MOON
RAIL
Remembered Earth Universe
Volume 14
Lunar Series
Book 6
D.W. PATTERSON
Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
All rights reserved.
First D Printing – April, 2025
Future Chron Publishing
Cover – Copyright © 2025 D.W. Patterson
Cover Image – Photo 305932784 | Lunar Colony © Dmitry2016911 | Dreamstime(dot)com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Sarah
“This is the greatest event in all the history of the human race, up to this time. This is-today is New Year's Day of the Year One.”
― Robert Heinlein to Walter Cronkite on the Moon landing.
To The Reader
In this story (and most of my stories), if I use a date, I know I am using the antiquated dating system, A.D. I blame this on the book Daybreak – 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton, which I read some time in elementary school (and of which I recently bought an old paperback copy). So, I was imprinted early with that dating system and think it sounds cooler than C.E. No social, political or any other kind of statement is meant.
Science and technology are important to me and I enjoy developing them as I develop a series. However, a problem arises if I have to reintroduce the science and technology in each story as the series progresses. For a reader that has been reading all along the reintroduction must be tedious and somewhat boring. For a reader entering later in the series (and I do like for the stories to stand alone) the lack of explanation could be off putting. So, as a compromise I have included the previous science and technology explanations in a Glossary at the end of this story, it also contains other facts about the series. Probably not a perfect solution, but the only one I could come up with at the time.
Chapter 1
2048 A.D.
Graham Timothy was an expert on Earth but on the Moon he wasn't so sure.
The company had sent him to help build a railroad. When he first heard about the assignment he wasn't even sure there were towns on the Moon. He hadn't kept up with Moon happenings because he thought he would be working on Earth, but no luck, and no jobs when he graduated school with a civil engineering degree. So, someone had told him about a building project on the Moon and that they were looking for civil engineers. He asked what they were building and was told, a railroad. Graham's first response was, why?
That was six months ago and now after training on Earth and acclimating to Moon gravity in Earth orbit he was on the Moon. It wasn't exactly what he expected. For one thing there were now ten settlements with two more planned. The East Solar Farm was online, providing much of the power for the rail link whose first segment would be built between the two settlements Fontenelle and Tima. These were the two oldest and largest settlements in the far north lunar sea of Mare Frigoris. The West Solar Farm, which would provide power when the east was in the two week lunar night, was also almost finished.
Graham knew all this from his training but the two-thousand miles between the East and West solar farms was a staggering distance to think would eventually be linked by a railroad. Still, that was why he was there and why he was flying down to the Fontenelle settlement aboard a lunar personnel lander (LPL) from the space station that the company leased room aboard.
It seemed very much as if there were no man-made settlements on the Moon as seen from the station or the descending LPL. It wasn't until Graham could see the surface fast approaching that he noticed on the monitor in the seat in front of him a circular area surrounded by a high wall. He recognized at once that it was the landing area and the wall was a blast shield to prevent the LPL's rockets from blasting the surrounding surface with debris. Just before landing he also noticed what looked like some sheds and mounds of regolith.
Graham was wearing a pressure suit with breathing apparatus as a safety precaution. It was well fitting and not difficult to move in but did suppress the normal chit-chat he might have had with the attractive woman sitting next to him. The best he could do was stand in the aisle and allow her to go ahead of him as they deboarded. She seemed appreciative.
The passengers left the LPL through it's belly and as Graham moved out from under the transport he could see towering cliffs in the distance. He knew that was the rim wall of Fontenelle crater, thirty-eight kilometers in diameter and one point eight kilometers deep. Behind that wall permanently protected from the sun at this latitude was ice water and the reason for the settlement's location.
Graham noticed the hard surface of blocks that he was walking on, it was basalt. This was another reason the settlement was located in Mare Frigoris instead of in the highlands, basalt was plentiful in the Mare and basalt could be processed into almost anything for building.
They walked into a subway like entrance and down two flights of stairs to a waiting area with airlocks. Processing through each airlock two at a time, Graham found himself in a similar room on the other side. Once gathered again, the group was led through doors into a long, large corridor. The settlement guides took them to their rooms. Graham's guide explained some about the settlement before leaving him.
Graham's apartment was small, two rooms with a small bathroom off the bedroom. Briefly looking around, Graham had the time to unpack, eat a small meal in the kitchenette and get some sleep. He had to get up early to be at the company's office.
