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"Tokyo, this is Icehawk One, beginning landing procedure in three, two,
one, mark!"

"Roger that, Icehawk One, and good luck."

Ami poured every ounce of concentration into her job.  True, the
computer could - and if things went according to plan, would - handle
everything, but even today the best AIs were nowhere near as adaptive
as human beings.  And if there was one constant about space projects,
it was having to adapt to the unexpected.  Her hallucinations certainly
did not help.

"Icehawk One, we show you drifting off course.  Please confirm."

"There's an obstruction at the primary landing site, Tokyo.  Altering
course to secondary site."

"We show no obstruction on our visuals."

"*Trust me.*"

An unidentifiable lump of rubble, and no, they would not have seen it.
She could always claim that it was merely too small to be seen from
Earth; she was, after all, mere kilometers from the site, while the
closest telescope they had was back in low Earth orbit.  But more than
that, it was both there and not there, just like the rest of her true
objective.

"Permission granted, Icehawk One, adjusting to secondary landing site.
Request advisory upon similar changes."

"Safety first, Tokyo.  I was going to tell you after I had finished the
course correction."

No complaint came back.  None could, realistically, and they knew it.
She was hardly the first pilot to put their own safety above comforting
the beauraucrats back home, even if she was among the first Japanese
pilots to leave Earth's atmosphere, and a private pilot at that.  The
regulators had no official say over her mission since she was funding
it out of her own pocket, but she did allow them to monitor and advise
so they would not make life difficult.  Sometimes she wondered if they
thought they owned outer space.  If she was right, there would be no
question that she owned the Moon once she was done.

Well, that Usagi owned the Moon, anyway.

"Icehawk One, landing ETA thirty seconds.  Please confirm startup of
landing thrusters."

"Confirmed, Tokyo."  As if she could miss their rumble in her landing
craft's cramped confines.  They could probably hear it over the radio
link.  "Landing thrusters engaged, all systems green."

The courtyard.  Flat even before the Moon Palace was attacked, and
reasonably flat thereafter.  Everyone else would see small craters, not
as flat as the primary landing site but still serviceable.  Ami saw
that it had held up remarkably well over the centuries.

"Icehawk One, we show touchdown, please confirm!!"

"Sorry, Tokyo, lost concentration for a moment there.  It's gorgeous
out.  Umm...right, right, touchdown confirmed.  Icehawk One has
landed."

"Icehawk One, please activate onboard camera."

"Roger, Tokyo, activating now."

"Icehawk One...well, it's a desolate beauty, I'll grant you that."

"Roger, Tokyo, there's no accounting for taste."  She giggled.  "Will
proceed with phase two.  Over and out."

Phase two was officially deployment of the Legged Unified
Nanofabricator/Assember, a mobile mining robot intended to set up
facilities to build almost anything out of local material.  Practically
all the work happened before she left Earth, making sure the robot had
tools that would work and be able to handle any situation it
encountered up here.  Humans would control the robot, but officially,
it might be quite some time before another human could actually come up
here to service it.  Moon missions were not cheap, even the better part
of a century after mankind's first landing here.

Unofficially, phase two would be directed by Luna, and was the real
reason she was so determined to get here.

As Ami stood up and put on her space suit's helmet, the rest of her
suit having been worn during her trip up, she winked into a small box
behind her seat, closed it, and double-checked to make sure the
pressure seals were good.  Officially, she was the only living being on
board, and would not need an airlock on this trip.  A feline space suit
would have raised even more inquiry.  But short-range radio between her
and the lander would be undetectable and unrecorded; besides, Luna felt
she might need proximity to guide Ami.

Ami picked up the LUN/A, surprised at its light weight even though she
knew to expect it.  A moment's reflection showed she underestimated the
feeling of lightness, much like how knowing a feather is lighter than a
dumbell does not always imply expecting the dumbell not to move when
one applies force sufficient to lift a feather.  She knocked on her
lander's hull to make sure she could hear through the suit, then tapped
the button to depressurize the lander, listening carefully for any
yowls of alarm that would cause her to repressurize immediately.  None
came by the time the light over the door switched from green to red.

"Luna, can you hear me?"

"I'm fine, Ami.  Though I must say, I'm glad you insisted I not have
anything before coming up.  Now I see why you spent so long in
astronaut training."

"Space sick, Luna?  Don't worry, I'm told you get used to it quickly."

"Maybe *you* do.  I sincerely doubt they have as much data on cats."

"Don't worry, no matter what happens we probably won't be coming up
here that way too many more times."

"I know, I know.  If we're completely unsuccessful, we're broke.  If
the factory succeeds but that's all we find, we'll be rich enough to
rebuild the Moon Kingdom, starting with a space elevator.  And if there
*are* ruins..."

