Last Rites

By R. Laurenz

This volume attempts to answer the question, what kind of person would choose to spend the rest of their life alienated from their home planet? It recounts events of 24 people in their last days before leaving for a protracted tenure at a lunar site. There is a surgeon falsely accused of malpractice, a nurse with experience in the jungles of Africa and the ghettos of Detroit and Chicago, a woman frustrated with her advisor’s demands for her thesis topic in organic transistors, a man who was saved from a life of running drugs by a defense attorney who recognized his potential, a shy Dalit girl from Mumbai who has the ability to calculate orbitals in her head, an interior decorator who is brilliant at visualizing 3D spaces and who has enough debts to force her into bankruptcy, and a Russian geologist who wants to get out from under the thumb of the NKVD. The volume ends with three young women in 2052 whose mothers want them safe on Luna in case a potential plague spins out of control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312812611

Book preview

Last Rites

Last Rites

By R. Laurenz

Copyright

Published by R. Laurenz Publishing, Inc.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Copyright © 2015 R. Laurenz

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

ISBN: 978-1-312-81261-1

Version 1: for distribution in e-pub format.

*Since e-pub is a variation of HTML, and is designed for display on a wide range of devices with different screen sizes and different default fonts, this version does not display text in the specific way that the author intended, using different fonts than are used in the printed paperback or in the PDF version available on Lulu.

Introduction

The chapters included in this book were originally intended to be part of a series of novels related to placing a permanent colony on the Lunar surface. They have the common theme of presenting scenes from the lives of people who are about to leave for a long tenure at either a Lunar colony or a project purporting to be a realistic simulation of such a colony. The intent is to use these incidents to introduce the people, sketch the worlds that they are leaving, and reveal something about their reasons for joining such a project.

The assumption is that committing to an extra-terrestrial colony is a life-altering decision, since it would be difficult, if not impossible, to return to a normal life on earth. The physiological changes resulting from a protracted tenure in space and the economic costs of frequent return trips would place barriers to returning. Most especially, any children born on the moon would have a difficult time adapting to the much stronger gravity on earth, restricting any backward migration for families.

‘Last Rites,’ then, has at least a dual meaning. On the one hand, it simply refers to the parting rituals of people before they set out on a Lunar venture: saying goodbye to friends, wrapping up affairs before leaving. But it also carries overtones of the rites administered to the dying, the implication being that these people are radically terminating a phase in their lives.

The chapters are drawn from five volumes. The Project evolves from a simulated colony at an isolated site in the Canadian Arctic to a vibrant, and hopefully, permanent settlement on the Lunar surface. Similar, the kinds of choices open to recruits change, as do the situations they are leaving and their reasons for doing so.

The first set of nine chapters comes from ‘New Moon,’ which covers the first group of recruits to the Simulation Project, forming the starting contingent at the remote Arctic site.

The second set, consisting of four chapters, is drawn from ‘Half Moon.’ A second set of recruits has been selected. The simulation site has been up and running for two years, and the Project is about to place a base on the Lunar surface.

The five chapters in the third set come from ‘Gibbous Moon,’ and recount scenes from the lives of the third and final batch of recruits. The Project now has a rudimentary base on the Lunar surface.

The fourth set consists of four chapters from the novel ‘Carol,’ recounting incidents in the recruiting of the first three immigrants to what is now a nascent Lunar colony.

The fifth set is from ‘Now or Never,’ the third volume in a series called ‘Sunset Earth,’ which relates the repercussions resulting from the release of a potentially dangerous pathogen in central Africa. The ten chapters that are included recount efforts to get four young people to a safe haven on the Lunar surface.

One chapter that was intended for this book has been expanded to novella length and has been published separately as ‘The Puzzle.’

It is unlikely that all these volumes will be published in definitive versions. However, online publishing opens up a variety of options that were not available with traditional publishing venues. It is the author’s intent that volumes in the series that are not completed will at some point be placed on a website to provide context and continuity for the volumes that are published.

Sometime in the not too distant future, we will get the websites up and running. The author’s blogs will be posted to:

RobertLZimmermann.com

The website for the novels will be:

MoonSimulationProjectNovels.com

Our Facebook page and Google+ page can be found under:

R. Laurenz Publishing, Inc.

This volume is available in e-pub format on Lulu, iBooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. A paperback version is available on Lulu. The easiest way to find the volume is to do an author search under the pen name, R. Laurenz.

