Luna (16 page)

“In! They’re almost here...” Caitlin pointed to the oncoming rush of turbulent moon flesh. A large animal pushed a compliment of smaller ones ahead of it like a bow wave in front of a seagoing vessel. The moonwalkers piled inside the airlock and the outer door slid closed just as the creatures reached the LEM.

From inside, they watched the door bulge slightly with the onslaught of the rushing life forms.

35| Dilemma

Outer Limits Lunar Lander

“I’m not sure that ‘body disposal’ is among those things in my list of duties for this flight.” James Burton narrowed his eyes at Dallas from behind the plastic safety glasses he wore as they stood over Martin’s dead body. Dallas gave him a pleading look. A look that said, ‘I’m trying to work with you, here, rather than one of dissatisfaction or intimidation.”

“Look, Mr. Burton, I know that. Believe me, this is the last thing I was hoping to have you get involved with, but it’s much safer to have two people carry his body outside than one. Can you please just help me out so we can get his corpse out of here and not wait to see what happens once he starts to decompose?”

That had an effect. Burton said nothing but averted his gaze from Dallas’ to that of the semi-translucent corpse on the lab table. Checking that his spacesuit was secure one last time, James snapped his helmet into place, to avoid having to do it later once they were carrying the body, and because it would keep him from breathing in any contaminants or fatal fluids on Martin’s body. He bent to the task of lifting the dead exobiologist. Dallas did the same and they hefted the body.

“Try to avoid it coming into contact with any surfaces,” Dallas cautioned. “We don’t want to contaminate anything.”

“I got him, let’s go.” Burton had the corpse by the legs while Dallas hefted him from the chest. They shuffled out of the lab and into the main working area of the spaceship. They were making their way across when Blake’s voice erupted from the radio, tinged with urgency. Dallas threw his head back in frustration; they had just gotten into a workable rhythm carrying the dead body, and now they would have to set it down. Dallas listened for a few seconds while he and James still held Martin’s corpse above the floor, but Blake’s message required attention.

“Set him down.” Dallas ran to the radio after they dropped Martin unceremoniously to the floor.

“...I said, DO YOU READ ME?”

Dallas scooped up the transmitter. “Dallas here, Blake. I read you loud and clear, over.”

“Good. Listen carefully, please. Caitlin and I are transmitting from Black Sky’s lander.”

“Excellent! So you got there and they let you in. I assume they let you in, right? You’re not still standing outside knocking on the door, are you?” Dallas turned around to smile at James, who had backed away from Martin’s corpse. He was paying close attention to the radio call but did not return Dallas’ grin.

“Caitlin and I are inside the lander, Dallas.”

“What about Asami—where’s she?”

The frequency seemed to go dead. Dallas furrowed his brow. “Blake?”

“Asami didn’t make it out of the tunnels.” He proceeded to recount the events of their moonwalk, while James listened with his face gradually transforming into increasingly horrified expressions. James was stricken with as much grief as one could have for knowing someone so short a time, flashing on her gloved hand holding his as they stood outside the lander.

When Blake had finished relaying what had happened, he asked Dallas how the repairs to the ship were going. Dallas shook his head even though he knew Blake couldn’t see him. “I can’t make further headway without that part, the actuator—did you find one?”

“That’s a negative, Dallas. We did recover the box of parts that was left behind in the tunnels, but Caitlin combed through it already and there’s no actuator in there, repeat no actuator found, over.”

“Are any of the parts you found helpful?”

“We did find a part to fix Black Sky’s ship.”

“So what about them—do they have the part we need? Can you make a trade?”

“They don’t have it. Well, that’s not entirely true. They do have one actuator—the one that’s working and in use now. But without it, their ship would be unable to function, too.”

“So...let me make sure I’m hearing this right... To save one ship is to sacrifice the other, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Unfortunately, that is the situation as it now stands, Dallas. Unless something develops to change that, but...”

“But our oxygen and battery power will only last so long.”

Blake did not respond to this. He didn’t need to. It was the truth, their reality. Dallas continued. “Okay...it sounds like Black Sky’s lander is closer to being operational than ours is, since they have the parts they need.”

“And they have one additional oh-two canister, yes.”

“All right, so because we’ve...” Dallas shook his head and seemed to choke back his words a little as he turned to face away from James, whose stare was unwavering as he watched the conversation unfold. “As tragic as it is, because we’ve lost three people—Martin’s dead, too— I think we might be able to fit all of us in Black Sky’s craft for the return trip to one of the command modules. What do you think?”

Sounds of commotion issued over the communication channel. Blake’s voice came back sounding harried and stressed. “Probably. Listen, they’re close to fixing the oxygen leak here with that new part, but because it leaked for so long, there’s a large horde of the creatures around the ship. Something’s banging out there now and I’ve got to go help if I can.”

