“Weird eyes,” Sander mumbled. “Weird eyes.”
But no one else heard him.
“Sander is exhausted,” she heard her mother say. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours since he’s slept, poor guy. You know, we had trouble at the airport, delays, or a strike, I’m not quite sure. Well, and then NASA suggested we take a private flight and, well … it’s been a long day.”
“Sander, are you tired? Do you want to go lie down for a while?” the father asked. “They have super-great beds here, you know. Just for you. And now you can sleep securely, pal, because now Mia is safely back with us. Aren’t you happy now?”
“Yeah,” he replied, giving his lion a good hug.
“Don’t you want to give Mia a hug, too?”
“No,” he said quickly, turning away.
The mother looked at her, stroked her cheek.
“It’s been so long since Sander saw you, you know. He’s not used to you being gone for so long. Maybe you want to help him get ready for bed,” the mother suggested, “make sure he brushes his teeth and all that? I’m sure it would mean a lot to him. Then Father and I will order us some food. What would you like?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Are you sure? Maybe you ate already?” The girl shook her head. “Well, I’ll order something anyway, and then you can see if you want it or not.”
She took a step toward Sander and held out her hand. Reluctantly he took it. He noticed that it was cold.
“Come on, Sander.”
He obediently shuffled along behind her into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the tap. She found a hotel toothbrush and unwrapped it, squeezed a stripe of toothpaste onto the brush.
“Why don’t you let me hold your lion for a minute while you brush your teeth?” she said.
He shook his head and stared at the closed bathroom door. Slowly he took the brush from her and began moving it across his toy’s tattered mouth.
“Did you miss me while I was gone?”
“I’m scared, Mia,” he replied.
“I’m not Mia.”
The tattered stuffed lion fell out of his hands when she grabbed him. He didn’t have a chance to make a sound.
She then proceeded to open the bathroom door and reenter the hotel room, where his parents were waiting.
“How did it go?” the mother asked.
“It went good,” she answered, smiling, as a girl who looked just like her emerged from the bathroom behind her.
The doppelgängers swiftly slinked out of the suite. Four identical copies of Mia moved from room to room with such ruthless efficiency that before long there were legions of copies sweeping through the hotel. Most of the guests opened their doors when they heard the knock. They would peer out the peephole and see a young girl out in the hallway. The last thing they were expecting was to be attacked without mercy.
One by one, the doppelgängers took elevators or stairwells down to the first floor and exited the lobby, climbed into a cab or simply strolled down the sidewalk. None of the hotel employees in the lobby or the guests who were busy checking in noticed that the same person appeared to keep leaving the Four Seasons Hotel over and over again.
With one exception.
A bellhop, who was impatiently waiting to carry in the luggage of a slow Japanese couple, thought he saw one teenage girl pass him three times. He wondered about it but quickly brushed it off as déjà vu. He was tired, anyway. And then he was asked to bring the luggage up to a room on the thirty-first floor.
The bellhop pushed the button to call the elevator and glanced up at the lighted display, which indicated the elevator was on its way down to him, something he’d seen hundreds or thousands of times before. It would be the last time.
A quiet ping was heard as it reached the lobby and the doors opened.
LOG NO_88.723.
NAME OF SHIP: RV PROVIDENCE
CREW: 8
ORIGIN: SECTOR 12, EARTH
FINAL DESTINATION: EUROPA
CURRENT LOCATION: THE MOON, QUADRANT 60 (MARE TRANQUILLITATIS)
DATE: 08/17/2081
TIME OF TRANSMISSION: 21:14 UTC
PRIMARY MISSION: DEEP-SEA INVESTIGATION OF MOON EUROPA, AREA #878
CURRENT ASSIGNMENT: INVESTIGATE QUADRANT 60, LUNAR SURFACE
1.
ENCOUNTERED SUBJECTS BELIEVED TO HAVE CONNECTION TO THE DP7 EVENT ON EARTH IN 2019.
