Something Made of Vacuum

Helene rode the monorail rack uncomfortably, trying to hold her suitcase on her lap and ruefully realizing that Moon suits do not have a lap even when seated. She looked over at Tom on the seat next to her and asked, “Why don’t these things have some kind of luggage space?”

“We don’t carry luggage. The suit backpack has some storage space,” Tom said. “Actually, we hardly ever carry anything in our hands. Look, there’s another ship coming in to the field. I know the guy who’s piloting that tug.”

She looked down at Sinus Amoris Field a kilometer ahead of them, defined by rectangles of lights on the ground, then looked up into the glorious Night sky to see a flare of lights from the rocket engines of the tug, passing in front of the half-phase Earth. The tug was actually a huge open basket with rocket engines on the rim, and a belvedere on the side where the Moon Man harbor pilot stood. The spaceship sat in it like a soccer ball in a colander. The ship drifted gently down to the ground, gliding a little left and right as the pilot made corrections. “Why doesn’t the pilot ride inside the ship?” she asked.

“Because it freaks out the passengers. We look weird to people from the planets, in our Moon suits,” Tom said. “They always think the ship’s in danger of being depressurized or something.”

“You know, Tom, I’m not really ‘us.’ I’m just wearing the suit for a while.”

“Sure, sure. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a nicer suit than what you had.”

“Yeah, it is. What will Oksana do with the old one?”

“Break it up for materials. We never waste anything around here if we can possibly avoid it. The only reason your new suit was as cheap as it was is that almost all of the parts came from old Moon suits.”

“Where is this ship from?”

“Ask the suit yourself. Look at the ship while you ask so the suit can see which way your eyes are pointing.”

Helene did that, and the synthetic female voice of the suit said, “This ship is the ARK Adventure Paradise from Terra Nova.”

“Terra Nova?” Helene said to Tom. “I thought it was Nova Terra.”

“In the Ecumene, there’s a Terra Nova and a Nova Terra both,” Tom said. “There is also a New Earth, an Earth Two, and a New Nova Terra. One thing we didn’t take to the colony planets was a lot of creativity.”

“I’m just realizing that people on Earth really don’t know much about the planets,” Helene said. “I sort of think we don’t want to know.” The rack swung through a curve and headed downward toward the passenger terminal.

“We know about the planets because of the work we do,” Tom said. “Otherwise, I suppose Moon Men wouldn’t take any interest in anything off the Moon. Of course, if it weren’t for travel between the planets nobody would need us, and there wouldn’t be any Moon Men.”

The rack was automatically shunted to a side rail and came to rest outside of the terminal building. Tom put Helene’s suitcase on the ground, then helped her out of the seat. They found Gregor and Yeni waiting to ride back to air town.

“Hi, you two!” Yeni said. “Helene, you look nice! I love your hair!”

“Hello, Yeni,” Helene said, and everyone exchanged greetings around. “Yeni, we were gone a long time. Are you just finishing up from the reception?”

“You bet. We like to party around here. I’m so sorry you missed it. We’re going to the hotel for our honeymoon.”

“You should get your suit painted tomorrow, though,” Gregor said. “A pretty girl like you should have something better than plain white. I have to get this tuxedo thing off. I usually have some kind of hula-girl painting.”

“Not any more, sweetie,” Yeni said. “Helene, are you staying the night in the village?” Helene nodded, and Yeni continued, “That’s nice. You two get some sleep, now. I doubt if we will.” They climbed into the monorail rack and were carried up and away as Tom and Helene waved.

The ship from Terra Nova had landed and a rollagon bus full of passengers was pulling up to the terminal as they started walking back to the village. Helene tried to pull her suitcase behind her but the wheels would not roll in the dust. Eventually Tom picked it up.

Helene walked carefully, trying out various gaits and learning how the ring joints in her suit were articulated. “You know,” she said, “this is kind of a lot of work, wearing this thing.”

“Oh, you’ll get used to it. After a while you won’t notice it at all.”

“I suppose at some point I’ll be able to dance in this suit.”

