Lunar

This story is for persons of eighteen years or over. All comments, good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered.

Part Three

I've only brought up this past history of the world because it was because of these asteroids that led those on Earth to find what they had been looking for; a metal or substance to withstand the speed that their propulsion units needed to travel at half the speed of light.

It was sixty years after the asteroids had hit Earth that a study was made of the one that had landed in the Sahara. Why they chose that one I do not know, maybe because it was closest to Europe. Anyway, they found the massive crater that a ten kilometre wide asteroid would make and even though three quarters of it was below the surface, they found enough to work on.

What puzzled them for many years after the find was the fact that the asteroid itself was like Plasticine. A veritable mountain of the stuff which had them scratching their heads that this was just one that had caused so much damage and nearly killed off the whole of the world's population. It could be pulled apart by the hands and moulded into any shape required. It was fired in kilns, it was frozen, subjected to acids all to no effect. It was of a substance of which they'd never seen or could determine but gave it a name anyway calling it Astrim.

It was a chance occurrence that led them to find out the real properties of this material. A laboratory technician had a job to do in a vacuum state. He'd donned his suit and took his tool box into this room that was being used for the experiment he was conducting.. Now in this tool box, he had a ball of Astrim that he'd forgotten to take out. This was on a Friday and when he finished for the day, he left the chamber to change out of his suit but left his box inside as he would be needing it on the Monday.

On that day, he wanted a tool from his box and picked up the ball of Astrim and as one does with Plasticine, squeezed it, but he couldn't. He looked at it more closely for on the Friday he could squeeze it but now he couldn't. It was like a hard solid ball now. He then tried to cut it with a hacksaw, to no avail and took it out of the chamber and showed it to others. An acetylene torch was used upon it without a mark, burn or cut to be shown for their efforts. Top scientists were called upon to examine this ball but they didn't show up for nearly twenty four hours but in that time, the ball could, with a little effort, be moulded which made the technician feel rather foolish. Within the next twenty four hours it was back in its original form, easily pulled apart and able to be moulded by hand.

So he split his piece into three and rolled one piece as flat as he could, another he rolled it into a thin pencil like shape and the other he rolled up into a ball. All three pieces he then placed into a vacuum sealed apparatus and left them for forty eight hours. He was pleased to find that they were harder than any other substance he'd ever known, but this time, put them back into the vacuum before calling in the top dogs again.

The scientists were delighted at this find and so the material was put through many tests though only after being in a vacuum for forty eight hours or more and then only for a short time. It was quickly realised the potential of this metal if it could be called that, on the moon or in outer space. For it had now been ascertained that it was oxygen that reduced it to the state of being malleable. It was subjected to the most rigorous tests they could devise, even using the most powerful of armour piercing bullets or shells without it being marked in anyway. Even laser beams were used and were unable to cut through and so a quantity of this was eventually sent up to our people here on the moon for final testing.

A special workshop was constructed that had rollers than could then roll this Astrim out into sheets as thin as a millimetre, of course this being done with having oxygen in the workshop. The vents were then opened to let the air out and the material left for two days and wearing suits, the sheets were picked up and carried outside on the moon's surface. They were light and nothing could be found to mark or mar or even put a dent into these thin sheets.

This had been the break through they had been seeking for years to go with the propulsion unit that could attain half the speed of light and withstand the pressure. They prepared and made four small modules with guidance systems inside as well as telemetry to feed back information on the performance of each one.

All four performed well though the traditional sleek cigar shaped model with the short stabilising rear fins came out above the spherical ships as being more stable though it took a longer turning circle. The next problem to be overcome was the building of an anti gravity inside shield because of the G force that would crush the human body to nothingness at the speeds they needed to attain the maximum speed.

This took ten years to perfect with the gradual increase in velocity and for the first time, animal life was brought up to the moon to check this. Kept in atmosphere, they were launched but only for short periods only because of the feeding problem. It was found that the monkeys would not save their food but ate it as quickly as they could and subsequently starved to death before they could be brought back to the moon's surface. They never stopped bringing them back for dead or alive, they still served the same purpose as to how far could they push the acceleration limit until the body crushed.

They also lost the first two human pilots though they really were only passengers and it wasn't until the third one survived that they found the optimum way for the survival of the passenger. Mind you he was out in space for six months and it was fortunate that he had enough food on board.

It was found that after the initial take off, the speed was then constantly on the increase to not cause stress to the passenger and it took three months to reach the maximum speed and another three to slow down. They had sent him out on an elliptical course without having to turn the ship right round for his return, but the main thing was that he survived.

