A Pall of Moondust – Nick Wood

KwaZulu Natal, African Federation, 2035.

Blue sky: red dust.

Hamba kahle, grandfather, goodbye.

I sprinkled a handful of orange-red dust on his grave – yet another funeral cloth over your buried body, Babamkhulu – and, behind me, father did the same.

May your soul soar, old man with the sharp tongue and that mad dog, Inja.

And say hello to mother for me.

*

Shackleton Crater, Moon Base One, Lunar, 2037

I dreamed, and shook awake, as the two bodies flew away from me. Dreams live.

Scott is the one keying in the Airlock code, mouth O-ing in shock at the tug and hiss of escaping air behind her.  “Helmets on,” she says, but it is already too late, the door to the Moon behind her is wide as a monster’s maw. 

Bailey is fiddling with the solar array on the Rover, his helmet playfully dangled on the joystick for a second, before being sucked out and beyond my reach.  

Scott pushes me backwards and the inner door closes, leaving me safe on the inside. The wrong side?

The Airlock explodes with emptying air and a spray of moon dust. 

Two die, while I live.

I scour the darkness for something familiar, something safe.

Nothing.

I’m a lunar newbie, only Three Lunar Walks, and with my helmet already on, before we had even entered the airlock. That’s mandatory now – helmet must be on, before airlock entry. Why then, does this darkness hang so heavy with my guilt?

Medication drooped my eyelids, pulling me back towards the faulty doors and O-ing mouths, where I did not want to go.

No, not again, please…

*

Doctor Izmay eyed me over her desk-screen, and I yawned back at her, glancing at the red couch in the corner of her room labelled ‘Sector 12 Psych’. The bed is a cliché, surely, just for show?

“Flashbacks still, Doctor Matlala?” she asked, raising a sympathetic eyebrow.

Her formality reminded me of father, but Izmay was a real woman of everywhere, German/Turkish/North African, a true shrink of the world.

I don’t like shrinks.

But I had been taught well and avoided direct gaze with my elder, a swarthy white woman greying at the temples of her tightly bunned black hair.

She smiled, “Ah, a mark of respect for those older than you, in traditional Zulu custom.”

Her eyes were grey-green, I stared in surprise.

“Like you, young woman, I do my homework,” she said, “Do we need to titrate your medication and increase your dose?”

I hesitated, “I want to get back to my work in hydroponics, but the medication is making me drowsy.”

“There’s something else you need to do first,” the woman leaned back, hesitant too, and dread surged inside me again. “You need to suit up and go back out onto the Moon.”

“Uh – no. What’s the point? I’m a botanist. Nothing grows out there.”

The psychiatrist stood and walked towards the door, gesturing me to follow. “Necessary health and safety. You know the drill. We must all get comfortable on the surface of this Harsh Mistress. For you, that means getting back on your metaphorical horse and into the Airlock, just for starters.”

I could not stand; my limbs were locked.

Doctor Izmay hauled out an injection pen and sighed, tapping it on her palm. “I agree. Your medication does need increasing.”

*

The psychiatrist held my arm firmly as we approached the Airlock door and I was grateful for that, my legs starting to jelly.

“Slow your breathing,” she said sharply, “think of Durban beach.”

I practiced our imagery work, heading into my safe mind-space, as she counted out a slowed pace for my breath. Hot white-yellow sand, pumping surf, blue bottle jelly fish and…sharks in the water?

“Helmet on,” she said, but the airlock door in front of us was gaping like the jaws of a Great White.

I tripped over the two bodies they had brought back.

Scott and Bailey, suited and helmetless, darkened by a coat of regolith, with their eye sockets and tongues caked in the black dust that was everywhere.

“Stay with me Thandike,” a voice said, “Breathe, one…two…”

But I have dropped the helmet, in case it sucks me out.

I bend with suited difficulty, scraping the floor for moon dust that stinks like weak gunpowder, so as to sprinkle it respectfully on the bodies of Scott and Bailey.

So little to scoop up, so little to leave them in peace. Why is it just I who lives still?

My eyes leaked with sorrow and guilt, so that I hardly felt yet another injection into my upper arm.

Where have their bodies gone? And are their shades happy?

*

“Survivor guilt is normal,” Doctor Izmay told me.

This time she had me lying on her red leather couch, so that I did not have to look at her eyes. “You could have done nothing differently. It’s not your fault.”

Yes, I know that, so why do I still feel guilty?

“Tell me about your grandfather.”

The command dropped onto my stomach like a lead weight. Even in Moon gravity, it felt heavy. I prefer plants to words, any day.

“He helped father raise me, after my mother died when I was very young,” I struggled, “He died at ninety, the year before I got into the Lunar Programme. I wish I could have shown him my letter of acceptance.”

“You still miss him?” Her voice was nearer, as if she’d shifted closer to me, on the seat behind the couch.

It was an obvious question, so I did not even bother to respond.

“Tell me more about him,” Dr. Izmay tried again, “What do you miss the most?”

“No,” I said, “It has no relevance here. I need to get back to the issue of efficient grain production in one sixth gee and filtered sunlight.”

A noise clicked from behind the red couch, now sticky with stale sweat from my back. Above me, the ceiling slid open and I saw a window funnelled to the roof of the dome. Sharp stars cut down into my eyes, lancing slivers of light, with no atmospheric distortion to turn them twinkle friendly.

