Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Page 35

  “Adam?” said a crackly version of Sally’s voice over the headset.

  “Yes, Sally.”

  “Thank you.”

  “De nada,” he said, laughing as he realized his last words ever spoken to another human would be a simple phrase learned by watching Dora The Explorer with his kids.

  Minutes passed. Adam saw a huge flash from under the Lunar Module. No boom. No grinding roar. Just silence. It felt like the audio track was missing.

  The top half of the Lunar Module rocketed upwards, leaving the descent-stage down on the Moon. Up, up, and away it went, wobbling the entire way, but it did keep going.

  “Good,” whispered Adam. “Keep going.”

  The ascending ship came within a few feet of the rim of the lunar pit. Adam craned his neck to keep following it.

  Eventually, it was out of view and Adam realized his fate even more so. He was going to become a permanent fixture like the tigers and the snake.

  Maybe I can freeze myself and they’ll get me on the next mission, he wondered. I mean, they will come back, right?

  As Adam pondered his frozen future, his peripheral vision saw something move. He kept his head perfectly still, but rotated his eyes.

  Door number three began to open all by itself, but it stopped after only six inches of movement. Fog rolled out from under the partially opened door.

  CHAPTER 88

  Sky Turtle — Command Module

  Orbiting The Moon

  “Sky Turtle, this is Fort Worth Mission Control. The Lunar Module should be ascending now. Please begin your rendezvous checklists.”

  “Roger that, Fort Worth,” said the lone astronaut circling the Moon in the Command Module. He floated over to the window and looked down at the Moon to get one more glimpse at the Martian laboratory in the lunar pit. Unfortunately, he was too far beyond it on this orbit. His headphone speakers lit up with a tinny voice.

  “….Tucker, I’m ascending with the precious cargo…”

  “Hello, crew of the Moon Turtle,” Tucker replied.

  Tucker pulled his SLR camera from the Velcro that held it against the wall. He pointed it out the window, adjusting the zoom to maximum power. A small object was ascending from the lunar pit and Tucker saw it tilt and start to accelerate toward him.

  “I see you guys,” he said. “Launch looks good.”

  He took several pictures, adjusted the zoom, and took many more.

  “Heya… Tucker?” Sally asked.

  “Yes, Sally, I hear you loud and clear. We should be able to try re-docking on the next pass around.”

  The radio was silent for a few seconds.

  “Adam isn’t with me,” Sally said. “He stayed.”

  Tucker closed his eyes in anguish.

  “Oh no…,” he whispered.

  “He saved us from having to make a terrible choice.”

  Tucker reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded paper that Adam had given him before the two spacecraft separated. It was folded in such a way that only an external note was visible:

  “Only read this if I don’t come back.”

  CHAPTER 89

  Martian Laboratory — Interior

  Lunar Pit

  “I don’t believe I’m seeing this,” Adam whispered to himself.

  Yes, the door had partially opened.

  Yes, fog was pouring out.

  Yes, he was probably about to die.

  Adam still hadn’t started breathing again. He would’ve jumped out the window if he could. He looked around to find something heavy and deadly to pick up.

  His hand reached into his space suit pocket and pulled out an ultra-lightweight wrench made of an aluminum alloy — space flight required lightweight tools. What he wouldn’t give for a frying pan right now. Adam stood up slowly, keenly aware of every snap and crackle his middle-aged knees were making. He took a step toward door three.

  The door closed.

  Then it opened again.

  With each tender step, Adam got closer. When he’d finally made it to door number one, he stepped in a massive puddle pooling out from under the door.

  That’s not good, Adam thought.

  From his vantage point, he could see that door three was only opening a few inches each time. It seemed to be jammed and whoever, or whatever, was in there was having a tough time. Adam got within a few feet of the door and stopped, leaning up against the wall next to the opening. He looked down and found another puddle emanating from door two this time.

  Fog continued to pour out of door three each time it opened and closed. Adam could hear the low mumble of what sounded like somebody talking, but it wasn’t speaking English by any measure.

