Passage to the Moon

PASSAGE TO THE MOON
By
Gary L. Quay

         The first thing I saw when I emerged from hyperspace was the word "HUBBLE" large on my view screen. Then the air bags deployed. I pushed them aside, and switched to the rear cameras. The remains of a primitive satellite spun off in odd directions.
         "Damn space junk," I mumbled, and ran diagnostics.
         The damage report scrawled across the screen: propulsion damaged but functioning; the NAV (navigation computer) offline; the lateral steering jets damaged; multiple hull breaches, but the hull-integrity fields were holding; entering atmosphere... shit!
         I switched back to the front view and orange light flooded the compartment.
         I deployed the atmospheric wings and stabilized my trajectory. Hull temperature dropped. Soon, wispy clouds took the place of stars. I breathed a sigh of relief, and extended rudder control. I hadn’t done an emergency landing for at least five years, but I wasn’t worried. I descended in a leisurely spiral. Once I was certain that the ship was handling properly, I switched on the autopilot and got up to put some tea in the microwave. When I hit the start button; however, the familiar buzz of the engines stopped. Dead.
         The surface of the planet hurtled toward me, while I attempted to peel myself from the back wall. I inched down to the floor and strained to reach the Pilot’s chair. By the time I had regained rudder control, I could discern yellow stripes on the roads. I pulled back hard and worked the wing flaps to straighten out. The hull made crinkling noises, but I had no time to ease up. My ship was just about leveled as I neared the treetops, but a small clump of houses lay between me and the open fields beyond. Bracing myself, I punched the emergency rockets. The ship lurched, the wings tore away, and I left a half-mile ditch through rows of corn, and into a small pasture filled with sluggish, splotched bovines.
         I stumbled out on wobbly legs to survey the damage. The hull was mangled as if a great metal hand had squeezed it like a giant toothpaste tube. The hyperdrive engines were scattered about in steaming lumps. My ship was toast, and I had neither the skill nor the parts to repair it. The company would be pissed. Two of the bovines had been skewered on the titanium spike on the nose. At least I would have lunch. The other bovines grazed mindlessly, as if a spaceship had not just crashed into their midst.
         I salvaged the radio, the portable computer, the currency duplicator, the Nutro-matic, and some personal effects from the ship. Normally, I couldn't have carried them all at once, but the gravity was considerably lower than my home planet of England. Then I set the ship’s self-destruct. The ship glowed red for a moment, then disappeared, leaving a perfectly cooked bovine on the ground. I disintegrated the widely scattered parts with my ray gun. This was most likely a pre-contact world, so finding a transport would be tricky, but I thought I knew how to start. But not until after a spot of tea and a sandwich.

###

         Teresa Soto Garcia-Ordaz crossed her brown legs, apparently unconcerned about the effect her mini-skirt had on the men in the room. "This meeting of the Portland chapter of the "Oregon Illegal Alien Support Group" will now come to order," she said. Women fidgeted next to their boyfriends and husbands, occasionally administering a nudge or jab to the ones most obviously gawking. Teresa called for introductions--Maria, Pablo, Rosa, Ignacio, Connor, Manuel, Ivan, Sahib, another Maria, and I stood in turn. The room contained a circle of chairs, a table with a water pitcher, two windows and a painting of the Virgin Mary. I made the mistake of asking Rosa who that was before the meeting, and got a seminar about Catholicism, rosary beads, original sin, confession, and sacraments. I still don't know how a virgin can give birth in a pre-technological society.
         Teresa passed around a pamphlet called 'Green Cards and You.' "Today," she said, "our topic will be green cards. You will all need them to stay here and get higher paying jobs."
         The group launched into a symphony of staccato syllables and crescendos and dimuendos of volume and intensity. I had trouble keeping up, having recently learned English from BBC broadcasts I picked up on my damaged short wave (it only received one station), and from a book called "The Queen's English" which I plugged into my pocket translator. This was a bloody good coincidence, seeing how my home planet is called England.
         I pulled Rosa aside during a break.
         "Oh," she said, "what lovely accent you have Mr. Norton. Are you from London? Do you know the Queen or Princess Di? She's dead. Not the Queen, Di is dead. I think it's a shame. Don't you Mr. Norton? I think Prince Charles was in on it. When I get my green card I'm going to get a job so I can save enough money to go to England and then to Spain. I think Spain is a lovely place. Have you ever been to Spain, Mr. Norton? My sister moved to Madrid five years ago. The bitch. She didn't even take me with her. But I can stay with her when I go. Do you have any sisters, Mr. Norton? They can be such a pain in the butt. My sister married a rich man named Carlos from Rio. She never writes anymore, but I write her every month, and all I get is Christmas cards of her and Carlos and their beautiful little brats..."