SUBJECT #1 (DCSD) IS FEMALE, APPROX. 16YRS. FOUND 600FT FROM MOON BASE DARLAH 2 MAIN HATCH. CLOTHES: NASA SPACESUIT. FRACTURED HELMET FOUND 5FT FROM BODY. CAUSE OF DEATH: EXPOSURE TO VACUUM. SUBJECT VISUALLY IDENTICAL TO FIRST OBSERVATIONS OF DP7 ON EARTH. TISSUE SAMPLE SHOWS SUBJECT IS HUMAN. FOOTPRINTS (NO SHOES) FROM UNIDENTIFIED SUBJECT FOUND IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO BODY.
2.
EXTERIOR INSPECTION MOON BASE DARLAH 2: BASE LOOKS INTACT. NO VISIBLE EXTERNAL DAMAGE, INTEGRITY OK. DISCOVERED SUBJECT #2 (DCDS) BETWEEN MODULES 2 AND 3. CAUSE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN. SUBJECT #2 IDENTIFIED AS LT. HALL (LMP).
INTERIOR INSPECTION MOON BASE DARLAH 2:
MAIN HATCH LEFT OPEN. MAKESHIFT CRYSTAL RADIO RECEIVER DISCOVERED ON FLOOR INSIDE DECOMPRESSION CHAMBER. NO POWER OR OXYGEN PRESENT THROUGHOUT BASE. SUBJECT #3 (DCDS) IDENTIFIED AS CAPT. COLEMAN (HCOM) FOUND IN MODULE 3/GREENHOUSE. CAUSE OF DEATH: SELF-INFLICTED GUNSHOT WOUND TO HEAD. BASE OTHERWISE LOOKS INTACT, NO INDISPUTABLE SIGNS OF STRUGGLE. SUBLEVEL POWER GENERATOR (MODULE 4) REVEALS SUBJECTS #4 AND #5 (DCSD), IDENTIFIED AS S. WILSON AND
P. STANTON. CAUSE OF DEATH: ASPHYXIA.
LUNAR ROVER VEHICLE SEEMS TO BE MISSING FROM MODULE 4.
FURTHER INVESTIGATION SUGGESTED.
RV PROVIDENCE CONTINUING TO EUROPA.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END OF REPORT…
SEE APP. NEXT PAGE
APPENDIX TO LOG NO_88.723.
DESCRIPTION: ITEM FOUND IN LEFT SIDE POCKET OF SUBJECT #1. ITEM IS A HANDWRITTEN NOTE, SIGNED BY DECEASED.
PARTS OF THE MESSAGE DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO DECIPHER.
IT READS AS FOLLOWS:
I REMEMBER. IT IS STRANGE, ISN’T IT, HOW SO MANY ANIMALS PREFER TO DIE ALONE, HIDDEN AWAY FROM THEIR FAMILY, THEIR PACK. THEY JUST SEEM TO WANDER OFF AND DISAPPEAR WHEN THEY FEEL THE TIME IS NEAR. WHY WON’T THEY LET ANYONE STAY WITH THEM THE LAST FEW MINUTES? I ALWAYS FOUND THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND. UNTIL NOW. I NO LONGER BELIEVE THEY DO IT TO SPARE THEIR FAMILY THE SADNESS OF BEING THERE WHEN IT HAPPENS. I THINK THEY DO IT TO SPARE THEMSELVES. LOOKING INTO THE KIND EYES OF THOSE YOU’VE LOVED, THOSE YOU SPENT ALL YOUR GOOD DAYS AND ALL YOUR BAD DAYS TOGETHER WITH WHILE YOU’RE TRYING TO GENTLY SLIP AWAY MIGHT BE TOO HARD TO TAKE, AND YOU END UP STRUGGLING FOR EXTRA TIME, WILLING TO PROLONG YOUR OWN SUFFERING JUST TO MAKE IT EASIER ON THEM. BETTER, THEN, TO LEAVE SILENTLY, UNDISCOVERED, IN THE DARK OF NIGHT. ALONE. IN MANY WAYS, I’M GLAD NONE OF YOU ARE HERE WITH ME WHEN I (INDECIPHERABLE) MAYBE IT’S FOR THE BEST FOR MANY REASONS. (INDECIPHERABLE) IT’S ON ITS WAY TO YOU NOW, SO (INDECIPHERABLE, TWO LINES OF TEXT HAVE BEEN VIOLENTLY CROSSED OUT) DAD, TAHNK YOU SO MUCH FOR TEACHING ME HOW TO (BUILD?) A RADIO. YOU PROBABLY WOULD HAVE WANTED ME TO REMEMBER YOU FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN THAT, BUT THAT IS THE IMAGE THAT SEEMS TO HAVE (STUCK?) WITH ME, YOUR FACE WHEN YOU MADE THAT RADIO WORK, HOW PROUD YOU LOOKED THEN. AS A KID. & I LOVED YOU FOR IT. (I?) WAS ABLE TO BUILD ONE MYSELF. DIDN’T LOOK AS GOOD AS YOURS, THOUGH. BUT I MADE IT WORK. AND SO I’VE HEARD THAT THERE WILL