Luna

by Rick Chesler

  Could it be that the Black Sky team had deliberately sabotaged their rover, and tried to make it look like an accident? If they hadn’t come out of the tunnels early, after all, those two people would probably be back at that LEM and she wouldn’t have thought to look around for the footprints...

  She cautioned herself not to voice this concern to Mr. Burton. Not now. Way too much going on. She could give him the other known issue, though, that he would be confronted with sooner or later.

  “Just thinking about our rover situation, James. Axle’s shot, battery’s shot. This thing isn’t going anywhere and I’m afraid my Triple-A membership expired.”

  Dallas’ voice came over the private frequency. “Get your asses back to the LEM, Caitlin. Meanwhile, I’ll be thinking about how to solve our problem.”

  “What problem is that?” Caitlin asked him.

  Dallas replied, “How to transport six people in a four-person lunar vehicle. Because the oxygen supplies in your suits won’t last long enough to walk back to the LEM.” After a slight pause, he came back. “Looking on the bright side, if you can’t find Suzette, it’ll only be five people in a four-person vehicle.”

  Caitlin shook her head, aware that James was watching her. “Not funny, Dallas. Not funny at all.”

  20 | Found Footage

  Asami Imura clipped one end of a climbing rope to a special harness on her spacesuit. She handed Blake the other end. “I’m counting on you to belay me, Blake. Don’t get distracted by anything, okay?”

  Blake gave her an okay hand signal since they couldn’t read each other’s eyes through the helmet visors. He knew her command wasn’t insubordination. They were both rock climbers, and he knew that’s where she was coming from. Safety first. “What, me mess up the first ever rock climb on the moon, you’ve got to be kidding? Steady as she goes.” He took the rope and threaded it through his own harness.

  “Be careful down there,” Martin Hughes felt the need to add, gazing down at the fallen video camera from a safe distance away from the edge.

  “I will be.” Asami backed up to the opening in the wall and leaned back, testing the rope with Blake’s grip.

  “This is much easier than it is on Earth!” The entrepreneur held up the rope in one hand as if to demonstrate this fact.

  “Fractional gravity or not, Blake, please watch what you’re doing. Here I go.”

  Asami jumped into the hole, sliding down the rope and pushing off the cave wall once with her feet on the way down. She landed in a crouch nearby the camera.

  “I’m on the ground. Okay so far.”

  She stood fully upright and turned around in a slow circle, assessing her new surroundings.

  “You see her?” Blake wanted to know.

  “Negative. Small chamber, too, and I don’t see any outlets at all...it’s just this one room. The way I came in is the only entrance or exit.”

  “What? That’s impossible! Check again.” Blake’s voice was edgy.

  “Will do.” Asami walked the perimeter of the subterranean cavern, paying close attention to the walls and floor to be certain she wasn’t overlooking a small passageway. But by the time she had walked all four walls, she had still found no other way out. She informed Blake of this fact.

  “Check the camera, then. I told her not to film but I’m guessing she did anyway. Maybe it’ll show what she saw right before she dropped it.”

  Asami went to the video recorder and picked it up. She played back its images, soundless due to the lack of air, and watched.

  The point-of-view was from Susan herself, occasionally showing her other gloved hand in the foreground as she aimed the lens. For the first few seconds, the video showed the same environs Asami now found herself in. But soon things changed. The camera view became unsteady, as though Susan were struggling to keep her balance. And then the floor itself yawned open, revealing a throat-like passage into which Suzette floated along with a shower of swirling dust particles.

  “Asami, what’s on the camera?” Blake sounded impatient as always, but the moon scientist was having trouble processing what she was looking at. How could this be? It looked from the footage as though the marketing exec had simply been swallowed up by the floor. A sudden and severe moonquake, or cave collapse?

  Asami tore her gaze from the camera’s display to examine the actual ground beneath her feet. It is ground, right? Bending down to touch the chamber floor through her gloved hand, the selenologist sensed something wasn’t quite right about it. It didn’t have the rock-solid feel that moon rocks should have. Not only that, she thought, studying the striations—(more like patterns) in the floor—they don’t really look like...but she never completed that thought.

