The rest of the world called the French national day, "Bastille Day". But the French merely referred to it as "le 14 juillet" or "la Fête Nationale". Back home, it had been a day to dance in the village balls and city discotheques, to watch fireworks in the warm summer night, to drink a lot and sing the Marseillaise very loudly and out of tune. On Alpha, it was simply an excuse for the French speakers to get together and have a momentary break from speaking English.

This year, the Castellanos were hosting the celebrations. As she arranged the blue, white and red rosettes on the table, Celestine wondered if this would be the last such party. Now that the ban on new births had been lifted, most Alphans would be raising families soon, and that would make a party like this one more difficult to arrange. Celestine herself was expecting her first child, and she knew her life would never be the same.

She stood back and admired her work. The rosettes had been brought up from Earth before Breakaway, and their crepe paper was starting to go grey with age. But Celestine was satisfied with the effect nonetheless. The wine bottles, the soft cheese, and the "baguette" bread gave the table an authentic air, even though the bottles were empty and the cheese, made from some disgusting soy compound, bore no resemblance to any of the hundreds of quality cheeses produced in French farms. Celestine smiled as she thought of the General de Gaulle's famous quote: "Nobody can simply bring together a country that has 265 kinds of cheese."

There was a knock, more like a crash on the front door. Celestine hurried over to disengage the lock. Her husband Michel came in, his arms full of trays from Catering. He deposited them on the table.

"There we go, some not quite genuine quiches and pies," he exclaimed, indicating the pile with a sweep of his hand. He made a face. "The usual Vegan recipe. It's such a pity this planet we've found doesn't have any wildlife. A few cows and chickens would have been welcome, not to mention a pig or two."

"Well, at least we might be able to do without the rationing." Celestine started to arrange the pies on the table. "Have you programmed all the music we want?"

"Oh yes. I kept the same program I used last time, though I think I'll add some more of Pascal Obispo. Beatrice was saying she was going through a phase of listening to him a lot."

Celestine made a face, but didn't say anything. Pascal Obispo was a 1990s French singer she didn't particularly like. His voice was too whiny for her taste.

"We'll play plenty of Native, too, of course", added Michel as he checked the decorations they had put on the walls. Native was Celestine's favourite French band, a duo of black sisters who sang beautiful soul music.

"Do you think this will be enough food?" asked Celestine. She had finished arranging the pieces of quiche and pie, but it didn't look enough for the thirty-odd people who would be coming.

"I hope so," said Michel, coming to look over her shoulder. He kissed his wife's cheek. "Don't worry, my darling, Beatrice and some of the others will be bringing food as well. You know Giovanna Habibi never goes anywhere without a large tub of tabbouleh. No one is going to starve."

"Well, I don't want it to be like the time we let Corinne organise it. Ms Goldburg had prepared all the usual food, but Silviu and Corinne forgot to pick it up. It was lucky Antoine and Beatrice went to get the trays from Catering. Goldburg would have committed genocide if we had let all that food go to waste!"

"Corinne can be a bit flaky," admitted Michel. "And Silviu's organisational skills aren't the best. It must be that gypsy blood."

Celestine frowned at him. "Silviu is Romanian. That doesn't necessarily make him a gypsy. And his race has nothing to do with his lack of organisation. Or the fact that he's only a cleaner."

Michel nodded and hugged her. "Sorry, my love. It was just a joke. You know it's sometimes hard to go against the sort of upbringing I had. At least I'm beyond calling the Americans 'amerloques' and the British 'rosbif'."

"That would not go down well with so many of them about," agreed Celestine with a giggle. The epithets he had quoted were humorous rather than offensive, but derogatory nonetheless.

"We'll teach our children to go beyond race and nationality," promised Michel. He held Celestine and looked her sincerely in the eyes. "I don't want them to completely ignore where we come from. We'll tell them about France and about the French Antilles, so they know their culture is as important and strong as that of any other nationality on Alpha. But we'll also teach them to be Alphans, to add their cultural specificity to the new society they will build in this solar system. Alpha will be the true 'melting pot' America never quite became; the sum of its parts rather than one nation's colony."

Celestine smiled at him indulgently. "Oh, Michel, I love it when you go into visionary mode."

Letting go of her, Michel took a step back, pretending to be offended. "Well, if you're not interested in my visions, I guess I'll go and hang up the flag."

Celestine laughed as he went to attach the French flag to their living-room commpost.

