One more bar of chocolate? Oh, what the hell... He had to have some pleasure out of life.
It was evening. The All-Nite store was going through a quiet period. A few people loitered among the shelves of overpriced convenience foods, a couple of kids perused the VR slasher flicks. Quentin edged to the counter and began to feed his choices into the waiting maw of the autocheckout.
A queue began to form behind him. Where had all these people suddenly come from? Quentin felt the chill fingers of paranoia clutch at him, knew with fatalistic certainty that everyone was eyeing his purchases with unconcealed contempt.
Outside the mart a group of five or six kids lounged in the mall, sprawled limbs like scaffolding pipes. One of them sauntered towards him, nodding at the flimsy plastic bag.
‘So, fatso? Got yourself something else to eat, huh?’
Quentin ignored him, walked on.
‘Why don’t you share it, man? Don’t it look like we need it more than you do?’
They were following him. Quentin hesitated. Beyond the mall lay the parking lot, and the safety of his car. But out there he would be easy meat. Here at least there were other passers-by. Not that they would be likely to intervene in a fight.
The youth skipped round to stand directly in front of him. Quentin’s eyes took in the scrawny form. The unnatural tallness, the result of an (artificially) overstimulated thyroid, the emaciated flesh of the fasting artist, the drug- and famine-induced pallor-all were marks of today’s brand of youthful alienation. All in stark and deliberate contrast to the flabbiness of middle-age. Quentin felt acutely aware of his own corpulence beside this pale Watutsi of the malls.
‘Well? Can’t you see I’m hungry? Haven’t eaten for days!’
The youth made a grab for the bag. Quentin jerked it away, but the kid’s long fingernail caught it, sliced the hopelessly flimsy plastic. The bag split, spilling its contents over the mosaiced floor of the mall.
The kids dived. ‘White bread! You sick shit!’
‘Chocolate!’
The leader recoiled. ‘Can’t eat that. I’m diabetic!’ He laughed, and pulled out a carving-knife, pointing with a skeletal digit at Quentin. ‘I’ll carve me a haunch of prime fatass!’ He winked at his victim. ‘Pound of flesh, right?’
Quentin dodged backwards, sending a can of beef stew rolling across the floor. Two kids darted forwards to grab him. He felt a bony fist sink into his stomach.
‘What a mover!’ laughed one of the boys. ‘See the tits on him? Wobble, wobble!’
‘I’ve landed a three-hundred-pounder at least,’ sang the leader, slipping his arm round Quentin’s throat. ‘Come and get it, boys.’
A flurry of movement somewhere behind Quentin made the would-be butchers pause. There was a sharp hiss, and two of the kids cried out. Something wet splattered over Quentin.
‘Get the fuck outa here!!’
They released him suddenly. His knees sagged and gave way. The kids’ boots clattered on the tiles, and a jet of purple lanced out, splattering the fleeing fugitives.
Someone knelt beside Quentin. ‘You’re safe now, pal. Are you OK?’
Quentin struggled to get his breath. ‘I... I think so.’ He squinted round at his saviour.
A red, sweating, multiple-chinned face was frowning anxiously back at him.
‘What was that purple stuff?’ Quentin asked weakly.
‘Dye. We spray it on ‘em. It takes weeks to clean off. Makes ‘em easily recognizable. They use it in riots.’ The fat man helped Quentin to his feet. He was wearing combat fatigues.
Two other fat people were returning, both wearing identical uniforms. One, a woman, had a device like a flame-thrower strapped to her back. She shook out a few drops of the dye from the hose, then reattached it to the unit.
‘We doused ’em good,’ she announced. ‘They won’t be hangin’ round this mall for a while.’
‘Good work, Beulah,’ said the man. He nodded at Quentin. ‘What’s your name, friend?’
Quentin told him. He grunted. ‘I’m Jim. This is Beulah, this is Carl. We’re members of FAT - Fat Action Taskforce. Heard of us?’
Quentin nodded vaguely. It was one of the urban vigilante groups that had sprung up to combat the increasing harassment of fat persons. The groups were comprised of angry and sometimes militant volunteers. They called themselves fatsos, defiantly adopting the very term of abuse that thin people hurled at them, just as reviled blacks and gays had appropriated the hate-words nigger and queer as subversive self-definitions.
‘We’re a voluntary organization. We formed ourselves to fight the persecution of overweight people. I think we just saved you from a nasty encounter there, Quentin; maybe you’d like to consider joining us? We’re always looking to recruit new members. Oh, we’re not just a vigilante force - FAT offers you a means of making new friends, meeting people like yourself. We all need that kind of community spirit in days like these. Right, Quent?’
‘I guess.’
Jim paused. ‘Think about it. If you ever want to get in touch with us, ring this number.’ He handed Quentin a card.