         "Uh, M-Miss," I cut in, "excuse me for asking, but where are you from?"
         She said, "Tijuana."
         I had never seen Tijuana on any of the charts, so I asked her, "What is your sun?"
         She paused, looking slightly puzzled. Finally, she said, "Felipe."
         My heart sank. I was in the wrong meeting again.
         "He is such a darling child," Rosa continued. "Do you have children, Mr. Norton? My Felipe is on hard food now. In fact, he threw some up all over the living room rug this morning. It took me three hours to get it up."
         I had tried six different alien support groups, but each turned out to be for (galactically speaking) locals. So I returned to my base of operations to plan a new direction.
         My base was little more than a smallish shack that I had stumbled upon shortly after my abrupt introduction to the native terrain. There I set up my generator and my remaining creature comforts, along with a hi-fi and a growing David Bowie CD collection.
         That night I found an old telly and hooked it up to my satellite receiver and found an old Flash Gordon show. I was shocked to see in it a ship surprisingly not unlike mine, right down to the buzzing noise. This, of course, set me off to worrying again. It took no leap of logic to realize that my employers would be quite vexed over my crash landing. You see, I'm a planet scout for the East Milky Way Company: a crown company widely known for overcharging and underpaying the best freighter pilots in the sector. They also have a nasty reputation with indigenous populations. Colonization is good for profits, but bad for the locals. There's also this slight genocide problem they had on Platta four. The CEO ordered a lid put on it, but news leaked through the galactic net. I always steer them away from populated planets. I won't tell them about this one if they have not already discovered it.
         Funny how my CEO bears a striking resemblance to “Ming the Merciless.”
         I switched on the Nutro-matic and prepared for a dismal lunch. The Nutro-matic provides a nutrient-rich paste shaped and colored to mimic actual meals. It gives a choice of home-world or intergalactic cuisine. One could, for instance, tickle ones palate with such delicacies as Deneb Stink Beast Soufflé, or that perennial favorite; Flaavian Mucus Pie. It can keep a person alive in space, but I know of no spacers who wouldn't trade a Nutro-matic meal for a swift kick to the groin. I decided to kill two Fantots with one Shneeble and nip off to the city to check the pubs for spacers and a good meal. Perhaps, among the cab drivers and odd sorts there, I could find a ship off this rock.
         I waited until just before nightfall, then caught a bus back to Portland. I got off on the waterfront where the large, pungent Willamette River cuts the city neatly in half, and reflects the light of its impressive skyline. Bridges spanned the water, some lit by multi-colored floodlights, some by tungsten lights. I passed under a steel- grated bridge. Cars passed over, creating a ghostly hum. A mammoth double-decker bridge loomed on either side. Absolute engineering marvels, they are, but completely unnecessary. If earthlings were smart they would invent hovercraft, and these colossal bridges would be obsolete.
         I turned left on Taylor Street, then after a few more cross streets I turned into an alley. There it was: a pub called "The Spaceman". The sign out front had a cartoonish orange and yellow spaceship (again, surprisingly like mine) with a figure in a pressure suit and a darkened visor posed just in front of it. The place looked promising.
         "REPENT!"
         I turned, holding a hand over my ear, to see a bearded man leaning on a large wooden cross. "Could you do that a bit more quietly?" I asked him.
         “REPENT OR BURN IN HELL!"
"I thought not," I muttered, trying to remember Rosa's Catholic lecture. "What, exactly am I repenting?"
         "The evil behind that door. It's a den of perversion and sodomy that God Almighty condemns. Don't go in! Repent from this accursed lifestyle and follow the path of Jesus."
I know that spacers tend to be a bit loose but...
         "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to suffer and die for your sins."
         "Look," I said, "I'm just looking for someone to take me home..."
         "REPENT!"
         "Not so loud," I scolded. "Look, don't get me wrong, I'd really love to discuss religion with you, but I'm just looking for a good starpilot in here."
         "Perverts and freaks are in there," he boomed.
         Sounds like most pilots I know.
         He fell silent. A puzzled look crawled across his face like a confused ant. Finally, he asked, "Did you say 'starpilot'?"