The guests started arriving at seven o'clock. There were quite a few French nationals on Alpha. European contractors had played an important role in the construction of many of the Moonbase's components, and in exchange, a number of research facilities were allocated to European nationals. The projects they worked on mainly involved nuclear research to find new power sources and better ways of disposing of nuclear waste, though some agricultural projects had also been underway by the time of Breakaway. Although most European nations were represented, the French were among the most numerous.

Celestine herself was a lab technician. Her direct superior was an old nuclear physicist by the name of Olivier Laroche; he monopolised her for the first part of the evening, telling stories of the good old days, when he was a boy and the 14th of July meant paper lanterns and accordion music. He also exclaimed at length on the pleasure it gave him to have so many pregnant women around. Although she respected the man, Celestine couldn't help feeling there was a scurrilous glint in his eye as he stared at her belly.

When he had finally been dragged away by his colleague Dominique Brasseur, Celestine was able to rush to the table and satisfy a sudden craving for some processed cheese.

"You too?" she heard a woman say behind her.

Turning around, Celestine found the mathematician Thi Minh Nguyen. The woman was of medium height, skinny with a large round face, thick glasses and a very pregnant belly. She was part of a small portion of Alphans who were not French, but who did speak French as a second language. Thi Minh's native Vietnam had once been a French colony, and its brightest students were often sent to study in France to acquire the latest Western knowledge. Thi Minh had obtained a post on Alpha thanks to her university professor. At Breakaway, she had been completing her PhD on Alpha, helping other scientists measure the effects of the Moon on the Earth's climate. Now she worked in the nuclear science lab.

"This stuff is disgusting," continued Thi Minh. "But I had this sudden craving for something really salty."

"I know the feeling. I'll be glad when all this is over and I've finally had the baby. Hmm." Celestine closed her eyes with bliss as she bit into the bread and cheese.

"You'll have to have another one when you have had this child," said Thi Minh. "We're the lucky women who are young enough to still bear children. What chance do the fifty-year-olds like Dr Koenig have? It is our duty to have the children while we still can. Our duty, and our pleasure, of course!"

Celestine smiled. "Michel and I will definitely be doing our best."

Thi Minh nodded and spread some more cheese on a piece of bread. "This is a very good party. I love your decorations."

She pointed at the walls. Michel had put up some of the posters he had found in the Library. There was a reproduction of The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, and one of Toulouse-Lautrec's lithographs advertising the Moulin-Rouge night-club in early 20th century Paris. There was also the French flag on the commpost.

"I sometimes miss France," said Thi Minh. "I remember such a feeling of liberty when I left Vietnam. Paris is a good place for liberty."

"I never lived there," said Celestine, shaking her head. "I only remember visiting once. But I miss France too, sometimes. I was born in Guadeloupe, so moving to France was quite a shock. No more sunshine, everyone running around like chickens without heads. I missed the relaxed atmosphere. But I got used to the cold and the frantic pace." She smiled. "And then I met Michel and decided France wasn't so bad after all."

Thi Minh chuckled. "Oh, love can do wonders. I really wish we were back on Earth, so I could go to Britain and see the places Bob talks about." Bob was her husband, a pilot she had married a couple of years earlier.

"Ugh. I thought France was cold; Britain was worse. And it never stops raining there."

"I'm sure I would find it beautiful if I could visit Bob's parents. They sound like such wonderful people."

"Well, I did meet Michel's parents, and they were not wonderful people," said Celestine. "They were the worst France has to offer. A small town lawyer and his wife with little narrow minds. They weren't thrilled when their son brought a black girl home."

Thi Minh shook her head sadly. "I was lucky. Few people made comments about my race in Europe. Perhaps it was because there are a lot of Vietnamese in Paris; or maybe the Vietnamese just have a reputation for industriousness, so people expected me to do well. Or maybe I was just lucky. In any case, I hope that isn't something our children will have to worry about," she said, putting her hand on her belly. "Both our children will be half-castes. They could have had a difficult life on Earth."

"I'm sure things will be different here," said Celestine confidently. "You only have to look at the population mix we're starting off with to realise that racism would be ridiculous. Most of the people here are white, but there are enough people from other races to ensure that the future of the human race won't be the future of the white race. And when you think about all the couples we know, you realise quite a few of them are mixed already. They will have mixed children who will marry the pure whites and blacks, and this will lead to more mixture in future generations. Who knows what our descendants will look like after a few generations."

"Very different from us, I think," said Thi Minh with a bright laugh. "Here, I must go back to poor Bob. He doesn't speak any French, you know, so he tends to get bored."

Thi Minh took her leave and hurried over to her husband. He didn't look bored, Celestine noticed; he was in great conversation with his compatriot Wendy Harper and her husband Pierre Daniel.

