The Moon is Not For Sale

By Wallace Provost

Life on the Moon is not all it’s cut out to be. Temperatures both day and night are deadly and unbearable. There are few places to hide from the blistering heat and the freezing cold. However, two people are determined to make it work, despite the danger and difficulty that challenges their dreams. Annie Taylor, a law student, came to the moon to harvest Helium 3, a precious element that not only solved the energy crisis, but also prevented World War III.

Trapped on the moon during a Helium storm, she is saved by Clint Baker and taken to his family’s ranch, started by Tex and Dolly Baker, who simply wanted to create a bit of their Dallas, Texas home on the strange and airless moon. Although Annie must return to Earth to solve her sister’s murder, she follows the murderer when he escapes to the Moon. Once there, her life becomes a complicated series of events involving power, control, and law. Appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Moon, she must arrange a world where the land is not under control, and the people are free to live out their hopes.

Already being lauded by readers as being “about science, not fantasy”, The Moon Is Not for Sale is an exciting science fiction ride to the Moon and back, and will capture readers’ imaginations from the first page to the last.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wallace Provost
• Release date: Feb 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301440702

Book preview

Chapter 1 Disaster on the Moon

But for the lack of a leader, perhaps an alpha rock, they might have gathered together and become a planetoid, maybe even a Moon under which young romance would flower. As it was they had no master, they were but a monster collection of rocks that traveled in formation, a long, elliptical orbit about the sun with only inertia and their mutual gravity holding them together, looking like a swarm of locusts. For billions of years they traveled thus about the sun and every fifty years their orbit crossed the orbit of the Earth Moon system. They would grab the gravity of the system and gain momentum as they passed by and let it shoot them back into space for another trip. As they passed the Earth they spread the sky with burning rocks and men would look up and marvel. They would point and call it a sign from God. Mothers would call their children out to see the great fireworks in the sky. Every fifty years for billions of years they would have the attention of whatever roamed far below on the Big Blue Marble.

This time the orbit brought them closer to the Moon. On the ridge before the great Mount Malapert, the Fifteen thousand foot peak that towers over the Lunar South Pole stood the Lunar City Hotel and Casino. Above the great Casino, a monster roulette wheel, dominated the landscape. When I say dominate, whether you are standing on the Moon’s south Polar Plain, or in the middle of a Kansas Prairie, or on your back porch in a Brooklyn high rise, when you look up, at a new Moon on a clear night that is what you see. So huge and so bright that it could be seen with the naked eye from any place on the surface of the mother planet below. This masterpiece of human hubris suddenly felt the fury of the traveling stones. They pounded the great structure till it lay in a heap. They smashed the great lights that once called out to the suckers of the master planet. They even pounded the wreckage that was left until it could barely be seen. Then they began to pound on the great Helium Tower from which men and women oversaw the Abramsky crawler that slowly crawled across Shackleton Crater digging up the regolith and extracting the Helium 3 which powered the Earth below.

Clint Baker was still inside the tower when it hit. The power went out. The emergency power came on. The elevator emergency stopped at the nearest floor, and the door opened. He could hear screams, but paid them no attention. His only thought was to get down to his truck and bail out. He took the stairs three at a time all the way down to the air lock. When he got there, the air lock was sealed. Looking in through the port hole, he could see that the air pressure inside was falling slowly, but still breathable. The shock of the meteor attack must have dislodged some of the equipment that normally hung from the walls. Then he saw her lying on the floor. There was blood on her face and she was still. If the air pressure dropped any more her blood would begin boiling out of her body. Death would be excruciatingly painful and mercifully quick. He hit the emergency button and the door opened up as the air pressure returned to normal. He pulled two space suits from the locker and put one next to her. She would not wake up. Could he get her into the suit without help? The pressure was dropping again, this time dangerously faster. He could not leave her. In the vacuum that was coming, she would be dead in less than Fifteen minutes.

He had the space suit next to her, and as he began to work her body into it, she stirred. Being more than a little groggy, she barely understood what was happening, but as she caught on she helped him out and he directed her to the escape hatch while he donned his space suit, the pressure plummeting to where he was having trouble breathing. He hit the escape button and as soon as the pressure inside the room dropped to nothing, the hatch popped open. Since she was still half in shock, he guided her toward the loading dock where he had parked his Moon Rover truck. The entrance hatch to the truck was designed for only one person, but he was able to squeeze in beside her and punch the pressure button. The pressure increased to normal and the inner hatch opened up. He led her into his personal lair.

