“Okay, move away and stand by.”
Kate punched the button on the dashboard for the winch and, as it strained to pull the access port open, the scooter’s anti-grav thrusters revved up.
“The damn thing doesn’t . . . want to . . . budge,” she grunted. She applied more force to the cable and stood up on the foot plates as she worked the machine. In the back of her mind, the echoes of her Spacer days crept in, but instead of haunting her, the opposite happened. Kate suddenly lost the feelings of shame, of being victimized by the program. What she felt . . . was . . . alive.
This is who I am.
She locked the winch, manipulated the machine to add some slack to the cable, then revved it up in full reverse, grinding hard on the access port. The scooter bucked in protest but nothing more happened, so she did it again. And again. And . . .
The LunaScoota flew aft this time, twisting momentarily until Kate wrestled it under control and lowered it on the Moon’s surface. She looked up to find Mary rushing over to a large rectangular hole in the concrete wall. She and the machine had yanked the access port open, but in so doing, she also pulled the latch out of its housing completely.
Mary’s helmet light shone, and she knelt down in front of the gaping void, pulling fistfuls of rubble away. Kate switched off the scooter and joined her.
“What do you see, Mares?”
Mary was half-way through the small access port. Only her legs from thighs down remained visible.
“This is a galley.” She paused and added, “And a lot more, too. I’m taking a look.” Mary wriggled through the crack and disappeared into the pitch black inside.
A minute passed, and Kate asked, “What’s in there?” She crouched to peer in, saw nothing but Mary’s helmet light flashing on various dust-covered bits and pieces of storage containers.
“Definitely the galley,” she said. “There’s an industrial cooktop and work space and, like, cupboards everywhere.”
“What else, Mares?”
“Hang on.”
Her strained breathing, punctuated by running commentary and flashes of her suit light, allowed Kate to mentally map the layout. Near the far access hatchway to the main control room where they got locked out, a series of empty storage closets stood rigid . . . food pantries, she figured. To the right sat the cooktop and an open area where shelving used to be. Throughout the space, debris and dust was scattered about, reminding her of dryer lint back home in San Francisco.
“Nova City!”
“Whatcha find?”
“More oxygen canisters!” Then, after a short pause, “Oh, hang on. I think they’re all empty.”
“That’s okay, we can still use them.”
“There’s two boxes here . . . looks like . . . yeah, ten in each box.”
Kate lay down in the dust and leopard crawled part way into the access hole. In a corner to her right, she spied a small workspace, apparently abandoned. She pointed to it and flashed her own helmet light. “What’s that over there?”
Mary jumped over to investigate. In the brightness, Kate saw a tiny workstation with a desk bookended by two closets. A couple of overturned chairs and metal boxes littered the area. She continued her search.
“I don’t believe it.”
“What is it, Mares?” Kate peered over, back toward her, rummaging through a storage bin on the desk.
“Mary?”
After a moment’s pause, Mary whooped and scrambled to the access port where she knelt down in front of Kate. “It’s a survival kit! There’s a large lantern . . .”
“An emergency beacon, you mean?”
“I guess so. And some circuit boards I’ll inspect, and protein bars.” She continued poking through a toolbox sized container. “Oh my god, Kate, there’s a portable UHF transceiver in here. Nothing like we used at the lunar lab, and not much in the way of power, but I might be able to fire it up and send a message home.”
“Or maybe to a nearby transport.”
“Yes, why not?”
“Bring the whole box with you back to the control room.”
“Sure, I’ll gather the equipment and be there in a minute.”
Kate smiled and wriggled through the access port. With two-way radio, they’d be able to contact any number of ships and be rescued. While she didn’t want to over-simplify the remaining challenges, this raised her spirits.
Mary pushed the boxes of empty air canisters through the opening, then returned to collect the emergency comms kit from the galley. Kate disconnected the winch cable hook from the latch ring, bounded back to the scooter, and wound it tight to the machine again.
As she secured the winch in its locked position, she scanned the Moon’s horizon and noticed that same, now-familiar blue light hovering in the distance over the strip-mined battlefield, watching her.
Stories existed since the beginning of time about this phenomenon. Ancient terran civilizations recorded numerous encounters with odd lights in the skies, prophetical signs or UFOs, but historians and conspiracy-busters determinedly chalked them up as hallucinations or fairy tales or too much alcohol in the blood. Without question, Kate’s lack of sleep over the past days caused her imagination to play tricks on her, even to see things she knew weren’t there. But this mysterious blue light was not confined to her alone: it was a shared experience with Mary.
What are the chances we’re hallucinating the same thing at the same time? None.
Mary, helmet off, sifted through the box of electronics on the main console bench inside the habitat’s control room. Kate studied her face, saw the excitement in her eyes, the clear disregard for the dangerous state they were in. Despite her age, she understood so much more about the fundamental truth of life than she ever did.
She secured the battery cover on the emergency beacon and placed it on the console and hesitated a moment. “I saw it again.”
Mary threw her a cursory glance. “Saw what?”
“That damned light . . . that blue one. It keeps following us around.”
She stopped pulling circuit boards out of the comms container and eyed Kate with a quizzical look. “When?”