         "Yes," I said, realizing that I had just blown my cover. "Spacers, off-worlders,"
         "Off-worlders?"
         "Yes," I said. "Aliens."
         "The book of Genesis says that God created Heaven and Earth, not Heaven and Earths." He thumped his cross on the ground. “There are no aliens in the bible; therefore, they don't exist."
         I chuckled, "You're joking, right?" For the first time I wondered whether I would find another spacer on this planet. But, of course, spacers of more restraint than myself remain anonymous on pre-contact worlds.
         "Hardly," he said. "Alien life is a myth propagated by secular humanists who want to deliver this country into the hands of Satan."
         "So what you're saying is that your God created a quite possibly infinite universe to populate one tiny planet."
         "Yes," he said.
         "What if I told you I was an alien?" I asked, ignoring my better judgment.
         He said, "A space-alien?"
         "Yes."
         He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin, then said, "Jesus can help you with mental disorders. Repent and give your life to Jesus. I did. I was once a..."
         I was on my way into the pub.
         The noise was deafening. Lights flashed from all parts of the room, including a large, mirrored ball suspended from the ceiling that rotated slowly, sending a shower of tiny reflections whirling around the cavernous room. A rather muscular woman with entirely too much make-up and glitter danced stiffly on a catwalk surrounded by a packed house of gropers and whistlers. She was no comparison to the dancers I saw on Thedus Delta. Now there are some real dancers! Low gravity caused those semi-amphibious bipeds to evolve with cartilage and tendons instead of bones in their skeletons. They dance like snakes and make love like leeches. They attach themselves to their mates, envelop them, and writhe until they are completely drained. Not a bad way to go, I suspect.
         I moved among the patrons on the floor: a rather odd lot that sported everything from spiked hair and spandex to business attire. Among the swirl of colors and obvious lack of inhibition, I got the sense that it was the kind of place where I could announce that I was death incarnate, and no one would bat an eye. There was no need to be in the closet about my alienness.
         Painted on the wall over the bar was a copy of the spaceship I saw over the front door along with a pair of authentic-looking space suits. While studying them, I bumped into a skinny, long-haired lad who nearly toppled onto a crowded table. I apologized, and he nodded in a smiling, glassy-eyed sort of way.
         "Are you okay?" I had to shout to be heard over the music.
         "What?" He bellowed back
         "Okay," I yelled, "are you okay?"
         I'm not quite certain he heard me because he responded, "You on Ecstasy?"
         I suppose I have been ecstatic at times, though not presently. The music was quite loud. "No," I said.
         "Want some?"
         "What?"
         "Want some?"
         "Uh, not now," I said. "Actually, what I am looking for is a good star pilot."
         "What?"
         "Star pilot."
         "Stone Temple Pilots. Cool band."
         I said, "No, no, no, aliens."
         "Great movie," he said, and stumbled into the crowd.
         I waded through the throng at the bar and ordered a cola. The bartender gave me a queer look. I thought it strange; After all, Earthlings go through copious quantities of it. I drink it so I won't seem out of place, but it tastes like dirty socks marinated in sugar water.
         I found a seat in the far corner to get away from some of the noise, and to scout for anyone resembling a pilot. The tell tale signs are: bad taste in clothes, poor hygiene, and vast quantities of personal wealth. It's a life that attracts outcasts, but it pays well.
         After a few minutes, a smartly dressed man wearing tight blue jeans and a white pullover appeared out of the crowd and asked, "Is this seat taken?"
         "No, no," I said, "Help yourself."
         Rather than carting it off to another table, he sat down. He had close cropped hair, a close shave, and didn't smell like cryogenic freeze solution. I surmised he wasn't who I was looking for. He had a stout chin and green eyes of unnerving intensity. I guessed he was a salesman.
         He offered to buy me a drink. I accepted. He seemed like a nice chap. A short while later, he returned with two 'Iced Teas.' I thought, 'splendid, I had Earl Gray this morning.' I love a good spot of tea. It makes being stranded on this backward planet almost bearable. I had not had iced tea before, though I'm always willing to try new things.
         He introduced himself as Alan Bliss.
         I said, "Willie H. Norton." I picked the name out of an obituary column. I figured that the dead guy wasn't using it anymore.
         He asked me what the "H" stood for.
         I shrugged and said, "The eighth letter of the alphabet."
         He smiled.
         I decided to take a less direct approach. "So," I said, "are you from around here?”
         He said, "No. I'm from Frisco."
