Moonday Read online

  www.jfclayton.com

  J F Clayton

  Moonday

  www.jfclayton.com

  First Edition 2018 by J.F. Clayton

  Copyright © J.F. Clayton 2018

  J.F. Clayton has asserted her right under the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are fictitious and a product of the author’s imagination.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  Written by J.F. Clayton

  Book cover original artwork by: C. Campbell

  Book cover design by: Intentional Promotions

  ISBN no: 978-0-9935521-4-4

  Published in Great Britain by Intentional Promotions www.intentionalpromotions.com

  Thanks to Denise, Susanne, Rebecca, Hannah, Jamie, Caroline, Rob, Alison and to all the people who made it possible to go to the Moon.

  Chapters

  Alpha 12 - Moon Base

  Arrival

  First week

  First Annual Opening

  Lost Contact

  Second Meeting

  Third Meeting

  Final Meeting

  First return

  First wait

  Omega 13

  Contract renewal

  Moonday Six

  Moonday Eight

  Second renewal

  Moonday Ten

  Moonday twelve

  Third renewal

  Moonday fourteen

  Ganymede’s Captain’s log –

  Second Return

  Second wait

  Motherly love

  Moonday Sixteen

  Third return

  Landing

  Back on the Moon

  Alpha 12 - Moon Base

  Date: Sunday 25th September 2157 - 14:23 CET

  I never asked to be born, but if I would have, I would never have asked to be the first person born on the Moon. Apparently as Steve had told him that’s what you get when you send Irish Catholics into space.

  Patrick frowned as he kicked hard against the closed door of his room. He hated his mother. It was so unfair that she’d sent him to his room. He didn’t deserve it. He knew he’d been clumsier than normal though. He gulped, and tears appeared in his eyes. It was just that he hadn’t yet mastered the new dimensions of his body. He felt the corners of his mouth turning down and knew he looked just as sad and helpless as he felt. He tried, but failed, to comfort himself with the belief that it wasn’t really his fault. He glanced down at his guilty arms dangling awkwardly by the side of his body, then he looked at his legs, which were shaking a little. A fresh wave of injustice swept over him, and the tears returned. He wiggled his legs to distract himself from the tears, then looked at them angrily, almost as if he was trying to give them the blame. He thought about how much they’d grown over the last six months, and his chest expanded with indignation at unfairness of his life. He hadn’t got used to his new height yet. He glanced at the bruises on the back of his hands as he raised them and turned them over. He thought about his constant stumbling and having to save himself from falling with his hands and arms. He shook his hands gently. It seemed to him as if the bruises had always been there.

  Frustrated, Patrick shrugged his shoulders to try and get rid of the gloomy feeling. Then, as he leaned against the door and slowly and deeply breathed in and out a few times, he felt his facial muscles relaxing. He even managed a weak smile. He didn’t know it, but he looked good with his short red-brown hair, his Irish complexion and his green eyes, especially when he smiled. His expression hardened back into a frown as he tried to remember what Paul had told him, how to calm down when he was annoyed.

  Patrick liked Paul and automatically smiled when he thought of him. They were friends. Paul was the second youngest technician, after Patrick, on the Moon Base. Patrick was aware that he was still an apprentice, but he liked to pretend he had already qualified.

  Patrick remembered that Paul had told him that he could understand Patrick’s worries because he himself was very tall. At 188 centimetres Patrick was getting closer to Paul’s height. Paul knew that Patrick was worried about how tall he was growing and had explained it was quite normal for teenagers to have a growth spurt. Paul had smiled and even laughed a little as he explained that the growth spurt would not last forever. He’d tried to reassure Patrick that this growing phase only lasted a few months at most. He could clearly remember his own adolescence and stressed that it would soon be over.

  This recollection calmed him down a little. Patrick tried to convince himself that he wasn’t really worried about his size, but he knew that this was a lie. He was worried because the Moon Base was built for people under 2 Metres tall. He felt his face becoming sad again. He didn’t want to be too big for the Moon Base and he really did hope that his growing phase would soon be over.