Early the next morning Graham had dressed, eaten, and was following the directions from his Emmie (his personal AI) to find Lunar Rail's offices. The corridor was busy with electric carts and people walking. It was about thirty feet wide and the walls were twelve feet high. The ceiling was an arch with a peak of twenty feet or so. Graham thought back to the settlement's appearance from the outside, he would never have guessed such an extensive, expansive complex existed under the surface. He had been told that fifteen-hundred people lived in Fontenelle.
At the company's office there was a front door as well as an airlock. The door was heavy and Graham found out later that it was a pressure door and would close automatically if there was an air breach, then the airlock would have to be used.
Inside the offices he was taken by a receptionist to the foreman supervising the build.
“Mr. Timothy this is Harlan Reynolds, the build foreman,” said the receptionist who then left.
Graham knew the name. Harlan Reynolds was a legend, he had been on the Moon a long time and had seemingly built everything.
“Sit down Mr. Timothy and please call me Harlan. Now, I want to discuss the project with you. I know that you already know some of what I'm about to say. As you know, this rail line we're building will eventually be over two-thousand miles in length. But the first segment will be about one-hundred fifty miles, from here to the Tima settlement. It will be a maglev design and except for the linear electromagnetics and the rolling stock the infrastructure will be manufactured here on the Moon. Primarily the roadbed will be either basalt block or poured Mooncrete, which as you probably know is a cement made from basalt and an alkali binder.
“It will be elevated and that's where you come in. We are going to depend on you to do the design work and the necessary validation tests. Most of the actual build work will be done by robots and 3D printers. You will generate the blueprints for those printers. Any questions?”
“No sir, it's as I understood before I left Earth. I guess if you will show me to my work area I'll get started.”
Harlan was impressed with Graham's eagerness.
“Of course, I'll have Lanier show you the work files. Welcome aboard Graham,” said Harlan, who stood to shake Graham's hand.
He then led Graham to Lanier Lacey's desk and introduced them before returning to his office.
After being shown his work desk and the file system by Lacey, Graham reviewed the project's paperwork and particularly the train and supporting guideway.
Since a maglev train “floats” above the surface there are no real rails involved. Instead linear electromagnets are embedded in a guideway which is usually built from concrete and the maglev straddles this guideway.
The cars would be forty feet long and ten feet wide and fourteen feet high. Each coach would weigh thirty-five tons. The electric locomotives were about the same size but would be fifty tons each. Two locomotives and six cars would make up a trainset which meant that each trainset would weigh about three-hundred and ten Earth tons or about fifty tons on the Moon. The new Super-X rocket by Space Trucks could lift an entire trainset off Earth and after refueling in Earth orbit, deliver it to the Moon.
The weight and length of a trainset (about three-hundred twenty feet) were important inputs to Graham's design. Obviously the weight was important for the piers of the raised roadbed to support but the length was also important for the grades the train would encounter. Too fast a change in grade could cause a coupling problem for the cars in the trainset, another important input into Graham's design.
By the end of the day Graham had a good idea of the route that had been set out by survey between Tima and Fontenelle and also the critical areas along the route where he would have to focus his attention. Overall, the lighter gravity on the Moon made the job easier but not trivial. Graham finished work that day satisfied that he could do the job.
Graham's design work proceeded quickly. Soon the construction schedule called for the building to start. Graham was just finishing up his design of the guideway and piers. The guideway was essentially an extended box made of Mooncrete. The box was hollow and would contain the linear array of magnetic coils which along with the linear array of coils in the locomotives and cars formed a magnetic dipole which would levitate the train. By applying an alternating current to the linear array of coils in the guideway a traveling electromagnetic wave pulls the locomotive and train along moving it on a cushion of magnetic energy. The gap between the linear array of coils is measured by the locomotives and the vehicles every microsecond and the gap tolerance is five millimeters, this is on a levitated cushion of fifteen centimeters.
The guideway box was eight feet wide by three feet deep and access to the magnetic coils was from the top through a removable Mooncrete slab, four inches thick. Two slots at the edges of the top slab would guide wheeled maintenance vehicles that could repair the guideway even when it was unpowered.
