Anna, Vicky and I could hear the mob before we entered the common room. I pushed open the door.
A group of ten or twelve crew were standing surrounding someone on the floor, jeering and shouting expletives. It was incoherent, but I was still able to hear short sections, as you do when in a crowd at a football game.
‘We can’t trust you!’ – ‘Fucking alien’ – ‘Go back to where you came from’ – ‘Evil lesbian scum’ and so on.
‘Hey!’ I shouted at the top of my voice, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’
The spectators moved back, and it became clear that Crystal was lying on the floor, in floods of tears, with Alexei Mirislov, the anaesthetist, and the nurse, Diana Mills trying to comfort her and crouching to protect her.
The crowd had dispersed by now, but I saw that all of them were military astronauts. Many of them continued to look at Vicky in a threatening manner too.
‘Diana, Alexei, what’s been happening?’
‘We brought Crystal into the common room about twenty minutes ago to eat,’ said Alexei. ‘Several of this group of animals,’ he looked around at the Marines, ‘started baiting her with snide comments.’
‘When our meals were ready,’ said Diana, ‘she was taking hers towards that table and Danny Mackay pushed her in the back and she went sprawling.’
‘Shouldn’t be walking around free. Damn alien-lover!’ he said from where he was standing near the panoramic window and its wonderful view over moon’s surface.
‘Mackay, go and find Colonel Baker and bring him back here. At once!’ I said.
Several of the others made as if to leave the common room.
‘And the rest of you stay where you are. No one leaves this room, except Mackay… and I don’t want another word from any of you.’
‘She can’t stop crying, Mark,’ said Alexei.
‘It could be withdrawal from the LRP’s departure,’ said Diana.
Crystal looked up at us and said, ‘I don’t want to live like this. Why do they hate me? I’ve done nothing wrong.’ She returned to frantic sobbing.
‘Yes, you did!’ shouted British commando, John Dyson, in a heavy Cockney accent, ‘You let the fucking things in to try to take us over. You and Williams. That ain’t not doing nothing wrong!’
‘Dyson! Didn’t you hear me? Not another word.’
‘But, sir! Those things hurt us and were controlling us. Inside our minds, for God’s sake. It was awful!’
‘Dyson, one more word and you will play no further part in this mission!’ I said. He turned around and looked out over the moon’s surface.
Alexei helped Crystal to her feet. Her tunic was covered in food from falling onto the plate.
‘Did you get burned?’ asked Diana, helping her to a table where she could sit.
‘No. Hot and messy, but no burns,’ said Crystal, grabbing some serviettes to wipe her eyes, then wipe the remains of her meal from her tunic.
Diana ran to the counter and returned with a damp cloth.
‘I’m sorry this happened to you, Crystal. Doug will discipline the culprits and it will not happen again,’ I said.
‘I want my entity back,’ Crystal said.
‘So do I. I know how she feels,’ said Vicky.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘We must finish the experiment to discover whether what you are feeling is more than a withdrawal symptom. NASA will need to know, and it will be critical if you are ever to be allowed to return to Earth.’
At that moment, Doug walked into the common room and he was hit with a dozen of his men speaking at once. ‘Quiet!’ he roared and came over to us. ‘What happened, Mark?’
Alexei and Diana described the entire event again and Doug marched over to the Marines. ‘I want you lot in the rec dome now! Wait for me there. I’m ashamed of the lot of you!’
‘Diana,’ I said, while Doug was letting rip into his Marines. ‘Take Crystal and get her cleaned up with a new tunic. We’ll wait here for you to return.’
‘I wasn’t involved,’ said Mikhail.
‘So why didn’t you stop it?’ asked Doug. ‘You’re a sergeant. I expect you to be more responsible than that. Go to the rec dome.’
The Russian started to speak but Doug said, ‘Don’t answer. Go to the rec dome! Computer, tell Mike to meet me in the rec dome.’
‘Contacting Mike, Doug,’ said the computer.