‘We’ll escort you back to your car; can’t be too careful.’
As they crossed the parking lot, Quentin thought, I can’t take any more of this. Involuntarily, he looked up to where the Moon hung like a fat smiling face in the sky. And as he watched he seemed to see another such face forming there, grinning and saying, If you ever want a job, Quent, you know where to come.
It was only when he had waved goodbye to his benefactors that Quentin realized he had left his groceries scattered over the floor of the mall. But it didn’t matter.
Somehow he didn’t feel hungry any more.
~ * ~
Quentin found his seat and strapped himself in. Then he slipped on the headphones and let the piped music lull him into a pleasant lassitude.
He was roused by the arrival of the inflight meal. Sausages, mushrooms, waffles, fried tomatoes, eggs, bacon, kidneys, white breadrolls, washed down with red wine. All in the form of paste, of course - but no less tasty for that. An agreeable change from the starvation rations normally dished up by airlines. They didn’t skimp on the portions on the Luna run, he noted with approval.
Across the aisle, an unabashed belch confirmed that others too were satiated. A man, ubiquitously fat, glanced across at Quentin and grinned cheerfully.
‘That’s better. I needed that.’ He wiped his mouth with the serviette, then stretched out his hand across the aisle. ‘Phil Gardner.’
Quentin grasped the hot, pudgy hand with his own. ‘Quentin Fischer.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Quentin.’ Phil grinned. ‘I would ask where you’re from; but that’s not important, is it? It’s where you’re going that matters.’
Quentin agreed.
‘So what made you decide to head for the Moon?’ Phil enquired.
‘New job. I signed a contract to work for LunaColony.’
‘Oh yeah? What doing?’
‘Hydroponics. They extended the plant recently, and I’ve been appointed supervisor of the new wing. They’re trying out some new processes - self-replicating yeasts, Vernon strains, stuff like that. ‘ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I guess it’s not that interesting to the layman.’
Phil chuckled. ‘On the contrary, Quentin, I’ve always had a keen interest in anything to do with food!’
‘Me too,’ agreed Quentin. ‘In fact, that’s one of the reasons I went into hydroponics in the first place; used to think it was a great idea - to be able to produce enough food to feed the world’s hungry billions.’ He laughed sourly. ‘I always had an idealistic streak in me.’
‘Everyone needs some ideals - especially when they’re young,’ declared Phil. ‘You gonna be working for Dr Mund?’
Quentin shrugged. He decided against mentioning that he and Mund were old friends; it might seem like boasting. ‘Aren’t we all, indirectly? He’s the Director, after all.’
Phil nodded. ‘I must say, I admire the guy. He’s got some pretty strong ideas about where Fatland should be going.’
Quentin raised an eyebrow. ‘Fatland?’
‘Sure - that’s what the colonists call it. I got friends up there. They tell me it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before - that first small step on the Moon, your own Giant Leap for Mankind. The sensation of near-weightlessness - it’s fantastic! All those pounds just vanishing into nothing.’ He laughed with anticipatory delight. ‘I tell you, Quent, I used to go on a lotta diets; but they tell me that you never lose so much weight in so little time as when you first set foot on the Moon.’
Quentin nodded, captivated by the idea. It was this instantaneous loss of weight that had drawn so many fatsos to the Moon. With the advent of affordable space travel, thousands of chubby Westerners had joyfully thrown away their dieting books, their peeled grapes and their lo-calorie wholefood slop, and made straight for the Moon, munching all the way. People who had been made to feel guilty about eating, people whose lives had been endless medieval penances of fasting and a denial of the flesh, were suddenly free to eat, and go on eating, knowing that it didn’t matter any more.
‘Like I said, I got friends on Luna,’ said Phil happily. ‘In fact - I’m going to be married to one of ‘em! Jemma, her name is.’
He grinned as Quentin congratulated him, then went on, ‘Jemma says it’s easy to make friends on the Moon - there’s so many of us up there.’
‘I hope I like it,’ murmured Quentin.
‘You will. You’ll have to! It’s a one-way trip, remember.’
A one-way trip. The reason for that was obvious: once a fatso had accustomed himself to lunar gravity, his body would never again be able to readjust to the crushing weight of Earth’s - even if he wanted to go back, which was unlikely.
Quentin stared up at the orb of the Moon, looming large on the vidscreen, big and white and full of promise.
~ * ~
Fatland was a revelation to Quentin. No amount of media hype, none of the lengthy orientation sessions he had attended on Earth, could prepare him for the reality.
It was like walking on air, goddamnit! To be able to hop, to skip, to jump, to sail gracefully through the air like a flying phalanger filmed in slow-motion. It was a transformation of all he had been. It was like becoming young again.
The new colonists were met at the space terminal by a friendly fatso in a LunaColonyCorporation jumpsuit.
