“So,” he said, “What’s the truth about those cruisers?”
Clayton glanced at Esther, then beamed. “Well, that’s the big mystery, isn’t it?”
“Not to me. Tell me, what do you know about the vessel from Ross 128?”
His smile vanished, and his eyes narrowed, but he wouldn’t back down or pretend. “Honestly, not much other than hearsay. I recall you were the first to recognize an unknown signal years ago, and that you and Esther and several others investigated it. But the last I heard, the code turned out to be a ghost.”
“Is that all?”
Again, he glanced between them. “Other than rumors, yes.”
“What about the one that goes like this: the alien ship is already here and for some reason planted itself on the Moon . . . and that it’s likely been there for some time.”
Carter cocked his head. His face remained unchanged. “Why all these questions, Jim? Is there something I’m not aware of?”
Jenson appeared in the hallway. “All weapons systems are online, sir.”
“Thank you, Jenson.”
Esther’s jaw dropped. “Weapons! Clayton, what the hell is going on? I didn’t think the Echo was a gunship.”
Clayton entered the galley. “Let me explain.”
Atteberry sat down and Carter swung his leg over a stool between the two. “First, the Echo is a corvette class scout ship, but we both appreciate, Esther, that every boat out here needs some kind of defensive capability. Space is far too dangerous for an unprotected craft.”
She nodded silently.
“Second, once we rescue Kate and Mary, I need to protect my lunar lab assets from the magpies . . . assuming there’s anything left to salvage.”
He folded his hands together on the table in front of him and looked squarely at Atteberry. “I’ve got billions of dollars’ worth of assets up there, much of it containing technology years ahead of anybody else. So, I make no apologies for making the salvage a priority and protecting those assets from curious onlookers, no matter who they are or what motives they pretend to have.”
Esther crossed her arms. “But these ships, except for the cruisers, are nothing more than science vessels and runabouts, yes? Hardly worth warming up weapons for.”
“Come now,” he smiled, “don’t be so naïve. There could easily be a Trojan horse in the mix, just waiting to snag my tech. Either way, we must prepare for any eventuality.” He leaned back. “What’s with that face, Esther. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do to protect the integrity and assets of the TSA either, including hiding evidence of the existence of some mysterious alien vessel.” He glared at her. “Is there?”
She didn’t respond. She recalled the half-truths, the file and data purges, her conscious decision in 2085 to distance herself from all of those Ross 128 stories circulating back then. Carter understood what she had done, but blew it off as the price of leadership. Atteberry simply stared off into the corner.
After he excused himself and left the galley, the two exchanged silent glances.
Cover-ups were one thing, but no alien vessel or first contact was worth this kind of armed confrontation. He had to be stopped.
TWENTY-SIX
Kate
Mary gathered all the disparate radio parts from the top of the console and dumped them in one of the storage bins. She grabbed a handful of connector cables. “What do you think about these? Worth taking?”
Kate’s eyes widened under her visor. “If we decide to go, then yes. As long as something’s not destroyed, let’s bring it.” Mary tossed the cables into a second bin and hopped up on the console.
“Do you still want to stay here and wait for a possible rescue ship?”
“Something tells me not to.”
“Oh?” Kate could only see part of Mary’s face through the reflections on her visor as she stared at her palms and flexed her fingers open and closed. “It’s that light. I can’t get over it.”
“Like we’re being watched, right?”
Mary studied her hands. “Not only that, I think the Rossians are behind this, and not because they’re simply curious creatures.”
She didn’t want to consider it, but since Mary raised the question of the light and how it somehow connected with the alien ship, ignoring the fact they weren’t alone couldn’t continue. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m not sure. I just find it strange that we saw the blue light in the sky on our way here and also hovering around the habitat.” She faced Kate. “But what got me was its appearance on the horizon, showing the way to these oxygen tanks.”
