Free Helium3 - 1 Crater by Homer Hickam

sweet—Crater couldn’t identify it— through the hidden vents in the ceiling and floor, and the occasional click of the receptionist’s fingers on the keyboard of her puter.
    After precisely one hour, the receptionist looked his way and said, “The Colonel will see you now.” She rose as Crater did, her duty apparently to open the ornate door to the great sanctum. “Colonel, he’s here,” she announced, followed by the Colonel’s parade-ground voice booming, “At last he’s arrived!
    Send him in, Diana, send him in!”
    The receptionist stepped aside to let Crater pass, the big door swinging shut behind him with a soft click. Crater was instantly in awe of the Colonel’s office. Paneled in a warm brown with patterned faux woods and a floor cushioned by a soft, green carpet, it was not like anything Crater had ever seen. Alongside a massive desk were enormous globes of the Earth and the moon, both set on stands made of what appeared to be bronze. There was also a gilded placard on the front of the Colonel’s desk that said De inimico non loquaris sed cogites which Crater recognized as Latin and meant—if the instruction he had received from a former Latin professor turned heel-3 miner meant anything— Do not wish ill for your enemy; plan it .
    The Colonel was seated on a stool in front of the moon globe. “Do you like maps, Crater?” he asked. “I have been contemplating the geologic map of the nearside northern hemisphere, which includes most of the present civilization of the moon. Come over here. I want you to have a better look.”
    Crater came closer and peered at the gray globe. It had black letters on it identifying the craters, mountains, plains, rilles, and settlements. It was so beautiful Crater wanted to touch it, but he didn’t dare. “Our planet,” the Colonel said.
    â€œMagnificent, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWhat do you know of it?”
    There were many experts on the moon, and Crater had been taught by a few of them at the Dust Palace. “Well, the moon’s surface is about 14.6 million square miles, a little smaller than Asia on Earth,” he recited. “In terms of volume, about fifty moons could fit inside the Earth. It has a complex geologic structure including mountains, rilles, basins, all covered with a rubble of rock fragments and dust we call the regolith.”
    â€œAnd your namesake, the craters,” the Colonel added.
    â€œTrue is, sir. Craters represent the bombardment history of the inner solar system.”
    â€œVery good. Now, tell me. What kinds of rocks are on our little planet?”
    â€œThree kinds, sir. Basalts, anorthosites, and breccia. Basalts are the lava rocks that fill our basins, anorthosites are the bright rocks that make up our highlands, and breccia are composites, mostly caused by meteor, comet, and asteroid impacts.”
    The Colonel’s eyes warmed. “You’ve learned your lessons well. I will have to compliment her royal highness Q-Bess for tending to your education. But what did she and her lodgers teach you of Earth?”
    â€œOf its geology, sir?”
    â€œI was thinking more of the history of the people who live on it.”
    Crater formed his thoughts around the stories he’d been taught by various tutors over the years, then answered, “As far as what we call Western Civilization, I know the Egyptians seemed to get things started, then there were the Greeks who figured a lot of things out about math, and then the Romans who were ruthless but great organizers and engineers, and then there were the dark ages, which really weren’t all that dark because a lot of wonderful cathedrals got built. All that was followed by the Renaissance where people started to throw off superstition like their belief in witches and wizards and the evil eye and stuff, and then came the rise of European countries and then the