Lunam Natis: Chapter Four

Chapter Four: The Prince

Everyone is panicking. The town is in chaos. I pick my way from our pawn shop to the Science, Medicine, & Astronomy Building at the U. The streets are packed with lunar people, and debris from yesterday. Although I don’t have any classes in this building, I’m still welcomed due to the sharing of my thoughts and data from observing people and from my membership level at Stargazer’s. I go straight to Professor Jarl Kiden’s lecture hall and adjacent lab. Kiden is hurrying around the lab, picking up fallen papers and turning the fans and AC to higher settings. He looks very flustered.

“Kasia,” he greets me. “What’s going on??” Oh, yeah. Another reason that I’m welcomed here: I’m the top professor’s favorite person.

“We’re in Venus’s orbit. The impacts yesterday? A meteor shower that crushed Luna Trabem. It also knocked us out of Terra’s orbit, of which we were perched precariously on. I predict that Terra will miss us in about thirty-six hours. A few hours after that, they’ll start sending us and Venus transmissions about how to get us back.”

Kiden putters around the room, looking for something. “No, no, no. It’ll be too late... too late...” He opens a cupboard, sending a stack of papers flying. I pick them up and stack them neatly on an open desk. “It has to be sooner... We have to figure out a way to get them to... Where did I put my clearboard maker?!!”

“It’s in your jacket pocket,” I tell him. He grabs it, and starts writing on the clearboard. It’s like the whiteboards of old, but whatever a person writes on one side shows up on the other side, but written the correct way, unlike a mirror, or glass.

He’s writing an aranea plan, where he puts the main idea in the body of the aranea, and each joint of the legs are offshoot ideas.

“We have to find a way to get back...”

“Why?”

“We have to get back to Terra,” he repeats.

“Why can’t we stay with Venus? I hear that stuff is cheaper here.”

He shakes his head viciously. “If we’re gone for the wrong amount of time, Terra will have tilted to a point other than 23.5°, and we’ll lock them back into a steady orbit, but it will be a different one. Whole ecosystems will change!! Animals and plants will die off, and new ones will develop!! Geography books and maps will have to be rewritten. Some economies could fail, because of their crops of plants or herds of animals not surviving!! Terra as we know it will be no more.”

We sit in stunned silence.

“How do we get back, and how long should we wait to enter back into to the Roche Radius?” I ask. He keeps writing and shaking his head, now writing a complex equation.

“That’s what I’m figuring out...”

---

I hurry to City Hall, weaving through the late morning traffic on 3rd Street, then Moon Street, and then Main Street, which is even worse. I burst into the office, and go the secretary's desk.

“I need to speak to Mayor Starburn,” I tell her.

“On whose behalf?” the snotty fat lady behind the desk asks. Her name tag reads Laren Smalley. I hate how people always assume that I’m a speaker for someone else.

“Mine,” I tell her. She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m afraid that not just anyone can get a walk-in appointment with the mayor,” she tells me in a superior tone of voice. I hear the grand double doors open almost noiselessly, even to my ears, behind me. I turn around and see Adair, of all people. I’m shocked to see him here, they don’t normally put newbies into the government here. He’s wearing an expensive black suit that fits exactly right. He must’ve been someone important back on Terra. We make no sign of recognizing each other.

“And who might you be delaying?” Adair asks Ms. Smalley. She gulps and looks at him. Obviously, he is someone in power.

“No-no one, Prince Adair,” she says hurriedly. My jaw actually drops a little before I regain control of my facade of non-emotion. He looks annoyed, as if he doesn’t want it to be made public that he’s royalty.

“We’ve talked about this, Laren. On Luna, I’m deputy mayor Adair, not a prince,” at his stern voice, she nods and drops her eyes to her desk, quickly picking up a pen and fidgeting with it. “Whoever she is,” he says, keeping up the pretense of not knowing me, “she can come with me. I bet that I can get her an audience with my uncle. After all, I am his favorite nephew.” He slips his arm through the crook of mine and leads me off into one of the main halls and through a few others. I memorize the path, it could come in handy later.

“I had that covered, y’know,” I tell him in an irritated tone of voice.

“Are you sure? It seemed to me that Laren wasn’t budging on letting a first year U student in to see the mayor on their say-so. But excuse me if I was wrong. Next time, I’ll let you sit there and try to plead your way out of a charge of ‘badgering government staff,” his voice is soft and silky, even though he’s reprimanding me. I sigh.

“I’m a second year U student, and I’m sorry, thank you for the save,” I tell him. He seems mollified, and a few seconds later, flicks the end of my tail. I stop walking, draw my arm out of his, and turn to face him. He does the same.

“Qae est infernum?” I ask him offended.

“What?” he asks, an innocent look on his face. Is it real or fake? Probably real. I just look at him, waiting for him to put two and two together. Surely, even a great prince can do that. “Oh, that,” he says, pretending to have forgotten and just remembered what happened a few seconds ago. “You can’t blame me!! Your fur just looked sooo soft!! I just had to touch it.”

“Don’t they have homo feles in your section of Terra? Or any species of human besides homo sapiens?” I ask, my voice as cold as ice.

“Umm... We did, but... I never saw them in person. I saw them walking through the streets from my bedroom window, but only homo sapiens were allowed in court. I was a disgrace, being born a homo avem, as both the king and the queen were homo sapiens. My mother hated me, and my father couldn’t bear to look at me. All non-homo sapiens were banned from the kingdom, so I was hidden away. So, no, I don’t really have any experience with non-homo sapiens, besides myself.” His words tumble out like an avalanche down a steep hill.

I look at him, unsure whether to give him mercy or not. “First thing: we don’t like our extra appendages touched by people that are not close family or friends. It’s like you’re trying to draw attention to what makes us different, to make us stand out, to not fit in, to not allow us to be normal, to show everyone that we are freaks,” I explain to  him. His eyebrows knit together and he nods, understanding. We start walking through the hallway again, this time, not touching.

“Your fur is really soft, though,” he says, just before we reach a set of double doors that he throws open. “Uncle Theo,” he calls in a loud voice. “I’ve brought someone to meet you!”

Author's Note

Aranea means spider, stellarnavis means starships or star navy.