Day Twenty-one ∞ Thursday late afternoon (PST)

(30 August, 1979 - 1st quarter moon)

—WAKE UP.

Jagg grunted in response and stretched the sleep out of his spine and limbs, yawning. Immediately he registered his reduced bodyweight and snapped his eyes open.

Damn... It hadn't been a dream after all. He was inside an alien spacecraft. A human alien spacecraft. His tiger was that alien, but she was nowhere in sight. He pushed himself up by the elbows, his gaze drawn to the window.

"Damn!" Earth's almost small enough to play ball with!

He stared at the view with the same giddy awe he had when he first stepped into mid-space yesterday. A feeling he hadn't experienced for more than a decade and a half ago, the only time his mom ever took him and his little brother to the zoo. He'd pretended to be the know-it-all, reading the signs to wide-eyed Junior, and filling in with his own details—after all, at eight he was the man of the house. Couldn't let little bro know big bro was just as taken. But when they'd reached the aquarium exhibits, he'd been all but dumbstruck at the ethereal, bioluminescent creatures of the deep.

Inadvertently, thinking about Junior threw Jagg back to the lowest point of his life. Orphaned and having to take on the adult role years too soon, he'd ever blame himself for not catching his brother in time. For not stopping him from drawing that second dose... For not saving him...

Clenching his jaw, Jagg shoved the memory and guilt back into the past and swung his feet to the floor.

∞

"Join us," Lora said without turning her head.

She gestured toward the seat that grew out of the floor a couple of feet behind her right side as Jagg approached in his helmetless spacesuit. He nodded at Tillman and Atlas in passing who were likewise dressed, and sat down, eyes glued to the fore.

One side of the view was jet black, with a gradual band lightening to a mottled gray expanse, then harsh shadows outlining the nearside against the bright opposite-facing sides of several crater rims and hills. They were traveling along the day-night border of the quarter moon.

Damn... It was like Earth and the moon had exchanged places. The pitted alien landscape took predominance, filling most of the view, slowly gliding past them. And it wasn't all gray. Here and there, it shifted into shades of tan.

A rustle of unfolding paper interrupted the silence, paused, then Tillman spoke, "That looks like..." He folded a third of the map to focus on an area. "With this vector... we're heading south, aren't we? South Pole?"

"In that direction, yes," Lora replied.

"That makes sense. Either North or South Pole—we could have longer access to daylight, depending on exactly where. Still trying to spot a landmark... The Apollo 16 landing site should be almost at our seven... That means Apollo 11 is at around our eight by over five, maybe seven hundred miles at least."

"No kidding. I gotta go there. I want to see the flag for myself." Jagg looked over his shoulder. "That's a moon map you got there?"

Tillman nodded. "Maybe we can get to do a tour. If there's time."

"A tour of the whole moon. That'd be something."

Atlas grunted.

"What?" Jagg looked at him. "You can't tell me you don't want to go on a tour."

"Doesn't matter what I want. We're not here on vacation."

"I know that. What you say, Lora?" Jagg turned to her. "We ain't in a rush, right? After we unload and all that, we could go on the grand moon tour, like how we're here. Is once in a lifetime experience, this."

—No...

Jagg spun his seat around at Selina's mental voice and spotted her swirling mist gathering at the center of the cabin. It approached as her business-attired body grew denser.

"Your presence here is restricted to this mission," she added as her human form solidified.

"Says who?"

"Not surprising," Atlas muttered.

"That is correct." Lora turned toward them, smiling. "You are restricted to our mission. However, a fly-by tour of some of the public areas on our departure should not pose a problem. Blanc?"

Selina dipped her head. "If our Queen sees it fit."

"What d'you mean, 'public'?" Jagg said. "You make it sound like people live up here."

"That's probably why we haven't been back since '72," Atlas responded. "They don't want us here."

"They who?"

Atlas shrugged and threw Tillman a glance before returning to the moonscape.

"I've heard rumors of bases on the moon... and collaborations," Tillman said slowly, "but nothing that I could speak of."

"ET bases? You mean we got secret collaboration going on?" When Tillman didn't reply, Jagg turned to Selina instead, but she had vanished.

"Gentlemen," Lora said over her shoulder, our E T A is 153 minutes. Two and a half hours. You have time to break fast and digest before we land."

∞

The typewheel twirled in obedience, striking one series of letters after another to leave its gray imprints on the paper:"...ANS B. KRUGER". A return of the printing unit and a shift of the paper were followed by the words, "Head of Xenobiology and Medical Depts.".

