172 Hours on the Moon (18 page)

The lunar rovers were not an inspiring sight. They were constructed without a body to make them as light as possible, and
Antoine eyed the vehicles with a certain amount of skepticism. Nadolski, for his part, knew the rovers would suffice; they
had certainly gotten the astronauts from
Apollo 15
and
Apollo 16
where they needed to go.

Antoine stood next to the LRV waiting for Nadolski to finish up some calculations. With his space helmet on, and that enormous
suit, it was impossible to tell him apart from the fully grown commander. They both looked like experienced astronauts as
they strolled around the vehicles. But inside Antoine’s suit, there was no fully grown man. There was a French seventeen-year-old
who had just met the most beautiful girl in the world. His previous life in Paris with Simone felt like a hundred
years ago now. He suddenly realized he was having trouble picturing his friends. He’d already forgotten the shortest route
between the Clemenceau Métro station and Lafayette, a route he previously could have walked blindfolded. Everything he used
to be seemed to be disappearing, slowly but surely, from his consciousness. And it all was being replaced by the only thing
that still meant anything: making it back home. Making it back home with Mia.

“Are you ready?” Nadolski said over the intercom, interrupting Antoine’s train of thought. “If so, you can take the rover
on the left there.”

As if he were sleepwalking, Antoine shuffled over to the other rover and sat down behind the wheel.

“Stay right behind me and holler if you have any trouble,” ordered Nadolski. “Steer clear of boulders and craters. We’re heading
north!”

And with that, they departed soundlessly over the gray plains, leaving DARLAH 2 behind them. Only the vibrations from the
seat indicated that the vehicles were being pushed forward by engines. Antoine couldn’t help but feel sort of spooked by the
whole experience.

They made good headway, though the LRVs moved barely more than ten miles per hour. Because of the lower gravity, which made
the rovers almost float above the ground, the speed felt much faster. As if he were at sea, Antoine was slowly rocked from
side to side as the wheels rolled over the uneven terrain. Motion sickness was starting to kick in.

Minutes later, Nadolski floored it, forcing his rover up a gentle incline. Antoine turned just as they reached the top. He
caught one last glimpse of the base where Mia was before they rolled down the other side.

How long had they been driving?

Nadolski wasn’t sure, but it felt like it certainly must have been long enough. He had been checking the map constantly along
the way. Maybe the rovers were just moving more slowly than he thought. After all, they had been sitting around unused for
forty years. But on the other hand, it’s not like they had been exposed to air or water, so strictly speaking they ought to
be in the same condition they were in before.

At first he chose to ignore the nagging feeling and proceeded across the terrain, through the deep valley of the crater. But
the feeling didn’t let up, and that sense of doubt finally forced him to check his watch. He raised his hand to signal to
Antoine that they should stop.

Nadolski studied the watch that was built into his suit.
What the f —?
Yeah, they should definitely be there by now. They should at least have spotted the area Coleman had shown him on the map
before they left. He waved Antoine over.

“What does your watch say?” he asked.

“We’ve been driving for almost fifty minutes,” Antoine told him. “Is something wrong?”

“We went too far,” Nadolski declared.

“Too far?”

“Or the wrong way, I don’t know. Something’s not right.”

“What?” Antoine asked, his voice full of uncertainty.

Nadolski wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “We’re, uh …
we’re having a few problems with the map. But it’ll work out. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Are you trying to reassure me or yourself?” Antoine responded, trying to laugh nonchalantly. He couldn’t quite pull it off.

Nadolski pretended not to hear and went back to concentrating on the map. That Antoine was standing there waiting for him
to say which way they should go made it even harder for him to stay focused. He had trained for this mission for years, and
he knew there wasn’t anything Antoine could do. It was up to Nadolski to get them out of this mess.

But that didn’t change this impossible fact: He wasn’t able to spot any similarities between what he was seeing on the map
and what he was supposed to be seeing on the moon.

“Antoine, do you see a hill anywhere near us, maybe two hundred feet high or so?”

Antoine gazed around at the surrounding no-man’s-land. “No.”

“Well. We’ve been driving for fifty minutes, you said?” Nadolski asked. Antoine nodded. “Right. Let’s see. … If we figure
our average speed was about nine or ten miles per hour … that would mean that we’ve come about eight miles, plus or minus,
right?”

“That sounds about right.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do: We’ll turn around and head back the same way we came for about fifteen minutes, then stop and
get our bearings from there. We probably just drove right past the entrance. The whole thing is belowground, after all.”

They walked back to the LRVs and turned them on, did U-turns, and followed their wheel tracks back the same way they had come.

At that moment Caitlin was sitting with Coleman in the red glow from the emergency power system in DARLAH 2’s kitchen. Mia
and Midori had been sent back to their room with the instructions to get a few hours of sleep. Coleman was doing his best
to boil some water for the freeze-dried coffee he had found in the storeroom in module one. There was something about the
smell of coffee that made everything feel safe. As if the fear he had felt when he realized that
Demeter
was unusable was somehow diminished by the scent of freeze-dried coffee. It must be because the scent reminded him of Earth.
And that café on the corner of Second Avenue and Seventy-Ninth Street, where he always ate breakfast in the morning whenever
he was back home in New York City. They would make it back home again. They would be rescued. They had to be.

His thoughts turned to Nadolski and Antoine. They would reach DARLAH 1 soon. With a little luck, Nadolski would be able to
quickly activate the power station and start on his return trip without any more … problems. And after he and Caitlin reestablished
contact with Earth, Coleman knew what he would do. He would invite everyone into the kitchen, and they would all enjoy sipping
warm cups of coffee together. The kids, too. You were never really too young to learn to drink coffee.

