Moonliner: No Stone Unturned

by Hanzel, Donald

  “Igniting both outboards,” the pilot announces over his radio. Just then, the silence stops. The deep sound of powerful engines starting up fills the craft. Nikki sinks into her seat as the shuttle picks up some forward thrust. Moondock is getting smaller by the second as the shuttle sinks toward the moon.

  For Nikki, descending to the lunar surface is nothing at all like she’d imagined. Of course she’d imagined craters large and small, but is now seeing just how large and how small they can be. The more the shuttle sinks the bigger the craters get. New ones continually come into view within the larger ones, which in turn get larger as smaller ones come into view inside them. It’s almost as if the moon is carbonated with craters, massive ones.

  “We’re fortunate today,” the pilot announces; “our flight path takes us over the eastern edge of the majestic crater Tycho, across the Descartes Highlands where we’ll fly almost directly over the site of the Apollo 16 landing, and onto touch down on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility at the site of the Apollo Dome, where Apollo 11 landed one hundred years ago today,” the pilot added with a hint of pride in his voice.

  The shuttle glides over Tycho, one of the few craters you can sometimes see from Earth with the naked eye. What a jaw dropping view to be directly over it at an elevation so low you almost feel like you’re in it. Its central peak is casting vivid shadows. Tycho’s impact ray system, easily visible from Earth, ironically disappears as you close in on the surface of the moon. When you zoom in on something, you tend to lose the bigger picture.

  Suddenly an electrical surging sound is heard, then complete silence. Almost all lights on the shuttle shut off, leaving only a few emergency lights on in its cabin. There is a sudden look of fear on Nikki’s face as she looks frantically out her window, wondering if this sudden loss of lighting and engine power is normal.

  The shuttle continues to rapidly glide over the lunar surface. Meanwhile, the shuttle’s captain is on the radio, calling in the shuttle’s predicament to Moondock to central command.

  “Mayday! This is media shuttle zero-three-nine. We’ve lost complete electrical power. Now attempting to restart engines.”

  “Media zero-three-nine, this is Moondock control. Can you switch to auxiliary power?”

  “Negative Moondock, both main & auxiliary malfunctioning,” the captain answers. “We’ve lost stabilizers and cannot correct our sink rate.”

  “Media zero-three-nine, continue to attempt engine reboot and stand by,” the Moondock dispatcher replies.

  The powerless shuttle clears Tycho and glides over the rugged highlands, unable to slow, or even adjust its orbit. Still with no word of what is happening, Nikki presses her intercom to ask what’s going on, but the intercom is part of the electrical system and is also malfunctioning. She gets no reply from the captain or co-pilot, who are both frantically trying to reboot the system.

  Nikki looks out her window and sees the rugged lunar surface racing beneath her. She can see that the shuttle is descending and is now realizing that it isn’t under control. In a moment of desperation, she calls Cedric.

  Still sitting in the park, Cedric sees through his sunglasses that Nikki’s calling him. He answers the call.

  “How’s it going?” he asks, oblivious to Nikki’s predicament. There is a delay of a little more than a second, but Nikki’s hears Cedric.

  “Cedric,” she says frantically; “something’s wrong with this shuttle and I’m really scared.”

  “What do you mean?” Cedric asks. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think so, no,” Nikki answers; “we’ve lost power and I can see the mountains getting closer,” she says now in tears. “We’re going too fast!”

  “Listen to me,” Cedric answers; “listen to my voice,” he says, trying to calm her down. “It’s going to be okay,” he tells her. “Everything will be okay.”

  Nikki calms down a little, but has a deeply saddened look on her face.

  “The mountains and craters are really close now,” she tells Cedric, now trembling in fear.

  “Don’t look out the window,” Cedric tells her. “Listen to me,” it’s all going to be okay. Listen to me.”

  “Oh my god!” he hears her scream just before the transmission turns to static.

  Cedric tries to call her back but gets an automated message that Nikki’s number is not in service. He tries again, but again the same.

  A red light starts blinking in Cedric’s sunglasses; a news alert. Cedric’s face drops as his darkest fear blinks in front of his eyes. He tells Phaedra to play the news flash.

  “We’ve just learned that a lunar shuttle has crashed on the surface of the moon. The media shuttle was on its way to Apollo 11 centennial celebrations when it lost electrical power. We’re just now learning that DOT-5 News reporter Nikki Nova was onboard, as well as the shuttle captain and co-pilot.”

  Cedric looks up at the moon, then away. He pulls his sunglasses off and starts mumbling something to himself using hand gestures, as if he’s trying to talk his way through a problem. His mouth gets dry. His fingers curl up, then his body. As the reality of the news sinks further in, he doubles over into a fetal position and slides off the bench onto the ground, breaking into tears beside the bench.

  Part 2: February 27, 2014

  Seattle, Wa

  A siren sounds way off in the distance, then is soon joined by another, but both quickly fade into the steady white noise of Seattle’s traffic flow. Beau doesn’t notice. He sits at a table cluttered with radio parts, working to piece together an old ham radio. News can be heard over a different shortwave radio, his favorite, which he keeps on a small desk in the corner of his room.

