He suddenly seemed lost in thought, like he’d forgotten what he was saying or that he had an audience of four in front of him.
“Um, preparing what?” Drue asked.
The man didn’t say anything.
“Uh, Mr.—I mean Dr. Bale?” Hot Dog asked.
Dr. Bale took a deep breath and then looked at them, smiling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My mind works so much faster than my mouth that I’m usually several thoughts ahead of whatever it is I’m talking about.” He laughed a little. “And, let’s be frank, it’s been a while since we’ve had visitors. Let’s get to the point, shall we. Benny, you asked me in the car what your next move should be.”
He pulled back the canvas in the doorway, opening the shed to them. Inside, beneath harsh overhead lights, were rows and rows of overflowing shelves. Benny’s eyes moved over the locked chests, canisters labeled with all sorts of warning signs he didn’t recognize, HoloTeks, computer terminals covered in switches, blinking lights everywhere, and what looked to him like dozens of items that resembled the cannon that had taken down the alien ship, sitting alongside a stockpile of what Benny could only describe as futuristic guns.
“Dude,” Drue muttered, and Benny couldn’t tell if he was terrified or out of his mind with excitement.
“What is all of this?” Jasmine asked, stepping forward and peering into the shed.
“An armory,” Dr. Bale said. “Your next move is simple. You must protect Earth.”
6.
Jasmine blinked, looking back and forth between Dr. Bale and the weapons inside the shed. “You’ve been up here this entire time creating some sort of Moon arsenal?”
“That’s merely a portion of what we’ve been doing,” Dr. Bale said, letting the flap fall back down, hiding his armory once again.
“I can see why you and Elijah didn’t get along,” Jasmine continued. “He was completely against the further weaponization of the human race.”
“And look how that worked out for him,” Dr. Bale said quickly, his eyes wild for a flash.
“He could have survived,” Hot Dog said.
Dr. Bale’s features softened. “Well, I suppose we don’t know what happened, exactly.”
Benny shifted his weight. “What are you planning to do with those?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea already after seeing what the Tank could do.
The man took a long breath, but before he could answer, Drue was talking again.
“Uh, also, where was all this earlier when we were gluing mining lasers to the fronts of our Space Runners and going to stop the aliens ourselves? Because I bet we could have used some of this.”
“We did okay on our own,” Hot Dog said.
“I got blasted by one of those ships!”
“Okay, sure, it didn’t go perfectly.” She thought for a second and then rolled her eyes at him. “Also, I was sucked into the mother ship and almost put in some kind of alien zoo, so, who should be complaining here?”
Dr. Bale grunted. “We didn’t see this asteroid storm coming until you’d already deployed. We don’t have scanners like those found in the Taj. For the most part, we’ve made do out here, but our equipment isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. We didn’t have a dozen spare satellites to launch after the first wave.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now, if we had the resources of the Taj, that would be another story altogether.”
Benny swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought Dr. Bale would be like, but he definitely didn’t expect him to be showing them a bunch of weapons within minutes of their finding his camp. And the way he talked about Elijah and the Taj was tinged with something that didn’t sit well with Benny, despite Dr. Bale’s calming, precise manner of speaking. The man may have been a genius, but the last time Benny had put his faith in someone on the Moon who supposedly knew better than him and his friends, Earth had almost been destroyed.
Still, they needed all the help they could get, and this man knew the Alpha Maraudi. Plus, he had saved Benny’s life. He kind of owed him the benefit of the doubt.
“You said you were working on other projects,” Jasmine said. “Is there anything else here that could help us?”
Dr. Bale nodded and began to walk to the next shed. Once he was in front of them, Jasmine turned to look at Benny. Her lips were pressed together tightly, and her eyes were wide as she shook her head.
“I know,” Benny mouthed silently.
“The key to progress and success is to never rule out any possibility of advancement, no matter how remote,” Dr. Bale said as they followed him. “That’s one thing Elijah and I agreed on. The difference between us is that Elijah’s thoughts were always stuck in his own solar system, whereas I have a much more open mind.”
He held the flap covering the entrance of the shed back and let the four of them walk inside. When Benny saw the circuitry-filled stone terminals pulsing with a dim green light, he immediately recognized what they were looking at. This was Alpha Maraudi technology, the same kind he’d seen in the alien mother ship and . . .
“The abandoned Moon base,” he murmured as he took in the dozens of asteroid chunks sitting on a table and a hologram of a three-sunned solar system in one corner. There were other things, too, that he didn’t recognize: tools made out of some red metallic substance, glass cylinders housing various mineral samples floating in midair, and what looked to Benny like pieces of bone—long, narrow, and a dull bronze in color.
He swallowed hard.
“So you’ve seen it,” Dr. Bale said.
“Yeah,” Hot Dog said. “It’s, uh . . . kind of a long story.”
“You scavenged these things,” Benny said. “That’s why it looked so empty when we were there.”
