The Blue Moon - Part 1 - Into the Forest (2 page)

“You're an adult. What more reason do I need?”

“You could’ve trusted me years ago with this secret. I wouldn't have told anyone. I mean, it's just my birthday.”

“Well… it’s not just your birthday.” Another pause, Dr. Whitewood rallied her spirits, Emmy held her breath and waited.

“I didn't create you using the government DNA banks, or the Founder's Formula. You have a father and you were engineered with his DNA as well as mine.”

“I have a father?”

“You had a father.”

Emmy's anger swelled in her every pore and couldn’t be contained. “How could you do this to me? I let you get away with keeping secrets in your job. I don't ask questions about what goes on up in the Blue Moon. But it's awful that you kept this from me. Keeping my birthday from me is one thing, but my father?”

“I had no choice. They would've taken you away from me. We're prohibited from improvising with our DNA programming. We must get our source from the government DNA banks. That’s why St. John's was created in the first place. You know the Founders believed we could bring back natural procreation and the miracle of life. They believed their generational life creation DNA formula could do it. It’s one of the reasons we aren't allowed to travel on or off of St. John's. That way, the DNA equation can't be tainted. You are not a part of the equation, and therefore very illegal here on St. John's. No matter what, the Department of Procreation will never accept you. Not even I have enough influence to stop them from doing whatever they want to you. The truth puts you in danger. I had to wait until I knew you were responsible enough to keep a secret your life depended on. You've grown up to be a strong woman. I'm ready to trust you. I don’t have a choice any more. You’re responsible for yourself now.”

“You should've trusted me earlier.”

Dr. Whitewood nodded. “I thought about telling you about your father and your birthday many times. I always came up with an excuse to put it off. I promised myself I would tell you before your nineteenth birthday. So, here I am.”

“It’s still hurtful that you kept this from me.”

“I was afraid to tell you. I already lost your father. I wasn't going to lose you too.”

Emmy softened. She was silent for a moment until she mumbled, “Is that why I remember you crying so much when I was young?”

Dr. Whitewood closed her eyes and braced herself before she continued. “He was a gravity gunner with the ADF. He was in space when Comet
H
came. He died the night we got the Blue Moon.”

“And that’s when you created me.”

“It took me years to get over it. I missed him so much. Your father and I had been trying to get a child creation license, but I had an important job, and so did he. The Department of Procreation wouldn’t give us the license. They said our careers were too demanding, and that we wouldn’t have time to be parents. They told us to wait until work replacements could be found. But me, as head geneticist in charge of child creation, it was never going to happen.”

“Why did you create me that night?”

“I still don't have that answer myself. When I saw the Blue Moon in the sky, then heard your father was dead, I ran to my lab. It was empty. Everyone was looking up at the Blue Moon. The sky was so different. I don't know what came over me. I decided to break all the laws I had sworn to uphold.
 

“I made you that night. Your father had been with me earlier, just before he went into space. By morning, he was gone, but I had you. You were a small baby and you needed my love. I brought you home and cared for you in secret.
 

“When the investigators exploring the Blue Moon realized they needed a geneticist, they came to me. I was asked to go and work there, but I said I wouldn’t unless I got a license to create a baby. When I got it, I made it seem like you were a newborn.”
 

Emmy was silent again as the news sunk in. She needed to reinterpret her entire life and didn't know where to start. She felt like a stranger to herself. The peculiar feeling went away when she thought about having a father.

“Mum, tell me more about my dad.”

“I could tell you stories all night my love. There's so much to tell. We met at a summer camp. Before you were created, before we had the extra light at night from the Blue Moon, we all had to work harder. It was so dark at night that it was difficult to do anything, and we had less energy. Everyone had to work to keep us all alive, even children. But children needed a break from work and school. They needed some time to be children and have fun. That's where summer camps come from. It was quite a privilege to work there, and they only hired the best college students. Your father and I were both great at school, so we got jobs at camp. There was a whole gang of us. Counsellors had more fun than the campers. It was a great time."

