172 Hours on the Moon Page 19

  What in the world did NASA think was going to happen to the people it sent up here?

  And why were so many of the large cupboards locked, with no keys to be found anywhere?

  This base, she decided, held many secrets that she would never find out the answers to. Didn’t want to, really. The answers would surely terrify her. And now, she just wanted peace.

  Caitlin grabbed a box of pills and an ampule of morphine, and clutched them in her hands. She felt guilty immediately.

  I’ll lose control if I take these.

  What control? You lost that a long time ago.

  I can’t take this anymore.

  You have to stay awake and alert, Caitlin.

  Awake for what? It’s not like anyone’s going to come rescue us, are they?

  You’re responsible for those teenagers!

  But I can’t do anything for them. I’m just like them. I want to go home.

  If you take these, you’ll ruin whatever last chance you have of getting back home again.

  What chance? There is no chance, is there? Not anymore.

  Her frantic, quarrelsome thoughts had triggered a raging headache. That does it. She put the pills and the ampule in her jacket pocket and returned to the communications room.

  Caitlin knew she should look for Mia and Midori, but just the thought of those two kids together somewhere in the base depressed her. They shouldn’t be here. They should be back on Earth with their friends and families, not here in this godforsaken place. In a way, though, she was kind of envious of them; they were the same age, and they had each other. And she was totally on her own, without anyone to lean on.

  She went back to module one with heavy footsteps.

  Caitlin sat down in the one chair in front of the wall of radio transmitters and communications equipment. The countless small bulbs and screens that would normally have been lit were all dark and silent. She knew there was no point, but she still couldn’t help herself and tried switching on all the equipment. And as expected, nothing happened. She collapsed in the chair, hiding her head in her hands, dejected.

  What are you doing here, Caitlin?

  She tried running back through her memories to figure out where all this had started.

  She had been eighteen that summer, on vacation in Mexico with her boyfriend George, who was six years older than she was. They had spent the night on the beach, lying awake and staring up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen, and the absence of lights made it possible to see an overwhelming number of stars. Occasionally they saw a shooting star streak over their heads.

  “Make a wish,” George murmured.

  “What was that?” Caitlin asked.

  “Do you know what shooting stars really are?”

  “Meteors.”

  George nodded and sat up, propped up on his elbows. “Yes, partially correct. But they’re mostly space debris. You know, space capsules, satellites, all kinds of shit we’ve sent up there over the ages. There are cameras, pliers, and wrenches orbiting Earth right now. That’s why it’s hard to send up rockets these days. Because of all that debris.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I mean, there’s plenty of room up there if it’s just wrenches and video cameras we’re talking about.”

  “Well, that wrench is whipping around at a speed of seventeen thousand miles per hour. That’s almost five miles per second. And it wouldn’t be so cool if you ran right into that at seventeen thousand miles per hour, would it? And it’s not like there’s only one of them either. There’re hundreds of things floating around aimlessly, in unknown orbits, so it’s impossible to know for sure where they are. It’s madness, Caitlin.”

  Many years later, after Caitlin had become an astronaut and started working for NASA and was preparing for the moon mission, she got to see a survey by the European Space Agency, ESA, of all the human-made objects orbiting Earth.

  George had been right. There really were a lot of them. Too many. But he’d also been wrong. Because the number of satellites and wrenches and whatever it all was wasn’t in the hundreds. It was in the thousands. There were twenty-two hundred satellites alone, supplying Earth’s inhabitants with TV signals, GPS navigation, and so forth. And maybe that had been the beginning of her interest in space, which would last her whole life.

  She thought about it often, that conversation they had had that night. If it hadn’t been for that, she might never have become an astronaut, but something totally different instead. A doctor, maybe. Or an architect.

  Suddenly one of the radios crackled. In a flash Caitlin was yanked out of her daydream back to reality.

  The radio works!

  The radio works!

  She sat there frozen, listening to the crackling and the white noise. A small red light on the device had switched itself on. The receiver had power. She had no idea how that could be, but that wasn’t bothering her right now. The most important thing was that it was working. She could contact Earth!

  Joy and eagerness made her hands tremble uncontrollably. Okay, careful now, careful now …

  She reached out with her right arm and gently but deliberately turned the search dial. The crackling stopped instantly, and for a second she was terrified that she’d ruined something. But then, after she turned the dial halfway around, it was there again, clearer now. There were voices. She heard voices.

  Without wasting a second, she grabbed the microphone and set the radio to the emergency frequency.

  “Houston, this is DARLAH 2, we have a problem!”

  She waited a few seconds for a response, but none came.

  She tried again. “Houston, Houston, this is DARLAH 2, we have a problem! We lost power at the base, and Demeter is damaged. Houston, do you read? This is Caitlin Hall from DARLAH 2. Hello?”

  Nothing.

  She switched frequencies and repeated the message to the receiver in Houston. But that one, too, was completely silent. She feverishly tried all the frequencies and settings. Every once in a while the original crackling would reoccur, sometimes with indistinct voices in the background, other times just white noise. Giving up, she sank back in the chair. And right then the voices became totally clear through the noise. It was coming from a news channel. She thought she recognized the broadcaster’s voice.

