Angry Moon

Chapter 9a

     The look on Eddie's face clearly gave away his disbelief. “Remember the rock!” said Ben hurriedly. “Remember Alice! That was a real effect, right?”

     “You seriously expect me to believe...” Eddie couldn't continue. He began to stride away, fully intending to return to the hotel, collect his belongings and return to England without another word to the others. Ben and Frank grabbed an arm each, though, to stop him. “Let me go!” he protested.

     “It’s true," insisted Ben. “I swear it. I meant what I said earlier. You can repeat the experiment any time you like. In another place, if you think we’ve set something up here. You can use your own equipment, anything you like. Do whatever you need to do to prove to yourself that the effect is real.”

     “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” said Eddie. He was beginning to calm down, though, as he remembered what he’d promised himself earlier. Go along with the joke. If it is a game, then play the game with them. Join in the fun.

     “I was sceptical as well, at first,” said Frank. “You've no idea what it took to convince me, and that was before they had a working prototype to demonstrate.”

     “Frank himself is the genius behind this little miracle,” said Ben, pointing down at the device which was still smoking gently. “In the three years since he joined us, we’ve made more progress than we did in the thirty years before. Our own technology is finally reaching the point where we can begin to make sense of theirs.”

     “Theirs is still way more advanced, of course,” added Frank. “The alien device this thing is based on is about the size of a walnut, and it could reduce the mass of a thousand ton spaceship to almost nothing To the point that an ion drive the size of a wristwatch could accelerate it close to the speed of light in seconds.”

     “You see, now I know this is all a joke,” said Eddie, though. “The reaction mass couldn’t propel the ship if its mass was also reduced.”

     “The ion drives, six of them, could be extended on long poles until they were outside the mass dampener's area of effect,” said Ben. “The fuel regained its full mass as it travelled along the fuel lines towards them. We call them ion drives, but they’re nothing like the engines we put on satellites. They worked by propelling ionised gas, like ours, but they achieved exhaust velocities of almost the speed of light and we don’t have a clue how they did it. That's why we need you.”

     “Think about it,” said Frank. “The device we’re already got will revolutionise space travel! The cost of launching satellites could be halved with what we’ve got right now! That space elevator the Chinese keep talking about building is already obsolete. With a few improvements it'll open up the whole solar system! Add the alien ion drives and we can go to the stars!”

     “So you can see what's at stake here,” said Ben. “Tell us what it’ll take to convince you. Anything at all. We'll go anywhere in the world, a place chosen by you where we can't possibly have prepared anything. Use equipment chosen by you that we can’t possibly have tampered with. Just tell us what you need.”

     Eddie hesitated. The rock's reduction in mass had been so dramatic, and so had Alice's weight. How could Alice's reduction in weight have been faked? Suppose he wanted to pull a trick like this, to fool someone. How would he do it?

     He paced back and forth across the sand, his mind in a turmoil. There was no trace of humour in any of the people gathered around him, as there surely would be if they were playing a trick on him. Even if they were trying to keep straight faces, there would be something, wouldn’t there? Some subtle giveaway in their faces or their body language. As he looked from one person to another, though, there was nothing. He supposed it was possible that they were just superbly good actors. Actors that good did exist, he knew, but these were all world renowned scientists, people with careers and reputations. One world class scientist might also be a great actor, but nine?