Self-publishing requires a wide range of skills provided by a team of colleagues. Special thanks to a number of people. Sara patiently tutored me though the early drafts, providing me many of the skills I foolishly avoided as a college undergraduate. Freda was the first to read the completed book, and provided valuable feedback. Melissa and McKayla designed the covers. The final editing and formatting, the conversion into e-pub format and pdf format, and all the other details of publishing the online and paperback versions were handled by McKayla. I would have been lost without her. I would also like to express my appreciation to the doctors who keep me alive while I get as much published as I am able.

The next volume in the series to be published will be ‘Sunset Earth: Incident in Mbandaka.’ The target date for publication is March of 2015.

Preface

Late in the summer of 1620, a group of 101 brave and desperate people, now popularly referred to as the Pilgrims, set sail from Portsmouth, England, on the good ship Mayflower, bound for Virginia. They knew little of the conditions they would encounter in their New World, where they intended to make their home; they were uncertain they would even survive the arduous and dangerous crossing. None of them expected to see the shores of England again.

They must have known that a colony founded 25 years earlier on Roanoke Island had disappeared without a trace. They also would have known that, although the Jamestown, Virginia, colony managed to survive and was even beginning to thrive, over half of Jamestown's original colonists died within the first two years. Yet they set out.

They landed on the shores of Cape Cod in late November, missing Virginia by over 700 km. In that first, harsh, New England winter, without adequate supplies or permanent shelter, half of them died. But the rest lived to multiply, prosper, and form the nucleus of a successful colony.

The Pilgrims were brave, but not especially unique. They were definitely not the first group of people to settle in new lands, not even the first in North America, not by a long ways. In New England, they confronted the descendants of a people who had walked the land bridge from Asia some 14 millennia before. Over half a millennia before the Pilgrims set out, the Vikings had explored the coasts of Labrador. The Spanish had been exploring and colonizing Latin America for over a century, and there had been a fishing base at St. John in Newfoundland for almost as long.

And that is just North America. Throughout recorded history, people have emigrated, in groups and singly. The Hebrews followed Moses into the wilderness of Sinai and wandered for 40 years before settling in their Promised Land. The Greeks established colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Groups such as the Goths, Huns, Franks, and Vandals swept across Europe. The Celts, originating in Anatolia (in what we now call Turkey), moved into and occupied Austria, southern Germany, much of Italy, and most of Spain and France, later crossing the English Channel to occupy the British Isles. Subsequent invasions by the Saxons, and later, the Normans, drove the Celts from England into Ireland and Scotland, with some remaining in Wales.

The migrations were often not voluntary. Babylonian conquerors pressed many of the Hebrews into servitude in Mesopotamia. Later, the Romans drove the Hebrew peoples into a vast dispersion, the Diaspora. A large number of Black Africans were sold into slavery in the Americas and elsewhere. Within the last half century the Chechen peoples were resettled en masse in Siberia. Over one-million Chinese were moved to accommodate the reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam.

Even many of those who moved willingly had few, if any, alternatives. The Irish potato famine offered the choice of migrating or starving. In Norway, the paucity of arable land and problems with its distribution limited people to migration or serfdom.

Migrations took many forms. The so-called barbarians swept across Europe in waves, whole peoples on the move. The Hebrews of the Exodus and the Pilgrims left as a group, a communal decision within a relatively small, cohesive cluster of people. Others moved as families or individuals, decisions made individually that were repeated and accumulated into the movement of masses of people. The Greeks planned their settlements, sending a complete community, with all the skills and trades needed to found a city-state.

In fact, migration has been a characteristic of our species since we became clearly differentiated from our close relatives, the great apes. Anthropologists trace the origins of Homo Sapiens to somewhere in Africa, and all of the remaining continents are peopled by the descendants of immigrants, beginning their moves long before recorded history, even before they were capable of making the tools and the structures that would document their prehistoric peregrinations.

North America has seen wave after wave of immigrants, many of whom never saw their homelands again. The Hispanics, the Ethiopians, the Hmong are among the latest. Now, of course, it is easy to keep in contact with one’s roots, via telephone or the internet. Or, once one gains even the most minimal prosperity, one can fly back for a week or two, to visit home and homeland again. That wasn’t possible for the Pilgrims, the Hebrews in Exodus, or the Africans. It was not practical for many of the others mentioned above.