“And do pretty much anything else,” Tom agreed. “The only real problems we have with suits are trying to use equipment that was designed to be used by people in air. Look ahead there, that’s the Easterday family grounds. If you get lost, ask your suit for directions. Looks like a lot of them are in bed already.”

“I’m ready for bed,” Helene said. “How do I brush my teeth … oh, wait, I think I know what the answer is. Is there a doorway marked on the ground that we have to go through or something?”

“Not for members of the family. Hold up a moment.” Tom muttered in quickspeak, then said, “Okay, you’re a member of the family now. Just step over the pink lights.”

“Tom, what did I just get signed up for?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. I just told the network to put you in the family group so you have access to all the Easterday family resources. Your account will be deleted when you go back to Earth.”

The plain of Sinus Amoris was so flat that Helene could see the whole village. With the sunshades folded, she could see a few small buildings here and there, but mostly the village was empty flat ground punctuated with short posts sticking up from the ground, and a few cabinets and shelves. The Moon Men were at various stages of their day depending, she supposed, on what shift they were on. A few squares away, a group of space-suited figures was dancing a silent, frenetic jitterbug, presumably listening to recorded music they weren’t sharing with anyone else. Nearby, most of the people were sleeping, sitting on the ground plugged into one of the posts, propped up against their backpacks with their feet stretched out.

Tom led her to a circle of Moon Men, sitting on the ground facing each other. Helene immediately pictured them sitting around a campfire, although there was nothing in the middle of the circle. Many of them looked curiously at her suitcase. One rose gracefully and waved. “Hi, Tom,” he said. “We heard about the wedding. Helene, welcome! We’re glad you could stay with us tonight.”

Helene looked at Tom. “Look at him and say ‘Suit, identify,’” Tom said. “We don’t usually do introductions among ourselves.” She did so and there was a display of boxes in her helmet. The box for “Harper Easterday” was highlighted, with a line pointing to “Thomas Easterday” that was labeled “Father Of”. Other boxes showed his mother, two uncles, a sister, a brother-in-law and some nephews and nieces. As she turned to face other people in the circle, the highlighted box changed.

“Hi, Dad, Mom, everybody,” Tom said. “Folks, I guess I should introduce Helene, since she just got her suit. She’s the salesman for a bunch of Earth co-ops I buy from. She’s going out tomorrow to talk with some other customers, so she came here for the evening. Helene, this is my family. The part of it in Sinus Amoris, I mean.”

“Hi,” Helene said uncertainly.

Harper frowned. “Helene, you got fired from your job? I’m sorry about that! What happened? There are no details given.”

Helene glanced sharply at Tom, who looked abashed. “I’ve been trying not to mention that we know that,” he said. “But yeah, when you registered the suit, the network exposes all of the news about you. The firing happened before you got the suit, so the network only knows what the hotel reported.”

“So much for being a woman of mystery,” Helene said bitterly. “How about if I don’t talk about why I was fired? Anyway, I’m thinking if I can come back with some orders, they’ll take me back.”

“I’m sure they will,” Harper said generously. “There’s always a market for food here, especially fancy food. Tom just sells to other Moon Men because he’s a bit of a snob, but we have a lot of ships’ chandlers here who supply the ship companies, and their passengers do nothing but eat for four days on their trips.”

“I didn’t know you only sold to Moon Men,” Helene said.

“Passengers on those ships just pound down food like there’s no tomorrow,” Tom said. “There’s no satisfaction in giving them good food, they have no discrimination. I like people to appreciate what I sell.”

“Hello, Helene. I’m Louisa,” Tom’s mother said. “We were just talking and getting the kids ready for bed. I’m so glad you could join us. I’m sorry about the scare you had with your old suit. It looks like Tom got you a pretty nice one.”

“Everybody chipped in for the suit,” Tom said. “I just took her into air town.” He turned to Helene and said, “Here, let me help you sit down. It’s kind of a skill.” The others moved out of the way to make a space in the circle and he lowered her gently down with both hands. Tom and his father sat at the same time, with elegant ease.

“Isn’t it going to get cold, sitting here?” Helene asked.

“It won’t get any colder than it is right now,” Louisa said. “Minus 154, I believe. But we’re in vacuum and that’s an insulator. You’ll be fine.”

