BigBug
Chapter VII

The results of the chemical analysis of Moon’s meteorite came back from the laboratory. There are a several types of meteorites - iron, stony, stony iron, pallasites, mesosiderite, carbonaceous chondrites and achondrites. We also have the Lunar and Martian meteorites. It’s possible we have some meteorites from Venus but no one can prove this as we don’t have comparative data. All meteorites have their own distinctive characteristics. The chemical composition of Moon’s rock did not match any of them. It matched a planetary composition as distinct from asteroid. What was interesting was that Moon’s rock contained Iridium. Forty four point five parts per billion. This does not appear to be a lot but Iridium is so rare in the Earth’s crust (0.30 ppb - if one can find even that), that we can say it really doesn’t exist except that which has been deposited by extra-terrestrial events such as meteorite or comet impact. The incoming meteorite or asteroid, travelling at such enormous speed, is mostly vaporized on impact but the space rock leaves some of its Iridium and other platinum group elements (PGEs) in the impact melt rocks and crater, usually one to five per cent. The discovery of Iridium at the K-T boundary by Professor Alverez proved his theory that the dinosaurs died out as the result of a huge meteoritic impact that took place in the Mexican Gulf 65 million years ago. The resultant impact, we believe, blackened out the sun and this, with other catastrophic events, led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Seamus and Moon were very excited to find Iridium in the rock. As far as they were concerned, as far as the literature said, the Iridium had to have come from outer space.

They had a choice. If the rock was a piece of a planet and the Iridium in the rock was there as a result of meteoritic impact on which planet did the impact take place? It was a choice of the Earth, the Moon or Mars. They had to rule out an earth rock. It was theoretically possible an earth rock, in the distant past, was hurled up into space and then fell back through the earth’s atmosphere giving it the fusion crust. That was highly improbable. Such a rock would have been buried many millions of years ago. Even more revealing and exciting was that, after further reading of the Actlabs analysis, it showed that the Chondrite Normalized REE chart of Moons rock was very similar, in some cases identical, to the Moon rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo missions and also in some Lunar meteorites, in particular SaU 169.

This was exciting news.

Lunar meteorites are exceedingly rare and enormously valuable. Martian meteorites even more so. Some can sell for up to ten thousand dollars per gram. Moon became very excited at this information. He was eating chocolate croissants and drinking hot chocolate with a nip of brandy and smoking a Northern Lights spliff. The meteorite was on the table beside him.

“Let us say five thousand dollars a gram that’s about 30 million. Non, non, mon Dieu, let’s start with one thousand dollars a gram. Anything else is a benevolent bonus from on high. If we get a grand a gram and the meteorite is almost ten kilos well that’s six million dollars, and,” he said, very reasonably dishing out the bargains, “that’s at the lowest price.” He grabbed the meteorite, kissed it and said to it, “We will have to fatten you up mon chère. Don’t want you to lose weight, develop SAE.”

Seamus raised an eyebrow.

“Stony anorexia erosion caused by domestic weathering and brought about by the global warming. We don’t want that to happen. Do we? Where’s your geology?” He looked at Seamus inviting agreement.

“O no. Force feed it if necessary.” Seamus thought when in the loony bin, say what the loonies say. Forgive the Latin. Agree with the odd folk and save ones tranquillizers for the end of the next Mayan calendar when, surely, you know what is going to happen. Seamus cautioned Moon. “The chemical composition is not that of a lunar rock or a lunar meteorite. The chart of the REE pattern is interesting though. Your rock is a mystery to the scientists. Actlabs are completely baffled, especially by the small spherules it contains.” Moon thought hard.

“I have got it. These wee spherules are mini doughnuts for the little people. For the lunar leprechauns. Let me see this REE pattern chart.”

Seamus handed him the chart. Moon’s face lit up. “I told you didn’t I?” He stuck the REE chart on the wall with chewing gum. “This chart,” he said, pointing at it with a wooden spoon, caked with last night’s chicken curry, “is the exact shape of an Albatross in profile.”

Moon was awe struck.

The chart was the very same shape as a pencil drawing that a child would make, perhaps, of a seagull or let it be said an Albatross in profile high up, flying towards you. As far as Moon was concerned, never mind science, this was proof positive the rock was a lunar meteorite.

“Your rock has a different chemical composition,” Seamus repeated.

“It may not even be a meteorite.” This warning sparked off the Moon in a defensive rant, a DR, otherwise known as a moonologue.

