Where Will Your Imagination Lead?
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look beyond What about your future? Where will your imagination lead? Here you will read about the dreams and aspirations of many different people — from those who want to make their communities a better place to live to those interested in unusual adventures. These stories may be your inspiration for a future full of exciting possibilities! Moon Maiden ALISON BAIRD Focus Your Learning Reading this story will help you: n identify the elements of fantasy n experiment with language n analyse character development “Moon Maiden” © 1998 Alison Baird taken from What If…? Amazing Stories. Selected by Monica Hughes © 1998 published by Tundra Books. “You can’t do it, sis,” Matt had said. And he had looked down his nose at her in his maddening, superior way. Matt was no giant himself, but it was easy to look down at Kate. “Oh, yeah?” She’d glared up at her brother, hands on hips. “Well, I don’t care what you think, I’m going. What’s the point of winning a lunar study scholarship if you don’t use it?” 214 Look Beyond It had been a hot and smoggy day, she remembered, with an ultraviolet alert, so the two of them had been stuck indoors and Matt, as usual, had taken out his boredom and frustration on Kate. “One: you’re way too young—” “I’m nearly fourteen!” “Two: you’re a nitwit,” Matt had finished. And that settled it. After that “nitwit,” no power in the universe could have prevented Kate Iwasaki from embarking on the shuttle for Luna Base. But Matt had had a parting shot. “You’ll never spend half a year on the Moon! You’ll end up going crazy, like all those loony Lunies.” Kate had shivered at that; she’d heard about the moon-madness. It started with hallucinations. Then you began talking to imaginary people, even yelling and screaming at them, or sometimes recoiling from invisible horrors. That was when the security guards came and “escorted” you away. It was a fact of life on Luna Base; some people just could not take the claustrophobic atmosphere: the isolation was worse than on the most remote polar weather station or deep-sea lab on Earth. But Kate firmly pushed her fears aside. She was too sensible, too scientific, to ever lose control like that—or so she told herself. “I’m going, and that’s that,” she had declared, lifting her chin. Now she smiled with satisfaction as the small lunar shuttle carrying her and the other students planed low over the surface of the Mare Tranquillitatis. Through the window she could see flat plains of ash-coloured lunar soil—regolith, the instructor called it—strewn with modest-sized impact craters, some no more than a decimeter across. Not too impressive, Kate thought. She’d already been on much more spectacular trips, to the giant craters Tycho and Copernicus, and to the lunar mountain ranges, the Alps and Apennines. But this outing was always the most popular. The shuttle’s interior was crammed to capacity with eager students. The spacecraft slowed and hovered briefly before setting down gently on its four wide landing pods. The cabin ceased to thrum and vibrate as the engines were cut, and a flashing light came on over each Look Beyond 215 air lock. The students all rose and shuffled down the aisle in their cumbersome space suits, pulling on their helmets. “All right, to the air locks, just four at a time now,” the instructor told them as he checked their helmet seals. “And don’t stampede; form proper lines.” Kate managed to be one of the first in the air locks. She held her breath as the metal door slid open, and all sound ceased with the release of the air. When they climbed out, most of the kids bounced around like demented kangaroos the minute they reached the surface. Kate just stood looking up at the sunlit face of Earth, its blue-white glow fifty times brighter than the brightest moonlight. Poor polluted overcrowded Earth! No, she wasn’t in any great hurry to go back there. With some difficulty the instructor managed to herd them all together and direct them to their destination. At the sight of it, the students began to babble with excitement. Tranquillity Base. The flagpole—bent out of shape by the blast of the Eagle’s engines when it had escaped back into space—had been straightened to preserve the image of the site as it had appeared on the old footage. But everything else was as it had been left: the descent stage of the lunar module, the instruments, even the astronauts’ footprints. It was all surrounded by a towering steel wire fence topped with surveillance cameras: no one must get too near, trample on the sacred footprints of Armstrong and Aldrin, or carve their initials on the plaque attached to the leg of the descent stage. A hushed silence now fell as the words on the plaque were quoted solemnly by the instructor: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” First set foot on the Moon. Kate wondered how those two men must have felt when they first climbed out onto the lunar soil. Above them had been the same jet-black sky and sunlit Earth, about them the same barren, crater-strewn plain. But for those pioneering spacemen there had been no emergency response teams, no Luna Base with its decorative greenery and mall full of brightly-lit shops. No other living thing—not so much as a microbe—had shared the grey wasteland with 216 Look Beyond them. The nearest human being had been the pilot in the orbiting command service module, high above. All the rest of humanity had been crowded into that cloud-swathed sphere nearly four hundred thousand kilometers away. Other explorers would follow over the years and feel that isolation in turn; but to be the first ... Kate shivered. First to walk the grey solitudes, first to disturb the thick soft dust no wind had ever lifted ... She realized suddenly that she had strayed somewhat and was now some distance away from the others. She turned hastily to rejoin them. But there was a woman standing in the way. Kate stared. It was not unusual for a stray tourist or maintenance worker to be out here on the lunar surface. But this woman was different. She wasn’t wearing a space suit. She stood there as though the moon’s airless surface were the most natural place for her to be: a slender woman, Asian-featured, wearing a kimono of some green silky material embroidered with flowers. There were real flowers in her hair—shell-pink blossoms nestling among ebony tresses piled neatly atop her head. About her neck there hung a string of lustrous, cream-colored pearls. The gaze of her large brown eyes was cool, solemn, and direct. There were no footprints behind her, nor were there any shadows on the grey ground at her feet. Kate’s breath boomed like thunder inside her helmet. Her mouth was dry as a bone. The gravity that allowed the other students to leap and bound around the steel fence seemed to be binding her to the ground. As she stared helplessly, the woman in the green kimono approached. There was no smile of welcome on the delicate features; her expression was sombre, her tread light but purposeful as she drew closer to Kate. Kate longed desperately for something to break the spell. But fear and disbelief immobilized her. The pale woman was almost touching her; an arm in a long, flowing sleeve reached out toward Kate’s faceplate. It stopped before actually making contact, the white hand raised in a gesture of ... command? Entreaty? Kate could not Look Beyond 217 take her eyes from the woman’s; they were as deep as shadows, their gaze calm and compelling. She was willing Kate to do something. But what? The hand gestured again. Open your faceplate, it said, as plain as speech. Kate tried to swallow and couldn’t. Open it—let me touch you ... “No,” Kate whispered. But it was only a croak. The woman who was not—could not—really be there gazed at Kate steadily. The embroidered flowers upon her pale-green robe stood out in precise and minute detail, real as the harshly-lit moon rocks, the granular patterns in the soil. Without speaking, the woman commanded her again. Her will reached out across the airless space like a lightning bolt arcing from cloud to cloud. Raise your faceplate—now. “Kate? KATE?” At the sound of the voice, jarringly loud inside her helmet, Kate moved at last—straight upward, in a leap that would have cleared an Olympic high jump back on Earth. She spun, arms flailing, before falling slowly back to the lunar surface. “Kate? Did I startle you? Sorry.” It was the instructor; he was standing over her, peering out through his faceplate with a mixture of amusement and concern. Kate scrambled to her feet, grateful for his timely interruption—then she went rigid again, her heart hammering. The woman was still there, standing a few paces away. The instructor couldn’t see her. Kate spoke with an effort. “I ... I was just ... daydreaming. And I ...” Her voice faded away, for the woman was gliding silently toward her again, her eyes intent. “We’re heading back to the base now,” the instructor told her.