Luna ... see

Harriet tried to raise her eyes above the lower margin of the observation window. The flight had been bad enough. She had suffered nausea, the extreme travel sickness that afflicted most astronauts when first exposed to weightlessness. Gravity, it turns out, is essential for balance, and not knowing which way is up sends alarm-inducing messages all around the cerebral cortex. Joint proprioception is disabled, and the semi-circular canals are sent into a spin.  That was easing now she was in lunar gravity. Just one sixth of the earth’s, but at least she knew her head was above her feet. 

No, this was a new problem. She forced herself to look out across the lunar plane, gently curving side to side and away from her; a visible reminder that she was on a smaller sphere now. Its stark appearance was white-grey in the unfiltered sunlight, contrasting with the star dotted black void above, unaltered over a billion years, unpunctuated by relatable features, vegetation, anything. It made her feel shrivelled, the organic component removed, her whole being diminished to its mineral component. God, this felt hostile. So incompatible with life. Unsoftened, it could crush anything that was soft. She wanted to turn away, but through a great effort of will she fixed on the mountains above the plane. They looked close, rising high: what, 2000 metres, maybe 3000? Her perception of size and distance was de-ranged. Are they close or far away? She noticed the foot of the mountains was obscured by the curved horizon, so they were distant. But the clarity of detail of every rockface, every crag suggested closeness. It was unlike anything she had seen on Earth. The pure acidity of the reflected light travelling many tens of kilometres from the mountains to her eyes remained unattenuated by atmosphere. It was crisp and fresh, not dulled by the blue atmospheric haze that tells you something is distant on Earth. She reached for a bowl and vomited. The moonscape felt in her face, invading her personal space, and she couldn’t push it back. 

She put the glass of water down after a long draw. Three capsules sat on the table top next to her. The new brand of biome fuel was called “Rocket Boost”. The pre-flight medical had revealed she needed to change.

“Your faecal and blood samples probably explain your slower reaction times. We can’t have that on a space flight, can we,” the analyser asserted, her face simulating an expression that reached out for concordance. 

“But I’ve been on Thryve for years,” Harriet argued back, suddenly anxious at the prospect of a change in her biome fuel. It had kept her calm, and able to cope with difficulty both personal and professional. “I don’t know how I'll be able to cope with a change.”

“Don’t worry, it’s standard to change it for lunar missions. Everybody does cope.”

Harriet wasn’t so sure. Most of her friends were also on Thryve fuel, and somehow it meant they were able to think alike. And what about the mersing, how would that be affected by a change? Their connection might be lost.

She went to lie on the shelf. Cushioning wasn’t really necessary as her body slowly floated down in the reduced gravity. This was the first time she had been alone since arriving at AL-1. Ivy was looking after the kids. Her eyelids descended and she drifted off into a dream world.