Moon Fall

Replaying the memory over, Doctor Peiter Hollman sat in his office wondering if that had been the start of it. He tapped the back of his neck and shut off the visualizer. He realized his hands hurt because he’d been clinching his fists the entire time. His knuckles ached from the strain. There had been many years of changes since that fateful first day of discovery.

Thirty three years had passed since both Alexi and he had discovered the Whitewater as it was called. The chemical had been broken down and modified and turned into all manner of things. The liquid was piped in from pumping stations using natural occurring tunnels that were later modified. They rain straight to the colony for use.

Thirty new domes had been raised as swarms of settlers moved here. Alexi had found a natural pipeline of some kind that spread through the planet like an underwater river. The liquid was used in medicines as it had a anesthetic numbing effect on wounds, it prolonged the scent of perfumes, it was used for lighting and it’s effects on plant life were astounding. The only problem was that it could not be taken off planet. When it was removed from the planet surface and taken out of the thin atmosphere the liquid hardened into the coral like substance and could not be reverted. It was a curiosity that scientists were still trying to determine the reasons for such a strange effect. It was determined that once the entire planet was completely covered with this strange substance. That in and off itself made whitewater precious, if you left it out in the open long enough it dried and formed a thin later of a dried solid like the entire planets surface.

No matter how deep they drilled they could never find any besides coral, and the coral grew thicker and denser the deeper you got, but the gravity of the planet was proof in and of itself that there must be a solid molten core. The planet was twice the size of earth so scientists believed that the molten rock or layer of rock would be found after drilling. When Whitewater was found to be the liquid form of the coral surface, less interest was found in finding rock or other minerals, some tried to find a way to revert chunks of the surface back to it’s liquid state.

Peiter was now head of the Hydroponics network for twelve of the larger colonies. The others were smaller several family outfits that were working on building and infrastructure of their individual domes at key points over underground aquifers. The first sample of the whitewater sat on his desk in it’s test tube in a special glass case. He’d only removed a small amount for testing those many years ago, enough to show results. The rest he kept in the tube to remind him of the event, now he kept it in the case to remind him over many things.

A beeping sound indicated someone wished to enter. The door opened with a hiss at the push of a button under the desk. It was Alexi, or rather, President Elect of the Northern Colonies Alexi Koba.

He’d aged from the image on the visualizer. The young black hair now slightly peppered with the skin less rounded and supple to more stern and grown. They were now in their forties the two of them, these two ‘old’ friends. Though forty wasn’t even close to half of their lives, living on a frontier planet did age a person visually, though Alexi was looking much younger than Peiter for obvious reasons.

“Well well,” Alexi said stepping into the office,” sorry to drop by unannounced but what with the big day coming up I figured I might drop by and see an old friend.”

Old Friend? Alexi Koba had shot to stardom over the whitewater and Peiter had also reaped a little whirlwind but nothing as big as Alexi. In fact it had been over five years since Alexi had even set foot into hydroponics, not to mention the ten or more before. Peiter indicated Alexi could take a seat.

Alexi made a dissatisfied look. “You still haven’t tried it.”

Peiter brought up a hand in warning.

“Peiter, it will cure you.” Alexi urged. He let out a breath of frustration and ran his hand through his short cut hair, “why won’t you at least try it, it’s just sitting there.”

Alexi was talking about the curative properties of the water. Peiter’s voice box had been damaged when he first came to the planet and though he could talk, it was dry and raspy and difficult. Most of the time he used a collar device that filtered his voice and made it clearer, but he only used it for official settings. Alexi had been trying to get him to drink the whitewater ever since they’d first found out it could fix certain damaged internal organs and scarred tissues.

Alexi brought his hands up. “Well could you please collar yourself so we could talk.”

Peiter pulled out his collar from his desk and snapped it into place. Even with it on he didn’t speak much anyway. Once again Peiter indicated Alexi should sit.

“Stubborn as ever. You’re still mad about that? I just think you should use it, either that or put it to some good use instead of just letting it sit there.” He pointed to the test tube. In the case. “It won’t harden but it’s got no practical use just sitting there.” Alexi was always frustrated with the vial of whitewater. It ended up becoming the center of their conversations.

“Why?” Peiter’s mechanical voice resounded from the collar.

“We already have first contained whitewater in the museum, hell there’s a whole planet full of it, why keep it around if it’s in everything around you. The lights,” he pointed to the liquid gel lights illuminating the room, “and even in the paint on the walls, hell the walls themselves?” Whitewater could he used to harden walls and colored giving more aesthetics to a structure.

“Sentimental Value.” Peiter could hear his own voice just lightly under the mechanical one.

