George and the Blue Moon

by Stephen Hawking

  “This is it!” she said. “Time to go!”

  George nodded. They had agreed to this plan the night before. It was so unlikely, they figured, that they might just pull it off. “Where’s Ebot?” he mumbled.

  “He went to get the car,” said Annie. “He should be outside—about now! Go go go!” With that, she half ran, half pushed George down the hallway to the front door and they jumped out onto the sidewalk.

  Sure enough, Eric’s little pale blue driverless car, rescued and recharged by Ebot, sat outside with the friendly android in the front seat. They had already decided that Ebot should take the driver’s seat. That way, anyone passing them wouldn’t notice anything unusual about the car or its passengers. They would think Ebot was an adult driving two kids in the car; just a normal everyday outing …

  Of course, there was nothing normal about an android impersonating a parent while pretending to drive a car that was actually driving itself. But Annie figured that no one needed to know that.

  “How are we going to actually find Kosmodrome 2?” George asked, wondering why he hadn’t thought of this last night. It was so early that the bright planet Venus was still visible in the morning sky. “We don’t even know where it is!”

  “No,” said Annie gleefully. “But the car does! Watch!”

  To start the car, all Ebot, who had the same fingerprints as Eric, had to do was touch the central pad of the steering wheel with his index finger. Once the engine sprang to life, Annie guided Ebot’s finger to select, from the dashboard computer, the last destination, which was saved as “Kosmodrome 2.”

  “Would it work if I used my finger?” asked George, more awake by now and starting to feel like they might actually get somewhere!

  “Nope,” said Annie. “It’s touch-controlled, but only Dad’s, or Ebot’s”—she grinned over her shoulder at George, who had taken the cramped back seat—“fingerprints can operate it.”

  With that, the little car put on its blinkers.

  “Buckle up!” said Annie, putting on her seat belt. George reached for his own seat belt and strapped himself in. Annie arranged Ebot’s hands on the steering wheel. He wouldn’t actually be steering as Annie had been very careful to disable the car’s manual option, but she still thought she should make sure all the details were in place. “And we’re off!” she said as the car pulled out into the road and started the journey to Kosmodrome 2.

  It wasn’t the most relaxing car trip of George’s life so far—he wasn’t sure he really trusted either Annie or Ebot in charge of a moving vehicle. It was also very fast. Whichever setting Eric had last used for his racing, angry return from his final day at Kosmodrome 2 was obviously still active. The car sped onward, weaving through the sparse early morning traffic until they were on the main road out of Foxbridge. At one point, the car cornered so sharply that two wheels actually lifted off the road as it shot around a bend!

  “AWIEEE!” Annie screamed in the front seat as the car accelerated yet faster. But she seemed to scream out of joy and excitement rather than fear.

  “Hold tight!” mumbled George from the back. He was being thrown about from left to right and hoped he wasn’t going to be sick. His parents didn’t even have a normal car, the kind you drove yourself, so he definitely wasn’t used to this kind of travel. Even Annie had her eyes tightly squeezed shut and was clinging onto her seat belt.

  “Can you slow it down?” shouted George from the back.

  “No!” said Annie. “I don’t dare touch anything! The car might stop or go backward or take us to the wrong destination if I try to change anything. Or it might go even faster!”

  The fields outside were whizzing past so quickly that they were just a blur of green, yellow, and brown. If they accelerated even just a tiny bit, George feared they might actually lift off! He wanted to fly, but in a proper craft built for that purpose, not in Eric’s funny little car.

  The only person who seemed to be enjoying the ride was Ebot who, being mechanical, had no stomach to churn. His hair was blowing back in the breeze from his open window and he looked relaxed, carefree, and even rather stylish at the wheel of the speeding car.

  At last they felt the car slow down as it made the final turn into a long unmarked driveway between two very tall hedges, which led to the hidden space facility, Kosmodrome 2. It looked like a dirt road, leading nowhere in particular. It was a good thing the car knew where it was going, because its passengers certainly did not!

  Eventually the road was barred by a red-and-white striped pole with a small black box on a stand on either side of the road. Signs dotted around read: RESTRICTED AREA! NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS! Stretching away on both sides was the highest chain-link fence the two friends had ever seen.

  “What now?” asked George. “How do we get through?”

  Annie wound down her window and scrutinized the box on her side of the road. There was just a small screen on it. “I know!” she said. She got out her phone, scrolled through it, found what she was looking for, and held her phone against the screen. George craned over from the back seat to get a better look. The screen behind Annie’s phone glowed green, and as she took back her phone, George could see writing on the brightly lit screen.

  Welcome, astronauts! it read. Welcome, George Greenby. Welcome, Annie Bellis! Please make your way to the main building.

  The red-and-white pole rose, and the little car shot forward again, sneaking under before the barrier could come crashing down on it.

  “How did it know?” said George.

  “They sent us barcodes,” said Annie, “when we got our acceptances. They said all we needed to bring was the barcodes.”

  “Well, that worked!” said George. “Not much security, though. There’s nobody here.”

