Loss of Signal

by Ricky Ginsburg

Conclusion

So far everything had been by the book. Step by step they had followed the mission plan. The stress that had been expected had been dealt with and the job was being done just the way they trained for it. But there is only so much errant stress that a pilot can deal with before he’s got to open a valve and release some pressure.

“Wait a minute, both of you; I’ve been spinning around the moon for several hours in this tin can. You want to talk about a lack of glory — let’s start with me.” Collins knew that he had swallowed a bitter pill. To come so far and never touch the moon; what were his chances of ever being here again? “Without weapons, without training for this contingency, maybe we should wait for Return Of Signal and ask Houston for a decision. Listen to yourselves, you sound like two bullies in a school yard. I don’t think either of you are qualified to make this kind of choice. We need to wait for Return Of Signal and get instructions from NASA.”

“That’s almost twenty minutes away. What if the spaceship leaves before ROS?”

“Okay, what if the spaceship attacks before ROS?”

“Someone needs to get out there and check it out now.” Buzz lifted the nine-pound helmet off his seat like an empty coconut shell and started to suit up.

“Put your helmet down, Buzz. No one’s going anywhere just yet.” Neil took a step towards the airlock, blocking his path. “And if anyone is going back out a second time it’s going to be me.”

Buzz Aldrin the fighter pilot took over for Buzz Aldrin the astronaut; Sybil would have been proud. Buzz rolled his right hand into a fist. He knew that the padded gloves would cause little damage to any part of Neil that he struck, but it felt good to prepare for a fight. “Listen Neil, I’ve been putting up with your ‘I’m the commander’ attitude for over three years of training and mission time. I gave you first rights to the step on the moon, but that’s all over now. If one of us is to be the first man to contact an alien from outer space, then I’m taking my turn. Put on your helmet and get out of the way so I can open the airlock.”

Neil looked at his fellow moon walker and shook his head. “You know back in the days of sailing ships they would call this a mutiny. I could have you keelhauled for insubordination. Put your helmet on and stay here. I’m going out by myself.”

He saw the punch coming and easily ducked out of the way. But Buzz Aldrin was unquestionably the stronger of the two men and just a bit more lithe even in a spacesuit. As he passed his commander, Buzz turned in the limited gravity and pushed off the cabin wall like a missile. He flew across the small cabin striking Neil squarely in the chest. The blow knocked Armstrong to the cabin floor. Buzz came to rest sitting on his back.

“I’m not going to argue about this, sir. You are the first man on the moon; I intend to be the first man to meet an alien. I suggest you put your helmet on quickly. I’m locking mine now and I’ll be opening the airlock door next.” As he heard the airtight snaps lock into place on his pilot’s helmet, Neil swiftly followed suit. The airlock wouldn’t open until the cabin was depressurized and that would give him 15 seconds that Aldrin hadn’t counted on.

With his helmet now securely locked, all that stood between historical glory and Buzz Aldrin was the airlock door. The radio crackled with life, “Tranquility, Columbia what’s going on down there?”

“Nothing Michael, I’m going EVA at this time. Neil is going to hang back.”

Neil matched the previously successful missile tactic, launching himself off the cabin wall opposite the airlock that Buzz was preparing to open. He tackled the fighter pilot around the waist but the low gravity just spun him around. The sound of his helmet crashing into the circular latch of the airlock door was broadcast across the ISC so loudly that Collins had to hold his ears for a second. “What the hell was that?” he almost shouted back to the LEM.

“You are not going out there. I’m still in charge of this mission and you are acting like a lunatic. Get a grip, Buzz!”

“No, commander, it’s you who appears to be suffering from either hypoxia or an out-of-control ego. Step out of the way, sir.”

“Buzz, sit the hell down. This is not your show.”

“Damn it, Neil, this is bullshit. I’ve no intention of being second to you the rest of my life. I’m going first. Stay here if you want or follow me out the door, but I’m going first.”

“Are you guys nuts? What the hell are you doing?”

“Shut up, Michael, you just drive our ride home. We’ll handle this from down here.”

“You know I could leave you two there and head home without you, right?”

“How would you explain that to the folks back home Michael?”

Again, Buzz lunged for Armstrong’s head. Maybe if he could wrap a velcro strap around his neck and tie it off to a handhold he could get out the airlock door fast enough. Neil ducked and pushed Aldrin off his feet. The two astronauts fell to the cabin floor and rolled back and forth, two turtles trying to fight while lying on their backs. Above them Michael Collins wondered if maybe he should just leave the two of them and head home to safety.

The sound started like an old crystal radio being tuned in to capture a distant station. The squeak and crackle grew louder until it became a squeal so loud that the men grabbed their ears and tried to block it out. Neil and Buzz released the latches and threw their helmets to the deck. The sound was inside their heads now, louder and louder, quickly reaching levels of pain none of them had ever experienced. Collins rolled out of his seat. The two lunar explorers fell to their knees screaming.

The piercing squeal came to a sudden stop. There was silence, total silence. Not even the sound of their breathing moved the astronauts’ ear drums. From the floor of the Lunar Excursion Module Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, and Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon watched the small gray spacecraft lift off from the lunar surface with a wagging tail of fire and head out into the star-speckled darkness of space.

Michael Collins, who would never be back this way again, saw the ship as a flashbulb in his eyes for a few seconds as it sped away into the distance. The three spacemen waited a few moments before they took a collective breath.

“Is it gone?” asked Buzz as his heart resumed a normal rhythm. He picked up the binoculars and searched the horizon through both windows.

“I can’t see it from up here. There’s a cloud of dust just floating above the surface but no flashing light, no spaceship. What are we going to tell Houston?”

“Nothing,” replied the mission commander, “We tell them absolutely nothing about this. They’ll lock us up in a rubber room and take our brains apart piece by piece looking for an anomaly. The rest of the world will start building arks and bomb shelters.”

“But we all saw it, Neil. Plain as day, a ship from outer space was here on the moon. We all saw it.”

“Nothing,” insisted Armstrong, “We don’t know what we saw. Michael you saw what you thought was a blinking light. We looked through dusty binoculars out dusty windows at what was probably just a rock outcropping and thought there was a spaceship. There was sunlight glinting off some chunk of lunar debris. And then we all witnessed a small comet. That’s what happened and we all agree on it right now or we spend the rest of our days like a team of lab rats in cages.”

Buzz looked at Neil Armstrong and nodded his head. Nothing made sense about this except the prospect of a world full of people waiting to hear the only truth that they could accept. What had they really seen anyhow? Who would believe them if they told the truth? And wasn’t it better to be the first and second men on the moon and not some odd third party? There was no spaceship; they had no proof, no photos, nothing to backup their story.

Collins looked out the porthole on Columbia’s mid-deck at the stars in the distance for a few moments before he spoke, “All I can say for sure is what you guys tell me from down there. I thought there was a light. I was mistaken. I did see the meteor and that’s it. If you say it was just a rock outcropping and sunlight I’ll take your word for it, Commander.”

Neil sat down in the commander’s chair and began throwing switches and turning dials. “Switching back to normal communications mode in three, two, one, now.”

The on-board radio hissed and sputtered, “Tranquility, Houston: confirm ROS. Everything okay up there?”

“Houston, Tranquility: loud and clear. We’re making preparations for lift off on this next orbit. All gear is stowed and secured for departure. We’re ready to come home.”

“Stand by, Tranquility, we may have you delay. We’re looking at a satellite image we received about 10 minutes ago of something on the surface about two hundred yards off your number two window.”