172 Hours on the Moon Read online

  They had. Nadolski had given a lecture on all the space missions in the Apollo program. After Apollo 11’s first moon landing, the nearly catastrophic Apollo 13 mission in 1970 was the most well known. And definitely the most exciting. Apollo 13 experienced an explosion in one of the oxygen tanks two days into the expedition. Almost without power and oxygen, the astronauts had been forced to continue on to the moon to make use of the weak gravitational field to fling themselves back toward Earth. It was definitely a miracle that they survived. And the sentence Houston, we have a problem was forever burned into space history.

  “The world held its breath during the days that was going on,” Coleman continued. “But for the wrong reason. Because there never was an explosion aboard Apollo 13. The whole thing was a lie, a complicated, convoluted, well-rehearsed lie to hide what actually happened. Because the truth is that Apollo 13 landed in the Fra Mauro area according to plan. But something unforeseen happened.”

  “What?” Mia asked, suspicious, peering out into the darkness for signs that someone was observing them. But she didn’t see anything.

  “The pilot of the lunar lander, Fred Haise, came in contact with … something down in the Fra Mauro crater. It started when he observed an … anomaly … from the window of the lunar lander, and NASA ordered him to investigate it.”

  “But this doesn’t at all match what the astronauts themselves said about the whole thing,” Midori protested. “I watched the interviews. I read the biographies Nadolski gave us. I heard the tapes from the command module. You’re lying.”

  “I wish I were. And I’m sure Haise wishes that what he told the world was true, too. But it isn’t. Everything you’ve read, heard, or seen was made up. Fred Haise was on the moon, and he found something that shouldn’t be there.”

  “What?”

  “Well, the reports were unclear … until today. But it had to do with a figure. Someone or something that looked exactly … like … himself.”

  “Like what we saw!” Midori exclaimed.

  “Yeah…. Fred Haise just barely got away, made it back to the lunar lander, and, along with Jim Lovell, left the surface of the moon after just a couple hours. A quick evacuation. But there’s more. It happened on several of the moon missions. This was just one of many episodes. There were problems going back as early as Apollo 11. Midori, you found Buzz Aldrin’s boots, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, they weren’t left on the surface to reduce weight, as you were told. He threw them in the hopes of hitting something, something that was coming toward him. The truth is that for all these years, most of the folks at NASA believed that the astronauts’ descriptions of seeing copies of themselves on the moon had to do with some type of reflection, an optical illusion brought about by the environment here. People believed that up until the event involving Haise in 1970. After that, everyone involved in Mission Control in Houston was ordered to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and since then they have been excluded from any further research findings. The top brass at NASA started cooperating with the military to build a base on the moon that could be used to study and potentially wipe out the phenomenon. NASA also got SETI researchers involved.”

  “SETI?”

  “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. I just thought I’d get that out there. We’re dealing with something much, much more dangerous. Something that’s completely unknown to us. It’s unlike anything we know about, because it operates totally outside all normal patterns, completely emotionless. It’s beyond all goodness, all evil. It just is. And it doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than pure destruction.”

  “You’re saying it’s not an alien? How can you be so sure of that?”

  Coleman was quiet for a long moment.

  “NASA captured one of them in 1972. Well, a piece of one. Apollo 17 was attacked as it prepared to take off from the moon, and when they tried to close the hatch, one of the copy’s arms was severed.”

  “So they’re human?” Mia asked, feeling a strange surge of hope for a moment.

  “No. Studies of the severed arm showed that it did not contain any organic material. It wasn’t alive, never had been.”

  “So what is it, then?”

  They were sitting next to Coleman now. Mia was keeping a constant eye on the hatch leading to the computer room. In this darkness they should have been staying well hidden or keeping in constant motion. They weren’t doing either. They could be discovered at any time. But she had a feeling that what Coleman was telling them was important for them if they were going to have any chance at getting home.

  “Have you ever heard the term ‘doppelgänger’?” Coleman asked.

  Mia had no idea what he was talking about. It sounded like the name of some insect. “Say that again?”

  “Doppelgänger. It’s German. It means ‘double goer,’ a ghostly counterpart of a living person, a double, a wraith. The term is used when people see copies of themselves or people they know, even if there’s no logical explanation. Like when you see someone you know on the street, but you know they’re actually at home. Or if you see yourself in the mirror and suddenly discover a copy of yourself, standing behind you. It has happened. There are hundreds of reports of it. And I don’t mean people seeing someone who looks like someone they know. I’m talking about exact copies.”

  “But what do they want?” Midori asked.

  “The problem is no one knows what they are. Is it some kind of optical illusion, or do the doppelgängers really exist? For a long time people believed they were illusions, but that was until the French report on Emilie Sagée turned up.”

  Midori suddenly stood up and squeezed against the wall, as if her hands were trying to press their way through until they came in contact with the blackness outside. She was staring at the opening that led to the oxygen generator.

  “How do we know it’s not in there?” Midori asked, gesturing.

  “Sit down, Midori. It would have had to walk right past me,” Coleman said.

  “The French report?” Mia prompted.