  The cave floor moved. She steadied herself, to be certain, and waited. There it came again. It moved. She considered that she was lightheaded from lack of oxygen, but a quick check of her gauges showed this not to be true. The ground is moving.

  As she began to voice her concern to Blake and Martin, her feet started wobbling even though she was not moving them. She screamed into her transmitter. “Blake pull me up! Up now!”

  At that moment the ground parted beneath her feet—opened up completely—and she started falling. She looked down to see how far she had to fall, but it was too dark to see past the...what is that? A glistening, slimy cavern, sort of like a raspy tongue with row upon row of tooth-like structures. Moving, like a swallowing throat. And she was dropping straight into it, too stunned to even utter Blake’s name again.

  She felt a harsh tug on her midsection as Blake jerked upward on the rope and she began to float up through the bizarre cavity into which she had fallen. Wet, organized structure passed before her eyes in a dizzying array of patterns and motion.

  And then she was in the chamber again, being raised through it by Blake’s climbing rope. Walls. Normal-looking. Unmoving. Dry, like the moon should always be. But looking back down one last time before she was yanked through that strange hole in the wall, Asami saw the soaked, moving structure drop lower into the recesses from wherever it had come.

  And then there was only a black hole.

  21 | No One Gets Left Behind

  “Maybe an earthquake? Moonquake, I mean,” Blake speculated after hearing Asami’s breathless account of what it was like down there in the moving cave.

  “So it opened up the depths to reveal water, or at least liquid of some kind?” Martin asked, peering down into the chamber. “Hey, it looks like things stopped moving around down there.”

  Blake, Asami and Martin all gazed into the chamber, which was in fact now still, but with a deeper floor than before. Blake checked his suit gauges. “Our oxygen supply is getting low enough that we should start heading back to the LEM.” He received no arguments, and the trio began making their way out of the tunnel system.

  They moved quickly through the underground labyrinth, Blake by now sure of the way back. As they moved they transmitted to Suzette, calling her name, but no response was received. All of them kept their eyes open for signs of movement from the tunnel itself, but saw nothing of the kind by the time they reached the exit to the underground system. They huddled at the rocky outcropping on the crater’s inside slope. Left unspoken was the gravity of what they were faced with: leaving Suzette behind somewhere in the tunnels.

  “One last try, then we go,” Blake said. They transmitted her name a few more times. Blake added, “Suzette: for some reason if you can hear us but can’t talk back—malfunctioning transmitter, perhaps—know this: we are coming back for you. We will find you.”

  Neither Asami nor Martin said anything. They both knew that should Suzette actually be faced with the horror of being trapped somewhere in a rockslide or tunnel collapse, with a radio that would receive but not transmit, she’d be on the brink of insanity right about now, if not actually over it.

  Blake shook them from their distressing reveries. “Let’s get to the rover.”

  They trekked their way up the inside of the crater�
��s slope, always wary of the ground, watching for movement. Upon reaching the lip, Blake stood and surveyed the view while Asami and Martin climbed up beside him.

  “What the—” Blake cut himself off as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Or not seeing, as was the case.

  “What’s the matter?” Martin asked.

  “There’s only one rover here, and it’s down there.” Blake pointed to the wrecked moon buggy at the bottom of the outside of the crater.

  “Caitlin took James back to the LEM in the other one,” Martin reminded him.

  “But something—” Blake broke off as he stared down at the remaining rover. “Let’s just get down there.”

  “It looks like it rolled, is that what you were going to say?” Martin said, his voice wavering as he bounded down the crater’s outer face.

  No answer came, and when Martin turned to look at Blake, he saw his lips moving but heard nothing, meaning he was talking on a different channel, possibly to Caitlin or maybe to someone in the LEM. They continued down the slope toward the moon buggy. About halfway down, Caitlin’s voice came over the common channel. “Blake, you hear me? I’m almost back to the LEM.”

