Echoes In The Grey

by David Allan Hamilton

  The Echo touched down about 50 meters from the main Aristoteles mining habitat. She, Jim Atteberry, Ishani, and the heavy-lifter Dub had suited up on descent and now prepared to walk on Luna’s surface. Jim looked nervous as hell, no doubt overwrought with concern for Mary and equally overwhelmed with the reality of landing on the moon.

  “Everyone ready in there?” Carter’s voice boomed from the other side of the airlock door.

  Ishani checked each one in turn, making eye contact, verifying helmet comms worked, then gave the thumbs up.

  The external pressure in the airlock changed, oxygen vented out, and the doors between them and the space vacuum opened. Ishani pulled a switch and a ramp unfolded from the open door to the Moon’s surface.

  “Let’s go!”

  She led the way down the slope, followed by Dub, Esther, and Jim pulling up the rear. Half way down, she turned to check on him. He looked all around, taking a step here and there, stopping, gazing at the space. She waited for him, then wrapped her arm around his elbow, and guided him down to the surface. “Jim,” she said, “you can gush about it after. We’ve got a job to do. Are you still okay, because if not, now’s the time to go back.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  “Even if they’re not alive?”

  “Yeah, even that.” He looked ahead to the habitat. “Let’s go.”

  Ishani hopped to the Echo’s supply access door. It stood about a meter from the surface. She unlatched it, and pulled the flap open. Then she leaned inside and returned a few moments later with a couple of flight packs.

  “Dub and I are gonna check the outbuildings. You and Jim reconnoiter the main habitat.”

  “Will do,” Esther said.

  She and Atteberry bounded toward the main building. As they hopped along, they both noticed Ishani and Dub floating above the surface of the mine fields.

  Atteberry couldn’t contain himself. “Those flight packs are pretty amazing. Why didn’t they give any to us?”

  Esther continued jump-walking. “They’re difficult to control. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had no training on them, and sure as hell don’t want to learn how to fly with one now.”

  Within a few minutes, they arrived at the habitat’s access hatchway. Esther noticed the dust had been brushed away from the door, from the solar arrays, and saw the telltale tracks of a scooter’s landing pads close by.

  “They were definitely here, Jim.”

  He hung back, paralyzed in surface material up to his shins.

  “Come on. This is no time to lose it. You want to find Mary’s whereabouts, right, one way or another?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, let’s find her.”

  He took a few steps forward, and Esther grabbed his arm and pulled him the rest of the way to the open airlock. She squeezed through the main access portal and saw that the corridor into it was clear as well. They had both been here, no doubt about it. Several footprints all around the habitat told her that. Before pushing the door to the control room fully open, she glanced at Jim. He stood right behind her. She saw his eyes and tight mouth through the visor. “Take my hand,” she said. “Turn your helmet light on.”

  They pushed through the door and entered what looked like a command center to Esther. A horseshoe-shaped console table greeted her, with all kinds of equipment strewn about on top of it and off to the side. On the right was a junction for power and cable hookups. Further up on the left was a closed door, and then another access hatchway—opened—that led god knows where. She noticed him studying a box of radio gear.

  “My girl was here, Es.”

  “Kate, too. These prints weren’t made by just one person.” She dragged him toward the console covered in electronic parts and bits of antenna. “I’ll bet this is where they tried contacting you on that ham radio frequency of yours.”

  Atteberry pulled away from her and knelt down in the dust, picking up and examining various pieces of gear, cables, and a circuit board. He kept dropping them.

  “You okay there, Jim?”

  “Yeah, just not used to these gloves I suppose.”

  “They’re obviously not here now. Let’s check out that area on the right.”

  She had already hopped over to the access hatchway, following the footprints that abruptly stopped. The portal was partially open, and she pulled on it until she could slip through. “Come on, Jim.”

  He bounced awkwardly toward her.

  “Let’s see what’s in here.”

  As her helmet light illuminated the dark recesses of this part of the habitat, the first thing she noticed was the damage along one side of it where some machine had ripped it open. She recalled seeing this from orbit. Sunlight found its way in through that hole, but the corners of the area remained in deep shadows.

  “This looks like the sleeping quarters for the builders. See all the lockers and cot frames?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jim, you go up that way.” She pointed to the right-hand side. “If you find anything, shout. I want to go through here.”

  Jim walked along the side of the quarters that remained intact.

  “There’s lots of footprints here, Es, but no other sign of Mary. Or Kate.”

  Esther poked around the opened lockers, speculating on what they’d been looking for. “They were here, too, exploring. Maybe searching for radio gear, or tools, or emergency oxygen canisters. Hard to tell from this mess.”

  “So, where are they now?”

  He still poked around the far wall of the habitat, picking up and dropping small boxes and the odd chair.

  “Great question. Unless they’re in one of those outbuildings, they’ve moved on.”

  At that moment, Ishani’s voice broke into her helmet. “Esther, Ishani. Come in.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Dub and I have checked both sheds here in the mine fields. Looks like they ransacked the storage lockers and exchanged their oxygen packs for others. We found two empty Titanius tanks in one of the buildings.”

  “Are they there now?”

