Lost On The Moon: And Other Tales Of Science Fiction

Smashwords Edition

Lost On The Moon: And Other Tales of Science Fiction

By Brendan DuBois

Copyright 2013 by Brendan DuBois.

This collection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors' imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

All Rights Reserved.

Forward

I’m a child of the Sixties, but not the kind of child that wore love beads and marched in protests or who fought against The Man. For one thing, I was too young, and for another thing, I was too entranced by the space program and the incredible advances that were being made in science to care much about anything else. I grew up in household with three older brothers and read their cast-off paperbacks and comic books, and I instantly gravitated to those stories of space ships and exploration. That’s what took hold of my imagination and my time, not the great cultural convulsions that marked that strange decade.

Science fiction… ah! Living in a small town in New Hampshire, going to Catholic schools, I found science fiction to be a wonderful escape from the humdrum and the chaotic times of the Sixties. (For those fans of the TV series Mad Men, trust me, the Sixities weren’t that great.) I quickly devoured the works of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and so many, many others. Hard to believe, but in the early 1970s, my parents took me a younger brother on a long, long drive from New Hampshire to Cape May, N.J., where my older brother was stationed in the U.S. Coast Guard. One of my fondest memories of that trip was finding a bookstore that had about a half-dozen Heinlein novels I had never read before, and I think I read most of them on the long drive back.

How’s that for proudly flying my geek flag?

And with my love of science fiction was an equal love for the U.S. space program. One of my earliest memories is seeing the aborted launch of Gemini VI, piloted by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, and I also remember the sadness of the Apollo 1 launch pad fire that killed Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee. Along the way, I built Revell models of the Saturn V rocketship and the lunar landing module, and I put up posters in my bedroom that I got from writing to NASA in Houston and at the Goddard center in Maryland.

Of course, my most special memory is yawning and staying up late on Sunday, July 20, 1969, and watching man’s first steps on the moon.

Grammar school went to high school and then college. My love of science fiction and fantasy brought me into fandom for a few frantic and joyous years, and when I started writing stories, I immediately went to my first love, science fiction.

I wrote scores and scores of science fiction stories, and got scores and scores of rejections from all the science fiction magazines. But on one special day in 1988, I decided to send out a science fiction story to a mystery magazine ---- Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine --- and instead of getting a rejection slip, I got a contract.

At the time, I decided I couldn’t fight market forces, and I enthusiastically embraced the mystery field, writing and selling scores of mystery stories, and eventually publishing my first mystery novel in 1994. Soon I was an established mystery writer in the field, getting novel after novel published, winning awards and being re-published in numerous anthologies.

But in odd moments, my heart and eyes would turn back to science and science fiction. Along with my yearly memberships in the Mystery Writers of America, the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League, I also kept up my membership in the Planetary Society and the National Space Society.

Occasionally I tried again to sell a science fiction story, and like clockwork, the rejection slips came back.

But good luck and karma came to me in the guise of Tekno Books, run by the incredible (and, alas, deceased) Marty Greenberg and his very able assistant, John Helfers. Marty and his Tekno Books were acclaimed for packaging together original anthologies of short stories that had a theme to it, and I soon found myself finally seeing my science fiction tales in print.

Now, I’ve gathered most of my science fiction stories in the following collection, and I hope you enjoy them. I still consider myself a mystery and suspense author, but there’s that small part of me that still travels in space, to the outer planets and other fantastic places.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Introduction

All my life the collected works of Robert Heinlein have been at my side. Even today, forty or so years after reading them for the first time, I often pick up book or short story to dive back into Heinlein’s universe. I know there’s been charges of sexism and militarism in Heinlein’s works over the years, but I still can’t put his stories down. There’s a vibrance, energy and sense of story in all of his works. (Except for maybe the Number of the Beast…)

When I was a junior high school boy, one thing I loved about Heinlein’s works were his references to the Boy Scouts. As a Boy Scout at the time, I loved reading tales of Scouts in the future --- like the novel Farmer in the Sky or the short stories such as The Dark Pits of Luna and Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon --- which told me that even if we went to the Moon or Ganymede, Boy Scouts would still be there.