It had long been decided the destination and that was the star Proxima Centauri in the constellation of Centaurus, a distance of 4.24 light years away. This would take eighteen years and a few months allowing for the acceleration and deceleration and then a few more cruising round to find a suitable planet comparable to Earth. Here, the settlers would disembark, having been born on the travelling spaceship with any of those of the crew who wished to stay too, for some would not probably live to see their return to the moon.

The plans had been made for the construction of a ship, to be named Adastra, capable of supporting life for the journey and its return as well as giving the settlers, plants and trees.

The ship itself would be a mile long and just over five hundred yards at its widest in the centre and be fifty foot high at this point. The rear eighth would contain the propulsion unit and the forward eighth would be controls and living accommodation leaving the middle three quarters for the purpose of growing our food. The middle was to be three levels, the bottom one would hold the water manufacturing tanks as well as the oxygen recycling plants. The middle deck would hold the tropical and sub tropical plants and the upper deck, those that needed a temperate climate. These decks were divided by air locks approximately at two hundred yard intervals.

The forward part of the ship had five decks. The upper being the control room with all the concomitant needs for piloting the craft as well as communications and all safety controls. The deck below was for the kitchens, storerooms, canteen and recreational areas. The third and fourth were accommodation rooms with toilets and showers while the fifth and lowest deck held six small shuttle craft for transferring from ship to land for the Adastra would stay in orbit during this period.

There would be four major exit and entry doors for the ship. One for the coming and going of the shuttle craft, one situated forward of the kitchens for the loading of stores. One halfway down the ship for the plant area and one for the propulsion area.

The ship would have three skins so that all exit doors had three air locks for the outer shell would be constructed from this new found material called Astrim. So the second skin inside had to be air proof to keep oxygen out and to have a vacuum between them. This was also to keep the oxygen in from the third skin if there was a leak of breathable atmosphere which would be detrimental to the outer skin.

It was this part of the ship that came into my sphere of expertise to check for air leaks from the inner skin and prevent it getting between the first two. But all this had been designed before I was born.

Anti gravity plates had already been established and a huge area had been covered with these, deactivated of course during the construction of the ship. The keel as it were, was laid just before I was born and it was the ages that determined who would be these first real space travellers and I was one of the eighty that were selected.

My mother's name was Kar and as I have already said, I was born in the village of Vixen. Education starts early on the moon for the toys all have specific purpose and that is to teach. It was the mothers job to start her child off for the first three years of its life. As she was to have two children, my sister Grace was born almost to the day of my third birthday, as to us having the same father, I never did find out.

At three, I was then taken daily to the crèche in the city and there was taught to write, read, spell and learn the basics of arithmetic until I was five to which I moved on to the intermediate school. Such was the programming, you didn't know you were being evaluated the whole time you were growing up and it was here that it was decided to which profession you would be guided into.

It was a happy childhood, playing and learning at the same time. We would all troop out to the café for our lunch and sometimes went to the cinema where, along with enjoyable children's films we also got educational ones though done in such a way that you didn't realise this at the time.

I think it was because of my hands that I was put into metallurgy whereas a child with softer hands and a more delicate touch plus maybe a few more brains went in surgery. Another would show aptitude in figures and go into astrophysics. One of the previous, Bara, became our ship's major doctor and of the latter, Tark, became our Vice Captain of the Adastra, both females.

These two went onto the advance school at the age of eleven while I moved over to the workshop. At that time I had no interest in girls having had my imagination fired by being told that I had been selected for the Adastra if I could keep up my standard of work in school, for that was what the workshop still was. Here it was hammered into us that all tools are dangerous and by the age of twelve was adept at handling a laser gun and could cut a straight line for over three foot the width of a human hair.

Then for the first time in my life, I went out onto the moon's surface. Suited up in what fitted me, I was then further educated of working whilst wearing a suit and to be aware of the dangers in this too.

But like all boys, I became aware also of my own growing body and had begun resorting to relieving myself at night in bed, waiting and dreaming of what I'd heard of the Happy Rooms that would become available to me when I became thirteen years of age. That day came and it was some trepidation that I plucked up the courage to actually go inside to the plush interior.

It was known immediately that I was a cherry, ripe fruit ready for the picking for I suddenly had four women round me to sit me down and give me a beer. I had two as I was told I could go with any one of them and if I was a strong boy, could have another afterwards. Two of them I knew, one I'd seen working in the café and one was a teacher of the intermediate school, though none of the four were from my village.

