Lunar Colony (10 page)

Slayton said, “I see you’re already on the move. And I also see from your suit’s body readout that your adrenaline is sky-high. You sure must be excited to catch Salerno.”

“Yes,” Glen responded, “I am excited to find Salerno.” But that wasn’t the only thing he was excited to find.

When Glen first left the mining facility, the Geiger counter made a clicking sound every ten seconds. But now, with that building far behind, the time between clicks was down to five seconds.

I must be getting close,
Glen thought as he drove. With one hand on the wheel, he grabbed Salerno’s notebook and checked the map.
It looks like I’m headed for the northeast area of the moon.

He continued driving, listening for the clicks to guide his path. They were now coming every four seconds . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . until at last, Glen couldn’t tell when one ended and another began.

The trouble was, he didn’t see anything. There was no obelisk, no building, no Salerno. Instead, there was just the barren, rocky grayness of the moon.

Hearing the space between clicks return to one second, Glen circled back but still saw nothing.

“It should be right here,” he said as he allowed the rover to slowly drift forward. “Why don’t I—?”

Just then, Glen felt one of his front tires hit something. He backed up and got out to see what it was.

It didn’t look like much, just a small triangular rock. But there was something odd about it. Glen grabbed a shovel from the back of his rover and began digging around the rock. After digging several inches down, Glen realized what it was.

“It’s Number Four!” he shouted. “The rest of it must be underground. But how am I going to dig all the way to its base?” Glen wondered. “It will take me a year with this little shovel.”

Then Glen got an idea. He’d noticed a winch on the front of his rover and attached its hook to the top of the buried obelisk.

Getting behind the wheel of his vehicle, he
said, “Okay, I hope this works.”

Glen put the rover in reverse and stepped on the accelerator. The wheels spun, kicking up clouds of dust. “Darn! It’s not working,” Glen said. But he didn’t give up. Instead, he pressed the pedal all the way to the floor. The vehicle groaned from the strain, and the metal cord of the winch looked like it could snap any second. “Come on, rover. You can do it,” Glen said.

Just then, the vehicle began to inch backward, and to Glen’s delight, he saw that it was pulling the obelisk from the ground.

“Yes! It’s working,” Glen shouted. “I—”

Snap!

The cord broke in two, causing the rover to fly backward.

“Shoot!” Glen said, slamming on the brakes. But then, as the huge cloud of dust began to settle, Glen saw what was happening. Number Four was rising from the ground on its own!

“I don’t believe it,” Glen said aloud to himself as he watched Number Four climb higher and higher, unassisted. He jumped out of the rover
and ran to the obelisk, which now stopped at its full height.

“I did it!” Glen said, looking up at the towering structure. “I actually found Number Four! But now that I’ve found it, what do I do?”

Then, as though in answer to Glen’s question, the triangular peak of Number Four began to glow. Suddenly, it shot a brilliant beam of light straight out across the moon’s surface. Amazed, Glen looked out into the distance, where he saw the other three obelisks, each doing the same.

For a moment, Glen tried to process what he was seeing: four beams of light, each projected from an obelisk. Far away to the left was Number One. Straight ahead, many miles in the distance, was Number Two. Number Three was to Glen’s right. And finally, where he stood was Number Four.

Then, his eyes brightening, Glen looked from one to the other and realized what he was seeing.

“An intersection!” he exclaimed. “I think I know where I need to go next.”

Glen took off in his rover, following the beams of light until he reached the spot where they met. He was not surprised to see that he was not the only one there. Salerno was standing next to her own rover, shaking her head as she watched him approach.

“You did it,” Salerno said, looking at Glen in amazement. “You found Number Four. And look,” she said. “These beams of light, they form an
X
, like on a treasure map.”

Glen walked over to Salerno, and they both stared at the point on the ground where the beams met. They were silent, but both wondered the same thing:
What was down there?

“Son, do you have her?” Slayton said, his voice coming through over Glen’s headset. “Do you have Salerno in custody?”

Both Glen and Salerno heard Slayton’s question, and for a moment, they just looked at each other as the flight director continued to ask what was going on. At last, Salerno spoke.

“Well, so now what?” Realizing that she was lucky to escape from Glen three times already,
Salerno was prepared for the worst. After coming so close to unlocking the mysteries of the obelisks, she knew that she might never find out if her theories about alien life were correct. She held her breath as she waited for Glen’s decision.

He grabbed two shovels from the rover, tossing one to Salerno. “We start digging,” he said.

Salerno’s eyes brightened as Slayton barked over the radio: “Mission Control requesting information! I repeat, do you have Salerno in custody?”

“Mr. Slayton,” Glen said, looking at Commander Salerno’s smiling face, “I’m afraid I’ve had to put your mission on hold for the moment.”

