Angry Moon

Chapter 43a

     Climbing back up to the cockpit, they found Eddie working on the mass amplifier with a small soldering iron. It was sitting on his chair with the lid open and a small curl of smoke was rising from where he was working. “You'll find the secondary navigation system's not working,” he said without looking up. “I had to borrow some bits from it.”

     “Did you check that the primary system was working before you did that?” asked Benny.

     “Not being a total moron, I did. If it hadn't been, I'd have taken the chip from it instead.”

     Benny took his seat to run a diagnostic program anyway while Paul went over to stand beside Susan. “You okay?” he asked, putting a gloved hand on the shoulder of her spacesuit. It was meant to be comforting and reassuring, but he doubted that she even felt it through so many layers of fabric.

     “Fine,” she replied. “I enjoy being tied to chairs.”

     “I know that what happened wasn't your fault. You were under a lot of stress. You didn't know what you were doing...”

     “Er, actually, I'm pretty sure she did,” and Eddie, though. “We were talking while you were outside and she didn't sound at all remorseful.”

     “You don’t know her like we do,” said Paul. “We’ve spent months on the space station together. You get to know someone pretty well under those circumstances. If she were in her right mind, she just wouldn't be capable of such a thing. Only a few hours have passed. It probably takes longer than that for someone to recover from something like that. By the time we get back to Harmony I'm sure she'll be back to her old self and we’ll all be laughing about it.” Eddie nodded doubtfully. “Even so, though,” said Paul to Susan, “I'm afraid you’ll have to stay tied up for a little while longer. As soon as we're safely on our way back home we can let you loose. Just an hour or so, probably.”

     He looked over at Eddie, who nodded. “Yes, I'm pretty much done here,” he said. “Of course, we won't know if it’s actually working until we turn it on, but I've fixed all the visible damage. If it still doesn't work, I have no idea where the problem might be, and It’ll probably take more time than we have to find out.”

     “Then let’s hope it's working,” said Paul.

     “How much time do we have, by the way?”

     Paul looked at the clock display on the inside of his visor. “If the estimate they gave us is accurate, we’ve got an hour before the river of lava arrives. Of course, it may arrive early, or late...”

     “How soon before we can lift off?” asked Benny.

     “Just give me five minutes to finish up,” said Eddie.

     “Any way you can hurry it up?”

     “If we were seconds away from being immolated, probably, but I'd rather take my time if I can.”

     Benny nodded reluctantly and went to the windows, trying to remember from what direction the magma would be coming. That way wasn't it? He looked to the west, but there was nothing visible on the horizon but flashes of lightning, vividly bright against a dark backdrop. The view was blurry, and when he looked closer he saw that the outside of the windows were being sandblasted by the dust, just as the visor of his helmet was. His eyes had adjusted to the scouring of his visor so that he no longer noticed it, but now he was seeing the moon through two layers of frosted glass. Still, he ought to be able to see a river of lava if there was one out there...

     There was a faint brightness in the distance, he saw. He hadn't noticed it at first, it was partially obscured by sheets of dust being blown on the wind. It was right at the edge of perception. Was he imagining it? He stared at it, trying to force his brain to tell him if it was real, and at that moment the shuttle was shaken by another moonquake, the most violent one so far. The three astronauts braced themselves, and Eddie hastily withdrew the soldering iron from the machine’s interior before the hot tip touched the wrong thing and caused irreparable damage. From under the floor came the sound of something falling over in the room below, the crash and clatter of metal.