Chapter Text
"Okay, Olesya, you can come back on board," Yao's voice was heard, distorted by the radio.
"Yep, Captain!"
It was a routine EVA session. Everything was going as planned. Weekly spacewalks to inspect the lunar station were performing as scheduled. Just like today. Ilyukhina and Yao were responsible for only one part of the huge scientific station, where they as well prepared for the upcoming flight to Mars and at the same time carried out the routine work of full-time astronauts. Worth mentioning that the station performed both scientific and purely practical tasks much more than the historic ISS. Over time, it became the main space transport frontier between Earth and the distant reaches.
Nothing surprising that something was constantly breaking down. And if something broke, call the best engineer of all those currently living on the common dome-cities of the Moon, Olesya Ilyukhina.
Olesya loved working outside the station. Since childhood, dangerous situations hadn't frightened her; she'd always brought them on herself. That's how she'd progressed from climbing trees and wandering through abandoned houses at night with friends to a cushy job in space. She'd earned herself bruises and splinters and it wasn't for nothing; now she's more skilled than anyone at navigating handrails. Seeing a fellow engineer at the other end of the station, she waved and flew to the hatch.
After completed the usual airlock procedure, Olesya entered the station within a couple of minutes. After triple-checking all the systems, following the good old Russian tradition, the engineer slipped out of the bulky spacesuit, leaving her tool bag in a special locker.
"Yao, I'm here. Everything's fine," Olesya reported over the comms and waved to the camera. "Opening the internal hatch."
"Welcome home," her partner replied warmly.
All this work sucked her energy, and Olesya wanted nothing more than a good lunch. And then it would be nice to have a com session with Earth. Her sister would complain again about how much she misses her, and dad would look at her with pride in his eyes. But Ilyukhina knew he missed her too. He just didn't talk about it. Maybe next month she'd finally decide to take a vacation? Space still hadn't let her go of its hypnotic embrace.
A strange sense distracted her from her pleasant thoughts as she mechanically unlatched the hatch. Something was wrong in the utility tunnel, where she carefully flew in, closed the heavy door behind her. Knowing the station's layout down to the last detail, especially this part, both inside and out, Olesya could without a doubt tell when something was wrong. Just like now. It felt eerie. She shouldn't be scared in her cozy station. First— don't panic. Remain calm. Not yet knowing why exactly, Olesya looked around and immediately grabbed a wrench.
The familiar corridor’s lights flickered. Damn, I really need to fix the wiring. We're not in some cheap space horror movie, are we?
The engineer frowned, tightening her grip on the tool. Blinked several times. Yes, there had been cases of astronauts hallucinating, with some seeing flashes of light or fragments of satellites and mistaking them for natural phenomena. This wasn't surprising; space is a hostile environment for humans, elevated to the absolute certainty, and while humans can adapt to anything, sometimes the imperfect human body could function wrong. Deceptions of perception, illusions, and all that. However, in their century, plenty of people already work in these conditions; several thousand people had lived on the Moon colony. It seemed that space had become almost routine.
And no matter how hard Olesya tried, she couldn't calm down. Her heart was pounding. She tried to slow her breathing, counting from one to ten, as she drifted down the shimmering corridor inexorably. Palms were already sweating treacherously. Where did this irrational fear come from? She couldn't even understand what she was so scared of.
If only she hadn't noticed a shadow around the corner leading to her workshop at that very second.
"Yao?"
"Olesya? Where the hell are you? Report isn't waiting, by the way," Li-Jie answered through the link, a hint of worry in his voice.
"It wasn't him," Ilyukhina realized, her heart sinking. "If he's in the cockpit, then who the hell is that?"
Now she was overwhelmed not only by fear but also by curiosity. Two contradictions that always drove the engineer to all sorts of adventures. After all, there was the possibility that another colleague had wandered into their part of the station? Possible, but unlikely. Without notification, and besides wandering around the station without warning was impossible. Olesya pushed off the wall, spun quickly, and almost dropped the wrench. The shadow's outline didn't resemble a human one at all.
