The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

Beyond the door a dark corridor cut through the basalt. Durden stepped into the path marked by his light. Erno wanted to go back to the club-by now things must have died down-but instead he followed.

Shortly past the door the corridor turned into a cramped lava tube. Early settlers had leveled the floor of the erratic tube formed by the draining away of cooling lava several billion years ago. Between walls that had been erected to form rooms ran a path of red volcanic gravel much like tailings from the oxygen factory. Foamy irregular pebbles kicked up by their shoes rattled off the walls. Dead light fixtures broke the ceiling at intervals. Tyler stopped to shine his light into a couple of the doorways, and at the third he went inside.

“This must be from the start of the colony,” Erno said. “I wonder why it’s been abandoned.”

“Kind of claustrophobic.” Durden shone the light around the small room.

The light fell on a small rectangular object in the corner. From his belt Durden pulled another tool, which he extended into a probe.

“Do you always carry this equipment?” Erno asked.

“Be prepared,” Durden said. He set down the light and crouched over the object. It looked like a small box, a few centimeters thick. “You ever hear of the Boy Scouts, Erno?”

“Some early lunar colony?”

“Nope. Sort of like the Men’s House, only different.” Durden forced the probe under an edge, and one side lifted as if to come off. “Well, well!”

He put down the probe, picked up the object. He held it end-on, put his thumbs against the long side, and opened it. It divided neatly into flat sheets attached at the other long side.

“What is it?” Erno asked.

“It’s a book.”

“Is it still working?”

“This is an unpowered book. The words are printed right on these leaves. They’re made of paper.”

Erno had seen such old-fashioned books in vids. “It must be very old. What is it?”

Durden carefully turned the pages. “It’s a book of stories.” Durden stood up and handed the book to Erno. “Here. You keep it. Let me know what it’s about.”

Erno tried to make out the writing, but without Tyler’s flashlight it was too dim.

Durden folded up his probe and hung it on his belt. He ran his hand over his head, smearing a line of dust over his scalp. “Are you cold? I suppose we ought to find our way out of here.” Immediately he headed out of the room and back down the corridor.

Erno felt he was getting left behind in more ways than one. Clutching the book, he followed after Durden and his bobbing light. Rather than heading back to the Oxygen Warehouse, the comedian continued down the lava tube.

Eventually the tube ended in another old pressure door. When Durden touched the key panel at its side, amazingly, it lit.

“What do you think?” Durden said.

“We should go back,” Erno said. “We can’t know whether the locked door on the other side is still airtight. The fail-safes could be broken. We could open the door onto vacuum.” He held the book under his armpit and blew on his cold hands.

“How old are you, Erno?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” Durden’s eyes glinted in shadowed eye sockets. “Seventeen is no age to be cautious.”

Erno couldn’t help but grin. “You’re right. Let’s open it.”

“My man, Erno!” Durden slapped him on the shoulder. He keyed the door open. They heard the whine of a long-unused electric motor. Erno could feel his heart beat, the blood running swiftly in his veins. At first nothing happened, then the door began to slide open. There was a chuff of air escaping from the lava tube, and dust kicked up. But the wind stopped as soon as it started, and the door opened completely on the old airlock, filled floor to ceiling with crates and bundles of fiberglass building struts.

It took them half an hour to shift boxes and burrow their way through the airlock, to emerge at the other end into another warehouse, this one still in use. They crept by racks of construction materials until they reached the entrance, and sneaked out into the colony corridor beyond.

They were at the far end of North Six, the giant lava tube that served the industrial wing of the colony. The few workers they encountered on the late shift might have noticed Erno’s suit, but said nothing.

Erno and Tyler made their way back home. Tyler cracked jokes about the constables until they emerged into the vast open space of the domed crater that formed the center of the colony. Above, on the huge dome, was projected a night starfield. In the distance, down the rimwall slopes covered with junipers, across the crater floor, lights glinted among the trees in Sobieski Park. Erno took a huge breath, fragrant with pinon.

“The world our ancestors gave us,” Tyler said, waving his arm as if offering it to Erno.

As Tyler turned to leave, Erno called out impulsively, “That was an adventure!”

“The first of many, Erno.” Tyler said, and jogged away.

Celibacy Day

On Celibacy Day, everyone gets a day off from sex.