“How old were you?”

“I worked at the camp from when I was seventeen until twenty-one. Your father only worked there for two summers. He always knew he would work in space for the ADF, so he didn't bother with college. He was in space the day he turned nineteen.”

“So you two were together for awhile before you created me?”

“That's right.”

“Did you live together?”

“Not officially, but for the most part. He lived in this very house when he was able to get away from the ADF barracks. He lived on the lakefront to be near the spaceport in case he needed to deploy on an emergency. He loved the ADF and he loved being up in space. But he loved me most of all. He was a good man.”

There was a heaviness in the air while both mother and daughter were lost in their own thoughts of what might have been. Dr. Whitewood shook her head as she took a deep breath. She'd seen something out of the corner of her eye. She stood up from the kitchen table. “I'm sorry my love. My driver is here earlier than I expected. My balloon back up to the Blue Moon is leaving. A short visit, I know. I’m sorry, it can’t be helped. I’ve got to go.”

“When will you be back?”

“Not sure love. Not sure. As soon as I can. Things are… busy at the moment. When I’m through this stretch, I’ll know. But before I go, I almost forgot. I have a gift for you.”

Dr. Whitewood put her backpack onto the kitchen table. She pulled out a wrapped present. “Happy Birthday love.”

Emmy took the gift and unwrapped it. It was a thick, leather bound book. The title read,
The Traveler’s Guide to the Solar System
. Emmy looked at the picture on the cover and couldn’t decipher what it was.

“That’s the waterslide going down Niagara Falls, back on Earth,” Dr. Whitewood said, anticipating her question.

Emmy opened the book and the pages became backlit and glowed. She rubbed the page’s material between her fingers. They were more rubbery than the pages of books she was used to reading.
 

“It's an old contraband book from Earth. It’s about all the places in our Solar System. It’s for tourists. There’s video embedded in the pages. You can watch or read about where to eat, how to get somewhere, how to get away from somewhere, the history of that place… basically, anything to do or see in the Solar System.”

“It’s amazing, but isn't this book illegal?”

“Pfff,” Dr. Whitewood said. “Be a scofflaw, live a little. You’ll see how small and insignificant our space-island is. Some laws are worth ignoring.”

Something else about the gift bothered Emmy and she said, “What good is a travel book for someone who lives on a space-island where travel is forbidden? I can never visit any of these places.”

“Things might change Emmy. They might change soon. Look on the bright side; there are better days yet to come for St. John's, I know it."

“It would be amazing to travel.”
 

 
“And who cares, just because we’re forbidden to travel doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy the book. You’re in college now. Isn’t that what college is all about? Isn’t that what college kids do? Read the long list of books that are banned on St. John’s.”

“Yeah, people like contraband.”

“Give it a chance sometime, if you’re bored. I loved this book when I was a camp counsellor. Your father used to read this very copy. Read it, think of both us when I'm gone."

“Alright. I miss you already. I love you.”

“I love you too."

Dr. Whitewood led Emmy outside, but stopped her on the porch. She hugged her daughter extra-tight, then walked out under the dark blue night sky. She got in the passenger side of the truck, rolled down the window and said, “I love you so, so much. I've got to go and spend some time in the Blue Moon, but you'll always be close to my heart, no matter how far I am from you.”
 

Dr. Whitewood took a deep breath before she added, “I hope I’ll be able to see you soon.” She kept an intense stare as the truck peeled off in a hurry.

Emmy was startled by the look in her mother’s eyes. She forgot to wave back and played over the words her mother said as she left. Emmy felt there was something curious about the entire goodbye.

But, there were too many thoughts in Emmy’s mind to consider this for long. She had a father, a new birthday, parents who were once in love… she wasn't just the product of the government DNA bank. She was the original combination of two people who loved each other. Emmy had never been bothered by her creation story, but when she found out the more romantic truth, she felt an immense fulfillment.
 