That inspired the first story in this collection, Lost on the Moon, which I wrote with Heinlein and his Scouting stories in mind.

Lost on the Moon

So about five hours into the fifty-kilometer hike for my Lunar Orienteering Merit Badge, I took stock of the situation, such as it was. I checked the digital read-out on the right cuff of my pressure suit. Just over one hour of air left. For about the twentieth time, I toggled the radio, to see if I could raise the Colony, and all I got was loud static. Still broken. I switched it off, now listened to the soft murmur of the fans and motors of my life support backpack. I took a sip of water from a tube near my chin. At least I wouldn’t die of thirst, but that wasn’t much of a consolation.

I slowly looked around, at the lunar soil, boulders and the craters all about me, some of the craters as tiny as my thumb, others big enough to swallow our Colony’s entire complement of rovers. Everything was in shades of gray and the sun was out, where it would stay for another week. There were plenty of footprints before me but they didn’t help a bit: up here, a footprint that’s ten years old looks as fresh as one that’s ten seconds old. Part of the charm of my home world, but of no use in trying to retrace your steps.

I took a deep breath, tried to steady my beating heart. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Five hours ago I had gone out to earn my merit badge, and I should have been back hours ago, getting ready for the Court of Honor with Father and Mother and my buds from Troop One, to receive my latest award on the long path to Eagle Scout.

But instead I was lost. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Earlier I should have turned back when the radio went dead, but I was so close to finishing my orienteering requirements… and I wanted to show everyone I could earn my badge, without having to re-schedule for another hike, because no matter what you’ve heard, we don’t get out on the surface much. We spend most of our time in the underground tunnels, working to keep the Colony thriving, and it takes special permission to come out on the surface, and even more special permission to go out alone.

And that’s the point of going out alone for this merit badge. To show you were skilled enough to do the hike by yourself, so that if you were ever stranded on the surface, you could find your way back. Oh, the Colony council isn’t stupid: you go out with radio and emergency beacon, so you’re never in any real danger. But my radio was dead, and I hated the thought of triggering the emergency beacon. That’d set off alarms all through the Colony, and I’d be humiliated that someone had to come rescue me. Pretty funny, eh? A Boy Scout who needs to be rescued.

I looked around again. Dumb, dumb, dumb! By triggering the emergency beacon, everybody in the Colony --- and maybe even some media channels from Earth –-- would quickly find out that a Boy Scout on his orienteering hike got lost and needed help. Not the way I had planned the day. And the humiliation… I’d always be known as the Scout who got lost and had to call for help.

Ouch.

I looked at my right cuff again. The digital read-out for my air flipped over from 60:02 to 60:01 to 60:00. Sixty minutes. One hour left. Rules were rules. If lost on the surface with one hour left, you had to trigger your emergency beacon. No exception. And if you didn’t trigger the beacon, and somehow you survived and got back to the Colony in one piece, then you’d be banned forever from going back up on the surface. Sort of like home confinement or home imprisonment, with no chance of parole or appeal.

I took another deep breath. Well, I wasn’t about to be banned. I’d trigger the beacon, take my lumps from Father and Mother, my buds in Troop One and the Colony administrators, and maybe in a couple of months, I could try it again, and this time, do it right.

I raised up my suited left arm, looked down through my helmet visor, and saw the bright orange lanyard dangling from my wrist. Above the lanyard was a little screen, glowing amber. Pull the lanyard, the amber light would turn green, and the beacon would start screaming. I’d just wait then, feeling foolish, waiting to see a rover eventually come my way, its fat wire wheels churning up moon dust, the driver following the electronic screech of my beacon.

Damn.

Well, here we go. I reached up my thick-gloved hand, slid my first finger through the lanyard, and tugged it free.

I imagined now what it was now like, back at the Colony, at the comm center. Lights would be flashing, chimes would be ringing, and the on-duty rescue squad would start suiting up, heading to one of the surface garages where the rovers were stored.

I looked down at my left wrist, and it was like the cooling system in my suit had kicked into overdrive, for I was frozen in place.

The amber light should have switched over to green, telling me the beacon had been activated.