“On hold?” Slayton roared. “Son, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Well,” Glen replied, “I guess I’m disobeying orders.” He figured that would send Slayton over the edge, but the voice that responded over the radio wasn’t the flight director’s.

“Glen, can you hear me?” It was Mr. Johns.

Glen and Salerno were about to start digging, but hearing his father’s voice made Glen pause. “Yes, Dad, I can hear you.”

“Glen, I know you’ve been through a lot up there, but why don’t you and Commander Salerno just follow orders and come home?”

Glen could hear the worry in his father’s voice and was sure that his dad had been through a lot, too. He looked down at his feet and kicked a pebble, hoping that what he was about to say wouldn’t upset his dad further.

“I’m sorry, Dad, but there’s something we have to do first.”

“But why?” Mr. Johns responded. “What could be more important than coming home?”

“Dad, it turns out that you were right. There’s a lot left to explore in this universe, and it would be a shame to stop now, especially if this is the last chance we’ll get.”

Mr. Johns had been desperate to get Glen home safely ever since the launch, but hearing his son’s words made him smile. It seemed that his spirit of discovery lived on.

“Okay, Glen, but be careful,” Mr. Johns said.

“I will, Dad.”

“Son?” Slayton’s voice returned.

“Yes, Mr. Slayton?” Glen answered.

“Make us proud.”

Glen and Salerno began digging at the point where the beams of light met. They had no idea what they might find, which made their work all the more exciting.

“Wow,” Salerno said, sticking her shovel into the ground. “The soil here is so fragile. It’s almost as if—”

“Move!” Glen shouted. They both jumped back as the ground beneath them gave way, creating a massive hole.

Glen and Salerno peered into the darkness and were astounded by what they saw. A coiled staircase led deep beneath the moon’s surface. They heard the fallen rocks land far, far below, but through the darkness, they could see a faint light.

“What do you suppose is down there?” Glen asked.

“I’m not sure,” replied Salerno, grinning. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Glen smiled back and asked, “Are you ready?”

“You bet,” said Salerno, who was already descending the stairs. “Try to keep up.”

Glen followed close behind her, wishing that there were rails along the stairwell. Even with the moon’s reduced gravity, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to fall, especially since he had no idea what he might find at the bottom.

The pair descended hundreds of feet, both running their hands along the surprisingly smooth outer wall of the hole. It felt almost like marble. As they neared the bottom, the light that had once been faint grew brighter until they reached the floor.

There, they saw the source of the light. Along the walls of an enormous arched tunnel were glowing orbs, balls of light that hovered in the air.

“Cool! What are these things?” Glen asked, gently poking one, causing it to slowly glide away.

“I don’t know, but look at this!” Salerno said, pointing at something on the tunnel wall. “It’s a picture.”

Glen came alongside the commander and saw what she was looking at. It showed a stick figure standing next to a large circle. Like the mysterious engravings on the obelisks, it was etched into the surface of the wall.

“What do you suppose it means?” Glen asked. The two looked at it for a long time, trying to figure out what it could represent.

“I have no idea,” Salerno said at last. “But look,” she said, pointing at the tunnel wall. “Another one!”

As Glen and Salerno approached it, the glowing orbs followed, providing light for the second picture.

“It’s just like the first one,” Glen said, “but in this one the stick figure is standing inside the circle.” He stood looking at it, wondering what it meant, when Salerno, who had already gone farther down the tunnel, called him.

“A third one,” she said. “And I think it’s starting to make sense.” Glen and the orbs followed Salerno, whose eyes were now sparkling. “See? This one shows the stick figure standing on
the other side of the circle. And look what else!”

Glen saw what she was talking about. The picture showed a group of taller stick figures. It almost looked as though they were greeting the first one, but Glen couldn’t be sure. Also confusing was the other image in the picture. To the right of the taller stick figures was an obelisk like the ones he’d seen on the moon’s surface.

“I still don’t get it,” Glen said. “What does this all mean? What is this place?”

“Don’t you see, Glen?” Salerno replied. “They’ve been waiting for us.”

“They?”
Glen asked. “You mean the aliens?”

“Yes!” Salerno responded. “Thousands, or maybe even millions, of years ago, they visited the moon and built this base. They’ve been waiting ever since for us to develop the technology to find it.”

Glen didn’t know how Salerno was getting all that from pictures of some stick figures and circles, but she seemed so sure of what she was saying.

“Okay,” he said, “but what do you think they want?”

Salerno looked at the engraving, her eyes filled with joy, and said, “I think they want us to visit them.”

“Visit them where?” Glen asked, trying hard to follow Salerno’s logic. “Are they still here?”

“No,” Salerno said, “I’m sure they left long ago, but I think they want us to journey to their planet.”

Glen gulped. He’d been eager to search for alien life, but he hadn’t been prepared for traveling to another planet!