5 Short Stories

by Stephen Brandon

  ~ ~ ~

  Two hundred years ago the United States had launched and landed a few men on the moon. The other superpower, the USSR hadn't, and as far as he could remember the Chinese didn't either. As far as he could remember from his schooling no country or corporation had set up a base on the moon. If all his history classes were true then this couldn't be earth made.

  Realizing this he pissed himself as he reached for the radio. “Home base, Home base, this is Samuel, come in please!”

  “What's up Sam, this is Janet, are you going to make it back in time for our date tomorrow?”

  “I've got a problem. I need Mr. Allen to come out to my site immediately. Tell him I've found a satellite and he needs to evaluate it before I can move my crawler.”

  “You know that he ain't going to get his fat ass out there for a simple satellite.”

  “Janet, you tell him face to face that if he isn't out here today, this moon man will call home and have his ass fired. Do you this for me right now. I'll wait for you to call me back after you tell him.” He knew that everyone knew you just didn't leave your post as home base radio dispatcher except in an extreme emergency.

  Sam just hoped that Mr. Allen didn't fire him and Janet without investigating. Mr. Allen and he were both fans of the old science fiction movies.

  Shortly Sam heard a burst of static on his radio. Then Mr. Allen's voice. “What kind of problem do you have Sam. I was in the middle of an experiment.”

  “Jake, I have a situation here. I need you to bring a bubble and bottle of nitrogen along with a trailer.”

  “Janet said you'd found a satellite and couldn't move your crawler until I checked it.”

  “Yes Sir, it will be a major find if it's properly handled. I need you here at warp speed.”

  “Sam, have you been drinking?”

  “No Jake, just get here at warp speed and bring everything and your transporter. If nothing else goes right you can beam me up. Out.”

  Sam double checked his suit and grabbed a brush from the supply cabinet. Attaching a piece of tubing to its handle he made a broom. Slaving his crawler radio to his suit frequency he stepped out and went back to his original find spot. Carefully he started brushing the moon dust away. It still looked the same so he started brushing a path backwards toward his crawler. After about ten feet he came to the edge of the plastic. Turning to his left he started brushing the dust from the plastic surface outward. After two hours his crawler computer started beeping. From long experience he knew that meant the radar had picked up something approaching.

  “Jake, is that you?”

  “Yea, it me. I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “OK, stop behind my crawler so you don't disturb anything.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Damn, I should have brought a butterfly net.”

  “A butterfly net wouldn't be big enough.”

  “Sam, how come I'm not picking up a claim marker signal.”

  “Ah shit, I'll put out one immediately, after all I'm now a rich man.” Quickly returning to his crawler he grabbed two claim markers and set one a few paces out from where he'd stopped sweeping the plastic surface. Activating it he called home base and told the dispatcher to register is claim. When she asked for a preliminary mineral analysis he simply said gold.

  Turning Sam saw two crawlers approaching. One was the maintenance crawler built like a super-size tow truck. “Jake, have the tow truck park well back, I don't want him crushing anything of value. Swing right and follow my crawler's trail up to its rear. I'll be there in a minute.”

  Mr. Allen got out of his crawler and started walking toward Samuel and suddenly stopped when he saw what Sam had been sweeping off. He dropped to one knee and after looking for a minute got back up and went into Sam's crawler.

  Sam had to wait for the airlock to cycle before he could enter.

  “Sam, how big is this object?”

  “Well Jake, I started sweeping along the edge and only got as far as where I put my marker. My guess is the size of a couple of football fields.”

  “Don't clear any more of the surface, because if it is a giant solar panel, like it looks, we don't want it to power up until we find out what it's connected to. It could be a weapon.”

  “Do you want me to cover up what I cleared?”

  “No Sam, I've got to go back to base and send a message to headquarters. Come over to my crawler and get some extra supplies and a toy that isn't supposed to be on the moon. If you want I'll send Janet out here along with a temporary living unit trailer. You are now a medical hazard to home base. I remember some of the protocols that the company set up if we ever found something alien. It is supposed to be classified as a medical emergency and I have to call earth headquarters with a certain phrase. Explore every nook and cranny of this area, I'll need a detailed map. Also keep radio communications to a minimum. See you later.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Back at base Janet was waiting when Mr. Allen entered his office. She was puzzled when he ignored her and walked directly over to his filing cabinet and pulled a file.

  Opening it he put his finger to his mouth and then pointed to a paragraph halfway down the page. He saw her eyes go wide and then said, “Janet, I'm sorry but I think Sam has gone nuts. I can't let him back in home base, however I am sending out a living module and will keep him supplied until headquarters can get a doctor up here to take care of him. Do you want to go out to him and keep him from hurting himself? Right now I need to send a message requesting help.”

  She followed him to the communications shack and then he pulled the page out and folded it in half and told her to transmit what was shown.

  M M M

  Attention: Mr. Jamison, Headquarters

  From: Mr. Allen, Home Base

  One of our prospectors has become contaminated. Physical symptoms are spots like measles with delusions of immortality. No fever detected and most of his vital signs are normal. He has been placed in quarantine. Request a special team of doctors be dispatched immediately.

