Space

Space Read Free

Book: Space Read Free
Author: Stephen Baxter
Tags: SF
Ads: Link
data nets. Nothing to do with now.
    "Then why do you continue to argue, to talk, to expose yourself to ridicule?" she said.
    "Because..." Because if nobody thinks it, it definitely won't happen.
    She was smiling at him; she seemed to understand. "The kokuminsei, the spirit of your people, is asleep," she said. "But in you, and perhaps others, curiosity burns strong. I think we two should defy the spirit of our age."
    "Why have you brought me here?"
    "I am seeking to resolve a koan," she said. "A conundrum that defies logical analysis." Her face lost its habitual smile, for the first time since they'd met. "I need a fresh look -- a perspective from a big thinker, someone like you. And..."
    "Yes?"
    "I am afraid, I think," she said. "Afraid for the future of the species."
    The tractor worked its way across the Moon, following a broad, churned-up path. Nemoto offered him more food.
     
    The tractor drew up at an air lock at the outskirts of Edo. A big NASDA symbol was painted on the lock: NASDA for Japan's National Space Development Agency. With a minimum of fuss, Nemoto led Malenfant through the air lock and into Edo, into a colony on the Moon.
    Here, at its periphery, Edo was functional. The walls were bare, of fused, glassy regolith. Ducts and cables were stapled to the roof. People wore plain, disposable paper coveralls. There was an air of bustle, of heavy industry.
    Nemoto led him through Edo, a gentle guided tour. "Of course the station is a great achievement," she said. "No less than ninety-five flights of our old H-2 rockets were required to ferry accommodation modules and power plants here. We build beneath the regolith, for shelter from solar radiation. We bake oxygen from the rocks, and mine water from the polar permafrost..."
    At the center of the complex, Edo was a genuine town. There were public places: bars, restaurants where the people could buy rice, soup, fried vegetables, sushi, sake. There was even a tiny park, with shrubs and bamboo grass; a spindly lunar-born child played there with his parents.
    Nemoto smiled at Malenfant's reaction. "At the heart of Edo, ten meters beneath lunar regolith, there are cherry trees. Our children study beneath their branches. You may stay long enough to see ichi-buzaki, the first state of blossoming."
    Malenfant saw no other Westerners. Most of the Japanese nodded politely. Many must have known Nemoto -- Edo supported only a few hundred inhabitants -- but none engaged her in conversation. His impression of Nemoto as a loner, rather eccentric, was reinforced.
    As they passed one group he heard a man whisper, "Wah! Gaijin-kusai."
    Gaijin-kusai. The smell of foreigner. There was laughter.
    Malenfant spent the night in what passed for a ryokan, an inn. His apartment was tiny, a single room. But, despite the bleak austerity of the fused-regolith walls, the room was decorated Japanese style. The floor was tatami -- rice-straw matting -- polished and worn with use. A tokonoma, an alcove carved into the rock, contained an elaborate data net interface unit; but the owners had followed tradition and had hung a scroll painting there -- of a dragonfly on a blade of grass -- and some flowers, in an ikebana display. The flowers looked real.
    There was a display of cherry blossom leaves fixed to the wall under clear plastic. The contrast of the pale living pink with the gray Moon rock was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
    In this tiny room he was immersed in noise: the low, deep rumblings of the artificial lungs of the colony, of machines plowing outward through the regolith. It was like being in the belly of a huge vessel, a submarine. Malenfant thought wistfully of his own study: bright Iowa sunlight, his desk, his equipment.
    Edo kept Tokyo time, so Malenfant, here on the Moon, suffered jet lag. He slept badly.
     
    Rows of faces.
    "How are we to populate the Galaxy? It's actually all a question of economics." Over Malenfant's head a virtual image projected in the air of the

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