Dr. Bale stepped forward, picking up one of the asteroids as big as his fist. “Scavenge implies that these items were castoffs from the Maraudi we found. These items were . . . inherited after the extraterrestrials no longer existed. We brought what we could back to the resort with us. Well, the building site, at least. Everything was still under construction.”
“Oh,” Drue said. “I get it. This is the stuff you took from the Taj when you left.”
“I didn’t steal anything, if that’s what you’re implying.” Dr. Bale turned away from them slightly, surveying the items in the shed. “We found that base together, and contrary to what he may believe, Elijah does not own the Moon. I had as much a right to anything in that base as he did. Earth had a right to these things. Besides, what was he going to do with such important resources? Bury them away in his resort and pretend he was untouchable? Let them languish in some research lab? I couldn’t let that happen.”
There was a strange sensation against Benny’s right leg as Dr. Bale spoke. Not quite strong enough to be called a buzzing, but some sort of dull energy, like the feeling he got when his HoloTek vibrated from across the RV and he could just barely, almost intuitively register it. He slid his hand into the pocket of his space suit, fingers grazing the golden glove.
It felt warm to the touch.
“And what have you learned?” Jasmine said, stepping farther into the room, looking at the collection of artifacts that had originated light-years away.
“Plenty,” Bale said. He held up the asteroid rock. “You see, these beings are engineers beyond our wildest dreams. Imagine being able to create new elements. Stones that are partially organic, able to grow, veined with energies. Minerals you could control given the correct type of frequency. The way they’ve learned to use metals and rocks . . . They could reshape Earth if they wanted to.”
“That must be why their ships look like pieces of quartz,” Jasmine said.
“So, they can control rocks?” Benny asked. “How? With, like, their minds?”
“Of course not,” Dr. Bale said. “With science. They have instruments of their own.” He paused, smiling a bit as he walked over to a black case. He flipped it open, and, as he held up its Contents, Benny’s heart jumped.
It was a me
tallic glove, much like the one he had. Only this one had a gash through it, like something very hot had sliced through the palm.
Hot Dog glanced at Benny. He nodded slightly. The others kept their eyes forward, even though they both knew he had an alien glove of his own. It was still humming in his pocket, and he almost took it out. But he didn’t. Something about the excited way that Dr. Bale talked made him think the scientist would want the glove if he knew Benny had it. And given the shed they’d just seen, Dr. Bale could probably force them to hand it over.
“When we found the aliens,” Dr. Bale said, “I saw one of them control the door to their base with this, growing it into the huge slab it is now. Another—the Maraudi that got away . . . it looked like he was using it to control his ship.”
Benny swallowed hard. Maybe this glove was going to come in handy.
“So, what about this one?” Jasmine said. “Can you show us how it works?”
Dr. Bale looked at the gash in the glove’s palm. “Maybe I could if it were whole. But Elijah was careless with the architectural laser he was wielding when we made first contact.”
That’s when Benny remembered the details of the story Elijah had told them about when he and his top scientist had discovered the base—how there’d been a fight, and none of the aliens left on the Moon had survived. He shuddered as his eyes again fell on the bone-like items on the shelf.
It was almost difficult to imagine that all this had happened years and years ago, before the EW-SCAB had ever been created. And yet, here they were now, dealing with the ramifications.
Dr. Bale made his way to the hologram in the corner. “This is their solar system. You’ll note that the middle of these three red dwarf stars is larger than the others. That’s because it’s expanding. Observe.” He reached into the hologram and seemed to pull on it, until the whole image zoomed in on a blue and brown ball floating near one of the stars. “This is where they come from. And, as you can see . . .” He pressed on something at the base of the hologram, and slowly the star began to expand until it was overtaking the planet completely. “They’re in trouble. I’m not sure what the timetable is on this—we haven’t exactly been focusing on learning their language or communications techniques—but they’re obviously looking to take Earth . . . Benny, you said you could breathe on their spaceship?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think they need our atmosphere?” It was more of a question than he meant it to be, considering Commander Tull—the alien in charge of the mother ship he’d been on that morning—had told him flat out that this was the reason. But Benny was preoccupied with something else. “So . . . you know they’re not coming to take Earth just because they want to conquer it, then. They’re coming for it because otherwise their species will die.”
Dr. Bale nodded. “Let me guess. Elijah was still imagining they might turn Earth into a destination planet. Some sort of vacation resort for wealthy extraterrestrials.” He let out a single, deep laugh. “Ever the entrepreneur.”
“But, if you know that . . .” Benny started, shaking his head. “If you understand that they’re just looking for a new home, why not use your skills to try to save their planet instead of making weapons to fight them. Maybe you could stop their star from expanding. Then they wouldn’t need Earth.”
“Who’s to say that they wouldn’t take it anyway?” Dr. Bale pulled on his beard. “In all honesty, their technology is far more advanced than ours. If they can’t figure out a way to save themselves, there’s no way I’m going to. Plus, my boy, when you’re my age—when you’ve seen the things I’ve seen—you stop putting hope in the best possible solution and start to bet on the one most likely to come out in your favor. Or in this case, the favor of all mankind. We have to be able to defend ourselves if—when they return. That’s why I’ve designed these weapons. I’ll be waiting for them if they show their tentacled heads here again. The safety of our planet and our people is the highest priority. Everything else is negotiable.”