  Adam’s pulse raced to 170 — the same as when he sprinted on the treadmill, except now he was standing perfectly still.

  Then he saw it.

  The terror of all terrors.

  A hand poked out through the opening. A hand like his, only larger and with a pinky as long as the other fingers. Opposable thumb. It was human-like, but huge.

  This can’t be good, he thought.

  Adam examined his own glove to compare. Just the long pinky was different. An arm reached out from under the door and searched the nearby wall, nearly touching Adam’s foot — he jerked away. The hand on the arm reached up and pushed the green open button, but nothing happened.

  Wow, that’s a really long arm, Adam thought.

  His mind was racing and he suddenly remembered the basic messages from the TranslationTablet.

  Adam leaned his head toward the alien arm.

  “Fenoda,” Adam said loudly.

  The hand stopped pressing the green button and yanked back under the door.

  There was absolute quiet except for the humming sounds coming from the laboratory inner workings. Adam took one step closer, his foot crunching on some pebbly dust on the floor that wasn’t there before.

  “Fenoda?” asked a terrifyingly deep voice from behind door three.

  Adam gulped. Adam pulled the TranslationTablet out of his suit pocket and launched the translator application with furious speed. He typed the following: “HELLO. MY NAME IS ADAM. I COME IN PEACE.”

  He pushed the Translate button and the “busy” icon showed for a few seconds. Finally, it displayed the phonetic translation in Martianese. Adam pushed the SPEAK button and it announced with a mechanical female voice: “Fenoda. Mayato poodroo Adam. May merno payache.”

  “Ah, nuts,” Adam complained. He clambered for the options menu and changed the voice to male. He pushed the SPEAK button again and a strong male voice rang from the tablet: “Fenoda. Mayato pootoo Adam. May merno payache.”

  Silence. Adam held his wrench in the other hand, ready to strike. Adam expected the Mars man to speak, so he pushed the AUTO-LISTEN button on the TranslationTablet. A reluctant voice from under the door broke the silence.

  “Fenoda Adam. Mayata poodroo Heshayta. Diesh may rexeta morfo gru maycash esh Heartho?”

  The app beeped. After a few seconds the screen displayed: “Hello, Adam. My name is Heshayta. Have you been sent to rescue me and take me back to Heartho?”

  Oh no. He thinks I’m here from Mars to rescue him, Adam thought. He held the tablet up close to him and spoke slowly into the microphone. “No. I am from the nearby blue planet. Nobody is alive on your home planet.”

  The app captured his words, translated them and spoke them to the Mars man.

  Thirty seconds of silence followed before the Mars man replied. The TranslationTablet heard the alien and spoke his message, translated to English.

  “How do you know my language?” Heshayta asked.

  Adam spoke into his tablet. “That is a long story. I have actually visited your home planet.”

  Another long delay until Heshayta replied.

  “How long have I been here?”

  Adam wasn’t sure how to represent time to the man, but he tried his best. “About 200,000 blue planet years.”

  Silence.

&nb
sp; “Can I see you?” Heshayta asked.

  Adam reluctantly walked away from the wall, toward the middle of the room and knelt down. He saw the face of what looked like a very tall human, laying down. He had brown hair, pulled back in a bun. Brown eyes. Long arms. Very large teeth. Not sharp scary teeth, but big flat teeth, like he’d stolen dentures from a horse.

  They stared at each other, observing how weird they looked to each other. Adam gawked rudely at the Mars man’s teeth which he found almost amusing.

  “You are so short,” Heshayta said.

  Adam laughed at the curtness. “Yes, gravity is stronger on my blue planet than on your home planet. Generation after generation grew shorter until we balanced out.”

  “Are any of my crew still alive on blue planet?”

  Adam frowned.

  “No, but my people are descendants of them.”

  “Am I the last of my kind?” Heshayta asked despondently.

  “Yes, I am afraid so,” Adam said, nodding his head up and down.

