Red Moon

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Hai-3 Helium Three

With Ta Shu suddenly removed from the inside of their Ming vase, as Qi called it, Fred found himself nervous for reasons he couldn’t really pin down. He was worried about Qi, about her pregnancy and her state of mind. He was tired of thinking about what was going to please her and what wasn’t. He knew many things weren’t going to please her, and it still wasn’t clear to him what would, even after all this time. In fact she was very quickly getting impossible. I have to get out of here! she kept saying. Over and over: I have to get out of here, I have to get to the near side, I have to get a message to my people! Nothing Fred could do would calm her.

Fang Fei spent a fair bit of time with them, and that was nice, Fred supposed, although the edginess of the conversations between the two Chinese also left him anxious, and tired of reading his semi-comprehensible glasses. The two Chinese bickered (tedious), they flirted (grotesque), they bargained (mysterious). On and on it went as they sat on the pavilion by the lake, every sentence mangled by his glasses, the scrolling sentences littered with literalisms and blown homonyms and allusions to Wang Wei and Du Fu, and the dynastic transition from the Tang to the Song (or maybe it was vice versa), and from the Ming to the Qing. That last one was important—1644, he gathered. Some kind of touchstone for the two of them. As were the great national revolutions of the twentieth century, about which they went round and round, until Fred was spinning and hoping the conversation would soon end. He needed to upgrade his knowledge of Chinese history, or better, install a heads-up wiki in these glasses, so that their references would trigger an ID in an upper corner or something. He tried finding one of those and porting it in, and it worked, and after that he suffered through an onslaught of information fit to kill a Mandarin literati studying for exams. It was like falling into that late Qing version of hell composed entirely of bureaucratic examinations. He went to bed each night with a headache, and even his dreams began to appear to him with a red scroll line at the bottom narrating the bizarre events of his night life, written in a mangled pidgin English possibly more surreal than the dreams themselves. Fred couldn’t be sure, because on waking the power of words was such that he recalled only the phrases and not the images: sex with lunatic promethium ejaculation, or spinster fireball seducing happiness, or Buddha of renunciation like traffic cop.

Qi, meanwhile, was not happy.

One day she and Fred were out on the lakeside pavilion where they had met Fang Fei, which they had learned was called the West Lake Pavilion (earning another snort from Qi), eating a variety of dishes, many of them still unidentifiable to Fred, a fact that reminded him uneasily of his night of food poisoning, when Fang Fei and a pair of men got out of one of the little electric cars and walked over to them.

May you joint us? Fang Fei asked Qi. I like introduce you these persons.

You are our hosts, Qi replied grumpily. Introduce us whatever you like.

Fred nodded and said, “Pleased to meet you,” to indicate that he was following their conversation.

These men are helium three miners, Fang Fei said and nodded at them. This one is Xuanzang, and this one is Ah Q.

Xuanzang stepped forward and began to speak in an urgent and expressive voice, like a TV announcer.

We have taken a most marvelous expedition to Mare Ingenii! he said.

Fabulous! added his friend.

We traveled by rover from Tsiolkovsky to Gagarin, by way of Jules Verne and also to Heaviside. It was a daytime trip. Sunrise to sunset two weeks very bright!

Very bright!

All the time we dragged a harvester behind our rover. It is our own design it worked very well! We only had to remove rocks several times per day! The surface was only disturbed a little! Lines we made will erode away.

Fang Fei said, In a million years or a billion.

Xuanzang said, A million at most!

They all laughed.

And what did you find? Fang Fei asked.

Helium three! Lots of many copious helium three!

How much is lots of many copious?

Ah Q pulled a silvery container like a small thermos bottle from his shoulder bag.

This much! This glass-lined bottle here is entirely full of helium three!

Is it compressed to a liquid? Fang Fei asked.

No, that can’t be done with helium three. It would have to be too very cold!

How cold?

Two Kelvin maybe!

So how much do you have in that?

Four and a half grams!

