by Ian Berry
“Ok, what are they. Probably means we can’t go after all.”
“Maybe, maybe not. First snag is down to how fast we can fly. I know we went pretty fast in 2065 but since I don’t know how far we went, I can’t say how fast we went.”
“But we went past the Moon. I remember. We went further out. It didn’t take all that long.”
“And that’s why I said maybe. Look, assume we want to take an hour to get there, reasonable, don’t you think?” Saskia nodded so I continued. “Moon’s around 250,000 miles away. That means we need to fly at 250,000 miles an hour. That’s going a bit.”
“Ok. So we set off and see how fast we can go. If it looks like it’ll take ages, we can turn round and come back, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that, Ready for snag two?”
“Go on.”
“Which site d’you want to visit?”
“All of them? No, that’s silly. First one and then the later ones with the Rovers.”
“Right. We need to know where they are. Could you find Manchester, say, from 250,000 miles away if you had no idea where on the world it was?”
“Point taken. So what then?”
“To the computer. We need a map of the Moon.”
The internet provided us with the requisite information.
“Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility.” I made my voice deeper and used an American accent. “Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed.”
“I remember. The lander was called Eagle.”
“So that’s first.” I made a mark on the map the printer had pushed out when requested. “Then 15. It landed in Hadley Rille. That’s ... here. Then Descartes for 16. That’s this crater ... here. And last is 17 in Taurus-Littrow valley, which is ... here.”
“They all look to be pretty close together.”
“Won’t bother us, no air so no sonic boom. We can go as fast as we like. Ready? Let’s go if we’re going to.”
“I can’t believe we’re going to visit the Moon - just as if we’re going shopping.”
“Just for once let’s use our super powers for us,” I said.
“But we do, all the time.”
“Just not on this scale,” I laughed.
I felt actually quite excited as we checked the doors were secure and stood in the back garden. We changed to be Kyra and Katya in our little costumes. I grinned at Saskia, extended one arm into the air and took off straight up.
It took only seconds to get high enough that the sky was no longer blue but black, and only seconds more before we were using our telepathic ability rather than speaking.
“So where’s the Moon then?” asked Saskia.
“Aren’t you the impatient one,” I replied. “Look around. You can’t miss it. Great big thing, mostly white-ish, in the sky.”
“Don’t we need to go around to where it’s night?” she asked, ignoring my sarcasm.
“Not necessarily. Depends. However, since I can’t immediately see it, I think you might be right. Either that or somebody’s nicked it.”
As we got higher the Moon emerged from behind the blue and white ball of the Earth.
“Ah. There it is, come on you, best foot forwards,” said Saskia as she shot off towards the now-visible Moon.
“Don’t use feet when you fly,” I told her.
“I shall treat that remark with the contempt it deserves. Faster, or we’ll be here all day.”
We flew faster, then faster, then faster still. The Moon actually got bigger as I watched. I had no idea how fast we were going except to say it was fast!
“If we didn’t stop, we’d make a fine new crater,” I said.
“Hey, I’d call it ‘Saskia Crater’.”
“Not very imaginative but I like it. A crater on the Moon named after you.”
“And you.”
“Yes but remember, your name is official. Named after you, see?”
“Don’t care. Name it after both of us.”
“We’d better not, just in case.”
“Spoilsport. I’ve just noticed. I keep having to change direction now and then. The damn Moon’s moving.”
“Yeah, well it does. If it didn’t, it’d fall down. Make a bit of a mess. Voice’d be looking to us to prevent it.”
Saskia laughed. “I suppose as long as I can see it, I can aim for it.”
“At this silly speed it really doesn’t matter,” I said. “The Apollo guys didn’t go nearly this fast. They had to aim for where the Moon would be, not where it was. Otherwise they’d have missed.”
We slowed down as easily as we’d accelerated, it had taken less than an hour to get here. I needed to tell Saskia one more thing. “Don’t actually land at any of the sights, stay hovering above it.”
“Why, Twin?”
“Imagine some future astronauts landing here to look at history just as we’re doing. As well as big footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, they’d see a set of small size six footprints left by a certain super girl of my acquaintance. Can’t have that, hover, right?”
“Oh. I see. Hover, right.”
There wasn’t an awful lot to actually see at Tranquility base. The remains of the lander were still there, as was the flag left by the two original astronauts. The lander was bleached the colour of raw aluminium while the flag was almost a rectangle of blank material. That had to be the action of undiluted sunlight. If we let ourselves, we could get a tan in seconds in the intense, unfiltered, ultra violet coming from the Sun. There were many footprints, it wasn’t possible to tell which one was the original ‘one small step’.
Saskia was drifting around looking at stuff. “Hey, Twin. This thing’s still working.”
She was looking at what had to be the LRRR, the Laser Ranging Retroreflector. I told her what I thought it was. There was an infra red light beam bouncing off it, plainly visible to our super vision.
“It’s passive. Just a fancy mirror. They still bounce laser light off it. Tells them how far away the Moon is and stuff like that. No, don’t stick your hand in front of it. You’ll only worry them back on Earth.”
