Battle Luna

by Travis S. Taylor

  There were floodlights spraying fluorescent white against the gray floor and black walls. Several vehicles moved around, one zipped past them heading the direction they’d just come from—and there must have been thirty or more people scurrying about. One of them David recognized as Jerry from the coffee shop a few days before.

  David was doing his best to take all of it in, but the fact that they were looking at artificial structures inside the Moon that had to be ancient and certainly weren’t man-made was beginning to register in his mind. He was looking at something actually built by people that didn’t come from Earth or people that lived on Earth long before the present civilization had.

  “Alright, Doc, this is it.” Ken uncharacteristically slowed the buggy down and parked it cautiously before bouncing out. “Follow me.”

  “One helluva door, Mr. Mayor.” David looked up from his computer pad to shake the politician’s hand as he approached. David had pretty much been in front of that door for two weeks doing his best to decipher the glyphs on the wall with hopes of gaining entrance into whatever was on the other side of it. So far, he had made only a little progress. Very. Little. Progress.

  “Dr. Sandeep, I hope you have figured something out and we can open this sucker up soon? Not sure how much longer we can keep this thing quiet and the press will become a nightmare. And then the damned Ueys will probably try to tax us with a finder’s fee before they try to confiscate whatever is in there.”

  “Short of blasting it”—David scratched at the back of his head and made a sour face—“not really, no progress as of yet. Well, if you don’t count that I think they don’t have an alphabet.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Mr. Mayor. Since David got down here we’ve uncovered a basis for their language.” Carla Pruitt, the mathematician and friend of David’s who’d also been brought in on the project, offered her hand to the politician.

  “You mean you have discovered their alphabet?” the mayor asked as he turned back to David.

  “No alphabet,” David grunted and started to explain before being interrupted.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘alphabet,’ sir,” Carla said. David had worked with the lady for a couple weeks now and realized that she spoke up whether it was politely her turn to or not. He actually liked that about her. Had he been twenty or thirty years younger he might just have been an intriging older man to her, but as it currently stood, well, he knew he was the old man of the group. But one never knew what others might think of as old, especially in a frontier like the far side of the Moon.

  “Whoever these people were, their language was more character or symbol based, I believe. More like ancient Egyptian, Mandarin, or Japanese perhaps. Not sure yet.” David pointed at a couple of characters on the wall about a meter to the right of the giant door. “These symbols here, at first I thought it was a symbol for our solar system. See how there is a central point with multiple concentric rings about it? The fact that they are circles rather than ellipses like planetary orbits threw me. But Sarah, over there, one of the physicists, pointed out how it looks like a molecule with multiple atoms bonded together. See these overlapping rings here and how there are two planetoids only in the intersecting ring? This is some polymer or other thing that apparently all chemists and physicists know about.”

  “Covalent bond,” Carla added.

  “Yeah, that.” David nodded. “Been a while since high school chemistry.”

  “Why is that on the wall by the door?” the mayor asked. “Is it a textbook or something?”

  “Damn good question.” David shrugged. “Sarah, over there, again, she’s a physicist, well, she thinks this is telling us what’s in this room. Like, there’s an x-ray symbol on the door at a hospital x-ray room or a toxic chemical symbol on a storage cabinet in a lab. At least that’s what she says. I’ve never personally been in a lab with toxic chemicals.”

  “So, she thinks this is a polymer or whatever room?” The mayor looked as confused as the rest of the team had been.

  “I don’t think so. I think it is more like a chemistry room or a place where molecules were made or reacted or something. I’ve asked her what molecule this is and she says it isn’t anything she’s ever heard of before. If we could just find the open switch we could go in there and look.”

  “Hmmm. Keep trying.”

  “Right.”

  “What I want to know is who told them we found something down there!” Mayor Alton Hamilton wasn’t quite shouting at the young female face on his monitor but it was as close as a politician could get to shouting and get away with it. “Damn it!”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Mayor. Perhaps it was one of the workers.”

  “Find out who it was and clamp this down!” Alton pointed out the window of his office at the West Dome. “All we need is the Earthers trying to make claims on whatever it is we find in there. Whether it’s worthless or priceless we need that dome to expand the city into. If the damned Earthers try to make claims we might be in court forever over ownership and their pockets are waaay deeper than Aldrinville’s are. Then on top of that the bastards will tax us for it somehow!”

  “Understood, Mr. Mayor. Who should we put on this to track it down?” the young lady asked.

  “I have a thought. Get Benny and Nathaniel in here ASAP.” Alton paused and thought.

  “Nathaniel I understand, sir. But, you sure you can trust Benjamin?”

  “I can trust Benny to be out for Benny. As long as I know that going in, well, I won’t get any hopes dashed,” the mayor explained. “Where are you right now, Tami?”

  “I’m at North Dome. There’s some kind of skirmish over here about the Earthers taxing any outbound shipment and some of the locals are protesting and picketing the port authority.”

  “Goddamnit, this is getting out of hand. The damned Earthers are treating us like secondhand citizens. History repeats itself.”

