Meet Me in the Moon Room

by Ray Vukcevich

  5.

  “You can’t go,” Frank said.

  “I can, too!”

  “Tell her she can’t go, Doc,” Frank said.

  “You can’t go, Nancy.”

  “Hey, why not?” Joe spoke up suddenly, and the two other men looked at him like he’d gone crazy.

  “Look, you guys,” Nancy said, “this is the story of the century. You’ve got to let me go along. The first people on the moon! I was born to cover this story.”

  “That’s the first men,” Frank said. “The first men on the moon.”

  “Is that why you’re taking Spot?”

  “Hey! Spot’s a spacedog.”

  6.

  Actually, this could be to our advantage,” Worldmaster Jones said. “Let’s see if we can’t cut a deal with the seafood.”

  “But what could we have that they’d want?” asked Coordinator Grey.

  7.

  “Ten,” Doc said.

  “What?”

  “He said ‘ten.’”

  “Ten what?”

  “Nine,” Doc said.

  “I thought you said he said ‘ten?’”

  “Eight,” Doc said.

  “I give up.” Joe threw up his hands and leaned back in his contoured spacechair and looked up at the sky through the forward viewports. It would be a long time before he saw that sky again. He wondered if he might lose Nancy altogether. Could their relationship hold up under the strain of his just going off into space, right after they’d first met? Well, a man has to do what a man has to do. He would suffer this sweet anguish in stony silence.

  “Seven,” Doc said.

  “Maybe you’d better start flipping switches,” Frank said. He made a few quick calculations with his slipstick and jotted down the results on a pad on the arm of his spacechair.

  “Six,” Doc said.

  “Good idea,” Joe said. “Doc seems to be preoccupied. As you know, Frank, he’s done all the calculations for the trip in his head.”

  “Five,” Doc said.

  “Just checking,” Frank grumbled. He put his slipstick away. “Did you remember to close the supply hatch?”

  “Four,” Doc said.

  “Me?” Joe finished flipping a bank of switches before turning to look at Frank. “You were supposed to close that hatch. Hey, Doc, I think Frank forgot to close the supply hatch.”

  “Three,” Doc said.

  “Look,” Frank said, “I clearly remember asking you to close the hatch.”

  “Two,” Doc said.

  “Darn it, Frank,” Joe said. He unsnapped his harness and swung his legs around off his chair.

  “One,” Doc said.

  “Oh, sit still,” Frank said. He unsnapped his own harness. “If you’re going to pout, I’ll go shut it.”

  “Blast off!” Doc cried.

  8.

  “Something has risen from the surface of the planet,” Z’p said, and then dropped flat to the floor in a show of respect.

  “So, shoot it down,” Hivekeeper B’b said. “Do I have to think of everything?”

  “Thinking of everything is your job,” muttered Z’p.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said we’re too far out to shoot it down, Hivekeeper.”

  “How long before we get to the moon?”

  “We’re almost there now.”

  9.

  The blue and white curve of Earth had been visible briefly before Doc aimed the nose of the ship at the moon. Now there was nothing much to see and nothing much to do but eat lunch. Joe, Frank, Doc, and Spot floated around the control cabin eating pork’n’beans from cans and drinking orange pop.

  “What was that noise?” Frank asked.

  “Noise?” Doc said.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Joe said.

  “Arf,” said Spot.

  “Well, I heard it,” Frank said. He left his spoon sticking in his can of pork’n’beans and the can floating in the air and swam down to the door to the supply closet. He seized the handle and threw open the door. Nancy tumbled out with a yelp.

  10.

  Meanwhile, back on Earth, Mrs. Jones put a perfect pot roast on the dining room table. She arranged the carving knife and fork on the platter and adjusted the angles of their handles so they would be just where the Worldmaster expected them to be when he reached for them to carve the roast. She hurried back into the kitchen for the mashed potatoes. The doorbell rang.

  “Oh, double darn!” she said. She glanced around quickly to see if anyone had heard her. Worldmaster Jones would not tolerate rough language. He would be in his den smoking his pipe. Would he answer the door on his own? Well, maybe when . . . maybe when . . . well, maybe when heck got a lot colder. Oh my, such thoughts. The doorbell rang again.

  “Oh, Worldmaster Jones,” she called, “would you mind getting that, dear?”

  Of course, he would get the door, the old bear, but he wouldn’t like it. “Where’s Billy?” he growled as he came out of his den.

  “Here I am, Worldmaster,” Billy said coming down the stairs in his baseball outfit. He snatched the cap off his head when he saw the fire smoldering in his father’s eyes.

  “And do you suppose you could get the door?” Worldmaster Jones rattled his newspaper at the boy.

  “I thought Mom would get it,” Billy said on his way to the front door.

  Worldmaster Jones paused in the doorway of his den so he could see who was at the door. His wife did the same from her spot by the dining room table. Billy opened the door.