We hovered close together and looked at the site of the first Moon Landing. “Heaven knows how many billions of Dollars were spent to do this,” I said. “And here we are, just popped over for a quick look at no cost at all.”
“Where next?” asked Saskia. I changed to be holding the map.
“Descartes. Apollo 16. It’s this way.”
A short flight to the south revealed another landing site. There was much more junk here, including the Lunar Rover still parked where Young and Duke had left it.
“They used the camera to watch the take-off at the end of the mission,” I said.
“Wonder if it still works? Mind you, I shouldn’t think so. No solar panels and the battery will be well dead by now.” She laughed. “Imagine if it still worked and somebody happened to be watching and saw us drifting about.”
“Yeah, but at least we’re human - sort of - and they’d know who we were. What would happen if what they saw was some sort of alien, a little green man?”
“Mm. Doesn’t bear thinking about. I want to sit on the Rover. Look, there’s no dust on the seat. I’ll not leave an impression.”
She was right. Nobody’d ever know. We sat together on the Lunar Rover in Descartes Crater. I had the fleeting impulse to scratch ‘Saskias were here’ somewhere with a fingernail but resisted girl-fully.
“It’s so sad that this is all that’s left. Sadder too that it all happened because of a compulsion to get there before the Russians. That was basically the only reason. They did it in machines that were barely able to fly and were frankly dangerous. For instance, your pocket calculator you used at school is many times more powerful than the computers aboard the A
pollo spacecraft.”
We did visit the other two sites but my heart wasn’t really in it. I think Saskia felt the same. We were still happy we’d come but it seemed less important somehow. I think we spent less than two hours on the Moon. At the super speed we could fly at where there was no air, we were back home by mid-afternoon.
“Woo. I enjoyed that. That’s what I call a day out.” said Saskia.
“We were flying at over a quarter of a million miles an hour,” I said. “And I think we can go faster if we try. By the way, I saw you push a little hole in the ground with your toe at the Apollo 11 site.”
She grinned. “Saskia Crater. We know it’s there, nobody else matters.”
“That requires a kiss. Come here so I can do it.”
By the time Rob returned from the garage, Saskia and I were curled up together on the sofa reading magazines. Naturally, there was no outward sign of what we’d been up to all day. In answer to his question, Saskia just said, “Mostly nothing.”
Fourteen
Monday. About mid-morning, the call came from Amanda that James required our presence.
“Good morning, Amanda. How’s your new motor?”
“Wonderful, Saskia, thanks. Tell your dad he’s on my Christmas card list this year.”
“What does he want?” asked Saskia, always trying for a heads-up.
“No idea. Go in and see.”
“Knock knock. Good morning, Boss. How’re you today?”
“Come in and shut the door. I’ve had a letter from the Prime Minister - himself, in person. I’m to be congratulated on the visit on Thursday, he thinks it went really well. There’s mention of you two as well.”
“Nothing bad I hope,” said Saskia.
“You know better than that. He was very impressed that you, Saskia, put yourself between him and the gun. He said he might have expected that from one of his men but not from you.”
“Just seemed the right thing to do.”
“What would you have done if there’d been a second shot?”
“Don’t know. Probably caught it again and claimed he’d missed. Didn’t matter anyway, Saskia’d thumped him by then.”
“You know and I know you’d not have been hurt whatever happened,” said James, “but the PM wasn’t to know that. He thinks you’re marvellous - both of you,” he said in case I was feeling left out.
James changed the subject. “Had a good weekend? Nice and quiet after last week?”
I looked at Saskia. “Shall we tell him?”
“Why not, it’s not secret is it? Well - it is obviously - but not from James.”
“Ok. We spent yesterday on the Moon. Looking at the old Apollo landing sites.”
“Our version of a day out,” said Saskia. “We sat on a Luna Rover in a crater.”
“Speaking of craters, there’s now a new one. Saskia Crater. It’s only small but it’s there.”
Normal people would have reacted to what we’d just said with utter incredulity, not James, he knew what we were like. “Good day out was it?”
“Very,” I said. “It made a really nice change to do something for us.”
James chuckled with us as we left him. We spent most of the rest of the day talking to Jeff, bringing him up to speed on the PM’s visit, all of which had passed him by while he was in Russia.
“It sounds like the amount of good PR was nothing short of incredible. I think I’ll retire.”
“Don’t you dare!” said Saskia. “We’re worn out. Don’t know how you do it.”
“Usually by getting you to do it for me,” he laughed.
We left Jeff to do whatever he needed to do and Saskia and I went down to the cafeteria for a pit stop of hot chocolate.
“Been thinking,” I said.
“What again? I thought you’d decided it was too painful.”
“Ha-ha-ha. No, listen. It occurs to me that Barry Grenville might be against the wall a bit. Perhaps his race circuit is losing money, not attracting enough punters. That’s why he wants us to go and do an exhibition for him.”
“Exhibition, Twin?”
“It’s what they call it when celebrities go and fool about. The public pay to see them and the millions all roll in - or possibly not since he’s chosen some not-so-well-known celebrities.”
