by Paul Harm
Time after time the station grew and by now design dictated the modern areas of the station. The gem was the biodome, a ten square kilometer structure for the scientists and research staff to basically chill and create a forest on the moon. As it turned out plants had a much easier time adjusting to low G forces while humans depended upon the grip of gravity. Ironic, if you think about it. To find out that plants would have beaten us in colonizing the solar system if only they could build spaceships. Anyhow the forest was basically a jungle since it was easy to control the climate inside the biodome. Next to the forest another tinier biodome-like structure arose. It was Lunar University, it was where Mia studied and the goal of Joseph’s and Claire’s Journey. About a dozen compounds were connected to the tinier biodome, research facilities and laboratories.
Stepping out of the pod and having solid ground under his feet was the best thing that happened to Joseph in the last couple of hours. He staggered out and slowly adjusted to the low gravity. “Welcome to Lunar Station.” EVA’s voice rang from the ceiling. Joseph trotted towards the exit and after a couple of meters he found a café with a view of the Earth. He took a seat and ordered a chai latte. He could not help but adore the design made possible by a gravity not more than one sixth that of Earth’s. The first difference was that you could actually jump around three meters up in the air without a problem which meant you could jump to the first floor from the ground. This circumstance let to very unique design choices in architecture. Joseph was curious to see the other parts of the station but for now he had to wait for Claire’s arrival.
His mind drifted through the last couple of days. He wondered where Melinda was and what she actually had to do with any of this. He tried to see some picture made of all the vague information he had about her. But he felt like he was missing a huge part of information and could not come up with any kind of solution. He touched the back of his neck, thinking about the chip he had there. He did not feel it. As he slowly gave up on making sense of any of this Claire showed up in the café and he was so glad she was here. “Hey there, astronaut.” She gently greeted while she leaned forward and kissed him. “Hey beautiful, do you want a coffee or something?” “No, it’s ok let’s go and find Mathilda I hope she knows what we’re looking at here.” She glanced at Joseph’s pocket where the photographs were. “Yes, let’s go.” “Good idea” Joseph took one last sip of his tea and they were on their way.
“What the hell do you mean?” “We need you to tell us where this photo was taken, Mathilda.” Mathilda took the photo and turned it around. “It doesn’t say, where it was taken!” “We know, but we thought you might be able to track the spot considering the formation of the stars.” “I guess that might work. But I’d need an exact time and date for that and even then, it’s very difficult.” Mathilda was not in a good mood. She did not take it very well that they both did not answer at all when she asked them why they were on Lunar Station. “Listen, you two show up out of nowhere and expect me to drop everything just to find out where a black and white photograph was taken?” Joseph and Claire looked at each other and then towards Mathilda. “Yes.” Mathilda walked away towards one of her assistants and consulted him about the photograph. It took a couple of minutes and when she came back her hardened expression had not vanished. “Alright, follow me.”
After walking for a long time in corridors and subterranean tunnels they arrived at a planetarium. A weird looking scientist with big glasses was darting through the room mumbling something while he pursued a seemingly random pathway. He did not notice them until he almost ran into them which gave him quite a scare. “Oh, yes, hello? Hello what can I do you for?” Ralph looked baffled at them his long white hair falling into his face. “Hello Ralph, take a look at this.” Mathilda handed Ralph the photo. He inspected its front. When he seemed to have seen it all he turned it around. “Oh. I see!” He furrowed his eyebrows intensely and looked intense at Mathilda as he was about to say something. “What exactly am I looking at here?” Ralph asked turning the photo upside down and looking at it from every possible angle. “It’s a part of the night sky Ralph...” Mathilda told him. “Yes, I can see that and it’s if I may say so, ancient technology.” Ralph stopped turning it around, looking baffled at Mathilda. “Can you track the position of the photographer with your planetarium?” Claire jumped into the conversation. “Can I track his... position…” Ralph mumbled into his long white beard. “How rude to think I can’t track his position.” He mumbled more to himself than to anyone really. “Of course, I can track his position with my planetarium. My planetarium!” He hissed at Mathilda and then started to laugh in a rather disturbing and kind of crazy way.
“Why is he wearing glasses? Isn’t that like a ten minutes procedure to fix his eyes?” Joseph asked surprised at the man’s strange behavior and appearance. “Ask him, but you won’t like the answer.” Mathilda gestured to follow Ralph as she spoke. “So almost there just a little bit of... yes and here a bit of... ok. Let’s see.” Dr. Ralph Eisenhower was a master of his craft and so it took just a little time to prepare the machine for the task. “Lean back and enjoy our little time travel.” Ralph pointed towards the ceiling as the lights turned dark and the night sky of today appeared. The planetarium started to rotate slowly, rewinding the position of the stars to match the photograph’s night sky. It was moving too fast to be followed by the naked eye and after a couple of seconds the night sky of the 12th of April 2127 appeared above them. Ralph darted towards another input panel and implemented a searching path for the outtake of the photograph’s night sky. After a couple of minutes, he sighed. “Now that’s weird. We’re at the right time, but the sky on the photograph differs from the sky it should show.” He mumbled something into the screen until he turned around and yelled: “Never mind! We just do it the other way around.” Ralph worked intensely on the console. “What does he mean?” Joseph again proving his inability to science anything. “We don’t look for the time but the constellation of the stars first.” Ralph explained while darting through the room accompanied by intense keyboarding. “Ok let’s try this.” “Error, multiple chronological events detected.” EVA’s gentle voice told them. “Yeah I was afraid that might happen.” Ralph used one hand to scratch his head and the other one to brush through his beard with a lost expression on his face. “Let me just... hm... I think we can agree this picture was taken within the last millennia?” Ralph asked after some intense head-scratching. “Probably yes.” Joseph shrugged. “Four congruences detected.” EVA’s voice informed them. “Show me the GPS locations on Earth EVA.” Three of them were deep within the oceans and one was rather close to the shores south from Dhaka in the Bay of Bengal. “That’s it.” Mathilda pointed at the spot in the Bay of Bengal.