Even for those who chose to migrate, it could not have been easy to cut yourself loose from all that you knew... family, friends, homeland, and culture... to set off for a place where you knew virtually no one, where nothing, not even the language, was familiar. There were no comfortable safety nets. It is not a decision that would come easy for everyone nor would it turn out well for everyone. But it is a life direction that a vast number of people have either chosen or had forced on them.

My maternal great-grandparents made that choice, emigrating from Norway to the USA, to settle in what was then the wilderness of Wisconsin. Gudmund, husband and father, went on ahead, to seek out a place for them and to save up the money for Caroline's passage. Caroline, pregnant with their second child, stayed behind to deliver the child and wait for the money for her passage. She traveled to the New World with two year old Ole, my grandfather, and infant Lena. She crossed the Atlantic and traversed the Great Lakes, passing immigration eventually in Milwaukee. She spoke no English and had little money with her. She never saw Norway again. Her oldest born, Ole, married a woman who emigrated from Norway at the age of seventeen. Yet one of their grandchildren rose to become the CEO of a multibillion dollar corporation.

My father immigrated to America at the age of 17, partly to flee the looming onslaught of the First World War, partly to seek his fortunes. His trip was less arduous. He traveled with three companions. He spoke English. He had enough money for an acceptably comfortable passage. Yet he too never saw his parents, his sister, or his childhood friends again, nor did he ever return to the mountains and valleys of southern Austria that he had loved so much.

Most people do not migrate, at least not across international boundaries. My father’s sister married and settled down to a comfortable middle class life in a small town not many miles from where she grew up. Members of the family still live in that town, in the very same house. What is it about particular people, themselves, or their circumstances, that motivate some to move and some to stay where they are?

In the not too distant future, there will be colonies in space, most likely first on the earth’s moon or on Mars, though colonies floating free of planetary bodies are feasible as well. There is no driving need to colonize space. Such immigration will not put a dent in the population density of earth. It will not relieve the hunger crisis, solve the energy problem, or reverse global warming. It will probably not resolve any pressing scientific debates. It will just start the migration to space.

Why then will it happen? Because it will be doable; in fact, quite likely it is doable now. And when something can be done, someone will eventually do it. Given the possibility, people will work hard to make it a practical, realistic option. And when it becomes a feasible option, some people will chose that option. Individual differences among people virtually guarantee that among the six or seven billion people on earth, there is a sizable number who would choose to permanently resettle on the Lunar surface, when given the chance.

I am not talking about an astronaut walking on the moon. I am not talking about a billionaire tourist paying the Russian Space Agency 20 million or so for a week at the International Space Station. I am not even talking about a semi-permanent research station on the Lunar surface. I am talking about a colony of permanent residents. The father of the principal character in one of the following stories cautions his daughter that the difference between an astronaut and a colonist is that an astronaut has a roundtrip ticket.

In many ways the moon may be functionally as close to us as was North America to the Europeans when the Pilgrims made their crossing; in some ways it is closer. People on the Lunar surface, at least on the earth side of the moon, will be able talk to friends, family, and colleagues on earth with only a slight delay of a few seconds for the messages to pass back and forth. A Pilgrim, sending a letter to family or friends in Europe, might get a reply in six months or so. Little of the culture, or the scientific and technical knowledge, of Europe was available to the Pilgrims, other than what they carried with them on the boat. A Lunar colony would likely have access to the full range of video channels offered on earth, as well as access to the internet and most of the scientific and technical databases.

Colonies on the Lunar surface would, of course, remain dependent on the earth in a number of ways: specialized technologies; organics for the life support system; the critical one-off products of a modern society which it would not be practical or cost effective to produce on the Lunar surface; the rarer metals such as copper, gold, mercury, etc., which it would not be practical to mine on the Lunar surface. But that was true of the early American colonies as well. Luxury goods, fine china, tea, silk, condiments, and a number of other items had to be imported. One of the causes posited for the eventual failure of the Norfolk Colony was that resupply was interrupted by the war between England and Spain. One factor in the demise of the Greenland settlements was the granting of the trade concession between Europe and Iceland to the Danish Monarchy, and the subsequent excessive taxation that decimated trade.

