Chapter 7

 

I've been reading more lately. I read a whole book last night before I went to bed. I've never done that before. It was an interesting book, but a little hard to read. It was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. I kind of liked it, especially about Spain and the bullfights, though I bet Nathan would have a thing to say about bullfights and how nasty they are, from an animal rights point of view. He went on a demonstration once against using animals for experiments. He didn't get arrested. He goes on demonstrations a lot. I guess he's committed and has sensitivity. Nathan is a good guy. But anyway, the Hemingway book was his. I got it from his bookcase. Goes to show you something. Don't know exactly what.

 

A couple of minutes after I took the yellow pills, we reached the Moon.

Yeah.

That's what I said. We went to the Moon. Now, this about floored me. I never thought I'd go to the Moon. I used to think I might want to be an astronaut, but now they're cutting the Space Budget, and, well, you can just about forget about the Space Program. It's history. It's in the archives, dude.

But here I was, going to the Moon. It was nothing less than fantastic.

I looked down. The moon's bumpy surface spread out like the face of some kid with bad acne. There were millions of craters, and there were mountains, and valleys and all sorts of curvy canyons and stuff. It was neat looking at it close up. It looked just like the picture the astronauts took, but this was real. It was so real.

We headed for the surface so fast I thought we were going to crash. But at the last second, it seemed, we slowed and began gliding like a Frisbee over smooth hills and wide craters. Our height was no more than a thousand feet, I guessed, but it was just a guess.

The Moon's color is this really light gray. It's very bright and reflects a lot. I guess that's why the moon shines so much. You could see everything clearly. The closer you got the more craters you could see. There were craters everywhere, even little ones a couple of yards across. Where there weren't craters there were piles of rocks. Rocks were all over the place, big ones, little ones, jagged ones, smooth ones. And everything was covered over with a coating of light gray dust, like the stuff you find under the bed. Dust Bunnies on the Moon!

We slowed down and started hovering over one spot. I looked to my right and I could see something that wasn't natural. By that I mean, it couldn't have been part of the moon. It was a bunch of junk, and someone had left it there.

"Your people have been here," Flez said, smiling. "See?"

I saw. It had to be one of the places that the astronauts had landed!

Wow, this topped everything. This was the actual place that they had landed. I wondered which Apollo mission it was, the first one maybe. But I had no way of knowing. I didn't know what part of the Moon we were in, and I couldn't remember where the first Apollo astronauts had come down. The Sea of Something or Other. Well, anyway, whether or not it was the first Moon Landing place, it was really neat to be there.

"Do you want to go out and walk around?" Zorg asked.

"Huh?" I was floored by that.

"You know, go outside the ship?"

"Holy cow! Uh, don't I need a space suit?"

"We can give you one," Zorg said.

What couldn't these guys do?

"Okay," I said. "Sure. Yeah, I'd like to try that."

Well, I did it. It's kind of hard to explain how, but here's what happened.

Kel told me to stand on a spot on the floor. And the floor opened, and I could see the ground, or the surface, whatever you call it. It wasn't very far down. The strange thing was that I didn't fall. I thought I was going to fall, but I didn't, not right away. I sort of floated down.

Now, I wasn't wearing any space suit. What was around me was some kind of bubble. I knew it was there, because I could feel it. It was kind of prickly. It was like being inside an invisible balloon, but I could walk around once I got used to it.

I walked around, bouncing into the "air." (There isn't any air on the Moon.) I was as light as a feather. I could almost float. And when I touched down, I left no footprints. That was really weird. Try as hard as I could, I couldn't leave any footprints in the dust.

There were lots of footprints around, from the astronauts. And junk. There was more junk there than in a junk yard. All kinds of complex stuff, with antennas and screens and sheets of plastic. There were boxes and sacks and even a bottle or two, though not made of glass.

Those guys really littered up the place! I guess back then, back in the 1950s—You know, I forget the date that they landed on the Moon—Well, whenever it was, they probably didn't have Ecology. I guess they didn't know they were messing up the environment. If they'd have tried to go today, the Ecology people probably would have stopped them, with demonstrations and stuff. Or maybe Congress would have passed a law that they couldn't go.

I don't know, though, it would have been a shame if that had happened. Even though they trashed the Moon, it's really a great accomplishment that they went there. I've always wondered why they never went back. I mean, they spent all that money, and they did it, and then they quit. How come they didn't build a hotel or something here? You could charge a lot of money and people would probably pay it to come here. Oh, well.

I spent some time bouncing around, looking at things. I looked up at the Earth. It was as beautiful as ever, though it was far, far away. I got homesick just looking at it.

Then I got bored and went back to the ship. Kel floated me up into it, and the door in the floor closed. The prickly envelope around me disappeared.

