SUSIE and the Princess on the Moon

By

W. E. Lopez

©2001

The little figure in the space suit looked almost comical. While her space suit was tailored to fit her four-foot height, her air bottle was regulation size and nearly as large as she was. Stepping out of the safety chamber, she said to the lockmaster, “Safety check complete, Mr. Jenkins. All seals double checked and A-OK.” She handed the suit log to him for his initials.

“Right you are, SUSIE.” He initialed her maintenance form, tucked it into her log pocket and helped her off with her helmet. “Your mom called me while you were in the safety chamber. She’ll be here in a moment and she’s bringing a guest for your trip. An honest to goodness princess!”

“Aww, go on Mr. Jenkins. There are no princesses on the moon. You grownups think a kid will believe anything.”

“No foolin’, SUSIE. This one is a movie actress from Earth. She’s going out to Birmingham with you. Some sort of publicity stunt I suppose.”

Birmingham Base was the site of the Lunar Colony’s most recent ice discovery. It was located 400 kilometers north of SUSIE’s home under the Lunar Alps, near the crater Plato. SUSIE’s mom was a computer technician and life support systems specialist. They were going out to the new mining venture to upgrade the computer hardware, which maintained the air recycling and hydroponics gardens at the base. SUSIE was in the middle of her quarterly school vacation and, rather than board her at the kinder-care center, SUSIE’s mom wanted to take her along for the six days she would be away from Plato Station. SUSIE was thrilled with the preparations for the trip by crawler across the relatively smooth plains known as Mare Frigoris.

The inner door to the main lock opened and SUSIE recognized her mom in company with a strikingly beautiful and dark haired woman. While her mother skated effortlessly across the floor with a stride well suited to the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the other woman bounded three and four feet high with each step, like any new arrival on the moon. It was only because the main lock was so large that the woman did not bump her head.

“Hi, Mom!” SUSIE waved. The two women approached and her mom easily picked her up with a warm embrace.

“Hello yourself, Squirt! I want you to say hello to Princess Dimi Lumina, from Hollywood.” She set the girl down and presented her to the other woman.

The dark haired woman held her hand out to SUSIE, who was awkwardly attempting to curtsey as she had seen in the tri-D videos. She found that it could not be done while wearing a space suit.

“Actually, the title is honorary, SUSIE. I was born in Chenoa, Illinois, about a hundred miles from Chicago. But my great-great-grandparents were really from Romania and we are said to be related to royalty.” Dimi had a pleasant smile. SUSIE decided her attempted curtsey looked ridiculous and settled for a more conventional handshake.

“I’m very pleased to meet you Miss… er, Princess Lumina,” SUSIE said. She had no real awe of royalty, it being something she had only read of in a book or seen on the video. Nonetheless, she knew it must be something important.

“Please call me Dimi,” the movie star said. “Otherwise you’ll end up getting tongue-tied. I understand we have to make a 12-hour journey in something called a moon crawler to get to Birmingham. We’ll have lots of time for talking and I hope we’ll be friends.”

“Yes’m,” SUSIE said.

“Ma’am,” Mr. Jenkins said, “if you’ll just step into the safety chamber with SUSIE’s mom, we have to do a zero-pressure test to make sure your suit is properly gasketed before I can initial your log and allow you outside the station.”

The Princess read the nametag on the front of the man’s overalls. “Certainly, Mr. Jenkins. There is so much for a newcomer from Earth to learn here. It’s all so exciting and somehow dangerous. I’m surprised they allow children on the moon at all.”

“I was born here, Dimi,” SUSIE said. “We get vacuum-suit training just like kids on Earth learn about traffic lights and crossing streets. Only we are tested much more strictly because it’s much easier to die here. There are three classes of vacuum license and I’m a second class, allowed to be outside with adult supervision. Mom’s a safety instructor so you’ll be allowed outside with her since you’ve had your safety orientation and are qualified as a third class. But, to go outside without her would probably get you killed. Accidentally, of course.” SUSIE didn’t bother to mention that most accidents were caused by the sheer stupidity of the victim. Mother Nature has harsh laws and stupidity is not grounds for appeal.