  “Why are you afraid?” Heshayta asked.

  “Sorry, that is a figure of speech we have here,” Adam said, chuckling at the simple miscommunication.

  “You said we? How many of you are here in this facility?”

  “Just me. My crew had to leave me here.”

  The Mars man with the big teeth sighed.

  “I was in a similar situation. I lost contact with my crew on the blue planet. I had to go into hibernation. I woke up about ten thousand blue planet years ago and went to search for my crew again, but returned emptyhanded. In my anger, I did some irreparable damage to this laboratory which may explain this door problem.”

  “Ten thousand years ago?” Adam said with curiosity. “Did you interact with any of the creatures down on the blue planet?”

  “Only once. I came upon a group of hunters that were starving and I felt sorry for them, so I showed them how seeds and farming work. The savages attacked me afterwards, so I came back here. I went back into hibernation sleep. Your arrival woke me up.”

  “Really. That’s, interesting, Heshayta. Are you alone here?”

  “Yes, it is just me. That is why I kept the door locked after you arrived. I didn’t know who you were and you made a lot of noise.”

  “We are both stuck here,” Adam sighed. He sat down on the floor, crossed his legs and scooted away from the growing puddles emerging from doors one and two.

  “Do you have a family?” Heshayta asked.

  “Yes, I did have a family, but I seem to have run them off,” Adam admitted.

  “Do you have children,” the Mars man asked.

  “Yes, I have two small children.”

  “With children, you always have something to look forward to,” Heshayta said.

  “That is true for most people except me. I’m going to die here. So what about you?” Adam asked. “Family?”

  “Yes… I did,” he said solemnly. “Most assuredly, they grew up without me there to teach them. I hope they lived long lives and died of old age. I did most of my grieving when I awoke ten thousand years ago. No amount of time gets rid of the pain. Adam, how long are you staying here?”

  “Until I die. My crew had to abandon me here,” Adam said. “Speaking of that, would it be possible to freeze myself like you did? I assume another rocket will be sent here in a few years.”

  Heshayta stared down the long corridor.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Heshayta declared. “There is a way out. We have one escape capsule.”

  “Really?” Adam asked, suddenly hopeful. “We searched and didn’t see anything.”

  He noticed Heshayta staring down the corridor with intense focus.

  “The escape capsule is in this room with me, behind this door. If you help me open this door, I will share the combination with you.”

  Adam raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked with skepticism.

  “No, I will not kill a man with a family,” Heshayta replied. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, of course not,” Adam replied. He thought for a long time, ready to ask the obvious question, but afraid to. Finally, he caved.

  “Why are you helping me instead of escaping yourself?”

  “Adam, I have nobody left. Nobody to console me. Nobody to grow old with. I would be treated as a strange beast on your planet. Prodded. Probed. Studied. The escape capsule holds no escape for me. But it does for you.”

  “I understand,” Adam said. “Thank you.”

  Adam stood up, carefully avoiding the water.

  “Heshayta, there seems to be a water leak from the other two doors.”

  “It is not a problem,” Heshayta said unconvincingly. “Condensation from experiments we were doing for possible new food sources. We had many failures. You probably saw them outside the laboratory.”

  “I did see that,” Adam answered. He grabbed his lightweight adjustable wrench and continued.

  “I have a wrench. Let me undo the hose that’s causing the problem,” Adam said. “Perhaps we can swap it out with a hose from one of the other doors.”

  Right along the door jamb, Adam found what looked like a hydraulic hose. It had leaking fluid. He tried to tighten the coupling with his wrench.

  To his amazement, the nuts were very similar to standards on Earth — at least in shape. The Martian fasteners had nine faces instead of the traditional six-sided nuts on Earth. Adam’s wrench couldn’t get a grip on the nut.

  “My wrench won’t fit,” Adam said.

  “Let me give you one of mine,” Heshayta said.