Kate chewed her lip. Her own biases prevented her from considering all possibilities, like this light being a ball of energy or sentience, or perhaps a probe. Maybe Mary had touched on something. If it came from the Rossian ship and in fact was observing them, it reinforced her idea that creatures were hiding in that vessel buried in the dust. However, without knowing their purpose here, speculating on their actions was risky.
“Do you think the Rossians somehow prevented our deaths by guiding us to the mining outbuildings?”
“On its own, no. But when I line up these sightings, it’s clear there’s something more going on.”
Kate drew circles on the dusty console and considered what the alien light could mean. Too many questions popped into her head, like what are they looking for? and why would they guide us along? She still couldn’t be certain whether that ship was the Rossian one, but either way, it obviously had superior technology. So, what was it up to?
She thought back to when the Titanius lunar lab was destroyed and how she suspected the alien craft was behind it. “Recall, Mares, that we both believed the Rossians blew up the lab.”
“I remember.”
“So perhaps they’re responsible for this light too, and there’s some purpose for watching or guiding us across the moonscape.” Kate paused. “But without knowing more, we have no clue what they’re doing. I’m confident, though, that if they wanted to destroy us, they would have done it already.”
Mary spun around and stood up. “That’s true. If we’re still here, they must have a reason for keeping us this way. Like, if that light is a guide, again, the question is why? For what purpose?” She hopped over to the access hatchway and wandered through the airlock until she was outside. “Come and look at this, Kate.”
She slid off the console and walked out. Off on the horizon, the blue mystery hovered in the black sky.
“What do you think now?”
Kate grimaced. “Let’s take a bearing on it.” She opened the wrist pad on her left arm and punched up the nav locator. On her visor screen, the moonscape appeared with various cross hatches, azimuthal readings and distances to geographic objects. The blue light remained eerie and motionless on the horizon, the only bright object in the sky other than Earth. Once she lined it up in the finder, she zoomed in and the measurement grew more precise.
“Extrapolate to a thousand kilometers.”
“Acknowledged.”
A second window appeared on the visor displaying the moon’s surface and a bright yellow trajectory bisecting it, showing the route from the habitat, through the blue light, and off into the distance.
“Share screen with Mary.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Oh, my god. Do you believe it now?”
Kate continued aligning the light in the nav locater’s object finder. “Let’s see where it ends up.” A pause. “Extrapolate another 2500 kilometers.”
“Acknowledged.”
The display zoomed out from the moon’s surface. Additional crater zones and mares appeared on it, including the Mare Crisium and the Mare Marginis where they’d discovered the alien ship. Cutting across the screen was the thin, yellow trajectory line.
“Kate?” Mary’s voice was barely audible.
She focused with a renewed intensity on the nav data. “Zoom in on the trajectory around the Mare Marginis.”
“Acknowledged.”
The display shifted and the region in the northeast quadrant appeared larger, covering a 100 km by 100 km area.
“Target the following coordinates: 33.1 North, 86.1 East. Zoom in to an area that’s one square kilometer around those coordinates.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Overlay all current geophysical data.”
“Processing.”
Mary gasped. On their visors, they both saw the yellow trajectory carve a straight line from left to right, through dust and debris and volcanic hills. Across the screen, mag and VLF data, along with known geologicals, all appeared. In the center of the graphic, a grainy image of the Rossian vessel rose out of the gloom, bisected by the yellow line.
“That can’t be a coincidence, Kate.”
“Agreed.” She minimized the image on her visor and stared at Mary. She already knew the answer to her question, but asked it anyway. “Still want to hang around here and wait?”
“Not a chance.”
Mary
It was liberating to fly her own scooter again now that her elbow and shoulder had healed, and with the course plotted into their machines for the Mare Marginis—a direct route straight across the crater impact and volcanic zones near the target—Mary conceded the extra time at the alien site trumped the risk of flying over that area. Despite the nagging misgivings, she understood that waiting for someone else to come by and possibly rescue them paled against the allure of first contact and whatever that may bring. Like Kate, she preferred doing things. More importantly, she wanted to meet the elusive Rossians.