“I don’t think so.” Ralph shook his head. “This is the oldest point, you remember I set the timer to a thousand years? A millennium?” They looked at him confused. “This scenario, this night sky it’s 956 years back in time. That would be the sixteenth century.” Ralph explained more to himself while swinging his head left and right. “That’s approximately 350 years before the first photograph was taken, in the early 19th century.” Ralph scratched his head in awe. But Joseph felt something from that spot, maybe it was because something was obviously wrong with it that made him associate it with Melinda. “No that’s it I am sure about it. We have to get there. Dr. Eisenhower I need those coordinates.” Joseph looked the man straight in the eye. “Sure, sure.” Ralph wrote them on a notepad. “There you go.” “Thanks Ralph I’ll see you around.” Mathilda sounded in a good mood for the first time, now that she knew she could go away. “Ok Mathilda, it was nice to see you.” Ralph answered while readjusting his glasses.
“Thank you for helping us Mathilda.” Claire mentioned as they left the planetarium looking at her in a mixture of grace and fear, Mathilda just noticed it now. Something strange was going on, she trusted Claire, trusted Joseph. Mathilda pushed the strange feeling away. “Yes, no problem, now yo
u got to do something for me.” Mathilda looked somewhat angry at them. “But we really need to go now Mathilda and you should probably not tell anyone you met us unless someone asks you of course.” Joseph’s voice carried some worry that did not go by unnoticed. “What’s going on with you two, not only that I never saw you here when Mia got a promotion or an award for her work now you want me to not talk about you being here. What the actual fuck guys.” Mathilda stopped walking as she said it interlocking her arms in front of her chest. “I need you to trust us.” Claire explained placing a hand on Mathilda’s shoulder. Mathilda shrugged and with an angry look at her face she led the way through the corridors until they reached a lock. It hissed open and they stepped into the Lunar Forest. Birds were singing and the trees reached Amazonian heights.
“Did you know your daughter is one of the scientists who made this possible?” Mathilda’s voice was filled with allegations. “Yes, we did.” Claire replied, her head facing the ground. “Do you have any idea how important her work is for the well-being of humans on colonization missions?” Mathilda was angry with them. “Yes, we know.” This time Joseph took the blame. But Mathilda was right for the last three years Mathilda closed the gap in Mia’s heart that had been filled by her parents and they just kept being busy with their own stuff. Meanwhile Mathilda grew into a mentor for Mia and their friendship benefited a lot from that. But what Mathilda saw was this young, incredibly smart woman outgrowing her fast but the pain from being cast away from her family weighed heavy on Mia’s heart. And while Joseph and Claire did not even show as much of an interest in the life of their only daughter Mathilda had to fill the gap and she did it without hesitation. But if those two dared to finally come to the moon without visiting their daughter they are in for a world of trouble. And slowly the two of them started to realize it too. Joseph needed to leave the compound because he did not know if they are already under enough suspicion from whoever that lady in his office was or the unknown organization she stands for. “We have to leave Mathilda we’re under...” “Joseph Grey! If you dare to walk away now you’re jeopardizing more than just our friendship. Your daughter has been working here for almost three years now and is very, very successful in her work. She’ll probably end up running the Nano-Tek division in a couple of years. But! She’s still your little girl and you just ignored her when she left for university, moving on with your own life.” They sighed and even though they did not enjoy getting attitude from Mathilda they could not deny what she was getting at. As they stood in this unbelievable hybrid of moon soil and Earth’s flora and fauna they could not help but feel proud that their little girl had a part in creating this. So, they headed for a café for a surprise visit with their daughter.
After a good talk and a long tour through the biodome and the forest with a lot of insight information about how the meteor impacts are deflected on the outer layers of the dome and how a water cycle has been implemented on the surface of the moon as well as other little things you need to take into consideration building such a fantastic place. As they stood on the edge of the dome they looked out and found a beautiful blue planet hovering in the distance of space. “It’s a good thing the moon always faces the same direction.” Mia pointed out smiling, it was quite a sight. They said their goodbyes in the evening and even though they did not want to do it in the first place in Mia’s eye’s there has been a spark of pride ever since she started to show off in front of her parents. When they reached the docking bays they hugged her thoroughly and took off towards Earth again. Akachi’s communicators still worked but they had no idea about how to get in the middle of the Bay of Bengal so they decided to head for Dhaka first.
