. It looked a lot tidier in the PR video we saw.”

“It did. Sorry, but this looks like a junkya—” Just then Peng emerged from the rear of the module carrying two folded bundles of clothes. Tae fell silent.

Sohya's bundle consisted of a previously worn cotton shirt, trousers, and underwear. Tae unfolded her bundle and stared. “Is this from a flea market?” She was looking at a white, gownlike garment that would have reached to the knees of an adult. The gown could be closed with strings in front but was otherwise completely unadorned. And like Sohya's garments, it showed signs of having been worn recently.

“It's a med-lab gown,” said Peng. “I'm sorry, we don't have anything here for children to wear. I thought maybe if you tied it around your waist, it might look like a Chinese dress.”

“Tae, there's no washing machine on the base. Now that I remember, there's an unmanned supply ship every four months. It brings clean clothes. Until then they have to make do with what they have.”

Tae gripped the gown, looking as if she were fighting back tears. “So where's the changing room?”

Peng and Sohya looked at each other, then turned their backs at the same time.

“I'm sorry, Tae. We've never had a woman on our base before.”

“We won't look. Promise.”

The men heard a huge sigh and the sounds of Tae hurriedly changing out of her space suit.

[4]

THE BASE CLOCK
was set to Beijing standard time. By the time Sohya and Tae were out of their suits it was already one o'clock in the morning. A full-scale welcoming ceremony was planned for the following day, so they had a simple meal and tumbled into their sleep-station hammocks in the habitation module. When they awoke next morning, they found that Feng, Ma, and Jiang had already left to work on the Xiwangmu transfer. As they were finishing a breakfast of congee and deep-fried rolls, base engineer Cui joined them. He had apparently finished his work for the morning and offered to give them a tour.

“Kunlun Base is currently composed of four Xiwangmu modules, oriented toward the four points of the compass and several supplementary modules. Everything connects through the Topaz node.”

Cui pointed to a manhole-sized hatch at the south end of the habitation module with bundled hoses and tubing of all sizes snaking through it. The hatch opened into a spherical docking node originally intended for use in space. The node was 2.5 meters in diameter with identical hatches on all six axes.

“Yesterday you entered through the main air lock on the south module, the lunar-surface research module. We call it Red Phoenix. The west module, White Tiger, is the life sciences module. The east module is Azure Dragon, where we do medical studies. Azure Dragon is also the docking point for the unmanned supply vehicles. This north module, the habitation area, is Black Tortoise. The
Chang'e
emergency-escape orbiter is just outside.”