The Moonborn: or, Moby-Dick on the Moon by D. F. Lovett

Author:D. F. Lovett [Lovett, D. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: D. F. Lovett
Published: 2016-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Three

We moved toward the lunar west, toward the dark part of the Moon. We still had a view of Earth, when we wanted it. The Moon waxed, in the eyes of Earthlings, steps on its path from crescent to half to gibbous to full. A waxing gibbous, to the Earthling eye; a Moon nearing full.

To us, all we saw was that it was day for the first few days, until we reached the dark.

The mood had shifted. Silence hung around the ship now, thick, an anxiety and uncertainty like humidity or pollution. While the first two days saw action, with a robot killed after dinner on the first night and before breakfast on the second, we had seen nothing new and our saucer hovered along.

I waited to be told what to do, waited to learn what would be next. Meals were no longer announced or conducted in any formal way, but we ate when hungry. I stood guard in the Bow Deck, wandered the halls, and looked at the stack of papers and books Moonborn had given me.

I pondered the disagreements between Starboy and Moonborn, and what they meant for the ship and the journey.

The evening of the third day, with no watch until the next morning, I wandered to the salt pool in the Port Quadrant. I had not been there yet, having been uncertain and nervous about using the various facilities of the Ozymandias.

I wore my swim trunks, a towel around my neck, flip-flops on my feet, from my cabin to the salt pool. I had been uncertain if this fell within etiquette, before seeing Nikolai doing the same thing the day before.

And then I reached the salt pool and saw Q and Jennifer Curtis, in their swimwear, sitting in the dimmed blueish lighting. They wore dark, long-sleeved, fashionable swimwear, matching. Of course the swimwear matched. Their swimsuits, just like mine, had been provided to them.

They stared at me. I had interrupted an important conversation.

“What are you doing here?” Q asked.

Self-awareness and anxiety washed over me in a pathetic wave. Waltzing in thinking I’m James Bond to discover two beautiful women in a salt pool, only to remember that I’m a seven-foot tall galoot in a place where people rarely break six feet. A bumbling buffoon, a confused giant, the kind of man who repels when he attempts to attract. I like to imagine that I’m a tall dark stranger when really, I’m just a strange man who is too tall. I mean, I am tall, but kinda in a weird way, and I’m mildly dark, and because I am timid in social situations, I often remain a stranger.

“I’m here,” I attempted, “because, um, is it okay? Is the salt pool open?”

“We were in the middle of a conversation,” Jennifer Curtis answered. “For the book. The one I’m working on.”

“Yes,” I said. “Your book.”

“But you can join us,” she said. “You may offer contradicting opinions.”

“I will join you then,” I said, setting my towel on one of the chairs near the small salt pool.

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