Something Made of Vacuum

It took about an hour for Tom to finish mixing, packing and labeling another forty boxes of spices. His work was interrupted several times for more smooching. Finally he and Helene called for a car, loaded up the boxes and rode out to the terminal building to have them delivered by automated containers on the monorail.

Tom passed the boxes to another Moon Man outside the building, in an area of racks, tables and forklift containers. Various cargoes from all the planets were held and sorted for transshipment to other planets or for distribution to other locations on the Moon. But there was a problem with the paperwork and he was obliged to go into the pressurized building to speak with a clerk. They cycled through the airlock together. Tom did not remove his helmet so Helene didn’t either.

Their path took them through the passenger terminal. Everyone, even the business travelers, considered spaceship travel to be a luxury cruise, and was dressed in vacation gear. Hawaiian shirts were popular even with those who would not have known what planet Hawaii was on.

“Tom,” Helene said privately, “I’ve been in a Moon suit for three days and I think I’m starting to go native. People without spacesuits are starting to look weird to me.”

“Well, sure. But let’s give ’em the benefit of the doubt. Back home,” Tom said, “most of these people would be wearing something heavier and stiffer, and they would look a lot better that way.”

“I know, right? They wear these loose clown costumes and when they wave their arms, stuff wiggles. But I mean, I’m already used to people who have a smooth, hard shape instead of a lumpy soft shape.”

Tom grinned. “Apparently a lot of guys agree with you. You’re sure attracting some looks from men with your smooth, hard shape.”

Helene swiveled her head and caught men looking at her from all directions. “Good lord, is it like this for all Moon Men women?”

“Pretty much. It’s like wearing a chador or a nun’s habit. If they can see your face, hiding your body is catnip to a lot of guys. A bunch of these guys are mentally undressing you with a mental can opener.”

“Are we going to have to take our helmets off in this building?”

“No, there’s an external speaker and microphone on the suit, so you can talk to anybody without exposing yourself. Don’t turn on the speaker by mistake – I’ve embarrassed myself that way a couple of times.”

Helene marched steadily ahead, facing stiffly forward. “I think I want to keep a shell around me. Tom, I travel all the time and I’m always walking through passenger terminals. It was never like this on Earth. It was never like this in Theophrastus the last two weeks, when I was walking around in regular clothes.”

“Well, sure, in those places you were just a regular pretty girl. Before, all the men would be having little fantasies about rescuing you from a burning building or something, and you would throw yourself at them. Here, they’re having fantasies about coaxing you out of your suit, and you would say, ‘Oh – Your Name Here – I am madly in lust with your fat, flabby body because I have so little experience I have nothing to compare it to!’”

“For all I know, Tommy me boy,” Helene said, turning to look at him while still walking, “you are fat and flabby. You’ve seen me in clothes, but I haven’t seen you. However, let me just say that I dated a guy in college who actually was kind of fat and not athletic. It didn’t work out, but he was a nice-enough guy and I liked him.”

“I totally understand. None of us would chase a woman just for sex because all of us Moon Men guys are deeply into relationships.”

“All of you Moon Men guys,” Helene said, “are full of baloney.”

“Well, yes,” Tom said. “In that respect, we’re exactly like men everywhere.”

They eventually reached the company office where Tom was able to straighten out his shipping account by speaking with a clerk through the external speaker of his suit. Helene stood with her back to the wall and waited, with a sharp eye toward the men sitting on benches who were eyeing her.

Rather than go back through the passenger terminal, Tom led the way down a corridor to a cargo area run by a Moon Man friend of his, who let them cycle out through one of the much larger cargo airlocks. They began walking back toward the village, holding hands.

“Now I’m worried about myself,” Helene said. “I step out of the airlock into vacuum and the Night sky and flat dust, and I feel better. Tom, am I going to be permanently weird when I go back to Earth?”

“If you are, it’s because you were weird when you stepped off the plane here,” Tom said. “Which I think you kind of were, in a good way.”

“Come to think of it, it’s a little weird to get to the Moon on a shuttleplane with wings, isn’t it? Only Earth people get here that way, right? So all of us Earthies start out weird.”

“It’s not just Earth. Every planet uses that system – a big mass driver and lasers to throw the plane into orbit or up to the Moon, then when you come back you fly down in the same plane. But of course people from other planets leave their shuttleplanes behind when they get into their ships to come here.” Tom looked at her with love and said, “But Helene, why did you come here? I know we think we’re pretty important, but I’m guessing all the ship-supply companies on the Moon don’t add up to much compared to the amount of food your company would sell to distributors on Earth. Was it really worthwhile for them to send a salesman here?”

Helene smiled. “Tom, I’m not the best salesman they have – had, I mean – but I’m the best one who was willing to come here, and sales have been pretty flat for a couple of years so they were willing to let me try to pump orders up on the Moon. It’s not actually that expensive to come here. I think it cost more to send me by regular jet to Cotopaxi Lift Port in Ecuador, than the lift fare to get from there to the Moon. I mean, Cotopaxi is cheap enough that we can ship chili powder and oregano to you, all the way up here, and still make a profit on the deal. So it wasn’t that big of a commitment for the company to send me here.”

They were nearing the lines of light that marked the streets of the village. “But Tom,” she continued, “I am a strange woman, because I wanted to go. The truth about Earth is that we pretty much got our feelings hurt over the last hundred years, when new planets were being discovered all the time, and everybody was leaving Earth to go to them. Everybody on Earth now is the child or grandchild of somebody who didn’t want to emigrate. We’re the stick-in-the-muds who wanted to stick in our own mud, and we don’t like to talk about the Ecumene or hear about it or even think about it if we can avoid it. When I told my parents I was coming here, they started sending me links to stories about spaceships that launched and vanished, shuttles that crashed or blew up, travelers who were abducted or raped or something. It’s like, we’re a whole planet of cowards trying to close our eyes and pretend space travel didn’t happen. Did you know our exports to the Ecumene have been going down every year for a couple of decades? Everything we make on Earth, they’re starting to make on the planets, and we’re okay with that because it means we don’t have to interact with those people.”

“But you were brave and came here, and interacted with me,” Tom said. “I’m grateful.”

“I’m glad I came.”

“Helene, are you going to tell me why you were fired?”

“No, Tom, I’m not. Will you let me keep that?”

“Yes. I will trust you with anything you want trust on. But look, let’s go back to air town tonight. I don’t want to wait.”

“You don’t need to apologize for wanting me, dear Tom. It’s what I want, too. But I’m supposed to go see that guy Susanna wanted to set me up with, tomorrow.”

“Have you made an appointment?” Helene shook her head. “Then it will wait. Come on, let’s go back to the terminal.”

“Don’t you need to tell your family you won’t be home, or something? Oh, wait. Never mind.”

They turned around and walked back, met up with Jimbo who was on shift again at the monorail head, and got a rack to carry them to Theophrastus. On the way, Helene wisely turned the conversation to the subject of getting her suit decorated, and they chatted about designs while they sailed smoothly toward the crater. The green glowing dome of the crater city was as beautiful against the Night sky as before, but Tom was plainly scandalized when Helene suggested using that as an image on her suit.

“Air town? That’s them, not us.”

“Moon Men use a lot of images from Earth. Since I’m from Earth, why shouldn’t I use an image from the Moon? And what else am I going to use, gray dust?”

“Umph,” he said ungraciously. The rack canted upward to the Moon Men airlock, and they dismounted and cycled themselves inside.