         A stroke of luck! Frisco is in the Maiz system. In local star charts, that would be in the constellation Cassiopeia.
         I told him I was from England. He said he guessed that, my accent and all.
         He asked, "Are you here on business?"
         "Well," I said, "I'm stuck here, actually. I'm trying to hop a flight home."
         He leaned across the table with a look I couldn't fathom and said, "I can't get you to England, but I'll take you to the moon."
         It was a start, I thought. Maybe I could hitch a ride on a transport from there. I told him I was up for it. Funny, he didn't strike me as a pilot.
         I decided not to discuss price at this point. I could print the local currency easily in my shack.
         He stirred his iced tea and took a sip, letting out a satisfied breath afterward. I sniffed mine. It smelled okay, like iced tea. I sipped. It had a sweet, vaporous quality that left a tingle in my throat. I drank it down. Alan's eyes went wide. People on this planet seem to have that response to me entirely too often. My throat suddenly burned intensely, and the shock of it forced the air from my lungs. I struggled to keep my composure while gasping for breath.
         "Pretty good," I choked.
         "You don't fool around," he said with a smile.
         "I like to get on with business," I said hoarsely. I never spent much time mucking about those sleazy spaceport bars. Unlike most starpilots, who tend to be greasy bachelors with a propensity for drink, I have always preferred tea. Had I been thinking clearly, it would have occurred to me that alcohol would be involved. I felt light-headed in a queasy sort of way. Apparently, I have little tolerance.
         Alan said, "Since you like to get on with business, shall we go?"
         "Certainly," I said. I stood, a bit wobbly.
         He steadied me with a firm arm about my shoulder. "Don't drink much?"
         "Tea," I said, "Mostly tea. The non-psychoactive variety."
         We made for the door. His arm still rested on my shoulder for support. Bloody nice chap. We departed "The Spaceman", bypassed the screaming man, and shuffled down the street to cries of "REPENT," and "PERVERSION!"
         The cool evening air revived me somewhat, but I was still thankful for Alan's continued support. He was the first person I'd met on this whole bloody planet who gave a damn about me. We strolled along the waterfront, apparently in no hurry. He named the bridges for me: the Hawthorne, Morrison, Steel, and Burnside, and then the massive double-decker bridges called the Fremont and Marquam. Their lights glistened romantically on the water. Portland is a beautiful city at night. The first time I saw it I nearly crashed into it. Beauty was not on my mind.
         We passed under the Hawthorne Bridge. He said it was a very old bridge, badly in need of repairs. The massive weights suspended in twin towers above the bridge began descending as the bridge lifted to let a tall ship pass underneath. A horn sounded short, clear tones to warn the impatient drivers in their idling cars not to try anything silly, or suicidal. Alan mimicked the horn. The ship strained against the current and passed under the bridge.
         Alan, apparently satisfied with my stability, let his arm drop just as a pair of burly blokes rounded the sidewalk just beyond the bridge. I smiled, and nodded a greeting as polite people do. The men stopped. Alan grabbed my arm; rather painfully I would say.
         One of the blokes said, "A couple of faggots."
         "Run!" Alan said, pulling me stumbling after him, barely escaping as they came at us. We ran straight into traffic. Cars screeched all around us, honking their infernal horns. I thought we would be hit, but we crossed safely to the other side only to find our pursuers still close behind. We ran into the city. I had to slow my pace to keep from losing Alan, but we proved to be faster and took refuge in a parking garage. We hid between two large vans.
         "I think we lost them," Alan said, panting heavily.
         "Well, what do you know," one of the thugs appeared in the aisle, "a faggot sandwich."
         I looked over my shoulder. The other one blocked us from behind. They had us cornered.
         But I had an idea: if the gravity differential helped me run faster, perhaps it could help me fight. At any rate, I would find out whether my self-defense training at the Space Academy was worth its salt. I wasn't particularly pleased about being called a 'faggot', whatever that meant.
         I leapt onto one of the vans. I had to lure them both into the open. I screamed something about their lineage and kicked at their grasping hands.
         I vaulted off the van, did a somersault in mid air, and landed in the aisle. Not bad, but I didn't have time to be amazed at what I had done. Rather than come after me, they both attacked Alan, and knocked him to the ground. I had to save him quickly; he was my ticket off this rock.
         Perhaps a good taunting would bring them out. I yelled, "Hey, morons!" Nothing. "Your mothers fuck Democrats!" I had attended enough of those support groups to understand bigotry; anyway, I had their attention.