  “Right. A French woman, Emilie Sagée, was a teacher at an exclusive private girls’ school called the Pensionat von Neuwelcke in Latvia in the eighteen hundreds. The story was first told by Julie von Güldenstubbe, who was one of the girls in Sagée’s class. Emilie Sagée was well liked by all of the students. But shortly after she came to the school, rumors started that Sagée could be two places at once. For example, some of the girls might say they had just seen her outside the main entrance, while others claimed that they had seen her in the library, at the other end of the large building. These types of episodes were constantly dismissed by the other teachers.

  “But everything changed on March twenty-second of that year. Güldenstubbe and twelve other girls were in math class when an extra Sagée suddenly appeared next to their teacher. The two women were completely identical. Sagée was standing there with her back to the class, writing on the blackboard. So she couldn’t see that a totally identical woman was standing next to her doing the same thing, just without any chalk in her hand. After Güldenstubbe left the classroom and reported this to the school’s headmaster, all of the girls were brought out of the classroom. One by one they were questioned about the event, and all of them reported the same details.”

  Both Mia and Midori were impatient. It was dangerous to stay in one place too long; they were painfully aware of that. And every single minute they spent in this oxygen-poor darkness diminished the chances that they would ever get out of here alive. But they also understood that they no longer had any choice. Mia had been right that Coleman clearly was withholding information before, and if they were going to have any chance at all, they needed to find out as much as they could before leaving DARLAH 2.

  Coleman noticed that he did not seem to have the two girls’ complete attention, but he decided to go on with his story anyway: “The next few weeks, Sagée’s doppelgänger was observed more
and more often. One of the events took place in the cafeteria. The doppelgänger was observed sitting next to Sagée, but like in the classroom, her hands were empty. As the teacher ate, the copy just mimicked her movements. Unlike before, however, the students weren’t the only ones to witness this episode. The waitstaff also witnessed the doubling.

  “Over the course of the spring, the doppelgänger’s behavior changed. It seemed to have its own free will. For example, the teacher would get up to stand in front of the class, while the doppelgänger would remain sitting. But the most important episode came at the end of May. The school’s forty-two students were sitting in the large auditorium doing needlework, and through the large windows along the one wall they could clearly see Emilie Sagée outside in the garden. She was walking back and forth among the beds, picking flowers. Minutes later the teacher overseeing the students’ needlework left the auditorium to go get something from his office. But his chair didn’t remain empty. A second later the students discovered Sagée sitting in it. Confused, they glanced out at the garden again. Emilie Sagée was still walking around picking flowers….”

  Coleman stopped, vigilant. He was listening for sounds from the corridor and was obviously nervous. Mia and Midori gave each other desperate looks.

  “Should I continue?” Coleman asked.

  Mia nodded quickly.

  “After that day, it became too much for the students. One by one they left the school, and by the beginning of fall semester, the number of pupils had dropped from forty-two to twelve. The school didn’t see any other option than to dismiss Sagée. She left the school a week later, and no one knows what happened to her. But there’s been a lot of research into the Sagée affair, and dissertations written on it. The problem is simply that all of their conclusions are vague. People think this is something similar to a ghost. But not one in a white sheet with a chain around its leg. A living ghost. A nonexistent entity. It’s not really important right now what they call it. I’m afraid what we’re dealing with is a more dangerous version of the doppelgänger.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An evil twin that’s out to take over your life without anyone noticing. It kills you and mimics all your habits, so that it can approach new victims. Sagée’s doppelgänger was frightening but harmless. But ours? Five out of eight people are dead, Mia. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Well, that’s it,” Midori concluded, her face deathly pale. “We’re going to die.”

  Mia didn’t respond.

  “What did actually happen out there in the corridor, Mia?” Coleman asked.

  Mia took a breath and then explained everything she could remember. About the music coming out of nowhere. The person showing up in the corridor and talking to her. That it looked and sounded just like her. Mia told them what the figure had said about the others.

  They listened to the silence in the base. Whatever was out to get them could be hiding anywhere. It could be in the same room as them, right then, right there, without their knowing it. Coleman took a breath of the oxygen-depleted air in the room. It wouldn’t be long before the conditions would no longer sustain life.

  He contemplated the situation. For a long time. Then he said, “I … have an acquaintance who’s a … pastor. I’ve known him since I was a boy. He … well, I’m not a religious person, but I really respect him and listen to what he says. One night I plucked up my courage and told him about what I’d learned about the moon landings, the parts that only I, the astronauts, and a few other people at NASA knew about. I must have talked for over an hour without stopping, and when I was done he looked at me for a long time before he said, in all seriousness: ‘You know, Aldrich, when God cast Lucifer and his other enemies out of heaven and down into the abyss to a new place he called hell, he never specified exactly where hell was, did he?’ ”

  “So … you think the moon is … hell?” Midori said.

  Coleman shrugged off the terrifying notion by saying, “It’s just one idea. But if it were … and it were possible to get rid of hell for good … wouldn’t you give it a try?”

