SUNGLASESS AND ROCKETS Part 2: The Machine

MAMA BAT (THROUGH THE BACK DOOR)

I came around in a flash.

"No! No!" I screamed.

Some fingers were opening my eyes coarsely, which strived to close due to a strong white light.

"No!" I went on.

The light blinded me. I choked on air and began to cough; I wasn't wearing the helmet anymore. Now, I felt the pressure of a hand holding me by the chin. I found myself sitting down, hands to the back, imprisoned against the hard back of an uncomfortable chair.

Or better described, ready to initiate a torture session.

A minute later, I found out that fortunately, I was wrong.

"He's fine," I heard saying in perfect English.

The pressure on my face came to an end and the hands released me.

"I'm okay," at that moment, the doctor's voice was heard saying. "You don't need to examine me."

I was regaining my vision and before I could spot the doctor, someone was helping me out.

"We need to speak to Voodoo," the doctor was heard requesting. "It's urgent."

"You'll see him right away," a voice replied. "He wants to speak to you too."

My vision was almost clear. I noticed a man in a gray uniform was examining Darwin's eyes, sitting on a bench at the edge of a white wall. I was a couple of feet away. I realized that Darwin was no longer wearing his space suit, he was only wearing thermal garments.

I looked down my chest and discovered that my outfit was now similar to Darwin's: only thermals. I looked around trying to find the doctor, and somehow, an explanation. He was next to me. He saw me and made it clear that he'd answer our questions later on:

"Hush," he whispered.

Actually, too much explaining was not necessary: the three of us, handcuffed and wearing light clothes, were in a white hall, guarded by armed men.

Yet, the doctor's plan was coming about. They had picked us up from the other side of the moon, they had taken us to the base and now we were close to interviewing with Voodoo: when Darwin's physical concluded, a yellow light on the side of the hatch turned green and the hatch slid open.

"Move it," one of the gorillas said.

We got out of what evidently would have been a decompression room, and escorted by the guards, we started to walk through a gigantic hangar whose proportions reminded of the silo in Livingston; the majestic structure came out of the rock itself.

In the distance, I noticed a launch pad holding a sophisticated Bat...

Unlike the Earth silo, this complex, somewhat narrower, lodged many launch pads: you could observe, in an incredibly distant background, three more towers, one after the other. Curiously, they were inclined 45 degrees and only the first one was holding a rocket...

Bewildered, I raised my eyes and searched for the hatches above the shuttles.

I only found some yellow reflectors, whose hexagonal proportion was identical to the Bat's cave.

There was no sign of hatches in the ceiling. And I couldn't look for them, I tripped on something and lost my balance.

"Watch out!" Darwin exclaimed.

Then, a crack was heard. I noticed that the guards behind us raised their arms and pointed at us.

I swallowed hard and stayed still.

"Please," the doctor interceded, on the other end. "It was just a slip."

Another guard who preceded us turned around and cast me a fulminating look. I totally got the message: either I'd learned to walk on the moon or I'd die.

Naturally I chose the first: during the following minutes I didn't see anything but the ground, furrowed by wide rails that ran through the hangar end to end.

Were the space platforms unsteady? Did any distant wall from that vast structure open for the eventual shuttle traffic heading to a space port?

My suspicion was confirmed when we stopped at the doors of a building, wedged in the middle of one of the rocky walls: my eyes accidentally bumped against a far and gigantic hatch which stood up from the ground to about 180 feet high, the port must be on the other side, I thought.

I couldn't see more. The hatches of what was an elevator opened and we entered.

A sinking in my lower belly advised me that we were going up.

More than five minutes passed before the feeling was back and we stopped. That disturbed me. Had we gone that far up?

Anyway, that was irrelevant.

Or maybe not...a tremor jolted the elevator fiercely. The hatches would not open. Inside, the only ones freaked out were Darwin and me. All the guards did was stick their guns to us and the doctor just looked at us and assented prudently.

Holy cow!

Finally, the doors opened and we set out quickly in a corridor which didn't match at all the idea that I had about lunar facilities. The walls were ecru, the floor, waxed, formed by flashy green squares and the row of round reflectors of moderate yellow light, discreetly inlaid in the ceiling granted, gave the building a business center appearance...

Empty, just like the other sections.

After turning a corner, two huge doors slid in opposite directions. An elegant and spacious round room, half lit appeared before us.

It was obviously a board room.

At the end, in a sublevel, you could see a huge oval table. The silhouettes of about five people were gathered on one end. They were arguing.

We stopped a short distance from the steps that led to the sublevel.

"Sir," one of the guards said.

The argument came to halt. A silhouette sitting at the end of the table turned around. I had the impression that he was watching us with utmost interest. Then, the mysterious character addressed his colleagues, apologizing maybe, and got up from his seat. Then he approached energetically.

I gulped, and looked at Darwin discreetly, next to me.

We both knew it. Our fate would be determined in the next instants and maybe the entire planet's destiny...