  “Yes sir, it does.”

  “We have to get into that room before they decide to come up here. Put somebody else on that uprising and get over here. I need my top cop.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Benny, come in and have a seat.” Alton eyed his old campaign manager slash enforcer slash whatever the hell needed to be done guy as he entered. Benny used to be his right-hand, under-the-table guy, but that had been many years and millions of dollars since. “You know Nathaniel.”

  “Nate, how the hell are you?” Benjamin Atkins took the man’s hand in a strong handshake. Seeing the two men brought back memories of them marching from hab to hab in Aldrinville convincing residents that they needed to be a full-fledged colony with an elected leader and council. Alton had heard rumors that Benny had strong-armed or paid some of the would-be citizens into agreeing but he could never prove it. He hadn’t tried to find evidence that hard either. Some things were just better left undiscovered.

  “Fellas, I’m not sure if you’ve met but this is Captain Tamika Jones, sheriff of Aldrinville.” Alton nodded to Tami.

  “Never met but seen her on the vids.” Nathaniel Ray smiled. “Nice to meet ya.”

  “Likewise sir. And I have to say I really like your company’s blond ale,” Tami added.

  “Yes, one of our big sellers,” Nathaniel shook her hand.

  “Alright, so, let’s get down to it.” Alton sat back in his maroon leather executive chair and placed his hands on the oak desk in front of him. The chair only briefly squeaked as he wriggled himself into a comfortable position. He reveled for a brief moment as to how much it cost to get that thing on the far side of the Moon. “What do you know about the West Dome excavation?”

  “Only what I’ve seen on the news, Al. What’s all this about?” Nathaniel looked sincere. Benny had remained quiet and that suggested to Alton that he knew something. Benny always had his eyes and ears open for what was really going on and where the next quick fortune would be made. That reason alone was why Alton kept him on call, always.

  “Benny?”

  “I know that
one of the construction companies I’m a shareholder of and on the board for was suddenly given a hold-work order and their guys are sitting idle and not getting paid.” Benny crossed his legs and made himself more comfortable. “I also know that there is something going on there that you, Mr. Mayor, don’t want the Earthers to know about.”

  “And why is that, Benny?” Alton raised an eyebrow.

  “I did a little checking. I noted all the work crews that were stopped had Earthers in them. The few crews that are still working, well . . .”

  “I see.”

  “What’s going on here, Alton?” Nathaniel was clearly in the dark. That meant he hadn’t been talking to anybody, which in turn meant he could likely still be trusted. But Benny had connections that might be useful in the near future if things with the Ueys went south.

  “Fellas, a few weeks ago while excavating the West Dome, we found something,” he started. “Something very old and not built by us.”

  “Holy shit . . .” Nathaniel whispered. “Not us, then who?”

  “Exactly, Nate,” Alton continued, “There is some kind of ancient habitat or construction down there. And there’s a room that has this big-ass door we haven’t been able to get open yet. But I’ll bet you a dozen donuts that there is something big just waiting for us. US! I mean for Loonies not Earthers. We found it. It belongs to us. It could be something worth trillions or something worthless that Earthers will still pay billions to see. As long as we maintain ownership.”

  “Now I see why I am here, Al.” Benny smiled. “You need me to run a smoke screen and to find out what the Earthers already know.”

  “You got it.” Alton looked over at Tami. “Keep your hands clean, Benny. And don’t put me or Tami in any precarious predicaments like back in Luna Eight.”

  “Al, that was no predicament. That was, um, necessary.”

  “Well, we need to keep the Earthers’ grubby paws off whatever we find here,” Alton said.

  “So, you’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth,” Benny said, expressionless. “Do what is necessary or not?”

  Alton decided the best response was silence and a nod.

  “Sarah, why is it, you think, that there is no freakin’ doorknob on this thing?” David Sandeep had been studying the glyphs and symbols of the ancient, maybe alien, language for more than a month and was getting quite frustrated at the fact that all he seemed to be able to do was stare at the giant basalt-and-obsidian door and wish it would open. The mayor had been pressuring them to make progress and it was clear to David that for whatever reason there was time pressure to their work.

  “Perhaps they didn’t use doorknobs.” Dr. Sarah Rollin shrugged. “Maybe doorknobs are a human thing. Or maybe they evolved beyond them. I mean, your quarters door has no knob per se.”

  “Well, it has a wireless key connected to my biomarker, which is kind of a knob,” David argued.

  “But David, you’re making my point for me.” Sarah smiled. She was a bit older than Carla the mathematician and could at least be his granddaughter. At almost six feet tall with short bobbed black hair and three blue teardrop tattoos at the corner of her right eye, David saw her as quite fetching. She was still very young, but fetching. “Yes, you have a metaphorical, or more precisely a virtual, doorknob, but no physical doorknob.”

  “I get that, but why can’t we figure out what the virtual doorknob is? There’s no instructions or information here anywhere about it.” David was still perplexed.