The two women stepped into the vacuum chamber and sealed their suits. As Mr. Jenkins opened the chamber to vacuum, their suits began to swell with the pressure inside. Flexible joints at the waist, knees, elbows and shoulders allowed them movement, although it did require some effort. SUSIE’s mom checked Dimi over again and again while Mr. Jenkins read off a safety checklist as required by regulations. When they were done, he pressurized the chamber again and admitted them to the main lock.

After Mr. Jenkins had initialed their logbooks, the three of them boarded the crawler and sealed the hatch. Jenkins went into an anti-chamber and released the pressure in the main lock allowing the huge cargo entrance to open.

Outside, it was four days past dawn, not long before lunar noon. The sun was intense while shadows of hills and rocks stood out blackly against the light gray surface soil. SUSIE’s mom engaged the batteries and the crawler rolled forward on flexible tractor treads.

“I’m surprised it’s so bright outside,” Dimi said.

“That’s because, seen from here, the Earth is four times as large as the moon on Earth, and reflects sixty times as much light at full Earth. Bright enough to read by, you know? Also, it will be noon in three more days, and the sun can easily kill you on the surface where it gets up to 230 degrees Fahrenheit.”

The movie actress was evidently quite impressed with SUSIE’s knowledge. “Are you some sort of child-genius, SUSIE? Or are all children on the moon as smart as you?”

“It’s nothing,” SUSIE said, embarrassed that she had shown off as she did. “Just stuff we learn in school, the way they teach Earth kids about weather and such. Some day I’d like to see a cloud, or a sunset with colors in it. We have nothing like that on the moon.”

“Perhaps you’ll visit Earth, one day?”

“Oh, I know I will, but I’m not looking forward to it except as a novel experience. When I complete high school, I’ll have to go dirt-side for my college education, unless they build a college here in the next fifteen years.”

“When you come to Earth, SUSIE, I do hope you’ll come and visit with me.” SUSIE knew it was just one of those polite terms grownups toss off, like “Top of the morning to ya!” Or, “How you doing today?” It was not meant to be taken as a literal invitation.

“Oh, I’d like that,” SUSIE said. She could play the game too.

In the hours that followed, SUSIE’s mom steered the crawler around boulders and drop-offs until they reached the relatively smooth surface of the mare where she opened the crawler up to it’s top speed of 50 kilometers per hour. SUSIE had seen lunar landscape before and was beginning to get bored, seeing the trip more as a necessity to arriving at their destination rather than the breath taking view the movie star saw.

“Do you play cribbage?” SUSIE asked Dimi. “There’s a board and a deck of cards here. It would help to pass the time.”

“Sorry, SUSIE, I never learned. Besides, the view outside is fantastic and I want to have something to tell my friends back on Earth. I wish I’d remembered to bring along my camera.”

“That’s no problem,” SUSIE said. “There are plenty of digital files available at the library for you to download and take home with you.”

“But that’s not the same thing as real pictures, SUSIE.” SUSIE didn’t understand. What other kind of pictures were there?

SUSIE reclined her seat, eased her seat belt slightly, and began to take a nap. The last thing she heard Dimi say was, “It seems as though we are really speeding over the surface at a couple hundred miles an hour. How fast are we going?”

“The illusion of speed is caused by the nearness to the horizon and the wide open spaces. We’re actually doing fifty, which is the top speed for a crawler,” said SUSIE’s mom.

“Fifty? Well, fifty miles an hour is pretty fast too.”

“No, not miles per hour, kilometers,” SUSIE’s mom said. “About thirty miles an hour.”

“Oh,” the actress said. “I don’t know why, but I always expected people on the moon would go flitting about in rockets or something,” Dimi said.

“That would be faster, of course, and we do use rockets in emergencies. But fuel is expensive and hard to come by. Not to mention that an airless landing is one of the most difficult maneuvers humans can make. The chances of an accident are quite high. For most transportation, we regularly use these crawlers, though they do have a monorail between Copernicus and Archimedes, and others are planned.”