She would describe it as... A meter-long angular pentagon-like figure with five limbs. Almost a spider. What the... It wasn't Halloween on Earth yet, apparently.
A soft, friendly, shimmering sound. A mixture of purring and chirping on a smooth, high-pitched background. That didn’t make any sense. Olesya was completely lost from here. She shook her head, pinched herself just in case. A rustling, and then a soft thud. The intruder was even rummaging through her things? Her tools? That was just plain impudent.
"Wha—ЧТО ЗА ХРЕНЬ МАТЬ ТВОЮ?"1
A man hovered opposite the wall with tools. Or rather, a creature that looked like a human. Because humans usually have two pairs of arms, not four.
"♬♬♩♪" came from somewhere inside stranger as it no less frightened than Olesya, raised all four hands in a placating gesture, turning to face her—thank God—a relatively human face. A male face. With impossibly perfect hair, dark with gray strands that styled too perfectly. Almost alien.
"ЧТО ТЫ ЗАБЫЛ В МОЕЙ МАСТЕРСКОЙ? ВАЛИ ОТСЮДА!"2
Olesya didn't notice how, overcome with horror and outrage, she'd switched to her native tongue. The four-armed stranger rumbled in confusion again, batting his eyelashes, revealing strange eyes beneath his glasses. A black iris with no pupil.
"Will, this isn't funny at all!" Ilyukhina still believed she was just another prankster colleague. Only after another melodious canto engineer was finally get it.
This isn't a joke. This person is not human.
Still frozen in her pose with the wrench raised to strike, Olesya realized full horror. And it was reflected in the pose, the gaze, the tension of the figure opposite her.
"Yao," her partner must have heard the screams and tried to find out what was going on, but she didn't hear. "We've got... a little problem here."
Seemed like this was the administrative bay, and Grace couldn't remember what he was doing there. Perhaps he was begging Stratt for another vacation to Earth. Or trying to resign for the hundredth time, but her calm, winter cold gaze, like a morning shower because of yet another plumbing breakdown, shut him up, and he left defeated. Her unwavering, composed, stoic European "Grace, think again."
And he was thinking. About how he wouldn't hear a hundred off-topic questions from Olivia anymore, wouldn't tell Kevin about the lunar program over and over again, and wouldn't protest vehemently to just "going for a walk on the dark side."
No one would make him leave the city dome. The colonists' children were different from kids on Earth. They were proud of their parents, after all, almost all of them were automatically considered great people.
Nevertheless, children were children. Be it on Earth or on the Moon. Ryland loved them in his own way. As they loved him. The problem was that Grace loved Earth very, very much. But space travel, eerie, motionless darkness of it—no. He loved the Moon too, but only when it was in the sky, on a warm summer night, and he would stand somewhere on a beach, with the gentle surf, with the salty wind in his hair.
Here, there's only the constant pitch black, black sky above. The blinding disk of the sun. Gray, dead silence.
No, of course, since humanity's first baby steps on Earth's satellite, first purely scientific projects, living conditions here have improved significantly. Five domed cities, fully established flights with Earth as if on schedule. Promising jobs, advanced technologies, dozens of scientific projects involving the best minds. They lived here with their families, a new generation is growing up, born here. In a few decades, the same will be on Mars. Okay, maybe it will take longer, and by then he'll be retired, damn it, because it's way too far... No, nope, no way.
He even agreed to this job because, well... Despite not so usual habitat, it was no different from school on Earth ultimately . And in some ways, it had some advantages; there were only ten kids in the class, he had all sorts of things for demonstrating a huge list of experiments, absolutely all of this was new, kids studied on tablets without dragging around piles of books. And his unique approach was encouraged here. Grace knew without a doubt that when kids grew up, they would stand in the same ranks as their parents. They would become scientists, engineers, doctors, constructors, and some would definitely be managers. As we know, no matter how far humanity has come, people still need to be managed. And he would still be just a teacher.