Four and a half grams, Fang Fei repeated. And how many kilometers did you travel?

Three thousand two hundred kilometers.

Fang Fei stared at them for a while.

Congratulations, he said.

Thank you!

And this helium three what will you do it now?

We will store it for the time when it can be fuel in fusion reactions.

And when will we have these fusion reactions?

Very soon! Twenty years.

Fang Fei almost smiled. All my life fusion has been twenty years away. It is like horizon. You move toward it and it moves away same speed.

Hopefully not, wonderful sir! We are told this time it is the real deal!

Fang Fei nodded. Meanwhile you have four point five grams of helium three. How long will that keep fusion reactor going when time comes we have such technology?

Depends on efficiency, but long time! A week. Maybe ten days.

And your expedition took two weeks.

Yes!

So you will need more of it.

Yes truly! But proof of concept! The helium three is there in the regolith.

We knew that before.

Truly! But not how easy it was to extract! All sorts of methods will be tried but ours is best!

Okay, good. Congratulations. We must celebrate your success.

Thank you!

Let us dine together tonight.

Thank you!

Now I must continue my conversation with my friends here.

Oh thank you! We will see you at dinner.

Yes. Let’s eat out here by the lake. For now go rest and put your helium three in a safe place.

Thank you we will!

When they were gone, Fang Fei’s aged face again cracked into the horrid gargoyle mask of his laughter, which emerged from him as a choked raspy ah ah ah ah.

“Very funny,” he said in English. “Helium three is in regolith at fifteen parts per billion, so they mined a lot of dirt to get that much, truly. And all for power plants that exist out there on receding horizon, like mirage. Still twenty years off, if ever. I like it.”

“I’ve heard that a spaceship full of helium three delivered every week would be enough to power all Earth,” Qi said.

“So have I!” Fang Fei said, and laughed again. Fred found himself wondering if his laughter would kill him. “That’s why this pair are out there. I funded them, I sent them out there. But it is a foolish thing.”

“People like the idea of cheap energy,” Qi said. “Maybe it’s the only one of the four cheaps that people can believe in anymore.”

“The four cheaps?”

“Cheap labor, cheap food, cheap resources, cheap energy.”

Fang nodded, lips protruded as he pondered this. “I suppose so. But no cheaps here on the moon, I think!”

“No. Unless it’s this helium three dream. Which has been part of the China Dream for a long time. One of the reasons for coming here.”

“Not for me,” Fang Fei said.

“Why did you come here?” Fred ventured to ask.

“I can make something new here,” Fang Fei said. “Also I have arthritis. So I like the gravity!” Again his catacomb smile.

“Unless you lose your balance and fall,” Fred suggested, in an attempt to make the smile go away.

“I do that at home! Here the landing is much less painful.” The smile remained. “And I am getting better at not falling here.”

He stood, in what Fred saw now was a five-part motion, and then did a little dance, circling in place while he tapped his feet to the sides, lofting and coming down with arms outstretched. Irish dancing? Geriatric ballet?

A few turns, then he stood huffing and puffing.

Must rest, he said in Chinese, and a car quickly appeared to take him away.

Fred and Qi sat there on the shores of West Lake. There was a slight breeze from upstream, which Fred was beginning to suspect might always exist, as there had to be some kind of air-circulation system in the tunnel. The peach trees were dropping their blossoms into the lake, and there was a mass of blossoms clustered on the water at the lake’s outlet, where water dropped over a weir. A filter of some sort appeared to be letting the blossoms downstream in a somewhat controlled fashion, so that the stream would have a steady supply. Fred couldn’t help wondering if they were visiting in the lava tube’s early summer, or if the peach trees had been genetically tweaked to produce blossoms year-round.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Qi announced again. “I hate this place.”

“The China Dream,” Fred reminded her.

“I hate it! It was always just the usual feudal shit, torture and foot-binding and starvation for the masses.”

“But good poetry?” Fred suggested, feeling an urge to contradict her.