Even transportation costs to and from the moon, as outrageous as they seem now, would likely not be out of line with the costs of a transatlantic trip in the 17th century, when compared with the median income of the two periods. Early immigrants to the North American colonies would sometimes pay for their passage by indenturing themselves, selling themselves as servants for periods of up to 7 years. That could be within the range of the cost for passage to the moon, once a travel infrastructure has been established. Most definitely, the time required for a trip to the moon would be less than it took a sailing vessel to cross the Atlantic at the beginning of the seventeenth century. And it would likely be a safer passage.

As with the Pilgrims and other early colonists to North America, prospective space colonists will not find it easy to return to their homelands. Short-term trips will be exorbitantly expensive, making returning home virtually impossible. A Lunar colony will present an additional obstacle: living in reduced gravity for a protracted period of time could make it physiologically impossible to return to a normal life on earth.

These are the basic assumptions upon which the following stories are based: That a Lunar colony is feasible and even probable within the next few decades, and that a private venture has been set up to work toward such a colony, framed initially as a full scale simulation set at an isolated site in the Canadian Arctic.

Who would populate such a colony? Paradoxically, they would not be very much like the typical astronaut, especially those astronauts selected in the early years of the NASA program. To start with, a disproportionate number of initial astronauts were experienced pilots. Yet in a permanent colony, only a small percentage would need to be pilots, and most of those would function in that capacity for only a small proportion of their tenure in space. A functioning colony would require a broad range of skills: medical personnel, people to grow food, computer technicians, repairmen, metal workers, teachers, geologists, etc.

There is a second group of astronauts who were selected for their specialized research skills. Research might well be one of the functions of a permanent space colony, but it would rank well behind the whole spectrum of survival and support functions.

The majority of the astronauts selected to date have been males, but the growth of a colony is primarily a function of the number of females of reproductive age. Similarly, NASA has proposed limiting participation in Mars missions to people who are beyond their reproductive years, because of the risk of radiation induced mutations in the germ plasm. Yet such people would likely be explicitly excluded from a prospective colony, because they would not contribute to the growth of the colony. Since transportation is the major expense and bottleneck in forming a colony, whenever possible, with both machines and people, it is most efficient to send the means of making a person or an object, rather than sending the object itself. This is simply an extension of the old saw: give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.

Another difference between space colonists and astronauts is that space colonists intend to spend the rest of their lives in space. Most astronauts have families on earth and all intend to return to earth. In fact, astronauts spend only a tiny fraction of their lives in space. NASA astronauts tend to live in the suburbs of Houston, and expect to return to Houston and retire on earth.

Also, research has shown that a disproportionate number of astronauts are type A personalities, hard driving people who tend to be sure of themselves and able to act decisively and take command in an emergency. These are the kind of people who excel as military officers, or who might be selected for special missions in the Marine Corps. Yet paradoxically, the typical astronaut states that he would prefer not to be on a mission with such a type A personality.

Compare, for example, Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony with John Alden of the Plymouth Colony. Consider first, John Smith. While both were born commoners, John Smith was an adventurer and explorer. In his late teens and early twenties, he served as a mercenary in wars across Europe. He was promoted to Captain, and knighted for his service to Transylvania. He was captured by the Turks, sold into slavery, escaping through Muscovy back to Europe. He signed on with the original Jamestown colony. He was accused of mutiny on the voyage over, but saved from hanging because he had been appointed one of the leaders of the colony by the Virginia Company.

John Smith was captured by Native Americans, but released, and he maintained a working relationship with the native population. He enforced order and a work ethic on the colony, saying that if a person did not work, they did not eat. He explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay region, and later explored part of the coast of New England, six years before the Mayflower sailed. He was likely one of prime factors in the survival of the Jamestown colony, as compared with the failure of the previous Norfolk Colony. Moreover, his writings provide us with some of the most vivid and honest accounts of the founding of the Jamestown Colony.

John Alden, on the other hand, was a working man, a young skilled tradesman hired in England to repair the Mayflower. He opted to sign on for the voyage as the ship’s cooper or barrel maker. When the Pilgrims voted to settle in the Plymouth area, John Alden elected to remain with the colony rather than return with his ship to England. He married fellow colonist, Priscilla Mullins, and settled down to remain in New England for the rest of his life. Among other things, he served for 42 years as assistant to the Governor, often serving as acting Governor.