Clint sat the girl on the couch, poured her a double shot of bourbon, and then turned to the driver’s seat. The loading dock had protected the truck from the meteor storm. Looking at some of the hanging girders, he was afraid to stay there lest the whole thing come tumbling down and trapped them. He backed out and drove toward the ridge around the Shackleton Crater. The Helium Tower rising out of the crater showed a scattering of lighted windows indicating that the emergency power was still on. He looked toward Malapert Mountain, where the glittering Lunar City Hotel and Casino looked down on the South Polar Plain. There were lights there too, but the monstrous roulette wheel that would normally dwarf the Hotel and casino was strangely missing. Below him, the crawler just kept on trekking its way across the crater digging up the regolith, extracting the Helium 3 and dumping the remains behind. It was nearly indestructible and had its own power source. With or without the tower and its occupants, the Helium Corporation was still making money. The question is, what should he do about the girl?

He called the Helium Tower on the radio but got no answer. The crew operated on a ninety day shift schedule. The new crew would come up and the old crew would return using the same ships. The next shift change would not be for another two months. If there were survivors in the Tower, they were probably isolated in rooms that had managed to hold pressure. All of the rooms in the building were set up to self isolate in the case of a disaster. Anyone who was there was probably all right, but, depending on the damage, might remain isolated until the new crew came from Earth. He could not bring her back there. He would be endangering the truck and with the damaged air lock was very unlikely to get her inside where she would be safe. It looked like there was no one in the control room; otherwise they would have answered his calls.

He called Lunar City. Albert answered the radio. What's happening there, Bert, he asked?

It's a mad house here, Clint. If you can, stay away.

When is your nearest relief?

We got a ship about three days out, but it is full of tourists. They are not going to be much help. Probably make things worse.

I got a girl here. She is one of the Students from Helium. Can you get her a ride back home?

Not a good idea, Clint. The ship holds a hundred people and it has a full load. We have a hundred people from the hotel who are desperate to get out. In three days we will have two hundred people fighting for one hundred seats.

He turned to the girl. She was listening to the conversation.

I don't care. She said. I just want to get off the Moon.

Bert, he asked. You got a working air lock?

Wait. West 3 airlock shows to be still working.

I'm heading there.

You don't really intend to just push her into the lock and leave her, do you?

You got any better suggestions?

Wait till I call you.

Chapter 2 On the Moon's surface

He turned to look at the girl. She still had blood on her face, her dress was torn, and she looked scared. She was thin, with a dusky complexion, large, dark brown eyes. Her hair was long and brown. It fell to her shoulder in waves. He remembered the first time he saw her. It was in Starbucks on the top floor of the Helium building. His attention was on the Abramsky Crawler, a 100 foot wide, three hundred foot long monster that slowly inched across the surface of the Shackleton Crater, digging up the regolith, the loose rock that served as dirt on the surface of the Moon. As it crawled slowly across the huge crater, it would grind, heat, and process the stones, The solid residue, in the form of a finely ground mixture of silica and titanium oxide, was left behind, while the gaseous materials were piped back to the tower in long flexible umbilical tubes to be processed into usable materials. The extracted Helium 3 was automatically loaded onto the robot ships that blasted off the Moon and splashed down in the Indian Ocean. The other byproducts included water, ammonia, and oxygen and nitrogen which were combined to provide most of the air that was used throughout the settlement.

She was seated with three other girls. All of them were students from Terra, there to study Lunar Geology, while running production tests for the Helium Corporation. She left the girls and walked over to Clint's table.

Are you a Luney? she asked.

He was surprised. She didn't look the type. He had heard that over in Lunar City, the Terran girls look for Luneys, get close to them, and try to get pregnant by them. Then they go back to Earth. Sometimes they are married, sometimes they are single, and even sometimes they are gay. There seems to be a rumor going around that if you have a baby with a Luney father, the baby will be immune to getting fat. In a pig’s ear, he thought. He knew one thing; he wouldn't want a bunch of scrawny kids running around the Big Blue Marble wondering who their father was. But, like he said, she didn't seem to be that type.

Yes. he said. I am a Luney. I was born on the Moon

Do you work for the Helium mine?

No. My family runs a farm on the other side of the ridge.

A farm? On the Moon? How wonderful. My family has a farm down in North Carolina.

My family was the first family to farm on the Moon.

Tell me about it.

My grandfather and grandmother were engineers. They got to like it here on the Moon almost right away. The terrain, my father would say, is just like West Texas. He was from Silverton. Mom thought the same thing; she was born just outside of Lubbock. When work was caught up, they would borrow a Moon Rover and drive up on the ridge for a picnic. He thought it was great to get away from the idiots in the tower. He always said that he thought they were just like the idiots down in Texas. He said the lone star state was run over with New Yorkers. Of course, he considered anything northeast of Dallas, New York. Clint explained

Where did they find a place to farm?

When they first started mining the Moon, that was back in 2015 or so, the first two minerals they mined for were Helium 3 and water. Of course, you know that it was Helium 3 and the conversion of nuclear plants to fusion, that solved the energy crisis, slowed down global warming, and prevented world war 3. What you might not realize is that none of that was possible without water and the cost of hauling water up from the bottom of the gravity well spelled the end of any space expansion.