“Just as we finished up out there, floating above the minefields.”
“I guess the aliens are curious, hm?”
Kate refused to consider that. She’d seen all kinds of wonders and strange undertakings in space, especially since the onset of the cold war, but shrugged them off as military artifacts—probes or other sensory devices used by the spies. But this . . . this phenomenon was other.
“Is that what you think it is? Some probe from the alien ship?”
Mary giggled in that goofy teenage way of hers and returned her attention to the box of radio parts. “What else could it be?”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Not at all.”
Calm filled the main control room; a sense of peace washed over her. She bit her inside lip until it bled. “Why not?”
Mary studied the board for a moment, then responded. “I suppose I look at it this way. Like, if it’s real—and that’s a big if—and it somehow comes from the alien vessel, then I ask myself what could they be watching us for? I mean, there’s no question their technology is better than what we have, right? So, if they meant harm, they would have done something a long time ago.”
“But they haven’t.”
“Exactly. So maybe they’re studying us, learning from what we do. I don’t know, but if we found alien life, we’d do the same thing: study it. Find out its intentions; whether it’s a threat.” She arranged the boards on the console. “Either way, the blue light people appear to be happy just watching from a distance, and we’ve got a more important goal to reach. Like being rescued.” She motioned to the collection of boards and other electronics in front of her.
If Kate’s theory about the destruction of the lunar lab being caused by the aliens was true, then they were a threat, and perhaps she and Mary were being naïve, toyed with, the mouse to the alie
n’s cat.
“I’m heading out to install the beacon on the comms tower. Keep your helmet close just in case, eh?” She secured her envirosuit, then exited through the main access airlock.
The tower wasn’t much of a tower at all. It stood about 10 meters high with several connection hubs for antennas and dishes running up its side. Rather than fight with the telescoping mechanism to bring the mast down, Kate hopped on the LunaScoota and floated to a spot about three-quarters of the way up. The emergency beacon, built for universal applications, affixed itself smoothly to the hub. Before turning it on, Kate scanned the horizon again for any strange lights: nothing but the emptiness of space and grey-white lunar landscape sparkling in sunlight.
Why would they be watching us?
That question had embedded itself in her thoughts and haunted her. When Jim first heard the cry from the Ross 128 system, he felt the aliens were looking for water. Sure, they could extract it from the Moon’s surface—there was plenty of ice at the poles—but why do it the hard way when Earth was so close? Perhaps the naysayers were right in 2085. Maybe the Rossian cry for help was a ruse.
She hit the power button and turned her head away. The beacon—a rotating strobe like the one on the lunar lab—flashed to life. Kate eased down to the surface and nestled the scooter beside the other, then returned to the main control room.
Mary had the radio open and was poking around with a remote probe from her suit. She read measurements on her helmet’s visor, angled so she could see it properly. When Kate joined her at the console, she smiled.
“Good news. This little transceiver appears functional, but we’ll need an antenna for it.
Kate unsealed her helmet and removed it. “What’s that frequency range . . . UHF?”
“Yeah, so I can build an antenna. But there’s another problem too.” She picked up the radio and inspected it. “This unit is strictly low power. Probably runs only a couple watts. It must have had an amplifier with it, but I didn’t find one. Transmitting a signal is one thing, but getting them to receive it will be a real trick.” She focused again on her measurements. “Is the beacon working?”
“Like a big, bright charm.” She leaned against the console beside Mary. “The radio’s a long shot, isn’t it.” More of a conclusion than a question.
Mary holstered the probe. “I got so much to fix or modify it’s like, I could trim the Yagi we brought in the scooter, but I don’t have the right tools for it. Then there’s the whole power thing. If we can’t juice the transmitter somehow, it’ll still be useless. And, there’s no connecting cables or feedlines or—”
“Whoa, hold up there, Mares. One step at a time, remember? What’s the most important task, the action you absolutely must take before any other?”
Mary slumped her shoulders and thought for a second. “I guess it’s figuring out if the radio still works. If it doesn’t, then nothing else matters.”
“Okay then, so how do you check it’s working?”
“I can run a current to it, see if it works and then, if it does, I’ll test for transmitter power with the suit probe.”
Kate squeezed her shoulder and smiled. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing.”
Mary nodded, brushed a strand of hair from her face, then pushed half of the boards and electronics away. “First things first.”
“While you do that, I’ll fill these empty canisters from the oxygenator’s take off port for back up. How many so far?”
“Twenty-seven including the ones we brought from the old lab.”
Kate examined the intake hub where the oxygenator lines fed into the main control room. Filling the tanks was a simple enough task, but with the limited power running off the scooter battery to the oxygenator, it would take a considerable amount of time to load each one. She pulled a canister Mary found in the galley out of the box, opened its connector, and screwed it into the intake. She punched the button to start replenishing it, and immediately, the hum of the oxygenator inside the habitat changed pitch as it siphoned off oxygen into the tank. The readout on the console hub showed filling time to be just under twenty minutes. Not great, Kate thought, but better than nothing.