However, Ryland wouldn't be the most beloved teacher if he weren't a nerd. So, no matter how much administration insisted he emphasize science, Grace held a day dedicated to arts once a week. What good scientist wasn't a fan of Star Trek or Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
But to be honest, life in the city of the Imbrium wasn't much different from his everyday life in San Francisco, back on Earth.
On Fridays, he let the students out early. Today was chill-and-talk day, as the students called it. Grace felt especially tired today, though that's almost always the case at the end of the week. When all the questions and discussions about some new game that had recently come out stopped and teens were waiting for him to speak, Ryland drove out of his thoughts and cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses.
"Okay, everyone, that's all for today. And yep, next time it's my turn to choose," Grace stood up, clapping his hands and looking around the class with a sly smile.
Hum raised. Some were happy, others were clearly expressing their nopes, because "Grace's going to pick some old crap again!" But he knew kids would be looking forward to this day, no matter what it brought. Ryland grinned triumphantly, crossing his arms.
"It's rules, guys. You know it better than me."
Grace waited patiently for the teenagers to calm down, standing in front of the interactive whiteboard. He missed a little bit of all the posters he'd painstakingly collected over the years in his science class. On the Moon, the classroom had seemed too sterile.
Students quieted down slowly, and almost all of them eventually left. Only Olivia stayed. Grace noticed that she had been withdrawing a lot lately and, unlike most of the moon kids, was quieter. Perhaps it was just a personality thing. He only hoped nothing serious happened. Ryland decided to try small talk anyway, just to make sure everything was okay.
"Olivia, is all good?"
"Oh? Yeah, everything's okay," the girl grabbed her tablet, sighing as she climbed out of her table. "I'm just worried about mom."
As far as he knew, Olivia's mother had recently been assigned as the lead chemistry specialist for the upcoming Mars mission. She was training on the lunar station. It was a fairly routine work these days. However, Olivia had every right to be worried.
"Your mother is a top-notch specialist. She'll handle it. Lunar station is probably even safer now than the city. You know, considering the number of accidents," and— dubious administrative situation in the colony's management, ha-ha—Grace turned off laptop, stuffing it into his backpack, continuing to chat with Olivia. "I know it sounds lame, but it's just facts."
"Yeah, I understand," she clutched the tablet in her hands, glancing at it, looking away occasionally and shrugging. "It's just... Worry. You have to understand."
"It's okay. To worry for their loved ones. Care about them." For some reason, talking heart-to-heart with students was always easier for him than with adults. Grace smiled, walking to the door, seeing Olivia off. "Everything will be fine. But I won't say ‘I promise’."
Olivia snorted quietly, looking at him with narrowed eyes.
"Have you heard a rumor about some incident in the west wing of the station?"
"Huh? An incident?" Ryland swiped his key card at the doorknob, locking the classroom. "Nah, I haven't heard."
"Well, I see. You're not catching up again, Mister Grace. Earthlings," Olivia chuckled, whispering the last word, and he pretended not to hear.
"Wait... What are you talking about?"
"Don't know. I didn't tell you anything," teenager was already moving away from him, leaving the teacher in the dark.
"Not catching up again, huh? I'm not that old," Ryland snorted quietly to himself, feeling his pride hurt. He watched Olivia leave, frowning, trying to remember some rumor or news circulating in Net, but nothing came to mind, no matter how hard he tried. Well, now he was wondering. How the hell kids didn’t even tell him? Or maybe he just hadn't been paying attention to their chatter during break.