  M M M

  Seventeen days later two rockets landed at home base. Mr. Allen went out to meet them, but was told that the head doctor would come to meet him outside. Once outside the doctor switched off his suit radio and pointed toward Mr. Allen's suit radio. Touching helmets Jake heard.

  “Mr. Jamison is extremely worried about security. Are you transmitting at all?”

  “No Sir.”

  “Good, my mane is Albert and I have a team of six plus support crew. We brought everything we could think of and two shelters. How big is the discovery?”

  “Surface area appears to be a giant solar cell covered with what looks like a plastic shield. Sam has run the edge and it appears to be the size of two football fields. He had started sweeping the edge of the surface to detect the size, but I stopped him in case it was a weapon power supply or something like that. The cover story is that he is contaminated and I sent his wife and a portable shelter out to the site to care for him.”

  “Anyone else know about this or any rumors on base?”

  “Only the wrecker operator and his assistant. I've sworn them to secrecy, but they were within a hundred yards of the object. I don't know how much they saw. My wife has been supervising all communications in and out of base.”

  “OK, as soon as the equipment is unloaded I need you to guide us out to the site. I also brought a new communications team. No one is allowed to enter the ships. They will depart as soon as everyone is unloaded. All supplies will be stacked outside the base entrance. Headquarters has decided to treat this as an alien infection and contagious. The contact protocol was breached and some idiots on earth just wanted to nuke the base, however for now we have a window of discovery.” Flipping his suit radio back on he ordered the ship's crew to start unloading as they entered the base.

>   Six hours later everything was stacked outside the base entrance and the discovery crew was inside. Albert signaled and the ships departed.

  From the communications center Mr. Allen announced over the base intercom. “This base is now under quarantine. This decision was made on earth. No unauthorized communications are allowed with the outside. I need maintenance and the miners to report to me in the maintenance airlock in fifteen minutes.”

  Once everyone was in the maintenance airlock Mr. Allen announced, “The story put out was that Samuel picked up a contagious disease and I know everyone has been pestering the doctor about every little ache and pain. However, the truth is, Sam found an alien artifact. The cover story will remain in effect. Outside is equipment to set up a satellite base at Sam's location. Every shift will move the equipment to his location and help set it up. This base will appear to continue to operate as a diversion. The corporation has authorized a bonus for everyone and we will be the first permanent civilian lunar colony. If word of this leaks out the government will sweep us away and we'll get nothing. Any question?”

  From the back, “Yes Sir, my contract is up in another month, since I'm stuck here can the corporation ship my wife up?”

  “I don't know, but I'll pass on the request. They may require that she be trained in some skill that can be used, Will she do that and what about your kids?”

  ~ ~ ~

  When the first transport load arrived at Samuel's claim they found that a marker pointing back toward a small crater. Just inside the crater Sam had dug a ramp and cave. His shelter was inside and he was digging another cave nearby. His first words when Jake announced their arrival was, “Good, I hope you brought some digging equipment. We need to park everything underground and get a secure base setup. I may be paranoid, but I think that home base will be visited soon by the government and I don't want to be exposed here.”

  Jake introduce Mr. Albert Jones then commented, “Good idea, but we'll need something much deeper that what you've started. How hard is this rock to work?”

  “Sam, I am leader of the discovery team from headquarters. We brought some excavation equipment. Headquarters has a plan for a permanent civilian colony and this is the excuse for it. Now what have you discovered about the artifact?”

  “Nineteen days is a long time to be isolated, but not long to explore. The surface artifact is about two football fields in size. I discovered that just the little bit I uncovered is producing a trickle of power and my equipment detected an underground tunnel headed off to the south. I tracked it for about a mile. Below that is a large cavern. The surface rock looks normal, but none of my tools will even scratch it below the dust. I also discovered another tunnel out the opposite side that is only a few yards in length. Janet thinks it may connect to an elevator of some kind inside another small crater that looks artificial.

  “I don't know if anyone noticed or not, but this and the cavern location are both over the horizon from earth. Janet pointed out this fact to me, so we assume that this isn't a weapon that can devastate earth, however there may be other sites in line of sight to earth.”

  First the boring machine were used to dig a slanted mine shaft down forty feet and a entry hall. Hauling out the broken rock was a pain. This took two weeks. Then the lasers were set up to burn holes in the rock 100 feet deep. Each hole took 8 hours. The corners and several other holes crossing the middle. This was hoped to make the rock shatter easier to increase boring speed. It did. The 100 foot hall was originally estimated to take 5 days was completed in 2. We managed to get the hydroponics room and a double room excavated at the first hall node 20 feet in. The second node twenty feet from the first was dug out and a double room off each side. By then the sun was setting and we lost most of our solar power. Everyone knows the moon puts one face to the earth all the time. That means that the moon day is the same as its orbit around the earth, 27.322 earth days.