SUSIE knew all about the monorails. Her father was a construction foreman building the link from Copernicus, across Oceanus, to crater Letronne. Soon she drifted off with the quiet grinding of the electrically driven treads lulling her to sleep.

A violent shaking, crashing, and tumbling suddenly awoke her! It was fortunate that she had her seat belt fastened. When she fully regained her senses she found herself hanging upside down inside the darkened moon crawler. She paused to take her bearings and then unfastened her seat belt and lowered herself to the roof of the crawler. Her instinct told her where the emergency light was and she flicked it on.

Gray lunar dust covered the forward vision screen causing SUSIE to surmise they had overturned and crashed into an embankment. Fortunately, when they came to rest inverted, the main hatch was not buried, so they still had a means of escape. Her mom was hanging from the driver’s seat, her seat belt still fastened. Dimi was lying on the roof of the moon crawler, now the floor. SUSIE rushed to her mom, unbuckled her seat belt and easily lowered her 20-pound weight to the roof. Quickly she checked the barograph reporting the crawler’s cabin pressure in case they had sprung a leak and it would be necessary for them to don their helmets. Thank goodness! No leak was indicated and pressure was still normal.

But, mom was unconscious. SUSIE found a pulse in her neck, just like she’d learned in first aid class, but was too inexperienced to know if it was above or below normal. Mom seemed to be breathing okay; she was just out of it. There was a bloody bump on her right temple where she must have banged her head on the control panel or something. SUSIE decided to check on Dimi and see if she would know what to do.

Dimi was laying face down, her eyes fluttered when SUSIE rolled her over. “Gosh! What happened?” the movie star asked.

“I was asleep. I was hoping you could tell me,” SUSIE said.

“Everything seemed normal to me,” Dimi told her. “Your mom was driving along as normal as can be, then the bottom seemed to fall out of everything and we started to crash.” Dimi rubbed her shoulder, which appeared to be sore.

“Moonquake,” SUSIE said absently.

“Huh?”

“We get them once in awhile. Planetary forces build up to the breaking point and then something has to give. Because the Earth is so much more massive than the moon, they can sometimes be quite severe. Probably opened a fault or something and flipped us over.”

“You mean we’re gonna die?” Dimi asked with true fear in her eyes.

“Everybody is gonna die, Dimi. But I hope we won’t die today. My mom is hurt. Can you help me?”

“I’ll try, hon, but I don’t think I’m a very good nurse. I’ve never had any training.”

SUSIE and Dimi checked again, but SUSIE’s mom’s condition had not changed. “Do you think we should try and move her, SUSIE? Put a blanket or something under her head?”

“No, she might have a neck or spinal injury. We might make things worse. As long as she’s still breathing okay, I guess we should just wait until she wakens, or until help arrives.”

“Meanwhile, what do we do about getting out of here?” Dimi asked.

“We should stay inside the crawler, Dimi. Outside, the temperature has got to be over 200 degrees. We wouldn’t last long in direct sunlight. Fortunately, with the crawler being upside down, we have the treads and suspension to help protect us from the sun, even though the air conditioning is not operating. If we were still upright, we’d have to rig a sunscreen using the Mylar tarp in the emergency compartment.”

“Can’t you radio for help?”

“No power. The emergency lights have their own batteries. I’m afraid the main batteries were shorted when we crashed. Besides, upside down like this, the antennas are buried beneath us.”

For the first time, Dimi began to really look scared. “You mean we’re helpless? There’s nothing we can do? I want to get out! How far is it to the next station? Or should we go back?”

“Much too far for either of us to walk, even if we didn’t have to carry mom. And with the radios out, we can’t find our position using the locater beacons. We could easily get lost.”

“Don’t we have a compass or something? How do people find their way around on the moon?”