Though it wasn't strictly his job, Graham calculated that it would take about one kilowatt per ton to levitate and propel the trainset, therefore power requirements for each trainset were about fifty kilowatts. A local solar array would provide most of the power, though it would be supplemented by the arrays at the East and West solar farms. Since the farms are over one-hundred and eighty degrees apart, one of them would be entering a fourteen Earth day sunlight period while the other is exiting a fourteen Earth day sunlight period, a result of the Moon being tidally locked with the Earth.
The work began with the construction of Graham's piers that would hold up the guideway. On average these would hold the guideway some twenty feet above the Moon's surface. They were anchored in the regolith by light-weight steel brought from Earth. Each one had a prebuilt form which was assembled at Fontenelle and flown into place by a lunar cargo lander (LCL). Once the form was in place the Mooncrete could be poured much as on Earth. Once the Mooncrete dried the form was removed and then the surface of the dry, hard Mooncrete was treated with a layer of protection against the unrelenting radiation and particles from the Sun. The same treatment was applied to the exteriors of the cars and locomotives.
It was calculated that a trip across the entire rail system would result in a rider receiving less radiation than a flier traveling a similar distance on Earth in a plane at ten-thousand feet. Thus, the building of a surface transport instead of burying the railroad like a subway because of radiation became practical. This resulted in a savings of millions of dollars per mile.
After a couple of weeks building the piers the construction of the guideway began. The guideway was poured in molds at Fontenelle and assembled into lengths that were somewhat longer than a trainset. There would be no grade changes except where one guideway section joined another, this would keep the trainsets from “buckling” too much.
The sections were lifted by two LCL's and flown to the site where they were lowered onto the waiting piers and locked in preexisting tabs. Like assembling puzzle pieces.
In this way the rail line continued until it was long enough to require the first inspection trip. Graham would be on the trip which would use a self-powered vehicle running on top of the guideway with hard rubber tire wheelsets. The vehicle had been specifically designed to service the railroad infrastructure. It had cabs on each end so that it could run out and back with the crew simply switching cabs. The middle section, where Graham would be, had test instrumentation to check the guideway and the linear array of magnetic coils beneath.
The vehicle was pressurized so that the personnel could work without their helmets but wearing their pressure suits in case of emergency. Graham was watching the displays of the various instrumentation as the vehicle was traveling at about twenty miles an hour. He saw no anomalies and relaxed to look out the porthole like window next to him.
It was true that the gray of the Moon dominated the landscape but now and then a dash of color could be seen. He had learned enough geology to associate the colors with elements. Graham knew that the light-brown streaks in the distance resulted from deposits of iron-oxide and that the closer light-blue color was from titanium-oxide which was very predominant in the region of the mare they were traveling through. He also saw that the area was even darker than usual because of the way the soils were formed. Pyroclastic materials, that is lava, had rained down over the area from a volcanic vent fed by lava tubes nearby eons ago. The drops of magma cooled and formed small beads of glass and crystals. The beads were high in titanium and low in reflectance, giving the dark appearance. Titanium-oxide also shifted the color of the mare from red to blue.
He was thus occupied when he felt the jerk and heard the loud crash of metal. He reached for his helmet before the vehicle fell from the guideway.
Chapter 2
Graham woke surprised to find his helmet on, he was also surprised that it was dark. The lunar night was several Earth days away. Graham searched around for his knapsack, his Emmie could function as a flashlight. Eventually he felt something like fabric, but it wasn't his knapsack, it was the Wilson's pressure suit. Wilson was a technician who had also been monitoring sensors.
Graham shook him and called over the common radio channel but Wilson didn't answer or move. He left off and continued the search for his knapsack, finally finding it in the far corner of the cabin. He opened it and searched for his Emmie, touching the screen, he found it was still working, so he turned on its flashlight feature. The first thing he did was shine it in the direction of Wilson but wished he hadn't.
Wilson's helmet had been breached. What remained looked like a blood red mask interrupted only by slits that were once eyes, nose and mouth but now were like dark, empty puncture wounds. Graham shuddered and moved back, he called for the others in the crew again over the common radio channel but got no response. He decided he would try to get out of the vehicle.
The vehicle was on its side which made it difficult to make it through the door and crawl to the front where he could exit. But after a few minutes, taking it slow because he didn't want to tear his pressure suit, he was there. Checking the personnel in the front cabin, he found that they too were dead, helmets intact but suits ruptured. So far, all except Graham had been strapped into their seats, he didn't know what to make of that.