  Looking for something to distract him, Patrick glanced to his left and saw the small black marks on the door frame. He smiled as his eyes flicked from the lowest to the highest mark. They had recorded his height there ever since he was five years old. Paul had helped him to draw the lines. He smiled broader as he remembered the story. It had been such a great idea. There had been that little problem in the beginning, the Sauberbots had classified the marks as undesirable and had repaired them every night. That had gone on for a few months until Paul suggested that they reprogram the Sauberbots. Patrick didn’t know back then what that meant, but he recognised Paul’s enthusiasm and wanted to try anyway. He trusted Paul and had been sure it would be fun.

  The task turned out to be more difficult than they had expected. At first, they tried to teach the Sauberbots that the markings were part of the interior decoration. Unfortunately, this hadn’t worked. So, Paul had tried something else and it had taken Paul a while to teach the Sauberbots that the markings were modern art. Patrick remembered how Paul had laughed really hard when he saw that the markings had survived their first night. Patrick glanced at the markings again and smiled, it was now ten years later, and they were still there. Patrick didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t know exactly what modern art was and he suspected that the Sauberbots didn’t either. Patrick had asked Paul what it was a few years after the reprogramming, and Paul had told him that it wasn’t easy to define, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to reprogram the machines so easily. Paul had laughed, and Patrick wasn’t sure why.

  He was proud that he had learnt to program a little and enjoyed when he had the opportunity to modify Paul’s code. He looked over at the pile of dirty laundry in the middle of his room and nodded appreciatively as he smiled to himself. He had come a long way with reprogramming the Sauberbots. He wanted to see how big his pile of clothes could get before the little robots started cleaning things up. Paul had told Patrick that the Sauberbots knew they were clothes because each piece of clothing was discreetly chipped on the Moon Base. Paul had smiled as he stressed that the clothing chips were only used to make sure they didn’t get lost. Patrick stood up straighter as he looked at his pile of clothes and he smiled with pride, he was conducting his own experiment, just like his mother experimented in her laboratory.

  He sniffed his armpit and wondered if he should throw another piece of clothing on it. He pulled a face. He was too lazy to change his clothes. Usually he relied on Beatriz and Paul’s help to tell him when it was time to change. He shook his head gently as he decided against it. It wasn’t necessary yet, and anyway, his clothes hadn’t been soiled during the small incident in the lab.

  He hadn’t wanted to
break anything, especially not the test tubes. He sighed. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember all the different names of the scientific equipment. But he was sure that his mother was more bothered by it than he was. He did feel ashamed of his ignorance. He remembered that when he was younger, he’d desperately wanted to learn what his mother did at work, but after many hiccups in the lab, his enthusiasm had waned. Lately she had been dismissive towards him, and the last time he suggested that he could help her, she had made it clear to him that she didn’t need his help while she was at work.

  It was Paul’s fault that they had tried to work together again. He had suggested that Patrick needed a little work experience before he could decide what he wanted to do with his life. The other eight people on the Moon Base had readily agreed with Paul’s plan. They wanted to help Patrick. And because the others were willing to take part, his mother had been left with no choice. It had been his mother’s turn today and he should have spent the day at work with her. Patrick remembered Paul had argued with his mother, Dervla, and that in the end she had reluctantly given in and agreed to them working together.

  Patrick had already worked in his mother’s laboratory and didn’t want to do it again, but he also didn’t want to offend his mother either, so he reluctantly went along with the plan. Tears came into his eyes as he remembered how mean and condescending she had sounded as she told him that under no circumstances did glass go in the Re-Do Recycle bin. He could clearly hear her words, “Surely you should know that. You aren’t a toddler anymore.”

  Of course, Patrick knew that you only put plastic into Re-Do Recycle bins and not glass. He knew that glass would destroy the Re-Do Nanobot. He’d just wanted to clean up after he had broken the test tubes. He shivered slightly before kicking hard against the closed door. It hurt him, but he was so frustrated and angry that he didn’t really notice the pain in his toes.