“Hey Mares, if you want to catch some sleep, now’s the time to do it. Nothing but flats for hours.” Kate flew about 50 meters off her right at two o’clock. What she admired about her the most was her decisiveness and resourcefulness. Spacer training perhaps, or simply the way her DNA was built. Didn’t matter. She made a mental note to ask about her parents when they returned to Earth.
When?
Definitely. She had an intuition someone would save them. Where it came from, she didn’t understand, but putting the pieces together, she argued that strange blue light over the mining outbuildings was no accident, no random act of nature. This entire adventure, ever since the Titanius lab imploded, was being orchestrated by external forces.
“Kate, you think they want to make contact when we arrive?”
Kate’s scooter zig-zagged in broad arcs in the distance. “I don’t know, Mares. Anything’s possible.” A momentary burst of static filled her audio. “You?”
“Yeah, I do.” She paused, looked straight toward the horizon, then down at the dashboard and said, “See? That blue light ahead is like Saint Elmo’s fire. It’s an omen.”
“Mary, seriously, put the autopilot on and get some sleep.”
Two years ago, she’d hallucinated when the Alaskan flu hit. That bug knocked her flat for three weeks, and she was convinced the Earth had fallen prey to crab-like aliens. Despite running a nasty fever, she insisted on wearing a coat, hat and mitts to bed. She and her dad laughed about it later, but at the time, it was real, frightening, unknown. This felt the same.
“Maybe you’re right. I’m not thinking straight.” She toggled the autopilot throw switch, engaged the alarms, and the machine beneath her settled into a rhythmic hum, five meters above the loose, dusty sediment. Within a minute, she slouched in a sleeper position and drifted into the black.
Katie
A year had passed since Martin’s death. The overseers and their full training schedules prevented her from processing the emotional fallout of his hanging. Martin wasn’t the only one. Another girl-boy stepped in front of a speeding hovercar while on a weekend leave in Memphis. The trainers claimed it was an accident, but she and the other Spacers knew better. They’d all experienced those feelings of isolation, of otherness, of ambiguous identity shrouded in silence . . .
The projects kept her moving, focused. Twelve to sixteen-hour days left little time for Katie to wonder about anything else. Early cancer blooms happened to be the small price to pay for the fascinating work, and the anti-rad pills helped manage those. She’d often spend several months in and around the Martian colonies, or weeks in low Earth orbit sabotaging NDU satellites. She’d long since passed the point of caring about the morality of such work: it was the science and, yes, the danger that sustained her. Besides, what else could she do? Prostitute herself to the freaks who followed her?
That all changed when she’d flown to Amsterdam with a few friends on a two-day pass and melted into a club.
“I wish those creeps would quit staring.”
Pat swallowed a mouthful of beer and smiled. “They’re harmless, Katie. Ignore them.”
She shrugged, popped a greener and washed it down with a shot of vodka. “Harmless, eh? Sure, until they pester us for favors. You watch,” she said, eyeing a chunky woman with blue hair, transparent top and tattoos on her arms. “That follower over there? She’ll swing by in a minute or two.”
Pat smirked and spat on the ground beside the patio table. Tracy laughed. “Well, I for one don’t mind being propositioned. It’s easy money, kids. Try it sometime.”
“You’re mad, Trace,” Pat sighed.
Katie lit up a smokie and said, “You guys wanna get out of here? Head to the river and max out or something?”
“Are you serious? No way! We just got here, and the night’s hardly begun. Tracy’s barely warmed up.”
“True,” he said.
“And I’ve only got a few hours to enjoy the scenery before heading back to Eros. In fact,” Pat added, checking her indie-comm, “time is wasting, my grunts.” She stood, swayed for a moment, then disappeared into the night.