“What do scientists know of the Moon? How many of them have been up there? Nothing and none. There are your answers. The boffins know even less about the earth than they do about the chemical composition of the moon. The boffins only know what they read and that knowledge comes from books that they write themselves. In the real world, they know sweet Fanny Adams. They have only scratched the surface of the Moon. They bring us back a few rocks and then are we to believe all the Moon is made just like this, just like that, and just because the Americans tell us? Do you know what Kennedy said to the astronauts just before liftoff to the moon?” Moon stood up and placed his hands on the table pretending he was President Kennedy on the podium in Berlin. “Ik ben ein Amsterdammer! That’s what he said when he was here. He had a couple of days off before his Germany trip. Chilled out in the Bulldog in Leidseplein. The EWAB have all the info on it.”

“I would like to read that.”

“In your dreams. Sorry. Highly classified and super sensitive. You know what people are like when they go on the rip in the Red Light in the Dam and Kennedy being a good Irish Catholic and all that brings but, you know, well I suppose I can break security and tell you, JFK was chatting to Neil Armstrong just before launch of Apollo 11 and he said to Neil - bring me back a few rock boys for the garden in the Whitehouse. The First Lady is building a rockery. Yes, sir, Mr President. So what were the Apollo missions?”

“I don’t remember,” said Seamus slyly. He did not want to interrupt the moonologues.

“And I am not surprised you cannot recall with the mass amnesia programme the feds are running. They are infecting the beer with forget-me-do liqueur. Now you know the meaning of blackout. Eh? O aye. The Apollo missions were nothing more than akin to bus runs to Brighton and all because Jackie Kennedy was building a rockery at the Whitehouse. The Apollo missions were just an excursion to the ego. Believe me.” Moon paused in his DR. He looked at the chart. He looked at his rock.

Seamus put on the kettle while Moon stoked himself up with PIE.

Moon blew marijuana smoke on the meteorite. “Stone to stone,” he whispered to the rock. “What if it? Stop the lights. I have got it. That’s it. I have worked it out. This meteorite is from the dark side of the Moon and the First Lady’s lunar bus run rocks are all sunny side up. The dark side of the moon. Where’s my Pink Floyd CD? This meteorite could have come from two or three hundred miles down on the dark side and was thrown up in one of the huge impacts that hit the Moon. Some of those craters were created with explosive forces equivalent to thousands, maybe millions, of nuclear bombs. It was on T.V. Did you watch that programme? I forget the name of it but you will know it if you ever watch it. It was made by that famous guy, you know him, sir, what’s his name? Non, non, non, mon ami, use your little green cells. We know very little about the chemical composition of the Moon, and the scientists even less. They believe we don’t know damned all about something but they don’t know damned all about anything. I can’t see any of those NASA geeks and their Barbie wives leaving their barbecues, by their swimming pools, in the lovely California sunshine, to plod about the dark side of the moon, collecting rocks. Can you? Think about it.”

“Well, not at the weekend.”

“We. Us. They. All of us, “he cried out passionately, “We abused humans are interbreeds, IBs, that have been genetically manipulated, reduced and degraded to a lazy, ignorant, greedy, backward, violent, pampered species, and to what end? All we can do, with our years and years of inbred training, is peel potatoes, and then we have to boil them up before we can even eat them. We warriors have been weeded out. On top of all that we are cooking up the planet, turning the earth into a giant microwave and the weirdoes in white coats deny global warming even exists. There are no barbecues or swimming pools in the front line or in no man’s land. On the moon, you’d have to eat your potatoes raw like the proper Super Paddies did of old. Just as a matter of interest, and there will be more later when I think about it, when it filters through me mesh. Do you know what Wellington said of the Irish regiments?”

“He never told me.”

“Keep their feet dry, give them a bag of potatoes, a big stick and a holy medal to send home to mother and you can do anything with them.”

He winked at Seamus and he winked back. Significant Alternative Philosophy, SAP. Seamus had once seen Moon eat a raw spud on St Patrick’s Day to prove his theory about Super Paddy, SP, but Seamus said nothing in reply, because, to tell you the truth, he was secretly very fond of that great English gastronomic masterpiece bangers and mash. (That’s mashed potato Moon explains for our rice eating readers) Seamus doesn’t mind the potatoes being peeled, a secret he holds very close to his plate because he also does not want to be ostracised by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs for culinary treachery. It’s a plain boiled spud or the gallows in the land of saints and scholars. Seamus didn’t argue, or encourage Moon, in his manic monologues, his DR, because he did not want to divert him. Seamus did not want to leave any pent up defensive rant in Moon. He needed Moon’s cooperation to unravel the mystery of this very odd rock and it was Moon’s property. Seamus stayed in scientific mode. Moon would undoubtedly understand this. He was by modern conventional standards mad and in no way shy about his mad madness. In fact, he believed it was we who were all mad. Moon was clever, very clever, and if he was interested in a subject he had an intuitive understanding of the pertinent and sometimes hidden matters not normally seen by us less clever common folk. His mind worked in a different way to most other humans. Bigbug and DATA agree with this opinion. A most unusual human mind. Seamus disengaged his thinking and came back to the now. He nodded in agreement and sympathy with Moon.