Alexi turned his head to look at the photos on the wall. “It’s about the drugs, isn’t it? You still think that there are people shooting whitewater still? Scientists have gone over the chemical with a fine tooth comb Peiter. There are no side effects or hallucinogenic properties to it.”

Peiter bristled. “Leave it.” He said sitting up. He knew where this was going.

“She wasn’t right in the head Peiter, you knew that. You knew she was odd when you two started dating. I told you, once people started coming down in the Colonization people lost interest in mysteries... people latch onto all kinds of things, Whitehome is no exception. I keep trying and you won’t...”

’ENOUGH!” Peiter’s voice cracked over the volume of the collar. The rasp and breathy sound of his own voice caused Alexi to furrow his brow even more.

“You know it’s true. She suffered from a lesion in the brain, it caused the psychosis. She basically took her own life Peiter! Whitewater had nothing to do with it!”

Peiter stood and ripped the collar loose from his neck and slammed it onto the desk. “Ghhhet hoowt!” He growled and pointed to the door.

Alexi glanced at the glass case for a moment and stood and sighed. “That’s not why I’m here.” He inclined his head to the window. “The Moon Fall, the time both moons align with the sun and leaving the night sky a true night, it’s tomorrow. There will be a gathering of people from all over the planet to watch it. The observatory near the Whitewater Valley, you’re expected to come. You won’t take my calls so I wanted to tell you personally. It’s an order.” He said the last part softly. “I want my best friend there. You spend all of your time in this office.”

Alexi turned to the doorway and when it opened he stood there not looking back. “Sheila was a good woman, but you didn’t just lose a wife Peiter, I lost a sister. I grew up with her, my own blood, I knew her...” He paused and turned his head to look at him.

Peiter was so angry, his monitors showed his heart beat racing. “Ahhh’ll be therher, foooor She’la.” The last part was said with as much acid as he could muster.

Alexi turned and the door shut behind him with a hissing sound.

The President was wrong. Peiter knew that, the science departments had found small side effects of injecting whitewater into your blood stream could cause euphoric feelings but mostly they were attributed to the increase in dopamine levels to the brain, it was only slightly increased along with a decrease in heart rate, and it seemed to supplement missing nutrients in the body. Distilled Whitewater became the water of choice after that. Few people drank water much anymore save Peiter and the occasional few who wanted to give the classics a try.

Once you applied whitewater to blood it mimicked the properties of blood, and if someone who’d had an injection left the planet they felt no ill effects save for a strange euphoric sadness called Whitehome Sickness after the Home Counsel decided to rename the planet Whitehome. There was however a time frame for Whitewater when injected. Anything made with the clear liquid had to wait 24 hours before departing the planet. The effects didn’t last long but it was noticed and warnings were given upon arrival of tourists. Whitehome because the name the colonists called the planet, foreigners had their own designations but no one on the planet really cared.

Peiter went back to his desk and pulled up the files a geologist friend of his had sent him. There had been minor records in the past few years of tremors being felt but only in the outlying colonies near the southern pole and the equatorial line. Both north and south poles were more crusted with the strange dried coral like substance that the whitewater transformed into over time. The rest, several hundreds of thousands of miles along it’s equator was dried silt and sand with very few markings. The area around the equator was covered with a global sand storm which made viewing from orbit difficult if not impossible. It was deemed at the equator area was off limits and dangerous as the winds and sands would strip the thing layers of paint and after time wear down the metal outer chassis of any vehicle that was sent to explore the area. They even tried chassis cut and covered from the coral and that didn’t work, it did however work much better but even after twice as long as a standard rover, a coral-rover would begin to show signs of wear.

The tremors were being felt all along the southern poles and lessened as they traveled north. No one could explain why, the tremors were minor, gradually over the years people grew accustome to them. There was a particular geologist who went sending in reports that the quakes were started much deeper in the coral strata but no one could confirm their findings.

The green line of the monitor glowed on his desk and he activated it. The glass slid upward and a worried face appeared translucent upon it’s surface.

It was Dr. Grace Bucket, the very young and very scattered but competent geological and computer technical genius the colony was more interested in ignoring than listening too. Geologists were not considered very popular as the entire colony was so wrapped up in whitewater and the many things they could do with it. Being curious about the world seemed to have turned renowned scientists into second class citizens. General contentment overthrew scientific curiosity.

“Peter Hollman, I thought I’d find you awake.” She paused and frowned. “You look... off, are you alright?”

He nodded and reached over for the collar laying on the edged of the table. It wasn’t broken, much to his displeasure.