The first hint of worry crept into Dallas’ voice as it dawned on him that he and James were a long way from the others in the craft that was most likely to be working soon. He avoided eye contact with the FAA monitor as he transmitted to Blake before he could sign off. “It’s too far for us to walk over there, Blake. If we combine crews into Black Sky’s LEM, how do we get over there, over?”

There was a disconcerting moment where a series of clicks were broadcast, leading Dallas to believe Blake had signed off or simply left the transmitter hanging, but then the CEO’s voice came back through the speaker. “I’ll send Caitlin in the rover to pick you up. By doing that, she might be able to draw the creatures away from the ship long enough for us to make the serious repairs. The rovers are faster than the creatures, fortunately, although I wish I didn’t know that firsthand.”

“Sounds like a working plan.” Dallas was relieved. He didn’t really know Blake all that well, as a person, and he wasn’t sure what kind of moral compass the man possessed. His business instincts were known for being positively ruthless, of course, but that was just business.
Wasn’t it?

“It is, but we’ll need a much larger distraction than that if we are to get the craft off the ground without interference from the worms. I’ve really got to go, but let me outline the plan for that so you can bring the items we’ll need from our ship on the rover.” He didn’t want to mention it, but Dallas was relieved to hear that he had things Blake wanted, which would make it that much more likely he sends Caitlin back in the rover.

Blake proceeded to describe the plan, at the end of which Dallas sighed heavily. It was very dicey, full of what-ifs and multiple variables like landmines in a field of uncertainty. But if everything went just so, it might possibly work.

Then a reverberant clanging noise emanated from the speaker and Blake shouted, “Over and out, Dallas!”

36| Bait...

Black Sky Lunar Lander

Caitlin snapped her helmet on with a finality that both unnerved and energized her. This was it. They had a plan, they were executing it, and she was a key element of that execution. If she couldn’t drive that rover to the Outer Limits LEM, then Dallas and James would likely perish, left behind on the barren moon.

Takeo escorted her to the airlock. He said he felt like they’d been through a lot together already and that making sure she would be able to drive off in the rover would be easy by comparison. Everyone else was in the middle of repairing the ship. Even with Black Sky’s needed part and the new oxygen cylinder, the work itself was painstakingly slow going, and there was no room for error. Time had also been lost to an EVA in order to fend a few of the worms off of critical parts of the ship. They had stayed away for a while, but now seemed to be returning in most aggressive fashion.

Takeo donned his helmet. “I’ll go with you to help you get to the rover. After that, you’re on your own until you get back here. Good luck.” He smiled at her and she wondered if he had some kind of attraction to her as a result of their bonding on the trip back from the tunnels.

“Thanks. I’ll take all the help I can get.” With that, the outer airlock door slid open and they stepped out onto the moon together.

Immediately, Caitlin registered a blur of movement out of her peripheral vision and then felt a thud on her facemask. A smear of blue liquid marred the glass surface after a small worm bounced off. The suit helmets were not equipped with “windshield wipers,” a feature that had been discussed but dismissed as being unnecessary.

“They’re falling from the roof.” Takeo pointed to the top of his LEM. A horde of animals toppled off the side of the spacecraft like lemmings from a cliff, splashing onto the ground and kicking up dust-devils wherever they happened to land. Caitlin made a giant stride toward the rover, parked perhaps twenty-five feet away. She wished now that they’d driven all the way to the airlock, though, because between her and the rover was a river of worms still leading from the crater to the ship.

They walked up to it and she judged whether she’d be able to jump over the fast-flowing stream of life. It would be close. Small creatures were ejected from the main plume with regularity, spouting up into the airless atmosphere. Still, there was no other way around. But her companion had an idea.

“Here,” he said getting down on one knee as he bashed a creature away from his helmet. “You step on my gloves and I’ll give you a boost. Get you up higher before you jump.”

Caitlin thought it could work. With a little extra height and springboard power, she might just be able to launch herself over the river of creatures. Takeo wasn’t going with her, so he wouldn’t have to worry about how to cross over himself.

She placed her right foot in the crux of his interlaced fingers and pressed down, prepping him for the force of her coming jump. Off to their left, one of the football-sized animals broke from the river of life and wobbled toward them, only a few feet away.

“I’m ready, do it!” Takeo said, one eye on the advancing threat.

Caitlin eyeballed the ground on the other side of the oxygen-seeking worms and then launched herself. In midair over the creatures, she felt a pattering sensation on the soles of her boots as the smaller animals pelted her like rain from the ground. Due to the low gravity, she was able to achieve a much higher jump than if she had been earthbound, and she sailed over the moving line of creatures, landing on the other side.