Well, he could try to figure that out on the way to the bar where he and Carl always met on Fridays. Grace checked the time and made sure he still had some free time. Coming to one of the central squares, where routes to the various districts of the Mare Imbrium dome spread, he stopped away from the bustling crowd of people rushing from one district to another, sat down under a tree, and pulled out his phone. There were ordinary benches and even swings, like in a normal park on Earth. After all, this dome city was truly gigantic, because its boundaries were barely noticeable, settled so far. Fortunately, it didn't go out to create a complete replica of Earth. Look up and you'll immediately be reminded that you're not quite home. Yes, for a comfortable work-rest cycle, a semblance of a day was created, and depending on the time of day, the city's lighting changed, as did the transparency of the dome's roof. Now it was almost evening and you could already see the static dots of distant stars.
He snorted, lowered his head and unlocked his phone, checked the news section. Yep, since people had been living, even if only partially, between two worlds, the flow of content increased exponentially. Seems nothing official had been published, just a boring report on the daily operations of the station and other city systems. Ah, here was something more interesting. A couple of online discussions about an unscheduled shuttle flight to the station's west wing. The report was written in the best traditions—dry and to the point. No specific details. No detailed comments or explanations. It was very brief, as if made to blend in with the general, endless, seething information noise deliberately.
An accident? Perhaps a serious one? Everything Grace had hoped for, main thing was that no one was hurt. Tech breaks down, and that's okay. However, he couldn't take off the feeling that something was being left unsaid.
Well, it's not the first time, and it won't be the last. Who is he to get involved in all this? He's just an incitizen. Just wait for the smarter outcitizens to figure this all out. Then they'll hold an hour-long conference and everyone will calm down.
He arrived on time surprisingly. Had to endure a bit of a rush hour on the subway. Grace got off at the station, taking out his headphones, and went into an alleyway, both sides of which glowed and shimmered, as if he were in Times Square, only with slightly unusual skyscrapers. Or should we say moonscrapers?
Yes, they didn't grow upward, but horizontally. Grace could honestly say that this part of the the Mare Imbrium truly looked the least like anything he'd seen on Earth. It was the oldest of the five colonies and the most developing. "How much money did they pour into this place back in the day?" Ryland chuckled thoughtfully when he first came in here.
Bulky glass buildings shifting into one another in oval, diamond, and oblique rectangle shapes. Architects designing this entertainment area clearly turned up their creativity to the maximum.
There was everything here. Bars, restaurants, hotels, concert halls, clubs, cinemas, and even some completely new things that Ryland had no idea of what it was, even though he'd been here for six months. At the moment, he was interested in only one specific bar-café.
It was so nice to go somewhere... more or less peaceful. He turned off the rainbow-colored street and slid through automatic door that let him through. Сarl was waiting for him at the table and noticed when his friend entered.
"Hey! Grace! Hey, dude," the menacing six-foot-tall guy immediately transformed into the same old "one of us," beaming his welcoming smile.
It sounds trivial, but they met because of Stratt. Both worked under her supervision—though for Ryland, she was merely a boss who required reports occasionally on his work as a teacher within the Lunar education program, whereas Carl was basically her right-hand man. At first, however, Grace had assumed he was her bodyguard, or something like that. In a sense, he was deeply involved in all the administrative deals of the management team—something you certainly wouldn't guess from his demeanor.
"Hey, he-ey, mate, what's up?" They shook hands, exchanged a brief hug, and took their seats. "Sorry, but I order something right away, ‘been thinking about a good sandwich and a coffee since morning."
"Man, I’m starving too. It was a damn crazy busy day, ugh," Carl replied, gesturing to a waiter-bot. He selected dishes for both of them on the bot's display without even asking his friend. In such a short time, they had already gotten to know each other quite well—mostly because they both loved chatting about absolutely everything. "So, how’s it going? Got somethin’ new?"
Ryland watched the bot as it rolled off toward the kitchen briskly—where for now at least, cooking was still done by humans—and chuckled, leaning in across the table.
"You’re the one who needs to tell me somethin’ new," he said, pointing a finger at a surprised Carl, unable to hide his grin. "I need all the latest gossip from the guy who hangs out with big shots."
"But you talk to her, too," Carl chuckled, smirking.