  Someone saw his pain. A quiet voice sounded in his head or did it come over the intercom? “Use the punchbag.”

  Without thinking about it, Patrick lowered the punchbag with the Re-Do logo from the ceiling recess, took the Pulsera of his wrist and placed it on the small bedside table before starting his training. The effect was fast, and he felt it in his whole body. He felt himself getting happier and calmer as he fought his frustration with each blow. The dull, spasmodic pain in his arms disappeared a little with every movement.

  After most of his frustration had disappeared, Patrick realised he was tired. He held the punchbag, and before stopping the swing, he put his sweaty face against it and let his body rock back and forth. It occurred to him that he would soon be sixteen. He grinned. She couldn’t send him to his room anymore when he was sixteen.

  He turned around and went over to his bed. Irritated and clumsy, he threw himself on the bed and bumped his head against the wall. He noticed the pain, but he didn’t react. Instead, he sank onto the bed and made himself comfortable. He was bored and wasn’t sure what to do next.

  Peter, whose voice it had been, observed Patrick, wondering how far he was allowed to step over the boundary of the boy’s privacy. He justified his surveillance by telling himself that it was his job to enforce the privacy policies, and he had to occasionally ignore the policies to ensure the general security of the Moon Base. He’d watched Patrick for a while before he decided to do something about it. He hadn’t wanted to leave the boy alone. He tapped his console and called Paul and asked him succinctly to take Patrick to Beatriz as soon as possible. She needed to check his right foot. Then he transferred the permission to enter Dervla and Patrick’s suite to Paul’s Security-Pulsera.

  Paul thanked the Moon Major and parked the two robots that he was using. As he turned around to go, he heard a soft rumbling from the small wheels on his toolbox. He turned around and said, “Stay there,” as he walked off and left his work behind.

  The clothing chips made it especially easy for Peter to locate everyone. As Peter watched Paul walk lankily towards Patrick’s room, he rested his head in his hands and sighed. Didn’t he have anything better to do than spy on people? From reading Paul’s medical record, he knew that Paul had had a growth problem as a teenager. Paul was still a little clumsy, and Peter assumed that was the reason he and Patrick got along so well. Paul had an excuse for his clumsiness. He’d inherited damaged DNA from his father. His father had wanted to become a professional athlete and had taken a new growth drug when he was a teenager. The impact for Paul’s father had been great, but the problems for his children only became clear later. When Paul was a teenager, he’d been forced to take a growth stopping medication, otherwise he would have grown much taller. Here on the Moon, DNA damage was a delicate matter. The shields were rarely used and the normal artificial deflecting field around the Moon Base was not effective enough to protect everyone from all cosmic rays. The decision had been made that a five year stay on the Moon would probably not cause significant DNA damage, but Paul wouldn’t be able to renew his contract of employment after that. Peter chuckled to himself. Paul’s contract had now been extended three times.

  Peter called Beatriz and warned her that Patrick and Paul were coming to the infirmary and asked if she could also check if Paul was taking the right dose of medication. Beatriz seemed a little distracted, but she nodded. Peter hung up pleased with himself.

  Paul looked at his Security-Pulsera. He had access to Patrick’s room and could have gone straight in, but he didn’t really want to intrude. For a few moments he smiled as he looked at the childish picture of the two moons that they’d painted on the door years ago, then he knocked on the door and announced loudly that he was there.

  Patrick jumped up, it was Paul. Fantastic. He opened the door and smiled broadly. As he walked towards Paul, his forgotten Pulsera beeped. Patrick looked at his left wrist and was surprised that his Pulsera was missing. As he turned around to get it he smiled because he was the only Moon Base person who was important enough to always have to wear a modified Pulsera that was specially adapted by Dervla. The others wore an authorisation device, called a Security-Pulsera, but Patrick’s Pulsera monitored his health, and he liked that. With a practised art he put it on and smiled as he felt the cold metal against his wrist.