Dr. Kruger lifted the top of the page and read in silence, "/02... is then, my firm belief, that strong collaborative links should be created with this new species of Homo Intelligentisimus. It is, furthermore, my strong recommendation for this collaboration be fomented in the most friendly and informal atmosphere of trust and open-minded cooperation. They know practically everything about us already. For this individual, we are, in any practical sense of the term, the most remote past. We are part of their history, while they represent the future towards which we are moving. To be precise, one of our possible futures.

"We should be able to foster a spirit of trust and a mutually beneficai—"

Mein Gott! Kruger's bushy brows almost closed the gap in irritation. He got the white-out bottle, obliterated the "ai" on both sheets with the brush, and waited for them to dry. Then he turned the platen knob until the tenth line lined up and typed "ia" in its place.

There. He rolled the platen in the opposite direction, one line at a time as he continued reading, "...mutually beneficial working relationship should be our goal. It is incalculable how fast we can move forward with their insights and technical expertise. Even this Mickmi Wamba, who claim no technical expertise whatsoever, have a level of general knowledge and an intellect as advanced, our most advanced scientists look almost retarded by comparison.

"Furthermore, despite numerous claims on the contrary, we cannot in any way be absolutely certain they are not an exploratory advance or exploratory mission to assess our level of development and report back to some directing center. If that is the case, we should be wary to incur in the mistake of attracting the wrath of such a powerful civilization toward us.

"The wisest way, and my most fervent recommendation, is to foment and stimulate in every possible way, the friendship and help of this civilization.

"Signed..."

Kruger nodded. That would do for his preliminary report that needed to be sent off right away. He hadn't had the chance to do it sooner. His current research activities had to be put on hold while he'd devoted over 24 hours to the extraordinary opportunity of studying this living human visitor.

His full report would take him several days to complete. It would contain details of all the tests of Miss Wamba, as well as of her local companion, their results, and both his assessments and speculative conclusions. He would also be revisiting all the recordings and transcribing the journal and lab notes of all activities, interactions, and discussions he'd had with or witnessed of this young lady. He'd normally ask his assistant John to do the honors of transcription, but considering the nature of this particular assignment, Kruger preferred to do it himself. The tedious process had a knack for shaking loose the more subtle impressions that tended to get hidden below the obvious.

He released the platen and removed the pages with both hands to prevent the carbon copy from shifting from the original. Holding them flat on the desk, he reached for a pen, signed above his name, and lifted the edge of the carbon sheet to ascertain he'd printed through sufficiently on the back page. Satisfied it had, he removed the carbon and fed it into the shredder.

With the report folder in hand, Kruger headed for the communications room on his level, entered his security code on the keypad, and entered. A silent nod at the comms officer at the sign-in desk before approaching the facsimile machine. He inserted the two sheets of paper along with his usual cover page into the pick-up slot. The secure line would transmit a copy of the pages to the unnamed committee he reported to. All he had was the number and code.

He picked up the receiver and dialed the number. One ring and the fax tone played its enigmatic melody. As soon as it switched to white noise, confirming its audio handshake completed, he hung up and watched the sheets work their way through the machine.

There was one more thing he had to do before filing the folder into the secure cabinet. It required a computer with a dial-up modem to connect with ARPANET. He didn't find sitting in the computer room conducive when he needed to think carefully about how to formulate his wording, which was why he would have to retype the report. If he'd got one installed in his office...

I'll put in a request. It was about time he learned to 'think' on something other than a typewriter. Then all he'd have to do now was to save the report to a floppy disk and take that to a networked computer if he didn't get networked himself. Sign in, dial-up on the secure line with the connection protocol and send the digitized report to wherever Mr. Gray kept his office.

The fact that Mr. Gray had turned up in person to Miss Wamba's presentation hadn't been a coincidence. All Kruger had ever worked on in xenobiology were EBE corpses. Right now, he had two awaiting him in the lab refrigerator three security levels further down underground—another four-foot Grey and a tall Mantis-like being that displayed fascinating anatomy. The reason he'd gotten the opportunity to study a live EBE that was a human had to come from someone high up in the food chain. And Kruger was pretty certain that person was Mr. Gray himself. Though he still wasn't sure why—different protocols were required for live EBEs so those were assigned elsewhere.

Kruger paused as a thought struck him. Dr. Mahoney might have been working for Mr. Gray too! He could have sent him the micro-filament to have Miss Wamba tagged for tracking. Did any other members of his staff also secretly work for Mr. Gray?

∞

Whoa! Danny grabbed hold onto the two chair backs. Far below, a harsh shadow divided a ridge in two, stretching to a distant gray on the right, while the other side glowed white in comparison. It took him a second before he realized there was still a floor under his feet.

"My oversight—I should have forewarned." Mickmi grinned at him, and he chuckled when he caught the glint of mischief in her eyes.