  “Negative. We got footprints and scooter tracks, but no bodies.”

  Esther glanced at Atteberry. He seemed indifferent to the term Ishani used.

  Just as well.

  “Okay, there’s evidence they were here too. . . some radio parts and a couple of tools. A bunch of cables all about.” She paused. “You getting all this, Echo?”

  “Affirmative.” It was Carter’s voice. “Are you ready to come back and move on?”

  She looked at Jim and shrugged her shoulders. He nodded.

  “We’re done here, Echo. Jim and I are returning to the ship now.”

  “Dub and I are gonna meet you there. Ishani Out.”

  Atteberry led the way through the access hatchway, across the main console room, and out the portal. Standing on the lunar surface, he then turned to her. “They didn’t die here, Es.” He smiled through the visor, his soft eyes full of hope. Esther nodded, but despite the growing possibility of finding Mary and Kate alive, the prospect of contacting an alien life form was at least as important. Perhaps even more. And the Rossian ship was the only other place left to go.

  Katie

  She studied the short, bearded man with derision as he sipped a glass of ice-water across from her. Katie pushed the empty coffee mug aside and leaned forward, fingers clasped together on the table.

  “Why should I listen to you?”

  Dr. Marshall Whitt returned her gaze and patted his lips dry with a napkin. “Because I’m offering you a chance to work on far more interesting projects than what you’re doing now.” He also moved in and lowered his voice. “Katie, your true skills lie in programming. Everyone involved in the Spacers knows that, yet here you are still tinkering around with malfunctioning satellites or, if you’re particularly lucky, your overseers might assign you to some mining operation on the Martian run.”

  Despite his smarmy, self-important demeanor, the little asshole was right. Fi
ve years ago, at the Aptitudes, she scored highest in logic, sequencing, pattern recognition. Even though the Program had given her opportunities to work on amazing projects—at great physical and personal cost, she reminded herself—she believed they overlooked her true skills.

  “That may be, Dr. Whitt, but I heard an expression in Singapore once about ‘the devil you know’, so what do you really want?”

  He narrowed his eyes and peered around the cozy coffee bar. They both noticed a group of followers gathering at one of the side tables, glancing their way.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  Katie grinned and waved at the worshippers. “Nah. I’m used to this now.”

  “Very well.” He took another sip and wiped his lips again. “You remember I rescued you in orbit one time when your flight pack malfunctioned?”

  “Uh-huh. So?”

  “If you missed it, I’m on the republican side.”

  “United Confederate States? Big deal, I have no interest in politics.”

  He smirked and shook his head. “What are you, Katie, 16?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “And you’ve done more living in the last five years than most space engineers and scientists accomplish in a lifetime. Look, you were recruited into the Program back when the US was unified, more or less. That’s all changed now.”

  “The work is the work, Doctor.”

  “Yes, but to what end? You can fix satellites, sabotage others, infiltrate various manufacturing operations and plant spyware, but have you ever considered the reasons why the Program came to be in the first place? And what’s become of it with the civil war?”

  Katie had seen many of her colleagues recruited to one side or the other. It would unfold like this: he’d talk political gains, the greater good for all humankind, offer her exciting new challenges. Ultimately, the work kept her going, along with an imperfect loyalty to Pat and Tracy. She saw no reason to pick either camp now that the Program itself got squeezed.

  “I told you I’m not interested in the shifting politics. Just the work. So, if we get hired to sabotage NDU or UCS satellites, or to bugger up one of the new republics, I could not care less as long as there’s a challenge for me in it.”

  Whitt leaned back and stroked his greying beard, but continued studying her face. “My two boys were both recruited years before you came along.”

  She cocked her head, feigning indifference.

  “I dropped them off at the Testing Center and haven’t seen or heard from them since.” He winced. “The hardest thing for a parent to do is lose a child.”

  Katie thought about her own mom and dad and how they’d abandoned her. She felt a twinge of emotion rise in her chest. “Yeah, I suppose that’s tough, but not my business.”

  “I’m telling you this, because I want you to understand that I’m sincere. You probably recognize I’m not a professional recruiter, and I’ve never approached a Spacer before, so please believe me when I say that I’d like to give you something more meaningful, more challenging.”

  “Why me?”

  “Perhaps you caught my attention when my ship picked you up? No matter. I need someone with your programming skills on my team. I need you.”

  The crowd of followers continued staring—a mix of young and old, various genders—talking among themselves. She’d seen this before, too—egging one of them on to approach and ask her for a date, then offer her money. That was Tracy’s thing, not hers.

  “What is it you do again?”

  Whitt smiled and placed his hands palm down on the table. “I’m with a space science research and operations team in the South UCS. Our focus is on cracking faster-than-light communications and related travel problems. The war gets in the way, I’ll admit, and sometimes we take a contract for necessary funds, but it’s FTL that keeps us going.”

  Could be interesting, but something about him didn’t sit right. She studied the new tattoos on her forearms, then said. “Tell you what, Doctor, if my situation changes at all, I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

  “That’s all I can ask.”

  “Great.” The followers grew noisier. “I’m gonna take off out the back. If you could stay here and pretend I’ve gone to the restroom, buy me a few minutes, I’d appreciate that.”

