The Information Paradox

Chapter 2 - The Ice Mine

Deep under the Shackleford crater, lunar South Pole, IVO International lunar base #3, ice mine #7, Kira deftly maneuvered the fusion-powered tunneling machine to an old and mostly unexplored portion of the decades-old base. She was in an armored hard vacuum suit. It would keep her alive in the cold airless environment, but unlike the Mylar and fabric suits of the surface explorers, her Kevlar armored suit had more than adequate protection against minor cave-ins and the usual deadfalls of underground mining.

On her comm system, she announced. "Okay, we are through that lava dike, looks like a good ice vein from here."

The comm channel was a bit garbled with static as always in the underground operations when the voice from control, three levels above responded. "Okay Ki, but take it easy, the engineers are not too sure about that layer of strata, something about ancient layers of regolith which should not be down there that deep below the surface."

"Copy that, I'll put the big beast on slow and steady."

Kira engaged the big cutter wheel on its lowest setting, applied heat to the outer elements and pushed the tunneling machine into the new bore. What she did not know at the time was that this was not the first time intelligent life had ever visited this part of the moon.

A few hours later, Kira's tunneling machine broke through the old oddly packed regolith and into a vast sub-lunar chamber. She shined her bright spotlight on the far wall and smiled. "Control, we hit pay dirt, the other side of this chamber is a solid wall of ice. Probably has been here since Genesis."

She took a quick survey with her laser rangefinder and entered the coordinates into her comp. "Initial estimate, you are not going to believe this. It's over 100 meters high by at least 1,000 meters wide. Depth unknown, but this block of ice could go on for kilometers."

The excited voice from above responded. "Discovery logged and registered. Should be a nice bonus for the whole crew Kira, your orders are to log in the survey and RTB. We'll let the engineers make sure that all is stable, would not want another incident like at #5 a few years back."

Inside her vac suit, Kira shrugged. "Roger that Control. I'm backing out now, nice and slow."

After her very long and quite successful shift as a digger was over, she returned to the quarters she shared with her friend and partner Jim. She checked the chrono readout and decided that in celebration of her find, she would do laundry a few days early and luxuriate in a double ration shower. As she was relaxing in the warm stream of a few extra liters of precious and many times recycled water, she mused that her wash would be more than made up by the few billion she had just discovered that day.

Later that day, which was actually late into the 356-hour-long lunar night, Jim returned to the quarters he shared with Kira to a delightful smell. In addition to the extra 10 square meters they gained by sharing two technician-level accommodations, they had their own private san unit and a small cubby which served as an adequate kitchen of sorts. On this night, Kira used it to prepare one of her specialties.

From the entry hatch, she heard her partner's voice. "Hi honey, I'm home. What's cooking? It smells great."

He heard a delightful laugh as she responded. "Oh, just a little something I worked up. Grilled beef tenderloin with mushrooms. Cost me a few luxury rations but it's gonna' be way better than the usual microwaved Shinza."

Jim laughed. "Beef?"

"You know, vat-grown. They say it tastes like the real thing, but the shrooms are real. They grow them in some old tunnels near Environmental. Then again, you don't want to know what they fertilize them with."

Her friend leaned over, kissed her and smelled the delicious aroma. "I've had real beef, but this isn't even close."

"You've had beef, like from an animal?"

"Indeed, nothin' like it up here."

"I'm not sure that I could eat an animal,"

"You like the Tilapia from the Asian sector, they farm it right here on the Moon."

"That's different, fish is not an animal, you know with big brown eyes and stuff."

"Babe, fish are animals same as cows."

"If you say so. Hey, things are looking up. I made a big find today so I should be in for a nice bonus."

Jim nodded, stepped over, kissed her again and smiled. "That's what the rumors say. How big was it really?"

She returned the kiss and grinned. "Big, real big, like retire to some tropical island big. I'm not sure after that, they classified the whole find, but my rights as First Miner are already on the books."

Jim shrugged. "Babe, tropical island? I'm not sure that you would enjoy the gravity dirtside, so maybe we buy our own asteroid and mine platinum or something."

"Oh, right. Living in a hollowed-out rock in micro-gravity, I don't think so. I hear Mars is nice..."

Jim then smiled and poured them a tall ale from their latest special batch. "Don't worry, Kira. We'll figure something out, and the extra creds will be nice."

They toasted each other and Kira tapped a couple of keys to turn off the usual vid and audio feeds and turned on some symphonic metal from the last century. She reached into a drawer and removed an old-style mechanical pencil and paper notepad and scribbled:

That ice cavern I found is big, way big. Might be the legendary one from the Artemis-7 mission we read about. They are keeping that part all secret squirrel until the claim is filed. Don't say anything for now.

Jim read the handwritten note, nodded to Ki and then tore the paper into little bits and distributed the pieces into the san unit and compost bin.