"Yeah—once a month. And even that hardly counts as 'talking.' Our relationship is strictly business," Ryland theatrically turned down the corners of his mouth, leaning back in his chair. "You know as well as I do, that educational project is hardly at the top of her priority list. Thank God, if everything goes well, I won't be the only teacher on the Moon anymore. And the moment I’m free to bail, I'll definitely go."
"Seriously? After six months, you still haven't gotten used to the Moon? I think you aren’t the old-fashioned type."
"Oh, come on. Second person in a row trying to turn me into some boring, white, Texan retiree or something?" Grace threw up his hands, rolling his eyes. "I just... I love Earth. And being here has made me realize I love it even more. I miss freedom. And the ocean. And the fog. Damn it."
"Yeah, I get it, buddy," Carl sighed, glancing around. The place was filling up; plenty of people came here to relax after work. Unlike the other cafés and bars in the area, this one had an Earth-like atmosphere. "And yeah wait, who said it to you too? That you're old man? "
"Haha, very funny. That’s Olivia—remember? I told you about her. My student." Grace sighed, drumming his fingers on the table and glancing impatiently toward the kitchen. His stomach gave a quiet rumble. "She asked if I’d heard the rumors about the incident at the station, and of course, I didn't have the faintest clue."
"Oh, man..."
Carl frowned slightly and leaned against the table. It seemed he clearly wanted to share something, and that pause confused Grace. Usually, his friend shared absolutely everything he found with him. It wasn't exactly top-secret —mostly they just gossiped about their colleagues together. It was fun.
"What? What? Don't tell me you actually know something about all this..."
"Not exactly. That’s the point, man: Stratt didn't really tell me anything. She just threw twice as much work on me this morning as usual. I literally had to do all the work for her, wading with paperwork."
"And what exactly was she doing?"
"She left early this morning. She sent me a message saying she’d be out all day. She got called in to the Mission Control Center."
"Wow-wow, stop right here and tell me more about this, please, dude." Ryland frowned, leaning forward and completely forgetting about his poor starving stomach. "Is it all true? What happened?"
"I don't know! That's just it... But I can say for certain: a passenger ship arrived from the station. Maybe something happened to the crew?" Carl shrugged. A bot was already hurrying toward them with their dinner.
Ryland sighed in frustration. It could be nothing, but then again, it might be something important. If Stratt had been involved, surely other members of the City Council must have been called as well. But why the hell was he so interested? After all, it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
At least, their long-awaited meal was on the table. Grace politely thanked the bot with a smile as usual, then pulled his chicken sandwich and fries toward him and immediately began to eat. Damn it—delicious, as always. They ate in silence for a while, until Carl’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and frowned.
"Who’s bothering you now? Day is almost over," Grace mumbled, popping a few fries into his mouth.
"Stratt. Hmm, that’s odd—I don’t remember that ever happening before," his friend said, and answered the call.
Ryland arched an eyebrow, looking at Carl. He heard the familiar, calm voice of their shared boss, but couldn't make out what she was saying. Miss Stratt never texted—and certainly never called—over trifles. That just wasn't her style. Strict and demanding as she might be, she certainly knew how to maintain proper professional etiquette. Influence of her European roots, huh?
"Uh... yeah, he's with me. We're at the Sunset Bar," Carl said, sounding a little worried. "A-alright, ma'am. We'll be there in half an hour."
Grace felt a sudden, unpleasant chill settle deep inside him. Oh, he didn't like the sound of this. Not one bit.
"Stratt wants us to come. Or rather... you," his friend answered in a quiet voice. "She says it's an urgency."
"W-what? Seriously? On a Friday evening? Can't I at least finish my well deserved dinner?" Ry whined, tightening his grip on his food tray instinctively as if someone demanded to take it away from him.
"I don't know, man. Stratt says we have to come right now. Let's go." For all his jokes about Stratt's strictness, Carl always obeyed her without question—just as he was doing now.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Grace only managed to grab his coffee with. Better than nothing.