Transmission from: Briony Ash, Head of Sericulture, Luxembourg Base, Copernicus D Crater, Moon
Earth Received Time: 8 November, 2045, 13:04:59 UT
I must remind you we are still waiting for your instructions on how to print the loom, and meanwhile the ever-increasing quantity of silk is taking up space we can ill afford. At least we have taught ourselves to plait the silk into strands which are proving useful as tethers. The combination of low gravity and artificial atmosphere within the dome results in the smaller of our belongings shifting to and fro in our wake, as if constantly set in motion by a tide, and these silken tethers prevent our eyecovers, headnets and fingerguards from slipping around our sleeppods. Nevertheless, we urgently await the instructions for this future loom and anticipate the time when we will be able to weave the many different varieties of medical devices you have deemed necessary for this settlement. We agree it is as well to have a supply of nets and trusses, to be prepared for all eventualities.
However the artificial lights in the dome are inadequate for such fine work harvesting the silk, we find we do better when there is the additional glow of the full Earth. As we unravel the cocoons and tease them into individual hairs, we may look up and see our former home rendered as a brilliant search-light, thus revealing the pupae in all their stages of arrested metamorphosis from wriggling and still-teethed worms to half-winged insects. We are becoming accomplished at this repeated disinterment, our executioners’ fingers make no errors as we unwind their shrouds and discard their bodies.
But I fear we are becoming too adept. We are god-like in the reference frame of the Bombyx luna, picking their world apart for reasons beyond their ken. Maybe this would be more bearable if I did not have to spend my time observing how they move when exposed by us, how even as they lie dying their antennae continue to twitch, attempting to seek out new homes, new shelters.
And maybe this is why I feel the urge to force silk into cracks in the dome’s wall, despite there being no cracks, or at least none that I have yet found. Nevertheless I sense things outside that are keen to take apart the dome and observe us. Alien rocks and sand are patient and can wait, and all I have as a defence against them is silk. It will do, for now.
Briony Ash was already a seasoned migrant on Earth by the age of twenty-five when she volunteered to be one of the livestock officers on the Moon’s third commercial base. Third time lucky, she says.
Transmission received via Pippa Goldschmidt
Image from Pauline Moss under Creative Commons Licence via DeviantArt
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