In summary, both rendered great service to their respective colonies. Yet John Smith lived in the New World for less than five years before returning to England. While he left maps and several books about Virginia, and was instrumental to the founding of the colony, he left no known descendants in the New World. John Alden lived in the New World for 67 years and gave good service as assistant to the Governor. He left 70 grandchildren and a house that is still standing. John Smith is of the temperament of the first American astronauts. John Alden (and his wife Priscilla) would have made superb candidates for a Lunar colony.

So, those selected as prospective recruits for the Moon Colony Simulation Project will differ from astronauts in that there will be a greater proportion of women, they will on the average be younger, and they will possess a wider range of mostly non-overlapping practical skills. They will have no strong ties to family, friends, community, or institutions. And they will be eminently able to cooperate and get along with each other. No colonist survives by going it alone.

However, there will be a number of ways in which prospective space colonists are similar to astronauts. They will be considerably above average in intelligence and in physical and mental health. They will possess or be able to acquire multiple technical skills. They will be capable of making a long-term commitment and following through with it. And perhaps first and foremost in any astronaut selection program, they will be intensely screened to eliminate any characteristics that would cause a mission or a colony to fail.

And like the astronaut corps, most of the people will be average or moderately below average in height and there will be no obese people. Astronauts have been excluded from missions, or experienced great discomfort, because they were too small or too large. And weight is one of the prime limiting factors on most space launches. Extremes in size would be even less acceptable in a fledging space colony.

Of course, selection programs are fallible. Many of those selected excel, but occasionally a person makes it through the screening process, only to fail, drop out, or provide substandard performance. In particular, the greater the complexity of the project and the more criteria included in the screening procedure, the more likely there will have to be compromises.

Most of the following chapters concern people who applied for and were selected for a Project to simulate a Lunar colony, touching on their motivations for joining such a venture, set within the context of their last days before leaving for the project. The last set of chapters deal with four young people who are sent to the moon to shield them from an impending epidemic.

Part A: New Moon, Summer, 2020

Context for the Summer of 2020

By 2020, the technology for transporting people to the moon has been developed sufficiently to allow for acceptably safe and efficient travel on a regular basis. The principal danger and expense remains the heavy lift from the Earth's surface to LEO (Low Earth Orbit), but that cost was reduced by at least a factor of 10 once private space companies began launching tourists into LEO. There are close to a dozen space ports and six different launch vehicles certified by their national governments to carry private passengers into space. Flights are regularly scheduled, and the first hotels in orbit are in the planning stages.

Life support technology is somewhat less well developed. Short-term life support functions well, as does medium-term life support in LEO, which is beneath the Earth's electromagnetic shield and close enough to be resupplied regularly. Long-term CELSS (Closed Environmental Life Support Systems) technology for large groups of people requires additional development. The state of the art systems 'leak' organics and are incomplete, requiring regular resupply of critical materials. Sometimes they become poisoned by the accumulation of trace chemicals. It is thus difficult to maintain a permanent steady state balance.

There are additional problems that have not been completely solved. Protection from Solar flares in deep space requires heavy shielding, and forecasts of the occurrence of flares are unreliable. There is no good protection from hard cosmic radiation. Zero gravity produces significant physiological changes and there is no evidence regarding the effects of the low Lunar gravity. There is little definitive knowledge of the protracted effects of altered diurnal rhythms related to Martian cycles of insolation, or any cycles that would mesh with the long lunar cycles. Finally, not enough is known of the practical problems of dealing with Lunar dust, the extremely low atmospheric pressure, the extreme temperature variations, and the problems associated with the development of Lunar resources.

While those are serious problems, the area in which the least is known concerns the human social and psychological factors affecting functioning in space. What kind of people would thrive in a Lunar colony? What social, behavioral, and personal problems would they confront when exiled permanently to a very alien environment and confronted with all the problems noted above? What social structures would they develop? How would they maintain group cohesion and individual motivation? How would they deal with the inevitable instances of deviant and maladaptive behavior? Analogies can be drawn from the examples noted in the preface, but they are only approximate. What is needed is a thorough and systematic assessment of the social and behavioral ramifications of long-term confinement to a CELSS under conditions that approximate a Lunar colony as closely as possible, yet without the potential risk of living in space.

The Lunar Colony Simulation Project has been formed with a combination of public and private moneys. A CELSS designed to function similarly to a Lunar base or colony has been established at a remote location in the Arctic, where the isolation, bareness, altered cycles of light and dark, temperature extremes, and a generally hazardous environment serve as rough analogues to the conditions that might be encountered on the Lunar surface.

