SENIOR LIVING

                                               

This story is a sequel to “Happy Valentine’s Day, posted January 2012

          Every morning at 8:00 am, five days a week, Stanley Worthington, former NASA Administrator and now CEO and President of International Minerals, enters the Brockman-Hayes Industrial Arts Building on 43rd street and rides the elevators to his seventieth floor office. He stops at his secretary’s desk and greets her with a “Good morning, Rose.” She hands him a sealed brown envelope and a cup of coffee that she has freshly brewed for him and he disappears into his office, closing the door behind him. For the next hour Rose abides by a standing order that he is not to be disturbed for any reason short of a fire, a bombing or an earthquake. That first hour of the day is when Stanley does his best work. He seats himself at his desk, sips from the coffee mug, retrieves a pearl handled letter opener from a drawer and slits the envelope open, whereupon he withdraws two sheets of paper on which are printed in order of priority the news items that have been determined to be of vital interest to him. There are never more than two sheets, sometimes there is only one.

        The papers come from the Odyssey Corporation in La Jolla, California. Their contents are highly confidential and are therefore delivered by courier, the Internet being deemed by Odyssey to be too leaky. The service costs  $250,000 a year. Having first profiled Stanley, Odyssey daily trolls the torrent of information that is generated worldwide daily, five hundred times deeper than what is available from Google, selects information that could conceivably be of use to him, refines and condenses it and delivers it to his office. For Stanley the annual fee is a bargain because he can recover it many times over by moving immediately on the actionable items in the papers.

         On this day an item catches his eye that is obliquely related to International Mineral’s operations on the moon. A paper, authored by Dr. Miles Hadley had just been published in Nature. Dr. Hadley was one of two physicians posted at the Sir Arthur C. Clarke lunar mining base, the third of the mining consortium’s successful lunar ventures. The paper conjectured that a person’s life span might be doubled, living on the moon. The argument centered on the possibility that debilitating diseases like arthritis and osteoporosis, joint failures and other maladies had less likelihood of occurring in the one-sixth gravity on the moon.  Moreover, the isolation factor appeared to be significant, and this was borne out by comparing the incidence of illness within the existing lunar human complement with similar groups on the planet. As this lunar mining base had been in operation now for over twenty years, Dr. Hadley claimed to have supporting information based on studies of long-term workers at the lunar base.

         Odyssey’s paper pointed to the internet source where the full article could be retrieved and Stanley immediately looked it up. The wheels began to turn. The Sir Arthur C. Clarke mining site was nearing the end of its productivity. Here was the most extensive lunar installation by far. If further use could not be found for it, it would become the first exo-planetary ghost town. Besides comfortable accommodations for over a hundred workers, and a robust infrastructure, there were extensive five-meter diameter tunnels and several chambers dug inside the precipice that rose from the meteor impact floor. Liquid air tanks adjacent to the settlement, resupplied from Earth, could be depended upon to last for hundreds of years.

         After reading the article, Stanley spoke with Dr. Hadley through a secure link to the lunar settlement. Something in Dr. Hadley’s assured manner as he described his observations served to accelerate  the speed at which Stanley’s idea was developing. International Minerals wasn’t going to shut down the Sir Arthur C. Clarke site after all.  International Minerals was going to go into the retirement home business.

         Stanley was quite aware that the clientele for lunar retirement would be drawn only from the relatively few who could afford it. Worldwide, there were over 2000 billionaires.  Surely five percent could be convinced to go for it, at a billion dollars a pop. The first thing, before doing anything else, was to pulse the wealthy community to determine whether there was interest in living away from the planet if their lives could be extended to a hundred and fifty years. He prepared a glossy brochure that outlined the project and circulated it among a few hundred wealthy acquaintances. He was stunned at the response. The desire to live as long a lifetime as possible and avoiding physical disabilities in the process was much stronger than he had thought. Moreover, there was another unexpected attraction. People were more than just mildly interested in following the progress of their progeny out to the sixth and seventh generations. They were excited at the prospect of being able to guide them in the role of super patriarchs and matriarchs.

         Stanley formulated the topology of the lunar retirement installation in his mind. The external settlement that supported the mining operation for so many years could house the caretakers. They would provide all needed support, including medical attention when needed, maintenance, dining, and maid services. As at present, its communication system was fully adequate for occupants to connect with Earth at any time. Housing for retirees, however, would be inside the tunnels and chambers that were created during the mining operations. They would be fitted with LED tiled ceilings that delivered night and day in sync with Earth’s rotation, seasonally changing wall images, dioramas, and all furnishings and accoutrements needed for living without hardship. Then, in an inspired thought, Stanley imagined an external transparent bubble connected to one of the tunnels. He knew it was possible to build one robotically. He had seen it happen in Germany, where engineers had demonstrated construction of a Buckminster Fuller hermetically sealed thirty-foot diameter globe solely by robots in the space of a few hours. Stanley envisioned occupants gathered there for star gazing, dining by Earthlight, even dancing. How light-footed they would be!