In short time the room emptied and there was just Alexei, Vicky and me remaining. Diana and Crystal returned a few minutes later.
‘What can I get you to eat?’ asked Diana.
‘I’d prepared a mushroom omelette. That would do fine. Thanks, Diana,’ said Crystal, still with the most unhappy of demeanours.
‘What do you make of this, Alexei? It was like a baying mob when we came in,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Was not good. If you hadn’t come in when you did, it might have turned violent. I’ve never seen anything like it outside of a rival sports supporters brawl… and for well-educated and disciplined Marines to behave like that was quite extraordinary. They’re meant to be the cream of the crop.’
‘Well, it seems as if it was violent anyway. Someone pushed her to the ground,’ I said.
‘She was pushed. It might not have been the intention to knock her over, Mark.’
‘Nevertheless.’
Bill joined us and we all ate together to show sympathy to the two women. Neither of them wanted to speak much, but we managed to extract more about their feelings since the loss of their LRPs.
We’d finished eating when Doug poked his head around the door and indicated that we should follow him.
Bill, Anna and I made our way to the now empty rec dome.
‘What on Earth came over them?’ I asked.
‘I think that word “Earth” has a lot to do with it,’ he said.
‘Explain.’
‘These are elite Marines, whichever nation provided them. Their lives are normally all action. They envisaged an enemy occupying Moonbase, which they’d trained to storm and to recover the buildings. Continually in fear of and risking their lives. Get the job done and back home.’
‘I see that,’ I said.
‘But the mission changed. Because of that change, most of them were taken over by the LRPs who exerted maximum control. They feel violated and some, when resisting control, were actually hurt. They were forced to do things they’d never normally have done, like attacking you and me. We saved them from that, but their minds had been invaded by the very enemy they were supposed to be fighting. It had a serious effect upon their attitude to the alien bugs.’
‘Yes, but we knew we might need to adapt to circumstances.’
‘Not the circumstances we’re in now,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Suddenly,’ Doug continued, ‘they are bored senseless with nothing to do, knowing the enemy is at another location eight miles away and they aren’t being allowed to do their jobs – to go the rille and blow the enemy out of the water. Even worse, they observe that management – you three – have invited two of the enemy, the very two who had brought the LRPs which attacked them to Moonbase, into their domain. They’re extremely frustrated.’
‘Bored? On the moon! Don’t give me that, Doug. I don’t care how frustrated they are, they need to follow orders and remain calm,’ I said. ‘Crystal’s in a hell of a state after being separated from her LRP and we need to learn from her reactions to find out if what they say about the LRPs is true. We can’t allow her to be intimidated.’
‘No. I know,’ said Doug. ‘I should’ve spotted this as a potential problem, but I didn’t. I know now and it won’t happen again. I’m sorry, Mark.’
‘You’ll need to report it to NASA,’ I said.
‘I’ll do that now, Mark.’
‘Right,’ I said, and Doug got up and left the rec dome.
Now Bill, Anna and I were alone.
‘This worries me even more,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘The way things are heading, it’s possible we could be taking Roy and his people back to Earth. That might have all sorts of implications, both among this group of Marines and, I hate to say it, at NASA too. What if they’re ordered, over your head, to attack and dispose of the LRPs?’
‘They wouldn’t,’ said Bill.
‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Anna.
‘You really think so? That’d be pretty drastic,’ I said.
‘Barbaric,’ said Bill.
‘They can’t stay forever on the moon,’ said Anna. ‘That means it becomes a situation where they could be endangering the Earth. Do you think our governments would tolerate that?’
‘No,’ I mused. ‘We need to keep an ear open. Bill, can you run through communication recordings since my last call to Neil when Anna reckoned she heard someone in the background. In fact, get over to the com dome now and listen to Doug’s conversation with NASA.’
‘Will do, Mark.’
‘But let’s keep our anxieties to ourselves,’ I cautioned.