Benny swallowed hard. His friends didn’t say a word. The only thing that broke the silence was a rustling behind them. Benny turned to see Todd had pulled back the shed’s canvas door flap. He and Mae both held trays with silver packages on them.
“It’s probably not anything like Taj food,” Todd said, “but we technically did break out the good stuff.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Mae suggested. “After a while, you forget that most of your protein comes from soy powder.”
Benny had eaten enough sustenance squares back on Earth to know that wasn’t true, but he kept his mouth shut as they followed Dr. Bale and his assistants out into the center of the camp. Todd and Mae passed around the little silver pouches.
“Thanks,” Drue said, taking his. “I think.”
“So, you’ve come for help,” Dr. Bale said, crossing his arms. “I suppose you’re hoping to take some of these weapons back with you now that you’ve seen them. But I must say, they were not meant for children to use, despite the bravery you showed this morning.”
“No,” Jasmine said, taking a step forward. “We didn’t come here for weapons.”
Dr. Bale looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement. “Oh?”
“We came for information,” she continued. “Guidance. And to warn you.”
“And to get in touch with Earth,” Benny said, stepping up beside her. “That’s one of our biggest priorities.”
“I mean, we’ll take some of those weapons,” Drue said from behind them. “If you’re offering.”
Hot Dog sighed. “If you really want to save humanity, you won’t give him anything remotely dangerous.”
“Hey,” Drue said. “I—”
“Can you help us with any of that?” Benny asked, talking over his friend.
Dr. Bale took off his thick goggles and began to wipe them with a cloth he pulled from his space suit pocket. “As you can see, we have a lot of very important work that we’re doing here. But I’ll confer with my colleagues and see what we can do. Contact with Earth would benefit everyone, after all.” He nodded to Todd and Mae. “Between the three of us I’m sure we can come up with a few ideas.”
Todd and Mae both nodded, still holding the trays.
Dr. Bale put his goggles back on and then pulled a thin HoloTek hardly bigger than a deck of cards from his pocket. “I’ll be in touch. Call it nostalgia if you like, but I never deleted the resort’s contact information from my datapad. I’ll let Pinky know when we’ve come up with something.”
“Oh,” Benny said, kind of relieved at how well this was now going. “Well . . . Great.”
“As humans, we’re in this together,” Dr. Bale said. “Whatever happens next, we must be united. Now, I really should be getting back to work. Your encounter with the Maraudi this morning has disrupted my schedule.”
“Then I guess we’ll be going?” Benny asked. “Hopefully we’ll talk again soon.”
“Ah,” Dr. Bale said, smiling. “I’ve no doubt about that.”
7.
“Okay, so that is not what I thought space camp on the dark side would be like,” Hot Dog said through the comms as they flew back toward the Taj.
“I’m just saying,” Drue said, glancing at Benny, who sat in his passenger seat, “those weapon things could come in useful in the future.”
Hot Dog groaned. “I hate that I agree with you about that.”
“How bad do you guys want to shoot that laser cannon he had?” Drue grinned. “I knew we needed space tanks. Remember? I told Elijah that he—”
“Drue,” Jasmine came in, cutting him off. “I don’t like even knowing that those weapons are up here. I always respected Elijah’s stance about not using science to do harm. It’s one thing I definitely think he was right about.”
“I’m with Jazz on this,” Benny said, looking out the window and nodding toward her silver Space Runner flying at his right.
“Look, I know you don’t want to hurt the aliens, but we should also think about p
rotecting ourselves,” Drue said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those things mounted on top of the Grand Dome in case the Alpha Maraudi came and attacked?”
Benny didn’t disagree, but everything was so complicated. Back in the caravan, they’d kept the amount of weapons floating around the trucks and RVs to a bare minimum, locked up as last resorts. They put their priorities on peace and being welcoming.
So he leaned back in his seat and avoided the question. “I’m just glad he didn’t ask to come back to the Taj with us.”
“Did you hear his voice when he was talking about Elijah and the Taj?” Hot Dog asked. “I was definitely getting some bitter vibes.”
“Uh, he has to want to come back to the resort,” Drue said. “Moon camping looked awful. Like, where were the bathrooms even?”
“Maybe he’s waiting to have something to offer us so we invite him?” Jasmine asked. “Any person of science would want to have the Taj’s resources.”
“Imagine how excited he’d be if he got Benny’s glove,” Hot Dog said.
“Oh, yeah!” Drue said. “I almost forgot! Benny, you’ve got rock superpowers or something.”
“If I could only figure out how to use them,” Benny said. “When we were near all that alien tech in Dr. Bale’s shed, the glove was doing something weird. I don’t know. Like it was vibrating. Buzzy.” He shrugged. “Maybe I should take some of the asteroid samples that we saw in that abandoned alien base and see if I can do something with them.”