Chapter 16: Lunarisation I - Part I
10th March
Li Huang Square, Central Development, Dunstan
In the two days since I arrived on the moon, I've already been inducted into the three-shift day. In the two days since myself and the other rookies arrived at Dunstan, we have been subjected to twenty hours of extremely grueling training. On the moon, there is no time to waste, no time for errors. So, the training course is short, but packed. I'm not certified by Artemis Energy to operate a harvester. Harvesters are large skeletal machines that crawl like spiders across the Mare Serenitatis. The cockpit sits in the middle of the structure. Directly below the cockpit, there's an endless number of precision drills, sifts, and extractors, that collect Helium-3 from the regolith. The general idea behind using a harvester, is to spread the skeletal legs to their maximum extension, then systematically use the mechanised cockpit, and the equipment attached blow it, to mine the helium-3 out of the ground, in the whole area underneath and between the harvester's legs.
Our ten-hour training courses don't fit perfectly with the eight-hour shifts used in the three-shift day. As such, our course finishes at six in the evening, or what would be evening in Singapore. Words like that don't really have meaning on the moon. It's better to think of it as the second hour of the third shift of the day. Just like in Artemis, this means right now, about a third of the population is asleep, another third is at work, and a third are up to whatever else it is they want to do in their spare time.
The majority of Dunstan is like a ghost town. It's built to host the entire population of the Mare Serenitatis (almost twelve thousand people), but only about four thousand of that is in Dunstan at any one time. The permanent population is only two thousand. And then when you consider the effect of the three-shift system... there's about two and a half thousand people awake in a town built for almost five times as many people. But there is one part of the settlement that is always lively.
Li Huang Square, named after one of the first twenty colonists, is reminiscent of the main street through Diana, in Artemis. Bars, cinemas, and restaurants, line the outside of the square. Due to the demand for space being a lot smaller here than it is in Artemis, there is a large open expansive area in the middle of Li Huang Square. Or at least as open as you get on the moon. After all, there is still the cavern ceiling. The open area is basically just a large courtyard with large seating areas, and parks of artificial grass. Spotted here and there, some small open-air cafes, and ice-cream shops, fill in spaces around the courtyard. There's a couple of children here. Normally that wouldn't really be worth noting, but there aren't many children on the moon. In fact, I don't remember seeing any when I was in Artemis. They're all very young. No one with children is accepted into jobs on the moon. Even among the Singaporean applicants, no one with children under sixteen is accepted. This is scheduled to change once DELOS has finished reimbursing all of the corporations and governments that invested into Project Artemis, but that is still expected to take at least another three or four years.
Past the courtyards and cafes, I can see some high nets strung up. Something like a tennis net, but far too high for that. I don't have anything to do, in fact I kind of just wandered here without realising it, so I go to take a close look. As I move closer, I see balls flying over the nets at terrifying speeds. There are people playing what I assume is some kind of sport. I don't know what it is, nor do I understand it. As I watch, I understand the game better. The goal seems to be to hit the ball down on the opponent's side of the net. From what I can tell, teams are usually of three or four, and there appears to be a rule against hitting the ball twice in a row, but I can't really see enough to be sure. The net seems impossibly high, but then I remember that we're on the moon. It's strange how often you forget that fact. Even with the slick black and grey rocks above and below, and the lightness that I feel constantly.
But watching the people out on the courts, whatever their playing it looks like fun. The jumps that some of them are making... their feet must be about three metres off the ground. And the speed at which the ball travels in incredible.
"Hey, you just arrived the other day, right?"
I turn my head towards where I hear the voice coming from. I see a familiar face. It's the woman who first met me and the other arrivals, at Artemis City Station. If I remember correctly, she works in human resources for Artemis Energy. Her name... I don't remember, however.
"Yeah."
"Are you busy at all?"
"No."
"We need an extra player, how about it?" she smiles beautifully.
I remember that now. She sounded so cheerful, and smiled so brightly, that it was exhausting. But it's also hard to say no to people like that. Or maybe I'm just too easily persuaded.
"I don't know how to play, but if that's okay with you..."
"Of course, don't worry about it," she beams radiantly, "my name's Jaime Zhu Hai. And you were?"
"Maria. Maria binti Osman."
"Nice to meet you properly. For starters, take off your weighted boots."
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