  “Wait, what’d I miss?” Carla said as she and Jerry entered from the shadows behind the floodlights, each carrying two cups of coffee.

  “David wants to know why there are no instructions on how to open this door here anywhere,” Sarah recapped.

  “Shit, man, are there instructions on the door to your apartment, or the men’s room, or Hell, any door you’ve ever seen? I mean, we’ve been using doors for thousands of years probably. Hell, who even invented the door or doorknob?” Jerry handed David a cup with his name on it. David nodded graciously and took a long pull from it. The aroma of the steamy black coffee stimulated him only enough to want more. So he took another longer sip, this time burning his tongue.

  “Careful, man, it’s still very hot,” Jerry said as a throw away joke.

  “Uh, thanks.” David grinned. “Okay, no door user’s manual. Alright, then. We have to find the keyhole, the knob, or whatever ancient alien analog there is.”

  “Well, I say, I just go get the big rig down here and ram the sucker.” Jerry shrugged. “How thick do we think this thing is? A foot, two, more?”

  “It would be a shame to destroy the door, and what if we triggered some sort of collapse or cave-in?” Carla looked over David’s shoulder at the tablet displaying the glyphs around the door. “I just don’t think we’re ever going to solve this thing. Look, I mean, even the picture of the molecule here is incomplete.”

  “Incomplete? What d’ya mean?” David truly was out of his element and high school chemistry had been a very very long time ago. “My uh, chemistry is a little rusty.”

  “This isn’t high school chemistry,” Carla continued. “I am a mathematician, so you’re thinking why do I know it? Well, my master’s thesis was on numerical analysis of the complex molecular dynamics in long chain polymer synthesis methods. That just means that the way we synthesize polymers like plastics, and some modern nanocomposite metamaterials, is in a lot of cases magic. Well, I worked out some detailed computer models using various numerical methods that allowed me to predict the most likely outcome of a particular synthesis method and what type of polymer chain mess it would make.”

  “All I got was blah blah mess blah chains blah.” Jerry waved his hands about.

  “Not really my gig, Carla, but I know what polymer synthesis and such is,” Sarah replied. “So what does that have to do with the pictures here not being complete?”

  “Well, look at this covalent bonded molecule here by the door.” She pointed at the glyphs that were originally mistaken as planetary orbits. “This is the bond between two atoms, or maybe more but it is hard to say because, where are the rest of the atoms? Just to the right here there are multiple blobs of different sizes about each other that might be confused as constellations against the sky beyond these orbital things. But if I take a marker and connect them all, guess what?”

  Carla took a red felt-tip dry-erase pen from the duty white board and started marking on the grayish-black wall, connecting the dots in a particular way. The red barely showed with enough color against the lunar obsidian to discern where she had marked but it was enough.

  “Holy shit!” Sarah nodded, understanding what she was looking at. “It’s a long-chain polymer. But why these other dots?”

  “That’s just it, Sarah. No polymers are really just two-dimensional long chains. They are almost always twisted up around each other like a pile of spaghetti. What if these dots here are the ends that we are looking down on? But, where are the others? Where is the spaghetti?”

  “Damn.” Jerry smiled back at all of them. “You keep talking about spaghetti and we’re gonna have to break for lunch.”

  “I’m with Jerry here,” David said. He was confused and had no idea what Carla and Sarah were going on about. “So what? They didn’t draw all the molecules in perfect order on a block wall damned near as hard as diamonds.”

  “That is just it, David.” Sarah turned to him following Carla’s agreeing nods. “Everything else on this wall looks precisely drawn. Look at any ancient glyph or character. Slight changes in them might change the meaning of the character. We looked at these things with extremely high resolution and the edges of each character and line are pristine, precise, and exact.”

  “So, then . . .” David still wasn’t there yet.

  “So, whoever made these made them precise and most likely they are very accurately depicting something. Something complicated. Maybe even something we don’t understand,” Carla said.

  “Oh, I see, but . . .
” David wasn’t really sure he saw. “Then what exactly is missing and where is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Carla shrugged. “But I’m telling you, we’re not seeing the whole intent of these glyphs.”

  “Not seeing? Or not understanding?” Jerry asked.

  “Does it matter?” David dismissed Jerry’s questions as if they meant the same things.

  “Well, I don’t understand it exactly, but I know when we are mining in the darkest tunnels we can illuminate the walls with an ultraviolet lamp and we’ll find certain gemstones. They uh, glow sometimes,” Jerry explained. “So, we have lamps put on the head of the drilling rigs that we can change the colors of.”

  “Fluorescence, phosphorescence, refraction, sure, that makes sense to me,” Sarah said. “You think this thing might glow in the dark?”

  “Infrared!” Carla snapped her fingers. “Do we have any infrared cameras or goggles anywhere?”

  “Of course!” Sarah slapped her palm to her forehead. “IR spectroscopy! That’s how we look at polymers to find the types of hydroxyl groups, double bonds, and various other parts of the molecules.”

  “I’ve got an IR mask with a digital output in the mini excavator.” Jerry turned from them. “I’ll be right back.”