Dallas took her in his arms and kissed her.
‘On the Moon, that might be a little difficult,’ he said. ‘But perhaps I could float on top of you now and again.’
V
Tranquillity Base was the biggest development of land on the Moon, and the Armstrong Center[109] — also known as the Tranquillity Forum — was the massive complex of public halls, exhibition areas, performance auditoria, pachinko parlors, sleazy bars, and licensed brothels that occupied the center of the development and acted as a magnet for lunar tourists. Its design had been the subject of an international architectural competition, one of the largest the world had ever seen, attracting hundreds of entries. Victory eventually went to the New York-born, Los Angeles-based architect Brad Epstein. It was the most transparent of buildings, constructed entirely of armor-plated glass, with no facades — just an expressed structure and a number of suspended capsules housing the main auditoria. One giant spire, at the center of the structure, three hundred and sixty-three feet high and shaped like the Saturn V Moon rocket that had first carried men to the Moon, signaled the presence of what was beneath: the actual site of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969, at 3:17 P.M., Houston, Texas, time.
The centennial was now only a few days away, and the landing site itself, enclosed beneath a protective glass dome, was surrounded with tourists. Among them were Cavor, Simou, and Gates.
The landing site was the snapshot of another time, another universe,[110] although to all who stared through the protective glass dome, the scene looked much as if the astronauts had just departed. The four-legged golden spider that was the descent module; the toppled American flag — blown over when the ascent module had blasted off; a tripod-mounted television camera and some ancient-looking scientific instruments placed about sixty feet away from the Eagle; and those footprints in the moondust that had survived the Eagle’s ascent from the Sea of Tranquillity. It looked exactly as it had a hundred years before, at least until the arrival of some holographic astronauts and an explanatory sound track.
‘Hello, Neil and Buzz,’ said a voice on the landing-site sound track, which was also available from the museum shop. ‘I’m talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House.’
Under the weight of their enormous white backpacks, the two holographic astronauts stood stiffly to attention in front of the real television cameras, like a couple of ghostly polar bears.
‘I know why we’ve come to the Moon,’ murmured Gates. ‘But I can’t imagine why they bothered. There’s nothing here.’
‘For one priceless moment,’ said the fruity, self-important voice on the sound track, ‘in the whole history of man, all the people on this earth are truly one.’
‘Priceless, yeah,’ sneered Cavor. ‘It hadn’t happened before, and it certainly hasn’t happened since.’
‘One in their pride in what you have done.’
‘Still,’ Cavor added grudgingly, ‘it was a hell of an achievement.’
‘And one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.’
‘Thank you, Mister President,’ said the voice of Neil Armstrong. ‘It’s a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations.’
‘Peace,’ chuckled Gates. ‘People used to talk about that a lot.’
‘Men with a vision for the future,’ said Armstrong.
‘He sounds a little choked,’ observed Gates. ‘Like he’s going to cry or something.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said the president.[111] ‘And all of us look forward to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday.’
‘That’s the name of a boat,’ explained Cavor. ‘Back in olden times, they used to land spaceships in the ocean.’
‘I look forward to that very much, sir,’ said the second astronaut, Buzz Aldrin.
The two holographic astronauts saluted, then turned away from the camera, and promptly disappeared. The show was over, and the crowd around the dome started to applaud.
‘That was interesting,’ said Cavor.
‘I suppose,’ shrugged Simou. ‘But hardly worth the trip.’
‘All sorts will be here on July twentieth,’ said Gates. ‘World leaders, company chairmen, commissioners, you name it.’
‘More fool them,’ said Simou.
‘Haven’t you got any sense of history?’ demanded Cavor.
‘Nope, can’t say that I have,’ admitted Simou. ‘I’ve always been too concerned with the future to give the past much thought. My future. Such as the small matter of whether or not I’ll still be alive in a year’s time. History’s a luxury I could never afford.’
‘That’s why we came,’ said Gates. ‘To get a lot of things we could never afford.’
‘Yeah, well, a sense of history’s well down my list,’ said Simou. ‘Right now I’ll settle for one of these lunar ladies. Thanks to all this one-sixth g, my cock has been floating around in my pants like one of those command modules. Since we arrived on the Moon I don’t think there’s been one time when it’s ever been pointed at the ground.’
‘Me too,’ grinned Gates.
‘This place does have its advantages,’ said Cavor. ‘My prosthetic arm has never felt so light. I hardly notice it at all. It’s almost as if it was the real thing.’
Simou clapped his hands enthusiastically. ‘Whaddya say, Gates? Shall we go and find ourselves some lunar ladies?’
Gates shook his head. ‘No, I’m not in the mood. I think I’ll go back.’
He waved them off and walked in the direction of the hotel. Gates didn’t feel he could leave Lenina alone for too long. There was no point in telling anyone yet, not until he was quite sure, but in truth he was worried about her. What with her breathlessness and the way she covered her torso whenever he came near her, Gates had the idea Lenina had entered, or was about to enter, the active Three Moon phase of the virus. He knew he had no alternative but to ask her about it. But exactly how did you ask the girl you loved if she just happened to be dying?
What was it that the president had said on the sound track? ‘... in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.’ Gates had never been in a church. He wasn’t even sure if he even
believed in God. But he was beginning to wish that he knew how to pray.
VI
If men and women did not die, they would have little need of a divinity to engineer human beginnings and endings. The belief in God and the elevation of the total personality to a thing in itself that must endure forever — such ideas continue to persist because of the preposterous fear of death and the false antithesis that exists between body and soul. Death is still perceived as the great mystery.
The key to understanding death is, of course, the same key that unlocks the mystery of human beginnings. But there’s no reason either of life’s bookends should be treated as a mystery. It’s absurd to argue that an existence with an identifiable beginning should have no end, for that would be to argue the logical impossibility of there being two different states of nonexistence or nothingness. Real revelation comes not from a book, nor from a series of commandments, but from a true understanding of the function of life.
110