  A young man in a neat black suit and a thin tie greeted Billy. “Hello, is your mother or father home?”

  “Well.” Billy glanced back at Worldmaster Jones, who pretended to read his paper.

  The young man must have figured it out. He stepped up the volume of his voice. “I’m asking for donations for basic services.” He had a tin can with a thin slit for change cut into the top. “Police, fire, city services, roads and streets, health care and food for the poor, schools from kindergarten to the university. You know, everything but the military. Can I count on you folks?”

  “Dinner’s ready,” Mrs. Jones called brightly.

  Worldmaster Jones stepped forward. “Thank you, young man, but we gave at the office.” He closed the door.

  11.

  “If I hadn’t pulled that hatch closed behind me, you’d all be sucking vacuum!” Nancy said. “It’s not like you can just put me out.” When she wasn’t talking, she was chewing her gum a mile a minute, and Joe wondered what it would be like to shut her up with a kiss. “I mean you really wouldn’t do that, would you, Doctor Tim?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. “What do you think, Doc?”

  “Of course we won’t put her out!” Joe pushed off the wall and did a superman dive for her, but she grabbed a handhold and moved out of the way before he arrived. Joe sailed on past her with a goofy smile on his face and crashed head first into the wall.

  “Besides,” he said rubbing his head, “we could use a woman’s touch around here. Aren’t you guys getting tired of pork’n’beans?”

  Frank admitted grudgingly that he for one was getting tired of pork’n’beans.

  “Arf!” said Spot.

  “And I can finally get a cup of coffee,” Doc said.

  12.

  The lobster men from Alpha Centauri landed on the back side of the moon and scuttled from the sunshine into deep lunar caverns and tunnels they dug as they went along. Soon the moon was infested with lobsters.

  “So, what do we do now?” Z’p asked.

  “We wait for the women,” Hivekeeper B’b said.

  13.

  Joe’s hand might have been a creature wi
th a mind of its own as it skulked like a white spider across the back of the spacechair behind Nancy’s head. A few more inches and he could drop his arm around her shoulders.

  The moon was huge and bright in the forward viewports.

  “Oh, look how big it is,” Nancy said.

  “What?” Joe felt his face go red.

  Frank chuckled wickedly.

  “Arf,” said Spot.

  “Get ready to land on the moon, boys,” Doc said.

  14.

  “What I don’t understand, Worldmaster Jones,” Coordinator Grey said, “is how your secretary got onto a spaceship heading for the moon.”

  “If you can’t spot a spy when you see one, Coordinator Grey,” Worldmaster Jones said, “I begin to doubt your abilities.”

  15.

  Joe, Frank, Doc, and Spot pressed their faces against the glass as they gazed out at the lunar landscape. Nancy jumped and poked and pushed and pinched from behind, trying to squeeze in for a look herself. They’d gotten into the form-fitting spacesuits Doc had designed, and each carried a fishbowl helmet. In fact, Doc carried two, Spot being unable to carry his own.

  “Ow,” Frank said when Nancy pinched his ear. He moved away from the viewport and she took his place. “Say, Doc,” he said, “how come you just happened to have a babe suit on hand for Nancy?”

  “You think that ‘be prepared’ stuff is just words?” Doc asked.

  “Oh, look,” Nancy said.

  “What can they be?” Joe asked.

  “Moon monsters?” Nancy offered.

  “What are you talking about?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Doc said. “They seem to be wearing life-support systems themselves. If they were native to the moon they wouldn’t need spacesuits.”

  “Well, I think we should go out and meet them,” Nancy said. “I could get an interview.”

  “So, you’re feeling like a snack?” Joe asked.

  “Girls.” Frank rolled his eyes.

  “Look,” Nancy said, “they’re waving at us.”

  16.

  “What are you doing, Hivekeeper?” Z’p was mystified at the strange antics of his leader. The Hivekeeper bounced up and down on his back legs and clicked both of his claws above his head.

  “It’s the Intergalactic Babe Call,” the Hivekeeper said. “If there are women in there, they won’t be able to resist this.”

  17.

  “Me first,” Nancy said, elbowing her way up to the airlock.

  “No way!” Frank cried. “If anyone should be the first man on the moon, it should be Doc.”

  “Well, even if I go first,” Nancy said, “Doctor Tim can still be the first man on the moon.”

  “She does have a point.” Joe pulled Frank aside.

  “What point?”

  “Well, a point of politeness,” Joe said. “It’s always Ladies First.”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “In your heart you know I’m right, Frank.”

  “See? That’s the trouble of having women on board in the first place,” Frank said. “I knew we’d come to a conundrum like this sooner or later.”

  Air whooshed out of the cabin.

  “Hey!” Frank shouted. “She didn’t do the doors right!”

  “Close it!” Joe shouted. “Watch out!” He grabbed Spot by the tail before the spacedog could be blown out onto the lunar surface.