  “… NASA has been deflecting vehement accusations that the agency isn’t moving quickly enough to enact a plan to undertake a rescue mission for the five astronauts and three teenagers stranded on the moon. The president of the United States is also facing heavy criticism for his call for a minute of silence to pay respects to the members of the moon mission. Speculation that the agency is withholding information is sparking rampant rumors that officials may indeed have evidence that there were no survivors. …”

  “No! No!” Caitlin screamed at the radio, frantically slapping the machine. “Don’t give up now, we’re still here, we’re still alive, are you listening?” The news broadcast was cut short, and the speakers emitted an infernal piercing, grating sound for a few seconds before abruptly going silent for good.

  She pushed her chair back, leapt to her feet, and started kicking the radio. “I can’t take any more!” she shrieked, tears running down her face. Sparks were shooting out of the air vents, and the reeking smell of smoke started seeping into the room.

  Without thinking, her trembling hands found the pills and the morphine ampule in her jacket pocket. She pushed out two pills and swallowed them without water.

  For one last second she considered what she should do, if there were any good alternatives. But there weren’t. With a decisive motion, she broke the tip of the ampule and stuck the needle into her thigh, through her pants, and squeezed.

  The morphine started working in seconds. A heavy warmth spread through her body and wrapped her in a soft, thick blanket of gentle, carefree indifference.

  THE SIGNAL

  They’d been waiting for it to happen. But when it finally did, it still came as a total surprise.

  The e
mergency power cut off.

  Midori and Mia were in the kitchen when the reddish light they’d almost gotten used to over the last day finally disappeared. It was gone in a second, replaced by complete, utter darkness.

  Midori had found flashlights in the storeroom a couple hours before and had set them on the table in front of them as they waited for the darkness. The light was much weaker than they had expected, though. In order to move safely from place to place they were forced to aim their flickering beams at the same point. The long, featureless corridors they had finally become accustomed to suddenly felt unfamiliar and labyrinthine and endless. But they continued on into it, though they weren’t sure why.

  With every step, Mia felt how much she missed Antoine, her friends, her hometown, her brother, Sander, even her parents. But she forced those thoughts to the back of her mind, hiding them away as best she could.

  Mia and Midori didn’t say much, and neither of them mentioned that they were walking around aimlessly, with no plan. It was best not to discuss it. Just keep walking, keep moving. Feel like at least you’re doing something to keep yourself alive.

  Because it would be time to sit down soon enough. And when they did, it would be for the last time.

  They discovered Caitlin in the living room. She was sleeping on one of the sofas in there. Midori went over to her and made sure she was breathing. They let her be and proceeded back into the corridors again.

  Mia suggested that they head for the computer room. That had previously been off-limits, but now that they were the only two left, there was no reason to abide by that rule. The hatch that had kept the room sealed off was now open, and they walked right in with no problem.

  Mia looked around the octagonal room and her concerns were confirmed. All the equipment probably dated back to the early seventies. The main computer was located in the middle of the room. A chair was attached to the floor in front of it, and the walls and ceiling were covered with video screens and hundreds of small lights and buttons that at one time, Mia thought, would have lit up as brilliantly as an amusement park. She plopped down into the chair and groaned.

  “We never had a chance with this equipment, Midori.” She thumped her hand against the computer a couple of times. The machine emitted a quiet, electrical pfffsst sound, and a light quickly glimmered across the screen before it went blank again. “This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. What were they thinking? No one seriously had any objections? They actually thought this antique computer would keep working without any trouble for a hundred years? It’s so unfair!” She thrust her foot out, kicking the machine harder this time. Again the computer made a sound and lit up.

  But this time the light remained.

  “Midori, look,” Mia exclaimed, astonished. “There’s still life in this thing!”

  Two words glowed white against the black screen.

  SYSTEM ACTIVATED

  “Mia, what are you doing? Leave it alone.”

  “Don’t you understand? I got it to turn on! All of DARLAH is out of power, but the main computer is still active. How do you explain that?”

  Midori didn’t have anything to say.

  “There must be something else making it run,” Mia said. “Its own power supply, somewhere or other.”

  “See if you can get anything out of it.”

  “What should I write?”

  “I don’t know. Hmm. … well, why not try to find out about the power? How can we get the power back on?”

  “Okay, wait a sec.” Mia leaned forward over the keyboard and typed.

  POWER STATUS?

  She hit enter, and a second later the response appeared.

  MAIN POWER MANUALLY SHUT OFF

  EMERGENCY POWER FAILED

  AT 23:41 MTLT

  Oh, shit. She felt the dread settling in her chest, and a wave of nausea rushed through her.

  “Midori … the power didn’t go out by itself. Someone shut it off.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Well, look at this. It says right here. In black and white.”

  MANUALLY

  The word glowed at them, almost scornfully. Manually. There was no misunderstanding that. Someone, or something, had been in here and programmed the power to shut off.

  Mia leaned over the keyboard again.

  TURN POWER ON

  And the response appeared just as quickly as the first.