  But as they drove toward a distant shape standing in the middle of the fields, he noticed what he at first thought were black birds flying around the car. But as they flew closer, diving right in front of the windscreen and around the windows, he saw they weren’t birds at all. They looked like tiny airborne cameras, each with one winking red eye.

  “Drones!” said Annie. “And they’re filming us!” She fluffed her ponytail and smiled brilliantly, in case anyone was actually watching.

  “And if we weren’t the people they wanted,” said George, only half joking, “they would unleash robot guards!”

  In the front seat, Annie shivered. As they got closer, they saw the main building gleaming in the sunshine. It was an extraordinary sight—it looked like it was made of lattice-work: millions of bars of steel arranged in a geometric pattern over a central dome. To either side were buildings, mostly made of bald concrete with no windows. Not a single person could be seen anywhere. None of Eric’s previous workplaces had looked like this. They had all been busy, scruffy, bustling places, full of life and energy, with parks and gardens where students ate sandwiches while reading books, and professors strolled about, deep in conversation with each other. Not like this empty, sterile, and futuristic venue at all.

  The car guided itself into a packed parking lot, and pulled into a spot where the name “Professor Bellis” had been rudely scratched off a placard.

  “Here we are!” said Annie, leaping out of the car. She went around to Ebot’s side, opened his door, and shoved him out, with George clambering out of the back seat behind the android. They followed a sign saying ASTRONAUTS—THIS WAY! that took them to a grand entrance in the main building.

  “It’s a bit creepy,” said George as they stood in its shadow, looking up at the silhouette against the perfect blue sky.

  “It’s very beautiful,” said Annie reflectively. “But not in a way that makes you like it.”

  “I hope Eric won’t be really angry when he reads our note,” said George. He sighed, thinking of the letter he and Annie had written to Eric and left on the kitchen table, explaining that they had gone to space camp but that they would try and call him from Kosmodrome 2 and let him know how they were doing.

  “Oh well!
Shall we go and find Artem—” he started to say, but Annie interrupted him.

  “Shush!” she said frantically, pointing to the drone. “Don’t say that word.”

  With that, they trooped slowly through the main doorway and took their first steps, they hoped, toward space—and into another adventure.

  DRIVERLESS CARS

  Driverless cars—surely only in science fiction?

  Amazingly, driverless cars already exist! Also known as robotic or self-driving cars, these are vehicles that can perform the main functions of a normal car without a human being in charge. They can sense the environment around them, using radar, computer systems, and GPS, so they can navigate as well as get around obstacles or deal with changing conditions on the roads.

  The Google Self-Driving Car—powered by software called Google Chauffeur—for instance, has been running for a number of years already and their latest car has no steering wheel or pedals!

  Driverless cars could be really useful—they do long journeys without getting tired, and they could help disabled or blind people who can’t drive ordinary cars to get around. Cars driven by robots, if they function properly, might be safer than cars driven by humans: robots don’t look out of the window or fiddle around changing the radio station, answer a cell phone or have arguments with passengers!

  But some people think they could be dangerous in other ways. If a driverless car malfunctions while in motion, it’s possible the passengers in the car wouldn’t be able to control the vehicle. And what would happen if we all forgot how to drive? Would that be a good idea? What would happen to all the bus and taxi drivers? What jobs would they do if robots took over the road?

  Some countries in Europe are already drawing up plans to create transport networks for driverless cars. Keep your eyes peeled—you might see a driverless car near you soon.

  Chapter Seven

  Annie and George pushed open the big heavy doors into the main building and found a nearly deserted hallway. The roof arched up above them, made of thousands of metal struts, covered in gleaming glass, with shards of sunlight falling through onto the polished floor. On another day they would have stopped to gaze upward at the magnificent building. But today they had work to do.

  A large banner saying, WELCOME ASTRONAUTS! YOUR JOURNEY STARTS HERE! hung over a table where a man and a woman in blue flight suits seemed to be packing up. Shadowed by Ebot, Annie and George nervously made their way toward them.

  “Hello?” said Annie. “We’re here for Astronauts Wanted.”

  “Welcome! We are glad you could make it,” said the young woman, smiling at the two friends, not noticing Ebot. “Everyone else is already here—the induction is about to start.”

  The man next to her nudged her sharply and she looked again and almost jumped out of her skin. Their eyes boggled as they gazed at Ebot in undisguised horror. Annie and George looked around too, startled by this reaction. The only unusual thing they noticed about Ebot was that he too seemed to have lime-green paint on his glasses now.

  “Isn’t that … ?” she whispered to her friend.

  “I don’t know!” he whispered back. “I never actually met him!”

  “I only saw him once,” said the woman. “So I don’t know—but that sure looks like him.”

  “Names?” said the man nervously, addressing the two friends.

  “George Greenby!”

  “Annie Bellis,” they both announced at the same moment. At the word “Bellis,” they both heard a sharp intake of breath.

  The man looked down at his tablet screen. “It looks like we have a full house already! Are you sure?” he said doubtfully, eyeing Ebot suspiciously once more.

  “Of course we’re sure!” said Annie, producing her phone. “Look, here are our registration barcodes!”