Eighty people have been selected to seed the project. Their job will be to learn how to maintain the CELSS, to fine tune its operation, to learn how to live together, and to begin the work needed to translate the technology of the site to the Lunar surface. Since tenure at a colony in space could well be permanent, due to the physiological changes resulting from reduced gravity, the required tenure at the project site will be continuous for 6 years, without leaving the site for any reason, at any time. This is regarded as one of the critical parameters of the simulation.

While the stated intent of the project is to develop the CELSS technology and assess the functional adaptation of the recruits to the isolated confinement, the covert purpose of the project is to eventually evolve into an actual Lunar colony.

An intentionally vague position announcement is distributed widely via the internet and through the private contacts of the project principals. The resulting pool of more than 10,000 applicants is put through successive, progressively more rigorous, rounds of screening and examination.

Successful candidates for the simulation will be expected to have a doctorate or equivalent professional training in a targeted discipline and/or explicit skills of use to an ongoing colony. These skills should be relatively non-overlapping. The recruits will be equally distributed between the sexes and will be single with no significant family or emotional commitments. They will be between the ages of 25 and 40. They will be healthy, with no major genetic liabilities. They will be between the heights of 160 cm and 180 cm (5'3 to 5' 11), and will weigh less than 80 kilograms (176 pounds). They will pass stringent emotional and psychological screening tests. An emphasis will be placed on psychological parameters that will permit them not only to function at the simulation site, but also to be open to a permanent commitment to an actual Lunar colony.

The range of skills will include a basic set of health skills, such as surgical, dental, and pharmacological training, as well as mental health and social skills. There will be all the skills needed to adjust the CELSS, such as growing food, dealing with wastes, recycling organics, supplying oxygen and fresh water, etc. There would a number of people with the hardware and software skills needed to not only operate the computer infrastructure, but to maintain it and build on it. And there will be specialists in aspects of space flight. But there will also be people possessing a number of practical skills, such as cooking, plumbing, construction, etc.

In particular, two aspects will receive special emphasis. First, the project wants people who can do things more than people who just know a lot. That includes the manual skills to build and repair all aspects of their simulation site. Secondly, the Project puts great stress on building equipment on the Lunar surface from in situ Lunar materials, since weight is one of the most expensive limitations on getting into space. So, you don’t ship metal girders for a Lunar dome, you build the dome out of materials minable on the Lunar surface. You don’t supply all the myriad tools of technology, but rather ship a programmable tool and dye machine that makes tools. And in particular, you want people familiar with 3-D printing, so you can program many of the thousands of different items required by a modern life style.

All candidates must agree to remain for six years at the isolated site. They will be on the project for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No one will be allowed to leave the site for any reason before the six-year tenure is up. Anyone doing so forfeits all salaries held in escrow. Remuneration will include all living expenses plus 50,000 euros per year, tax free, held in escrow with accumulated interest for the tenure of the project. Expected payout at the end of the six years would be in the range of 500,000 euros, adjusted for inflation and tax free. The current actuarial equivalent would be deposited in their names at the start of the project.

The individuals were not informed as to the site of the project or the specific nature of the living accommodations. This was in part for the purposes of security, since the project was potentially very controversial. But the nature of the project was kept undefined also to leave flexibility for the recruits to design their own living space, under the assumption that no one living outside the community should presume to dictate any parameters that were not physically mandated by the off-world setting. This means that this first round of recruits must have great ego strength: the ability to confront an ambiguous task and stamp their own personal identity on it.

The recruits were informed that this was a simulated lunar colony, not a real colony, but there was also the implication that if the project developed to the point of an actual colony, they would receive preferred priority for participation. However, they would not be forced to participate in that or any other life threatening endeavor. Part of the intent of the psychological screening was to select on the personality parameters that would maximize the probability that they would agree to join such a colonial effort, if their colleagues also did so.

All of the stories in this set take place in early June, 2020.

Chapter 1: Tanya Stevchenko

Seattle, Washington, USA

Tanya sat at an out-of-the-way table in the seedy Russian restaurant. She was blonde, not especially good looking, too thin for her height, and rather coltish in her movements, as if she had not completely emerged from adolescence. An emotional lability, only partly hidden under a studied seriousness, heightened the sense of adolescence. But the coarseness of her skin, the slight furtiveness in her glance, the traces of lines on her brow, suggested that she could be in her late twenties, perhaps even over thirty, and that those years had not been easy. Perhaps she would have struck an observer as pretty if her hair had not been tied back in a tight bun, accentuating a certain raw-boned, peasant strain.

