23. A MORAL CHOICE

THE CASE OF MERCURY RISING, 23

“What are you trying to say?” I asked her, “that you don’t really love me after all and won’t think of marrying me?”

“You must know that I bloody well do!” she exclaimed, too loud, but then I guess that she felt like shouting, “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before! And I’d think life was just about perfect if it was going to stay that way!”

“But you don’t love me enough to marry me?” I looked at her and to my utter surprise there was the hint of moisture in her eyes. The suggestion had come from me but it seemed the emotion was all in her.

“If you must know, my folks were married,” she said quietly, “they got married before I was born. About a fortnight before I was born, actually. And they both knew deep inside them that their feelings for each other would last for ever. The trouble was, forever wasn’t very long for them. It was less than a year, actually, before they separated. I was brought up for the rest of my childhood by a single mum, and although she tried so very hard she couldn’t make up for the fact that I only saw my own father once a month or so, and when I did he was with another woman who wanted me to call her mum, but I couldn’t because she wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “you never said.”

“Why should I? Their marriage was their story, and although it impinged on mine it only did that: impinge. I’ve been all right, haven’t I?”

“Of course you have, though it’s left you doubting the wonderful estate of marriage, hasn’t it?” I asked her, “well, that’s all right, then. We don’t have to go through a marriage ceremony if you don’t want to. We can carry on as we are if you prefer that. I know how I feel about you and that’s enough for me.”

“And I know how I feel about you.”

“And if any little ones find their way into the world?” I hardly dared suggest it because I sometimes wondered if she’d be perfectly happy having a raunchy sex life yet remain childless throughout it.

She smiled at me as if she was reading my mind. “They won’t,” she said, “unless mankind does something soon about his planet, that is. Remember the butterfly people? Our soon-to-be neighbours on Venus? They’ve got things sorted and it’s about time humanity did that too. At the moment it looks to me as if any child we might produce between us will find itself on a very uncomfortable world indeed.”

“You mean climate?” I thought I knew what she meant and agreed, it may well become a huge problem.

She snorted. “Climate: that’s only part of the question!” she said, vehemently, “you remember months ago when we ended up in the Tower of London? And the bloody Prime Minister? His attitude to just about everything? It’s the way politics has gone. Lies, lies and yet more lies with most of the newspaper press supporting the lies, and all with the sole intent of keeping crooks in power! Mark my words, Royston, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there wasn’t another world war before long brought about by fascist self-love, and if there is it’ll be the war to end all wars because it’ll end all humanity in a hail of radioactive rain, and I’m not going to bring a child into the world to face that sort of horror!”

“Harrumph!” came from the speakers that surrounded us.

“Yes, Mercury Rising?” I asked.

Silence, and I remembered, “Mercury Rising, yes?” I said, rearranging the syntax.

“Igor has got plans,” the disembodied voice said, “he is planning and plotting ways and means...”

“Ways and means? Of what?” asked the love of my life.

“Of avoiding a dystopian or post-apocalyptical ending of days,” it hummed. Yes, hummed, so quietly it send shivers down my spine and I already felt we were on the brink of dystopian terrors.

“I’m sure Igor will do his best, with that huge brain of his,” I murmured slowly.

Angelina shivered. “That’s enough of misery for the time being,” she said, “we’ll do enough suffering when the real thing comes along and there’s no need to pre-empt it. But, Mercury Rising, you’ve put your finger on why I’m putting off having kids while there’s a possibility of that kind of future. Let’s hope someone, Igor maybe, came up with an answer, though aren’t we here because he didn’t think he’d live long enough to complete this trip himself?”

“He intimated that,” I agreed.

“Maybe he’s cured himself,” she said hopefully, “he said he would try, and when Igor tries he often succeeds.”

“Mercury Rising, have you consulted Igor on the subject of the men in the moon?” I asked suddenly.

“Of course,” came what I could only call a smug reply.

“And what is his opinion?” asked Angelina, “do we stop off and rescue them, or do we not?”

“He was ambivalent,” murmured the computer.

“Meaning?” That was me.

“Attend to the monitor and I’ll play his deliberations on the subject, complete with a pretty picture of his face,” replied the computer in what I could only call a superiorly jaunty voice.

No sooner had he said that than Igor’s face appeared on the screen. “So you’ve asked for my opinion regarding the castaways on the lunar surface,” he began, “and let me start off by saying I’ve not met them and only have your ship’s computer, which is a darned good model, don’t you think, to inform me of what is what.”

He paused for breath. Igor can, from time to time, be verbose and almost irritating. Then he continued.

“Your ship is of the opinion that the lunar strangers are fundamentally harmless though it did detect worrying signs of a rare form of pneumonia in the breath of the individual who you met, and he will probably require medical help before long,” said the recorded Igor, “as would you if he hadn't been wearing protective gear, of course,” it added.

“What?” Both Angelina and I responded as one.

“So my advice is that you’ve got a choice,” continued Igor, “you either return to where you found them, and the very crater has been noted, and offer them a lift home, risking as you do so further exposure to what I have identified as a virulent disease that must have lain dormant in at least one of the castaways since they left Earth, or leave them to their fate.

“Decide for yourselves.”

The image of our strange well-whiskered employer faded, and he had left us with a worrying choice. The stranger, Sandy Grimsdyke, for whom we had no real responsibility, and in particular the pregnant woman in his party, might be showing real signs of the kind of illness that could well claim their lives if they remained in the probably claustrophobic atmosphere they had created on the moon, or we could risk our own well-being and return to where we’d left the man, and offer them a cramped ride back home.

In short, either they die or we risk being crammed into a tiny space with sick people.

“What do you think, darling?” I asked.

“It’s not a question, really,” she replied, “we’ve got to, haven’t we? We’ve got to return and land on the moon of we can, and rescue them before disease does its worst, and claims their lives. We have no moral choice.”

© Peter Rogerson. 05.03.20