  Frank got the airlock door closed. They hurried to the viewport to see what had happened to Nancy.

  Nancy, the glass bubble of her helmet reflecting billions and billions of stars, put out her hands in a peaceful gesture and walked toward the line of lobster men.

  “Oh, Nancy,” Joe whispered.

  When Nancy got to the line of lobster men, they grabbed her and scrambled off like a swarm of cockroaches.

  “Come on!” Joe shouted. “We’ve got to get out there and save her.”

  18.

  The lobster men dragged Nancy deep into the bowels of the moon.

  “So, what did you think of Earth when you first saw it?” Nancy was trying to do her job. “Tell me, do you guys have plans for an invasion of the planet itself? What do you do when you’re not waging interstellar wars? Are there any more like you at home?”

  The lobster men tossed Nancy into a rock chamber and closed the door behind her. Sitting at a table in the middle of the room were the biggest lobster man yet, and a human being.

  “Worldmaster Jones!” Nancy exclaimed.

  “Yes, it’s me,” Jones said. “Did you think for a moment that you fooled me by pretending to be my secretary back on Earth? Don’t make me laugh. The moment you walked in, Nancy, I knew you were a perky, gum-snapping, wisecracking girl reporter.”

  “So, where do we go from here?” Nancy asked. “I mean just what are you up to? Selling out the human race to these lobster guys? And what happens to me?”

  “As for your first question,” Worldmaster Jones said, “you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over such matters. As for your second question, you can make yourself useful. I’ve been dying to show B’b here what a good cup of coffee is like. You’ll find the proper equipment through that tunnel.”

  19.

  Frank touched helmets with Joe. “It’s hopeless,” he said. “There are just too many tunnels. We’ll never find her.”

  “We’ll keep looking,” Joe said.

  “Arf,” Spot said.

  “Hey! Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Spot,” Joe said. “I heard Spot. There must be air in here!”

  “Arf,” Spot said again, confirming Joe’s speculation.

  “So who’s going to take his helmet off first?” Frank asked.

  “We could draw straws.”

  “Where’s Doc?” Frank asked. “He ought to be here to take his chances with the rest of us.”

  “Oh, fiddlesticks. Are we going to have to rescue him. too?”

  “We could just pull Spot’s helmet off,” Frank said.

  “Arf!” said Spot.

  “You really are a rascal aren’t you, Frank.”

  “It was a joke.” Frank reached down to Spot, but the spacedog backed away, a little snarl curling his lip.

  “Oh well,” Joe said. “Here goes.” He pulled his helmet off and took a deep breath.

  Doc came around the corner carrying his helmet under his arm and dragging a sack through the moon dust.

  “What you got there, Doc?”

  “Bag o’ swords, boys,” he said. “This ought to even out the odds.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Man oh man!”

  The guys spent a few minutes slicing the air with sabers, and then Doc called them back to order. “This way, boys,” he said.

  20.

  “So.” Worldmaster Jones put his cup of coffee down and looked deep into the many-faceted eyes of the Hivekeeper. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Let me get this straight,” Hivekeeper B’b said, “you get the secret of faster-than-light travel, and we get a very large number of Earth women. You wouldn’t be trying to bamboozle the old Hivekeeper would you, Worldmaster?”

  “Whatever do you mean, B’b?”

  “He means,” Nancy said, “I’m the only woman on the moon, and one is not exactly a very large number.” She reached around the Worldmaster and filled his cup.

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Worldmaster Jones said. “At this very moment, Coordinator Grey is rounding up boatloads of the most, er . . . well, spirited of our coffee makers, toothsome downtown honeys gleaned from the streets of our major cities, shapely dames from our secretarial pools, beach chicks and housewives—you name it. By the time
you whisper in my ear the secret of your faster-than-light drive, the moon will be swarming with women!”

  21.

  Back to back with Frank, Joe fought his way through a phalanx of clicking and clacking, snapping and biting lobsters. Suddenly, way down the tunnel, he saw Spot run out and bark at him and then run around the bend in the tunnel and a moment later he was back barking again.

  “Let’s work our way down that way,” Joe huffed at Frank. The two men chopped their way through the lobster men toward the spacedog. They broke free of the melee and ran. Joe scooped up Spot as they passed into the tunnel. A light gleamed at the far end, and the lobsters seemed reluctant to follow them.

  They rushed into a chamber where they saw an Earth man drinking coffee with a huge lobster. Nancy hovered around the table with a silver coffee pot.

  “Joe!” she cried.

  Joe took three giant steps across the floor and lopped off the head of the huge lobster.

  “Oh yuck,” Nancy said, knowing without asking who would be expected to clean up the blue blood splattered everywhere.

  “Hold it right there,” Worldmaster Jones said. He produced a spacepistol, like magic, and shot Frank in the shoulder.

  “Hey, no fair!” Joe cried. “You said to hold it and we held it. What’s with the shooting?”