But the little light wasn’t amber. And wasn’t green.

It was red.

The beacon wasn’t working.

My radio wasn’t working.

I quickly looked at my right wrist. The air read-out said 59:35 and as I watched, it went to 59:34, 59:33, 59:32….

I was lost, and I had less than an hour to live.

Just over five hours earlier, I was in the Main Transit room of the Colony, ready to head out. It had lockers with suits and life support backpacks, boots and other gear, for the Colony didn’t have enough suits for everyone: you had to request one in advance. Even then, it had taken about an hour to get my pressure suit on, starting with sanitary stuff, the underalls, the cooling tubes, the suit itself with boots and gloves, with Father patiently helping me along. So after the hour had gone by, all that was left was my helmet, which Father held in his hands. He said, I saw Rudy just a while ago, Jake. He tells you to nail this sucker, and he’ll see you next month.

I smiled. My best friend Rudy should have been here to wish me luck but he was heading out on the monthly transport to Earth, leaving later today, to check out some colleges for next year. His folks are old fashioned like that; they’d rather spend the money for Jake to go back to Earth and see things first-hand instead of relying on the ‘net. Of course, poor Jake would spend his first few days in bed or a powered chair, adjusting to the full-gee gravity of Earth.

That’s okay, I said. I’ll tell him all about it later.

I think he’s scheduled in two months for the same badge, so I guess you’ll be one up on him, eh?

I grinned. That’s right.

He chuckled and then his mood changed. You ready? he asked, his eyes serious. We’re about the same height but his face was lined and weathered brown, for having spent so much time on the surface during the early Colony days and having his skin exposed to changes in pressure and temperature. He was one of the original colonists, coming up here to build the first structures, and he was also our Scoutmaster. Truth be told, we weren’t much of a troop –- just me and five other guys --- but we were officially recognized back on Earth and had the same ranks and earned the same merit badges, with some exceptions, of course. I mean, on the moon, you can’t earn a merit badge for canoeing or swimming, and back on Earth, you can’t earn a merit badge for lunar geology or lunar orienteering, the one I was trying out for.

Sure, dad, I’m ready, I said. Let’s go.

He came forward with the helmet and his last words were, Don’t fool around, Jake. Be prepared, and do it right.

You bet, dad, I said, as the helmet descended over my head. Be prepared.

With helmet fastened and secured, I went to the airlock and closed the oval hatchway behind me, and triggered the Processing switch. Then I waited for the depressurization to finish up, for the push bar on the outer door to blink from red to green. When it turned green, I leaned against the push bar and stepped outside, onto the familiar lunar soil. It seemed odd, to be out here by myself, but that was the whole point.

Comm check, Jake, came a voice in my helmet.

Read you five by five, dad, I said.

Good enough, came the reply. Go on out and be safe.

So I started loping away from the few surface structures for the Colony, other hatchways from the sub-surface, some huts containing equipment or the rovers, and a row of antennas and satellite dishes. Some distance away, I saw the spindly shape of the ferrycraft, ready to head out in a bit with my bud Rudy, going to Earth for his college tour.

I started following a trail of footprints and rock cairns that led out from the airlock I had just departed. Here on the Moon, my weight is one-sixth of what’d be back on Earth, so I was able to move pretty quickly. And truth be told, the orienteering is pretty easy, following the rock cairns and footprints from earlier travelers. You do a pre-trip prep, figure out where you’re going and how long it should take, and then off you go. You stay on the path, follow the cairns, and it can be a piece of cake. Of course, I’ve only had cake a few times in my life; for birthdays and such.

About an hour into my hike, loping along with good effort, not breathing too hard and taking a break every now and then for some sips of water, my radio earbuds crackled again with Father’s voice. Jake, this is Colony comm center. How are you doing?

Just a few minutes from the halfway point, I said.

Then there was sputter of static, I could make out Father’s voice, and then… nothing.

The radio was dead.

And the rules said I needed to turn back --- now! --- but darn it, I was so close. Who would know?

So I kept on moving, and sure enough, in a few minutes, I was at the halfway point.

Tranquility Base.