"I can see them from here, Luna.  Just let me set up the robot, then
I can hang around and 'monitor it' until we're ready to go home."  Ami
stepped out and knelt, sprinkling some salt over the ground in front of
her in a purification ritual she had promised Rei on a lark.  Then she
set the robot down, opened its armored case, pushed a button, examined
what few diagnostics were present, and closed the case to activate it.
Many seconds later, the robot shuddered to life, experimentally flexed
each of its six ant-like legs, and scurried off towards the south.
Some had wondered why Ami insisted on landing in the Mare Serentatis
and dispatching the robot from there to the ice-rich south pole, rather
than just landing at the pole directly, but Ami was comfortable with
her excuses of both having a final system shakedown, and having the
robot do an on-site mass spectrograph at certain points from the mare
to the pole to confirm the results of earlier orbital surveys, before
mining began.  "Ok, all set.  Ground control should have all of its
attention on that robot right about...*now*, so now I'm disposable as
far as they're concerned."

"Except for the fact that you own that robot."

"A technicality.  If we blow up on the way back, they'll shed one tear
total before arguing over who inherits legal ownership.  And if we make
it back alive, then so long as I pay enough taxes and bribes when I
sell its products..."

"You're getting depressing, Ami.  Let's just get on with it."

"Roger."  She swung the lander's door closed, then pushed a button to
toggle pressurization.  The technicians thought she only wanted a way
to depressurize the ship if it accidentally pressurized itself while
she was away; they would not have believed her if she told them she
really wanted to pressurize it from the outside.

Inside, Luna waited for the pressure seals to loosen as the cabin
regained its air, then nudged open her box.  Climbing up the chair, she
quickly scanned the board and pounced on one control like a mouse.
"Uplink deactivated.  Tokyo can no longer see through our cameras; they
have only the robot."

"Which is probably over the horizon already."  Ami shrugged, not even
glancing away from her objective to confirm.  "Do you see it?"

"No."

"Look out the window, not through the camera.  Electronics give us the
same view as anyone else."

Luna blushed under her fur, remembering that Ami had told her about
this when she first broke the news of her observations via telescope.
She swivelled her head...and gasped into her collar microphone.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I...never in my dreams of this place have I seen it in such
disrepair."

"A thousand years of neglect, after an apoctalyptic battle you didn't
see the end of...I'm surprised there's as much still standing as there
is."  Ami stepped forward, seeing bare dust and the Moon Palace's front
pool overlaid on top of one another, dust about one decimeter above
water level.  She reached down to scoop up the water...but her suit's
glove stopped at the dust.

Luna watched Ami through the window.  "Hmm.  It would appear that the
palace is an illusion after all."

"No.  No, I can *feel* it.  They're both here, both everyone else's
moon, and our reincarnated one."

Luna's tail twitched.  "But how are you going to prove it?"

Ami looked around.  "The columns."  She bounded towards a nearby pillar
of white marble, that had once been one of a series of proud sentinels
over this place but now was merely the tallest object within ten
meters, thanks to having only lost its top third.  Ami reached it in
two jumps, her heart demanding belief to the point where she
subconsciously shifted her shoulder to ram it.  She felt a moment of
disbelief when her suit's skin passed through it...but her flesh
impacted and rebounded just fine, taking the suit with it.  Ami
blinked, instinctively reaching towards her shoulder to rub it, as the
column toppled over from her collision.

Of all of humanity, only Ami could have possibly realized what was
about to happen quick enough to shout, "LUNA!  The camera!" before it
happened.

Luna blinked, then looked over her shoulder to the black and white
monitor that showed Ami close to its edge...and a moment later, a puff
of dust and a new depression in the shape of a fallen column at its
edge.  "It saw.  It would seem the Moon Kingdom ruins are indeed here,
just cloaked somehow."

Ami nodded.  "By magic.  But if we can counteract the magic...maybe
sprinkle dust on the ruins..."

"I don't think that'll work.  This place is levelled enough that even
a thorough covering couldn't easily be distinguished from natural
terrain."

"..."

"Ami?"

"I don't think that'll be a problem."

The LUN/A trained its unblinking electronic eye on the rapidly
settling dust cloud, then on Ami - surprised that it had snuck so
close, then chiding herself for forgetting that sound does not carry in
a vacuum - then on the column impression.  "Icehawk One, this is Tokyo.
Confirm secondary objective complete: will schedule archaeological
excavation pending a briefing on what you already know about this
place.  We'll ignore your remarks about us, but could you please tell
us who in blazes is Luna?"

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                     desaix@sysnet.net
Sir Desaix, member # 116 of the Knights of the True Fiancee           
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