“So what!”

“I don’t know. It’s a good look. And agricultural. You have to have agriculture. Given that need, what look are you going to shoot for?”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“You could shoot for this. A work of art that feeds you.”

She just frowned. He saw that she didn’t want to have new ideas coming to her right now. But she did want to change things in China. So there had to be a plan for that, some kind of goal. “I need to get out,” she said.

Then another little electric car drove up. The two helium miners jumped out of it and danced over to Fred and Qi with a careless loopy grace.

“Want to go helium mining with us?” one of them asked in English, smiling broadly.

All of a sudden Qi squeaked and rushed over to hug him. “It’s Cai!” she exclaimed, pushing back to look at him. “Chan Cai?”

“That’s right,” he said, grinning more than ever. “But now I am Xuanzang, the great traveler. I bring Buddhist wisdom back to you for your edification.”

“I didn’t recognize you!” she cried.

“No reason to. You only met me once, and I had hair then.”

“What are you doing here!”

“What do you think? We’re working on the project. We work for you!”

“So you’re not mining helium?”

Both the men laughed heartily.

“Who would do something that stupid?” Xuanzang asked. “We’re not lunatics, we’re lunatics.”

They laughed at their old joke.

“These are friends from Hong Kong,” Qi said to Fred. “Cai here, Xuanzang I mean, is my fourth or fifth cousin, we think. They’re part of the group you met in Shekou.”

“I see,” Fred said, which he didn’t. “What’s this about not helium mining?”

“We use that as our way to get around,” Ah Q explained. “It’s our legend. Mr. Fang has supported us in that effort, which is nice of him.” They laughed again. Giddy guys.

“Does he know what you’re really doing?” Qi asked.

“We’re not sure. It seems like he doesn’t want us to know whether he knows or not, so we don’t press it. We keep it at the level of prospecting for helium. He seems happy to see us on that basis, and on it goes.”

“Anyway we can get you out of here, if you want,” Xuanzang said. “Our rover has a Mechanical Turk compartment, and we visit here all the time, so no one pays us much attention. And if it doesn’t work, I don’t think you’ll pay too heavily for trying. Mr. Fang isn’t like the security police.”

“Qi,” Fred warned.

“I’m going!” she exclaimed. “You can stay here if you want!”

“Really?” he said. “You’re eight months pregnant.”

“Exactly! I don’t want to have my baby in this jail!”

“Do you have access to medical facilities?” Fred asked Xuanzang.

“Why yes, we do.”

“In your rover?”

“No, but where we’re going.”

“Damn,” Fred said. His mind spun but failed to catch. “Well, I guess I’m coming too,” he heard himself say.

“You don’t have to,” Qi snapped. “I don’t want someone nagging me! I’m tired of that!”

“I’m coming,” Fred insisted mulishly. He looked toward the road, as if to remind her he could tip the guards if she tried to stop him from coming along.

“Why!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want you if you’re not willing! Why do you keep following me!”

“I don’t know,” he said. It was the truth. Looking at the pavilion floor, he muttered, “I guess we’re entangled.”

He felt her staring at him. “Maybe we’re superposed,” she suggested. “Maybe we’re the dead cat and the live cat, in that box together.”

He knew which cat she would think he was, and felt his lower lip thrusting out. “Maybe I’m your pilot wave,” he countered.

She inspected him awhile longer. “Maybe you are,” she said at last. “Maybe that’s why I don’t know where I’m going. Lead on then! Why stop now?”

Fred sighed. “That’s what I was thinking.”