She ran through the other environmental readouts on the console’s main screen. Air pressure in the control room remained strong. Battery power from the scooter was sufficient although the drain rate was faster than the ability of the machine’s portable solar panel to recharge it. At some point, they’d have to switch over to the second battery. Temperature hovered around 12 C.
Still, the oxygenator groaned under the additional load of filling the canister, and the increased draw on their power source was enough to dampen Kate’s optimism. After running through some quick computations in her head, she grimaced.
It’s a coin toss whether we run out of power first, or oxygen. Either way, the result is the same.
NINETEEN
Atteberry
Sometime between the fitful half-sleep after lunch and the ping from the TSA announcing he’d be picked up shortly to fly to Nova Scotia, Atteberry felt older than he’d ever imagined. His knees complained as he hauled himself up from the sofa, and the twinge in his lower back reminded him of the disrepair his body had fallen into. Failing to eat much didn’t do him any favors either. Notwithstanding the subtle onset of increasing age, one task remained transfixed in his mind: save Mary.
The message from the TSA was simple. Within forty-five minutes, a logistics person would arrive and take him to an awaiting hypersonic copter that would shuttle him across the continent to meet up with Esther at the launch site of a fancy new Moon-bound ship. Along with it came a short list of things to bring with him, surprisingly little he thought but then, he wasn’t going on some sightseeing cruise, like she said. He padded into his bedroom and threw some toiletries, socks and underwear into a small travel bag
While he was there, he noticed the framed bed-side photograph of him, Mary and Janet, taken years ago at the beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. His daughter was eight years old, and Janet was beautiful and happy. His stomach knotted. Although he’d given up ever reuniting with his ex-wife, Esther had been right all along: somewhere in his heart he still loved her. Deeply. And it was partly because of his inability to let her go completely that his relationship with Esther atrophied in the weeks and months following the Mount Sutro disaster. That, and the fact she insisted on covering up the initial Ross 128 signal he’d heard.
The business of keeping secrets from the people might be status quo for spies and politicians, but how could that possibly benefit the rest of us?
He brushed a finger across the photo, as if wiping a strand of hair from Janet’s face, then grabbed his kit and marched down the hall to the living room. As he was about to sit down again, he peered out the window to see a long, black late model hovercar glide into his driveway, settle on the ground, and a young, lone figure emerge. Atteberry met him at the door.
“Mr. Atteberry? I’m Kenley Smith, TSA Logistics. Esther Tyrone sent me to take you to the heliport.”
They shook hands and he invited him in. “I’ve got everything you asked me to bring on the list.”
“Good. Any questions then?”
He cleared his throat. “It doesn’t seem like much. What about clothing?”
Smith smiled ruefully. “You’ll be fitted at the launch site with workskins and any other personal effects you need.” He checked the time on his indie-comm. “If there’s nothing else, we must leave.”
“Yes, of course.” He tucked the travel bag under his arm and looked around his empty home, imagining Mary back in it.
“First time?”
“Sorry?”
“First time in space, Mr. Atteberry?”
He faked a smile. “I guess I’m more nervous than I thought I’d be.”
“That’s normal, but you can relax; the Echo is a state-of-the-art scout ship, and by all accounts, a real treat to fly in. You’ll be in good hands and before you kno
w it, seeing your daughter again.”
They exited the home and jumped into the hovercar.
“TSA heliport,” Smith commanded, and the vehicle purred out of the driveway and down the street.
As they merged with traffic on 19th Avenue, Atteberry asked, “Where is this heliport, anyway?”
“At the international airport itself, just off the North Access road.”
City College had a campus there, but Atteberry had never spent much time at it since he taught at Ocean.
Smith’s indie-comm pinged. “It’s a message from Dr. Tyrone. She’s about to leave New York for Nova Scotia . . . wonders if we’re on our way.”
Atteberry gazed out the window at the afternoon sun, his nerves twitching more and more as the hovercar approached its destination.
“If it’s any help, sir, my dad did a lot of low orbit flying and such in the civil war. I remember him telling me before my first space flight that once you get going, the beauty of Earth and the stars makes you forget all about your nerves. Then you can really enjoy the ride.”
“Thanks, but I think I’m more anxious about what we’ll find on Luna than the flight itself.”
“Here. Want one of these?” Smith pulled a bottle from his jacket pocket. “They’ll help take the edge off.”
Atteberry recognized the Calmease pills. He’d taken them before but found they dulled his senses as much as they smothered his anxiety. “No thanks, I’ll manage.”
They rode the next fifteen minutes in silence until the hovercar turned onto the North Access Road at the airport and weaved its way through narrow laneways to one of the many industrial lots that surrounded the runways. They stopped in front of a tired, low-rise building, absent of any signage except for a small blue and white square at the main door with TSA painted on it. Smith entered a code at the access box, placed his face at the scanner, and pulled the door open inviting Atteberry to enter first.
The structure itself was one large dimly lit great room. Directly ahead was a wall-length video screen displaying the TSA logo. A couple of technical operators working computers sat in front. To the right, a set of couches and leather chairs with several auto-servers stationed against the wall. On the left, a group of flight mechanics in overalls and other engineering types were studying maps.
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