I took a quick pic with my digital camera that was stored in a large side pocket on my right leg, to prove that I had really gotten here, and then I spent a few minutes, just looking at the remains of the very first landing, back in 1969, even before Father was born: the lower structure of the LM, some of the scientific equipment, the two life support backpacks dumped out when their first walk was completed, and the American flag, on its side after the blast-off from the upper stage knocked it over. I came as close as I dared, for the most hard and fast rule in the Colony is to leave Tranquility Base alone, showing it the respect it deserves.

I looked at it with some awe, breathing easy and fine, thinking about how brave those two guys had been, coming here all the way from Earth on such a primitive piece of machinery, landing off course, quickly running out of fuel. Hell, I had more computer power in one little sub-system on my suit than those ballsy guys had in their entire spaceship, including the command and service module, and the Saturn V that had blasted them off the ground.

Sure made them tough back then. Of course, the fact both Armstrong and Aldrin had earlier been Boy Scouts had probably helped, too. I gave the LM lower stage a proper Scout salute, and then started going back, pleased that I had made it and was going home, with plenty of time to spare.

So I reversed course, following the cairns, and after a few minutes, it happened. I saw something out of the corner of my eye: a bit of color. In a place where’s everything shades of gray, color is special, and I wanted see what it was. So I turned to the left, where I thought I had seen that flash of color… and it was farther away than I thought, and when I got there, I saw it was a bit of orange fabric that somebody as a joke had stuck on top of a boulder, probably from some carrying case for scientific instruments. Some joke. Hah-hah. And then I saw a bit of crystalline rock, further on, and spent some time investigating that, thinking it might look good in my collection back in my home tube, but it wasn’t as special as I had thought. So I took a break, took a couple of swallows of water, turned around and –

No orange color. Where did it go?

I went out a bit to where I thought it had been, saw nothing… and then looked some more in another place among the rocks… and saw the mass of footprints on the soil, leading off in every direction… and that’s when I knew I was lost.

And I was still lost. I looked again at my wrist read out: 48:15 and declining, and even though I tried to fight it, I could hear my breathing quicken in my helmet, as panic tried to seize me and take control. I flashed back to the Boy Scout handbook from Earth that I had read and re-read while studying to be a Tenderfoot, a book that Father had brought up years ago, a book that was tattered and held together by tape, shared with the other five guys in our troop. Man, scouts back on Earth had it easy… you could be lost for days and still make it, because air was all around you, with no chance of suffocating.

And if lost on Earth, I remembered all the handbook lessons: light a signal fire, follow flowing water downstream, make an SOS out of stones. But there was no flowing water on the moon, no possibility of a fire, and I could probably scrape a big SOS in the soil with my boots, but the Colony had no flying craft… just the monthly transport to the Earth and the ground rovers. And with no magnetic field on the moon, a compass was useless.

I closed my eyes, tried to think. Remembered what Father had said: be prepared. But with no radio and no emergency transponder, what could I do?

Be prepared. Think. I looked up at the stars. They could guide me south to the Colony’s location, but that was just a general direction, not specific. I could head south and still miss the Colony by a klick or two. But I started walking to the south anyway, loping along, willing myself not to look at my wristband, trying not to think what Father and Mother must be going through right now, because I was overdue, but to find me with a rover would be nearly impossible without a working radio or emergency beacon on my part…

I was breathing hard, looking at the harsh surface, knowing all I had now was my mind and my Scout training and –

The horizon was in front of me. Nothing recognizable. But the Colony was over there, somewhere. And with the low horizon, I could pass by it by only a few klicks and still miss the damn thing. That old Boy Scout handbook had said something else, too, about being lost. Don’t wander around. Stay still. You’ll be found soon enough. Sure, I thought. Back in a place where you had search and rescue teams, and aircraft, and those special dogs that can sniff and follow a trail for klicks and klicks. Nothing like that here.

Stand still.

The book said to stand still. I looked at my wrist read-out again, now calculating, thinking of numbers, of schedules, and willed myself to stand still, to listen to the Handbook, not to move, just to let my head swivel, back and forth, back and forth, and –--

There! Right there!

A bright glaring dot of light, rising up from the horizon, the monthly transport to Earth from