ChristArt.com
Login | Support
BECOME A MEMBER
Images Activity Sheets Books Poetry

The Door

ONE

It was dark when they found it, several meters down, lost in the inky blackness of the lunar night.

The digger was following the tumbling edge of a crater, when its teeth began to catch on a hard surface and skid wildly. Dust rose slowly, in an enveloping cloud of obscuring mistiness.

It was routine to come across such things. The tungsten-tipped teeth ripped into the dry, reflective soil, and the operator, Philip South, expected at any moment to see large chunks of rock spilling outwards on either side of the giant machine's tracks.

But this object was too hard to break with tungsten.

The team had been working eight hours on, eight hours off. Shift work. Tedious but easy. The incredible grandeur of the moon had lost its appeal after the first week. Now it was just a job.

Phillip was the head of a team that had come out from Earth's thirteenth space-station, Sirius 13 by name. He had three men under him, all fully trained, and all of them, including himself, daredevils as well as amateur scientists.

The shift was over now, so Phillip turned the massive machine slowly on its tracks, and headed towards base. He sat back in the cab, resting on the luxurious, full-length seat, put his arms behind his head, and shut his eyes. No need to watch where he was going. The computer could take care of the return journey. Nothing to do now but rest.

Base was a monotonous series of tubes and domes. It was completely functional. No aesthetics here, on a base built by corporations, politicians and engineers. The dull gleam of metal and glass reflected the harsh light from a sun which dipped behind the distant Earth. Earth-moving machinery sat about, like giant sleeping beetles, and the processing plant, which extracted oxygen, water and other useful materials from the lunar soil, crouched at the end of a conveyor belt.

Three months it had been, and soon a new group of workers would come. They would take ever the mining work, and continue the project which had begun seven years previously. The moon was yielding many things for the businessmen and entrepreneurs of Earth, including a steady flow of wealth. Nothing happens without money being involved somewhere, Phillip thought ruefully, as he took over manual control and steered his lumbering machine into its parking area.


social media buttons share on facebook share on linked in share on twitter