Larry Niven - Inconstant Moon

I was watching the news when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my eye. I turned toward the balcony window. Whatever it was, I was too late to catch it.

The moon was very bright tonight.

I saw that, and smiled, and turned back. Johnny Carson was just starting his monologue.

When the first commercials came on I got up to reheat some coffee. Commercials came in strings of three and four, going on midnight. Id have time.

The moonlight caught me coming back. If it had been bright before, it was brighter now. Hypnotic. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony.

The balcony wasnt much more than a railed ledge, with standing room for a man and a woman and a portable barbecue set. These past months the view had been lovely, especially around sunset. The Power and Light Company had been putting up a glass-slab style office building. So far it was only a steel framework of open girders. Shadow-blackened against a red sunset sky, it tended to look stark and surrealistic and hellishly impressive.

Tonight

I had never seen the moon so bright, not even in the desert. Bright enough to read by, I thought, and immediately, but thats an illusion. The moon was never bigger (I had read somewhere) than a quarter held nine feet away. It couldnt possibly be bright enough to read by.

It was only three-quarters full!

But, glowing high over the San Diego Freeway to the west, the moon seemed to dim even the streaming automobile headlights. I blinked against its light, and thought of men walking on the moon, leaving corrugated footprints. Once, for the sake of an article I was writing, I had been allowed to pick up a bone-dry moon rock and hold it in my hand

I heard the show starting again, and I stepped inside. But, glancing once behind me, I caught the moon growing even brighteras if it had come from behind a wisp of scudding cloud.

Now its light was brain-searing, lunatic.

The phone rang five times before she answered.

Hi, I said. Listen

Hi, Leslie said sleepily, complainingly. Damn. Id hoped she was watching television, like me.

I said, Dont scream and shout, because I had a reason for calling. Youre in bed, right? Get up and can you get up?

What time is it?

Quarter of twelve.

Oh, Lord.

Go out on your balcony and look around.

Okay.

The phone clunked. I waited. Leslies balcony faced north and west, like mine, but it was ten stories higher, with a correspondingly better view. Through my own window, the moon burned like a textured spotlight.

Stan? You there?

Yah. What do you think of it?

Its gorgeous. Ive never seen anything like it. What could make the moon light up like that?

I dont know, but isnt it gorgeous?

Youre supposed to be the native. Leslie had only moved out here a year ago. Listen, Ive never seen it like this. But theres an old legend, I said. Once every hundred years the Los Angeles smog rolls away for a single night, leaving the air as clear as interstellar space. That way the gods can see if Los Angeles is still there. If it is, they roll the smog back so they wont have to look at it.

I used to know all that stuff. Well, listen, Im glad you woke me up to see it, but Ive got to get to work tomorrow.

Poor baby.

Thats life. Night.

Night.

Afterward I sat in the dark, trying to think of someone else to call. Call a girl at midnight, invite her to step outside and look at the moonlight and she may think its romantic or she may be furious, but she wont assume you called six others.

So I thought of some names. But the girls who belonged to them had all dropped away over the past year or so, after I started spending all my time with Leslie. One could hardly blame them. And now Joan was in Texas and Hildy was getting married, and if I called Louise Id probably get Gordie too. The English girl? But I couldnt remember her number. Or her last name.

Besides, everyone I knew punched a time clock of one kind or another. Me, I worked for a living, but as a freelance writer I picked my hours. Anyone I woke up tonight, Id be ruining her morning. Ah, well

The Johnny Carson Show was a swirl of gray and a roar of static when I got back to the living room. I turned the set off and went back out on the balcony.

The moon was brighter than the flow of headlights on the freeway, brighter than Westwood Village off to the right. The Santa Monica Mountains had a magical pearly glow. There were no stars near the moon. Stars could not survive that glare.

I wrote science and how-to articles for a living. I ought to be able to figure out what was making the moon do that. Could the moon be suddenly larger?

Inflating like a balloon? No. Closer, maybe. The moon, falling?

Tides! Waves fifty feet high and earthquakes! San Andreas Fault splitting apart like the Grand Canyon ! Jump in my car, head for the hills no, too late already

Nonsense. The moon was brighter, not bigger. I could see that. And what could possibly drop the moon on our heads like that?

I blinked, and the moon left an afterimage on my retinae. It was that bright.

A million people must be watching the moon right now, and wondering, like me. An article on the subject would sell big if I wrote it before anyone else did

There must be some simple, obvious explanation.

Well, how could the moon grow brighter? Moonlight reflected sunlight. Could the sun have gotten brighter? It must have happened after sunset, then, or it would have been noticed

I didnt like that idea.

Besides, half the Earth was in direct sunlight. A thousand correspondents for Life and Time and Newsweek and Associated Press would all be calling in from Europe, Asia, Africa unless they were all hiding in cellars. Or dead. Or voiceless, because the sun was blanketing everything with static, radio and phone systems and television television: Oh my God.

I was just barely beginning to be afraid.

All right, start over. The moon had become very much brighter. Moonlight, well, moonlight was reflected sunlight; any idiot knew that. Then something had happened to the sun.

Hello?

Hi. Me, I said, and then my throat froze solid. Panic! What was I going to tell her?

Ive been watching the moon, she said dreamily. Its wonderful. I even tried to use my telescope, but I couldnt see a thing; it was too bright. It lights up the whole city. The hills are all silver.

Thats right, she kept a telescope on her balcony. Id forgotten.

I havent tried to go back to sleep, she said, too much light.

I got my throat working again. Listen, Leslie love, I started thinking about how I woke you up and how you probably couldnt get back to sleep, what with all this light. So lets go out for a midnight snack.

Are you out of your mind?

No, Im serious. I mean it. Tonight isnt a night for sleeping. We may never have a night like this again. To hell with your diet. Lets celebrate. Hot fudge sundaes, Irish coffee

Thats different. Ill get dressed.

Ill be right over.

Leslie lived on the fourteenth floor of Building C of the Barrington Plaza. I rapped for admission, and waited.

And waiting, I wondered without any sense of urgency: Why Leslie?

There must be other ways to spend my last night on Earth, than with one particular girl. I could have picked a different particular girl, or even several not too particular girls, except that that didnt really apply to me, did it? Or I could have called my brother, or either set of parents

Well, but brother Mike would have wanted a good reason for being hauled out of bed at midnight. But, Mike, the moon is so beautiful- Hardly. Any of my parents would have reacted similarly. Well, I had a good reason, but would they believe me?