“The moon spins much too slowly to have a useful magnetic field, Dimi. For the same reason, a gyrocompass doesn’t work either. We use a series of radio beacons placed at various points around the moon to send a signal to our onboard computer, which provides a continuous display of our location.”

“But we could tell direction using the North Star, couldn’t we? Even I know how to locate the dippers and Polaris.”

“Sorry again, Dimi. But you can’t see the stars during the lunar day. Even without an atmosphere, it’s much too bright. Your eyes block out the excessive light, unless you are looking through a long tube, like a stovepipe or something. Besides, Polaris is not the pole star on the moon. Do you know how to find Zeta Draconis?”

“Is that a star? It sounds like a sorority to me. But we’ve got to do something, don’t we? I can’t believe we are just going to sit here and wait to die when we run out of air.”

“We won’t die, unless the quake caused so much damage that a rescue party can’t get to us. Every person and vehicle venturing out on the surface must file a trip plan, like pilots do on Earth. In a few more hours we’ll be listed as over due, and rescue teams will begin searching for us from Birmingham and Plato. The entire trip takes only 12 hours by crawler, so within six hours, maybe a little longer, a team can be here.”

“Are you sure, SUSIE? It doesn’t sound like a very reasonable plan to me.”

“It’s the law, Dimi. Failure to attempt a rescue on the surface carries severe penalties. Abandoning the crawler and setting out on our own is the worst thing we can do. Rescuers could arrive here moments later not be able to find us. That’s one of the first things they teach us here on the moon. We’ll just have to sit tight.”

Dimi did not want to sit tight. All her instincts told her that she was older and she should be doing something to help improve their situation. But, she had to admit, SUSIE knew much more about conditions on the moon, and most likely she should follow her advice. Besides, they could not go dragging her mom all over the lunar landscape, even if she did weigh only a fraction of what she did on Earth.

Eventually, SUSIE cajoled Dimi into learning how to play cribbage. SUSIE set up the board and dealt the cards and explained the game as they played a hand or two while the movie star learned how to count and peg. Every so often they would check on SUSIE’s mom and moisten her lips with a wet cloth and water from the crawler’s tanks.

They played, and played again. SUSIE was not out for blood as much as she wanted to keep Dimi’s mind off their predicament. SUSIE thought she had explained their situation as best as possible, but mainly she wanted for all of them to keep quiet and avoid exertion that would use up the air more quickly. She had been keeping half an eye on the barograph and had noticed a small drop in pressure, but the movie star was not aware of it. SUSIE suspected that the main hatch might have been warped slightly, allowing a slow leak through the gasket. Or perhaps the aluminum hull had been cracked, and they were slowly losing air. Either way, they needed to conserve oxygen as much as possible.

Twelve games later, Dimi was ahead by only 30 points. She was rapidly losing interest in the game, misplaying several hands, and SUSIE was finding it difficult to keep losing to her. Suddenly there was a scraping against the hull. In moments SUSIE could see soil being cleared away from the vision screen. Soon a helmeted figure peered in shining a light. Seeing those inside without helmets, he signaled to them that they should suit up and open the hatch.

SUSIE helped Dimi with her helmet and performed a buddy check. Then she suited her mom and double-checked her. Satisfied, she hit the spill lever and the remaining air began hissing out of the crawler. The first man inside was Ken Hastings, a man SUSIE had seen around Plato Crater with her father quite often.

“You okay, SUSIE? How is everyone in here?”

“I’m all right, Mr. Hastings. My mom is injured though, can your men bring a stretcher in here?”

Hastings touched a button on his belt and spoke into his radio. Then he said to SUSIE, “There will be a team in here in moments. Why don’t we get out of here and into my crawler so they will have more room to work in here? You must be the Princess,” he said to Dimi. “The crew at Birmingham has been planning a celebration for your visit. You don’t know how worried they were when we heard your crawler was overdue.”

“I was more than a little worried myself, Mr. Hastings. I have a membership with the automobile club, but I don’t think it would have done me much good here.”

