Lunar Colony (8 page)

Glen passed through the medical facility, which was where the astronauts came when they were sick or injured. Ever since he had his tonsils removed when he was six, he’d hated hospitals. And now, as he passed by examination rooms full of medical equipment used to poke and prod, he realized that hospitals on the moon were just as bad.

Man, this place gives me the creeps,
Glen thought.
I wanna get out of here.
He considered just giving up and searching somewhere else, but he knew he couldn’t do that, not if he hoped to ever make it home. So, Glen took a deep breath and continued his search.

He was passing by a door marked
RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION
, when he noticed a beeping noise coming from within the room. He slowly
opened the door and peered inside. The beeping was definitely coming from somewhere nearby, but Glen’s attention was drawn to something else. There, in front of a large mirror, was a contraption made of two discs situated on top of a base.

“Cool,” Glen said, “it’s a gyroscope trainer. Astronauts strap themselves inside of these things to learn how to tolerate space travel.” Glen knew that his body had already been through a lot for one day, but he couldn’t resist trying it out. He strapped himself in and pressed the
ON
button. Immediately, the gyroscope started spinning every which way.

The world around Glen was a blur, but as he spun, he saw something that shocked him. For only a split second, it looked like he could see through the large mirror, and there, in a room on the other side, was a woman!

Glen didn’t know if the gyroscope was distorting his vision, but he frantically reached for the
OFF
button, until, at last, the spinning stopped.

He came to a halt and, after unstrapping himself, jumped down. Unfortunately for Glen, his body wasn’t
done spinning, and his rubbery legs gave way beneath him. Crawling across the floor, he looked up and saw that the room was whirling above him. But the mirror looked normal.

Still a little dizzy, he managed to pull himself to his feet and put his face to the glass. Again, nothing seemed strange. It was just a mirror, not a window into a room. And he certainly didn’t see a woman.

“Hello?” he said, tapping on the mirror. “Is someone there?” No
one answered, but he did hear something else. The beeping noise was definitely coming from the other side of the glass.

Leaving the Research and Experimentation room, Glen turned left down the hall, where almost immediately he found another door, this one marked
RESEARCH OBSERVATION
.

Entering, he saw several chairs facing a large window that looked out upon the gyroscope in the room he’d just left. Glen was so astonished that he barely noticed that the beeping was now very loud.

“Oh my gosh,” he said. “It’s a two-way mirror! The researchers must use this room to observe the experiments without being seen.” Then, overcome with an eerie feeling, he said, “There really was a woman here a minute ago. And that could only be one person!”

Glen popped his head out into the hall and looked up and down the corridor. He knew, though, that Salerno must be long gone by now. He sat down in one of the chairs in the observation room and shook his head in disbelief over how close he’d been to her.

“Shoot!” he said, once again feeling frustrated. “If only I’d come into this room first, I would have caught her. Right now I could be bringing her back home.”

Glen was upset by his bad luck, but the longer he sat, the more irritated he got by the beeping sound.

“What is that noise?” he said, getting up. He couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from, but it was really getting on his nerves. “Be quiet!” he said, kicking the wall. Then, to Glen’s surprise, his kick caused something to fall from the ceiling vent. It hit the ground with a thud.

Hey, what is that?
Glen wondered, bending down for a closer look. It was a mechanical instrument, about the size of a brick. A wire stuck out of one end, and an arrow blinked red in time with the beeps that had bothered Glen so much. Picking it up and finding that it was surprisingly heavy, Glen realized what he’d found.

“It’s the locator device,” he said. Turning around, he noticed that the red arrow turned green. He took a few steps forward, out into the hall,
and saw that the frequency of the blinks and beeps had increased. “It must be leading me to Salerno!”

With his spirits high once again, Glen exited the medical facility and hopped into his rover.

The rover raced across the moon, following the locator device’s tracking signal. Glen looked down at the device, which he’d placed on the passenger seat, and saw that the green arrow was flashing more and more rapidly.

I guess I’m headed in the right direction,
he thought. As he used his left hand to steer, he used his right to take out the journal and flip to the map.
It looks like the signal is leading me to something called the biodome. That must be where Salerno is hiding!

Glen was happy, knowing that soon enough he’d have Salerno and be allowed to return home. With his foot pressed to the floor, he said, “I’m coming for you, Commander.”

But then something distracted Glen, and he veered off his path to have a better look. It was another obelisk, identical to the one he’d seen before
but with different engravings. Glen fumbled for the notebook and found what he was looking for.

“Aha!” he said. “Here it is, Number One. This must be the first structure Salerno found.” He was mesmerized by the towering object and burned to know more about it. What did its strange engravings mean, how did it get here, and most importantly, what was it used for?

“Son, do you copy? I say, do you copy?” It was Slayton’s voice. He’d been barking over Glen’s headset for several minutes, but it was just now that Glen heard him, so fascinated was he by the mysterious structure in front of him.

“Yes, sir, I copy,” Glen said, shaking himself from his daydream.

“Son, you’re wasting time. Now, quit stalling and get back on track!” ordered Slayton.

“Yes, sir, I will. But what can you tell me about these stone structures I’m finding out here?” Glen asked.

“Jeez-a-loo!” Slayton shouted. “Don’t tell me you’re turning into Salerno and getting all mushy-brained over those things.”

“No, sir, I’m not. I’m just wondering—”

“Well, stop your wondering,” Slayton said. “I don’t know what those things are, probably just natural rock formations. Truth is, I don’t really care. What I do care about is finding that missing astronaut. Do you copy?”

“Yes, sir, I copy,” Glen said quietly. He walked back to the rover, feeling torn. He
did
want to find Salerno and get home, but his curiosity was hard to ignore. Despite what Slayton said, there was no way those structures just
happened
. Someone or something put them there. But who? And why?

Glen tried to shake these questions from his
head as he drove. The green arrow of the locator device was now beeping wildly, and he saw the biodome up ahead.

Parking the rover outside, Glen stepped out and entered the building. Unlike the other facilities, which were filled with white corridors and many rooms, the biodome was just one open space. Plants crawled up the enormous glass walls all the way to the domed ceiling, which was also made of glass.

I think I’ve heard about this place,
Glen said to himself.
This is where the astronauts grew their food and did experiments on vegetation.
He looked around and was astonished at the size of some of the vegetables. There were apples and tomatoes the size of basketballs.
That’s amazing,
Glen thought.
I wonder why their fruits and vegetables grow so big. Maybe it has something to do with the moon’s gravity.

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.