Chapter No.23. Reconnoiter

The older women in a video communication link from the domed city said something I had not expected. "If the aliens are traveling in hyperspace, it might be the reason they look like children."

My right eyebrow shot up momentarily. "That's interesting, but I'm sure they're not children."
.
"Yes, that's not possible. But that's how they appeared."

"Okay, I said. "You should discuss the idea of planting trees. In the meantime, we'll go check out Lunar Base and Mars Colony."

She nodded before the video link was broken.

"COMA, take us out of orbit on a course to the Moon."

"Don't we have to get in the G-chairs?" Natale asked.

"That won't be necessary because we're not in a hurry. Just hang on."

They gave me mocking frowns.

COMA fired the engines to move us out of orbit and on a nice slow trip to the Moon. The G-forces prompted us to hang on to our chairs, but they weren't as bad as what we would experience in a full burn. When it was completed, we were able to get up and move about the deck. I decided to go get a beer, while Sharon and Janet began scanning the Moon. I needed it to calm my nerves after what we had gone through.

Natale and Bridget joined me.

"Not the welcome back to Earth I expected," Natale said after taking a sip of her beer.

"Yeah, I agree, but we should have expected to find something like this. Climate change has sent humans into virtual extinction. I hate to tell those two we communicated with but living in a biosphere domed habitat would only work for a while. Eventually, the Earth would get too hot to sustain life."

"They probably realize that by now but built it to hang on as best they could," Bridget said.

"Do you really think we can move an asteroid into an orbit near Earth?" Natale asked.

"For all we know an asteroid is on course for Earth in the near future. After we check out the Moon and Mars, we'll do a survey of near-Earth asteroids."

Natale sighed. "I guess coming back to Earth was not the best idea after all."

"Yeah, I agree, but we needed to know what it was like after being propelled so far in the future."

"I'm surprised that they didn't get angry about you killing those two guys," Bridget said.

I sighed. "Maybe they realize that their days on Earth are limited, that life and death are just two states of existential existence."

"That's depressing," she replied.

Beer helped drown our sorrows.

We arrived near the Moon after three days. It looked a lot like it did back when we left Earth.

I had COMA deliberately pass over Shackleton crater where the Lunar base colony was situated on its rim.

"That colony looks abandoned," Sharon said as we watched the crater slowly traverse on the main screen.

"That looks like damage," I said pointing at a bright splotch on the main structure. "It could be from an explosion."

"Or an alien attack," Janet said.

I rubbed my jaw. "Yeah, that's a possibility."

"I'm not detecting any infrared sources in that complex," Sharon said. "I don't think it's operational."

"I agree."

"Are we going down there?"

"I don't see any good reason to. I think we might have a better chance of finding people on Mars."

They didn't object.

"We'll have to get in the G-chairs to do the Mars insertion burn."

We strapped into our chairs and braced for the burn, which lasted for an hour. During that burn the ship adjusted course and accelerated us to just under one percent the speed of light, which with the burn to slow up for orbital insertion, would put us there in ten hours. The G-forces were not that bad, but the course changes would be too much to deal with unless strapped in.

Mars didn't look all that different than we remembered it. Our main target was Hellas Planitia, a large impact basin that was the location of Mars Colony. It was located there because it was at the highest pressure of Mars' pathetic atmosphere and it contained water ice deposits in glacier type flows.

"I don't see any activity down there," Sharon said. "I'm also not detecting any appreciable infrared sources."

"Maybe they're hunkered down," I said. "Supposedly, they have underground facilities."

"I'm not detecting any damage," Janet said. "Maybe you're right."

"I suppose we'll have to go down and check it out, but I'm only taking one of you. No use risking everyone."

Bridget raised her hand. "I'll go."

"Good. Your expertise might be useful if there are people there."

Bridget and I went to the hanger deck to begin our descent to the surface. The ride down was different because the rarified atmosphere was only a nuisance. I had to use the breaking engines to get us slow enough to make a soft landing near the main Mars colony structure.

Once on the surface, Bridget and I got into space suits, but we could only carry enough oxygen to allow us to remain outside the shuttle for five hours.

It was time to explore, but what we found there was disturbing.