Fiction
The First Expedition
Life on the Moon is perfect — until it isn’t
Nina Benkowitz White stepped out into the bright Moon air. The Moon, the good old Moon! The journey had felt longer than she’d expected, but what had she expected, really, and why? They had made it through the nothingness and into now. The travelers had all been put into stasis, not that the moon flight took that long, but just, as the guide explained, so that they would arrive at Moon Colony EM1 well-rested and pre-equilibrated, their fluid levels and gravity adjustments taken care of mechanically. Now she felt fresh, better-rested than ever, as if her cells had each been individually massaged, plumped, given tiny face masks full of perfect dollops of snail mucin. Her limbs felt loose and free, her back released from its usual Earth-bound cramp. She stretched and laughed, that’s how good she felt, as if she didn’t have a body anymore at all.
Her fellow travelers followed her out onto the grass. They were scientists, astronauts, wealthy investors who had helped to bankroll the hugely expensive undertaking, along with a pair of determined retirees who had saved up for passage. Nina had been the only one — Nina, who had never won a thing in her life, not a dollar in the lottery or a gift basket in a raffle — had been the one ordinary civilian to win a spot on the…
