The Writer - Danilo Clementoni 2 стр.

"What can I do to help you?"

“Nothing don't worry. You’re in good hands," and he winked at him with his right eye, as his terrestrial friends had taught him to do. "I’ll position the ship behind the moon. From there it won’t be able to do any harm."

"Gosh," exclaimed Azakis. "I hadn’t thought of that."

"That’s why I'm here, isn’t it?"

"The wave of the explosion will break on the satellite which will absorb all its energy. You’re a phenomenon my friend."

"And it certainly won’t do any damage on the moon" continued Petri. "There’s nothing but rocks and craters there."

“Ten seconds to destruction."

“Almost done....” said Petri faintly.

“Three... Two... One...”

“Done! The Theos is in position."

Precisely at that instant, on the moon’s hidden face, at the decimal degree coordinates latitude 24.446471 and longitude 152.171308, in correspondence to what the terrestrials had called the Komarov crater, there was a strange telluric movement. A large, deep slit with incredibly perfect edges opened on the crater’s barren, rough surface, as if a huge invisible blade had suddenly been stuck into it. Immediately afterwards, a strange ovoid-shaped object darted out at incredible speed, as if it had been shot directly from inside the crater and headed into space, with an inclined path of about thirty degrees with respect to the perpendicular. The object remained visible for only a few seconds before disappearing forever in a flash of bluish light.

On the shuttle, through the elliptical opening giving a view of the exterior, a blinding flash lit up the black, cold outside space, flooding the inside of the shuttle with an almost unreal light.

"My friend, what about getting out of here?" suggested Azakis worriedly, as he watched the wave of energy expand and rapidly approach their position.

"Follow me," shouted Petri into the communicator, to the pilots of the other shuttles. Then, without adding anything else, he manoeuvred his vehicle and quickly moved it to shelter behind the side of the moon that always faces the Earth. "Hold tight," he added, as he firmly gripped the armrests of the command seat where he was sitting.

They waited, in absolute silence, as interminable seconds went by, their gazes fixed on the central display, hoping that the sudden movement of the Theos had managed to avert a catastrophe on Earth.

"The wave of energy is dispersing in space,” Petri said quietly. He paused briefly then, and after checking a whole series of incomprehensible messages that had appeared in the holograms in front of him, he added, "and the moon absorbed the portion directed towards the planet perfectly."

"Well, I’d say you did a really excellent job there, old chap," commented Azakis after he had begun to breathe again.

"The only thing that really suffered was the poor moon. It took a proper beating."

"Think what might have happened if the wave had arrived on Earth."

"It would have burnt up half the planet."

"Are you all okay?" Azakis hastened to ask all the other pilots through the communicator, who, following Petri’s manoeuvres, had also positioned their shuttles in the shelter of the satellite. Comforting answers came back in sequence and, after the last captain had also confirmed that both his crew and vehicle were in perfect condition, he let himself slump back against the back of his armchair and let out all the air in his lungs.

"That went well," commented Petri satisfied.

"Yes, but now what do we do? The Theos no longer exists. How are we going to get back home?”

Tell el-Mukayyar – Flash in the sky

At doctor Elisa Hunter’s base camp, after jumping out of the archaeologist’s arms, Lulù, the little kitten, had begun to prowl around nervously with her gaze fixed towards the sky. The sun was going down and a beautiful, almost full moon was already high on the horizon.

"Lulù, what’s the matter?" asked Elisa a little worried, looking at the restless kitten.

"She must be sad because she’s realised our friends have left," commented Jack laconically, trying to comfort her by stroking her gently under her chin.

The little cat initially seemed to relish the attention, purring and rubbing her nose against the Colonel’s big hand. All of a sudden however, she froze, made a strange sound and turned her eyes straight towards the earth’s pale satellite. Both of them, intrigued by that bizarre behaviour, instinctively, also turned in the same direction. What they saw after a few moments, left them both breathless. An abnormal glow seemed to wrap around the moon. A brilliant white light, that extended about ten times the diameter of the satellite, then formed a sort of crown around it. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was almost as if another sun had suddenly appeared in the sky at dusk, illuminating the whole area with a decidedly unnatural light.

