Black devil

For billions of years, two companions have been circling in a cosmic dance around a yellow dwarf. Cheerful and obstinate the blue Earth. Calm and chilling the soul with a cold-blooded face the Moon, which is famous not only for the dark side, but also for the mysterious spirit that pierces through it. It is as if it is an otherworldly reflection of the Earth, where shadows occasionally wander through the deserts, some disturbances occur that frighten the observer. All this time, the pale luminary was a haven for ghosts, until the Earth, with its boldness, touched the eternal companion.

"Lieutenant Osborne?" a man's voice sounded over the phone."Yes, I'm listening,"Jane replied.
"International Space Agency, Vladimir Zelenko. There is an interesting job for you, Lieutenant...
After the call, Jane went to the living room, where the TV was turned on. There, a paleontologist spoke about a three-meter fossil. Unknown to science, the fossil looked like a creature of plant origin. But Osborne was not interested, and she turned off the TV.
Entering the kitchen, she took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and, walking around the house with a philosophical moisture, tried to interpret the unsaid words from the last call.
Osborne looked at the framed photo of her in the uniform of a special forces soldier and mentally said:
"Space Agency... Space.... Have the Martians rebelled?" smirking, Jane a bit with annoyance continued train of thought. " Not. On this planet, at least a harmless insect was found."
She went to the window and saw the pale moon in the daytime sky. The satellite of the Earth hypnotically attracted the girl's gaze. With each sip of beer, Jane became more and more lost in thought.
"Maybe someone on the Moon offends our astronauts? Exactly, offends, and then eats. Very funny, Jane," when the frivolity was reflected in black humor, the more serious girl began to think. "Surely the terrorists got to the spaceport that's the whole kitchen associated with the agency."
At some point, Jane Osborne took her eyes off the bewitching Selena and looked at the many photographs on the wall. On some, her friends and colleagues were no longer alive.
At that moment, the girl had a feeling of contempt for death, and memories of the military past flooded. She then knew the price of life, or, most likely, its priceless.
"Well, that's not an interesting job," Osborne said, and gulped down the rest of the beer in one gulp.

Jane visited the agency the next day. Walking down the corridor, she noticed photographs on the wall. On one: "Vladimir Zelenko one of the first to visit Mars."
Suddenly an old man came out of the office. Glancing at the old man, she was surprised by surprise. Osborne looked after Edwin Aldrin, who was well over a hundred years old.
Then Jane made sure that the office number was correct and hesitantly entered.
After a short time in the office.
"Of course, you are wondering why we invited you," said the man who had visited the red planet with Zelenko. Next to Osborne at a wide table sat Vladimir and several other persons. " From the moment the first man stepped on the moon, and we just talked with this legendary man, inexplicable phenomena were noticed on our companion. These facts are very mysterious and can adversely affect even the whole of humanity. We call these lunar phenomena phantoms."
"And how do these phantoms manifest themselves?" Osborne asked.
"Of course, this is not a ghostly activity. Phantoms manifest themselves in the form of flying luminous balls. On the dusty surface, there are traces of vehicles not connected with anything earthly, domes appearing and disappearing, eruptions of gases and dust when volcanism on the Moon ended billions of years ago. Someone lives on the Moon, or is it the unexplored nature of the satellite. We even doubted what the astronauts from the lunar bases saw. There was even a variant of mass psychosis of people who had been far from the Earth. Perhaps some kind of blue devils syndrome."
"Black devils," Jane jokingly corrected the scientist. She always considered the Moon to be a lifeless stone desert, and then suddenly scientists hint at some green men, or, rather, green lunatics.
"Black?" seriously continued scientist-astronaut. "It would be more correct to call this phenomenon the black threat. What you are about to see will not cause ridicule. Have you heard, lieutenant, about the accident on the moon, on a mobile base, near the craters of Doublet Companions?"
"Yes, the astronauts died there, due to someone's negligence."
"So the public knows."
On the big screen, on the wall, an image of the lunar landscape of the territory of the mobile base appeared. A running astronaut unexpectedly fell into the field of view of the lens; something very frightened. The low gravity forced him to move in a hurry with jumps, which only aggravated and slowed down the escape from the unknown threat. The astronaut looked back all the time, stumbled, fell and fought off some invisible enemy with his hands. Then it rose again and was thrown under the arm by the stones that fell, thus approaching the mobile base.
But the motor home was not so easy to enter; you need to dock with the back of the suit to the room and then get out of the bulky suit into cover.
Further, in a hurry, the astronaut made a gross mistake depressurization occurred during docking, and all people died.
The tape turned off, and the astronaut-scientist continued:
"Are these hallucinations caused by lunar disease black devils? Or the tricks of unknown intelligent beings phantoms? That, Lieutenant, is what we need to find out."
"You want me to fly to the moon!?"
"Yes, there will be two more with you. Also, military."
Sitting on the lunar rover, Osborn saw the contrasting horizon rippling in front of her. Above a black cosmic abyss, below a gray hilly desert. Sitting next to him were the commander of the reconnaissance expedition, Sergeo Ponini, and Lieutenant Chang Li."
"How nice to be on the moon," Jane thought. "It's not every day that you visit such fantastic places. And on the other hand how lousy here, or rather dangerous. A constant feeling of insecurity and insecurity. After all, if now, something happens to the spacesuit, there is nowhere to wait for help. Behind the thin line of clothing, death is constantly looking at me, moreover, confidently and ruthlessly."
Osborne smirked at the new thought. "The moon at this time is like spices in the hands of a cook they are exotic and beckon with their smell. And you can't eat them they are disgusting. But when the chef skillfully adds spices to the dish, they become the highlight that turns food into a culinary masterpiece. So Selena at this time is an alluring cryogenic hell, to which, it seemed, one would never get used to. There were no mirages or signs of life around. Terrible and dead; so it is possible to tell about the satellite of the Earth. But if moon spice is added to a dish of the latest technologies, then Selena will be transformed into an exotic oasis, at least in the nearest outer space. When it is possible to leave reliable biospheres for a walk through the lunar expanses, and enjoy the masterpieces of the universe with a calm soul, knowing that in unforeseen cases, a person will be helped in a matter of minutes then I would like to win a lucky ticket to the moon again. And now it's an interesting and very, very dumb job."