She was scintillating in her core, so she went back inside and walked up the creaky, narrow spiral stairs that led to her second floor balcony. She sat outside on her perch and looked out onto the landscape washed in the blue light. It was late, and the Blue Moon colored the entire space-island.
 

Her view from this balcony extended across the white fields, far off to the Shamrock Forest. The pale green forest canopy twinkled as it crawled up the encircling mountain range, coming to a stop in a long, uneven line. The mountain range formed the perimeter of St. John’s. The peaks were covered with solar energy collectors. These energy collectors reflected the Blue Moon’s light — against the backdrop of space, Emmy thought St. John’s looked like iceberg lit by moonlight floating in a calm sea at night.
 

She had too much to consider, so she just let it all sink in as she took in the view. Emmy had no idea how long she'd been there when she caught the faint outline of her mother's space-balloon as it floated up above the ADF's spaceport. The balloon expanded as the hull below went higher and higher. When the large balloon reached space, the lack of pressure caused the balloon to expand beyond its maximum elasticity — it popped. All that remained was the balloon’s frame: two blue firesails forming a huge oval above the hull. A single nuclear explosion filled the firesails, a churning fireball gathered between the blue material, then started rotating top over bottom. The small firesail ship drifted towards the Blue Moon.

Emmy watched as the tiny ship disappeared inside the Blue Moon. When there was no trace of it, she decided it was time to try and sleep. She turned from the balcony, opened the door and started down the narrow spiral stairs. As she took her first steps towards bed, the moonlight helped guide her way.

Until it didn't.
 

Everything went dark. Emmy stubbed her toe and almost tumbled down. She steadied herself and swallowed the pain, but she was stranded in the dark on the stairs. Emmy spun and looked outside. It was pitch black. She felt her way back up the stairs and returned onto the porch. There was only a bit of starlight in the sky, and nothing else.
 

The Blue Moon had vanished.

Chapter 2

The Blue Moon — Comet H
 

THE DARKNESS SURROUNDING Emmy felt heavy, as if it had real weight. Without the moonlight, she was stranded on her small, second story balcony. Even if she had light to help her move around, she couldn’t have — she was certain her mother disappeared along with the Blue Moon, and this fear paralyzed her.

All she could do was stare into the void of space surrounding her, searching for any sign of the Blue Moon. But, she had to stop doing this. Staring into this void gave her the feeling of vertigo. The darkness was suffocating. She blindly felt her way back to her chair, sat down and buried her face in her hands, both to shield herself from the outside, and to fool herself into thinking she had control over the darkness. She choked back tears as she tried to calm herself.

Eyes covered, Emmy forgot the darkness and focused on her mother. Her thoughts gathered around the curious way she’d said goodbye. Emmy fixated on why she'd found it so strange. It struck her that the goodbye seemed rehearsed.
 

She wiped the tears that had gathered in her pale eyes. She began to believe her mother was aware the Blue Moon was going to disappear and that she knew what she was getting into. As if in defiance of the darkness, Emmy whispered, “She knew she was leaving. She must have a plan to come back. She wouldn’t have said she hoped to see me soon.”

Saying it aloud, Emmy couldn’t help but think how bizarre her night had been. The thought crossed her mind that she might be asleep, dreaming. For a moment, she looked forward to waking up and laughing off the troubles.
 

This play stopped when the St. John's sky unexpectedly changed again.

The Rock Sun ignited. Like the rock suns of all space-island colonies in the Asteroid Belt, the St. John’s Rock Sun was made from a nanoengineered rock built the size of a mountain. This rock had such high melting and boiling points that it could withstand large nuclear explosions in a thin, super-porous, aerogel state. Since it could sustain multiple nuclear blasts, the middle of the rock was loaded with thousands of atomic bombs every day. It was blown up and burned in the sky above St. John's for a few hours, depending on how many nuclear explosives it was packed with.
 

It was only 4am, a full three hours earlier than the Rock Sun was scheduled to ignite. The brightness assured Emmy she wasn’t sleeping. The ignition was real and in a few moments, Emmy felt the heat from the Rock Sun reach the surface of the space-island.