Lunar

This story is for persons of eighteen years or over. All comments, good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered.

Part One

This is a history of me, not of the moon though I will have to tell you some of it for you to understand what it was like to be born, live and eventually leave it. My name is Jon and I'm a metallurgist aboard the lunar ship Adastra homeward bound. I doubt there'll be many who remember us leaving but I'm sure we'll get a good welcome. They will want to know all that happened on a long epic voyage which is why I thought I'd better start writing this now.

So I'll go back fifty five years, but on second thoughts, I'll back even further than that to say, 2268. That is earth time of course for this was the year that it had been decided that it was time to establish a colony on the moon. The purpose was to use the moon as a jumping off place for exploration of another solar system because of the overcrowding and lack of resources to continue to feed the growing population that was multiplying in leaps and bounds on earth itself.

It was a multinational enterprise to put men on the moon with the intent of establishing living accommodation for future settlers with the further aim of space exploration. I've used an archaic word in our vocabulary because we are one nation on the moon. We are neither English, American, Chinese, Indian, Japanese or any other of the races on Earth. We are Lunarians and proud of the fact. We have dispensed with caste, colour and creed and live in harmony by doing so. It was only expediency that the language we use is English with it being standard in the world of communication.

Technology at that time had increased enormously and they were quite capable of getting many ships up into space to take up orbit around the earth and build on that. Setting up a huge storage platform that became a way station for supplies to those who would be working on the moon's surface. That alone took twenty four years and it was another six before they began to start on making any kind of settlement on the moon.

They'd had thousands of workers at the space station building a ship that was eventually set down on the moon. It wasn't quite a crash landing but more of a settling down craft that only had one purpose, to be landed and then be used as a home and base for those who were going to work, live and die up on the moon.

These people were the true settlers for the hardship at the beginning was very harsh. One mistake meant death; not just for the one making the error, but possibly for more of his co-workers. Oxygen was their biggest problem until they could build a dome that was sealed for breathable air to be pumped in for them to work without wearing their cumbersome suits.

Of course there were mishaps in those early years. One pod exploded and another ruptured killing at least thirty men. But they learnt from these accidents and began building in pressure doors that with the slightest drop they would slam shut. They still lost men through either a not very sensitive door system or one that was too sensitive, crushing two workers in its premature closing.

In spite of this, there was always a supply of workers, for every year they worked on the moon, not only was the pay good but their retirement age was reduced by five years. So if a man began work on the moon at the age of twenty and stayed alive for ten, he could go back to earth and not work for the rest of his life. Though this was only in theory for most would only work for three years before returning home.

With nuclear energy common use by now what with the depleted oil resources of earth, this was to be the main power source on the moon. Solar energy was used to power the massive diggers to dig to a depth of nearly half a mile for the first nuclear power house. This was in the middle of the Mare Imbrium, well north of the massive crater called Copernicus.

Above this would be built the city or town whatever you like to call it, and it was given the name of Neptune. This would be the hub of six villages for want of a better word having the names of Aral, Baltic, Coral, Red, White and Yellow, all named after seas on earth. They would be connected to the hub like spokes of a wheel, all heated and lit from Neptune, going out through a short tunnel that opened out into massive gardens at the end of which, were the living quarters. So at the end of each spoke were five flats to accommodate ten adults and ten children making a total of one hundred and twenty persons per city.

Neptune City was a social disaster and almost led to internecine warfare and it took two generations to stop this with the advent of other cities being constructed. Race and religion were the basic fundamentals of this and therefore it was decreed that the words Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian no longer existed and that they were all mankind. Colour and race were actively encouraged to intermingle so that now, we are all of an almost equal colour being neither white nor black but different shades of brown.

It took nearly two hundred years for the settlements to begin to live harmoniously and in that space of time, there were now over two hundred such city pods scattered about over the Mare Ibrium.

Tobacco and narcotic substances had not been allowed on the moon and everybody became vegetarians because livestock couldn't be supported. The oxygen made through the technology given us, was only just enough to support the humans and the growing of vegetables and fruit trees. That is why in between each spoke of the city's wheel, there were gardens. A loose term really for they were more fields of about ten acres each. These, like everywhere else, were sectioned off in case of an air leak, and covered with specially made glass to protect not only us but the plants themselves from the ultra violet rays of the sun. Not only that, but insulated us from the excessive cold when it was our night. Not having an atmosphere, the moon was subjected to terrific heat during our daylight hours and intense freezing conditions during our dark periods.

Everybody carried a two minute oxygen pack and nowhere in the complex were you that far away from an emergency oxygen point. If there were to be a major rupture of the covering, especially at night, then you had no hope.

But let us move up to more modern times to the city that I came from which, being the furthest north, was given the name North City. Then some wit from the past named the six villages after that mythical man Santa Claus' reindeer, me belonging to Vixen.

The hub of the city, the very centre was a recreational area, planted with trees and benches, within which was the access down to the reactor. Now six avenues went out from here, the spokes, to the villages at the end. Now on all six corners were the buildings that fed, educated and looked after us as a community. Between North and North East Avenues were the children's crèche and behind that, the accommodation for visiting people from wherever. Going clockwise, the next building before East Avenue was the cinema at the front and behind it the workshops, where I finished up learning the practical side of metallurgy.

Carrying on was the clinic and behind was the hospital and also what I've always known as the Happy Rooms. I'll come back to that later. Between South and South West was the library which I must say was very well stocked. Behind that was the advanced school, for those just finishing off their education but more on the lines of what their final vocation was to be.

The next set of buildings held the forum hall which was more like a lecture hall with the rising tiers of seats looking down to the podium. Here debates were held as well as being the centre of our local representatives who had offices below the seating area. I will discuss each building in turn later for all I'm doing now is giving you the geography of the city's hub. Behind the forum hall was the intermediate school.