The neighborhood was considered dangerous at night, especially for unaccompanied women. Although this was mid-day, just after the lunch-hour rush, people eyed Tanya as if she did not belong here, at least not sitting alone. Perhaps if she had been more conscious of herself as a woman, she might have been nervous.

In fact, Tanya found a comforting familiarity in the place. It was an anomaly, a Russian restaurant among the now mostly Vietnamese and Thai restaurants, a leftover from the days when Eastern European immigrants worked the docks and frequented the area while their ships took on cargo. Now the ships were containerized, and most of the sailors were middle-eastern or Asian. But the shabby surroundings and indifferent service reminded Tanya of restaurants near the University of Moscow, where she had been an undergraduate, during the brief interlude of freedom and chaos in Russia.

Tanya toyed with her mug of tea, waiting, watching the entrance. Yet she appeared surprised when the well-dressed older man stopped at her table.

May I join you, Dr. Stevchenko?

Excuse me. I'm sorry, but I am expecting to meet... a friend. She would have been more abrupt, had he not referred to her as Dr. Stevchenko. Who was he, that he knew not only her name, but her status, as well? Her doctorate had been conferred only weeks before.

He remained standing by her table. A smile formed. Not many people would refer to Ivan Petrovich as a friend, I would think. He does not strike me as the friendly sort. But we must not judge him too harshly. The changes of the last few years have not come easy to him.

He noticed a fleeting loss of composure. May I say that Ivan Petrovich sends his regrets... though we both know that he probably does not have the temperament or consideration to do so. He asked me to stand in for him. Be assured that I can speak with his full authorization. Inwardly, he was annoyed with himself. He knew that his ambiguity undercut her confidence.

Tanya felt a hollowness in her stomach. Her hands felt clammy. She set her will against her body. I'm sorry. I have only met with... Ivan Petrovich.

She almost did not recognize the name, Ivan Petrovich. She had known him mostly by his last name, Kurilenko. But this gentleman was certainly correct in perceiving she did not think of Kurilenko as a friend, by whatever name he was called. He gave me to assume he would meet me.

Yes, yes, of course. But it is a busy week for him. He has other duties. Actually, I believe he really does regret not being able to keep his appointment with you. His other commitments include chasing down a future colleague of yours, someone who is much harder for Ivan to deal with than you are. Someone, let us say, who is willing to take greater advantage of the recent changes. But I have not introduced myself. I am Illyitch Kusnikov. I am with the Russian Embassy in Washington. My credentials, if you wish. He extended a large billfold toward her. And may I sit down?

Your credentials would not mean anything to me. I am afraid I do not know the proper procedures. If you are here to do something, I presume you know what to do.

He sat down, laying his briefcase on the seat beside him. He stared at Tanya. "But there are no procedures. This is not... what do they call it…? yes, clandestine. This is not a clandestine meeting. No. Not at all. There are no secrets. Well, perhaps there are secrets, but they are not our secrets. I am simply a member of the Embassy. Helping Ivan out. And a rather thankless task it is. You might be a bit more gracious. I have flown across a continent to meet with you. There is a minor official with the U.S. Department of State who will try to make me regret having had to put him off to meet with you."

Tanya could not help smiling. The idea that a US State Department official, however minor, had been put off to keep an appointment with her seemed preposterous, especially given the current political realities, but it formed a pleasant illusion. If it wasn't true, why should she challenge it?

Illyitch shrugged, "Ah, I see I have strained my credibility. Oh, of course, all of us... even you, to some extent... have multiple responsibilities to Mother Russia. Is it not true?"

And I suppose you are here to refresh my memory regarding some of my responsibilities?

Illyitch stared at Tanya for some time. He looked almost concerned. Tanya... I may call you Tanya? We know you wish very much to join this Project. We know a lot about you. You are a very determined person. Can you honestly say you have been... ah... thwarted... in the past? We could have prevented you from getting even this far, you know.

I expect that Mother Russia collects her debts... with interest.

No state, no society would survive, if it did not. You should be well aware of that, given your field of specialization.

There are different kinds of collateral. Different means of collection. Well, what is it you wish?

