The Gaiascope

(see: Interspex, by Clark Nida)

The Moon, as it orbits the Earth, always presents the same face to its primary. Consequently the Earth stays put, more or less, in the lunar sky.

Jordvik ("Earth Creek") is sited underground in the Sinus Medii near Crater Priscilla. That’s pretty well the centre of the lunar disk as seen from Earth. Consequently the Earth hangs permanently at the zenith over Jordvik, moving round in a circle smaller than its disk. The inhabitants of Jordvik, so the story tells us, took advantage of this fact to build a gigantic camera-obscura to view the Earth. A vast lens in the roof needed very little levelling to track the Earth and project its image onto a screen as wide as a circus ring.

It was the Pride of Jordvik. Part pleasure-park, part stadium, part temple (of a secular sort), the Gaiascope was one of the Seven Wonders of the Universe. People came from all over the Moon to sit and contemplate the continents, the cloud patterns and the ripples on the oceans of the Earth: each “ripple” a cluster of mighty breakers.

And at the time of the Full Moon, when the Earth was dark, they came to watch lightning play across the Earth’s night sky, and see the city lights like cobwebs in the grass. Huge cities, nestling in the cracks and tips of continents, feeding off the land and poisoning the sea.

“Tiny phosphorescent spots of rot”, as the hero thinks to himself.

More...    Back to Interspex    Home