Luna: New Moon

I remember I sat in my room and I had no idea what to do. I sat in my room and did not know what to feel. I was numb. I was falling. It was like free fall. I wanted to vomit. The extractor; all our work, but more, so much more, the lives. People I had laughed with, drunk with, worked with; people who were more my family than my family. People who had trusted me. They were dead because they had trusted me. I had killed them. We were children, I realised. We had been playing at businesses. The Mackenzies were adult and they did not play. We were a children’s crusade, marching into our own ignorance. I sat in my room and imagined Mackenzie blades in the elevator, at the door, outside the window.

Carlos saved me. Carlos pulled me down, Carlos was my gravity. We win by getting that output deal, he said. We win by building Corta Hélio.

That was the first time I had ever heard that name.

With his own money Carlos hired freelance security for our people and materiel. With my own money I booked the VIPS on to the moonloop and told them of our change of plan. We would be spinning them around the moon on a tether to Farside, where we stationed the second prototype of the helium-3 extractor.

Carlos had made the stipulation on the first day of his project management: never build just one prototype.

We put our VIPs into a capsule, slung them around the moon, followed in the next and showed them what our extractor could do. Then we took the extracted helium and fired it up in the University of Farside’s LDX reactor.

With the last of our money, we contracted legal AIs to draft the output deal and signed it that night.

Not quite the end of our money. With the very end of it, Carlos and I had the AIs draw up a marriage contract. With the very very end of it, we threw a wedding.

Oh but it was cheap and blissful. Helen was my bridesmaid, the only other attendee was the witness from the LDC. Then we went and had eggs and sperm frozen. There was no time for romanticism, or a family. We had an empire to build. But we wanted children, we wanted a dynasty, we wanted to safeguard the future, once we had built a future safe for them. And that could be years, decades.

Creating Corta Hélio was nothing compared to building Corta Hélio. I went for lunes without seeing Carlos. I slept, ate, exercised, made love when I could, which was little, rarely. We need allies, Carlos said. I tried to build relationships. The Four Dragons had heard the name of Corta Hélio. The Suns were aloof, engaged on their own projects and politics. The Vorontsovs had their eyes turned up to space, though I secured favourable moonloop launch rates from them. The Mackenzies were my enemies. The Asamoahs – maybe because our business did not threaten theirs, maybe because we both came to the moon with nothing and made something, maybe because they identified with the underdog – they became my friends. They are still my friends.

With a secure and steady supply of cheap fuel, my terrestrial customers soon achieved a market position that forced their competitors to negotiate with us or go bankrupt. Shortly after that the US and Russian helium-3 markets collapsed. I beat America and Russia! At the same time! Within two years Corta Hélio had moved into a monopoly position.

See? There’s no talk more boring than money and business talk. We built Corta Hélio. We turned the little hut where we made love into a city. High times. The highest times. We were breathless with excitement. A point came where our success bred its own success. We were making money just by existing. The extractors scooped up the dust, the moonloop sends the cannisters flying Earthwards. We stood on the surface with our helmets touching and looked at the lights of planet Earth. It was ridiculously easy. Anyone could have thought of it. But I did.

See how it hardens you? In all the rush and excitement and work work work, I forgot about the people who died out on the Sea of Fecundity; my team, the ones who gave to me and never got to see the success or share in it. People say the moon is hard; no, people are hard. Always people.