‘Hi!’ she beamed. ‘Welcome to LunaColony! My name’s Sally. I’m here to show you to your new quarters.’
‘How big is LunaColony now?’ one of the Earthsiders asked as they were whisked away by monorail.
‘Around two million. And growing.’
‘Two million!’
‘It sounds like a lot when you consider that every one of those people has to be accounted for in the planning of the colony, that the consumption requirements of every individual has to be taken into consideration. But it’s not so many when you consider the total population of Earth, and the rate at which that is still expanding unchecked.’
They glided on, through landscaped parks, carefully tended microcosms of the home planet. “You’ve certainly got it looking nice here,’ Quentin observed.
Sally beamed at him. ‘We’ve imported over four hundred species from Earth. Our scientists have been working on developing lunar varieties of terran species - plants and animals which are tailored to the lower gravity here. You’d be surprised at the difference it makes.’
As they went, Sally pointed out various landmarks. The buildings were new, sleek postfunctionalist architecture which combined an economy of line with an agreeably understated style. Sally explained that as LunaColony became richer, it was gradually replacing the cheap structures of its earliest phases with more enduring buildings. LCC produced much of its own food and other necessities, but there was an area in particular that was the key to the Moon’s prosperity: energy.
A sizable area to the west of Lunaport, which had become known as Mare Solarium, was covered with a continuous solar-sensitive skin that soaked up the sun’s rays and stored them in a perpetual circuit.
‘For a colony like this to survive it has to be self-sufficient,’ Sally was saying. ‘We still import some luxury items, but in essentials like power and foodstuffs we’ve been autonomous for some years. The factories can design and synthesize practically anything these days, from a set of overalls to an AI.’
In her voice was the pride of the autonomous settler, a spiritual descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. ‘Oh, and not forgetting food,’ she added with a smile. ‘The hydroplant and synthetic food plants fulfil all our nutritional requirements.’
The monorail took them to Henry VIII Boulevard, where the new arrivals had been allocated quarters. Sally conducted them up pristine, zigzagging escalators to their apartments.
‘There’s a party tonight over at Fosco Precincts,’ said Sally as she handed each fatso their doorcard to personalize. ‘It’s not far from here. All of you would be very welcome to come along.’
There were pleased smiles and nods of assent all around.
Sally beamed again, chubby cheeks dimpling. ‘Great! See you there, then.’
And with a wave, she slid off down the escalator.
~ * ~
Fosco Precincts was halfway between the residential and business sectors of Lunaport. Thus far the buildings had been planned in a more or less centralized way, the high cost of materials necessitating an intensive use of space; but now that the Moon had become a largely self-supporting colony, a certain expansiveness was becoming evident, the mood of the colonists being reflected in the beginnings of a sporadic ribbon development. Perhaps in a few decades the entire surface of Luna would be covered in a bland sprawl of characterless ‘burbs.
The party was in full swing when Quentin arrived. At his buzz, the door slid open to reveal Sally, wearing a flowery dress and a big smile.
‘Hi! Come on in! Glad you could make it!’
She ushered him inside. He found himself in a room crowded with heaving bodies. A lively beat was thumping from hidden speakers. Quentin squeezed himself around the edges of the room, where happy onlookers clapped and whooped, and passed through a doorway into an adjoining room.
Here things were quieter. Some dozen or so people sat around, sipping drinks, gobbling at snacks and chatting idly. Quentin took a drink from a tray, and wandered over to one of the groups.
‘ ... What this colony needs is vision,’ one of the group, a squat, balding man in his fifties, was saying, clenching a fist decisively. ‘We’ve gotta have an idea of where we’re going. And Mund is the guy who has that vision. He’s the only one who can give Fatland the strong leadership it needs.’
Another man shook his head emphatically. ‘Mund has vision, I’ll grant you that. But he’s trying to go too far too fast! Some of his ideas are sheer nonsense - terraforming Luna, for God’s sake! There’s a thin line dividing the visions of a genius from those of a lunatic. I’m just afraid that Mund strays a little too often from the one into the other.’
‘Terraforming Luna is not ridiculous!’ cried the bald man. ‘It could be done! The technology’s practically with us! It just needs a mind bold enough to conceive of how Fatland could become, and the will to make it a reality.’
The two men fell to arguing over the practicalities of terraforming the Moon. Quentin took a swallow of synthetic bourbon. His old pal had clearly been busy. He wondered at Mund’s reclusiveness... Would the latter ever decide to renew their friendship?
It had been at MIT, in his sophomore year, that he had first met Ed Mund. Then, Mund had been a Technology major with a talent for self-promotion. Theirs had been an unlikely friendship, the unassuming Fischer and the outspoken Mund. They had been close, and yet at the same time Quentin had always been conscious of a certain remoteness in the fatter man, a dark side of Mund’s personality that would always remain obscure.