So they went back to their rooms and packed their few things into the little daypacks they had been given by Fang Fei’s space crew. Xuanzang and Ah Q came to the guesthouse and walked them to the tunnels at the end of the lava tube that led to the cave in the crater wall. Here several rovers were parked alongside a number of rocket launchpads. Xuanzang and Ah Q led Fred and Qi up into their rover’s big upper room, where they opened a hatch in the floor, and Fred followed Qi down into a chamber under the driver’s seat. He squashed against her side to side. Their knees scrunched up under their chins, her pregnant belly bulging out and forcing her to shove her left leg far into his space, as there was no way she could keep her legs together. It seemed they were fated to a physical intimacy that was only driving them mentally further apart, but no matter how that was going, Fred could only put his head back against the vibrating wall of the compartment and hope it was somehow protected from scanners in a way that would keep them hidden, as it would be embarrassing to get caught and hauled out of there. And he was quite sure he didn’t want to see what Fang Fei was like when he was angry. He asked about this matter of scanners before the door was closed on them, and Xuanzang told him that the compartment was not just Faraday-caged, but also broadcasting for surveillance instrumentation an output that created an image of one of the rover’s motor parts. Very clever, and it occurred to Fred to wonder why they should need such a system in their rover. But it seemed clear that the answer involved smuggling of one sort or another, so he decided to leave it for later, or never.

“Don’t worry,” Xuanzang said as he closed the hatch. “They usually let us out without any searches, because Fang is our patron. This is just to be sure.”

So they lay scrunched there in the dark as the two prospectors drove their rover out of the cave. There was one pause of some minutes, worrisome to Fred, hot and sweaty despite the single vent of cool air wafting onto them from above, bringing with it the scent of Qi’s hair which was becoming so familiar to him, possibly a shampoo scent in part, but also just the smell of her person. It was like the scent of a baby, or of the head of a beloved that you were accustomed to inhale, but in this case always including a whiff of danger. Strange the ways of the body, because this scent in the dark, despite the danger always associated with it, was filling him with a sensation of well-being, even the first pulse or two of an inappropriate erection, blocked immediately by a twist of his pants, for which he felt grateful. He was mad at her right now for calling him a dead cat, so it didn’t make sense anyway.

Then it was just discomfort and enforced intimacy and boredom—Fred wondered briefly if this was what marriage would be like, although of course he had no idea—and for a time he fell asleep. Then the door opened and they were being helped out of the compartment, blinking in the light, and he groaned at the release from their position and slapped his left leg awake as he crawled out, doing his best not to kick Qi as he emerged into the cabin of the rover. She pushed his right foot up to help him get out and stay off her, and again the feel of her hands on him sent a little jolt up his leg. When he was out and on the bench behind the driver’s seat, he reached back and grabbed her wrist and she grabbed his, and in the lunar g it was more a matter of not yanking her into the roof of the compartment than of hauling her weight up. It took a little care to get her belly out without scraping the doorway with it, but they managed, and then they were sitting on the bench behind the hatch door, looking around.

The entrance cave to Fang Fei’s China Dream, Xuanzang and Ah Q told them, lay under the inside of the rim of Tsiolkovsky Crater, the floor of which was one of the only areas on the far side covered by flat basalt. There were no big mare on the far side, Ah Q said; it was entirely rough highlands blasted by a zillion overlapping craters. The explanation for the difference in surface between the near and far hemispheres was something selenologists still argued about, he added, but clearly the proximate cause was that the crust was simply thicker on the far side than on the near side.

The crater floor extended as far they could see, with the crater’s central peak tall in the distance, its upper half white in the sunlight. The curving crater wall extended to the horizons to left and right, then stayed visible over the closer black horizon and created a more distant lit horizon of its own, yet another immense lunar curve. Above everything stretched a low blacker-than-black sky punctuated by a dense field of stars.

“How will we get out of this crater?” Qi asked.

“There’s a road.”

“So we have to go the same way as everyone else?”

“Until then we do. It’s a big steep wall, as you can see. Only a few slumps to get out by.”

“But then we can take a different way than the usual way?”

“We can, but it will slow us down. If you want to go fast, it would be better to use the routes already established.”

“Well, I want both. I want to hide as much as possible, but I also need to get to the near side as fast as we can. I need to get a message to Earth.”

“Yes, dear cousin. We’ll do what we can.”