  “In Ukraine, tensions have risen as gunmen have now seized government buildings in the country's autonomous Crimea region and raised a Russian flag.

  “In April, The Paintings of former U.S. president George W. Bush will go on display at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas. The exhibit, The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy, will include more than two dozen portraits by Bush, along with photographs and other artifacts. Bush began painting after leaving the White House,” a reporter announces.

  A short music intro to a station identification begins to play, causing Beau to scramble for his little Sony, hand-held, memo recorder. He frantically searches for it as the intro wanes and the station is being identified. He spots the recorder just as the music fades and hits the record button right in the nick of time to catch the announcement.

  “You’re listening to international news on the GLOB shortwave network, Cape Town,” the announcement states.

  “I’ve got it!” Beau says to himself with a smile from ear to ear.

  The news fades to inaudible background as Beau steps out of his house and onto his patio for some fresh air. The last few nights have been warmer and with March a mere two days away, winter is clearly on its way out. The moon is bright, at least what little of it there is left of it as it wanes near the end of its cycle. Maybe it just looks a lot brighter after spending such a dark winter behind clouds.

  Beau’s been working on his radio a lot lately, trying to keep his job at a neighborhood tech firm off his mind. With the tidal wave of recent layoffs, that’s becoming increasingly harder to do. He can’t help but wonder if his job is waning away.

  Then he hears it just for a second; a large digital sounding sequence of electronic beeps, followed by a unique squelch coming from inside the house, through the patio door. A ten-second period of silence follows, then the sequence of beeps and the squelch are heard again, this time slowing to a steadier tone. They’re coming from the shortwave radio, overpowering the Cape Town station. There’s a short, loud squelch followed by an indistinct man’s voice saying what sounds like, “when we received the signal.”

  Just as Beau picks the radio up, planning to shut it off for repair, Cedric’s voice comes in clearly enough to be heard. Though off pitch and scratchy at first, the message gets clearer a
s it plays.

  “…a huge tree stump. There is a stone that sits half embedded in the ground just beyond the stump. You can’t miss it; it looks like the moon. I doubt it’s been disturbed in decades, if not longer. Please leave something for me beneath that stone. This message will repeat itself,” Cedric’s voice is heard saying over the radio.

  Beau grabs his memo recorder and points it at the speaker. A few seconds later, Cedric’s message plays again from the beginning.

  “If you can hear this, please hear me out,” Cedric’s voice is heard saying. “This is an attempt to send a message back in time. Anyone who can hear this, please ensure that reflect is activated on your message mode so that I can compare time stamps. This is for real. The date is July 20, 2069. If by any chance you are picking this up before the existence of the laserlink system, there’s a path southward from the southernmost tip of Stanley Park’s Lost Lagoon. Follow it until you see that it has to go around a huge tree stump. There is a stone that sits half embedded in the ground just beyond the stump. You can’t miss it; it looks like the moon. I doubt it’s been disturbed in decades, if not longer. Please leave something for me beneath that stone. This message will repeat itself.”

  Cedric’s message plays again, then begins to repeat itself yet another time but breaks into squelch and a digital beep sequence before fading back into a news report.

  “Just how many planets there are?” the radio picks up mid-sentence. “Astronomers announced Wednesday that NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has spotted 715 confirmed planets, almost doubling the number of planets known to humanity, according to NASA planetary scientist Jack Lissauer. The Kepler team has said it has found several thousand potential "exoplanets" outside our solar system, but scientists have not been able to confirm most of them yet.”

  Grasping his memo recorder and smiling, Beau hits the play button. Cedric’s message starts to replay. With an irritated look on his face, Beau immediately scrolls back to the message recorded just before Cedric’s.

  “You’re listening to international news on The GLOB shortwave network, Cape Town,” the announcement again says.

  Beau smiles, then tosses the recorder onto his sofa. He walks over to the corner of the room where he keeps a world globe; a touch lamp with a spherical map of the earth as its shade. When touched, Earth lights up through a yellowish, vintage-map hue, giving it a subtle, moonlike appearance from afar. He turns it on and gives it a slow spin, then stops it with his finger pinpointed right on Cape Town. He puts his other index finger on Seattle and shakes his head.

  “Damn,” he says under his breath; “a message all the way from South Africa.”

  Moonliner 2:02

  Beau wakes to the sight of dust particles dancing in a sunray, another refreshing sign that spring is near. The spectacle is short lived as clouds soon eclipse the sun. He can hear Kendra in the kitchen, trying to keep quiet but lacking the grace this early in the morning to pull it off. They both know that Beau needs to be up anyway.

  Beau rolls out of bed and into the shower. Once dressed, he grabs a cup of coffee and sits down at the kitchen table, taking in those precious last minutes of home before stepping back out into the cold world.

  “There are a few eggs in the egg steamer and fresh English muffins if you’re looking for some breakfast,” Kendra tells him.

  “Thanks,” Beau replies before toasting a muffin and helping himself to an egg.

