Moon Dance

I dreamed I was remotely connected to a robot on the moon. There were a couple of hundred of us operators working on the moon, building the systems and places that we were going to be moving to in the not too distant future. Our biome and three of the six others had finished the planned construction phase early, so we had a few days rest time - which meant that we'd have batteries fully charged as we went into the long "night" where it was difficult to fully charge because of the low albedo of the earth. We decided to set up for the usual observations, but decided to spend our charge on a dance.

I got online early and virtual hopped between the lunar orbital cameras, looking at the web of domes and long connecting tunnels, so much like dew on a huge spider web. I only hoped I would be able to still qualify when the construction was finished in '35.

Our robots trundled into the central recreation dome, not yet fully constructed. The crater floor had been leveled and paved with bedrock, a black and silver marbled material we'd come across. It was quite hard, and attractive enough to not need any sort of decorative finishing (other than polish, I supposed.) The access tunnels connected through various points along the crater walls, and as my date and myself entered the construction zone, we could see that others had arrived early and cleared a large space on the central floor. As folks entered the area, I could see that we'd all dressed up for the occasion (I was in a green silk shirt, black bow tie, and though people wouldn't see it in the avatar display, my black dress kilt.) I don't know if I'd ever seen so many of our robots gathered in a single location since the radar building collapsed in '22.

Music began to play, and we headed out onto the dance floor. I was really looking forward to the day when my damaged body would be able to walk those hallways for real. As the night progressed, folks had to take their leave, so they could return to their charging stations. My date and I had programmed in a less energetic evening, so were amongst the last to leave, taking several minutes to look at Hawaii Rise on the globe that hung above us in the sky. "Just about time for me to get up and feed the puppy," my partner stated. We'd planned the low power program just so we could see her current home come into view.

I'd put down extra food for my one remaining old cat, so she'd been quite content to leave me to my virtual date.

"Look at California," I fired off the green laser on the roof, it pulsed with a digital valentine.

"Oh! for me! Thank you. I never even thought of being able to do that. You'll have to send me the specs."

I was a little disappointed that she was more impressed with the technology I'd cobbled together than the message itself, but at my age I took my victories where they were offered.

I agreed and then "walked" her robot back to it's charging station outside her subdome. I stayed in direct voice communication with her while I rolled mine back its charger in the retirement barracks. I thought it was funny that we'd all adopted robots that were fairly close to the places where we were eventually going to settle. Even though I was apparently not normally an operator of this particularly small robot, I tended to be assigned the big tractor like machines that had long bouncy journeys to make. Those journeys were getting to be fewer and fewer as the long roadways were completed. A robot on a roadway only needed someone to check in from time to time as they could be automatically navigated. I liked the long trips, especially to the the back side of the moon to deliver materials for the giant telescope. I liked looking out at the sky where the earth was not present to block the view. I'd often thought about dropping my own automated telescope along the path, just to have it available to live feed to my current home. While I could use the extra charge on a robot at the end of a shift to build some of the parts on the moon, the electronics would have to be flown up, and that cost a dollar a centigram.

My virtual date cajoled me out of my reverie, I'd apparently forgotten she was still online with me, so converted the remote control protocols into a direct video feed, where she was showing me a full shot of her "dance" gown. It was a lovely cream lace thing, that didn't do much in the dawn's early light to hide the bright red lingerie beneath it. I zoomed out to show her my dress kilt and we twirled a couple of times for one another. "Can't wait to do this on the moon with you!" she smiled.