He turned to his neighbour. ‘Would you mind telling me what all this is about? I keep hearing of this Mund guy. Why do people get so wound up over his ideas?’
The man eyed him speculatively. ‘New, huh? Well, Dr Mund, whom you’ve heard so much about, has always been a vocal champion of Fat Rights. Since he became Director of LCC five years ago we’ve made great strides towards real autonomy .’ The man’s expression became one of glassy-eyed admiration as he warmed to his theme. ‘He’s ...he’s taken on Earth governments and showed them that they can’t push us around the way they used to when we lived down there. He’s won our industries contracts to supply the skinnies with food and energy and a whole lot more...! And he’s got plans for Fatland that’ll make us the most advanced technological society anywhere.’
The man turned to Quentin, his glazed eyes slowly refocusing. ‘Don’t you want to be a part of it?’
‘Oh... Sure...’ Quentin edged away uneasily. He glanced back into the other room, where gaily-attired colonists danced, strobe lights gleaming off their glistening faces. All he had seen and heard that evening only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the man he had once known. What had Mund done that he could command such fanatical devotion among the colonists?
Another guest, remarkable for his rare slimness in a crowd where obesity was the norm, nodded at Quentin.
‘You new here?’ he enquired.
At Quentin’s assent, the man held out a bony hand. ‘My name’s Blakey, Merv Blakey. I work over at the Falstaff Medical Centre.’
‘Falstaff Medical—?’
‘That’s right; “I have more flesh than other men, and therefore more frailty.” Henry IV part 1. So what brought you to Luna?’
‘Partly my job, partly the reasons all fat people come up here: to lose weight.’
Dr Blakey snorted. ‘Not everyone’s come for that reason; some seem to want to do just the reverse.’ He cast a jaundiced eye at the partygoers cheerfully stuffing themselves as they talked. He glanced at Quentin sidelong. ‘Dr Mund, for example.’
That name again! At Quentin’s quizzical stare, Blakey smirked briefly.
‘Rumour has it that our Beloved Director has a chronic eating disorder; he just can’t quit. It’s become something of an obsession, apparently...’ His lip curled slightly. ‘Not that it would ever affect his judgement, I’m sure.’
Quentin studied Blakey’s scowling face speculatively. ‘You seem a bit off colour yourself, doctor, if you don’t mind my saying.’
Dr Blakey’s eyes widened, then he flushed.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered at length. ‘I guess I just get teed off with looking after fat people every day.’
Quentin nodded understandingly. ‘It must be difficult. What made you come to Luna in the first place? I mean, it isn’t exactly welcoming to—’
‘To skinnies,’ finished the doctor. ‘I know. No good reason; a whim. I wanted to get away from Earth. But now I can’t wait to get back!’
‘You think you’ll be able to go back?’
‘Sure. I’ve been looking after my body, keeping in shape. Again, he glanced around at the other partygoers, few of whose bodies revealed the same concern for physical fitness, with a touch of contempt.
‘Is it really that hard, living here?’ asked Quentin.
Blakey shrugged irritably. ‘It’s nothing open - the hostility, I mean. Nothing like you people had to put up with on Earth from skinny bastards like me. But it’s there, all the same; thinly veiled. You want the Moon for yourselves. It’s your Promised Land, and you don’t want to share it with anyone else.’
Quentin nodded heavily. In some ways, LunaColony was just the latest stage in the process of fragmentation that had hit Earth in the last years of the century; people deciding one day that they could no longer live with one another, demanding their own space. The only reason the fatsos had succeeded in finding a space for themselves was because they were richer and more powerful than any of the other warring factions.
Before Quentin could pursue the topic, a voice hailed him.
‘Quent! Good to see ya! How’s it going?’
He turned to see Phil. With him was a portly woman, hanging on his arm and smiling.
Phil winked at Quentin. ‘You know, my first wife left me two years ago. She said, “Either you lose fifty pounds or you lose me.” I worried about losing her so much I ate more. But when she did leave me, I thought, What the hell, I’m better off without her. Then I met Jemma.’
They beamed at each other fondly. Jemma proffered a dish of chocolate pretzels. ‘Help yourself, Quentin, honey. The great thing about Fatland is you don’t have to feel guilty about enjoying food. When I was a girl I had anorexia - used to binge all day, then throw up so I could start all over again. I hated myself for it. But I’ve put all that behind me.’
It seemed to be an evening for reminiscences. Quentin wondered whether he should relate a personal memory of his own. But just then the music switched to a lively trad pop number. Jemma grabbed Quentin and hauled him on to the dance floor. ‘Come on, honey - let’s dance!’
He was whisked into an ecstatic melee of sweating, gyrating bodies, swaying slowly and gracefully in the low gravity like fronds of seaweed in a submarine forest.