  But as she and George swapped looks, they both knew the other was feeling a prickle of unease. What had happened at Kosmodrome 2 that would cause this reaction when Annie said, “Bellis?” Why would these nice-looking people seem so anti-Eric? Of course, George and Annie already knew Eric had experienced problems at work, just like they knew there was something going on with Europa that seemed suspicious. Now they both also felt an “uh-oh,” as though something much more sinister than they had imagined lay below all this.

  George gulped. It was too late to go back now, he figured. And he didn’t really want to—he wanted the chance to train as an astronaut. He wanted to help cheer up Annie and he hoped they could solve the mystery of Artemis and find out what had happened to Eric at Kosmodrome 2. But suddenly it seemed an awful lot for one boy and his friend to take on.

  The woman took the phone and scanned in the barcodes. “Oh, yes,” she said in surprise. “You’re the late additions—that’s why you’re not on the main list.”

  “That’s so odd,” muttered the man. “She’s a Bellis. Why would they let a Bellis back in here? After—”

  “Shush! She’s on the list,” said the woman. “So we have to sign her in!”

  “We need a parent to give authorization,” said the man, who was now looking very shifty and uncomfortable.

  “We’ve got one right here!” said Annie, who was losing some of her confidence but was determined not to show it. “He can sign for both of us.”

  “He’s my loco-thingy,” George tried to explain. “My real mom and dad are away. They’ve gone on a farming vacation. To an island. With my little sisters, Juno and Hera. That’s why they’re not here. But they totally gave their permission to—”

  Annie trod on his foot. “Stop talking!” she hissed. “Eb— Dad!” she summoned her robot. “Sign us in. Please,” she added, trying to soften her command. “You lovely Dad person, you!” She knew how fake she sounded but she still felt she had to say something. The commands you give to a robot are not quite the same as the way you talk to your parents.

  The android stepped forward, smiled politely, and pressed his hand against the screen, transferring Eric’s signature electronically.

  Eric W. Bellis flashed up on the screen in squiggly writing.

  “OMG,” said the woman, with a mix-ture of fear and respect. “It really is.”

  “Sir,” said the man carefully. “Thank you for signing these two astronauts into the program. I am now calling Security to escort you off the premises.”

  “No need,” said Annie quickly. “He knows the way back to the parking lot.”

  The two Kosmodrome 2 workers gave her an odd look, but Ebot had already turned round and was walking back out of the doors.

  “Love you, um—Dad!” Annie cried after the departing android, trying to make it seem more realistic. But Ebot left without a backward glance. As he did so, two full-sized gleaming metal robots appeared at one side of the hallway.

  “You two!” said the woman unnaturally brightly. “Here are your pagers. They will direct you to the changing rooms where you will find your flight suits. Leave all your personal belongings, including anything electronic, such as iPads or phones, in the lockers. They will be quite safe. While you are at Kosmodrome 2, you must keep your pager on you at all times. It will tell you what to do and where to go next. Good luck!”

  Annie and George left quietly, following the directions in red letters on their pagers. As they walked away, they heard the two Kosmodrome 2 workers whisper to each other. “Did you see that? He didn’t even say good-bye to the two kids! He didn’t even look back! They were right—Professor Bellis isn’t really human at all!”

  George got a tight hold of Annie’s elbow and pulled her with him, knowing she wanted to go back and correct the two checkin staff. “You can’t tell them!” he said. “You can’t say anything!”

  Annie threw an angry glance over her shoulder, but turned back with a mutinous expression on her face. “I know,” she muttered. “So unfair.” She eyed a drone, fluttering past. “Oh well!” she sighed, giving a bright but fake smile. “Space camp, here we come!”

  At that moment, both their pagers started beeping to alert
them that they needed to hurry:

  Induction due to start in Mission Control!

  “See you on the other side,” said Annie, hurrying into the girls’ changing room.

  “See you in space,” said George, giving her their traditional sign-off. Taking one last look down the empty corridor, he went into the changing room to put on his flight suit.

  Chapter Eight

  Entering Mission Control for the first time, Annie and George got a real sense of the awesome scale of the task they had signed up for. They were here to try out as astronauts for Mars! Which meant that one day they might actually be in a spaceship, zooming toward the red planet! And they wouldn’t travel to Mars just to touch down and leave again—they were going to build a whole new habitation for the human race there. They were heading way beyond the frontiers of what any human had ever done before.

  They both caught their breath. It was as though they had been so bound up in other mysteries—the phenomenon of Artemis, the strange way Annie’s dad had suddenly stopped being a scientist, and the hole in the ice on Europa—that they’d almost forgotten that they could be on the brink of the greatest space journey since humans landed on the Moon.

  Annie and George had to squeeze into the back at Mission Control, a room packed with banks of computers that operated the many space missions in orbit around the Earth or other planets in the Solar System, or traveling around on pre-planned routes.

  In the past, space missions had been run from different locations all over Planet Earth. But as more and more spaceships and robotic spacecraft launched, keeping track got really complicated. One—but only one—of Kosmodrome 2’s roles was to monitor everything that flew in space—from satellites to spacecraft to deep space probes. Human and robotic activity in space had now been centralized into this one mega corp of cosmic business.