Now having already had night time fantasies about the teacher, she was the one I chose and what a teacher she was. I must have swaggered out there into the main lounge having had my first experience of sex with a woman. I was walking on clouds at the way I'd been praised in our post coital position on the bed. I was that randy, I had another beer and bedded another woman.

I was in the Happy Rooms nearly every day after that when school finished.

By the time I was eighteen, not only was I fully conversant with all known metals and now working on the ships construction out on the moon's surface, but was also quite a strong and virulent lover. I had a period of having male sex when there wasn't a woman in the Happy Rooms but found that I preferred the softness of a woman to the hardness of a male beneath me.

The first part of the ship to be completed were the gardens for they had to be productive long before the time came for it to leave. The gardeners having been selected at an early age as I was and were steadily working to cultivate the treated soil and were having a great success in what they were doing. It was slowly becoming known of those that were earmarked for the voyage and when we began to get to know each other the excitement was a palpable thing between us.

For the next two years I combed every part of the ship between the three skins, checking out seams and memorising all the power and oxygen points as well as those for anchorage. For when I would be in between the outer and middle skin, I would be on a air line and had to know where and when I could change from one air point to the next. Also I got to know Kim, who came from the village of Coral of the city, Atlantis and who would be my assistant on these forays, for it always had to be two going out in case of a problem.

Though there were outside connection points, we would not go outside while in motion for just a speck of solar dust at the speed we would be travelling at would be fatal. All repairs, if needed to the outer skin would have to be done from the inside, though knowing the durability of this outer shell it was deemed to be inconceivable.

With the gardens in place and thriving, I watched the propulsion units being installed though I was only an onlooker for this. They had then been fired up and tested before the time came to begin to provision the ship with everything else in place.

Now as the launch was to take place from just outside our city, we had an influx of visitors and guests from all the cities involved and we were a bit over crowded for the two weeks prior to take off. It was only then that I got to meet the rest of the crew which would be a total of eighty persons, half male and half female.

It was two weeks of intensive instruction and it was at one such minor meeting that I was told who my future mate would be and was pleased to learn that it would be Kim. She too I'm glad to say was not in disagreement with us being paired together. It was then explained that we would be expected to have four children to populate the new world we were going out into space to find. Needless to say that we went to the Happy Rooms to start our family immediately.

It appeared that all eighty of us had had this instruction and one week before departure were all in the forum hall to each spend two minutes at the podium to talk about oneself as a means of introduction. Bea, a female from Tryon City was to be the Captain and Tark the Vice Captain whom I've already mentioned, as well as Bara being our head doctor.

We then moved into our quarters of the ship, the gardeners already having been living inside for the past two months. It didn't take long to get settled in and then we did mock trial runs of all problems that they thought could occur except for the one that did.

Bea, in her wisdom as Captain, twenty years of age as were we all except for a couple that were just past their birthday or just coming up to it, made a fatal decision before we'd even taken off. She organised the operational staff into two groups to work twelve hour shifts. Now this wasn't a hardship for no one really was expected to work those hours in an intensive environment for once we were on our way, the ship ran itself, it was just a matter of being there in case of anything going wrong. What she did was to have all the woman work as one shift and men the other.

I, like the gardeners, were out of this loop and worked as and when required. The gardeners worked for roughly six to eight hours and Kim and I just did a constant survey over all parts of the hull, a section at a time and called a halt when we felt like it. The change over time for shifts was at lunchtime, the men had their lunch first and then would take over control of the ship and the women would then go down for their lunch and rest. It worked fine.

The day before takeoff, we all had a final medical examination and all were pronounced fit. The females had already been given female hormone shots into their wombs two weeks previously.

The big day arrived and it was a solemn occasion with us all saying goodbye for it was expected that none of us would ever be seeing each other again. We listened to the speeches made and slowly made our way into the ship and it was sealed. There was no need for special couches or seats for take off, for as soon as the anti gravity plates beneath the ship was cleared of people in their suits, it was switched on and the ship began to rise. These were effective for up to nearly a thousand feet and it only took a few booster rockets to lift us clear of the moon's gravitational pull and we began the long voyage to the stars.

Because the middle skin of the ship was our anti gravity shield we only felt slightly the movement of the craft as it began to accelerate and us not feel the G forces. Every minute of every day the speed would increase and it wouldn't be for another three months before we reached the speed half that of light which would roughly be about ninety thousand miles a second. It's unbelievable to many minds that we could travel that fast and yet not appear to get anywhere for it was going to take us just over eighteen years to reach the star Proxima Centauri.