SUNGLASSES AND ROCKETS Part 1 : New Moon

ON THE ROAD

We left almost at once. Felix had taken care of putting the space suits, the radiation detectors, the bundles of wire, the harpoons, and other tools for the mission in the spacious storage area of the vehicle.

We were travelling in a Land Rover Discovery.

In a matter of minutes we turned onto a narrow dirt road that led to the outskirts of the village. Neglected houses and wooden huts filed by the windows, laid out among wastelands full of bushes and palm trees.

And soon the road, if you can call it that, had become narrower and steeper. The dense branches of the enormous trees almost covered up the sky. The rays of the sun filtered weakly through the leaves. In effect, the intensity of the light had diminished noticeably. Motivated by curiosity, or perhaps by restlessness, I opened the window.

You could immediately hear birds squawking. We were deep in the heart of the jungle!

"This is the road," the doctor affirmed in a satisfied tone.

Road? I repeated to myself.

"This is it," Vanessa corroborated. "The GPS works great."

There was no road. Just jungle. Felix had downshifted to the point that we were moving along barely at a roll. The Discovery descended slowly, jostling from side to side, flattening all vegetation that came in its path. Thick branches came at us from every angle, noisily scraping the sides of our vehicle.

"I don't see any road..." Darwin observed.

"You're right," the doctor admitted. "In fact, the real road isn't on the ground."

"It's actually an aerial route," Vanessa clarified.

"Aerial?" I questioned.

"That's it," the doctor replied. "The mines have been abandoned for sixty years..."

Felix, as unemotional as ever, limited himself to driving. At that moment he was making his way around enormous fallen tree trunks.

"A roadway on the ground doesn't exist anymore," the doctor completed after all the bumping around.

"Don't worry boys," Vanessa added calmly. "I know the area perfectly. We used to come here with my group of girl-scouts some years back."

Shoot! That was all I needed. The delicate part of the mission was nothing like having to depend on an Explorer Chick. However, it turned out that the guide had been chosen precisely by Moses Masterton. And Moses Masterton was an eccentric. So that unusual choice should not have surprised me. On the other hand, I was so in love with Vanessa that, against my better judgment, the selection ended up looking quite sensible to me.

The next half hour went by in silence. We passengers of the Discovery had dedicated ourselves to absorbed contemplation of the jungle that surrounded us. It was Darwin that interrupted the silence.

"If there's no official road to the coal mines...how is it possible that they've constructed a space launch pad there?"

"Good question, Darwin," the doctor admitted. "Most of the material would have been transported using helicopters..." he paused. "Although I don't doubt that later on some kind of road leading to the mines will appear..."

Just then Felix stopped the vehicle. We were in front of a deep ravine. The end of the road.

"What does the GPS say?" the doctor asked.

"9.3 miles to go," his niece replied.

Felix looked at the doctor. Onward, the latter said, without hesitation.

Oh God! Felix came off the brakes and turned the steering wheel to the right. In the second row, we instinctively pressed against the seats in front. We adjusted our seatbelts. My stomach felt queasy. The vehicle lurched forward, and just then, the horizon slowly began to wobble. Suddenly, the Discovery started to slide.

"Hold on!" the doctor shouted.

A violent descent, almost vertically, began. You could say that instead of descending, we fell. The Discovery was brutally shaken from side to side, as were its passengers. You could hear bangs coming from every side. We were dragging along the rocks and branches that were coming loose. We had formed some kind of avalanche. The speed was dizzying! The passengers bounced off the ceiling and against the seats! It was chaos!

We suddenly came to a halt. We had arrived the bottom of the precipice. We were alive. The seatbelts had worked.

"Are you okay?" it seemed the doctor was asking.

My head was spinning, and I regretted having eaten so much for breakfast. Even though I was dizzy I turned towards Vanessa. Poor girl! She looked so defenseless. I put my arm around her shoulders.

"Calm down, my dear," I whispered into her ear. "Everything will be all right. I'm here."

She immediately separated herself from my arm.

"Thanks Gordo," she told me quite seriously. "I can take care of myself."

"But..."

Just then the doctor and Felix opened their doors. I mechanically did the same. A humid, stagnant heat immediately hit me. There wasn't even a light breeze blowing.

We got out of the vehicle.

"Well, Darwin?" the doctor said, looking at our surroundings. "What do you think of this road?"

We were at the bottom of an absolute abyss. It had to be at least 230 feet deep. The layout of the rocks on the ground was somehow reminiscent of that of a river. Darwin crouched down and picked up a stone.

"I suppose that..."

"Observe," the doctor said, signaling towards a worn-out boot on a rock. "We're on our way."

"Uncle," the Vanessa pointed out, "This is the only road you can take to the coal mines."

"Perfect," the doctor came back. "Felix, what state is the Discovery in?"

"Good," he responded, coming out of his silence, and he immediately turned to contemplate the scene with his usual indifference.

I kept quiet. Not because I didn't want to speak, but because my mind was busily working to register everything surrounding us. It was a marvelous scene. The vegetation on the mountainsides was so exuberant that it looked otherworldly. The distant cry of birds reached down into the depths of the abyss. Long vines hung from the thick underbrush in the upper part of the cliff. We found ourselves in the heart of a majestic tropical forest, at the bottom of a precipice. Quite fascinating.

The only thing that worried me was how to get back to the hotel...