“So let’s start from a common denominator. The rock contains Iridium so it has to be there as a result of an impact. Agreed?”

Moon nodded but he was still staring at the REE chart.

“We should then look for signs of impact in the rock and then when we find them we can try and find out on which planet this impact took place.”

“You can do that but it’s a waste of time,” shouted Moon. “Look at the evidence,” he was pointing at the REE chart with the wooden spoon, “it’s the shape of an Albatross and it is my meteorite. Iridium can only come from outer space. What more do you want? A sign from God? Do you want Jesus to jerk himself down off the cross with a Roman crowbar and write it up on the Gasworks’ wall in the blood of the innocents? Beware the moon rock is neigh! Or do you want a Moon hooligan to come down and tie a wee note onto it as provenance? Dear Doubting Earthling, I was throwing rocks at the lunar police riot squad, LPRS, during the crater tax protests, and my rock hit a wicked moon porker’s head and ricocheted off. Up, up and away it shot, into space, and ended up in Moon’s potato patch. Sincerely, yours, a Lunar Hooligan. PS: please wipe the rock in case me tentacle prints are on it. Someone should write a B-cartoon about it. Get real for fuck's sake.” He took a deep drag on his spiff. Rare stuff that Northern Lights. It can incubate PIE in a penguin. Moon grew the weed, fifty plants a crop, in Seamus’s basement. It’s hot favourite to win the cannabis cup. Seamus doesn’t think there will be any crop left for the competition because it will not survive the impact with Moon. Seamus gave Moon the thumbs up and winked at him. It was good to know these things.

“All right,” agreed Seamus, “but we have to prove it is a meteorite or the rock is worthless. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I am in contact with a German professor who is an expert in impact craters and the features of impact rocks. He has a formidable intellect. He is a Professor in two disciplines and has a doctorate in another. He speaks six languages. English is his third language and his English is better than yours, though this is not on his C.V. Highly intelligent, very nice, chap. I’d like to send him a small part of the rock so he can take a look at it.”

“Well maybe, but a small part - a very small part,” said Moon, “these moon meteorites are valuable stuff.” He offered the rock, the last one of his chocolate croissants patted it and whispered, ‘coochy coo coochy coo.’ Seamus was flabbergasted. Such generosity, such magnanimity does not naturally occur in the human species and it is such an uplifting spiritual thing to see and to experience. Despite Moon’s dire warnings that we are a psychopathic species hell bent on the destruction of ourselves and Mother Earth, Seamus harboured great hopes now for our long-term development and ultimate survival. Seamus no longer lay awake in bed at dawn, shivering, waiting for anonymous regime change psychopathic policy makers to rain down upon us their state of the art nuclear warheads, or the winds of man-made plague, to sweep the streets clean of we great unwashed unwanted masses. With men like Moon in our midst, the Earth will be saved. Moon has confirmed it and says of this salvation we can be certain. Seamus was choked with emotion and Moon was rolling another spiff.

“Keep it together Moon. It’s quiz night at Finnegan’s. Remember our arrangement?”

“I’m not drinking.” He was smiling. It was a most expectant greedy grin.

“You don’t need to. Just make sure you’re on time. Play it cool. I’m going to be working behind the bar giving Marjolien a hand.”

“I have Total Recall. You should never have sold Finnegan’s.”

“No choice. My best customers were all my mates, you among them.”

“I worked for my beer.”

“And great work too if you can get it.”

When Seamus owned Finnegan’s he had a bar full of oddballs all demanding attention and advice and all broke. He had to have signs made and hung above the bar – I am not a Credit Union, a Psychologist, a Marriage Guidance Counsellor or a Brewery. Please do not ask us for money, drugs, firearms, advice, free beer and sex on the side, as a refusal often offends. Please do not ask for psychiatric counselling as a refusal may aggravate your paranoia.”

“It was a great pub when you had it.”

“I was my own best customer. I was at one time thinking of changing the name to The Happy Locust, there were that many strange characters infesting the place.”

“It was a great crack. You were magic behind the bar.”

“The bank manager and the brewery didn’t think so. They thought the customers should pay cash for their drinks the same way you do, if you go into the bakery and buy a loaf of bread, you pay for it. Cash, there and then they wanted. Pay as you drink.”

“Shower of anti-social wankers from the gene pool of gits.” ASW’s.

“Heartless. They are pure heartless. What’s the world coming to? I had to work on Marjolein to get you in. It was not easy. Memorise the answers.”

“I’ll be there on time mon ami and I will behave myself. Send me the answers to the questions. I have Total Recall. It will be a pleasure to fuck up the Geni Quartet.”

As indeed it was. As indeed he did.

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