Episode Thirty-Three: The Moon

Five happy, healthy arrived for dinner at an elegant table. Gilded plates, cups, and utensils waited for them on a hand-carved hardwood table. A mound of mashed potatoes sill steamed, next to a plump pot of deep brown gravy. Centered among a host of other dishes was a large ham, struck with a knife all ready to carve. Above them the stars twinkled, fighting against the light of the brass lamps hanging from posts that circled the table at a comfortable distance. But none of the guests had eyes for the table and food. They were all looking at the earth.
There it hung in the sky above them with the stars, a blue orb covered in moving swirls of white and solid patches of green and brown, larger than anything any of them had ever seen before in the sky. Troy Lombardi was the first to break from the spell of the earth and test their new surroundings, jumping much higher, and falling much slower than he ever did on earth.
“This is fantastic! We don't even need spacesuits!” he said, doing three flips in a single jump. He landed on his back in a puff of gray dust causing the others to laugh.
“You're going to be dirty enough you wish you'd had one though!” laughed Jim, but joined in the fun with a flip of his own.
“Jim, be careful,” said his wife Susan, “you're going to get dust all over the dinner William prepared us.”
“No he is alright,” said William, “There is a sort of force field around the food table, the dust can't get in.”
“So much for being realistic,” joked Sarah, “A breathable atmosphere on the moon, force fields to keep the food clean, the three of you are back to your normal weights, and my guess is we couldn't possibly run out of food at that table, but we'll have to eat again anyway once we get out.”
With a smile, William added, “We won't get so full we can't eat dessert either,” causing another round of mirth.
By the time they got settled down for dinner—which was a task in its own right in lunar gravity—they were all covered in gray dust. Even Susan had bounded around a bit, but had refused to even try and flip.
“Well, William, I have to hand it to you. This was a wonderful idea—much better than suffering through a meal together in our weak bodies. Now that we've had a little fun, lets get to the serious business.” Here he paused, all eyes were on him and he looked at William. “How in the world, did I reach the horizon?” The general eyesight switched to William.
“Easy, when you told Dean about the horizon, he added new hard drives to the computer. One of the things I had changed about the computer was the way in which the hard drives are formatted. The Endless Frontier was incompatible with the memory he added.”
“Then how did Elizabeth install the memory in the first place?”
“I ran a program that re-formats them to meet the needs of my new system. If Dean would have run that utility his plan would have worked, but he didn't”
At about that time Sarah made the mistake of trying to pass the bowl of gravy. The low gravity wasn't quite enough to hold it in the bowl as she extended it toward Troy. The heap of gravy slid upward out of the bowl, then scattered into a thousand brown drops. Reacting without thinking, Susan tried to pull the bowl of punch out of the way as the drops threatened to mix with the drink. The attempt resulted in a much worse disaster much worse than the gray.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Troy launched the mashed potatoes high into the air, which were soon falling like snow, and a full out food fight exploded into being. When all the food had been majestically spoiled in the slow motion drama of low gravity, everyone was covered in much more food than they had been dust. Troy humorously took back his comment about the moon being a good place for dinner, and everyone had a good laugh.
After they had all settled down, Jim spoke, “When I reached the mountain peak the morning we got out, and saw the horizon way out in the distance I couldn't have been more surprised. I knew that even if we had been close, Dean would have added memory, so I with him knowing I didn't think we had a chance.”
“I'm just glad you found it,” said William. “If you hadn't of ran your guts out to get there Dean would have gotten away with the whole scheme!”
“Actually,” said Jim, “I didn't run at all. The closest bit of the horizon was a few miles out at sea, so I thought someone else would get out before me. For a few hours I was basically waiting to be rescued. I started hiking down the mountain fully expecting someone else to escape and release me. I thought Elizabeth and William were still on the boat, so after three hours passed and they hadn't crossed the horizon I realized something must be up. So I decided to get the horizon myself.”
“How did you do it though? Did you swim out that far?” asked Susan.
“No, I was still a few hours away from the shore as it was. I dug my way out.”
“What?” said Troy.
William exploded into laughter, “I should have thought of that. We couldn't have made it out of the Origin valley much faster. If you find a good spot, you'd only have to dig eight inches.”
“I think it was closer to a foot,” said Jim, “but I was ready to dig ten feet.”
“You mean I spent over two months on less than a foot of soil!” said Troy.
“Dirt takes a lot of memory,” said William, defending his creation. “And you never noticed anyway”
Some time later, after much lighthearted discussion Troy stood up from the table, “Friends, I must be off now. Lombardi Inc. didn't fare so well without me, and I am still trying to get it back together. How do I get out of here, William? I don't tell me it involves chasing the horizon.”
“Push the big red button on the phone.”
“Thanks,” he said and in a moment he was gone, and to William's delight, his clothes went with him.
One by one the others left, until William and Sarah were left alone. They sat for a time, looking up at the great blue earth. Then William knelt down and pulled a little box from out of his pocket.

THE END