Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/145



lthough the Moon's surface is a barren waste of sand, rock, blazing heat, and icy cold, there is no good reason to assume that it is uninhabitable, that there is no life there. Science well knows that it is pitted with tremendous caverns and that there are great areas where living conditions may exist below the desert surface.

Many of the craters we see on the Moon are caused by volcanic activity, far back in the dawn of her history, when she was a world with an outer atmosphere, much like the Earth, of which she is a true daughter, having been spawned in the beginning from a great fissure which now exists as the deepest part of the Pacific ocean. But many of the craters, too, are not craters at all, but the result of great meteorites striking the surface.

Sometime in the dim past, Earth, and the Moon, rode through a horrible "storm" in space; a storm of rock and metal debris, probably from a shattered planet, or a huge cometary nucleus. It was in that "storm" that both planets suffered this great bombardment. We have evidences on our Earth, protected by a thick blanket of atmosphere, of it, in the Nevada meteor crater, and in the Carolina craters.

Perhaps it was that great celestial tragedy that wiped out whatever surface life existed on the Moon, and drove whatever survivors remained to build cities in a safer place, deep inside the Moon at the bottom of these great craters, and in the natural caverns that exist, perhaps all the way to the core.

Let us visit, in Imagination, the chief city in the moon, the great metropolis of Luna.

After a long climb down one of the steep crater walls, we come to the "door" of the city. This is a vast glass and metal "plug" that acts as a stopper. We enter through an air-lock. Down below it we find air. And we immediately realize the reason for the "plug." It is to retain the artificial atmosphere that the Lunites manufacture to fill their cities.

Once below this air-lock, we are awed by the tremendous spectacle that opens out before us. The Lunites are a much older race than we, because the Moon cooled faster, being a smaller body. Thus, they have a vast civilization, and a great scientific knowledge.

Thus we see an amazingly orderly and perfect city. Indirect lighting from an unseen source makes the city appear to be in upper-daylight, without the glare of direct sunlight. All buildings are streamlined, and constructed as open to light as possible. Pedestrian levels extend down, tier on tier, to the city depths below. It is a city of "up-and-down" with a vengeance.

We see no vehicular traffic, with the exception of swift elevators. "Travel" on the Moon is not a holiday pastime. There is no great distance to travel, except on the surface, where Lunites rarely venture.

As we descend, we are impressed by the tremendous column that graces the center of the city, and leads up through the "plug" at the crater-city entrance. We find that this is the "powerhouse." At its top there is a solar motor which collects the power from the sun and converts and stores it in the city storage batteries. Fourteen days of sunlight on the surface are utilized to collect energy to last through the fourteen-day (Earth days of 24 hours are referred to here) night.

The life of a Lunarian is not an arduous one. It is perhaps the closest to Utopia of any city in the solar system. Science has so advanced that the Lunite citizen has most of his time to himself, giving only a short period as his share of the "work" that keeps this orderly city running.

This work consists of tending the power machines, and of manufacturing the synthetic food, from basic materials, and imbuing it with the necessary vitamin content obtained as a by-product of the sun motor power. The sun's light supplies most of the healthful qualities needed by an underground civilization, and the others are chemically created from the elements themselves.

The balance of the Moon-man's time is devoted to the arts, to relaxation, and to cultural pursuits. We may find that sculpture, painting, music, and literature are developed to a very high artistic standard, and that an esthetic perfection is attained that is unequalled anywhere else in the system.

We may indeed marvel at this super-city inside our satellite. It is perhaps the first wonder of the whole planetary family.