For now Graham felt he had to get out of the vehicle. He knew it was on its side and he decided to exit the door facing upward. Except that once he had reached up to the door and activated the unlatch he couldn't move it. He was sure the lock was free and the door should be opening but it wouldn't.
After several tries he decided it was unlocked but blocked from the other side. He sat down and thought.
It's unlocked, it won't move. It's completely dark in here. How could both of those things be?
He was still.
Something is obviously blocking the door and something is obviously blocking the sunlight. If it's the same thing it can only be . . .
Graham took a small knife out of the pouch on his pressure suit. He again got into position so that he could push on the door. Pushing so that it moved slightly, he took the knife and jabbed into the slight opening hitting something hard. He scraped at the obstacle and then got down to examine his knife. It was regolith and, now that Graham knew, he could look around his feet and see more of the stuff. The service vehicle was buried in regolith.
Graham couldn't think of any way that it could have happened, but he knew he had to contact Fontenelle soon. He only had about a two hour supply of air in his tank, though he might be able to switch it out with the other tanks in the vehicle, and that might give him a six to eight hour supply. He also knew that the vehicle should automatically be signaling for help, if the transmitter was working. He also knew he could signal over the network if he could get to the nearest network box which shouldn't be more than a mile either way away along the roadway.
So, either the vehicle had already signaled, or as a backup he would have to, but either way he would need to get out of the vehicle. Graham sat down to think again.
Okay, every one is dead, so no help there. I can't push the door open by myself. I have a limited amount of air supply.
If the emergency signal is working, then they'll be here soon. If it's not working it will take longer, although, because the vehicle is buried, it could be difficult to spot, which would add even more time before its discovered.
Graham stood and tried to look through the small windows at the front of the vehicle. But it was too dark, he couldn't see beyond the slit like openings. But while staring into the darkness he remembered the “claw.” The claw was at the end of the robotic arm and could be used to lift material from the upper bed of the service vehicle to the guideway during repairs. The claw was flexible enough to double back and had enough drive power to hammer at the front windows. If Graham could break out one of those windows he could squirm through.
If the claw was working and was free it would also tell him something about what was outside the vehicle. He moved to the control console to operate the device. First he turned on the power, the screen was working and gave a schematic representation of the claw and its arm, right now it was in the stowed position. He took the joystick that operated the device and moved it slightly. The schematic on the screen responded and Graham could hear the arm itself move. Now, to get it in position.
He moved it slowly, expecting to run into an obstacle at any time but in a few minutes he had the robotic arm wrapped around the vehicle to the front windows. As a test he bumped the joystick a couple of times and heard the claw knocking on the window. Now he would find out whether he could get out of the vehicle or not.
The windows of the vehicle were three layers. The combination of glass and plastics protected the vehicles occupants as one glass pane shielded them from the heat of the sun, another acrylic pane provided protection from the vacuum and the third pane serves as a safety redundancy for the glass pane. The size and shape of the windows also offered protection. Altogether they were quite tough to break, that is why Graham needed something like the claw.
He bumped the joystick harder and the claw banged on the window harder. He continued doing this, pushing the joystick harder which translated into the claw hammering the window harder. He could hear the noise through his helmet and feel it in his feet as the impulse from the claw shook the vehicle until there was a crashing sound from the hole the claw had made. Graham worked for another ten minutes breaking out enough of the window so that he could slip through.
Once he was finished he moved the claw back a couple of feet from the window. He then searched throughout the vehicle for other air tanks and his knapsack. He found three more tanks, he also found his knapsack. He put the tanks in the knapsack and closed it as best he could by removing the technical notebooks he had brought along. He could reach the window by standing and could pull himself up by placing his foot on one of the driver chairs.
He pushed the knapsack through the window but held on to the strap. He then worked the upper part of his body through and twisted until he could pull his legs clear. He was outside the vehicle and on his side and the darkness was impenetrable. He turned his Emmie flash on.
It was a cave of some kind, maybe a lava tube. Graham rose to his feet and shined the light towards the service vehicle. On top of the vehicle, which was on its right side, was a mound of regolith, as he expected. What he didn't expect was that there wasn't an opening above.