Slipping it around his neck he fastened the two metal ends together and cleared his throat. “Sorry, had a conversation with an old acquaintance.”

“Ah, our president on high?”

Peiter gave her a withering look.

“Sorry Peter.” She said using the name she’d decided to call him. She wouldn’t call him Peiter and he didn’t really care, he’d never felt the need to correct her. “Anyway you alright?”

“I will be, seems I’m invited to the gathering tomorrow for Moon Fall.” He reached over and a glass cup pupped up on the table filled with water. He took it and sipped on it.

She nodded, her eyes casting a strangeness to them as though she wasn’t really looking at him more through him. She was normally thinking when she gave him that kind of look. “So... need a date?”

Peiter coughed up his water on the screen. It cleaned itself immediately.

“What?” His collar had a hard time adjusting to the change in octaves. “Why?”

She leaned in, her redish copper colored hair that seemed shimmered across her cheeks. “Well I was going to hop a shuttle to the north in a few hours anyway to meet with some of my colleagues about some findings I have, and really... I needed to show you something I found. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“Well... OK. I have to free up most of my day tomorrow it seems anyway. Let me know when your shuttle lands.”

“I’ll send you the itinerary.” She smiled and an icon appeared on his screen. “Hey Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Get me a rose, kay?” The screen blinked off.

Peiter let out an exasperated breath. Roses were almost impossible to grow, they required soil and fertilization that just wasn’t available and they served no ecological purpose as terraforming wasn’t an option on Whitehome. For the first few years as people were still trying to use the ground coral like substance as potting soil it was determined that the coral lacked really almost any bio-generative properties. Simply put, ground up petrified dead coral couldn’t be used for growing anything. For years they’d set up mining facilities on the planets two moons and transferred the contents to the planet surface.

What was so interesting about the two moons was that they seemed to be magnets for asteroids and general meteors that would normally hit the planet. Huge craters would fill up the surface of the two large moons but in the end very little even came close to hitting the planet below. It was theorized that for hundreds of years the two moons would clear the way for the orbit of the planet through the solar system. When the two grew closer together in their orbit the planet would be more susceptible to contact with asteroids. That theory was backed up by the fact that there appeared to be almost no craters where extra planetary objects had touched down save for the unreachable equatorial region.

The two moons were also covered in Coral and scientists believed they were off shoots of Whitehome much in the way Earth’s Moon was considered a large chunk of the home planet later formed into a moon. The interesting part was the moons are coated in craters and meteors and those craters were rich in minerals. Much of the usable material that could be turned into suitable soil was shipped to the main planet and what was done with it was Peiter’s problem. After 20 years the process and allocation of the minerals had become as simple the computer programs handled much of the managerial tasks. One colony would request soil for their own agroplants and the resources would be allotted.

Edible plants and breathable air were the two main concerns. Each dome had a large amount of oxygen creating plants like trees and bushes and so on among the more open parts of the colonies. Parks and residential areas there were not internal produced better plants, but there were also internal parks with artificial light helping to grow the plants.

Roses were a luxury and as the dome colonies did not support bee’s for numerous reasons besides the fact that insect life in the dome was almost nonexistent, as most transplanted insects died shortly upon arrival, other self sustaining projects had to be implemented. The issue came up that people liked flowers and still required that earth like feel. It was a question of moral and comfort in the colony so the hydroponics department had to work on crafting a rose that would grow and smell nice and also work on a pollination and growth modification for the plant, among others.

Roses were pretty high on the list but they were one of the most difficult to cultivate. Most of the flowers required more water than others and roses would not grow with water-whitewater combinations. It was more a proportions issue but if you got over thirty percent distilled whitewater to water ratio along with the a loose loam type soil that keeps good moisture and retains nutrients. It had become a bit of a headache when President Alexi put it to a vote in Counsel that requested the garden have a select amount of white and red roses.

The Garden’s were open to the public but the flowers in particular were considered property of the dome and citizens were asked not to pick them out of courtesy. After the first three years a fine was put in place if someone was caught in possession of a flower. There was initially some anger and some protests popped up but Alexi set up a system to promote flower growth in more areas and the prevalence of artificial roses and several others. Instead of creating true roses, he used whitewater to create an artificial coral structure flower so intricate it not only could be made to look like a rose but it also could be made to glow. The argument about roses and flowers in general died quickly after that. Very few people stayed in Whitehome for the flowers anyway.

Alexi was good at managing people, he’d shot to prominence due to his ability to use whitewater to a fuller extent than most. Over time several other scientists made a few leaps and bounds ahead and Alexi and he quickly slipped more into government than scientific endeavors.