  They left the suite together and went down the stairs to Beatriz’s infirmary. Patrick noticed the Sun shining through the window and the staircase lit with natural light. He looked out of the window and saw the slow flashing play of light, which meant that the solar panels were in motion. The light show was amusing, and it made Patrick smile. He liked the sunlight and seeing how the light was reflected, but he was only allowed to spend a small amount of time actually in the Sun. There was always a reason why it was too dangerous. He looked forward to when he would be able to enjoy the Sun without thinking about it, when he was finally on Earth.

  It didn’t take long before they arrived on the first floor and passed the large meeting room before they reached the infirmary. The gym was on the other side, and at the moment it was pretty quiet in there. Beatriz didn’t hear them coming in and she continued with what she was doing. Patrick wasn’t sure what she was up to, but she seemed to be treating herself or at least he could see that she was using a medication button. It looked similar to the medication button that Europa had used when she had had a bad cold. Patrick actually didn’t know what a cold was, he’d never had one himself, but he had the impression that it wasn’t good.

  Paul asked gently and curiously why she didn’t regulate it automatically. Beatriz looked at him surprised that he was there and replied that she was experimenting. Paul nodded and pointed his thumb at Patrick. Beatriz examined her necklace before she smiled and showed the richness of her wrinkles. She looked at Patrick with compassion. She felt sorry for him because he was the only child and the nine adults didn’t have much time for him. She asked Patrick to sit on a comfy chair and as she looked at him she remembered that there were now only six adults who didn’t have much time for him.

  Beatriz glanced at Paul’s si
lver Security-Pulsera that he was wearing on his right arm. He knew what to do and without taking it off, he put his Security-Pulsera on the electronic scale. It only took a few seconds for it to beep. Beatriz glanced at the screen and smiled at him. Everything was in the clear. Paul took his arm back, waved to Patrick, nodded goodbye and went back to his work.

  Before Beatriz examined Patrick’s toes, she asked him to blow into the Smellaid, hard enough to see the lights come on. She looked at the device and smiled. She took his foot in her hand and felt his toes. Everything was fine. She hadn’t expected anything else. His bones were particularly strong. For a moment she was confused. She wanted to do a DNA test on Patrick and she didn’t know why she had forgotten.

  Peter switched the surveillance system back to automatic and turned his thoughts to the annual meeting that was going to take place tomorrow morning. They needed to discuss the future of the Moon Base, and he didn’t know what he was going to say. He pondered for a while, going over the same old thoughts and wasn’t surprised when he found nothing new there. His eyes scanned the faces in the first team photo. The twelve young smiling faces looked at him with hope and enthusiasm. Pent-up anger rose up in his chest. He felt responsible for the situation and had no solution. Ashamed, he turned his eyes away from the photo, and it was then that it occurred to him, Patrick was about to turn sixteen.

  Arrival

  Date: Wednesday 7th October 2139 - 10:02 CET

  Location: Alpha 12 - Moon Base

  Peter took off his helmet and thought that he could feel a gentle breeze on his cheek. He turned his head towards where he thought the breeze was coming from and took a moment to enjoy breathing in the fresh air. He could feel himself relaxing and experienced the joy of the cool, clean air that slowly cleansed his lungs. He smiled, and his eyes shone as he looked around. He was relieved as he realised that they were finally here, and he was pleasantly surprised that space actually smelled a little like the sweet, agreeable aroma of barbecued meat. Hesitantly he looked closer at his surroundings and his eyes blinked involuntarily. He smiled broadly and almost laughed. They were finally here. He had waited a long time for this day. The journey, because of the advantageous position of the Earth and the Moon, had lasted just over three days. After twelve people, one less than normal, had spent three days in the Moon shuttle, the air quality wasn’t the best. He wasn’t aware of the gentle shaking of his head as he remembered the space authorities at Columbus claimed that the air was still good even after a journey that lasted several days, and they insisted that there was no reason to accelerate the Moon shuttle. Peter thought about their explanation that they were bringing supplies, and they were more important than the extra fuel needed to travel faster. He accepted the explanation, but they had also claimed that the journey time had no effect on air quality, because efficient air filters were in use throughout the journey. It didn’t matter what they claimed, he still thought the air smelled musty.