A slight jolt marked the end of our descent. I looked over at Nikki. “We made it.”
I could barely see a smile on her face inside the mirrored bubble helmet, “Yes. We’re really here.”
Then it sank in, in the peanut gallery: “We’re here!” Jake yelled.
I jumped when he yelled and would have bumped my head if my seat belt hadn’t held me down. “Jake, let’s try not to rupture our eardrums again.”
“Sorry.”
“How about a little stroll?” Nikki asked unfastening her seat belt, soundlessly since there was no air in the van.
“Don’t mind if we do,” I unbuckled my harness and popped the door of the van open. I sat a moment looked at the Earth which was the one splotch of color in the gray and black lunar landscape. Then I studied the ground and tossed myself from the van with what I had aimed to be the proverbial “one small step.” I banged the back of my helmet on the van roof, fell out the door, bounced off the dust, somersaulted, and landed on shaky legs. Lucky for me, there were no sharp rocks about and the lunar gravity is not too great. Nikki hadn’t seen my acrobatics so I tried to act like nothing had happened.
“Everything OK?” Jake asked.
“Sure,” I said, hoping my panic didn’t show in my voice. I wasn’t in such a great hurry after my impromptu tumbling routine.
Needless to say, the weak lunar gravity takes some getting used to. It’s kind of like walking in chest deep water without the resistance of the water to hold you back. A gentle jump can bounce you four or five feet into the—airless—"air.” By the time we’d gone the short distance across the plain separating us from the base’s entrance, both Nikki and I had pretty well mastered the kangaroo hop that can get you around so quickly on the Moon. Jake’s suit had the legs tied together and he functioned like he’d been born on the Moon; his hopping motions were both graceful and functional.
I half expected the base to be locked up. But of course it wasn’t. There aren’t many unaccounted-for persons walking about on the Moon; burglary is not a problem. The main question was whether or not the air locks on the door would be operational.
Jake rotated the heavy ring on the door and it popped open. It led into an white plastic airlock barely big enough for eight or nine people at the most. We entered the small room and I closed and twisted the lever of the door behind us; sunlight came through the translucent plastic walls so that we could see. Nikki pushed the “Cycle” button. Nothing happened. The lock wasn’t functional.
“Power’s down,” Jake said. “The air locks all have an emergency switch in them so that it’s impossible to accidentally get locked out.”
“What’s it look like?”
“Probably a panel. Small metal plate door. Something like that.”
We searched about inside the white plastic lock. Finally, I spotted the thin lines of a panel cover. For some reason it was designed to blend into the rest of the wall; it made everything look nicer but was a very poor practice for such a critical emergency device. “Is this it?”
“Must be,” Jake replied. “Can you get it open?”
Obtaining purchase on a small, hairline opening is impossible in a space suit. “Remind me to grow fingernails on my gloves next time we come to the Moon.”
“Here.” Jake handed me a small-bladed screwdriver from the tool kit that he’d mounted on his suit.
I put the blade into the crack and jimmied the plastic apart. It suddenly popped off and the plate went cart-wheeling through the space in the chamber, silently bounced off a wall, and slowly fell to the floor. Getting used to the low gravity and airlessness is going to take some time, I decided as I handed the tool back to Jake.
There was one red button under the panel.
“Hey, they don’t have auto-destruct buttons on these bases, do they?” I asked.
Nikki laughed, ” I know a good way to see if that’s it.”
“Cross your fingers,” I pressed it hoping we were only kidding. I pressed the button. An electric overhead light came on in the chamber to augment the small amount of light coming through the plastic walls. But nothing else happened. There was no build-up of pressure inside the airlock. “Now what?” I asked.
“Try the cycle button again,” Jake said.
Nikki pressed the button and in a moment a low hiss started that gradually grew louder. Our suits quit acting like balloons as the chamber filled with air.
I cautiously cracked my helmet of my suit as Nikki and Jake removed theirs and unlatched the inner door of the chamber to create a small pop as the pressure differences between rooms evened out. I took a deep breath; stale, recycled, but still air. And after the humid conditions on the inside of the suits, if felt very refreshing, cool, and dry.
We stepped into the first room behind the lock, carefully sealing the door behind us. It was basically a larger version of the airlock: a huge, white bubble that filtered sunlight through it so that the interior was dimly lit. The electric lights seemed to be off. Flipping the switch beside the door didn’t do anything. The power was off inside the base. Fortunately, with a lunar day of fourteen and a half Earth days, we still had several more “days” of light and there was no big hurry to get things started up.
We put our helmets on a small dispatcher’s desk sitting next to the door. Nikki and I followed Jake’s lead and took off our gloves and laid them beside our helmets, followed by our backpacks.
“Now, let’s see how this station is set up,” I said, feeling light as a feather once I was freed of the pack and helmet.
“Our first task will be to locate the radio link.” Jake had told us that the station sensors were connected to an auto radio-link to Earth. If we didn’t disconnect it, it would eventually send back enough information on changes within the base, power systems in use, and so forth, to alert those on Earth that something was going on in the camp. We’d decided that if it suddenly stopped its transmission, anyone monitoring from Earth would assume that it was just an equipment malfunction; for us this was better than having detectors in the base showing that it was occupied (even if those on Earth would be at a loss to explain by whom or what).
Since we were standing in the command center of the base, a quick search allowed us to locate the monitor.
“Say good night,” I said as I jerked the electric cable from the back of the equipment. To be on the safe side, Jake also disconnected the antenna from the transmitter, noting, “Can’t be too careful. I’d suggest we spit up and see what sort of supplies we have here. Hopefully enough for a few days — I hate to make the return trip too soon.”
“Ditto,” I said, my stiff legs making me shudder at the thought. “Let’s split up… Where should we check?”
Jake gave us a rough layout of the domes that comprised the base. Half an hour later we rendezvoused at the control room again.
“What did everyone find?” I asked. “It looks to me like they left in a hurry. All sorts of stuff left behind in the crew quarters. Most of it is junk but…”
Nikki answered first. “There’s enough food and water to supply us for at least a year. My only question is what about the air?”
“We have a problem there,” Jake said. “When they pulled out, the hydroponics area wasn’t properly shut down. All the—now dead—plants were left in their trays. We’ll have to put in some elbow grease to get the greenhouse cleaned up and new seeds planted. But I think we’ll have enough air until they come online. There’s a pretty good reserve of oxygen in the tanks and we can scrub the air of CO2 for quite a while.”