The last block between North West Avenue and North held the enormous Café le North, behind which was the vast kitchens.

It's difficult to know exactly where to begin so let's start with the social strata. Everybody over the age of eighteen is allowed to vote every four years to elect the Mayor and his two assistants. It must be a two thirds majority to be carried and sometimes it has gone on for three or four votes before the final selection has been made. The major laws are simple and laid down so all they have to do is settle minor disputes and attend a meeting at Neptune twice a year to get information on the latest technology from earth which would be applicable or may be of help to us. Their other function is, along with the senior doctor, is to make the selections of those of marriageable age for the subsequent pairings.

We don't have marriages as such on the moon. They are matings for every woman is expected to bear two, and only two children in her lifetime, one boy and one girl. Nature has been overcome in the random stakes of the sex of a child and can now be predetermined by the correct usage of the hormone treatment available now.

It is not a question of a boy and girl falling in love though they can argue the case later and quite often they can win. The meeting of mates as it's called is twice yearly and the committee of three plus the doctor, suggest which two persons should mate.

The female is given a choice of three men she would live with for the purpose of procreation and likewise the men are given the names of three women. To refuse all three, the woman was liable to find herself cast out to another city village and the same applied to the men. But this was purely for the fact that the persons involved very seldom knew who their father was and so it was done on this selection basis so that sister and brother didn't mate.

Most times this worked. Both of twenty years of age would be coupled to live in one of the villages for the purpose of having a child to continue the life of the city. The woman would be given the hormone injections to ensure that the first child was either a boy or a girl and then later, to have one of the opposite sex.

Now it was never a marriage in the old sense of the word though they lived together till the second child was born. It was then their choice if they wanted to continue to live together or part. In my case, my parents parted after my sister was born. Some couples stayed together for the rest of their lives, some didn't.

Homosexuality or lesbianism was not frowned upon for at least it satisfied the participants and obviated the necessity of birth control which was paramount considering the accommodation availability. This leads me on to the aspect of sex in our society which is quite open. A man and a woman mate at the age of twenty for the purpose of begetting children but everybody knows that both sexes feel their oats well before this time, hence the Happy Rooms.

Nearly everybody from the age of thirteen begins to have sexual desires and it is here in the Happy Rooms that they are introduced and taught about sex. Of course it is the boys who are the first to present themselves after their thirteenth birthday to learn about what to do with what they have between their legs, and there is never a shortage of women to help them in this.

It is not a place of prostitution and never has been for now over three hundred years there has never been any accusation of rape. Women feel the need as much as men and so they are quite free to go to the Happy Rooms and have sex whenever they want. When it is known that a young cherry boy is of age, there are many who would like the honour of being his first and become his teacher.

It is a place to go when you had the urge and there was always a few women and sometimes a man or two willing to have sex. It was where I spent many hours of my early manhood years. All the women were on birth control injections and it had been known for a mother and son to meet up in there. Whether a father and son met up I don't know.

But to get back to the mother and father, it was their choice after two children whether they stayed together or not and quite often I would get home and find that I had a new man living in our flat. I never did bother to find out who my actual father was for such was our life that no one cared, it was only the council as we called them, knew from their records as to whom I could mate with when I was of the right age so that it wasn't my sister.

So a child, once it was weaned, finished up in the crèche whilst the mother worked at her job. This crèche was more of an infant's school for they began straight away to teach us to read and write.

Then it was into the intermediate school and it was here that your future was decided. The main themes were medicine, technology, physics, astronomy, electronics, horticulture and metallurgy. Needless to say I came out bottom and finished up working with metals, which incidentally saved my life in later years.

After this it was the advanced school for some, though for me, it was the workshop. Here, the oxyacetylene torch had been replaced many years ago by the laser torch. This didn't need oxygen but it was a very dangerous tool to work with. In an atmosphere, you could see the beam but outside on the moon's surface, light does not show in a vacuum, just the actually point of burning. More than one past pupil had lost a couple of fingers because of this lack of beam.

I learned to cut, weld and deal with all metals both inside and outside and could cut a fine straight line of only a hundredth of a millimetre width with the laser torch. That was why I was selected for the position I now hold to which we will come to later.

Mind you, I couldn't have been that stupid when you consider the jobs that were on offer in the city. Each village held ten adults so that made sixty in all and most of us did a turn at the various jobs in the hub. Here is a breakdown of the workforce. Twelve gardeners, two per ten acres. Two worked in the library, four in the kitchens and four in the café and one in the cinema. These were the lowest of positions really. Then came the crèche employing three before the children were passed onto the intermediate school where there were four teachers. We had two people who worked on maintenance, a rather in the middle of the road kind of occupation.

Next came the machinery section and workshops which took care of another ten people before we went on to the advance school that had four teachers. The crème de la crème were the four who ran the clinic and medical school as well as took care of the hospital. These latter did not rotate as did the manual workers which the ten others filled about every three months so that everybody had an equal amount of time off.

Each home had its own kitchen and television recorder to eat and relax or you could go down to the city and eat and drink in the café. Even go to the cinema or spend an hour in the Happy Rooms if you wanted to. Every garden contributed to the café kitchen and everybody could eat there if they wished. We didn't have money for everything was free. We worked, lived and shared everything.

I must just point out about drink for it was what is known as a home brew, but with a difference. It could get you into a high but not make you drunk for after four pints, it would make you feel ill and that put paid to drunkenness. So without a penny in your pocket, you could go and eat and drink, go to the cinema and then go and get your end away in the Happy Rooms. Where else on earth could you get this? The only difference at home was that you didn't have the drink.