Where he was standing, the lava tube was about twenty feet over his head and about thirty feet wide, small for a lava tube if that was what it was. Anyway, the mound of regolith on the vehicle extended to the ceiling and the sides of the lava tube, leaving only the front uncovered. If he wanted to get out, he wouldn't be able to go that way.
So, what now?
*****
Harlan had been informed that the service vehicle had missed its last scheduled call in. It had been almost to the end of the finished guideway before contact was lost.
The other service vehicle was being prepared. Harlan was debating with Lanier about whether to take the LPL out to scout the line, it would be much faster than the service vehicle. He decided to do both.
“Okay, Lanier I'm going with Davies in the LPL and you can follow in the SV. Radio contact every ten minutes, understood?”
“Understood,” said Lanier.
Harlan headed for the airlock to the flight deck, he had already donned his pressure suit. He cycled through the airlock and bounded over to the LPL. In this case the LPL was directly over the settlement instead of behind the nearby hill. Around the flight deck was a blast wall higher than a man's height. Harlan was quickly through the blast underpass and climbing into the LPL.
He settled into the seat beside Davies.
“Let's go,” he said.
The LPL lifted and was on it's way following the guideway. Harlan and the on board AI were scouting the roadbed.
A call came in from Lanier, “Harlan, we're on our way.”
“Roger,” said Harlan.
At the speed they were traveling the LPL would reach the end of the guideway in twenty minutes. The service vehicle would take over two hours. Harlan was sure that he or the AI wouldn't miss any sign of the service vehicle even at the speed they were traveling. But soon the LPL was approaching the end of the guideway and they had seen nothing.
“What now?” asked Davies.
“I guess we have to turn around and retrace our steps more slowly. We obviously missed something,” said Harlan.
Harlan got on the radio.
“Lanier we missed it,” he said.
“Okay Harlan, we are about six miles out and have seen nothing,” radioed Lanier.
The LPL had slowed down to a speed barely above what a service vehicle could travel. Harlan was now on the other side of the guideway.
It was another ten minutes when Harlan said to Davies, “Bring it around Davies I saw something.”
“Right there next to the guideway, do you see it? It looks like some kind of depression that's been made and then filled in,” said Harlan. “Let's land and have a closer look.”
Davies maneuvered the LPL around the side of the guideway and when he was sure he had found a good site he landed.
Harlan and Davies exited the LPL and walked over to the place that Harlan had pointed out.
Over the radio Harlan said, “It looks to me like there was a hole here but the rim around it collapsed and filled it in.”
Davies looked up at the guideway and said, “Well, if the service vehicle came off the guideway it might have fallen somewhere about here.”
“Yeah, and if there were a cave or lava tube below it could have breached it,” said Harlan.
“You think they could be down there buried under this rubble of regolith?” asked Davies.
“Could be, it would explain why we didn't see anything,” said Harlan.
“But the ground penetrating radar was used all over the route area as the guideway was being built,” said Davies. “They would have found any cave or lava tube under the ground, wouldn't they?”
“Should have, but maybe it was shielded,” said Harlan as he began to circle the depression.
“You mean an iron ore deposit messed up the readings in this area? But the geologists have told us for years that the iron deposits aren't that concentrated” asked Davies.
“Maybe the geologists have been wrong for years,” said Harlan. “We'll have to wait until the other service vehicle gets here. If they haven't seen anything then we'll use the ground radar on board to look around here again. If the operator knows about the iron content of the soil he can compensate.”
They stood looking at the ground for a few more moments.
“Let's get back to the LPL and call Lanier and then wait,” said Harlan.
It took the service vehicle over an hour to finally get to the location.
Chapter 3
Graham had been torn between staying where he was and waiting for a rescue or exploring the cave/lava tube. He figured he would have to wait at least two hours for a rescue or if he could find someway out of the cave/lava tube he might be able to call over the network and tell them what guideway pier he was calling from since each had a unique identifier. After a few minutes he decided to go ahead and explore, he could always return before he expected a rescue attempt would reach him.
Graham walked into the darkness using the light on his Emmie to illuminate his path. The floor, walls, and ceiling were even darker than he expected. They didn't seem to reflect the light but instead absorbed it. Only occasionally a flash of blue would shockingly appear, like an eye watching. Graham definitely felt discomfort but he continued, watching the ceiling especially for any opening to the surface.