"Hey, that was neat!" I said.

"You enjoyed it?" Flez asked.

"Yeah. I mean, it was okay. Cool."

"Cool," Zorg said, nodding and giggling.

Then something happened, but I didn't know exactly what at the time. Zorg and Flez stopped smiling and kind of looked at each other funny.

I watched them, wondering what was going on. Suddenly they looked worried.

They sat back down as the ship zoomed away from the landing spot, shooting across the lunar terrain. I still didn't feel any motion, but it made me kind of dizzy to look out at everything zipping past. Sheesh, we were really moving at a good clip.

Then, we screeched to a stop and dropped into a huge crater. We went all the way down, and then the ship did a strange thing. It touched the surface and landed with a soft bump, and then it buried itself in the dust. It sort of rotated back and forth for a while until the dust partially covered it.

Then everything in the ship kind of turned off. The lights went out. It was mostly dark, except for a faint light coming from the ceiling.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Hiding," Zorg said, and he was worried.

"From who?"

"Blog."

"Blog, huh?"

"Yeah, Blog is a real drag," Flez said. "If he catches us, it'll be pretty bad."

"Oh."

Jeez, that sort of worried me, too. Blog. The name didn't sound too good, just by itself.

"What did you do that Blog is after you for?"

"Drew, we have to be quiet now," Flez said. "Real quiet."

"Oh. Sure, yeah."

Whew! So, I just sat there. We sat there for a long time, but maybe it only seemed like a long time. Zorg and Flez didn't say anything, and I sure didn't. Neither did Kel. Maybe he was shut off.

You could hear a pin drop in that ship. I sweated a little. It was getting pretty hot in there. I wondered about that. Shouldn't it have been getting cold? I mean, it's supposed to be cold in space. Oh, well, it didn't matter. It didn't get too hot.

Finally, the lights came back on and Zorg and Flez starting smiling again.

"We can start having fun again," Zorg said.

"Great!" I said. I was relieved to hear it.

 

So, we returned to Earth. The trip back was even faster, or maybe it just seemed like it. I figured it was nearly morning, and I had to get back. I asked Zorg if we were going to go back right away, and he said sure thing.

The Earth got bigger and bigger, and it got all beautiful all over again, even more, as we headed for the night side. The cities came up again like diamonds scattered across the darkness, one after another.

The ship lost altitude fast.

Then, from the right came something. It was a jet, a military jet. I could see, though it was rather far away. Must have been magnified or something. It was an F-16, I think. Anyway, it was heading for us like a bat out of hell. It chased us, then it caught up with us and pulled alongside.

This was exciting, or rather scary, too. Now the Air Force was after us. Of course, I would rather have the US Air Force catch us than "Blog," whoever or whatever that was.

Then again, the Air Force might shoot us down. I suddenly got kind of scared that that would happen.

Then I heard the jet's pilot talk to us. He was telling us to identify ourselves.

Flez and Zorg were giggling like crazy.

"Hey, guys, maybe we should pull over?" I suggested.

They giggled at that, too.

The pilot kept talking, repeating orders to identify ourselves, and that we were violating United States airspace.

Well, we flew like that for a while, with the jet pacing us and the pilot jabbering away. Then, another jet approached, another military jet. And I think there were more coming at us from farther away.

So we got out of there. I mean, we REALLY took off this time, WHOOOSH!!!

Those jets were like gone in a second, left in the dust.

Cool.

 

We went home. No more Air Force jets gave us any trouble. Next thing I knew, our street was below, and then our house. The ship hovered just above the skylight.

The skylight was open. I dropped from the ship right through it, and there I was, back in the attic.

Zorg and Flez followed. Then something really weird happened. The ship shrank. Yup, it did. It was amazing to watch. It shrank to the size of a football, just like before, and it dropped right through the skylight. Zorg closed the skylight and locked it. The ship floated to the floor. Then Flez held the duffel open and Zorg slipped it in. It fit right in, just as slick as you please.

I asked Zorg how they could do that, and he told me the ship was made of ultrathin material that was ultralight, too. More than that, the stuff wasn't like ordinary matter. It had more space in it between atoms and molecules, if you follow. Like, four times as much space, and it could adjust its own molecular structure and become more dense. Does that make sense? Well, that's the way it worked. I asked about the weight. I mean, even if it shrank, it would weigh a ton.

And Zorg said, "Well, doesn't it float?"

"Huh? You mean the ship?"

"Doesn't it float by itself?"

"Sure."

"Well, we don't turn the ship off when we shrink it."

"Oh. I get it."

So that's how it was done.

And that's what a flarn is. Flarning is fun. A little dangerous sometimes, but that makes it more fun, I think.