Peiter walked to the window and looked out over the gray white landscape to the main dome in the distance. A silver white gleaming half buried orb was what it looked like to him, like a pearl or ball bearing shoved into the gray strata. He could see several shuttles coming and going and along the Hemtrak he saw the 6th shift tram coming in from the fifth dome.

He ran his hands along the table and typed up a request for a rose. Grace wouldn’t let him have any peace if he didn’t get her the rose.

Peiter stretched his neck, the pain of ripping the collar off was now causing slight discomfort. The magnets were still in place on the collar but the edge had scrapped against his neck. Alexi always seemed to rile him up, the issue of the whitewater veil seemed almost an obsession. To Peiter it had just been a reminder of the first time whitewater was found, and later in memory of Alexi’s sister, and Peiter’s wife.

He’d wanted Alexi to leave it alone, just let it be. No matter what Alexi proved, his sister wasn’t suicidal before she started taking medical treatments with whitewater supplemented chemicals. Sheila was never happy with Whitehome, she never truly settled down here. She had wanted Peiter to finish up his contract with the Commercial Colonization Group, a subsidiary of the tech giant TerraCorp, and she could send in for a transfer to any new colony. Sheila had been a scientist, a surveyor, deep core drilling rigs, what back on Earth they called Roughnecks though the old drilling rigs were much larger and drilled for oil deposits under the surface. That was before the W.A.R. Or War of Available Resources sometimes called the Green War because of how the fight for renewable resources brought on different countries sabotaging others from enacting cleaner energy development and implementation It was the first commercial economical based war to hit the entire planet. The War lasted for years and the aftermath tensions lasted twenty more until alternative sources of energy where primed. The Lunar Power Array and the harvesting of Helium 3 from the moons surface had helped the Earth move to more fringe sciences as the old resources were drying up.

Sheila’s work was more drilling for minerals and so forth and upon coming to Whitehome the idea was to drill through the crusted surface and find the underlying soil which was assumed to be very rich due to the makeup of the surface. The Coral surface while seeming petrified grew heavier and harder as you drilled down. After Whitewater was found the rigs were used for drilling whitewater and only drilled down so far. Geologists decried the change in policy so much that CCG mandated that some resources were to be left to for drilling as per contract stipulations. Whenever the geology department hit whitewater their rigs were confiscated and a new rig was built or an old one moved to wherever they wished to drill next.

Sheila felt unfulfilled in her job and she felt as though no one took her work seriously. Many of her fellow scientists and roughnecks went on the ‘whitewater rigs’ jokingly calling themselves white necks The name didn’t stick as the old rigs were revamped and smaller processing plants were built, the jobs became less manual labor and more automated. Peiter did all he could to keep her happy but with the rise of whitewater and Alexi in the background pulling strings to cement his friend a good job, it looked too good to go off world. Peiter would never get a better job than this, and it was what he thought was best. They could be married, have children, and if he saved up enough they could move off world later and live anywhere they wanted it would just take a some time. The first step, getting married, was simple and Sheila seemed happy, she was still star struck with Whitehome then, but then it lost it’s luster.

At first she seemed to understand, she still wanted to know more about whitewater. The want became an obsession. She grew angry not being able to understand and the fell into a fit of depression. Her job became considered a worthless endeavor by local scientists and the ground pounders. Everyone was letting whitewater take them in, at the time Pieter shrugged it off and pushed her to try to enjoy what they had and still strive to find out what the secret was behind the mysterious liquid.

Then they started supplementing whitewater into the medicine.

For a time the new medication derivatives seemed to have a calming effect on her, not too distant but she grew fond of staring out the widow of their apartment balcony past the inside of the dome to the Coral beyond. She’s ramble about some of her nights on the rig, talking about hearing things from the pipes when the drilling would get real deep. Hearing voices in the equatorial storm, whisper’s in the wind, she’d say. No matter how deep they’d drill they’d always come across a pocket of Whitewater. Scientists were stumped but it just meant more whitewater.

Sheila grew more and more obsessed, her wanting to leave Whitehome vanished and she was sucked into drilling deeper. Things seemed to turn for the better, her anger ebbed into a fierce determination. Alexi stuck his nose in, and things just grew worse over time until the end...

Several hours had passed and the view outside had darkened, the landscape with the twinkling stars suddenly popping up as the last moon caressed the horizon. Second fall, just a tiny sliver now. The skies would be pitch black dotted with a glorious sight of the universe all around for almost an entire day or more now. The only lights on the ground were the outer dome lights and the Tram lights blinking away along the length of the tube.

Peiter leaned against the glass window and touched a panel on the wall, the glass darkened and seemed to smoke into the color of the wall.