  During that time the doctor had sent several reports back that the problem that Samuel had was a variation of shingles. This is a result of having chicken pox as a child. He claimed the extent of the outbreak was a combination of things from wearing a spacesuit for hours at a time, insufficient water to completely cleanse his skin, plus the modified food diet. His last report before sundown demanded that certain vitamin and mineral supplements be shipped up along with several volunteers that had chicken pox as children, but hadn't had a shingles outbreak for medical observation. He also requested a psychologist because the mental health of the miners was just short of a problem. Their attitude was becoming that of teenage boys thinking they were immortal because most all had survived several accidents that only their training had allowed them to survive. Others had something like survivors guilt even though no one died. His scathing report also reported on several developing cases of cabin fever, we didn't have any, and demanded further supplies and entertainment equipment. The supplies also included flowering plants, herbs, and extra food plants for variety and if possible some small animals and birds to be distributed as pets.

  Janet got the job as his assistant. She told Sam that every time a message came, in he pulled his laptop computer out and checked it against messages he already had on file. When she pointed out the fact that the encryption he was using was obsolete, his comment was the only real safety they had until they were setup was the fact that their secret transmissions could and would be read by the people in positions of power that could order the base destroyed as a health hazard.

  Halfway through the night two more supply rockets arrived. More supplies and a small reactor. Two passengers, a shrink, Dr. Hildebrand and her assistant that we found out was Frederick's wife. What surprised everyone was the birds and three pregnant female cats. The instructions accompanying the cats and birds demanded a psychology report every thirty days on the moral of the base with the animals as pets. To be included in these reports was to be a report on the health and observed habits of the animals.

  A week later Mr. Jones fired off a message, copied from his new laptop, declaring that the new reactor was a waste of space. According to the message it overheated and shut down because insufficient cooling equipment was included. Everyone in the know thought that it was hilarious that a rant was included about equipment built by the lowest bidder. Of course everything shipped up here was built by the lowest bidder. The only equipment we really trusted was what we'd torn down and rebuilt ourselves.

  When we started hallway 2 we immediately discovered a problem and had to shut down until we devised a solution. The vaporized rock from the drilling lasers and rock dust from the boring machine got into everything and started causing major problems. The final solution we decided to implement was to drill a vent shaft from the first room completed and seal the first hallway with an airlock door.

  From what we'd learned it was decided that this would be a supply and fallback shelter designated as Sam's Place and a new home base would be dug in a better organized manner. The best location was about a half mile south of the cavern. That was two miles south of us at the rim wall of another crater. The first tunnel would be eight miles long, all the way through the rim wall. Previously several mineral deposits had been located in that crater, but moving equipment in and ore back out over the rim wall was considered to dangerous. Mr. Allen requested more powerful mining lasers and excavating machines again to dig a tunnel through the rim wall so mining could begin. This was his third request, and it was approved.

  It took three days for the first set of lasers to burn through eight miles of rock. Then they were moved over ten feet and started again. A platform was built and the third and forth burns were completed. Then the boring machines were moved up and started at both ends of the tunnel. Fracture lines in the rock were evident, but surprising we had no cave-ins. Less than a quarter mile in we discovered why. The rock was fused. One of the boring machine operators called a halt and went forward and found that he'd bo
red into a vein of silver. Word spread rapidly until Mr. Allen told them to get back to work and celebrate later.

  ~ ~ ~

  The quarantine was lifted and Mr Jones spent hours in the communications section sending messages. Finally after the discovery of the silver vein in the tunnel and access to the minerals discovered in the crater the corporation approved some expansion. The original twenty miners and support would be enlarged, but corporation headquarters insisted that the base be moved to the outside of the crater tunnel. Their transmitted reasoning was that they wanted the crater completely dug up, so no permanent habitats would be constructed inside. After the crater proved profitable another crew would be sent up.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sam, the physicist, and the three archaeologist had surveyed the suspected entrance crater to the underground cavern and set up enough sensors to cover a small city. Finally they got permission to start uncovering the plastic covered solar cell panels one by one and report the reading from the sensors and anything else that happened.

  They cleared the dust from sections measuring ten foot by ten foot. Nothing changed until they'd uncover the fifth ten foot square. Then power in the tunnel jumped fifty percent. That was all. After no other changes for six hours they called a break for the night. While they slept they missed the show.

  After breakfast they checked their computers and found them inoperative. Janet was the first suited up and outside. She screamed, “Get out here, all the dust is gone.”

  Matthew was first to the power sensor array on the other side of the solar cell field and reported that it pegged before it burnt out.

  Looking back at the solar cell field from the crater wall it appeared to be a dust covered field like the surrounding area. As soon as they checked the sensors in the crater they found them all inactive. Even their suit radio's were acting up.

  As they watched a section of the crater rose up and a door slid open. They approached and looked inside. A bench was attached to the wall all the way around about a foot and a half high and three feet deep. In English they heard, enter please and have a seat. As they sat down the door closed and they felt the elevator drop. At the bottom the voice requested they remove their spacesuits and hang them on the racks provided. It explained that after decontamination they would find clothing in the next chamber and then be briefed on the facility.