"But what on earth ..." managed only to whisper the stunned Colonel.

Just as it had appeared, the abnormal light vanished, and everything seemed to return exactly as it was before. The moon was still there, and the sun lazily continued its descent behind the dunes silhouetted against the horizon.

"What was that?" asked Elisa in amazement.

"I haven’t the faintest idea."

"For a moment I feared the moon had exploded."

"It really was quite incredible" exclaimed the Colonel while, with his open hand resting above his eyebrows, he scanned the clear sky looking for clues.

"Azakis.... Petri..." said Elisa suddenly. "Something must have happened to them, I can feel it."

"Go on, give over. Perhaps it was just the effect of their ship’s engines starting."

"It’s not possible. That seemed like a real explosion. You should know more than me about these things, no?"

"Darling" the Colonel said patiently. "To see the effects of an explosion like that from all this distance, there would have to have been at least a hundred atomic bombs explode simultaneously on the moon or maybe even a thousand."

"So, what happened then?"

"We could try asking our military friends. After all I am still part of ELSAD. With all that equipment always pointing at the sky, an event of this kind will not have escaped them for sure.”

"Even Lulù noticed it."

"I think this kitten is much smarter than the two of us put together."

"Felines are a superior race," said Elisa as she picked the kitten up again. "Had you still not realised?"

"Yeah. I think the ancient Egyptians adored them too, almost like deities."

"Exactly, my love," said Elisa, happy that the discussion had moved into a field in which she was well versed. "Bastet, for example, was one of the most important and venerated deities of ancient Egyptian religion, depicted as or with the appearance of a woman with a cat’s head or directly as a cat. Originally Bastet was a deity of the solar cult, but with time she became more and more a goddess of the lunar cult. When Greek influence extended to Egyptian society, Bastet permanently became a lunar Goddess, as the Greeks identified her with Artemis, the personification of the ‘Rising Moon’."

“Okay, okay. Thank you for the lesson, eminent doctor" said Jack ironically, emphasizing the phrase with a slight bow. "But now let’s try and understand what the devil just happened up there. I’ll make a couple of phone calls."

"Any time darling, I’m always here for you," replied Elisa, gradually raising her voice as the Colonel walked away in the direction of the laboratory tent.

Lulù, calm once again, her eyes closed, was enjoying the petting her human friend was dispensing without parsimony.

Shuttle six – Lunar inspection

After the invisible hand of fear that had gripped his stomach, finally disappeared, leaving him in peace, Azakis had begun to pace nervously around the shuttle’s bridge muttering unintelligible phrases.

"Will you stop going around and around in circles like a spinning top?" Petri scolded him. "You’ll wear the floor out and we’ll end up drifting about in space like two old disused satellites."

"But how can you be so calm? The Theos has been destroyed, we’re millions of kilometres from our own planet, we can’t contact anyone and, even if we were to succeed, it would be impossible for someone to come and fetch us, and what do you do? You lay there slouched in your armchair as if you were on holiday, sitting on the cliff at the Gulf of Saraan enjoying the view at sunset."

"Calm down old chap, calm down. We’ll find a solution, you’ll see."

"At the moment I can think of absolutely none whatsoever."

"Why are you so upset. It’s the gamma waves that your poor tired brain is emitting, that are preventing you from reasoning with lucidity."

“Do you think so?"

"Of course," replied Petri with a lovely big smile. "Come and sit down beside me, take some deep breaths and try to relax. You’ll see, before long everything will seem very different."

"You may well be right, my friend" said Azakis as, following the advice of his companion, he threw himself heavily into the second pilot’s grey armchair, "but at the moment I can do everything but relax."

"If you promise to calm down, I’ll even let you smoke one of those filthy smelly things you always carry around with you."

"Well, actually that might be a good idea. I’m sure it’d help me a bit." Having said that, he pulled a long dark hand-rolled cigar from a pocket and, after having cut the ends with a strange multicoloured contraption, put it in his mouth and lit it. He quickly inhaled several puffs letting small bluish smoke clouds disperse into the room. With a slight hiss, the shuttle’s automatic air purification system was activated. In a few moments the smoke vanished and with it also the pungent sweetish smell.