“The light from those stars is variously between four hundred and five billion years old,” Dr. Izmay said, “They will fade with Earthrise imminent, but they won’t disappear. They’re still there, even when they’re gone. Tell me about your grandfather.”

“No,” I said, eyes burning, so that I screwed them shut. Stars are like my grandfather? Could I have been quicker to call 9-1-1, when his heart collapsed that day?

“You’ve always done your best,” Dr. Izmay’s voice was even closer still, “In the end, with death, we can change nothing.”

I opened my eyes and twitched with shock. She was bending over me from the back of the couch, eyes fastened on mine: “What was your grandfather’s favourite phrase, when you were a teenager?”

“Get off that bloody couch and do something useful, intombi!” The words were out of my mouth, before I could think.

Dr. Izmay was laughing, “Well?”

She had done her homework on me, very well indeed.

*

Today, my two moon-walking companions were to be Commander Baines and Space Tourist Butcher.

I had checked the records on both, the night before.

Baines had over four hundred walks under his buckled belt and had slid like a snake into his own suit, although bending stiffly to pick up his helmet and gloves. “I’ve got me your bio-signs on my screen visor here, so I’m keeping tabs on both of you. We’re not going far. Just keep me in sight and do everything I tell you. Helmets On.”

My heart pumped a surge of panic, but Butcher looked even more terrified.

It’s his first time, at the ancient age of forty-six. I’m not the newest newbie here.

“Just breathe slowly,” I told him, “Don’t hyperventilate into your mouthpiece.”

Dr. Izmay crackled into my ears as I fastened my helmet on. “Good. I’m patched in from remote too, Thandike. Looks like I might have to copyright that breathing line.”

My chuckle took the edge off my dread.

Baines was already thumbing in the access code and I took up my position at the back. (Newbie in the middle, yet another reg. change, since the accident.)

“Fool proof new locking system,” says Baines, bouncing through the opening Airlock door.

Butcher followed, more slowly and clumsily.

I stepped forward to support his PLSS backpack, preventing the novice from toppling backwards – as he momentarily backed away from the door, as if having had sudden second thoughts.

I may only be twenty eight, but I know by now, that nothing is ever fool proof…So what the hell am I doing stepping through this door myself?

It’s better than going home, for a start. It’s taken me a long time and lots of hard work to get here, ahead of so much global competition. And, now that I’m here, I’m going to make sure I stay off that bloody couch. For you, Babamkhulu.

The door behind me closed and Baines was already busy on the external door, as if minimising our chances for anxiety to escalate. “Butcher, breathe, one, two….” I said, hearing a quick rasping in my ears.

            “Ready for exit, decompression complete…”

Slowly, the outer door opened.

Hesitantly, we followed Baines’ loping bounce out onto the surface of the moon.

We needed to step upwards slightly, as the door has been built low into a crater wall, to minimise solar radiation exposure.

            I strode across to a large boulder to my right, keeping Baines in view. How can it look so dark, with such a bright sun?

            Baines was a few steps further along, by a mound of broken rocks.  He moves so quickly, as if he doesn’t even think about the steps he has left behind.

            “Both of you; take a look at that!”  Baines’ voice crackled as he raised an arm to point, along the horizon to our right.

            The Earth shimmered low over the horizon – a largish blue-white ball floating above the lip of Shackleton’s crater, where solar arrays in eternal sunlight bled back cheap and climate friendly energy to the planet.

I focused on Earth. Where are the continents? Where is Africa?

The blur of grey-white cloud smeared the blue-green oceans and brown earth across the globe. I could almost hear it spinning, swirling hot climate clouds across the face of the world.

It doesn’t matter if I can’t find Africa. From here, nothing is ‘Great’, nothing is ‘Permanent’. For all of us humans alike, we have a melting, fragile pearl to protect.

            “And look there!” Baines swivelled to point at the sky behind us.

 I turned to peer in the deep darkness, where the stars were fading, a dull reddish pinprick burned.

“Mars, our next stop,” said Baines.

The colour of the earth, with which we had covered grandfather.

Butcher and Baines continued to watch Mars, but I stared back at the sealed crater door. No, surely not?

“What’s happening to your pulse and breathing, Thandike?” Dr. Izmay’s voice bit into my ear.

            I raise a gloved hand to take the edge off the solar glare. On the top-edge of the crater, near the dome roof, sat an old man with a knobkierie stick, and a dog by his side.

            I knew better than to say anything, but walked back to Base slowly, testing my vision. The old man stood to wave and his voice quavered to me, across the vacuum: ‘Proud to see you doing something so special and useful, umzukulu!’

            Two space-suited figures hovered behind him. They waved once.

            Inja barked, and when I blinked again, all of them had gone.

They had warned me to expect visual distortions in this alien land, where distance and depth were hard to judge, and shifting shadows played with your perception.

“What did you see, Thandike?” Doctor Izmay’s voice echoed into my ears.

“Our home crater and the outer door.”

I say a prayer, silently.

I watch the soon to disappear stars above me, as sunrise approaches, to break the shorter lunar night.

Behind me, Baines and Butcher have arrived, and I finish my prayer.

*

Cunjani, grandfather, hello.

So, tell me, how is my mother?

Black sky: grey dust.                                                

Inyanga, 2037                                                                                                   

End.