Lunar Colony Read online

  Glen was considering this when he noticed a spiral staircase, its rails covered in plant life. From the ground, Glen couldn’t tell where the stairs led, but it looked like they practically reached the ceiling. He decided to make the long climb to investigate.

  When he reached the top, high above the ground, he saw a door marked STORAGE. Not knowing what he’d find on the other side, he took a deep breath and gently opened it.

  Inside, he found an area used to keep all kinds of gardening equipment. And among the rakes, shovels, and bags of fertilizer was a woman with her back turned to Glen. She muttered to herself and appeared to be looking for something.

  It was Salerno.

  “It’s got to be somewhere around here,” she said, talking to herself, unaware that Glen was in the room.

  Glen was astonished to finally be face-to-face, or at least face-to-back, with Salerno. But now that he’d found her, he realized he didn’t know what to do.

  “Ahem,” he said, clearing his throat.

  Salerno froze. Then, slowly, she stood upright and turned around to face Glen.

  “Just as I thought,” she said. “It was hard to tell as you were spinning around on the gyroscope, but now I see that I was correct. They sent a boy, no more than twelve years old, to disrupt my search.”

  “My name is Glen Johns, and I’m actually thirteen,” he said nervously. “And, uh, you’re supposed to come with me.” Glen felt even stranger than he had when he’d spoken to Nat the robot. He wasn’t used to giving orders to grown-ups, especially astronauts.

  “I can’t do that,” Salerno said. “I’m on the brink of the greatest discovery ever made, and I must see this through.”

  “Does it have something to do with those obelisks out there?” Glen asked. He knew he was supposed to be taking her into custody, but he was dying for some answers.

  Salerno looked at Glen, who was surprised to notice a certain kindness in her eyes. “Have you seen them?” she asked.

  “I saw two of them. What are they? Where did they come from?” he asked.

  “Glen, I believe they were left here millions of years ago, long before the dawn of man. I can’t say for certain who left them here, but I can tell you that it was no one of our Earth.”

  “So, you’re saying they were created by . . .” Glen’s voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Yes, Glen, I believe they were created by aliens. And I think that if I can find the fourth obelisk, which I call Number Four, they may interact with each other in a way that will allow us to make contact with their creators.”

  Glen was fascinated by what Salerno was saying but was also aware of how crazy it sounded. And as much as he wanted to hear more about the obelisks, he knew that he had a job to do.

  “Commander Salerno, I’m sorry, but I can’t go home without you. Please, just give up your search and come with me.”

  The astronaut turned an empty bucket upside down and sighed as she had a seat.

  “Glen,” she began, “I’ve wanted to be an astronaut all my life, ever since I was a little girl. And do you know why?”

  Glen didn’t reply.

  “It’s because I wanted to explore the universe, to see what’s out there. When I was a kid, I’d lie in the grass and stare up at the stars, trying to comprehend the vastness of space. And I asked the same question that’s been asked throughout our history: Are we alone? Now I’m so close to proving that we are not alone, that there are others out there. I can’t give up now.”

  Glen remained quiet, but he couldn’t help thinking of his father. Mr. Johns would have understood what Salerno was saying. He’d be glad to know that there were astronauts like Salerno, who shared his sense of wonder and desire to know what other worlds might exist out there. In fact, Salerno’s words reminded Glen of the way he once felt, when he was a young boy who was fascinated by space and all its mysteries.

  “The space program is coming to a close, Glen,” Salerno continued. “If I give up and leave with you now, I’ll never get another chance at this. Do you understand?”

  She searched the boy’s face and saw that he was torn between what he wanted to do and what he had to do. Salerno felt sorry for him but had an idea.

  “You know, Glen,” she said, “I could use some help in finding Number Four. Why don’t you join me?”

  “You want me to help you? But if you haven’t found the fourth obelisk yet, what makes you think I could?”

  “Well, you managed to track me down, didn’t you? You must be pretty smart,” Salerno said, causing Glen to blush. “Plus, I’ve been looking for a Geiger counter. It’s a device that picks up signs of nearby radiation. If you could help me find it, I’m sure we’d find Number Four in no time!”

  Something had awoken in Glen. He desperately wanted to join her, find Number Four, and see if Salerno was right about it being linked to alien life. But most of all, he wanted to explore. He was just about to answer her when Slayton’s voice came in over his headset.

  “Son, you’ve got her. Now bring her back to the lunar lander and come on home!”

  Salerno heard Slayton’s orders, too. She looked Glen in the eyes, waiting to see what his decision would be. At last, Glen hung his head and sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Commander, but I really have to get back to Earth. You need to come with me.”

  “I see,” Salerno responded. “You have a job to do and don’t want to disappoint the people back home.” Salerno rose from her seat and began moving toward the wall. “But, Glen, I have a job to do as well, and I must do it. Not just for myself, but for everyone in the world who’s ever wondered if there’s life beyond Earth.”

  “Commander,” Glen said, his voice cracking, “I really just want to go home. Please don’t make this difficult.”

  Salerno reached for a switch on the wall and turned to Glen. “It is difficult, Glen. It’s difficult because I see in you a young man who is turning his back on his spirit of exploration. I find that very sad.” At that, Salerno pulled the wall switch, causing an airlock to fly open. Standing on the edge, she added, “I really wish you were on my team, Glen.”

  And then she jumped.

  Glen ran to the edge and looked down, where he saw Salerno land softly on the moon’s surface. She hopped into her rover and drove off.

  “What’s going on there?” Slayton demanded. “Do you have Salerno?”

