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Virgil Augustine’s cell phone rang just as he was reaching for his coat to go home. It was Bud Roldan, the facilities director for the museum. “You still in the building, Virgil?” Bud asked.
1st lines
“Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” “We don’t know,” Willa said. “I led a school trip through here at two. The rock was still there then. I came through a little after five thirty and this was there.” She pointed at the white object wedged in the display. “I stared at it stupidly for a couple of minutes and then I called Bud. He called you. Here we are.”
Virgil said. “Let’s see what the cameras saw.” The cameras saw nothing.
have a briefing with the president in exactly half an hour, and because we all know he doesn’t bother to read the daily intelligence briefing, it will fall to me to explain what the hell is going on. So explain it to me. Use small words on me so I can use smaller words on him.
there are three other sets of mirrors, two from the Soviet era and one from the Indian moon landing in 2023. Those stopped working as well.” “We asked the Russians and Indians about this?” Heffernan asked. “No, we shot lasers at those mirrors, too.” Dixon
“It’s beginning to feel like ‘Who’s on First’ in here,” he said. He looked around the table and saw blank expressions, and realized how much older he was than all the other people at the table.
“It’s not just that it’s cheese,” Dixon burst out, raising her head again. “It’s that it’s undifferentiated cheese.” “Is that … a type of cheese?” Heffernan asked. “She means that it’s the same all the way through,”
“What kind of cheese?” and the answer, if any, was drowned out in the general commotion of seventeen other astronauts calling bullshit on John Able and NASA generally.
“We got confirmation at about six a.m. this morning,” he said. “How?” “Spectral analysis of an eruption on the moon,” he said.
“It’s a geyser. The moon is compressing. The cheese is beginning to break down. The water is being squeezed out and is erupting on the surface.”
“Not a great week to be a scientist or a believer in a rational universe.”
I hear that
“We are confronted with a seemingly impossible proposition, that the moon has turned to cheese. And we live in an age where disinformation not only exists, but is actively used as a tool by pundits and political parties.”
Just because we want an explanation—just because we need an explanation—doesn’t mean the universe is obliged to provide one.”
from the point of view of those affected, the change is sudden and inexplicable. It happens without apparent cause or reason. There is nothing to be done about it. It just is. And we have to deal with it, or not. In this respect we are no different than the dinosaurs who looked up in the sky sixty-five million years ago and saw the meteor bearing down on them. What we might think or believe or hope is immaterial to the unfathomable reality of what it is that is above us.”
A year prior he’d publicly committed to a “land-free lifestyle,” ostensibly as a way to publicly criticize other billionaires for their conspicuous consumption, but in reality as a way to cover his divorce settlement with his second wife, who had not run off with any business partner, but who still managed to screw him thanks to the poorly designed prenup that he had written himself against the advice of his lawyer,
Whether the US can use the lunar landers is their problem. Your problem is getting paid. If you don’t get paid—and you won’t without a launch—you’re fucked. So: Keep to your launch schedule.”
He also knew that he was going to ignore those directives. Jody’s lunar lander wasn’t destined for Earth orbit. It was destined for the moon. And that’s where it was going to go.
“Oh, honey, that’s just Kirkus,” she replied. “Everyone knows they don’t hire reviewers who are capable of joy.”
“They’re going to want you to talk about the moon turning to cheese.” “They’ve confirmed it’s cheese?” “It’s all over the news.” “What kind of cheese?” “Darling, that’s what they want to ask you,” Aubrey said.
Dayton was dumbfounded. “And this is all because I wrote a chapter on the moon turning to cheese in my pop science book.” “In the direct, immediate sense, yes. In a larger sense, darling, it’s because the world is chaos right now and everyone is looking for someone to make sense of it.
The history of human civilization is the history of what was considered the magical and mystical slowly but surely being explained.
“The devil stole the moon from God and made the new one.” This bit of information was courtesy of MayLindah Cooper, age seven.
Most prominent among these is Universal’s Space: 2099, the reboot of the classic Space: 1999 television series from ITV, in which the moon was knocked from its orbit. The Albert Manx–directed film, already infamous for its producer squabbles and endless cycle of script rewrites, was shut down on Friday after three weeks of production.
From the Chicago Tribune: Everyone Wants to Know: How Can I Eat the Moon Cheese? Spoiler: You can’t and it probably wouldn’t taste good anyway. By Nadine Barnes
“And what will you do with the moon cheese when you have it?” Lopez asked. “Eat it, of course!” Rose said. “Imagine, Eric, being the first human in the history of the world to eat moon cheese! No one else before you! Ever! That’s worth any price.”
rapture. That particular Miller reappeared two seconds later. “Houston, we have a problem. The simulation was overridden.” “Overridden by what?” Able said. “By Major Tom.” “Say again, Manta?” “Houston, the simulation was overridden by the lunar module.”
Q: What would you say to the other billionaires who have space companies? A: Just this: Hey, Elon and Jeff? Ha ha hah lol suck it, dudes.
lol
It’s not fair. But it’s the world that we’ve made for ourselves, isn’t it. Or at least, the world that we let those who we elected decide was the one we should have.”
“Some of that material that got thrown out by the eruption of the moon now appears to be in orbit around it,” Xiaoli said. The cheese moon now has its own cheese moons, in other words.
‘We Will Work the Problem in Front of Us.’” “I didn’t think that one up.” “I know this. You might owe Andy Weir a royalty payment for it.”
From the Guardian: So Are We Doomed or What?
From the Washington Post: An Eclipse, Eclipsed A once-in-a-lifetime celestial event has been overshadowed by current events. Is anybody going to bother to look up?
“You’re not wrong. A moon made of cheese is not in the Bible. Jesus doesn’t speak of it, just like he didn’t speak of microwaves, or of cell phones, or of airplanes or of the United States of America, or of Maquoketa. The Bible is only so long. It can’t contain everything. We shouldn’t focus on what it doesn’t say, but what it does say.
“The only real thing we have to worry about is whenever it is that everyone finally says ‘screw this’ and quits their jobs. That’s the real end of everything, when it comes to the markets, and wealth, and, well, getting things from stores.”
The whole point here is that we won’t use it until we have to. But when we have to, we’ll have it. Which will be a competitive advantage when the time comes.” “So we can be the last bank on Earth,” Holland said.
“What does ‘curse of the gifted kid’ mean?” “It means that when you’re a gifted kid, everything is easy, until it isn’t, and then when it isn’t, you get really frustrated, really fast,” Marc said. “Ask me how I know about that.”
“The irony,” Alton said. “All those shitty people were right not to worry about trashing the planet.” “They weren’t right,” Clyde said. “They just missed out having to deal with the consequences. That’s different.”
“Then the two of you will have to share a bedroom.” Alton turned to Dave. “I snore.” “That’s all right,” Dave said. “I fart.”
You were the muse. The muse for the songs that made me famous, which allowed all the other songs to be written too.
Ten Years On, Doubt Is Rising about Caseus Nearly a third of Americans now believe the “cheese moon” never existed. By Benni Hwang
Jody Bannon, the presumed mastermind of the hoax who engineered his own “death” to lend it an air of authenticity, disappeared after its failure. Five decades after his disappearance, shepherds in the Tierra del Fuego province of Argentina produced human remains claimed to be Bannon’s. DNA analysis, however, proved to be inconclusive.
Last Lines
page designer Heather Saunders, cover designer Peter Lutjen,