~ * ~
The next couple of day-periods were spent in an intensive orientation programme. Quentin and the other people who had arrived on his flight were put through an exhaustive series of games, workshops, physical and mental exercises, to help them adjust to the conditions of their new home.
By the time he walked through the door of LCC Hydroponics, Quentin felt as if he had lived on the Moon all his life. He was just itching to get down to work.
He was greeted by the plant foreman, Sonamura Genji, a monolithic former Sumo wrestler.
‘Welcome aboard, boss.’ Quentin grasped the dough-like hand. ‘You want me to show you round the works first?’
They donned hygienically sound overalls and set off.
‘We always ensure the optimum conditions for each crop,’ announced Genji, gesturing at the tiers of closely packed hydrobeds that ran the length of the building. ‘Optimum nutrient-concentrations, optimum fertility of the solution, optimum rate at which pumping is increased, optimum use of space in the tanks ...’ Genji formed his thumb and forefinger into a pudgy O. ‘Optimum is our watchword, chief.’ He grinned expansively. ‘O is a nice round letter.’
Quentin gazed down the long perspective of the ranged nutriculture beds. Pipes ran from tanks into the temperature-controlled beds, carrying oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other important elements to the roots of the flourishing plants. The allowance of light too was carefully tailored to the individual crops. Every aspect of the environment was meticulously controlled and monitored by computer, and virtually the whole process of cultivation was carried out automatically, smoothly and effectively, with only a handful of technicians supervising operations and conducting routine maintenance on the elaborate network of tanks and troughs. The whole plant seemed to hum with an almost transcendental self-awareness, keeping up a minute-by-minute surveillance of the growth-stages of all the diverse crops beneath the hydroplant’s louvred ceiling. Inside this cavernous hothouse, computer-regulated aquaculture made the most advanced agricultural methods on Earth seem as primitive as medieval strip-farming.
Genji was talking about yields. ‘More than four times the bulk of the old methods,’ he was saying. ‘But there’s still room for expansion.’
They walked slowly down the plant, Genji pointing out various features of the technology as they went.
They passed a transparent section of the wall, and Quentin gazed across the plant compound to a low-rise building which lay a few hundred metres to the left. ‘What’s that building over there?’ he enquired of his guide.
The Japanese paused. ‘The research labs.’
‘Do you know what they’re working on at the moment?’ asked Quentin.
Genji scratched his cropped head. ‘Some kind of research into high-density food concentrates, I think ...Something else for the starvation market on Earth, I guess.’
A warbling note sounded through the plant. ‘Ah, that’s our mid-shift break,’ commented Genji. ‘Why not come over to the canteen and meet some of the guys?’
The staff canteen was filled with hydroponically grown meals. Genji helped himself to a large portion of seaweed. ‘Used to eat this stuff when I was a Sumo,’ he explained, heaping the glutinous green strands on to his plate. ‘I’ve never lost the taste for it.’
They sat down at a table occupied by a short fat man with crooked spectacles and blue overalls. ‘Hi there, Lou. Mind if we join you? This is our new boss, Mr Fischer.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Lou, extending a hand.
‘Lou’s a classical music lover,’ said Genji. ‘He wants to install piped Mozart to the farm.’
‘Not for me,’ cut in Lou quickly. ‘For the plants. They respond to it. They actually grow better when people play them music. You’ve heard about gardeners who talk to their plants? Well, it’s not so much talk as music they thrive on. I’ve conducted my own research into this, and I’ve managed to match specific pieces of music to specific crops. Look.’
He fumbled in the breast pocket of his overall, and drew out a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘This is my table of music: plant ratios.’
‘Of course, that’s just a very general outline of the plants’ preferences,’ apologized Lou. ‘I’ve narrowed it down in many cases to specific compositions - in some cases even specific movements. For example, a certain strain of rice, Y52, grows like there’s no tomorrow to the ‘Una nava da guerra’ song in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.’ He leaned forward earnestly. ‘My researches categorically prove that musical aquaculture is the way forward, that all the hydroponics farms of tomorrow will incorporate hi-fi feeders to the tanks!’ He blinked at Quentin hopefully from behind his crooked spectacles. ‘It wouldn’t cost that much to wire the tanks for sound. You’d see the benefits within weeks, in bigger harvests.’
‘Well...’ Quentin mumbled doubtfully. Genji winked at him, and once again raised his thumb and forefinger to form a fat O.
‘Like I said - optimum.’
~ * ~
A fortnight passed uneventfully. Quentin immersed himself in his work. Then, out of the blue, he was summoned for a meeting with Dr Mund. It was to be a working lunch; the Director preferred to hold all his high-level meetings at the dinner table.
‘Hey, that’s quite something,’ commented Genji. ‘The big boss himself, huh? Wish I could go.’