Quite a few of the French residents of Alpha had married people from different backgrounds. Corinne Tissot's husband was her Romanian colleague Silviu Manescu. Then there was Annette Fraser, married to a British pilot, and Anne Thibaud who had married her colleague Dr Spencer, himself part Indian and part English. Celestine reflected that Alpha was already on the way to becoming the sum of its parts.

Michel came to join her just as she was about to go and look for him. "There you are, darling. I was wondering where you had got to."

"You know me," she said. "I'm never far from the food!"

"You are eating for two, so I'll forgive you. I've been talking to Beatrice and Antoine. They were admiring the posters." Michel looked at them himself. "Maybe I should organise an exposition of the artwork we have in the Library. It would encourage people to remember the culture of Earth. I'm hoping more people will come to the Library now that we have a planet to live off."

"Yes, darling." Attracting more people to the Library sometimes seemed to be the purpose of Michel's life. "On the other hand, there will be a lot of farming to do in the next few years. And the children will need to be raised. People might have even less time than they had when the Moon was wandering the universe."

Michel sighed. "We signed up to have an adventure in space. We were catapulted halfway across the galaxy... only to become farmers at the end of it all. Some adventure."

"Come on. Cultivating the soil can't be that bad," said Celestine. "Don't forget my grandparents spent their lives in the sugarcane fields. We'll probably have to wait a couple of centuries before people can afford the kind of snobbery your parents had and look down on the people who produce food."

"You're right, of course," he said. "I am being snobbish. But given a choice, I'd rather live here on Alpha than play pioneers on that barren planet out there. Judging by the surveys I've read, Thor Larsson was right to suggest the name 'Loki'. It does sound like something a devil would come up with."

Celestine shook her head. "Talk about looking gift horses in the mouth! At least its soil and atmosphere is more hospitable than the Moon--"

She interrupted herself as the commpost suddenly beeped. Michel smiled at her knowingly and went to pick up the message. Commander Koenig's face appeared on the black and white television screen. Michel pulled off the flag so that everyone could see him as he delivered his traditional message.

"Good evening," said the Commander pleasantly, addressing the small crowd in the Castellanos' living-room. His American sounded strange to Celestine's ears after an evening of French. "As I do every year, I'd like to wish all the French Alphans a happy Bastille Day. As you know, I'm on Loki right now. The weather is still pretty cool, but our studies show that the climate will be warming up soon. Maybe we can all spend July on the planet next year and see if the Chemical Lab can come up with some fireworks. I'm sure my American colleagues will let you have any we haven't already used up on the fourth." This earned him a chuckle from the French. "Well, I wish you all a pleasant evening. Goodbye."

He signed off and the guests returned to their private conversations. Koenig made a point of respecting any traditions his multinational colleagues wanted to celebrate; Celestine knew he was never remiss in wishing the Germans a good national day on October 3, too, even though the smaller German population had little more than a dinner party that day. It was touches like these which had kept Koenig popular among the Alphan population.

"I wonder how long we'll go on celebrating different holidays," she said thoughtfully as Michel joined her again. "It's all right when there are only 270 of us, with small groups of people from each nationality. But if we all have children with mixed backgrounds, it'll get confusing. Will a Franco-German want to celebrate on the 14th of July or on the 3d of October? And what about actual holidays? Up until now, we've accepted the need to work nearly every day as necessary for our survival. But when we're beyond survival and we want more rest days, which of our national days should become holidays?"

"A lot of good questions," agreed Michel. "You're right. There aren't any dates we would all be able to agree on. All the national days vary from country to country, and to favour one country over the others would negate the internationalism of our new society. Religious holidays pose a similar problem. I can't see the Habibis or the Al Hassans being too pleased if Christmas became a national holiday. There might even be arguments about whether Saturday or Sunday should be the weekly day off."

Celestine could imagine the arguments already. "Hopefully, that's something we can all worry about later," she said.

She noticed Silviu and Corinne approaching, and put on a suitably welcoming smile. The Castellanos did not have a great deal in common with the Manescus. Silviu and Corinne were part of the maintenance team, and although they were pleasant people, their tastes were simple and their conversation usually revolved around the most mundane happenings on the Moonbase.

Silviu was short and broad, with dark hair and a weathered face. Corinne was little and skinny; she always wore far too much makeup and the most garish examples of 1990s fashion when she was off duty. Her hair was bleached blond, but she didn't repeat the procedure often enough, and her naturally dark roots were showing.

"Hi," said Corinne as she reached past Celestine to get a piece of quiche. She bit into it. "Hmm. Always the same recipe. I guess we can't expect Goldburg to improve with time."