After awhile he looked at the time, he was having a hard time seeing it on the Emmie's screen. Was the device's power failing? Without its light it would be almost impossible to walk. He tried to adjust the brightness but it was still a bit blurry.
Why do they make the type so small?
He was just about to spend some time increasing the font size on the screen when he had a piercing pain around his eyes.
Something's not right.
He checked the suit readout that was linked to the Emmie's screen. It too was difficult to see. Graham squinted. He held the screen almost to his face. Then he was startled by a flash of red. Holding the screen out he saw it still flashing red. An oxygen alert, he was running out of air!
He had forgot that he was reaching the limit on his air tank. He took the knapsack off his shoulder and opened it to remove one of the other tanks. Unlike a spacesuit which had a provision for tank switching the pressure suit was designed only for short times on the surface near a shelter. They had no provision for easily swapping air tanks but it was possible to do.
He would have to reach around and remove the tank on his back and replace it with the new one. Reaching over his shoulder and removing the tank wouldn't be hard but seating the new one correctly so that it would mate with the suit and supply air would be a bit of a challenge. At some point during the switch over he would be holding his breath.
Graham placed his Emmie on the floor of the lava tube with the screen up so that he would have a low light. He then took a breath, a little deeper than normal, but not so deep that it would be hard to hold and reached and removed the old tank. He dropped it, being careful not to hit his Emmie, he would pick it up later. He took the new tank and in the dim light, without seeing but only feeling his way, pushed it gently into the seating mechanism hoping to hear the radio report of it locking in place. He pushed until he couldn't push it any more and didn't hear the locking report. Something wasn't lining up, he would have to turn it slightly and try again.
This is why the instructor said we should use the buddy system for tank replacement.
He tried again, and then a third time. By now Graham wasn't only fighting the lack of oxygen but he was also fighting panic. He was on his fifth try when he felt his feet buckle and he went down, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Graham woke up. It was blacker than he had ever known. His head hurt as well as one shoulder, he didn't know where he was for a moment. Reflexively, he held his hand in front of his face and still couldn't see it. He remembered his Emmie but he wasn't holding it. He felt around for it and could feel only the hard volcanic rock of the floor of what he had decided was a lava tube. Extending his search, he eventually found the device where he had dropped it.
It was dead, he shook it in his hand, there was light, he could see one of the corners was scratched and roughened but at least the screen was on. He remembered the bottle of air, he reached back and touched it, it was seated and latched. Somehow, when he collapsed the bottle was jarred and aligned with its holder and latched in place, enabling the air supply to flow and saving Graham's life.
He was glad to be alive but there was one problem, he didn't know which way he had been walking. Unfortunately, he had been in the center of the lava tube at the time he passed out, equal distance from each wall. After what had happened he wanted to go back to the crashed service vehicle and wait to be rescued. But which way was back?
*****
The service vehicle had arrived where Harlan and Davies had landed. The ground penetrating radar was being setup. Not only could the radar find any voids beneath the surface if compensated properly, but it could also identify the missing service vehicle if it was down there.
The walker-bot began carrying the radar across the terrain to the area they expected to find the service vehicle. The signal from the radar was sent by radio to the base station where the operator was viewing and an AI was analyzing. Harlan and the others were standing around in a circle.
“You see anything Luis?” asked Harlan over the radio link.
“Not yet,” said Luis.
Harlan watched the walker-bot for a few minutes.
“There it is,” said Luis.
“What do you see?” asked Harlan.
“We got a void,” said Luis. “Looks five, ten meters deep, ten, fifteen meters wide.”
The walker-bot paced back and forth, adjusting to commands from the AI as to the path it should take. Suddenly, as Harlan was watching, the bot went down. Harlan moved to get a better look. The bot hadn't fallen but was buried up to its first walker joint in regolith. The radar was still working.
“I've got something,” said Luis who hadn't noticed yet the bot's circumstance.
“What?” asked Harlan, looking back to Luis.
“We've got a solid object with a similar shape to a service vehicle only seven meters below the bot,” he said, looking up for the first time and seeing the bot buried.
Harlan was calling for the vertical drill which could punch a hole wide enough for a man in a pressure suit to pass into the cave below.
*****
According to the way he was laying when he woke, Graham had made his best guess as to which way was the service vehicle and had begun walking. That had been an hour ago.
I should have been back to the service vehicle by now.