In Dhaka they desperately searched for a boat or anything for transportation in the middle of the ocean eventually they found a fisherman who was willing to take them. They borrowed a scuba diving set from a storage nearby and were off into the Bay of Bengal. Their communicator helped them find the exact spot, which would have been impossible in the middle of the ocean. When they reached it, they mounted up and dove towards the floor, it was beautiful. Fish were all around them and underneath there was a sunken village. Claire pointed towards a strange building that looked like an old military compound. They got in and after opening the big hangar-like doors they snooped around inside. Claire looked all over the place but could not find anything glowing in the mystical green that came in so handy when searching for important things.
They left the compound and Joseph took a slow and intense look around. At the end of the sunken village the ocean got deeper not a lot but a noticeable difference. He swam towards it and found a couple of hangar-like structures connected via a wooden footbridge. Everything there was decayed and looked more like a sunken ghost city the closer he got. It seemed to have been built fast and a compromise between usability and celerity. He swam closer and as he did he experienced a strange flashback, his consciousness drifted away as he was dragged into his inner world where a familiar voice softly started to speak: “I’m a little girl and I’m holding the hand of my father, we have been walking through here once every year since...” “...Since he died.” Joseph completed the sentence and bubbles rose towards the surface of the ocean. - But that can’t be, this shore has been buried under the ocean for hundreds of years ever since the ocean level rose and drowned vast parts of Bangladesh underneath it. - It was way back in the day when humanity felt super smart for enriching the atmosphere with carbon monoxide and other fun stuff to have in the air, causing tons of arctic ice to melt raising the level of the oceans for almost two meters. Well that was ancient history now when humanity collectively decided there was too much Earth and not enough water on the planet, so they fixed it. Good job humanity.
Joseph headed for the end of the footbridge and he did not really know why but he reached under the plank and grabbed a plastic box, another relic of long gone times. He showed it to Claire and they both headed back for the boat. “How did you know?” Claire asked while she removed her diving goggles. “I don’t know. It was kind of a flashback to a season with Melinda, the scenery underneath the ocean I think she was there.” He replied not believing his own words. “But that isn’t possible she must be like what, three hundred years old?” Claire shook her head in disbelief, but she could not deny the fact that they had found another hint here. “That’s not all.” Joseph looked her deep in her eyes. “The coordinates Ralph gave us, they were correct leaving us with even more questions than answers.” “Because Ralph, he said it was a constellation 900 something years ago?” “Yes.” “Yeah, I thought about that too already, that’s strange but maybe he miscalculated something.” Claire stated while she pulled out of her flipper. “What’s in the box Joseph?” Joseph carefully unwrapped the watertight sealed foil on the box and opened it. A piece of paper was wrapped around something rather small, like a big rubber or a tiny stick.
As Joseph got rid of the wrapping and laid it aside another data stick revealed itself. It had a green line on it like the first one had a blue one. “Yeah well unfortunately we still don’t know how to extract the data from those things.” Claire mentioned while reaching out for the wrapping. “Joseph look, it’s another photograph.” As it turned out the inside of the wrapping was a picture of a little girl standing on the footbridge next to a hangar like structure besides her. She was holding what seemed to be her father’s hand gazing out the ocean while the sun was about to set. Joseph shook his head and turned the inspected the wrapping thoroughly. “Look there are numbers carved into the backside.” He pointed to the right upper corner on the backside of the photograph. 31° 26’ 59.99” N; 35° 22’ 59.99” E “You know what that looks like.” “Yes, that looks like it’s somewhere in the middle east.” They signaled the fisherman to take them back on shore. The ocean’s breeze and the sun over the astonishing Indian ocean made them regret their departure but they have not been there for cocktails and relaxing in the first place.
XXI. The Falling Star
“Why are you
telling me this?” Commander Juno Hoshiko turned her back on Lucia and looked out of her office’s window, Europa was there in her icy blue shell. “Because I don’t know whom else I can trust, Juno.” Commander Hoshiko was not amused. “Do you realize that there has been no case of mutiny or rebellion or revolution against, or within anything humanity has created past the catastrophe two hundred years ago?” She turned around and placed the palms of her hand on the desk, as she looked angrily at Lucia. “I know.” Lucia felt horrible when she realized what that actually implicated. An era of peace and prosperity under a unified Earth blown out a hangar door in the Martian orbit. “Maybe the old romans were right when they gave him the title god of war.” Juno fell back in her seat as she sighed. “What should we do commander?” She looked at Lucia and her face carried a chilling expression Romero was not used to from her. “Your cargo, the humans. Are they still in cryostasis?” “Yes.” “How long can you keep them like that?” “Indefinitely, Commander.” Commander Hoshiko got up and began to walk circles in her office. “Alright here is the plan. First we quarantine these suspects because I want them locked down, until I know for sure they aren’t involved into any of this.” “Yes, I agree.” “There’s still a chance this was a malfunction after all, a tiny chance but a chance nonetheless.” Commander Hoshiko’s eyes were searching for something in the distance desperately trying to capture it.
