“The mining operation doesn’t look like it ever got started,” I said. “I didn’t see a single bot anywhere in the shaft.”
“I can check that quick enough,” Jake said, bouncing over to a control console. He tapped some keys and an inventory came on screen. He moused his way through several links and then tapped the screen. “There you have it. It looks as though the mine was ready to be worked but, if this is correct, the are still stored in their crates.”
I nodded. “I saw a bunch of crates in the storehouse.”
“Then we could probably program them to clean out the hydroponics tanks and growth tanks,” Nikki suggested.
“"Fraid not,” Jake said, turning back from the screen. “According to the data here, the brains for the units were never shipped. But we should be able to clean up the hydroponics ourselves.”
“But that won’t help us start up the mining,” I said. The main reason we chose to land at the base had been to produce metal from the ore deposited by the impact of the ancient giant meteor that had created the Copernicus crater. The same metal which—with the help of the solar panel’s energy and some other odds and ends of equipment which could be scrounged or even dragged up from Earth, could then be converted into gravity rods.
But there were no bots to do the work.
“Apparently the last shipment to make the base operational was aborted,” Jake said.
No one said much else about it then. But we knew we’d have to find the bots before it would be possible to build more rods which we all saw as the key to creating our own little business that might do about anything from supply unlimited power to create a full-fledged space ship capable of traveling through the solar system with about as much ease as we now traveled around the surface of Earth.
After a quick meal of insta-rations, we were ready to call it a day. We made our way to the crew quarters which extended down into the lunar rock, consisting of forty cabins reached via a long, underground hallway leading from the command center. Each cabin was large, ten by twenty meters, and contained a pair of bunk beds, desks, two retrieval monitors, a 3V set, and a small bath as well as a Net device, the latter being dead. Each room was also a jumble as the tenants had apparently been forced to sort hurriedly through their belongings to try to decide what to take back to Earth. A few rooms had even ripened due to dirty clothing having been left behind to take on a life of its own. But most also had the towels, soap, and other supplies we’d be needing.
Despite my dream of sharing a bed with Nikki, she picked out a room of her own. I said my
“good nights” to Jake and Nikki—I was ready to sleep. I heard Nikki laughing out in the hallway; apparently she and Jake had decided to stay up a while. Feeling like a school boy, the thought sprang to my mind, Is Nikki interested in Jake?
I didn’t know. I was too tired to worry about it. The weak lunar gravity made the thin mattress softer than anything on Earth. That—coupled with my exhaustion—quickly dropped me into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 11
“Rise and shine,” Nikki’s voice ordered, drifting in from nowhere.
I felt a tug on my nose and opened my right eye to see what was going on. My timing was perfect; the overhead light flipped on with blinding clarity. I groaned and pulled the sheet over my head.
“We need to get going if we’re going to get things done today,” Nikki said as she left the room.
“Right…” With a brown taste in my mouth, I all but fell from bed then staggered a moment trying to get my footing in the light gravity of the Moon. I finally made it into the bathroom where a shower of hot, slowly-falling water got my eyes to where they’d stay open.
After rifling through the closets in my room, I discovered a pair of yellow coveralls that more or less fit me. A pair of slip-on sneakers—which I hoped hadn’t been owned by someone with a fungal disease—completed my pre-owned outfit. I wondered why I hadn’t had the good sense the night before to bring along a container of caffinex—in the instant-hot packages that filled the storage area of the mess hall—back to my room before retiring. On the other hand, thinking about getting out of the room and getting some caffinex gave me the will to live.
I bounced into the control room on my way to the mess and was surprised to see that the whole front of the room facing the airlock was now a clear plastic window which showed the panorama of the plain formed by the crater bottom. The gray stillness of it seemed alien when viewed from inside the safe confines of the room. Quiet, unfriendly, and lifeless. The pink van sitting in the distance looked like some sort of advertising joke that a used-car dealer might pull.
The pink was the only splotch of color on the whole plain.
Jake sat at a console speaking to a computer in a low tone and occasionally punching at a key with a beefy finger.
“How’d you do that?” I asked.
“What?” He turned toward me.
“How’d you get the view?”
“Plastic. When a current goes through it, it becomes transparent. Instant windows. Just had to throw the right switch. We’re using so little energy right now that the solar cells have already fully charged the base’s storage batteries. We’ve got power to waste.” Jake grinned, then went back to his work.
Nikki sat with another computer across her lap and waved as I entered the mess hall.
I half floated through to the food storage room and hunted up a packet of caffinex. I have to wake up. I popped the seal on it and breathed in the fumes of the brew a moment before drinking, then shuffled back into the control room, trying to get the liquid out of the cup and into my mouth rather than having the caffinex wiggle around in the weak gravity and depart for parts unknown.
“What’s on the agenda for today?”
“Good question,” Nikki answered. “We’d better have a council of war.”
“Jake?” I asked.
“Yeah. Uh… Just a moment.” He spoke one last command and the printer next to the computer started coughing out figures. He rose and hopped over to where we were. I noticed that he’d tied his shoe laces together to allow his good leg to pull his bad one along, bouncing as if he were on a pogo stick.
“Since sleeping all day doesn’t seem to be an option,” I half suggested, raising an eyebrow suggestively as I glanced at Nikki, who in turn, looked as innocent as usual, “we need to decide what we’re going to do. Need to get organized. Have you two been able to pull anything of interest out of the computers?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Got a list of mining equipment and set-up procedures from the computer bank before you woke up. We can go over it later, but it looks like we have all the stuff we’d need to keep the base operating and complete the mining operation. Almost. Everything but the bots’
brains. It’s just a matter of getting the thing up and running except for the bots.”
“Nikki?”
“Yeah. It was among the last of the transmissions they received here before closing up the base. But I find something of interest. The Eratothenes Base had the same model of bots and, as near as I can tell, they were operational.”
“Where in the world—excuse me—where in the Moon is the Eratothenes Base?” I was having trouble making conversation; I kept looking at Nikki’s figure that was temptingly displayed in a tight yellow jump suit, unzipped to “see level.” I was distracted a moment as I speculated whether this noticeably tempting display was for my benefit or Jake’s. Or maybe Nikki just didn’t give a rip and was dressing for comfort. Who knew? My mind returned to what was being said.