“Moon suits have extra padding in the fanny so you don’t lose heat when you’re sitting,” Tom added. “It’s something only we do, different from the kind of space suit you’d get to wear in, you know, space.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” Helene said, smiling. A few of the Moon Men had opaqued helmets and were marked on her display as asleep. The others all had little “social” lights inside their helmets to display their faces to each other. Many of them were talking, although Helene could not hear them. She assuming they were chatting with each other.

“We have thought of everything,” Tom’s father said. “The proof is, we’re alive. Helene, welcome again. You’re part of the weirdest bunch of people in the Ecumene now.”

“I’m just wearing the suit,” Helene said. “I’ll be going back to Earth. Anyway, you’re not weird. I mean, not real weird.”

“Oh, don’t say that! It’s a point of pride with us,” Tom said. “Any Moon Man will try to tell you he’s a weirdo. Truthfully, I guess we’re pretty ordinary. We just like to think we’re strange.”

“Once you put on the suit,” Louisa said, “you’re a Moon Man as long as you’re here. The environment around a person always shapes them, isn’t that so? Well, the Moon environment shapes us real hard. When you’ve been here a week, you’ll be one of us. It’ll make you nervous not have the suit around you. Wait and see.”

A tiny girl in a small Moon suit toddled up. One of the other women sitting in the circle said, “Mika, come back. You need to go to sleep.” Helene’s display identified her as Tom’s niece Mika, daughter of his sister Glory and brother-in-law Roberto, who were sitting together.

“I’m not sleepy, Mommy. Hi, Tom,” Mika said. “Helene, you’re from Earth, right? Do you like it on Earth? Where are you from? I want to go to Earth.”

“I hope you can, honey,” Helene said. “I do like it on Earth. I’ll give you a tour when you come. I’m from near Chicago.”

“I see it!” Mika said, looking up.

Helene looked up at the half-phase Earth. She could not make out any outlines of continents under the clouds. She glanced at Tom, who touched the interface on her arm with his finger. He spoke a couple of incomprehensible words of quickspeak, then said, “Look back to Earth.” Her view of the Earth through the helmet glass was replaced with a composite globe image with no clouds. The image rotated and Chicago appeared, marked with a bright dot of light.

Mika’s mother Glory stood, grabbed her kid and pulled her back. “You go to sleep!” she said, and when she had put Mika back on the ground, connected the child’s suit to cables and hoses coming from one of the posts, and touched a control on the backpack in a position the child could not reach. Mika sat without moving, and although she was presumably expressing opinions, Helene could no longer hear her.

“I think it’s time for all of us to sleep,” Louisa said. Apparently she was the family matriarch, because there was a chorus of good-nights and the helmet lights began blinking out around the circle.

“Helene, are you ready for bed?” Harper asked.

“Oh, God, yes,” Helene said. “It’s been a day.”

“Then we’ll talk again in the morning. Good night.” Tom’s parents’ helmets went opaque, and Helene suddenly realized she was no longer hearing anyone’s breathing except Tom’s.

“Let’s get you plugged in,” Tom said. He reached over her and connected her by cables and hoses to a post, moving her suitcase to one side. “Water, power, signal, air if you need it, although I don’t think you will.”

“What if I roll over in my sleep? What if I want a drink? What if I start screaming because I have this dream I’m trapped in a Moon suit and can’t get out?” She paused, then said “Oh, yeah. I know where to get answers. I guess I don’t have to ask you anything, do I?”

“I suppose not, but I hope you will anyway.”

“Tom?” she said sleepily, “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

“You’re sure welcome. But later on, you’re going to tell me why you’re really here and not in the hotel, right?”

Helene sighed. “Yeah, there’s a story. But not now, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

“Tom? Leave your link with me on, will you? I need to hear some noise. I still feel really isolated in this thing.”

“I’ll listen to you, too. I’ll set it up so that we can hear each other breathing, but if either one of us snores, it will turn down the volume automatically.”

She giggled. “All right. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Helene sat awake for a few minutes, gazing up into the starry mystery of the sky. Tom was asleep, and eventually she slept as well.

The Earthlight cast their unmoving shadows on the ground.