He noted that the water was boiling and poured it from the kettle into two cups that he carried over to the table. Caitlin
took one of the bags and emptied the contents into her cup.
Coleman passed her a spoon, and she stirred it around absentmindedly a couple of times before she took a sip.

“Oh my God, Coleman, even the coffee tastes old.”

He felt a pang of irritation at her remark.
What the hell is wrong with that woman? Is she starting to complain about petty things now, too? If you only knew what you
are facing, Caitlin Hall. Believe me, old coffee is the least of your problems
.

“Well, the antibiotics and morphine down in the infirmary are, too,” he responded coolly. “I don’t suppose you would complain
about it if you had to use them.”

Caitlin set her cup on the table and pushed it away as if to emphasize her point. Then she added, “I know this is all old
hat to you, Coleman. I’m sure you’ve known about DARLAH 1 and DARLAH 2 for years. If you know anything more than the rest
of us about this power outage or the communications failure, you should just say so — now.”

Coleman tried to chuckle for the sake of appearances but didn’t quite manage to pull it off.

“There’s nothing to know, Caitlin. We have problems here. We’re trying to solve them as a team. That’s it.”

“I don’t like your style, Coleman. I don’t like it at all. You good old boys, with all your loyalty and your honor. If you
know something about the shit we’re standing in right now, Coleman … if you’re trying to keep something secret …”

“Caitlin, I can’t. Maybe I’ve read a few reports that aren’t available to the public, caught wind of a few rumors here and
there, but that’s not going to help us now.”

“Rumors about what?”

Coleman took his time sipping his coffee. “In a nutshell?
Rumors that we’re not the first astronauts to encounter inexplicable problems on the moon.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t tell you any more than that. I don’t want to. It can’t do any good; it’ll just make you worry more. For all we know,
they’re already planning a rescue mission.”

Caitlin trained her eyes on him. She saw the same passivity as always, the same secretive half smile. “You believe that, Coleman?”

“No, Caitlin.” Coleman put his head in his hands. “They think we’re dead, don’t you get that?”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. They would never assume that. They would make every effort … not to mention that you
know
it’s a public relations nightmare if they don’t …”

Coleman tuned out Caitlin’s false hope. He knew that behind closed doors, the mission — and everyone on it — was presumed
dead until NASA had some sort of confirmation otherwise.

Because behind closed doors, they knew what had happened here in the past.

The momentary, almost credible feeling that he’d had when he smelled the coffee that everything would work out was suddenly
gone.

Nadolski followed the wheel tracks as closely as possible, but he still didn’t recognize anything. He actually couldn’t even
remember having just driven through this same area a few minutes before. He was just about to check the map again when he
heard swearing over his headphones. It was Antoine.

“Devereux, what’s going on?”

It took a few seconds before he responded. “I think I ran over something.”

“Stay where you are, I’m coming back.”

“Okay.”

Nadolski made a wide left turn and discovered the other LRV well over three hundred feet behind him. When he got back there
he saw right away what the problem was. Antoine had hit a large rock with his left front wheel and broken the axle. The wheel
was lying down flat in the gray dust.

“I’m really sorry about this. Really. I don’t know what happened.”

Nadolski looked at the damage. He couldn’t do anything about it out here.

“What do we do now?” Antoine asked desperately, walking around the rover to pick up the loose wheel.

Old equipment
, Nadolski thought.
Everything on this whole expedition is so goddamn antiquated
.

“It’s not a crisis,” Nadolski announced. “Both of the rovers were built to hold an extra thousand pounds of weight, so you
can ride with me on mine. This was exactly what I was afraid —”

He didn’t get to complete his sentence. Something in the dust caught his eye. He dropped down onto his knees and he felt a
cold sweat trickling down his back inside the suit. Now it made sense.

“Devereux!”

Antoine let go of the wheel and returned to Nadolski as quickly as he could, but the enormous suit made his movements sluggish.
Combined with the low gravity, he had difficulty keeping his balance.

“Do you see these tracks?” Nadolski asked. Antoine nodded. “Good. I’m just asking to make absolutely sure. It’s been a long
time since any of us has slept properly. And next I’ll ask: Do you see these wheel tracks?” Nadolski pointed to another pattern
running parallel to the first set.

Again Antoine said yes.

“These are the tracks we’ve been following since we turned around,” Nadolski explained.

“And your point is …?” Antoine asked.

Nadolski looked at him. It was easy to see that he was worried, as if he already knew he was about to receive bad news.

“These aren’t our tracks.”

“What … do you mean? I don’t understand. They’re exactly the same, aren’t they?” Antoine asked.

“No. Look at them carefully,” Nadolski said. “This is one of our tracks, you see? And then look at the other one. You see
that stripe in the middle? None of our vehicles makes that pattern.”

“Maybe it’s from another lunar mission?” Antoine volunteered. “Like when they installed the power station, for example.”

Nadolski raised his hand to him. “No, Antoine. According to Coleman it was set up remotely without any astronauts on the ground.
NASA has never been here. And neither have we, wherever we are. These tracks didn’t exist an hour ago.”

“What are you trying to say?” Antoine asked, his voice shaking.

“I’m trying to say I think we’re in danger.”

Just a few seconds later they spotted two figures about a
thousand feet away. They were walking toward them, slowly, but undeniably, closer and closer.

Neither of them was wearing a spacesuit or helmet.

They didn’t struggle against the moon’s low gravity.