Of course, I know all that.

On the Moon, the first water was found as ice in caverns beneath the South Pole. They had just emptied one of the caverns. They were moving to the other side of the plain. They packed up all of their equipment, stuck it inside the cavern and left. It was just one empty cavern on a totally empty world. My grandfather and grandmother found that equipment and went inside to explore the empty cavern. Do you know what my grandfather said when he stepped inside?

I can't imagine.

He took one long look and said. By Gawd this is bigger than the cowboy stadium.

Sounds like a Texan.

Clint was faced with trying to explain the why as well as the how someone would choose to make his home in a place as completely desolate as the Moon. Consider that just moving to West Texas is a bad enough shock for most people coming out of the east coast, or New England. One look and the immediate question would arise, why would anyone choose to live in a land of parched grass, rocks, and scrub trees? But here on the Moon where it is so desolate that even when it rains, it rains rocks, it would take a couple born and bred in West Texas to overlook the hardships and recognize the beauty of the rocky landscape of the Moon’s South Polar Plain, with its backdrop of stars highlighted by the Big Blue Marble. Perhaps you have to be a born Texan to really appreciate it. And just as important, was that the cavern was abandoned. No one claimed ownership.

When their shift was over my grandfather and grandmother stayed on the Moon. They took that equipment and sealed off the cavern. They filled it with an atmosphere. Put in lots of overhead lights and started their own hydroponics farm. They were protected from the Solar Wind by the cavern roof. They even imported fertile cow eggs and soon they had a heard of white face as good as you could find anywhere on the great gravity well. Now we produce fresh meat and produce for the mines here and for the big hotel and Casino, and Moon steaks that are more prized than diamonds in New York City.

He really thought he had impressed her when she went back to her friends. But here she is, and now she is definitely not impressed. He got a call back from Lunar City.

Clint. Don't come here now. It is too dangerous. Can you come back, maybe three days, when things quiet down?

Three days, she will never get on the shuttle.

If she comes now, they will probably kill her and come after you.

Law on the Moon is pretty much of a hit and miss situation. Even if they had the infrastructure to enforce laws, it was an international conclave, and there were problems concerning what laws applied to what areas. Clint turned to look at the girl. Her dress was torn at the sleeves and her arms were scratched. Otherwise she looked healthy. Her facial features were a little too harsh to make her photogenic, but the big brown eyes made up for it. She was wringing her hands. Fear dominated her attitude. What was he going to do with her? The cab of the truck was large enough and comfortable enough for him to spend weeks, if necessary, on the road. There was plenty of food in the chest, and the fusion power pack was good for another six months. There was only one narrow bed and she did not look like the kind of girl who would be likely to get that cozy with him.

Come home with me.

The look of shock on her face answered that question in a hurry. I'm serious. You will like my mother, and my little sister would love to have you there. We can come back in a month and you can catch the next shuttle

The startled expression took a few moments to soften, and then she looked up. You mean your family farm?

Yes. And by the way I never did catch your name.

Annabelle, Annabelle Taylor. My friends call me Annie.

Since I hope to be your friend, I will call you Annie.

When I was little I lived on a farm, but I haven't been back for a long time, that was on the reservation. My family is Cherokee.

You don’t have to be completely ignorant of the problems of rampant capitalism to understand that while the governments of the planet Earth fought over the control of oil and continued to pollute their atmosphere endangering life on the planet itself, even as the answer, Helium 3 and clean nuclear fusion lay dormant on the Moon. It took an international conglomerate of entrepreneurs to take the plunge and put up the money. In the end it was not saving the planet that brought man to the Moon, it was the lure of great profits. On the other hand, it was Tex Baker, the West Texas rancher, and his brand new wife Dolly, who took the real giant step, and made the Moon man’s home.

OK Annie, sit here in the co-pilot seat and enjoy the trip. It will take a while; we haven't gotten around to building highways here yet.

A meteor shower on Earth is fun to watch with streaks of fire as the stones burn up in the atmosphere. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere, so when there is a meteor shower it just rains rocks. The storm that nearly destroyed the Helium tower was the strongest and deadliest Clint had ever seen. To return to the cavern they had to climb the back wall of Shackleton Crater, then cross over the South Polar plain. The cavern was a mile into the Far Side, so called because it is the side that never faces Earth. He traveled this route usually at least once a month, and was very familiar with the terrain. He could see the tracks left where he had traveled before. He could also see that following them back was not going to be an option. Part of the southern bank of the crater had caved in from the barrage, and the trail itself was littered with rocks.