  “No, Mr. Slayton, she’s escaped.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” he shouted. “Get after her while she’s still close!”

  Pursuit

  “Just what in the world happened back there?” Slayton asked, sounding very angry. “I didn’t figure you to be one to go screwy when the chips were down.”

  Back in the rover, Glen drove as fast as he could. His eyes were glued to the far-ahead lights of Salerno’s fleeing vehicle.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Mr. Slayton. I’ll get her, and she won’t get away this time.”

  The truth was, Glen didn’t know what had happened. He’d been so close to catching her, to completing his mission and going home. But all that talk of obelisks, aliens, and discovery had distracted him.

  She tricked me, Glen thought, feeling foolish for having allowed himself to get swept up in Salerno’s fantasies. But it won’t happen again.

  Glen flew across the moon’s surface, making up ground on Salerno. As he closed in on the lights up ahead, he began imagining what he’d say to her, promising himself that this time he wouldn’t give her a chance to escape. But then, suddenly, the lights of Salerno’s rover disappeared.

  “Darn it!” Glen shouted. “She turned them off.” Left behind in Salerno’s trail of dust, Glen had no idea which way she’d gone. He slowed his vehicle to a stop, looking in every direction. Then, an idea occurred to him.

  “You can run, but you can’t hide,” he said, turning on the locator device. The green arrow immediately began beeping, and Glen set off at once, following the signal unt
il he reached a building he hadn’t seen before.

  I don’t see Salerno’s rover anywhere around here, Glen said to himself, patrolling the outside of the building, but she must be here. The locator device is beeping like crazy.

  Glen stepped out of his vehicle and entered the building. He was surprised by what he saw. There seemed to be an infinite tangle of conveyor belts crisscrossing throughout the room. Glen had to duck his head under some of them. They carried massive rocks, all steadily rolling along until being fed into enormous machines, which ground them down before spitting out their dust.

  “It looks like this is some sort of mining facility,” Glen said, barely able to hear his own voice above the hum of the machinery. “I guess those machines grind down the rocks and extract their minerals. But where do all the rocks come from?”

  Glen soon had his answer. The wildly beeping locator device led him down, down, down through a long tunnel into a cavern far below the moon’s surface. Machines swinging pickaxes chopped away at the cavern walls, causing large pieces of rock to fall onto the ground. Different machines, these with shovels, then scooped up the fallen pieces and put them onto the conveyor belt leading back up the tunnel.

  At any other time, Glen might have been interested in watching the mining operation. But now he had only one thing on his mind: Find Salerno! Glen looked down at the locator device and saw that the arrow was flashing white. Looking up, he saw a garage-style door. I have you now! Glen thought, pulling it up.

  But Salerno wasn’t there. Instead, it was just a room full of mining machines, many covered with dust cloths. And spinning around in the middle of the room was a malfunctioning robot with a beeping gadget tied to its back.

  “It’s the signal,” Glen said, furious. “Salerno took the tracking signal from her suit and attached it to this robot!”

  He saw that there was something else tied to the robot: a note.

  I’m sorry I had to do this, Glen, but you know how important this mission is to me. Please forgive me and NEVER stop exploring—RS

  “Darn it!” he shouted. “She tricked me again!” Angrily, Glen kicked a rock. “Ouch!” he wailed, hopping around on his other foot. “I hate this place!”

  He sunk to the ground, hanging his head low. Glen had had enough of this moon adventure and just wanted to go home. Two hundred thousand miles away from Earth and all alone, Glen thought about everything that had gone wrong.

  “That Salerno is such a cheater,” Glen said aloud. “She fooled me into following her here. Now she could be anywhere. And why am I even here on the moon? If Slayton had just stopped the launch, or if Hatcher hadn’t been such a chicken, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Glen was feeling so sorry for himself that he felt his eyes moisten. As a single teardrop rolled down his cheek, he said, “But this is really all Dad’s fault. If he hadn’t dragged me to Cape Carpenter in the first place, none of this would have happened. He knew I didn’t want to go!”

  Glen sat for a long time feeling this way, thinking of everyone who was responsible for his troubles. Eventually, though, he ran out of people to blame.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess I could have just stayed with Dad. If I hadn’t insisted on going off on my own, I never would have ended up in Mission Control. And if I hadn’t gone to Mission Control, I wouldn’t have been sent to help Hatcher.” Glen considered this, how all his troubles began as soon as he left his dad’s side.

  Sheesh, he thought. Why didn’t I just stay with him? After all, he was only trying to spend some time with me. I bet he’s worried sick now.

  Glen sat for another minute, imagining how hard this must be for his dad. At last, he stood up and said, “No, this isn’t Dad’s fault, and blaming everyone else isn’t going to get me home any sooner. I have to find Salerno!”

  But how?

  Glen didn’t know how he was going to find her when, by this point, she could be anywhere on the moon. But he did know that he needed to get going. First, though, he wanted to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  Glen grabbed one of the dust cloths covering a nearby piece of machinery and used it to dry his face. As he pulled the sheet back, he was astounded by what he saw.

  “Oh my gosh! It’s the Geiger counter!” Glen exclaimed.

  It was true. Under the cloth was the very instrument Salerno had been looking for.

  “Well done, son,” said Slayton, who had heard Glen over his headset. “That’s a critical find. If you can use it to find that Number Four thing, you should be able to draw Salerno out of hiding.”

  Glen heard Slayton but was already running back through the mining facility to reach his rover outside. He didn’t need to be told that the Geiger counter could help him lure Salerno from wherever she was. All he needed to do now was find Number Four.

  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.

  Number Four

  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.