So, thought Quentin wryly, as he travelled by monorail to the Director’s HQ, my old pal wants to see me at last. Will he even remember me?
The LCC base lay just over the curve of the horizon, on the dark side of the Moon, effectively hidden from the view of the city dwellers. Strange that the base was - by the compact standards of Lunaport - so far out on a limb. Why had the Director chosen to isolate himself in this manner, instead of being right at the centre of the Colony over which he presided?
Quentin announced himself at Reception. He was met by an LCC functionary and conducted along endless corridors to the Director’s office. Or Presence-Chamber, he thought. The whole thing was so deliberately impressive that he felt himself reacting against it, felt even a certain scorn for the slight theatricality of the place.
A door slid open. The functionary invited him to enter, then withdrew with a bow. Quentin walked into the room, looking around him uncertainly.
Above him rose a bulbous transparent orb. Only stars glittered faintly in the black sky; the Earth lay on the other side of the Moon. Like the ceiling of a great cathedral, the dome drew the eye upward, towards heaven.
‘Ah, Dr Fischer. I am so pleased that you came.’
Quentin turned abruptly, and immediately all the scepticism that had been accumulating in his mind since arriving, vanished.
Dr Mund hung suspended in a kind of web, his vast bloated body, the size of a small automobile, supported by a network of some strong but pliant polymer. As Quentin watched, one swollen hand transferred a black forest gateau to the enormous mouth, which yawned like that of an anaconda swallowing its prey whole. The cake vanished into an unbelievable maw, and the jaws chomped vigorously. A glistening tongue shot out and licked up the traces of cream adhering to the chin.
‘It’s been a long time, Quent. Forgive me if I don’t offer to shake hands; mine are always sticky.’ He took another cake. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
Quentin looked around. There were no chairs, only a few beanbags. He drew one over, and sank into its flabby embrace.
Dr Mund gazed down at him. His eyes were like tiny nuggets of anthracite; hard, black, peering out of the folds of flesh that all but buried them, and which might have effectively hidden eyes less penetrating. He was dressed in an enormous sky-blue rompersuit, the front of which was stained by numberless food spillages. His hands resumed the task of feeding his mouth, plucking pastries and chocolate from an inexhaustible supply at his elbow, moving quickly and daintily like nimble servants who had long ago learned not to get in each others’ way and delay the ceaseless task of bearing food to their voracious master. Words poured out of his mouth, while food poured in.
‘Well, Quent, howya doing? It’s good to see you after... How many years is it? Too many, anyhow. I hear you’re doing good work at the hydroplant; knew I could rely on you. You hungry?’
Quentin glanced queasily at the array of dainties beside his friend, then averted his gaze. ‘No, not right now—’
‘Nonsense; you need to eat, keep your strength up.’ Dr Mund pressed a button on his handheld minicomputer, and a long table of polished mahogany, with a chair to match, slid slowly up from a hidden recess in the floor. ‘Sit down.’
Quentin obeyed. Mund tapped out another command, and almost immediately attendants appeared bearing covered dishes, which they set silently upon the table, and then withdrew.
‘Eat,’ ordered Mund.
Quentin lifted the lid of a dish; a large turkey steamed within. Quentin tucked a napkin into his shirtfront. Then he warily began to carve himself a few slices, and helped himself to vegetables and creamed potatoes.
‘I’d like to just sit here and talk about the old days back at college,’ began Mund, ‘but unfortunately I don’t have the leisure to indulge that whim. So instead I’ll get right down to the nitty-gritty of why I called you over here.’ He paused to gulp down a choux bun the size of a basketball, then resumed. ‘At this research centre we’re engaged on epoch-making work which will affect the future of everyone in this colony. LCC is about to enter a new phase. Most of us came to the Moon to escape, not just from the persecution of bigots who blamed us for eating up the Earth’s resources, but also from gravity itself. Gravity is a killer; it drags us down, makes our own bodies a burden, when they ought to be a source of strength. On Luna, gravity takes less of a toll on us - but even here we’re far from free of it. What we’ve been working on is a way of neutralizing gravity, of transcending the crashing force which saps our strength and sucks away our vitality!’
Dr Mund waved his hands excitedly as he spoke; the mesh quivered. Quentin swallowed a mouthful of turkey.
‘You mean... some kind of Buddhist-type transcendence of the body?’ he asked weakly.
‘No! I’m not talking about mystical Eastern crap - I’m saying we’ve discovered how everyone in this colony can cheat gravity: by becoming their own world!’
Quentin gaped at him. Mund laughed.