He figured he had about three hours left, that is if he could make the tank change without a worse incident than before. That would be enough to get back to the vehicle if it was behind him. But the question was, was it behind him?
I should have paid more attention.
Graham was frozen with indecision. He didn't want to make the decision, it might be his last if he was wrong. Finally, after several minutes of agonizing, Graham decided to go ahead, he didn't know why, it was just a hunch.
*****
The drill had been set up within twenty minutes. The great thing about working on the Moon was that even heavy equipment became one-sixth lighter than on Earth. The drill whirled for another fifteen minutes until it stopped.
“It's through,” said the drill operator over the common radio channel.
“Okay,” said Harlan, “get that harness on me and lower me into the hole.”
Harlan, in the harness, slipped through the hole without much trouble. The surface layer at that point was about two meters thick. Harlan passed through the opening into the lava tube, the lights setup to illuminate the hole were shining in a sharply delineated circle on the floor. Some dust from Harlan's passage through the hole was still settling.
When he arrived on the floor of the lava tube he unharnessed and called in over the radio. He would scout the area and assess the danger before others entered. He could see the large mound of regolith. He circled the mound and came around to the front of the vehicle, he noticed the window broken.
Harlan called for the others to descend, he would wait for backup before going into the wreckage. While he was waiting he could see the robot arm with the claw on the end, obviously someone had used it to get out of the service vehicle. Who was it and where were they? How many got out, was there anyone left inside? The backup arrived and helped Harlan go through the window.
Inside Harlan found the two operators strapped in their seats, he recognized them. He then moved into the center compartment where he found another body. The face plate of the helmet was broken and the face was a red, swollen mess and unrecognizable. Harlan reached into the suit pouch and removed the ID card, it was Wilson. He continued to the back of the vehicle and found the last crew member, also dead.
Only one was missing, Graham Timothy.
Harlan began to work his way back to the front of the vehicle when he received a call.
“Harlan, this is Lanier.”
“Go ahead,” said Harlan.
“We've heard from base, Graham has called base.”
“How?” asked Harlan.
“He used the network. He's at pier number 2905X19,” said Lanier.
“That's over ten miles back. How the hell did he get there?”
“He said he followed a lava tube,” said Lanier.
“That's not good,” said Harlan. “Okay, send the LPL to pick him up immediately. We'll secure the area and make our way back in the service vehicle. This is strictly a recovery operation now.”
Back at Fontenelle, Graham was kept in the infirmary overnight as a precaution. By the following day the bodies of the others had been recovered and Graham was out of the infirmary with a meeting scheduled with Harlan.
“We've got some preliminary results,” said Harlan to Graham and Lanier.
“It seems that lava tube you followed was completely missed by the survey crew because of the high concentration of the iron-oxide in the overlying regolith. There are several places where the lava tube is too close to the guideway for comfort. Continuous operation of the trains could have led to further collapse of the lava tube in such areas, as it did when your service vehicle broke through.
“Such a collapse could also be a danger to the guideway. We're going to have to reinforce the tube in those places to prevent it.”
He was quiet a moment.
“At least some good will come out of those four deaths,” he finished.
They were all quiet a moment.
“You also found a large supply of iron ore that will go a long way to bootstrapping a steel industry here Graham,” said Lanier.
Graham was happy and sad at the same time.
Lunar Series Glossary
Places
Archytas crater – 32 km diameter, 2.4 km deep located at 58.7 N, 5.0E.
Archer – Settlement south of Archytas crater.
Democritus crater – 39 km diameter, 2 km deep located at 62.3 N, 35E.
Demos – Settlement south of Democritus crater.
Dugan crater – 50 km diameter, 1.1 km deep located at 64.2 N, 103.3E.
Dugan Power Field – Solar array at east end of Frigoris Power District.
Fontenelle crater – 38 km diameter, 1.8 km deep located at 63.4 N, 18.9 W.
Fontenelle – Settlement south of crater Fontenelle in Mare Frigoris.
Frigoris Mining Camp – Small mining camp in region just west of Tima.
Sheepshanks crater – 35 km diameter, 2 km deep located at 59.2 N, 16.9 E.
Sheeps Town – Settlement south of Sheepshanks crater.
Timaeus crater – 33 km diameter, 2.2 km deep located at 62.8 N, 0.55 W.