  “Consider it done.”

  She stood, glanced at the freaks, and pushed in her chair.

  “Oh, there’s one more thing, Katie.”

  “Hm?”

  “I know people who can keep those followers away from you, if they ever bother you too much.” He raised his eyebrows, took another sip of water, then added, “Just say the word.”

  Mary

  The magnetic declination readings on the scooter’s dash fluctuated as Mary approached the Mare Marginis en route to the Rossian ship site. These wild variances, thought to be caused by metallic ore deposits, were the primary reason for investigating this area in the first place, but what if the alien vessel was behind them instead? What if the Rossians had been up here longer than anyone realized?

  Mary decelerated and swung around the site in a wide sweep, performing an initial survey of the area. Logically, she understood that only a few days had passed since she and Kate had undertaken a spate of geophysical tests here, before the Titanius lab implosion, but it felt more like weeks. Her body ached with fatigue.

  “You still with me, Kate?”

  “Hm? Yeah,” she whispered, “I’m feeling a little more with it, but I hurt like hell. Are we close to the site?”

  “Yup, we made it. I’m taking a quick look around before landing.”

  She scanned the area through her infrared visor filter, located the submerged vessel, and nestled into the soft dust a few meters from the ship’s bow. The amber light out here on the edge cast a surreal, rusty color across the drifts and craters.

  “How much oxygen is left?”

  Mary glanced at her bio-signs. “About half an hour. No time to lose.” She unlatched the tailgate to the cargo hold. “Can you move?”

  “I don’t think so. Prop me up so I can see?” Kate’s voice slurred in guttural tones.

  She’s so whacked up on the juice, it’s like totally neural.

  Mary lifted her back and secured her against the hold facings. She placed a folded tarp and a bag of tools around her for support.

  “Thanks, I don’t want to miss a thing.”

  The area surrounding the Rossian ship resembled a battle zone. Rock and dust pock-marked the surface, apparently from the sonic wave that also knocked out the Titanius lab. Some of the measuring instruments Kate used lay crumbled here and there. Mary knelt and brushed a thin layer of dust from the ship’s hull, then ran her palms over it. In the rusty sunlight, the vessel’s dark skin glistened like tiger’s eye chalcedony. She cleared a patch about a meter long. The metal—if that’s what it was—contained no tiling, no rivets, no imperfections whatsoever.

  Twenty-six minutes.

  “Talk to me, Mary. What are you looking at?”

  “The ship’s hull. . . it’s so smooth. I’m going to clean as much of this crap off as I can and look for an opening. By the way,” she pointed overhead, “the blue glow is back and directly above us.”

  Kate shifted her weight in the hold and grunted. “Is it. . . a probe or sensor? A drone, perhaps?”

  “Too high for that.”

  “Scan it.”

  Mary stood on the hull and stared at the hovering blue light. She cycled through a general sensory diagnostic, but the analysis came up empty, nothing but INSUFFICIENT DATA and UNKNOWN QUALITIES. However, sensors showed this thing, this watcher, comprised a central core. Something solid. Just because the qualities of it were a mystery didn’t make it any less real.

  She shut down the scan. The light remained above the site, unmoving, like an old, distant star.

  I’m wasting time.

  “Kate, if you’re able, keep an eye on that visitor. If it moves or anything else happens, let me know.”

  “Wi
ll do.”

  For a full five minutes, Mary brushed and kicked the debris from the Rossian hull until the clear patch grew several square meters. Despite the cooling system in her envirosuit, her own exertion and stress caused her to sweat and wheeze.

  Twenty minutes.

  She crawled over the ship’s surface, scanning with her visor filters for any anomaly that could show an access port or passageway in. Nothing.

  “I don’t know, I can’t see a thing.” The elevated panic in her own voice surprised her. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, calming herself down.

  “Try the tap code.”

  Mary knelt and drew the heavy wrench from her tool belt and hammered out the familiar code her dad heard years ago, a sequence of atomic numbers for hydrogen and oxygen: one, one, eight. Then repeated it.

  After tapping the signal several times, Mary paused and waited for a response. A thought struck her that perhaps the Rossians had attempted making contact, but the sounds of a return code were lost in the vacuum of space. The likelihood of that happening must be slim, she reasoned, given the level of technological advancement. If these beings could travel faster than light, communicate on a subspace level, and turn into blue stars, then they could certainly make contact if they wanted to.

  Why are they silent?

  “Any change in that light, Kate?”

  “No, it’s still way up there, and hasn’t moved as far as I can tell.”

  Fifteen minutes.

  “I’m thinking this isn’t going to work. There’s nobody here.”

  “Keep trying. You can’t give up.”

  Mary turned to Kate, her palms down on her thighs as she knelt on the hull. Kate had listed to one side in the cargo hold, but her head still faced the sky. “Listen, we’ve made it this long, but I’m done. I’d like to spend my last few minutes thinking about things, know what I mean? Maybe drift away on pseudophine.”

  Kate’s voice gained strength. “I do, I honestly do.” She shifted to a different angle. “Look. Do you see it?”