  “Copy. What happened to my rover?”

  “Don’t want to discuss over open frequencies, switch to X-band, over.”

  Blake made an adjustment to his radio and then Martin couldn’t hear the conversation. Caitlin told Blake on the private channel about her sighting of the two astronauts walking away from the rover toward the Black Sky lunar lander.

  “Caitlin, listen to me. Does Dallas know about this yet?”

  “Of course, Blake. He’s the one who said it was a good thing I bring James back to the LEM, otherwise we all wouldn’t fit in one rover.”

  “Tell him not to report on the rover crash to Mission Control, copy? And the official line on Suzette is that she is missing. We may still be able to find her. No outside communication regarding the matter until we have something conclusive, is that clear?”

  A beat of silence ensued while Caitlin processed the fact that Blake was worried about his ever-important reputation. He was already in damage control mode.

  “I said is that clear?”

  “Sure, Blake. It’s clear. That wasn’t really on my mind, I have to say. We have an astronaut to find. Let’s stay focused on that.”

  “Okay, switching back over to main channel...” As soon as they did they heard Martin’s voice, a little higher pitched than usual.

  “How are we going to get back to the LEM? The oxygen in our suits—”

  Blake interrupted him. “We’re working something out, Martin. Give us a second, please.”

  The voice of James Burton joined in. “Still think these moonwalks are tourist ready, do you, Blake?”

  “Will you shut up already, Mr. Burton! You’re part of the reason we’re in this mess in the first place.”

  “Oh really? I don’t see how the fact that one of your rovers rolled down the hill would have been changed if I hadn’t asked to leave early. In fact, I may have actually helped you by giving you more time to fix the problem instead of finding out about it even later.”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Martin soothed. “This is no place for an argument.”

  “I agree,” Caitlin said. “Blake, as soon as I drop Mr. Burton off at the LEM, I’ll turn right around and come back to the crater to pick up you, Asami and Martin. Just stay by the crashed rover, all right? Don’t wander off. We’re pulling up to the LEM now.”

  Blake gave the thumbs up signal to Martin and Asami while he replied. “Good. We’ll be standing by the rover, over.”

  Caitlin clicked off and the three moonwalkers stared at each others’ faceplate reflections for a moment, until Martin said, “So we have a bit of a wait for our ride. In the meantime, riddle me this: How do you think that life form we found...” He pointed to the bulge in Blake’s spacesuit where he had stowed the specimen container. “...is able to stay alive in the complete absence of oxygen and water?”

  Asami answered. “We’ll have to analyze the chemical composition of the moon dust back in the lab. See exactly what it’s made of. That might give us some clues.”

  “Agreed,” Martin said with enthusiasm. He turned to Blake. “When we return to the LEM, I’d like to make use of the lab straight away to study the specimen.”

  “And I the rocks and soil samples, particularly the soil in the specimen container,” Asami added.

  The Outer Limits CEO stared blankly off in the direction of the Black Sky lander.

  “Blake?” Asami jarred him from whatever thoughts he was having.

  “Huh? Oh right. The lab. Sure, you can get right to work in there as soon as we get back.”

  “You don’t sound all that excited, Blake, for a man poised to unlock the secrets of life in the universe, “Martin said.

  Blake didn’t turn away from his competitor’s lander. “There are other secrets to unlock as well.”

  22 | Groupthink

  “Here she comes!” Asami pointed across the lunar plain at the clouds of dust kicked up by the moon buggy. They watched it draw near in silence, Blake having finally turned away from Black Sky’s lander to join the conversation about the strange life form. He had the cube out with the creature, now hidden in the moon dust on the bottom, when Caitlin rolled to a stop a few feet from the group.

  “Reminds me of waiting for the bus as a kid,” Martin quipped as he hopped in back of the rover with Asami. Blake sat up front with Caitlin, but she remained at the wheel.