Please. A little patience. Some context is warranted. Let me provide you with a bit of background, some things you might not be aware of about this Project you wish to join... I think it calls itself the Lunar Habitat Simulation Project, though it doesn’t always present the same name and face, some of my colleagues tell me. They, the Project, Professor Kurlinger and his staff, have selected several of your compatriots. Their selection has interested us. Ivan and others are a bit puzzled. I think they have been very shrewd in their selections. I think you were one of their highest priorities.

Tanya felt herself begin to flush. These last few weeks had been very emotional. She quietly cursed her labile emotionality. These people were too willing to exploit any weakness one showed. But so much had happened in the last few weeks: defending her doctoral dissertation, the final interviews for the Project. An exhilaration edged with panic washed over her, threatening to overwhelm her control, her facade. Out of his sight, she clenched her hands: She would not lose her chance now. Not for anything. If they knew fully how much she wanted this, what price would they extract in exchange?

Illyitch continued, There are those in Moscow who also place great value on you. It took a lot of bargaining to get you released for this. You really should be quite grateful to those of us who took your side.

I did not know I would be in such demand.

Illyitch smiled. He almost would have liked to dispense with his diplomatic persona, but the habits ran too deep.

Come now, he said. I think you know your own worth. But... perhaps not. In addition to your well-documented intelligence and your well-earned degree, perhaps even more important is who you are, where you came from. How many people interested in experimental communities... and able to design them... actually grew up in the environment you did? Tamdinsk! I have read some of your father's writings... the... ah... the more technical ones. What was his nickname for it? The Ice Cube, I suppose, would be an adequate English translation, would it not?

It would be appropriate. Though the word I remember is ‘iceberg’. Papa knew both German and English. It was a play on the terms ‘berg’ and ‘burg’, I think.

Well, that had never occurred to me. And I do know some German. I believe it was before you were born that your father elected to work in Siberia.

I think 'was forced' would be more appropriate.

Tanya. His tone was that of a concerned teacher or guardian, worried over the direction his charge might take. You have received a great deal from Russia, considering your background. Is it wise, even now, to stress such distinctions?

To the contrary, it is precisely because I have been well aware of his mistakes, and carefully avoided making them myself, that I have escaped his stigma. She did not add So far.

I do not think your life justifies your bitterness.

You did not grow up in an Iceberg.

"I do not think you would have preferred Leningrad in '43. Of course, I am not old enough to really remember it, but my sister has told me the stories. My mother, both of my brothers... they died that year. My father disappeared into a German concentration camp. Has any of your family died?

But no, you young people cannot be expected to understand all that. The decisions were not easy then, and it has left its mark on our country. But that is not what I am here to discuss. Pleasant, or unpleasant, your childhood gives you direct experience of conditions in many ways similar to what you might experience on this Project... or to what might be needed to develop the resources of Northern Siberia, or Antarctica... its coal, for instance. There are billions there for the taking, if we can manage the taking. And on top of your experiences rest your quite admirable academic credentials. That is why the Project wants you... and why Moscow is so reluctant to let you go.

Tanya frowned. Do you mind if I ask a question?

Of course not. I will answer what I can. We are countrymen... and colleagues.

I was never encouraged to be inquisitive with Kurilenko. And I did not consider myself a colleague of his... then or now.

Ivan will not have a great deal of access to you on your new Project. If we felt that was necessary, we would not have... encouraged you... the choice was ours, as well as yours. You must know you have gone beyond Ivan.

Tanya thought to herself, ‘Does that mean that you are a superior Kurilenko, a more dangerous Kurilenko?’ Aloud, she said I see. Well, then, what is it that bought me away from the development of Siberia?

Hmmm. An excellent question.

Illyitch took out a pipe. Do you mind? Do they allow smoking here? And don't they ever wait on you in this restaurant?

Unlike Moscow, all the local restaurants here are nonsmoking, I am afraid. As to the service, I think Kurilenko... Ivan, as you call him... preferred meeting here because we are left alone. You can pick up what you like at the counters you passed on the way in.

Oh, of course. Quite like Ivan. I would like some tea. Would you like anything? Do they have vodka here?

Their version... American vodka. No real Russian vodka. But yes, I'll take some tea, and a shot of vodka. And something to eat along with it, if you don't mind.

Illyitch made a grimace. "Ah yes. Even our... 'rotgut'