"Maybe it's the ingredients that don't improve," remarked Celestine. She had no particular affection for Kate Goldburg, but she disliked hearing people criticised for no good reason.

Corinne just shrugged. She slipped an arm around Silviu and said, "Has Silviu told you about his plan?"

"Which plan is this?" asked Michel politely.

"I'm going to have a farm on Loki," said Silviu, his tone more confident than his mastery of French. "They say the land is good. I can grow potatoes."

"I don't think they're going to allow people to just set up farms on Loki," said Celestine. "Apparently, the planet won't even be habitable in another couple of years' time."

Silviu shrugged. "So we'll build a Moonbase there. If Alpha could survive hot and cold and all those space warps, they can build Alpha on Loki and have us protected when the weather is bad. People can live everywhere with--" He interrupted himself with a cough. "--with technology, we can do anything."

"We can have lots of children, too," said Corinne enthusiastically. "We'd be new pioneers, like we could have been on all those planets we've been passing. At last some blue sky and open spaces. Alpha is so restrictive."

Celestine didn't feel restricted on Alpha, but then she had never been an outdoor person. She had heard other Alphans daydreaming about a life on Loki, and there had been several internal memos and speeches by the Commander about the impossibility of such plans. But people still dreamt of a life similar to what they had known on Earth.

"I'm sure the day will come when it's possible to live on Loki all the time," said Michel confidently. "As you say, Silviu, there's very little humans can't do with technology. And we have the finest team of scientists on Alpha."

"Yes," said Silviu, nodding. He coughed again. "Sorry. Yes, I'm looking forward to the day we can move to Loki."

Silviu talked about his plans a while longer, and then wandered off with Corinne to talk to some other people. Michel poured a glass of wine for himself and a glass of water for Celestine.

"I wonder what's wrong with Silviu," said Celestine discreetly once the Manescus had gone. "He doesn't look healthy."

"Or sound it," agreed Michel. "Still, we shouldn't be nosy."

"I'm not being nosy... Here, let's go and talk to the Evrards. I want to thank them for bringing that cake. It's delicious."

The Evrards were very different from the Manescus. Antoine and Beatrice were bourgeois Parisians with that indefinable je-ne-sais-quoi that gave the French such a reputation for elegance and refinement... as well as some measure of arrogance. Both Evrards were always impeccably coiffed and dressed; they could talk at length about any subject from art to history; and they were both excellent cooks. Michel liked them very much, but Celestine found that they reminded her of Michel's parents. Fortunately, the Evrards did not suffer from the same narrow-mindedness which had made the elder Castellanos so bigoted.

"Celestine, Michel," exclaimed Beatrice as they approached. "Congratulations on such a good party. The decorations are lovely, the food is delicious, and the music is perfect!"

Beatrice's favourite artist Pascal Obispo was playing from the room's comm system. She was swaying with the music. Beatrice was a small, neat woman with brown eyes and hair which was always perfectly bleached. Celestine had never seen her without makeup, but her makeup was discreet and unobtrusive. By the canons of beauty which had applied on Earth at the time of Breakaway, Beatrice was not a pretty woman. Her brown eyes were too small, her nose too prominent and her doll-like figure too petite compared to the tall women admired in the 1990s. But Celestine sometimes envied her neatness.

"How are you, my dear?" Beatrice asked Celestine. "I haven't seen you all week! I've been rushed off my feet examining all these soil samples from the planet. Only another couple of months to go, right?"

"Yes. The baby's due in September," said Celestine.

"Have you picked a name yet?" asked Antoine. "Are you going to call him Celestin after all?"

"No, definitely not," said Celestine, shaking her head. She glanced reproachfully at her husband. "That was just a joke of Michel's. In the first place, I think naming a child after yourself is rather narcissistic. And in the second, I'm not going to risk any jokes about the 'Vichy Célestin' mineral water."

Beatrice laughed. "I must admit, we did wonder." She turned to look at Antoine and her expression became wistful. "We might be thinking about names ourselves some day."

"Really?" exclaimed Michel. "I thought you two didn't want any children."

"Well, we didn't when we were back on Earth," admitted Antoine. "We were going to do our bit against world overpopulation by not having any children at all. We had nieces and nephews: who needed children?"

"Then, of course, we weren't allowed to have children when Alpha was wandering through space," said Beatrice. "But now that things have changed... well, it's changed things for us as well."

"But we'll see what happens," concluded Antoine.