"But, this way, there’s no fun," exclaimed Azakis who was already in a much better mood. "I’d forgotten how efficient our purification systems are."

"You designed them," answered Petri. "They couldn’t be otherwise."

The tension seemed to be slowly melting away.

"Let’s take stock of the situation," proposed Azakis as, with his cigar still between his lips, he enabled a series of holograms which positioned themselves in mid-air all around the two aliens. "We’ve got four operational shuttles including our own. The Theos-2 has now landed on Nibiru and both are outside the range of action of the optical vortices communication system." He puffed out another couple of little clouds of smoke, then he continued, "Propellant and food stocks are at ninety-nine percent."

"Well done, I see you’re taking control of the situation again. Go ahead" Petri urged, satisfied.

"All the remaining six members of the crew are in perfect condition. Shields and equipment are at maximum efficiency. The only problem is that we no longer have an H^COM to contact the Elders and report on the situation."

"And that’s where you’re wrong" exclaimed Petri.

“What do you mean?”

"I mean there’s still one working H^COM."

"But if the only one we had was destroyed with the spacecraft."

"What about the one we left with the terrestrials?"

"Gosh, you’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll have to return and get them to give it to us."

"Calm down old chap, calm down. We’ve got time for that. First, I’d go and have a look on the moon to see if we can recover anything from our beautiful ship that you merrily smashed into pieces."

“Me? What have I got to do with it? It was you who made it explode up there."

"And who was it who lost the remote-control system?"

"But that was your fault. The clasp was defective."

“All right, all right! What’s done is done. Now let’s try to get to grips with this situation. Although I’m an incurable optimist, at the moment, I can’t see any brilliant solutions."

"That’ll be the gamma waves" retorted Azakis, repaying his friend with the same currency. "Assuming of course that those four neurons lurking in your empty head are still able to emit them."

"After that pitiful joke, I can finally announce that the old Zak is once again amongst us. Welcome back."

"So, can you manage to get this shuttle to the explosion site without crashing into some lunar elevation?"

"Certainly sir. At your orders," exclaimed Petri, imitating the military ways he had often seen used by his terrestrial friends. "Destination moon" he added cheerfully, after having started the engines and set the course towards the satellite.

It took only a couple of minutes to reach the place where the Theos had disintegrated. The shuttle began to slowly fly over the area of the hidden face of the moon that had suffered the impact of the explosion. The ground, normally very bumpy and full of craters caused by ancient impacts of hundreds of meteorites that, over millions of years, had literally riddled it, now appeared incredibly smooth and flat for about six hundred square kilometres. The wave of energy generated by the explosion had swept everything away. Rocks, craters and depressions no longer existed. It was as if a giant steamroller had passed over the area, leaving behind it an endless expanse of soft grey sand.

"Incredible," exclaimed Petri. "It’s like flying over the immense Sihar desert on Nibiru."

"We’ve made a big mess" said Azakis dejectedly.

"No. Can’t you see how beautiful the view is now? Before the surface had more wrinkles than our Supreme Elder, now instead it’s as smooth as a baby’s skin."

"I don’t think there’s much of our beloved spacecraft left."

"I'm running a full in-depth scan of the area, but the biggest piece I’ve found is approximately a few cubic centimetres."

"There’s no denying it. The self-destruct system worked really well."

"Hey Zak" exclaimed Petri suddenly. "In your opinion, what's that?” and he pointed to a dark spot on the main screen.

"I wouldn't know... You can’t see it very well. What do the sensors say?"

"They’re not picking anything up. According to them there’s nothing but sand there, but I think I can see something else."

"It’s impossible that the sensors can’t pick something up. Try doing a calibration test."

"Just give me a second." Petri fiddled with a series of holographic controls then sentenced, "The parameters are within normal range. Everything seems to be working properly."

"Strange ... Let’s try and get a little closer."

Shuttle number six moved slowly in the direction of that strange object that seemed to emerge from the layer of dust and grey sand.

"Maximum magnification" Azakis ordered. “But what is it?”