  “How’s your oh-two supply?” Caitlin greeted them with. A chorus of low readings ensued. Caitlin put the rover into gear and turned toward the LEM.

  “And so how is our dear FAA representative doing now? Has he recovered from his frightful excursion?”

  No one laughed. Caitlin replied. “It’s not funny, Blake. I know he was being deliberately rash to try and prove a point, but if someone wants to go back to the LEM, we have to take them. You know that. Dallas agrees.”

  “We should conserve our oxygen by not talking,” Blake returned.

  They made the rest of the drive back to the LEM in silence. By the time they pulled up to the airlock ladder, Asami reported that her breaths were getting harder to pull.

  Caitlin, who had swapped out for a fresh spacesuit oxygen unit after bringing Burton back, jumped from the rover and bunny-hopped over to the ladder. “C’mon. I’ll get the airlock.” She opened the outer door while the other three exited the rover and moved to the ladder. When they were all inside the airlock space, Caitlin sealed the outer door and began the pressurization process. That completed, she removed her suit helmet, taking a few tentative breaths before a smile took over her features.

  “C’mon in, the water’s fine!” The others also removed their suits and then Caitlin led the way through the inner airlock door back into the lander’s cabin.

  Martin held his hands out to Blake. “Specimen, please. We’ll need to get right to work on it in the lab.”

  Blake appeared to hesitate for a moment, but they could hear Dallas talking, and he handed it over before heading off in that direction. “Be careful with it!” he said as he walked away. Asami and Martin exchanged grins over the top of the acrylic cube. Two scientists with an alien life form to play with! They headed for the portion of the spacecraft that held the tiny laboratory.

  #

  Blake, Caitlin, Dallas and James huddled in the control alcove. Before Blake could take over, Dallas shot Caitlin a look and said, “Ray wants you to call him, right now.”

  Caitlin turned on a heel and started for another part of the ship. Blake called after her, “Do not mention Suzette!”

  James watched her walk away and then turned back to Blake and Dallas.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Burton?” Blake said.

  “Yes?” He turned to face Blake.

  “Can you give us a moment of privacy, please?”

  James’ eyes narrowed. “Absolutely not! You should be
discussing your missing astronaut, not wasting time worrying about the likes of me. This is going in my report!” Burton produced his notepad and began scribbling furiously.

  “Asshole,” Blake muttered under his breath.

  James’ pen stopped. “What?”

  “Just something else for your report, I guess. Fine, stay here and be a distraction while I talk to Dallas.”

  The Lunar Module Pilot eyed both men in turn and then, realizing that Burton was going nowhere, addressed Blake in his presence. “There’s something you should know about. Besides Suzette.”

  Blake visibly tensed. Even the problems had problems around here. “What is it?”

  “I still haven’t been able to fix the lander’s guidance system, which I was hoping I might be able to complete while you were on your moonwalk.”

  “What’s holding you back?”

  James’ eyes followed the exchange like a spectator at a ping pong match.

  “Mission Control is helping me work out a solution. They can run the sims with a lot more processing power than we have on board. They’re doing that now and will get back to me when they have something. I was hoping I wouldn’t even need them, but it’s not a simple fix, Blake. A direct lightning hit—”

  James butted in with, “What if we can’t fix this guidance system?”

  Blake closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. His reply came through gritted teeth. “We require that system in order to rendezvous with our command module in lunar orbit. Without it, we’d probably miss it—it’s like trying to hit a pinhead on a football field by launching a penny from the nosebleed seats. Landing on the moon was relatively easy because it was not as precise, requiring only that we land somewhere in one piece in order to survive...”

  Dallas’ eyes widened at this as he recalled his seat-of-the-pants landing, but he said nothing in front of Burton. Blake continued.

  “But to miss the command module is certain death. We’d go shooting off into the void of deep space where we would run out of oxygen and die. Just imagine that for a moment, if you would, Mr. Burton. You and I staring at each other while our faces turn blue from lack of oxygen...”