They left the crawler and moved the short distance to the rescue vehicle, passing the stretcher crew coming across the barren and lifeless ground. Once inside Hasting’s crawler, they had to wait several minutes for the return of the stretcher party before they could pressurize the hull and remove their helmets.

“Miss Lumina,” one of the men said. “I’m a medical technician, but I’d appreciate it if you’d help remove the lady’s suit. I have to check her for injuries.”

“Of course,” Dimi said. “How refreshing to find gallantry here, even in an emergency.”

The med-tech checked SUSIE’s mom and reported no obvious injuries. While the crawler sped across the open plain, completing the journey to Birmingham Base, the med-tech cleaned the laceration on SUSIE’s mom’s forehead and applied an anti-biotic cream.

“That’ll help prevent infection, although that’s not much of a problem here on the moon. Fortunately we have not imported many diseases from Earth.”

The remainder of the trip took slightly more than an hour. When the crawler arrived at the main lock to the base, the large hatch opened upward and the crawler pulled inside and waited as the hatch closed and the lock was pressurized. Mr. Hastings was just opening the hatch on the crawler when more than two-dozen ice-miners swarmed into the huge airlock to get a glimpse of the movie star from Earth. While the men clamored around trying to get photographs and autographs, Dimi smiled and postured and blew kisses. Still clad in her space suit, the movie star seemed like any other woman on the moon. SUSIE wondered what all the fuss was about.

“Hey, you! Max, and you, Harry,” Mr. Hastings called. “We have an injured woman on a stretcher in here. Get her over to the infirmary, quick now!”

The two men entered the crawler and lifted the stretcher, then carried it to the inner door of the air lock. SUSIE stayed close behind as she followed them. She was very concerned for her mother who had not fluttered an eyelash during the remainder of the trip. The med-tech stayed with them too. As soon as they reached the infirmary he began describing his patients symptoms and treatment he had administered to the doctor and nurse on duty. SUSIE had expected an excited crew of attending personnel as she had seen on the video, but there was only one doctor and one nurse.

When SUSIE’s mom had been placed on an examination table and wheeled away to another room, the nurse took SUSIE’s hand and led her to a waiting room. “Look, dear,” the nurse said, “We know you’re really worried about your mom, but her pulse is good and her respiration is normal. Dr. Lane will take an X-ray to check for head trauma, and possible damage to her internal organs. We’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything.”

“Thank you, nurse. Will it be okay if I wait right here?”

“Of course. What’s your name? Can I get you a glass of milk? Or juice?”

“My name’s SUSIE, and I could really go for a glass of milk. It seems I’ve been so worried about my mom, I’ve forgotten to drink anything since the accident. I’m very thirsty.” Of course, there were no cows on the moon. The milk was produced from soybeans grown as part of the atmosphere replenishment system. Miniature fruit trees were also grown, as were all the vegetables consumed on the moon. Green leaves took carbon dioxide from the recirculated air and replaced it with oxygen, the same as had been happening on Earth for billions of years.

Two glasses of milk and several cookies later, the nurse took SUSIE’s hand and led her to another room where her mother was sitting up in bed, dangling her feet over the side.

“Mom!” SUSIE shouted, leaping on the bed and putting her arms around her mother’s neck. “I was so worried about you… there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to make you better so we just had to wait for help to come to us.”

“You did absolutely the right thing, SUSIE. I’ve been told that the Princess wanted to start walking for help, but you succeeded in getting her to stay inside the crawler like you’ve been taught. Good girl!”

“It wasn’t too much trouble after I tricked her into playing cribbage to get her mind off things,” SUSIE said. “She beat me eleven games straight.”

“She beat you? But you’ve been junior champion at Plato Crater two years running!”

“Shhh,” SUSIE said, holding her finger to her lips. “Don’t let Dimi find out or she’ll know I tricked her.”

SUSIE’s mom gave her little girl a warm hug. “I won’t let the cat out of the bag, dear. I think you’re the real Princess on the Moon.”

SUSIE smiled. It was good that her mom was going to be all right. “Mom? What’s a cat?”