  NEGATIVE

  PRIORITY DP7 0271DE

  ALL PERSONNEL ABANDON AREA

  “What do you think it means, Mia?”

  “It means the computer doesn’t want to turn the power back on. Or else … it can’t.”

  “What do you think Priority DP7 0271DE is?”

  Mia waited before she answered. “I don’t know. Whatever it is … I guess it means that we’re on our own now.”

  Midori shook her head, as if she couldn’t let herself comprehend the message. She changed the subject. “Ask how we can get out of here. Evacuation, rescue, whatever. Do it!”

  Mia typed.

  SHOW EVACUATION PLAN

  She hit enter, but nothing happened. They waited. The computer began to emit a low humming noise, as if it were about to overheat. The screen flashed with static, but no words appeared. The humming turned into a buzzing so loud that it forced the girls to plug their ears. The vibrations rapidly intensified. The unit rattled, and their heads pounded until the sound abruptly came to a stop, and the computer went black.

  After almost twenty seconds of silence, the answer appeared.

  THERE IS NO ESCAPE

  Again the screen went black for a second before more text appeared.

  OXYGEN SUPPORT WILL

  FAIL IN 224 MINUTES

  “Who the hell is writing that?” Midori screamed in frustration, pushing Mia out of the way. She hammered out her question on the keyboard.

  WHO IS THIS??

  The answer was immediate.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Try again, Midori.”

  WHO IS THIS?

  New characters appeared on the screen.

  THIS IS 6EQUJ5

  Mia was going to rephrase her question in the hope of getting a clearer answer, but a new sentence appeared on the screen before she had a chance to type. A sentence that scared Mia more than anything:

  DERE KOMMER IKKE TIL Å OVERLEVE

  Instinctively she jumped back from the screen, as if the words themselves were going to attack her.

  “What language is that?” Midori asked, looking at the letters.

  “That’s … that’s Norwegian. It means …” She looked gravely at Midori. “It means ‘You’re not going to survive.’ ” Midori gasped, and Mia shook her head in disbelief. “How does it know I speak Norwegian?”

  The words remained for a few seconds before they were replaced by something else.

  Midori pointed at the screen.

  “Japanese! Oh my God, it knows who we are.”

  That very second, the screen died. Midori kicked it a few times to bring it back, but now it was as if it had never worked at all. They kept at it for ten or fifteen minutes, searched the room high and low without finding anything that could get it working again. But the computer in DARLAH 2 had had its say.

  The girls left the computer room with an uncomfortable feeling that someone was keeping an eye on them in the darkness. Midori grabbed Mia’s hand, and they moved step-by-step through the base.

  “Where do we go now?” Midori asked.

  “Away from here,” Mia whispered, pulling her along decisively.

  Midori was in tears. “There’s nowhere to go. You know that.”

  “Yes, there is,” Mia said, not sure she even knew what she was saying. “Come on. It’s not far.”

  “What’s not far?” Midori sniffled. “Where are we going?”

  “Just stick close to me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  They entered a corridor neither of them had ever been in before. Th
e air was different. Organic somehow. Mia was sure she recognized the scent of plants, dirt. “What is this?” she whispered.

  Midori and Mia aimed the beams from their flashlights at the floor. Green plants were growing in front of them. Tomatoes. Cabbage. Grass. All of it completely overgrown and with an odor of rot.

  “We’re in the greenhouse. Outside the oxygen generator.”

  “Couldn’t we just stay in here for a little while?” Midori complained, scarcely audible. “I don’t want to walk anymore. I can’t.”

  They stopped, listened. Nothing. Mia bent over and picked two tomatoes. She gave one to Midori.

  “Here, eat this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A tomato. Eat it now.”

  They bit into the tomatoes. And both spit their mouthfuls back out at the same time.

  “Ew,” Midori said. “That tastes old. Metallic.”

  Mia let the light from her flashlight fall on their tomatoes. A gray worm wriggled through big holes in the tomato’s skin.

  “Yuck!” Midori shrieked, tossing away her tomato. It hit the wall with a soft, wet thump. She could hear the rotten juice dripping from the wall.

  “Midori? Is that you?”

  The voice came from the corridor. It repeated the question a couple of times before Mia and Midori left the greenhouse and stepped back out into the corridor. In the weak light from their flashlights they recognized him right away.

  It was Coleman. Midori heaved a sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead! Caitlin had been wrong. And if Coleman was alive, maybe …

  Mia’s spirits soared for a precious moment.

  “Coleman!” she cried. “Thank God you’re here!” He nodded but didn’t seem to know quite what to say. “We thought you went out to look for Nadolski and Antoine?” Mia prompted.

  “I did,” he said quietly as he approached. “I didn’t find them.”

  Mia’s heart was crushed by the news as Coleman continued. “Their wheel tracks stopped three and a half miles from here, but neither they nor the rovers were anywhere to be seen. So I turned around. I got back right before the emergency power cut off. Since then I’ve been fumbling around in the dark looking for you guys.” He put a hand on Mia’s head and stroked her hair. She didn’t know if she liked that. “And now here you are,” he added.