‘Surprised, huh? You just have to think big, Quentin. My plan is this: every man, woman and child in LunaColony will be biologically redesigned so that each becomes a self-supporting entity, complete with their own means of generating their own sustenance, their own oxygen, everything they need built in. Then they will no longer need the resources of a world; they will be their own world, living planets, released from the deadly gravity of the Moon and launched out into space, floating free, Fischer, finally free of gravity! We will have defeated gravity by becoming gravitational bodies, the ultimate subversion of our old enemy! We will grow steadily, over time, be immortal; our DNA will encode a biosphere, the blueprint for an entire ecosystem. In time, we too will become fully-fledged worlds, evolving species of our own ... We will spread out across the Galaxy, no longer trapped on one tiny, overcrowded world, but with the whole of space to explore and to colonize!’
Dr Mund fell back into his harness, exhausted, his flesh trembling. When he had regained his breath, and eaten, Mund fixed an eye on Quentin.
‘Well? What do you say, Quent? You will have a key role to play in this. The lab attached to the hydroplant has been perfecting a high-concentrate nutrient which will be fed intravenously to every fatso, to beef up their mass. Soon your plant will be switched from hydroponics to producing the new food-concentrate. Other members of our team will deal with the physical reshaping of our population. You look sceptical, Fischer, but I assure you, it can be done; the first stages have already been carried out - on me personally. How else do you think I got this big? Dropsy?’ He laughed. ‘Believe me, human flesh is astonishingly malleable. And we are fortunate in having such a brilliant team of scientists, sculptors of the human clay.’
‘But what if people don’t want to be changed into planets?’ protested Quentin.
Mund dismissed the objection. ‘Don’t be absurd.’ He picked up a bun. ‘Who would possibly turn down a chance to live for ever? That’s what I’m offering. That, and the prospect of being free at last from the clutches of gravity, to start a life in which obesity is essential to survival.’
Mund tapped in a command on his minicomputer. ‘Well, bub, I’m a busy man; the next phase in my transformation is due to start soon. I want you to go back to your hydroplant and prepare for the great task that lies ahead.’
Quentin stood up. ‘When are you planning to release news of your intentions for the Colony, uh, Doctor?’
‘Soon. When all is ready. Until then, Quent - all this is just between friends; is that clear? Meanwhile, why don’t you take a little tour of the centre? I’m sure you’ll find it instructive.’
In the monorail heading back to Lunaport, Quentin found himself shaking uncontrollably. Now at last he knew what his former friend had been doing all these years.
He had been going insane.
~ * ~
The injunction to silence became steadily more intolerable to Quentin. He felt that he had to discuss what he had learned at Mund’s base with somebody else; but who? All his colleagues at the hydroplant were keen Mundists; any reservations that he expressed regarding the Director would surely get back to the latter, doing nothing to resolve the situation. Finally, at his wits’ end, Quentin went to see Dr Blakey.
‘Mr Fischer?’ Blakey looked at him keenly. ‘You look as if something’s troubling you. Can I help?’
It was surprisingly easy to spill the beans. Something about the thin doctor’s dour bedside manner encouraged confidences.
Blakey stared at Quentin, aghast. ‘Just as I suspected; the man’s utterly crazy. He really would transform everyone in his own image!’ The doctor shook his head. ‘Mund’s ego has swollen in direct proportion to his body. This is his way of impressing his personality on the Moon for ever!’
‘But what are we going to do?’ demanded Quentin.
‘We’ll have to blow the whistle on him, cried Blakey. ‘Give the media the story - let them inform the public—’
‘But the media’s under Mund’s thumb,’ objected Quentin. ‘They’d never broadcast the story without his permission.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe we should advise Earth of Mund’s intentions. Though I don’t much like the role of informer.’
Blakey was frowning. ‘If what Mund says is true, and he really can turn people into planets, then Earth ought to be very worried. Even if most of the colonists reject Mund’s crazy vision, there’ll be enough fanatics for him to put his plan into operation. Think of it - scores, hundreds of new gravitational bodies suddenly appearing in the solar system ...Think of the effects that would have on Earth, not to mention LunaColony. We’ve got to stop him somehow!’
Events were precipitated even more rapidly than Blakey and Quentin had expected. The following day the LCC authorities announced the compulsory deportation of all thin people from the Moon. They were given twenty-four hours to pack and wind up their business, then they were to report to the space terminal, where a shuttle would be waiting to take them back to Earth.
Quentin got a call from Blakey. ‘You heard the news?’ raged the doctor. ‘They’re kicking us out!’
Quentin nodded ‘So we go into action - tonight.’
~ * ~
They parked Blakey’s buggy in the centre’s compound. Under his spacesuit, the doctor was wearing an overall which Quentin had purloined from the hydroplant, padded out with folded-up clothing to make him look fat.
It was surprisingly easy to gain admittance. ‘Uh... Dr Mund sent for us,’ said Quentin anxiously. The guard nodded vaguely as they flashed their passes, and waved them through.
