Luna Sea

Mai Zhang couldn't believe she was going to die when she was just sixteen. Why she had not even completed the tattoo pattern along her left arm! It just wasn't fair. Worst was that she really had no idea why she had to die. She did not understand why the Alien Administrator was going to destroy the Moon. Some insult by a low level Lunar bureaucrat was the current rumor (an insult involving one, or perhaps it was three, of the AA's wife/concubines, many said). It infuriated her that all the United Earth Government could do was send protests from New York to Arcturus.

Mai was a slightly built girl of Asian ancestry. Long black hair hung straight down the white shellsuit she wore. The shellsuit flowed about the young curves of her teen-aged form like glaciers drifting along the Himalayan peaks. The shellsuit was a functional garment designed to allow its wearer to survive a decompression breach in the molecularly thin atmosphere bubble that surrounded Tranquility City. Her Chinese ancestors may have gazed at the Moon in elaborate towers, but she lived upon its surface, or at least the climate controlled, air scrubbed, light filtered, artificial city she called her own rested upon Lunar soil.

"I was hoping to get this done before the end." Mai stood in the foyer of her fav tattoo pallor, and spoke to the woman behind the customer service desk. She rolled up the arm of her shellsuit to reveal a plum colored canvass of Celtic knotwork, dancing tigers, coiling asps, and an incomplete and scaly school of coy.

Marie Beau Coup was a heavyset black woman. Her dreadlocked hair fell to her shoulders. She ran the inkshop, but her real profession was as a fortune teller. She hung up her cards, except for few late night games of Texas Hold 'Em, because she could see no future for anyone beyond the Administrator's deadline — no matter how hard she tried. And when it came to her own fortune she had fully exerted herself and her gift.

"I don't have any cash for the artwork," Mai started, nearly shuddering, " but – but I have real coffee. Juan-John brought it up on the last – uh, I guess final Seattle milk-run." She smiled a neat flash of tiny white teeth. Marie took the small aluminum packet. She sashayed over to her auto-chef station. Soon the beans' aroma drifted lazily and happily through the shop's air.

Old man Essig came bounding down the stairs, taking them at a Lunar leap of several at a time. "Is that Terran coffee?!" His long nose ran profusely with yellowish fluids. His blood red eyes streamed tears that ran down the wrinkles in his ancient face like rainwater flowing through an arroyo. Essig was a tenant in one of the sparse one-room apartments above the business.

"It's Free Soil Bolivian Alpine Arabica Mocha Decaf," Mai replied. "Would you like some?"

"Marie." He waved his arms and gesticulated with his hands. "Marie, you know any product from Terra is deadly to me. Are you trying to kill me before the Alien has his chance to?" Essig wiped at his nose with an orange biohaz cloth.

"For the Love of God," bellowed Marie. "You live on the Moon. How can you be allergic to the Earth? Our rock came from the Earth, as did all the original settlement's components."

"Verily," Essig sniffled, "but our planetoid separated millennia ago from its primary — that vile planet you call a homeworld — and we have been mining the fine Lunar regolith for raw materials since Colonization Day, my dear thing."

"Phew-phew," he sneezed. He wore only synthetics; ate only hydroponics; never had a girlfriend; never a lover; barely a friend. Essig had gone into anaphylactic shock once after receiving an e-mail from a possible pen-pal from Bangalore.

#NEWS FLASH# blared across Mai's computerized concierge. She grabbed it from her belt, brought it to her face and mashed the button for the volume. "The Alien Administrator has expressed His great compassion for all Lunar residents. A spokesman for His Excellency has stated that over the century of his oversight, numerous human guests have left behind many articles. These items are now upon display in the great hall. In His great Mercy, His Excellency will commute the destruction order of the Moon if one citizen can select the Alien Administrator's single personal item in the collection. More on this story as it develops..."

Essig settled down into the chair across from Marie, the one her Tarot clients occupy. "Isn't that precious of (H)im."

Marie began to deal out a few Solitaire cards. It was with an according-to-Hoyle deck, not the Rider-Waite version she used for readings. Ten of Pentacles, Two of Wands. "Wait," Marie muttered, "I'm getting a Reading here."

"I thought you had admitted that your charlatanism was just an illusion. Something good coming out of our current crisis." Essig sneezed loudly into his handkerchief.

"He has a future! Doesn' t that mean," Mai paused. "Eh – something! "Thinking a moment, she added: "I've an idea. Let's go."

They took the Tube across Tranquility's wide span. Mai knew the janitor's entrance to AlphaComplex's great hall from her mother's former boyfriend. Essig, Marie and Mai drifted amongst the crowds and the artifacts. The Alien Administrator oversaw the chaos in the hall. His species grew their bones on the outside of their skin, with only connecting cartilage underneath. Essig's nose ran and his palms itched examining all the items. These included hats, umbrellas, and other sundries. Essig scrutinized one item, a cane. He touched its purplish wood; no rash marred his fingertips. It wasn't Terran.

Essig held up the cane. "He's found it. He's found it," shouted Mai, clapping her hands furiously. The crowd suddenly stopped, awed and anxious. The Alien Administrator shook his bony jaw affirmative, and said,"You have found the starwood!"

And thus the Moon was saved.

Find more by G.C. Dillon in the Author Index.

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