"See," Artemae said from behind, "I'm not the only one who likes fun!"

Danny stepped forward in 'mid-air' and got into what he assumed was the co-pilot seat, although no controls appeared available to him. As the seatbelt secured him around his waist, he swept his gaze around the full 180-degree view that was the fore of the ship.

The dark curve of Paulux's nose peeked in at their flank as the terrain below increased in detail. Their ship had gradually reduced its altitude. The next horizon approached, starkly contrasted against the space sky as they followed the ridge. Then the other side revealed itself up ahead, the circle of a small crater some four kilometers wide before the land fell away.

Only Muzzy's camera shutter spoke its clipped syllables as the view spread out before them, twenty kilometers of rough slope that then leveled out to a relatively flat surface. Danny had an idea of where they were, but the mental image he had as reference map of the moon wasn't identical to what he'd been able to identify thus far. Maybe he was expecting too much—after all, the three installments of data he'd received came from Mickmi's world... Hers would be an older moon, having been exposed to additional, more recent impacts. Who was to say that even the ancient ones would match up with the ones on his moon?

He chuckled at the odd thought, Her moon, my moon...

The slope stretched its arms wide on either side as if about to embrace this lowland that took over as far as they could see. But the closer they got, the less flat it looked. On the left, it disappeared into darkness, while into the distance straight ahead, three peaks broke the horizon.

Danny sensed their ship had decelerated as they followed the descent of the slope, thousand meters, two... The view halted and rotated, some 2,000 meters above ground, looking back at where they'd just traversed, rising like a long mountain ridge.

"This is a crater, right?" Muzzy asked. "What's it called?"

"Correct. We call it Edmundson after a Scandic explorer of several millennia ago." Mickmi sounded thoughtful. "But it may not be the same name as yours."

The view turned right toward the end of the shadow on the crater floor. Where the slope was hidden in darkness, details became discernable with the natural ambient light reflecting off the lit surroundings. Although it appeared Deymos also adjusted the exposure of the view through the hull.

"It's Amundsen." Eckstein held up the topographic map he'd been studying for the past hour. He pointed with two fingers spread like a V, one at an irregular circle, the other at the hub where the latitude lines emerged from like spokes."We're around 120 miles from the South Pole."

"Correct." Mickmi swept her fingers over the holo-control screen and the view panned right to face Lora's ship as images of the cargo wheels slid into view on either side. Scrolling data overlayed each. "All containers remain stable. L'or Aug?"

"Confirmed stable at my end," Lora's voice came through invisible speakers at the fore.

—My Queen, Danny heard inside his head as Selina openly broadcasted her communication. Muzzy's camera shutter fired off several times to capture the glowing, aetheric form that appeared between the two ships.

"Blanc, have you identified a location for us?"

—I have, my Queen. Forty-five kilometers northeast from here is the steepest incline to suit our needs.

"Thank you, Blanc. We shall follow your lead."

They traveled along the shadow line for a while before entering it completely. The peaks on their right grew into mountains but they were not as tall as the top edge of the crater that rose left in irregular terraces. Eventually, Selina's form paused before a marginally steeper slope and expanded into a five-second long, turbulent, swirling cloud. It gathered like a cyclone with its eye around a boulder.

As Danny watched the boulder shift aside by several meters, a sudden wave of glee passed through him. Then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by serene accomplishment. He glanced with lifted brow at Mickmi who met his gaze.

"See?" Artemae said before either of them could speak. "Even Maarian Aumegas like fun!"

The storm cloud dispersed, leaving a cleared view. No dust appeared to linger in the 'air'.

—I propose we park here, Selina's mental voice said.

"Thank you, Blanc." Mickmi gestured at her controls and the ship halted above the area. The view brightened with the dimming of the interior lighting and split the lower half to display the land beneath them as they descended the last kilometer.

The terrain grew more detailed as their perspective changed. Everything grew bigger, the expanse wider, the rim slope higher. Immediately below, the land appeared as an oval landing patch, relatively smooth in contrast to the surrounding areas. It closed in, slower and slower until it came to a halt some two meters away.

For a minute, there was silence. Danny couldn't even tell whether anyone was breathing.

"Houston?" Muzzy spoke first, his voice filled with reverence and awe. "The Eagle has landed!"

— ∞ —

https://youtu.be/Zd2D3MKX3YE

The original landing: ABC News 'The Eagle Has Landed' https://youtu.be/Zd2D3MKX3YE

GLOSSARY

ARPANET — The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, often referred to as DARPANET.

EBE — extraterrestrial biological entity

Mein Gott! (German) — My God!

©2021 by kemorgan65

Credit:

Banner video The Moon by Seán Doran  https://youtu.be/D2yAdKzWS0k