Inside an air of expectancy pervaded the atmosphere. White-overalled technicians hurried to and fro. Nobody took any notice of the two newcomers.
Quentin studied a plan of the centre. ‘This way,’ he said, thinking back to the brief tour of the place that he had been given on his previous visit.
‘What are we going to do?’ hissed Blakey as they hurried along the corridor.
Quentin had been trying not to think too closely about what they were to do. To confront Mund, to threaten to inform Earth of his plans, to provoke open hostility between the Colony and Terra unless Mund abandoned his mad ambitions ...The futility of such an ultimatum was overwhelming. Mund would never allow himself to be blackmailed like that. Even a rational person would balk at having his aims challenged in such a fashion; and Mund was anything but rational. So where did that leave them?
‘In here,’ croaked Quentin. It was the control centre, the base from which the whole ghastly, Frankensteinian operation was co-ordinated.
They slipped inside. Some thirty technicians worked silently at their tasks, moving with all the inhuman certainty of automata.
Quentin scanned the arrays of winking computers, struggling to recall what he had been told on his ‘instructive’ tour. ‘Wait here,’ he whispered.
‘Where are you going?’ demanded Blakey.
‘I won’t be long.’ Quentin slipped away.
He didn’t know what compulsion drove him to the chamber in which Dr Mund was steadily releasing his hold on his own humanity. He knew that blustering threats would be useless. But he also knew he had to speak to the doctor before the latter was completely engulfed by his own body. It was his obligation, as a friend.
At his approach the door obediently slid open. Quentin paused for a second, pulse racing at what he might discover within the vast chamber. Then he stepped inside.
~ * ~
The room was filled with a huge greenish-white blanket, which seemed to billow outwards. The great mass quivered and throbbed with a hideous animation. Squinting upwards, Quentin saw that the semi-spherical object, was just recognizable as a human body.
He stared in mingled awe and horror. Here was a transmogrification of the body more grotesque than anything conceived of by the most decadent surrealist. Mund’s bloated form pulsated, as the ravenous tissues devoured the nutrient that coursed through them, endlessly expanding like some demented empire. Quentin could almost see the altered cells turning proteins into fat, swelling the engorged planetoid in an orgy of consumption.
‘Ed!’ he shouted.
A pause. Then, a voice, subterranean: ‘Who’s there?’
‘Fischer!’ yelled Quentin. ‘Listen, Ed! Stop this process! You’ll destroy yourself, you’ll destroy the Colony! For God’s sake order them to abort this insane scheme!’
‘Too late, Quent,’ boomed the doctor. ‘I’m only the first; others will follow. Soon my body will reach optimum, old pal; I will form my own atmosphere, an outer “skin” of oxygen; then I will be launched into space, a fully autonomous world. I will continue growing, generating my own mass.’ His voice rose to a shriek. ‘Gloria Mundi! Goodbye, gravity! “I am a little world, made cunningly... ‘“
Quentin backed away, further pleadings dying on his lips. The vast living carcase seemed to shudder. He looked up at the roof in fear. A sudden intuition hit him. Of course. It must be almost time for the Director to leave the Moon for good. Almost, but not quite.
He turned and ran.
~ * ~
Slowly, the cathedral dome slid open. The air rushed out, and space slipped eagerly inside to welcome its newest planet…
~ * ~
The door of the control centre opened, and one of the technicians darted out. He turned wildly, then gestured furiously to Quentin, who was panting down the deserted corridor.
‘Come on, Fischer! I opened the roof! Let’s get the hell out of here!’
Nobody stopped them. All were too shattered, like sleepers awakening from some wonderful dream to grey reality.
~ * ~
The news of Dr Mund’s demise leaked out almost reluctantly, by accident rather than design, as if every inhabitant of LunaColony slowly but spontaneously became aware of the withdrawal of a great presence, the massive, weighty presence of a tremendous mind and ego and body which, departing, left behind a curious vacuum.
The details were vague; the Director had suffered a sudden stroke, perhaps, or a coronary. The Moon mourned the loss of her genius. LCC would never be quite the same again.
The expulsion of the Colony ‘ s thin population was rescinded, though many chose to return to Earth voluntarily, among them, Dr Blakey.
The skinny doctor paused at the gangway of the shuttle. ‘So long, Quent. I hope you can make something of this place. You’re the kind of guy it needs, not another damned prophet.’ The cold, bony hand gripped Quentin’s briefly.
Blakey waved. Quentin waved back. Soon the shuttle was climbing through the darkness towards the radiant blue-green orb of Earth.
‘Hey, Quentin! Howya doing? Haven’t seen ya around for a while.’
It was Jemma. Quentin felt suddenly glad to see her.
‘You’re looking down in the mouth, Quent; I know how you feel. We all miss him. But life goes on, right? Come on, I’ll buy you a gateau ...’