  The Mars man stood up behind the door and walked around, grabbing metallic-sounding things. Then he plunked down on the ground next to the bottom of the door and pushed a toolbox out through the gap toward Adam. Then he grabbed a wrench from inside the box and handed it to Adam.

  Adam took the wrench and used it to tighten the hydraulic line coupler. Instead, it cracked, spraying hydraulic fluid everywhere. The door began to fall.

  “Dammit!” Adam yelled. He kicked the toolbox into the opening to block the door from closing all the way and crushing the Mars man’s arm.

  They were both silent, not knowing what to say.

  “Sorry, Heshayta. I made things worse.”

  “It is okay. Please come down here,” the Mars man said.

  Adam knelt down on the ground.

  “Yes?”

  “This door problem does not look good. I must admit something. There is another escape capsule here. It is at the end of the long corridor.” Heshayta pointed one of his long fingers down the corridor.

  “The door with a star on it?”

  “Yes, that is the one,” Heshayta confirmed.

  “We couldn’t get in that door,” Adam explained. “Do you know the combination.”

  “Yes, it is the first four prime numbers.”

  “I can do that. Thank God you Martians used base-10 numbers.”

  The alien showed both hands to Adam and wiggled all ten of his alien fingers.

  “Yes,” Adam laughed. “I get it.”

  “When you enter the escape capsule, you will be asked if you want to return to your planet or my planet. I assume you will want your own planet.”

  Adam was almost giddy. Ten minutes ago he’d been planning how to freeze himself until humanity returned to the Moon. Now he had a free ticket, possibly, to not die on the Moon. He tried not to act too happy.

  “Adam, I will go back into hibernation and perhaps, someday, you can return here and truly set me free. Perhaps when that time comes, you will have a spaceship for me to return to my home planet.”

  “Perhaps,” Adam said. “I will do what I can.”

  Adam felt tears welling up. This alien man who’d lost his family and his civilization was giving him hope to go on living. It was the complete opposite of how he’d felt long ago on Mars when Keller Murch had left him to die.

  “Heshayta, I have one question that I must ask. Your society created
a medicine that is believed to be a miracle medicine. Do you have any of that here?”

  Heshayta smiled and nodded. “You speak of Nilasu. It stops sicknesses that are based on uncontrolled cell growth.”

  Adam nodded. “Yes, that’s it. Do you have any here?”

  “Yes, Adam. When we traveled in space, the radiation from the Sun caused many of those types of sicknesses, so we carried a machine with us that mixed the medicine when we needed it.”

  Adam’s eyes opened wide. He turned to look at the box-shaped machine sitting on the desk.

  “Is that metal box on the desk the Nilasu mixer?”

  “Yes,” Heshayta answered. “The box with the blue corners.”

  “Does it only work on this Moon?” Adam asked.

  Heshayta squinted his eyes at Adam, thinking.

  “It works anywhere,” Heshayta answered.

  Adam stood up and walked away from Heshayta, but then stopped. He turned and looked at the broken door, with the desperate hand still sticking underneath.

  Adam walked back and knelt down.

  “We have a custom on Earth. I’d like to shake your hand,” Adam said. “To thank you for saving my life.”

  “That is a strange custom. Why not wiggle our fingers together?” the alien laughed.

  “Good point,” Adam said. He reached out his hand.

  The Mars man slowly grasped Adams hand and shook it up and down. The first handshake across two alien species.

  “Thank you,” Adam said. “I will make sure that we return some day and allow you to return to your home planet with dignity.”

  The Mars man said nothing, but didn’t let go. In fact, his grip tightened to the point of causing Adam some pain.

  “Thank you, but now it is time to release,” Adam instructed him.

  The Mars man didn’t react, but kept crushing Adam’s hand. Heshayta bared his teeth and started saying “Kel Mataar!” over and over again.

  The TranslationTablet, still in Adams other hand began yelling out in a mechanical voice, “So hungry!” over and over again.

  Another set of alien hands suddenly reached out from under the door and grabbed Adam’s feet, knocking him down. The new hands tried to pull him through the crack in the door.