  “Is that what NASA is trying to do? That’s just … ridiculous!” Mia replied. “I’m not religious, anyway. I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”

  “Me, either,” Coleman said. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that what we’re experiencing here could be anything,” he continued, “a kind of … phenomenon, a physical, real manifestation of the doppelgänger. An existence we’re not aware of. Something we should have left alone from the beginning. The problem is that certain powerful individuals with influence at NASA, which is staffed almost exclusively by agnostics and scientists, began to lean toward some of these more radical religious notions during the late nineties. Which brings us back to the Wow! signal that the Big Ear radio telescope picked up in August 1977. It’s true that it surprised NASA, as well. But even years later, as we continued to study it, we never had any doubt that it came from the moon. We just didn’t dare to tell anyone about that. Because we didn’t know anything about the reason. Was it a mistake? Were we meant to hear it? Or was it a random intercept of some internal communication? But now we know what it was: a sign. A signature that even back then reminded us that we weren’t alone, and that there was something to fear out there. 6EQUJ5. This thing we’re facing, no matter what it turns out to be, one thing is absolutely certain: It must never make it to Earth. That would mean an end to everything.”

  The three of them sat there in silence for a while. It wasn’t possible to believe what Coleman was saying, was it? Did it actually make sense? And if so, what should they fear most? This place or the people on Earth, who, with all their insane, radical theories, had decided to send teenagers up here anyway?

  We shouldn’t have come looking for Coleman at all, Mia thought. He doesn’t have any answers. Just more complications.

  “Coleman, there’re only three of us left now,” Midori said before Mia had a chance to confront him with what she was thinking. “There’s room for you in the evacuation capsule. Please come with us. We’ll have a better chance of making it to DARLAH 1 if we all go together.”

  But he was unwavering, even now, once he’d become convinced of what was going on around them.

  “Sorry, Midori. I’m really sorry. But I have to finish what I started here. It’s time for you two to get going. Every single minute you spend here with me puts you in greater danger. They could find us at any time, which is why it’s critical that you guys keep moving from now on. Go to DARLAH 1. Go home!”

  It was pointless trying to convince him. Reluctantly they stood up and hugged him.

  “One more thing,” Coleman said. “So far you’ve only seen Antoine’s doppelgänger. And Mia’s. But that means there could be others out there, too. If you get separated at any time, you have to make sure you’re not mistaken. According to the reports from NASA and the other books I’ve read about the phenomenon, doppelgängers cast a shadow facing the wrong way. Sometimes you’ll also be able to see it in their eyes. The bottoms of their irises are black. They may seem like they’re good friends, giving you helpful advice, but the advice is usually misleading or dangerous. This allows them to create confusion. And that is exactly what they want. Because that gives them time to prepare their attack. Will you remember all that now?”

  They nodded to him. “And you? What will happen to you?” Mia asked.

  “I’m just going to sit here a little longer. And think about things.” He gave them a little smile. “Don’t be sad. I was meant to die here. I know that now.”

  There wasn’t anything else to say. Coleman had to do things his way. And Mia and Midori had a job to do. With a final farewell to him, they exited the greenhouse and stepped out into the pitch-black corridor.

  “Are you ready, Midori? Or do you want to stay here longer?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Good. Then we’ll run to the equipment room on my signal. I have the maps for DARLAH 1. Whatever you d
o, don’t let me out of your sight. You hear me?”

  “Got it.”

  “Three,” she whispered. “Two. One.” And then: “GO!”

  They ran through the base like crazy, working their way in the darkness toward module four. The hallways were pretty much devoid of oxygen, and with every breath they took they felt like they were suffocating. Mia ran as fast as she could without turning around, without stopping to see if the coast was clear. She just ran, with Midori on her heels, and the only thing she could think was I’m never coming back to this base again, I’m never coming back here again, I’m never coming here again, I’m never coming here again.

  They reached the equipment room, and both seemed almost surprised that they’d gotten there without incident. Without a word they helped each other with their suits. They picked the fullest oxygen tanks and strapped them on. Boots and gloves were secured; all seams and openings in the suits were checked. They worked as fast as they could, but still the minutes ticked by, and they both kept staring, terrified, at the black hallways they had come from.

  “Caitlin left the outer hatch open,” Mia yelled to Midori through the built-in speakers. “We’ll only have one chance when we open the inner hatch. Give me a sign when you’re ready.”

  Midori gave her a quick thumbs-up.

  “Let’s go! Grab on to something!”

  Midori locked her arm around one of the solid steel pipes along the wall, and Mia grabbed a similar one on her side. With her free hand, she raised the hatch to the decompression chamber, and the last of the oxygen from DARLAH 2 was sucked out with remarkable force along with everything that wasn’t fastened down. Papers, boots, spacesuits and helmets, loose wires, and oxygen tanks were flung out into weightlessness and went swooping and bobbing out over the surface. Mia and Midori hunched over, making themselves as small as possible to avoid being hit by any projectiles.

  “IS IT EVER GOING TO STOP?” Midori yelled at Mia.

  “Hang on, Midori! It can’t be much longer now!”