         They strutted into the aisle like roosters on steroids.
         I backed up to get a little distance between them and Alan. One pulled a knife, and said, "You're one dead faggot."
         The butterflies in my stomach turned into vultures. The odds had shifted. What if the other one had a gun? So, I pulled my ray gun and vaporized them. The damn thing had switched from 'stun' to 'disrupt' in my pocket. Oops.
         I pulled Alan to his feet.
         He asked, "What happened?"
         "They kind of disappeared."
         "Where did you learn to jump like that?"
         "At the Academy," I said, glad that he had not seen what happened. It's never a pretty sight. People vaporize from the outside inward, so one inevitably learns what the victim had for dinner. On some planets, you just don't want to know.
         "You're a military man," Alan said.
         "I was." I asked him if he was okay.
         He said, "I'm a little bruised, but I'm fine."
         We caught a bus on Sixth Street, and rode it across to the east side. A decidedly less grand place, but quaint nonetheless, it was full of tiny shops, small blocks of flats, and rustic houses. The bus stopped in front of a red brick building. We disembarked along with a young couple lugging a screaming child.
         Entering the main door, we climbed a carpeted stair to a hallway of wooden doors. Alan's was number nine. He had drawn a cloud around the number. He turned on the light, and I watched the cockroaches scatter. Back on England, we discovered that cockroaches are a universal phenomenon. We learned that they are actually an element created in the Big Bang. They scatter from the light not out of fear, but rather, force of habit. He gave me an embarrassed glance, but I told him I'd seen worse. The flat was sparsely furnished: just chair, a sofa with an overhanging lamp, and a hi-fi/telly combo on a shelf. Most space pilots do not accumulate a lot of personal effects. There is no sense in having a heap of junk collecting dust while you are off mucking about in space. On his walls were posters of what I guessed were movie stars. One was labeled "James Dean," another "Errol Flynn," and one "Charlie Chaplin."
         He went into his small kitchen. "Would you like something to drink?"
         "Water," I said. "I'm still a bit sluggish from that 'Iced Tea.'
         "Sorry," he said.
         "No bother."
         He brought me water, then crouched before his hi-fi. "What kind of music do you like?"
         I thought about it for a bit, then suggested some David Bowie. "I've taken quite a liking to him of late."
         He leafed through his flock of CDs before pulling out a few. "Space Oddity, Heroes, or Scary Monsters?"
         "Space Oddity," I said. Bowie's got to be an alien. He's got the right build, the right voice, and the right attitude. He's quite convincing. I cried all the way through "The Man Who Fell to Earth." I caught it on the BBC last week when I pulled down the satellite feed. I've got a spectacular receiver on my shack. I also visited his homepage on the Web. And his music... Let me tell you, those are not the songs of someone tied to a single planet. "Ground control to Major Tom." Oh yeah.
         Alan said, "I like thin men."
         I said, "I have to agree." Fat men take up too much room in the spaceship. They can't get around well in space. They don't fit well into a pressure suit, and they don't do well on Nutro-matic food. I've seen many fat men (and women) become thin while complaining all the way.
         The music began with the gentle guitar fading in. And that voice! It walks the thin line between a rich vibrato and the sound of cats making love.
         "What do you do for a living?" Alan asked.
         I couldn't tell him the truth. I work for a rather nasty organization. Chances are he wouldn't approve. I told him that I sold pocket translators. I showed him mine as proof.
         "I do graphic arts," he said, "and computer animation."
         My heart sank.
         But, he added, "and, I also fly now and again. I flew for the Air Force for a few years."
         Much better.
         "You know," I said, "I simply adore artists, and pilots, of course. I've tried to paint on occasion, but I don't have the talent. A man who is good with his hands and can recognize beauty is, to my mind, worth more than any stuffy sod calling himself a businessman or politician."
         "You're weird, but cute," he said.
         I remembered that Earthlings are preoccupied with appearance, so I responded in kind, leaving out the "weird" part. A little flattery could lower the price, which, I decided, was ready to be discussed.
         "Now," I said, "about that moon offer..."
         With an odd look in his eyes he said, "Not one for small talk?"
         "I like to get on with business," I said.
         He stood, so I stood; ready to follow him to his office. But instead, he gave me a positively wicked smile, embraced me full body, and then the lights went off.
                             *******
         The next morning, I sent a sub-space message to the East Milky Way Company as follows: Bugger the bloody job. Found nothing. Don't care. Goodbye!"
         Alan and I shacked up two weeks later.