This is Ansell Adams country. Everything is black and white, particularly with the garish roulette wheel at the Lunar City Casino torn up by the meteor storm. This close to the South Pole, the sun is at a constant ten degrees above the horizon. Here in Shackleton Crater, the rim of the crater casts strong shadows and the only light is from the Full Earth above and behind them. With no atmosphere, the shadows are stark with sharp edges. The Lunar City Hotel and Casino is stark white, because it is in full sunlight on the first Terrace of Malapert Mountain. The Hotel faces the Polar plain and looks directly at the mother planet at all times. However, during the Fifteen day lunar night, it is in the shadow of the Fifteen thousand foot mountain. The Helium tower rises black into the sun with a few lights appearing at windows. Clint drove slowly, dodging the boulders strewn across what was once his trail home. Ahead, the rift that he would normally use to climb to the top of the rim was clogged with rocks.

The only other possible path back to the Cavern would mean taking the old trail at the foot of Malapert Mountain. This was the trail used when they built the tower and had not been touched in years. Clint had done some exploring there, when he had extra time. He had some idea of the trail, but he did not know how much of that was disturbed by the meteor storm. At that moment, his major problem was getting the truck turned around and headed back toward the Helium Tower. The truck had two front steerable wheels and two treads on the back. He could drive the treads independently to help swing the truck, and attempt to bring the front around so that he was facing the opposite direction.

Make your self comfortable, Annie, he said. It may take us thirty six hours or more to get home this way, but the trip will be interesting.

I am not sure I want to experience what you call interesting.

The idea of clean fusion reactors as an answer to the energy problems that were already critical by the beginning of the Twenty First Century lingered in the back of the minds of thinking human beings. However, anyone with enough background to understand was aware of two seemingly impossible problems faced by that approach. The first was that the critical material, Helium 3, was not available on the planet Earth. The second problem was that there was no one who had any idea of how to make a Helium 3 fusion reactor work. India, China, Russia, and the United States worked toward ways of mining Helium 3 from the surface of the Moon. Without the availability of a route toward a fusion reactor, it was an act of pure political frustration. One Industrialist from Texas gathered together with men of the same persuasion from India, China, and Russia and formed an international consortium for the development of the Moon. There is a lot that can be said of government projects, but if you give a group of business men a glimpse of a big payoff, they know how to make things happen. Money is never a problem if the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is full enough, and they get a smell of the trail. The going price of Helium 3 on the Earth was three billion dollars a ton. All of the industrialized countries in the world were racing to see who would be first to put a colony on the Moon. The purpose, of course, was to get control of the Helium 3 resources there. These men and women also realized that with a little engineering imagination, there would be absolutely no need for men on the Moon to mine the Helium 3.

They designed and built two completely automated machines back on Earth. The Mole, a machine that would burrow beneath the Solar Poles to extract the water stored there. The other was the Abramson crawler, another huge machine that would dig down into the lunar regolith, process the stones, and extract the Helium 3. Both were designed to operate without human intervention. Since this was 2012, the industrialized countries were reeling from the financial disasters of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The group took two major steps that would not have been possible in better times. First, they leased the government space agencies of the United States, China, Russia, and India who had all they could do to maintain their space stations. Second, they spread the word that colonies on the Moon would be a major financial boondoggle, and totally unnecessary. The Moon is nothing but a huge rock a quarter of a million miles out in space constantly being bombarded by Solar Wind and Cosmic rays, and pelted by meteorites and errant asteroids. From that point on, all of the space agencies would be working together of bringing Helium 3 to Earth, they would no longer be working at cross purposes, and the Moon would not be the property of any nation., In fact, the Moon would not be property at all, only a source of material,

It seemed like the project was going to run out of money. Some claimed that even an unlimited bank account would never bring it into operation, finally, it started to pay out. Once installed on the Moon, the water extractor was particularly successful because water was already in demand on the Space stations and for other space projects. At first, the Helium project seemed to lag, but it did supply enough Helium 3 for serious research, something that had been lacking.

It was a Brazilian engineer, who was in the nano materials business who made the breakthrough. He became obsessed with the idea of micro fusion. Helium 3 fusion is a simple process. All that is necessary is to subject the Helium 3 atom stream to the environmental conditions where the fusion would occur. The problem was, that with a light element like Helium 3 that would mean temperatures approaching a million degrees. In the laboratory, they were able to produce this, but it required the input of more energy than was developed. What San Angelo suggested, was that if the fusion chamber was constrained to something very small, it would require less energy to begin the fusion, and after that, it would be self sustaining.

What San Angelo finally developed was a fusion tube. A nano tube where the Helium stream was introduced that was barely larger than the diameter of the helium atoms themselves. Once this was raised, using microwave power, to where the fusion began, the energy of the fusion itself would maintain the required environmental parameters. The rate of energy production would be determined by the flow of the helium stream, measured in micro-liters per hour.