BE NO RESCUE MISSION COMING MY WAY AND THAT “A CLERGYMAN WILL ADOPT THE SAME PROCEDURE AS A BURIAL AT SEA, COMMENDING THEIR SOULS TO ‘THE DEEPEST OF THE DEEP,’ CONCLUDING WITH THE LORD’S PRAYER.” I’M AFRAID NO PRAYER WILL DO ANY OF US ANY GOOD NOW. SORRY ABOUT THE WRITIN. USING A PENCIL WITH THESE GLOVES (INDECIPHERABLE) AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED. OR MAYBE IT’S (MY?) HEAD, I’M RUNNING LOW ON OXYGEN, HEADACHE IT TAKES TIME TO GET WORDS WRITE. WILL LEAVE DARLAH 2 NOW, FIND A GREAT SPOT OUTSID (INDECIPHERABLE) CAN WATCH THE EARTH UNTIL I (INDECIPHERABLE) IT WILL A BEAUTFUL LAST (SIGHT?). THERE’S NOTHING MORE I CAN TELL YOU. IT WAS A GREAT RIDE. ALL OF IT. YOU AR ALL BEAUTTYFULL. NO ILIED
. I WISH YOU WEREHERE. NO ANIMAL. THE LETTER. MOM. SANDR. I’M SORRY IM SO SORRY. I HAVE TO (GO?) NOW. MIA (SIGNATURE)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END OF MESSAGE…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END OF TRANSMISSION
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The signal 6EQUJ5 was actually received on August 15, 1977, at the Big Ear Radio Observatory (now known as the Ohio State University Radio Observatory) in Delaware, Ohio — and the details in Coleman’s story on pages 274 to 277 concerning the signal’s reception are actual facts. It is also worth noting that on August 20 and September 5, 1977, two spaceships named Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In addition to taking pictures and solar measurements, they carried a message: a gold-plated record containing images, music, and sounds from our planet, compiled in the event that the ships were ever discovered by an extraterrestrial civilization. Thirteen years after the launch, Voyager 1 passed Neptune’s orbit and left our solar system. Voyager 1 and 2 are continuing their journey into space at a speed of seventeen kilometers per second, and they remain the man-made objects that are farthest from Earth. If no one discovers them in the meantime, Voyager 1 won’t reach Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, for at least forty thousand years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHAN HARSTAD (born 1979 in Stavanger, Norway) debuted in 2001 with the prose collection Herfra blir du bare eldre [From Here You Only Get Older]. The following year he published a collection of short stories titled Ambulanse [Ambulance], and in 2005 he published Buzz Aldrin, hvor ble det av deg i alt mylderet? [Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?], which has been published in thirteen countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and Korea, and was a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of 2011 book. In 2007, Harstad published the novel Hässelby, which earned him the Norwegian Youths’ Critics Prize. He has also written four plays. 172 Hours on the Moon (originally published in Norway as DARLAH: 172 timer på månen) is his first young adult novel, for which he received the 2008 Brage Award, one of the most prestigious literary awards in Norway. The book is currently being published in ten countries in Europe, Asia, and America.
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