Celestine wondered if this meant they had been trying for a child but hadn't succeeded yet. A lot of Alphans had found that conceiving a child by natural means was not as easy as it seemed. Middle age, years of contraception and occasional exposure to a variety of alien influences had apparently made the Alphan population less fertile than its situation required. Still, they had a very competent medical staff who was already working on assisting anyone with fertility problems.

"We were talking to Silviu and Corinne earlier," said Michel. "They're looking forward to having children too. Everyone has caught the bug."

Beatrice and Antoine exchanged a glance which told Celestine they knew something she didn't.

"I hope they'll be able to," said Beatrice cautiously.

"Is something wrong with Silviu?" asked Celestine. "Something to do with that cough."

Antoine nodded. "I don't think it's something he wants everyone to know, but I gather he's been diagnosed as having lung cancer."

"Oh my God," said Michel, shaking his head sadly. "I had no idea."

"They're both going on as if nothing is wrong," said Beatrice, "and I suppose that's one way to deal with it. According to Anne, he isn't in the terminal phase yet, so there's still hope."

"I certainly hope there is," said Celestine. She now felt sorry for her earlier thoughts about how simple Corinne and Silviu were. "Poor Silviu. Poor Corinne."

She about to add something else when she noticed that Pierre Daniel had just come in with a metal bucket. She hadn't noticed him leaving, but he had evidently been to fetch the bucket from somewhere. Michel went over to talk to him and then returned after a few minutes, smiling. He refused to tell Celestine and the Evrards what Pierre had brought.

Pierre knelt on the floor and laid out one of the protective sheets they used on the Eagles. He set up the bucket in the middle of it, and, much to Celestine's surprise, he produced a box of matches from his pocket. He lit something inside the bucket and hastily moved away. Everyone in the room was watching the bucket expectantly. Nothing happened for a minute or so.

Then there was a loud bang inside the bucket and a cloud of sparks flew out of it. The sparks were simple white ones, like the sparklers Celestine remembered at parties when she was a child. It fizzled out after about thirty seconds.

"Bonne fête!" exclaimed some of the guests, kissing each other as if this was New Year's and not just the 14th of July.

Perhaps egged on by alcohol and the sight of the makeshift fireworks, someone started to sing the Marseillaise. The others joined in. The blood-thirsty Revolutionary anthem seemed rather incongruous in the modern setting of Moonbase Alpha. But Celestine remembered singing it as a child, back in the days when she and her little school friends were being reminded that, even though they were born halfway across the world, they were still French citizens. It brought back a lot of memories.

"Come on, don't cry," said Michel, putting his arm around her as the Marseillaise ran out of words and mutated into a pop song by Serge Gainsbourg.

"It must be the hormones," said Celestine with a sniff.

"Must be. I never thought I'd see the day when you'd be crying because of the Marseillaise!"

The evening was over. Celestine was exhausted and Michel was massaging her feet. A couple of the guests had helped to clear up after the party, so there was no major damage to report. But it was one in the morning and the thought that she had to go to work the next day made Celestine feel even more tired than she already was.

"That was a good evening," said Michel. "But you know, I think you're right; maybe it'll be our last. All the settled couples who are young enough are thinking about having children, and once that happens, I'm sure our priorities will change. On the other hand, we won't all stop being French, so perhaps there's nothing to worry about."

"Hmm." Celestine closed her eyes. "I do worry though."

"What? About having no party next year?"

"No, just in general." Celestine felt Michel lie on the bed beside her. She opened her eyes. "I've been thinking how important it is to have those children. There are so few of us." She paused. "I hope Corinne and Silviu will be able to have children. If Silviu dies now, then there will be gap in our society. One less cleaner, one less pair of hands. No Romanians left in the universe, for all we know. He has to have children, to pass on the genes that evolved in his part of the world, and hopefully to pass on his culture. Otherwise, there will be nothing left of it." Michel seemed puzzled by her outburst and Celestine laughed. "Oh, never mind. I'm very tired. I'm just talking off the top of my head."

"No, you're right," said Michel. "We have a solar system to colonise now and everything we do is important. We have no idea what happened to Earth after we left. For all we know, that small group of Frogs who came to the party tonight could be the last people in the universe who remember the words to the Marseillaise... the first verse anyway. It's worse in Silviu's case, because he's the only Romanian here."

He stroked Celestine's hair. "On the other hand, we're not here to perpetuate the French race. Our children will be the first generation of humans born in an alien system. Everything we do from now on will be a building block in the next stage of humanity's history. Who knows, some day, there might be new civilisations built as humans spread into the galaxy and diversify, perhaps giving rise to entire new species..."

Michel's voice gradually faded as Celestine drifted off to sleep.

Created: February 2000 - Updated: February 2000