“Go!” her companion encouraged her. The animals were still drawn as if inexorably toward the oxygen leak on the LEM, but there was no point in Caitlin standing around to see if they would take an interest in her before she even got to the rover. She bounded off in the now familiar hopping moon run toward the rover. When she got to it, she jumped in without looking back and hit the power button.

The control panel lit up and Caitlin put the vehicle into drive. She wasn’t looking forward to what she was about to do. She’d much rather simply drive over to her LEM and pick up Dallas and James, but if she wanted to make sure they’d have a ship to return to that could get them home again, she had to draw the worms off Black Sky’s lander.

She accelerated away from the line of animals, testing the rover, making sure it was working properly; warming it up until the controls were but an extension of her hands as she coaxed the maximum performance out of the machine. When she felt as ready as possible, she put the buggy into a turn until she was pointed back at the LEM—and the stream of moving flesh. She drove toward the animals at full speed, watching the Black Sky man bounce-run back toward the LEM.

She eyed the movement carefully as she was jolted along, looking for a spot to impact where there were none of the larger individuals. She was pretty sure she could run over the smaller ones, but she didn’t want to take a chance with the larger ones fouling up the drivetrain. When she saw a suitable target, she hunched lower in the seat and focused on maintaining a stable trajectory.

She had no idea what driving through the animals would do—if it would have no real effect, where they simply reorganized once the interruption was over, or if they would abandon their well-formed line to chase the rover around. But she had to try something to give them a chance to work outside the LEM without the threat of the beasts, if only for a little while.

Caitlin plowed the rover through the line of burrowing aliens at a near perpendicular angle, sloughing them out from under the wire wheels as it cut through. She felt the vehicle bog down for a second and her hands white-knuckled the steering wheel, anticipating getting stuck in the middle of the animal activity and wondering what she would do. She lurched forward again and saw the front wheels kick up a flurry of dust. This was followed by a bump as the rear tires banged over a thick clump of worms and then the moon buggy was rolling over flat ground once more.

She had done it—broken through the flow of creatures without damaging the rover or getting it stuck. She set the moon car into a turn toward the LEM.

“Good work! You broke them up,” she heard Takeo say into the comm unit. “The really good news is, they’re not heading for the LEM anymore.”

“What’s the bad news?” Caitlin slowed as she turned the wheel some more.

“They’re coming after you.”

“Fast?”

“Affirmative.”

“Let me see what I can do about the ones on the side of the ship.”

“Copy that.” He lurked nearby the airlock in case the creatures became too aggressive, while Caitlin turned the corner around the spacecraft. She sucked in her breath as she took in the massive conglomeration of seething, writhing animals that literally wormed their way up the side of the ship, huddling en masse in an oxygen-fueled frenzy. Caitlin considered simply ramming them with the buggy, which had a decent front fender, but decided she couldn’t risk any more damage to the spaceship. She would have to be careful and clip the outside of the group and hope that deterred them.

She increased her speed and pulled hard to the right as she passed the huddle of vermiform intruders. She noticed that, unlike those in the line, these animals paid no attention to her or her vehicle at all as they gorged on the chemical rush leaking from the ship. It was like they were drunk on oxygen, or perhaps blood lusting like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Whatever it was, she would have to do more if she was to disturb them.

“Where are the ones from the line—coming this way?” she transmitted to Takeo.

“They’re confused. They chase after me, then turn toward the side of the lander, then back toward me again. It’s like they don’t know what to do. I’ll stay on this side of the ship, though, so I don’t lead them your way.”

“Copy that. I don’t need any more than I’ve already got here. So many of them...”

She trailed off as she banked into a turn in order to come back for another pass at the huge mountain of worms threatening to envelope the ship. This time she approached closer to the pileup, still at a parallel course, driving by them, swiping a few with the side rail as she passed. Looking back as she carved out a turn, she saw some of the creatures tumbling from the pile and then rolling around on the ground. She had disrupted them somewhat.

She came around for another pass, executing on it the same way as the first. More minor success. She repeated it again and again, and with each pass more of the animals ended up wriggling around on the ground in disjointed fashion rather than glomming onto the station where they prevented access to the leaking oxygen port.

The Black Sky astronaut walked around the corner. “It’s working! Keep it up!” Takeo radioed the crew inside to get ready to make the repairs. Caitlin continued making rover passes, crunching over the smaller animals while avoiding the larger ones as she side-swiped the wormy dogpile. When it became apparent that there were more animals on the ground than on the lander, she drove the rover in a wide arc away from the LEM.

“Think you can take it from here?” Caitlin asked Takeo.

“Roger that. You thinned ‘em out for us, thanks.”

“All right. I’m off to pick up our new crew.”

“Good luck!” Takeo watched as Caitlin drove off toward the Outer Limits lunar lander.