The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

It was a hard climb to the crater’s lip, where a concrete rim formed the foundation of the dome. From here, the dome looked like an unnaturally swollen stretch of mare, absurdly regular, covered in lunar regolith. Once the dome had been constructed over the crater, about six meters of lunar soil had been spread evenly over its surface to provide a radiation shield for the interior. Concentric rings every ten meters kept the soil from sliding down the pitch of the dome. It was easier climbing here, but surreal. The horizon of the dome moved ahead of them as they progressed, and it was hard to judge distances.

“There’s a solar storm warning,” Erno said. “Aren’t you worried?”

“We’re not going to be out long.”

“I was at the meeting,” Erno said.

“I saw you,” Tyler said. “Cute girl, the dark skinned one. Watch out. You know what they used to say on Earth?”

“What?”

“If women didn’t have control of all the pussy, they’d have bounties on their heads.”

Erno laughed. “How can you say that? They’re our sisters, our mothers.”

“And they still have control of all the pussy.”

They climbed the outside of the dome.

“What are you going to do to keep from being made invisible?” Erno asked.

“What makes you think they’re going to try?”

“I don’t think your speech changed anybody’s mind.”

“So? No matter what they teach you, my visibility is not socially constructed. That’s the lesson for today.”

“What are we doing out here?”

“We’re going to demonstrate this fact.”

Ahead of them a structure hove into sight. At the apex of the dome, just above the central spire, stood a maintenance airlock. Normally, this would be the way workers would exit to inspect or repair the dome’s exterior-not the way Erno and Tyler had come. This was not a public airlock, and the entrance code would be encrypted.

Tyler led them up to the door. From his belt pouch he took a key card and stuck it into the reader. Erno could hear him humming a song over his earphones. After a moment, the door slid open.

“In we go, Erno,” Tyler said.

They entered the airlock and waited for the air to recycle. “This could get us into trouble,” Erno said.

“Yes, it could.”

“If you can break into the airlock you can sabotage it. An airlock breach could kill hundreds of people.”

“You’re absolutely right, Erno. That’s why only completely responsible people like us should break into airlocks.”

The interior door opened into a small chamber facing an elevator. Tyler put down his backpack, cracked the seal on his helmet and began stripping off his garish suit. Underneath he wore only briefs. Rust-colored pubic hair curled from around the edges of the briefs. Tyler’s skin was pale, the muscles in his arms and chest well developed, but his belly soft. His skin was crisscrossed with a web of pink lines where the thermoregulator system of the suit had marked him.

Feeling self-conscious, Erno took off his own suit. They were the same height, but Tyler outweighed him by twenty kilos. “What’s in the backpack?” Erno asked.

“Rappelling equipment.” Tyler gathered up his suit and the pack and, ignoring the elevator, opened the door beside it to a stairwell. “Leave your suit here,” he said, ditching his own in a corner.

The stairwell was steep and the cold air tasted stale; it raised goose bumps on Erno’s skin. Clutching the pack to his chest, Tyler hopped down the stairs to the next level. The wall beside them was sprayed with gray insulation. The light from bioluminescents turned their skin greenish yellow.

Instead of continuing down the well all the way to the top of the spire, Tyler stopped at a door on the side of the stairwell. He punched in a code. The door opened into a vast darkness, the space between the exterior and interior shells of the dome. Tyler shone his light inside: Three meters high, broken by reinforcing struts, the cavity stretched out from them into the darkness, curving slightly as it fell away. Tyler closed the door behind them and, in the light of his flash, pulled a notebook from the pack and called up a map. He studied it for a minute, and then led Erno into the darkness.

To the right about ten meters, an impenetrable wall was one of the great cermet ribs of the dome that stretched like the frame of an umbrella from the central spire to the distant crater rim.

Before long Tyler stopped, shining his light on the floor. “Here it is.”

“What?”

“Maintenance port. Periodically they have to inspect the interior of the dome, repair the fiberoptics.” Tyler squatted down and began to open the lock.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to hang from the roof like little spiders, Erno, and leave a gift for our cousins.”