“Don’t know about that, we’re pretty well known, you and me.”
“That’s as maybe. Anyway, I wonder if Ray at the local TV news might get his people interested. Cover it for the local news. What do you think? Up for it? Good publicity for Barry.”
“Can only try. I’ll do it if you will - and I know you.”
“Hm. Ok. Where’s that number for Ray. Ah.” I dialled.
“Hello, Ray Worthington.”
“Hello, Ray. It’s Saskia Chandler.”
“Hi Saskia. What can I do for you?”
“Might have a story your lot could be interested in. Two beautiful young girls, pitted against each other in fast racing cars. Competing against each other to uphold the honour of their respective families. Figure hugging overalls, long hair shaken out when the helmets come off. Posing against a backdrop of a racing circuit. Interested?”
“Could be. Who are these two incredible ladies? Anybody we know?”
“Er - Ray?”
“Need to know before I can tell anybody.”
“Do you need a blasted clue? Two girls, same name, begins with ‘S’!”
He laughed, “Oh, Saskia, I’m only winding you up. I knew it was you two.”
“I’m going to come over there and give you such a thump. You know I can - you’ve seen me do it.”
He could hardly speak for laughing. “I’m s-sorry, S-Saskia. I couldn’t resist. You were so earnest about it.”
“Ray, I knew you were having your bit of fun. I was earnest because it’s important, perhaps not to you and me, but to others who’s welfare we’re looking out for. Reckon your lot’ll be up for it? It’ll be more or less as I said. Saskia and I racing against each other in an exhibition. And we will pose for you - exactly as I said.”
“I’ll tell them Saskia. I’ll let you know.”
I put the phone down and turned to Saskia - only she wasn’t there. Looking round I spotted her over on the other side of the cafeteria with her hand in front of her mouth.
“Saskia Hunt! You were laughing - you were! I’m going to come over there and thump you, just you see if I don’t.”
I stood up and advanced towards her purposefully. I think all the others in the cafeteria thought I really was going to beat her up. She knew different. As I got to her, she held out her arms for the hug she knew I was going to give her. I saved the kiss for later, a bit too public in the cafeteria.
We’d nicely sat back down again when the mobile phone rang. Someone we knew only slightly from the Newsroom.
“Ray Worthington’s passed on a tip about what sounds like a good story. You two are going to race each other?”
“That’s about the size of it. Don’t know many details ourselves yet. If I were you, I’d get in touch with Barry Grenville at the circuit. He’s arranging it, I expect he’ll tell us what he’s organised - hopefully before the event actually happens.”
I passed on Barry’s number and the girl from the Newsroom went away.
Back in our office, I’d just nicely given Saskia a quick kiss when the phone rang again. Saskia answered it this time.
“Barry, hello. How are you?”
“I’m very well, Saskia. I’ve just had a strange phone call. The local TV news have heard about you two on Sunday. They want to come and cover it.”
“That’s good isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure. What do you think?”
Saskia surprised me by using exactly my words t
o Ray. “Two beautiful young girls, pitted against each other in fast racing cars. Competing against each other to uphold the honour of their respective families. Figure hugging overalls, long hair shaken out when the helmets come off. Posing against a backdrop of a racing circuit. Don’t know about you, but I think it’ll be great.”
“But that’s not really what I thought of at all.”
“Are you sure? Perhaps it’s what you should be thinking of. Should bring in punters in droves.”
“So it’s your idea? You rang the TV people?”
“Guilty as charged. It’s what you need isn’t it?”
“Well - yes.”
“So run with it. We’ll do pretty much anything you want - short of racing in bikinis of course.”
“Saskia, will you help me?”
“Of course. We do work in PR. What we don’t know we can find out. By the way, we’ve hopefully got the local paper on board as well. Our official photographer is on it as we speak.”
“Saskia,” said Barry quietly, “I can’t afford to advertise it. It might all be for nothing.”
“Leave it with us Barry. Don’t give up quite yet. We’ll ring you later.”
“Ok. What d’we do?” asked Saskia.
“Hm. Need free advertising. Not like last time, Barry won’t like charity. Need another way to do it.”
“Another way to do what?” asked Jeff as he wandered past. “You look a bit serious you two.”
Saskia explained everything. “But we can’t advertise it so it may not happen.”
“More kinds of advertising than the paid for variety. You’ve begun your campaign already.”
“How do you mean, Jeff?”
“You’ve got the telly on your side. Are you going to talk to Archie Spencer?”
“Yes. Not directly at the moment, Rio’s doing that but we could step in if needs must.”
“No. Let Rio do it. What we need is a countdown campaign. You know - ‘Six days to go until the race of the century’.”
“How do we - oh, I see. Press releases!”
“That’ll do it. Pictures. You and Saskia. Arms folded, standing back to back. You and Saskia nose to nose like two boxers psyching each other up. In the cars. Stuff like that. One specific picture released every day. Send the telly a copy of that DVD you’ve got somewhere. This is what happened last time - what’s going to happen this time?”