Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
"Rogue Moon" is a science fiction narrative centered around Dr. Edward Hawks, who invents a technology that allows for the electronic encoding and transmission of a human’s consciousness, resulting in the creation of duplicates. While the original person is destroyed in this process, the duplicates believe themselves to be the original, raising complex questions about identity and existence. The story unfolds as Hawks leads a project to explore an alien artifact on the Moon, where the duplicates of Navy personnel sent into the artifact experience fatal consequences, leaving their counterparts on Earth mentally scarred. Hawks grapples with the moral implications of his work and the psychological toll it takes on the duplicates, seeking a solution among volunteers. He ultimately relies on Al Barker, a risk-taker whose duplicate is able to maintain sanity during the ordeal. Throughout the journey, themes of love, self-discovery, and the quest for meaning emerge, particularly highlighted through Hawks’ interactions with various characters, including Claire Pack and Elizabeth Cummings. The climax leads to a poignant realization about life and death, culminating in Hawks’ decision to embrace his fate on the Moon, signifying a hopeful yet melancholic acceptance of the human condition.
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Subject Terms
Rogue Moon
First published: 1960
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—inner space
Time of work: 1959-1960
Locale: The Pacific Coast of the United States and the far side of the Moon
The Plot
Dr. Edward Hawks has invented a method of electronically encoding a human and simultaneously transmitting the code to both the Moon and his laboratory. The original is destroyed in the process, but neither duplicate accepts that it is not the original. Hawks is put in charge of a project to unlock the mystery of an alien artifact discovered on the far side of the Moon. The U.S. Navy drops receiving equipment for Hawks’s device close to the artifact, and Hawks’ project has beamed Navy personnel duplicates to the receiver while at the same time creating duplicates in Hawks’ laboratory on Earth.
Duplicates entering the artifact are killed. Hawks discovers that the duplicates in his laboratory go insane from the experience of living through their own deaths via the mental/emotional link with the duplicates in the alien structure. He must continue to send duplicates into the artifact, however, because each one moves a little closer to finding a way through the alien labyrinth.
Hawks is frustrated because the project cannot find volunteers whose duplicates maintain their sanity after living through their own horrible deaths. He also struggles with the knowledge that the project is sending men to their deaths and driving their duplicates insane. Finally, he relies on Vincent Connington, personnel director for one of the project’s contractors, to recommend someone for the project. Connington proposes Al Barker, a daredevil of a man who has spent his life defying death.
The duplicate Barker on Earth manages to maintain his sanity. Hawks uses the duplicate on Earth to make repeated transmissions, and each time Barker moves farther through the artifact, slowly mapping a route through the enigmatic structure.
Barker’s companion, Claire Pack, is a hard-edged woman who enjoys toying with men. She stays with Barker, believing him to be more man than anyone else. Hawks observes how she torments Connington and is nearly sucked into her clutches himself.
Hawks meets Elizabeth Cummings, a young woman who surprises him with insights into his own view of life. She becomes a foil to his gloomier estimations of self, causing him to consider how his relationship with life mirrors his relationship with women. She also leads him to discover the connection between love and life.
When the Barker duplicate tells him that he believes the next trip through the artifact will conclude in reaching an exit, Hawks transmits his own duplicate to the Moon along with Barker. They make it through the artifact. Barker, for all his exploits, has never done something no one else has ever attempted, and Hawks helps him realize that each person must make his or her own life and must live to create a personal meaning, not one defined by others.
Hawks realizes that he cannot transmit himself back to Earth because the other duplicate Hawks is there, and since the point of their divergence the other duplicate has created a new lifeline. Taking courage from his insights about death, Hawks walks away from the artifact into the emptiness of the lunar landscape. He dies there, secure in the knowledge that someday humanity will conquer death. The realization is bittersweet, however, and he longs for the life and newfound love he left behind.