Without a warning, Tracy rose and stumbled off, leaving Katie alone at the table. She checked messages and finished the smokie, its effects tickling her spine, then noticed a shadow over her. She peered up to see a follower, the one with the blue hair and tattoos who’d been watching them.
“You a Spacer?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Makes no never mind to me. Spacer or not, you’re cute.”
Katie ignored her.
“You wanna split and take a walk along the Amstel?”
She dropped her indie-comm and stared coldly at the normie. She had a thick, pretty face, no makeup, and a full body under the transparent blouse. The decision to leave with her happened in a flash.
“I’m Penny,” she said once they’d found the shadows of the side-road leading to the river. “I’ll be honest, okay? I’m a follower.”
“I gathered.” Katie ambled along, head down, smelling the nearby water. The greener took hold, causing her vision to narrow at the edges.
“But I’ve never talked to a . . .”
“A Spacer?”
“Yeah. I just like to watch, mostly. But there’s something about you and, well, I told myself years ago to follow my instincts and something cosmic told me you’d be okay with a bit of company—you know, just to spend an hour or so with. I hope you don’t mind.”
Katie’s shoulder brushed against her. She stopped, catching her balance. “Penny is it?”
She nodded.
“Listen, Penny, I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. Is it sex? Money? Bragging rights? All I want is to waste a few hours with someone, without being ogled by freaks.” She paused. “You okay with that?”
The follower smiled warmly, and her eyes sparkled. “Totally. My flat’s nearby where we can hang.”
“Noves. I’m Katie.”
They walked a few more minutes until the Amstel river came into view, pitch black with speckles of light dancing off its surface. A couple cruisers chugged along, laughter and soft music drifting over the water.
Penny reached out and took Katie’s hand, interlacing her fingers. What shocked her wasn’t so much this stranger’s touch as her own acceptance of it. The last person to hold her hand was her father. She wasn’t blind: she understood what Penny did and why. Still, thoug
h she felt nothing that way toward her, Katie loved the idea of being normal that came with it.
“Penny, I—you understand I can’t do anything, right? It’s not just that they cut me up: the feelings aren’t there either, no matter how much I want them to be. It’s like I never grew older than ten.” She hung her head, staring absently at the ground rolling under her.
“Listen, here’s the truth,” Penny said, stopping and holding both Katie’s hands to her chest. “Look at me, hm? Within that body, you’re still a human being like anyone else, and we all need touch and companionship. So, perhaps you want some honest company for a few hours. No strings attached. No bullshit.”
She wrapped her arms around Katie’s bony waist and pressed hard against her. Katie tensed at the sensation of another person this close, and Penny conjured memories of her mother’s embrace.
“Sh.”
She kissed her lips gently. Katie held her breath. Her legs went numb, either from the drugs or . . . she shook her head, pushing Penny away. Her hands trembled.
“I want none of that, not a damn thing. Do you get it?” she whispered.
Penny stroked her cheek, her chopped hair, then caressed her arms. “This isn’t about sex, don’t you see? I can get that any time with any normie girl or boy or mixed I want. This is more.”
“Don’t say that. It means nothing.” But she knew deep down, it did mean something.
Penny clasped her arms around her, tightening the hold. “Let me show you, Katie, how gentle and perfect we can be.”
“I’d better get back to my friends.”
“Kiss me. Just pretend, and—”
“Please. . .”
“But I’ve never really had a—a Spacer like you before. Don’t you want to spend a few hours with me, Katie? Say you want me.”
Katie sighed and relaxed, allowing Penny to draw her into an embrace, but couldn’t bear to look in her eyes. She felt the warmth of her full chest; the fingers clutching her back, the scent of exotic perfume, and couldn’t deny her new-found feelings. There was something dark about this; ugly and vaguely familiar, yet foreign. An image of young Martin struggling with his own sexual awareness crept into her mind. She wondered what it must have been like living as a boy-girl.
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