  “So how did the movie end last night?” Kendra asks; “I fell asleep right after they made it to the island.”

  “That’s about when it got really lame,” Beau answers. “They found a cave that was a portal of some kind. None of it made any sense, like the story was being written as they went along. I turned it off and worked on my radio for an hour or so.”

  “How’s that coming along?” Kendra asks.

  “Slowly,” Beau answers; “luckily I’m a patient guy. The shortwave is working nicely though. You’ll never guess where I picked up a signal from last night.”

  “Tokyo,” Kendra responds.

  “No,” Beau answers.

  “Moscow?” she asks.

  “No, not Moscow,” Beau replies.

  “Don’t make me do this. Where was it from?” Kendra demands to know.

  “Cape Town, South Africa,” Beau tells her with a smile.

  “Cape Town, wow!” Kendra responds, interested but not as much as Beau is.

  “Africa,” Beau interjects; “and the southern tip to boot.”

  “That’s about as far away from here as you can get,” Kendra says to indulge his obsession.

  “That’s true,” Beau answers; “at least as far as mainland goes. I looked on the globe and actually there are two islands that sit out in the south Indian Ocean, Amsterdam and St. Paul that are virtually on the opposite side of the globe from us. The actual point would be somewhere in the Indian Ocean.”

  The sun once again breaks, briefly brightening the room. Beau puts his coffee cup and plate in the sink, then makes his way to the washroom to brush his teeth.

  “I think it was the booster antenna that I pimped out with additional wire,” Beau yells from bathroom while brushing; “I never got anything from that far away before I connected it.”

  “What did you say?” Kendra asks as he steps back into their living room straightening his tie.

  “Oh,” he answers; “I think I lost my train of thought. I’m still shocked that I got that message. Here, I can even prove it came from South Africa,” he tells Kendra.

  “I believe you,” she responds too late as Beau grabs his memo recorder, hell bent on making her listen to the recording anyway. “Okay, let’s hear it,” she says, seeing how badly he wants to play it.

  Beau hits play.

  “You’re listening to international news on The GLOB shortwave network, Cape Town,” again plays out. Beau scans backward through the audio and replays “Cape Town” three more times, like music to his ears.

  Kendra smiles for a few frozen seconds. The memo recorder beeps and Cedric’s recorded message begins to play.

  “If you can hear this, please hear me out,” Cedric’s voice is heard saying. “This is an attempt to send a message back in time. Anyone who can hear this, please ensure that reflect is activated on your message mode so that I can compare time stamps. This is for real,” plays before Beau stops recorder.

  “What was that?” Kendra asks after not clearly hearing Cedric’s message.

  “Nothing,” Beau answers, tossing the recorder aside.

  “Where was it from?” she asks.

  “Vancouver I think,” he answers; “he didn’t say.”

  “That’s not too far away,” Kendra responds, looking a bit underwhelmed.

  “No,” but it’s not where but when the message is from that makes it interesting,” Beau tells her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks.

  “That message came from the future,” he answers laughing; “from the year 2069.”

  “No way,” Kendra answers; “that’s so awesome!”

  “I found it to be a little disingenuous myself,” Beau replies.

  “Oh come on,” Kendra says; “have a little fun. It’s not every day you get a message from the future.”

  “I wonder if I can lengthen the antenna,” Beau says to Kendra, thinking aloud, not even phased by her interest in the message from the future.

  “What did the future guy want?” Kendra asks, putting on a little lavender lipstick.

  “Oh nothing really,” Beau answers; “he just wants to know if his message is actually travelling through time.”

  “How can he tell?” she asks.

  “Oh he said some shit about leaving a message for him under a rock in Stanley Park. That’s all he mentions of Vancouver, like he assumes the signal will only be heard there.”

  “A rock in Stanley Park, how exciting!” Kendra says. “Does he say where it is? I wanna hear the message.”

  Beau rolls his eyes at th
e idea, but grabs the recorder and hits play.

  “If you can hear this, please hear me out,” plays out once again and Kendra listens attentively to Cedric’s entire message.

  “He sounds so serious,” she tells Beau after hearing the whole thing.

  “He’s some jackass,” Beau replies.

  “You’re always so negative,” Kendra says; “what if he actually is from the future?”

  “Yeah, what if?” Beau asks in return, knowing too well that Kendra doesn’t believe it any more than he does. No, she’s just in it for its literary value. She’s drawn to the sheer creativity of it; a message through time. What could be more romantic?

  “Didn’t you mention going to Vancouver real soon for a tradeshow?” Kendra asks; “I think you should leave a message under the stone.”

  “I’m not into geocaching,” Beau tells her. “The tradeshow is NeoTech and I’m not going,” he adds. “I mentioned it in a moment of panic over the layoffs, but I didn’t get laid off. Besides,” he asks; “what am I supposed to leave under that stone for fifty-five years?”

  “Are you sure?” Kendra asks; “the layoffs might not be finished.”

  “I have it from a pretty good authority that they are,” Beau tells her, opening their patio door to let a little bracing morning air into the room. He closes it almost immediately, however, upon feeling how cold the morning actually is.