         Stanley took his sketches and plot plans of the lunar excavations one story down to the offices of the Pershing-White Engineering and Architects firm that had done much of the engineering for the mining company’s lunar operations. He commissioned them to do a preliminary design and cost estimate to a depth just sufficient to persuade the international members of the mining consortium to approve the venture.

         Within five years the first group of retirees, mostly in their sixties and seventies, packed their personal belongings and departed Earth aboard a lunar transport for their new home away from home. All looked forward to surviving for at least another lifetime.

                                                             ***

Cory Hamilton was in the first group of residents of the Lunar retirement colony. He had gotten wealthy with his invention of the pulsed well digger, which was rapidly adopted in many regions of the world, and to which some attributed both the saving of entire segments of humanity from extinction, but also averting possible water wars. Cory was also a backyard horticulturist. He looked forward to pursuing his hobby in the lunar environment. Although the thought of finding a soul mate, and possible bed mate, in that lean environment had hardly entered his mind, he turned immeasurably brighter in spirit upon meeting Sung Mei, who in turn seemed attracted to him. Sung Mei had inherited well from her father, a successful international real estate broker. She was an accomplished artist. Artworks produced in her studio on the moon were snapped up on Earth as soon as the lunar freighters landed with them.

Cory had not been in residence in the lunar colony many days before he found himself probing the extremities of the cavernous lunar settlement. After some expeditions he found what he was looking for; a tunnel, about half the width of other passageways and a little over human height that led for some distance and terminated at an empty chamber. He flashed his flood lamp about and concluded that here was where he would set up his hydroponic gardening center. A couple of years elapsed before he had it well lit and equipped, as all supplies had to be imported from Earth, and were transported only under conditions when the freighters had extra load carrying capacity. There was a celebration when Cory delivered the first baskets of lunar grown string beans to the kitchens and thence to an evening’s gathered diners. Cory got to be known as “Farmer Hamilton.” But Cory was not just your routine grower. He was an experimenter, and over the years his gardens delivered hybrid vegetables that had never existed before on Earth. True to form, his business sense led him to begin another venture, marketing patented lunar-produced seeds to larger seed suppliers on the planet.  

One day, many years after taking up residence on the moon, Cory Hamilton awoke early. He stood beside the bed he shared with Sung Mei, stretching, working his joints, looking tall and gaunt in the half-light that was ever present in the bedroom. Sung Mei stirred. Looking at him, she murmured, “You have a beautiful body.” He looked at her, still snuggled between sheets. “You’re not so bad yourself.” At ninety years, Sung Mei’s complexion was flawless, her hair a rich black, her eyes as sparkling as a young girl’s. Ten years older, Cory ran his fingers over his sideburns. “You can see, though, that I am aging,” he said with a wry grin.

“Today.......” Cory then said slowly, “I am going to harvest tomatoes.”

“Sung Mei leaped out of bed. “I’m going with you”

           The pair breakfasted together, then headed for Cory’s garden chamber. They walked the distance, followed by the little yellow robotruck that Cory requisitioned for transporting the crop to the kitchens. As they entered the garden chamber they could see the red fruit hanging like Christmas tree decorations from vines that clung to the opposite wall.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” Cory commented.

          “They are gorgeous,” Sung Mei replied. “They are heart stopping.”

The prophetic nature of Sung Mei’s statement escaped Cory. Sung Mei had often used it in the past to describe things of incredible beauty, like the night view of a full Earth or a universe so rich with stars and galaxies through the transparent external observation dome that it seemed you could reach out and scatter them, like tossed sparklers.

 The pair worked quietly. Cory harvested the fruit from the upper reaches, leaving the lower ones to be plucked by Sung Mei. Finally, when the last one was gently laid on the truck, its small container now heaped with tomatoes, they stood and gazed upon them with admiration. Cory took one in his hands and sliced it in two and handed one half to Sung Mei. He sent the robotruck on its way and the two stood watching as it disappeared down the corridor, munching on their tomato halves.

           Sung Mei swallowed the last of her tomato and suddenly said, “I don’t feel so good. I feel faint.” Cory grabbed her and led her to a bench by the wall of the tunnel where he sat beside her, enfolded in a strong arm. Her head rested against him. She was already dead. Her heart had stopped beating. “Cory drew a deep breath “I don’t feel so good either,” he muttered, as his last breath too gave out.

The next morning somber residents of the retirement community gathered in the dining hall. Cory and Sung Mei were dearly loved. They were the first of the initial lunar retirees to pass away. The fact of their passage at the same time invited speculation that inevitably led to hushed comments asserting a probability that it was mutually agreed suicide. But why?

The leader of the week stood and delivered a short eulogy. At the conclusion of her short speech she said, “We will miss the fruits of Cory’s gardening. His last crop, delivered to the kitchens just before this lovely couple left us, was a harvest of beautiful tomatoes. I had them juiced and they now fill the glasses before you. I propose a final toast to our departed friends.” She lifted her glass and said, “To our dear friends, Cory and Sung Mei.”

The gathering stood as one, lifted their glasses and repeated: “To our dear friends, Cory and Sung Mei,” and they all then drank together.