Tima – Settlement south of crater Timaeus.
Horrebow Crater – 14.9 mi diameter, 2.5 km deep located 58.7 N, 40.8 W.
Distances
West Solar Farm to Markov – 358 mi E.
Markov to Babbage – 135 mi. NNE.
Babbage to Robinson – 98.8 mi. E.
Robinson to Horrebow – 47. 2 mi E.
Horrebow to Fontenelle – 216 mi. ESE.
Fontenelle to Tima – 152 mi. ESE.
Tima to Archer – 95 mi. SE.
Archer to Sheepshanks – 122 mi. ENE.
Sheepshanks to Democritus – 176 mi. SE.
Democritus to Thales – 136 mi. E.
Thales to Hayn – 305 mi. E.
Hayn to Dugan – 147 mi. ENE.
Dugan to East Solar Farm – 15 mi. E
1750 miles along 60 degrees north.
2000 miles settlement to settlement.
1220 miles across pole.
Companies
Frigoris Mining – Regolith mining company.
Luna Limited – Settlement developer, building Tima.
Lunar Rail – Maglev trains connecting all settlements.
New Lunar Corporation – Settlement developer, built Fontenelle.
Space Trucks – Operates LCL and LPL to/from Moon's surface.
Technology
3D Printer – A builder bot powered by an Em. Two tracks and an overhead crane like printer head deliver a slurry of Moon cement from a tooth paste-like tip to iteratively buildup structures.
CTV – Crew Transfer Vehicle which takes personnel from low Earth orbit to low lunar orbit.
DONKEY-BOT – Cargo platform that can wheel, walk, or climb while carrying up to five hundred pounds of supplies.
EM/EMMIE – AI based on human brain model. Called an Emmie when used in a personal assistant device.
LCL – Lunar Cargo Lander built by Space Trucks. Three cylindrical shaped, rocket powered (both lateral and vertical thrust) bodies joined by trusses. The outside cylinders are specifically designed for personnel (see LPL) but adaptable for cargo while the center cylinder is designed for cargo only and is strapped beneath the trusses joining the outer cylinders. Twenty-five tons low lunar orbit to Moon's surface.
LPL – Lunar Personnel Lander built by Space Trucks. Two cylindrical shaped, rocket powered (both lateral and vertical thrust) bodies joined by trusses. Up to five tons of personnel and supplies from low lunar orbit to the surface.
Lunar hauler – Moon truck reminiscent of Earth-like hauler, ten feet high, twenty-five feet long. Used to haul loose materials as well as supplies.
Moon cement (Mooncrete) – Building material made from an alkali binder and regolith (mostly basalt). Used in making blocks and 3D printing slurry.
Porch – An aluminum frame half bucky-sphere covered with a sandwich of kevlar and high atomic-weight gel which provides some radiation protection for out-vac activities such as vehicle maintenance and fueling.
SST combine – Regolith mining machine consisting of a scooper section, used to scoop up the top layer regolith and crush if necessary. A separator section which separates into elements the crushed regolith it receives from the scooper using electrostatic and molecular means. And finally, a tank trailer with tanks and open hoppers for gas and materials storage of the results of the separator. It is fourteen feet high with each section about twenty-five feet long.
Super-X rocket – Space Trucks' rocket that can lift 350 tons off the Earth's surface. 340 feet long, 25 feet wide payload bay.
Talk-Talk – To prevent two parties from talking over each other because of the greater than one second delays in Earth to Moon communications an AI anticipates the end of each speakers talk, to an accuracy of ninety-nine percent, before switching to the other side, which is indicated by a green bar on the calling app.
Terms
Day span – A Moon “day” which equals about fourteen and a half Earth days.
Night Span – A Moon “night” which equals about fourteen and a half Earth nights.
Out-vac – A contraction of outside vacuum, a reference to the vacuum of the Moon's surface.
Acknowledgments
The book A Pioneer's Guide To Living On the Moon by Peter Kokh was “mined” extensively for ideas and settings and the technology for living on the Moon.
The Space Settlement Enterprise SSI50: 2019, a seminar held by the Space Studies Institute was the source of many ideas for this series and my Cislunar Series.
How To Build A Lunar Hab, The Aerospace Corporation, Medium.com, March 3, 2023.
High-Tech for “Flying on the Ground”, Transrapid International, May, 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment