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Chapter 10

Although we were hurtling around the Earth at orbital speed, the blue and white globe below us looked like it was only slowly meandering by while we hung in space. We had followed the passenger rocket up through the atmosphere and then passed it from a distance as it stopped its acceleration and started its downward descent back toward the ground. We continued to accelerate as we headed on around the Earth picking up more velocity to jump free of the Earth's gravity and commence our jump across space into the gravitational field of the Moon. Soon, the sun sank behind us and we spiraled over the nighttime sky, through the Earth's cold shadow and outward, toward the Moon.

That sounds exciting. It was. For a few hours. Then we discovered the boredom of space flight in cramped quarters. We did little during our flight. We sat and talked, tried to get the pasty food through the intake port of our suits (Jake was the only one who was very successful at this), and tried to discreetly use the waste disposal system in the suits with a minimum of fuss. (After having a pint bottle of urine escape my grasp and nearly vanish into the back of the van--save for the fast action of Jake in grabbing it--I was not too impressed with the freedom enjoyed by the glamorous astronauts of the 3V shows. And there is nothing like a plastic sack of excreta sitting in a pouch on your suit to take the romance out of things.)

We didn't suffer having to be totally weightless. While we weren't under anything approaching zero G, Nikki and Jake had plotted our course with an eye toward maximum speed since the van didn't have to worry about expending its motivating energy. Because of this, we had almost constant "gravity" as the van pushed ahead and our bodies tried to stay behind. About the only time we were in micro-gravity to the point of being weightless was for the few moments when the computer maneuvered the van about--so we wouldn't feel like we were hanging on our heads--to start pushing against the Moon's gravity as the lunar gravity overcame that of the Earth. I was thankful for the lack of weightlessness; after the few moments of weightlessness there was little doubt in my mind that I would have endured space sickness while Nikki and Jake sat beside me perfectly blissful of my sufferings. Whining about stomach ailments is not a good way to impress either an attractive member of the opposite sex or an old space pirate.

So about the only major problem was cramped muscles; you can't just stop and step out to stretch when you're hurtling through space. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been.

During the first few hours of our flight, Nikki was quite busy with an electronic astrolabe and a computer file which gave the correct coordinates that we needed to take. After a while she became convinced that the computer was doing a perfect job of flying us and only made an occasional sighting in for my peace of mind. (And I noticed that once she didn't even bother to turn the astrolabe on, thus proving it was only being done for my benefit; talk about trying to soothe the pilot's nerves... Nikki knew all the navigator tricks.)

We orbited the Moon one time to allow the computer to adjust our speed and then located our first destination. Our whole trip took less than 24 hours--considerably less than the three days taken by conventional rocket flights to the moon.

Our computer dropped us quite close to the airless surface of the Moon; I tried not to scream as we dropped through space. We skimmed across the barren, pock-marked gray land whose lack of atmosphere made it hard to judge distances. After the computer made one last, stomach-wrenching adjustment and burped a warning in our helmets' radios, we found ourselves hanging over the Copernicus Mining Base a little off the Equator of the Moon in the Carpathian Mountain range between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Imbrium, east of Kepler Crater.

It had happened. The computer had flown us flawlessly to our destination on the Moon. "Well, you and Jake did a perfect job in calculating and programming our flight," I announced needlessly.

Jake gave a grunt that a frog would have recognized as meaning "thanks."

Nikki, a bit more conventional, spoke English, "It's nice to have a new type of problem for a change. I'm afraid rocket-flight navigation made me a little rusty at figuring orbits. Ready to go down for a landing?"

"Yeah. Now or never, right? I hope I can do as well as you guys did in programming the computer." I wiped my hands against my legs, even though the sweat remained on my palms thanks to the fact that they were wrapped in heavy space gloves. "Everyone ready?"

"Take her down, Captain," Jake's voice said in my helmet's speaker.

I flipped the turn signal out of its hover position and we slowly fell downward. Though there was really nothing to worry about, it seemed a bit anti-climactic after the long, computerized trip to get to where we were going with a flip of a turn signal. Hardly first class. I decided to have Jake get us some flashing lights to wire into the van's dashboard before we took anyone we really wanted to impress on a flight.

The mining base was dwarfed by the sheer size of the Copernicus crater. The one-sixth gravity of the Moon made for spectacular contrasts of heights with the scraggly, un-weathered crater walls jutting up unlike any mountain range on Earth. Because of the greater curvature of the Moon, the far side of the crater walls dropped almost out of sight as we neared the rough floor where a giant meteor had impacted on the Moon before mankind had even started chipping away at flint knives.

The rocket sled ramp soon came into sight and the artificial smoothness of man's handiwork showed on the rock around it. The ramp stretched down toward the base which was nestled in the northern end of the crater. Though the sled had been designed to launch the metal ingots mined and processed on the Moon, Jake said that the base had been closed just before it had gotten ready for automated production. (And the question none of us could answer sprang up to puzzle my mind again. Why had the base been closed down? Earth needed the resources. The best guess among the three of us was that the powers-that-be on Earth just couldn't make enough money at it. It was easier to let people starve on Earth, perhaps. Who knows?)

After an eternity, we reached the floor of the crater and I carefully steered the van to land on the smooth field built for supply rockets. It was nestled among the huge boulders that jutted from the lunar dust that had filtered in around them. Beside it was the small, solar-powered beacon that had allowed our computer to home in on the base.

A slight jolt marked the end of our descent. I looked over at Nikki. "We made it."

I could barely see a smile on her face inside the mirrored bubble helmet, "Yes. We're really here."

Then it sank in, in the peanut gallery: "We're here!" Jake yelled.

I jumped when he yelled and would have bumped my head if my seat belt hadn't held me down. "Jake, let's try not to rupture our eardrums again."

"Sorry."

"How about a little stroll?" Nikki asked unfastening her seat belt, soundlessly since there was no air in the van.

"Don't mind if we do," I unbuckled my harness and popped the door of the van open. I sat a moment looked at the Earth which was the one splotch of color in the gray and black lunar landscape. Then I studied the ground and tossed myself from the van with what I had aimed to be the proverbial "one small step." I banged the back of my helmet on the van roof, fell out the door, bounced off the dust, somersaulted, and landed on shaky legs. Lucky for me, there were no sharp rocks about and the lunar gravity is not too great. Nikki hadn't seen my acrobatics so I tried to act like nothing had happened.

"Everything OK?" Jake asked.

"Sure," I said, hoping my panic didn't show in my voice. I wasn't in such a great hurry after my impromptu tumbling routine.

Needless to say, the weak lunar gravity takes some getting used to. It's kind of like walking in chest deep water without the resistance of the water to hold you back. A gentle jump can bounce you four or five feet into the--airless--"air." By the time we'd gone the short distance across the plain separating us from the base's entrance, both Nikki and I had pretty well mastered the kangaroo hop that can get you around so quickly on the Moon. Jake's suit had the legs tied together and he functioned like he'd been born on the Moon; his hopping motions were both graceful and functional.

I half expected the base to be locked up. But of course it wasn't. There aren't many unaccounted-for persons walking about on the Moon; burglary is not a problem. The main question was whether or not the air locks on the door would be operational.

Jake rotated the heavy ring on the door and it popped open. It led into an white plastic airlock barely big enough for eight or nine people at the most. We entered the small room and I closed and twisted the lever of the door behind us; sunlight came through the translucent plastic walls so that we could see. Nikki pushed the "Cycle" button. Nothing happened. The lock wasn't functional.

"Power's down," Jake said. "The air locks all have an emergency switch in them so that it's impossible to accidentally get locked out."

"What's it look like?"

"Probably a panel. Small metal plate door. Something like that."

We searched about inside the white plastic lock. Finally, I spotted the thin lines of a panel cover. For some reason it was designed to blend into the rest of the wall; it made everything look nicer but was a very poor practice for such a critical emergency device. "Is this it?"

"Must be," Jake replied. "Can you get it open?"

Obtaining purchase on a small, hairline opening is impossible in a space suit. "Remind me to grow fingernails on my gloves next time we come to the Moon."

"Here." Jake handed me a small-bladed screwdriver from the tool kit that he'd mounted on his suit.

I put the blade into the crack and jimmied the plastic apart. It suddenly popped off and the plate went cart-wheeling through the space in the chamber, silently bounced off a wall, and slowly fell to the floor. Getting used to the low gravity and airlessness is going to take some time, I decided as I handed the tool back to Jake.

There was one red button under the panel.

"Hey, they don't have auto-destruct buttons on these bases, do they?" I asked.

Nikki laughed, " I know a good way to see if that's it."

"Cross your fingers," I pressed it hoping we were only kidding. I pressed the button. An electric overhead light came on in the chamber to augment the small amount of light coming through the plastic walls. But nothing else happened. There was no build-up of pressure inside the airlock. "Now what?" I asked.

"Try the cycle button again," Jake said.

Nikki pressed the button and in a moment a low hiss started that gradually grew louder. Our suits quit acting like balloons as the chamber filled with air.

I cautiously cracked my helmet of my suit as Nikki and Jake removed theirs and unlatched the inner door of the chamber to create a small pop as the pressure differences between rooms evened out. I took a deep breath; stale, recycled, but still air. And after the humid conditions on the inside of the suits, if felt very refreshing, cool, and dry.

We stepped into the first room behind the lock, carefully sealing the door behind us. It was basically a larger version of the airlock: a huge, white bubble that filtered sunlight through it so that the interior was dimly lit. The electric lights seemed to be off. Flipping the switch beside the door didn't do anything. The power was off inside the base. Fortunately, with a lunar day of fourteen and a half Earth days, we still had several more "days" of light and there was no big hurry to get things started up.

We put our helmets on a small dispatcher's desk sitting next to the door. Nikki and I followed Jake's lead and took off our gloves and laid them beside our helmets, followed by our backpacks.

"Now, let's see how this station is set up," I said, feeling light as a feather once I was freed of the pack and helmet.

"Our first task will be to locate the radio link." Jake had told us that the station sensors were connected to an auto radio-link to Earth. If we didn't disconnect it, it would eventually send back enough information on changes within the base, power systems in use, and so forth, to alert those on Earth that something was going on in the camp. We'd decided that if it suddenly stopped its transmission, anyone monitoring from Earth would assume that it was just an equipment malfunction; for us this was better than having detectors in the base showing that it was occupied (even if those on Earth would be at a loss to explain by whom or what).

Since we were standing in the command center of the base, a quick search allowed us to locate the monitor.

"Say good night," I said as I jerked the electric cable from the back of the equipment. To be on the safe side, Jake also disconnected the antenna from the transmitter, noting, "Can't be too careful. I'd suggest we spit up and see what sort of supplies we have here. Hopefully enough for a few days — I hate to make the return trip too soon."

"Ditto," I said, my stiff legs making me shudder at the thought. "Let's split up... Where should we check?"

Jake gave us a rough layout of the domes that comprised the base. Half an hour later we rendezvoused at the control room again.

"What did everyone find?" I asked. "It looks to me like they left in a hurry. All sorts of stuff left behind in the crew quarters. Most of it is junk but..."

Nikki answered first. "There's enough food and water to supply us for at least a year. My only question is what about the air?"

"We have a problem there," Jake said. "When they pulled out, the hydroponics area wasn't properly shut down. All the--now dead--plants were left in their trays. We'll have to put in some elbow grease to get the greenhouse cleaned up and new seeds planted. But I think we'll have enough air until they come online. There's a pretty good reserve of oxygen in the tanks and we can scrub the air of CO2 for quite a while."

"The mining operation doesn't look like it ever got started," I said. "I didn't see a single bot anywhere in the shaft."

"I can check that quick enough," Jake said, bouncing over to a control console. He tapped some keys and an inventory came on screen. He moused his way through several links and then tapped the screen. "There you have it. It looks as though the mine was ready to be worked but, if this is correct, the are still stored in their crates."

I nodded. "I saw a bunch of crates in the storehouse."

"Then we could probably program them to clean out the hydroponics tanks and growth tanks," Nikki suggested.

""Fraid not," Jake said, turning back from the screen. "According to the data here, the brains for the units were never shipped. But we should be able to clean up the hydroponics ourselves."

"But that won't help us start up the mining," I said. The main reason we chose to land at the base had been to produce metal from the ore deposited by the impact of the ancient giant meteor that had created the Copernicus crater. The same metal which--with the help of the solar panel's energy and some other odds and ends of equipment which could be scrounged or even dragged up from Earth, could then be converted into gravity rods.

But there were no bots to do the work.

"Apparently the last shipment to make the base operational was aborted," Jake said.

No one said much else about it then. But we knew we'd have to find the bots before it would be possible to build more rods which we all saw as the key to creating our own little business that might do about anything from supply unlimited power to create a full-fledged space ship capable of traveling through the solar system with about as much ease as we now traveled around the surface of Earth.

After a quick meal of insta-rations, we were ready to call it a day. We made our way to the crew quarters which extended down into the lunar rock, consisting of forty cabins reached via a long, underground hallway leading from the command center. Each cabin was large, ten by twenty meters, and contained a pair of bunk beds, desks, two retrieval monitors, a 3V set, and a small bath as well as a Net device, the latter being dead. Each room was also a jumble as the tenants had apparently been forced to sort hurriedly through their belongings to try to decide what to take back to Earth. A few rooms had even ripened due to dirty clothing having been left behind to take on a life of its own. But most also had the towels, soap, and other supplies we'd be needing.

Despite my dream of sharing a bed with Nikki, she picked out a room of her own. I said my "good nights" to Jake and Nikki--I was ready to sleep. I heard Nikki laughing out in the hallway; apparently she and Jake had decided to stay up a while. Feeling like a school boy, the thought sprang to my mind, Is Nikki interested in Jake? 

I didn't know. I was too tired to worry about it. The weak lunar gravity made the thin mattress softer than anything on Earth. That--coupled with my exhaustion—quickly dropped me into a dreamless sleep.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 10

Although we were hurtling around the Earth at orbital speed, the blue and white globe below us looked like it was only slowly meandering by while we hung in space. We had followed the passenger rocket up through the atmosphere and then passed it from a distance as it stopped its acceleration and started its downward descent back toward the ground. We continued to accelerate as we headed on around the Earth picking up more velocity to jump free of the Earth's gravity and commence our jump across space into the gravitational field of the Moon. Soon, the sun sank behind us and we spiraled over the nighttime sky, through the Earth's cold shadow and outward, toward the Moon.

That sounds exciting. It was. For a few hours. Then we discovered the boredom of space flight in cramped quarters. We did little during our flight. We sat and talked, tried to get the pasty food through the intake port of our suits (Jake was the only one who was very successful at this), and tried to discreetly use the waste disposal system in the suits with a minimum of fuss. (After having a pint bottle of urine escape my grasp and nearly vanish into the back of the van--save for the fast action of Jake in grabbing it--I was not too impressed with the freedom enjoyed by the glamorous astronauts of the 3V shows. And there is nothing like a plastic sack of excreta sitting in a pouch on your suit to take the romance out of things.)

We didn't suffer having to be totally weightless. While we weren't under anything approaching zero G, Nikki and Jake had plotted our course with an eye toward maximum speed since the van didn't have to worry about expending its motivating energy. Because of this, we had almost constant "gravity" as the van pushed ahead and our bodies tried to stay behind. About the only time we were in micro-gravity to the point of being weightless was for the few moments when the computer maneuvered the van about--so we wouldn't feel like we were hanging on our heads--to start pushing against the Moon's gravity as the lunar gravity overcame that of the Earth. I was thankful for the lack of weightlessness; after the few moments of weightlessness there was little doubt in my mind that I would have endured space sickness while Nikki and Jake sat beside me perfectly blissful of my sufferings. Whining about stomach ailments is not a good way to impress either an attractive member of the opposite sex or an old space pirate.

So about the only major problem was cramped muscles; you can't just stop and step out to stretch when you're hurtling through space. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been.

During the first few hours of our flight, Nikki was quite busy with an electronic astrolabe and a computer file which gave the correct coordinates that we needed to take. After a while she became convinced that the computer was doing a perfect job of flying us and only made an occasional sighting in for my peace of mind. (And I noticed that once she didn't even bother to turn the astrolabe on, thus proving it was only being done for my benefit; talk about trying to soothe the pilot's nerves... Nikki knew all the navigator tricks.)

We orbited the Moon one time to allow the computer to adjust our speed and then located our first destination. Our whole trip took less than 24 hours--considerably less than the three days taken by conventional rocket flights to the moon.

Our computer dropped us quite close to the airless surface of the Moon; I tried not to scream as we dropped through space. We skimmed across the barren, pock-marked gray land whose lack of atmosphere made it hard to judge distances. After the computer made one last, stomach-wrenching adjustment and burped a warning in our helmets' radios, we found ourselves hanging over the Copernicus Mining Base a little off the Equator of the Moon in the Carpathian Mountain range between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Imbrium, east of Kepler Crater.

It had happened. The computer had flown us flawlessly to our destination on the Moon. "Well, you and Jake did a perfect job in calculating and programming our flight," I announced needlessly.

Jake gave a grunt that a frog would have recognized as meaning "thanks."

Nikki, a bit more conventional, spoke English, "It's nice to have a new type of problem for a change. I'm afraid rocket-flight navigation made me a little rusty at figuring orbits. Ready to go down for a landing?"

"Yeah. Now or never, right? I hope I can do as well as you guys did in programming the computer." I wiped my hands against my legs, even though the sweat remained on my palms thanks to the fact that they were wrapped in heavy space gloves. "Everyone ready?"

"Take her down, Captain," Jake's voice said in my helmet's speaker.

I flipped the turn signal out of its hover position and we slowly fell downward. Though there was really nothing to worry about, it seemed a bit anti-climactic after the long, computerized trip to get to where we were going with a flip of a turn signal. Hardly first class. I decided to have Jake get us some flashing lights to wire into the van's dashboard before we took anyone we really wanted to impress on a flight.

The mining base was dwarfed by the sheer size of the Copernicus crater. The one-sixth gravity of the Moon made for spectacular contrasts of heights with the scraggly, un-weathered crater walls jutting up unlike any mountain range on Earth. Because of the greater curvature of the Moon, the far side of the crater walls dropped almost out of sight as we neared the rough floor where a giant meteor had impacted on the Moon before mankind had even started chipping away at flint knives.

The rocket sled ramp soon came into sight and the artificial smoothness of man's handiwork showed on the rock around it. The ramp stretched down toward the base which was nestled in the northern end of the crater. Though the sled had been designed to launch the metal ingots mined and processed on the Moon, Jake said that the base had been closed just before it had gotten ready for automated production. (And the question none of us could answer sprang up to puzzle my mind again. Why had the base been closed down? Earth needed the resources. The best guess among the three of us was that the powers-that-be on Earth just couldn't make enough money at it. It was easier to let people starve on Earth, perhaps. Who knows?)

After an eternity, we reached the floor of the crater and I carefully steered the van to land on the smooth field built for supply rockets. It was nestled among the huge boulders that jutted from the lunar dust that had filtered in around them. Beside it was the small, solar-powered beacon that had allowed our computer to home in on the base.

A slight jolt marked the end of our descent. I looked over at Nikki. "We made it."

I could barely see a smile on her face inside the mirrored bubble helmet, "Yes. We're really here."

Then it sank in, in the peanut gallery: "We're here!" Jake yelled.

I jumped when he yelled and would have bumped my head if my seat belt hadn't held me down. "Jake, let's try not to rupture our eardrums again."

"Sorry."

"How about a little stroll?" Nikki asked unfastening her seat belt, soundlessly since there was no air in the van.

"Don't mind if we do," I unbuckled my harness and popped the door of the van open. I sat a moment looked at the Earth which was the one splotch of color in the gray and black lunar landscape. Then I studied the ground and tossed myself from the van with what I had aimed to be the proverbial "one small step." I banged the back of my helmet on the van roof, fell out the door, bounced off the dust, somersaulted, and landed on shaky legs. Lucky for me, there were no sharp rocks about and the lunar gravity is not too great. Nikki hadn't seen my acrobatics so I tried to act like nothing had happened.

"Everything OK?" Jake asked.

"Sure," I said, hoping my panic didn't show in my voice. I wasn't in such a great hurry after my impromptu tumbling routine.

Needless to say, the weak lunar gravity takes some getting used to. It's kind of like walking in chest deep water without the resistance of the water to hold you back. A gentle jump can bounce you four or five feet into the--airless--"air." By the time we'd gone the short distance across the plain separating us from the base's entrance, both Nikki and I had pretty well mastered the kangaroo hop that can get you around so quickly on the Moon. Jake's suit had the legs tied together and he functioned like he'd been born on the Moon; his hopping motions were both graceful and functional.

I half expected the base to be locked up. But of course it wasn't. There aren't many unaccounted-for persons walking about on the Moon; burglary is not a problem. The main question was whether or not the air locks on the door would be operational.

Jake rotated the heavy ring on the door and it popped open. It led into an white plastic airlock barely big enough for eight or nine people at the most. We entered the small room and I closed and twisted the lever of the door behind us; sunlight came through the translucent plastic walls so that we could see. Nikki pushed the "Cycle" button. Nothing happened. The lock wasn't functional.

"Power's down," Jake said. "The air locks all have an emergency switch in them so that it's impossible to accidentally get locked out."

"What's it look like?"

"Probably a panel. Small metal plate door. Something like that."

We searched about inside the white plastic lock. Finally, I spotted the thin lines of a panel cover. For some reason it was designed to blend into the rest of the wall; it made everything look nicer but was a very poor practice for such a critical emergency device. "Is this it?"

"Must be," Jake replied. "Can you get it open?"

Obtaining purchase on a small, hairline opening is impossible in a space suit. "Remind me to grow fingernails on my gloves next time we come to the Moon."

"Here." Jake handed me a small-bladed screwdriver from the tool kit that he'd mounted on his suit.

I put the blade into the crack and jimmied the plastic apart. It suddenly popped off and the plate went cart-wheeling through the space in the chamber, silently bounced off a wall, and slowly fell to the floor. Getting used to the low gravity and airlessness is going to take some time, I decided as I handed the tool back to Jake.

There was one red button under the panel.

"Hey, they don't have auto-destruct buttons on these bases, do they?" I asked.

Nikki laughed, " I know a good way to see if that's it."

"Cross your fingers," I pressed it hoping we were only kidding. I pressed the button. An electric overhead light came on in the chamber to augment the small amount of light coming through the plastic walls. But nothing else happened. There was no build-up of pressure inside the airlock. "Now what?" I asked.

"Try the cycle button again," Jake said.

Nikki pressed the button and in a moment a low hiss started that gradually grew louder. Our suits quit acting like balloons as the chamber filled with air.

I cautiously cracked my helmet of my suit as Nikki and Jake removed theirs and unlatched the inner door of the chamber to create a small pop as the pressure differences between rooms evened out. I took a deep breath; stale, recycled, but still air. And after the humid conditions on the inside of the suits, if felt very refreshing, cool, and dry.

We stepped into the first room behind the lock, carefully sealing the door behind us. It was basically a larger version of the airlock: a huge, white bubble that filtered sunlight through it so that the interior was dimly lit. The electric lights seemed to be off. Flipping the switch beside the door didn't do anything. The power was off inside the base. Fortunately, with a lunar day of fourteen and a half Earth days, we still had several more "days" of light and there was no big hurry to get things started up.

We put our helmets on a small dispatcher's desk sitting next to the door. Nikki and I followed Jake's lead and took off our gloves and laid them beside our helmets, followed by our backpacks.

"Now, let's see how this station is set up," I said, feeling light as a feather once I was freed of the pack and helmet.

"Our first task will be to locate the radio link." Jake had told us that the station sensors were connected to an auto radio-link to Earth. If we didn't disconnect it, it would eventually send back enough information on changes within the base, power systems in use, and so forth, to alert those on Earth that something was going on in the camp. We'd decided that if it suddenly stopped its transmission, anyone monitoring from Earth would assume that it was just an equipment malfunction; for us this was better than having detectors in the base showing that it was occupied (even if those on Earth would be at a loss to explain by whom or what).

Since we were standing in the command center of the base, a quick search allowed us to locate the monitor.

"Say good night," I said as I jerked the electric cable from the back of the equipment. To be on the safe side, Jake also disconnected the antenna from the transmitter, noting, "Can't be too careful. I'd suggest we spit up and see what sort of supplies we have here. Hopefully enough for a few days — I hate to make the return trip too soon."

"Ditto," I said, my stiff legs making me shudder at the thought. "Let's split up... Where should we check?"

Jake gave us a rough layout of the domes that comprised the base. Half an hour later we rendezvoused at the control room again.

"What did everyone find?" I asked. "It looks to me like they left in a hurry. All sorts of stuff left behind in the crew quarters. Most of it is junk but..."

Nikki answered first. "There's enough food and water to supply us for at least a year. My only question is what about the air?"

"We have a problem there," Jake said. "When they pulled out, the hydroponics area wasn't properly shut down. All the--now dead--plants were left in their trays. We'll have to put in some elbow grease to get the greenhouse cleaned up and new seeds planted. But I think we'll have enough air until they come online. There's a pretty good reserve of oxygen in the tanks and we can scrub the air of CO2 for quite a while."

"The mining operation doesn't look like it ever got started," I said. "I didn't see a single bot anywhere in the shaft."

"I can check that quick enough," Jake said, bouncing over to a control console. He tapped some keys and an inventory came on screen. He moused his way through several links and then tapped the screen. "There you have it. It looks as though the mine was ready to be worked but, if this is correct, the are still stored in their crates."

I nodded. "I saw a bunch of crates in the storehouse."

"Then we could probably program them to clean out the hydroponics tanks and growth tanks," Nikki suggested.

""Fraid not," Jake said, turning back from the screen. "According to the data here, the brains for the units were never shipped. But we should be able to clean up the hydroponics ourselves."

"But that won't help us start up the mining," I said. The main reason we chose to land at the base had been to produce metal from the ore deposited by the impact of the ancient giant meteor that had created the Copernicus crater. The same metal which--with the help of the solar panel's energy and some other odds and ends of equipment which could be scrounged or even dragged up from Earth, could then be converted into gravity rods.

But there were no bots to do the work.

"Apparently the last shipment to make the base operational was aborted," Jake said.

No one said much else about it then. But we knew we'd have to find the bots before it would be possible to build more rods which we all saw as the key to creating our own little business that might do about anything from supply unlimited power to create a full-fledged space ship capable of traveling through the solar system with about as much ease as we now traveled around the surface of Earth.

After a quick meal of insta-rations, we were ready to call it a day. We made our way to the crew quarters which extended down into the lunar rock, consisting of forty cabins reached via a long, underground hallway leading from the command center. Each cabin was large, ten by twenty meters, and contained a pair of bunk beds, desks, two retrieval monitors, a 3V set, and a small bath as well as a Net device, the latter being dead. Each room was also a jumble as the tenants had apparently been forced to sort hurriedly through their belongings to try to decide what to take back to Earth. A few rooms had even ripened due to dirty clothing having been left behind to take on a life of its own. But most also had the towels, soap, and other supplies we'd be needing.

Despite my dream of sharing a bed with Nikki, she picked out a room of her own. I said my "good nights" to Jake and Nikki--I was ready to sleep. I heard Nikki laughing out in the hallway; apparently she and Jake had decided to stay up a while. Feeling like a school boy, the thought sprang to my mind, Is Nikki interested in Jake? 

I didn't know. I was too tired to worry about it. The weak lunar gravity made the thin mattress softer than anything on Earth. That--coupled with my exhaustion—quickly dropped me into a dreamless sleep.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed