The Moonstormers

Preface

Once I had a dream in which I visited the Moon and found a ruined and abandoned building there. I awoke with a feeling of mystery: who had lived in that building, where had they disappeared to and why?

In this novel I have found answers to these questions.

It is still too early to say whether historical events similar to those described here may have happened in reality. They appear to entail no obvious physical impossibilities, and are fully in accordance with the intentions of some of the leading personalities of the Second World War period. If the capabilities of German manufacturing industry to produce lightweight, high-strength alloys at that time were only slightly greater than is commonly supposed nowadays, then who knows what the rocket builders might have achieved?

All the characters in this novel are fictional creations, with the obvious exception of a handful of well-known historical figures who are portrayed, so far as I am able, consistently with their genuine historical roles.

I should like to thank Julia Effertz, Jacqueline Myrrhe and Takako Tokumoto for their kind assistance with some of the foreign-language quotations in this book. Any errors in interpreting their advice remain my own.

S. L. A.

Oxford

November 2012

Prologue

10 October 1941 – 5 December 1943

Dawn awoke to the ominous rumble of approaching gunfire over the land.

The dreamy yellow light of a waning Moon grew pale. The battleship-grey sky brightened imperceptibly around it, washing out the ruddy glow from nearby Aldebaran, dissolving even the twinkling eye of Sirius, the Dog Star, low on the clear southern horizon. As the peaceful stars made their exit, they yielded the sky to a black constellation of Heinkel bombers grumbling through the crisp autumn air. The aircraft rose in the bomb-rich west, soared over a broad conifer forest and set a few minutes later in the target-rich east.

Suddenly, again from the west, a squadron of Panzer tanks marked with the black Iron Cross burst out of the forest onto the flat agrarian landscape. Engines revving, their caterpillar tracks chewing up the frosty ground, they charged in line abreast over the broad plain and converged on a village settlement of a few dozen small wooden houses and barns clustered around one larger building topped with an onion dome. The windows of the domed building were boarded up: in the atheist state the church served only as a warehouse.

The war machines thrust their way into the village’s central square where they came to a halt, their guns trained on a solitary, mud-plastered Soviet T-34 with a red star on its turret and broken tracks, also facing east. Beside the crippled vehicle lay a single human body in a military tunic. Both were motionless. Above the man’s head, a cracked and faded red-painted board nailed to the wall of the former church proclaimed:

PJATILETKU – V 4 GODA!

(Let’s complete the Five-Year Plan in four years!)

As the first rays of the rising sun shot through the doomed village the people started to appear, emerging shyly from their homes bearing religious icons and gifts of bread and eggs for their conquerors. The men were bearded, the women in headscarves, and the children gawped at the tanks in wide-eyed silence.

The German commander clambered out of his Panzer turret and jumped down to the beaten earth. The right breast of his tunic was emblazoned with an insolent German Cross in Gold, the latest conceit of the Führer, consisting of a clumsy star with an oversized swastika in the centre, awarded for bravery in the face of the enemy. His officer’s cap was topped with the emblem of the eagle and swastika.

While some tank commanders watched from their turrets, others gathered on the ground around their commander as the Russian village mayor, wearing no coat over his flimsy Tolstoyan shirt despite the chill, approached them. The soldiers, their faces flushed with the early morning chase, exchanged grins, while the locals responded with a grateful smile and some wiped a tear of relief from their eyes.

The mayor held out a loaf of bread, offering it to his presumed liberator, and started to speak. But his first words were cut off by a muffled crack! from the direction of the largest of the inhabited wooden houses, and an officer standing next to the German commander fell with a groan, clutching his chest as he went down.

The others immediately scattered and ran back to their machines. Within seconds the invaders had opened up machine gun fire on the sniper’s nest. As the commander was remounting his Panzer the mayor clutched at his trouser leg, talking rapidly, a pleading look on his face. Without a moment’s hesitation the officer drew his Walther PPK pistol, pointed it at the mayor’s head and pressed the trigger once. The man collapsed onto the ground in front of the shocked villagers.

The commander meanwhile disappeared into his vehicle. The gun turret swivelled around and fired into the house at point-blank range. There was an explosion from inside, followed by smoke that streamed thickly out of the shattered windows. The villagers hesitated no longer, but dispersed in panic.

Now soldiers armed with machine pistols were tumbling out of armoured personnel carriers which had arrived in the lee of the Panzers. They started to rush from house to house, hammering impatiently at one door after another. Those doors which were not quickly opened from within were kicked open from outside. From time to time a burst of gunfire was heard. Another suspected partisan neutralised.

An hour passed, and the village was quiet again. The group of officers reassembled and spread a map over the bonnet of an armoured car; the villagers were out of sight. The mayor’s house was close to burning out, and from somewhere behind it the faint sound of weeping could sometimes be heard. The German officers meanwhile looked up from their map and raised small glasses half-filled with a clear liquid. A toast was drunk: Vorwärts! Nach Moskau!

The officers prepared to remount their tanks, the men meanwhile queueing to resume their seats in their armoured personnel carriers. Just then a lone motorcyclist rode into the square and skidded to a halt. He set his machine against a wall, searched out the German commander, saluted and handed him an envelope.

Having perused the message, the commander’s smile broadened and he called a few of the other nearby officers to his side. What he said to them was muffled by the crash as the blackened beams that had once been the roof of the mayor’s house finally collapsed. But the troops standing a respectful distance away saw him raise his eyes above the smoking ruin, above the procession of Heinkels returning from their morning bombing mission, pointing his finger upwards, up to where the half Moon, now a deathly white against the cerulean blue, still floated serene.

The gaze of the other officers followed his own, and as they comprehended his meaning they stood spontaneously to attention, while on their faces appeared an expression of awe.

* * *

Two years later. On another world…

The white riveted hull of the spaceship from Earth shone brilliantly against a fathomless black sky in the needle-sharp rays of the rising sun.

A hatch opened in the curved aluminium flank of the strange beast, alien to this harsh landscape. A slender human figure in a tight-fitting silver suit, with a narrow eye-slit in a domed golden helmet, and with a square box on its chest balanced by a trio of cylindrical tanks strapped on at the back, appeared in the opening.

Pinned to the chest unit was a large gold star with an oversized swastika in the centre. Bravery. In the face of the enemy.

For a while the figure paused, staring outwards. Then it turned to face the interior again, gripped a handrail and eased first one booted foot, then the other, onto the topmost rung of a ladder on the exterior of the hull. The descent was laborious, like a beetle. An antenna extending half a metre above the helmet wiggled as the body swayed from side to side.

The silver figure paused on the bottom rung of the ladder, inches above the ground. Inside the ship which it had just vacated, ten pairs of eyes stared tensely, some through one or other of the round portholes spaced around the circular cabin, others at a large black loudspeaker, which now hissed with a metallic male voice:

Ich stehe auf der untersten Stufe… ich mache den ersten Schritt auf die Oberfläche.

Dropping the last short distance, the spacesuited figure landed on the powdery desert floor. He turned to face the wilderness, took one wary step forward, then another, holding his arms out for balance, bouncing despite his careful movements like a man walking on a trampoline. Behind him stretched a lengthening trail of imprints from the soles of his boots. He paused again and swivelled slowly around.

The landscape was rocky and undulating, with countless shallow pits and randomly scattered boulders as far as the eye could see. Apart from a distant arc of hills circling the horizon, it was dismally monotonous. There were no signs of vegetation, no traces of water, no hints of movement in the bare monochrome waste under a black sky, devoid of any colour but for chalky whitish grey in one direction shading to ashen brown grey in another. The sun dazzled with overpowering brilliance, and the figure quickly turned away from its immobile glare.

Through the loudspeaker, words came again, but hushed, awed: Was für eine prächtige Verwüstung…

He leaned over backwards, and two eyes behind his helmet visor squinted upwards. There, directly overhead, hung a half-illuminated globe. Even a brief glance came away with an impression of white clouds swirling over blue seas and green-brown continents rich with living creatures. To an eye accustomed to the sight of the Moon in the skies of Earth, it looked huge and brilliant, yet for all its majesty it was impossibly remote, and now irretrievably lost forever.

The spacesuited figure with the golden helmet lost his balance and staggered backwards, twisting and stumbling over the stony ground. He silently kicked up a cloud of dust and touched down awkwardly on one arm before regaining his feet and recovering his equilibrium.

This time the words hissing into the circular cabin came inflected with sudden anger: Scheiße! Meine Hand!

He brushed the dust from his gloves, massaged his sprained wrist and returned towards the ship, where another silver-suited figure had appeared and was already lowering a pole on a lanyard from the open hatch.

The man on the surface grabbed the pole, fumbled with clumsy fingers to unclasp it from the line, carried it a dozen metres out into the desert and thrust one end into the ground. At first it would not stay upright. He arrested its slow fall and pushed it in deeper. This time it stayed in place.

He pressed a catch on the pole and a spring-loaded black, white and blood-red banner unfurled, mirroring a similar device painted on the spaceship’s curved hull. The man turned back to face the ship. As his companion angled a camera towards him, a momentary flash of sunlight reflected off the heroic German Cross in Gold. The bearer of the decoration assumed an erect military pose.

Again the loudspeaker inside the circular cabin carried his words to his companions. This time they were spoken slowly and deliberately, inflected with the consciousness of destiny:

Ich erhebe Anspruch auf den Mond für den Führer, für das deutsche Volk und für das Vaterland! Heil Hitler! – his right arm was raised stiffly in the fascist salute – Heil Hitler!

The listeners in the cabin repeated his last words like an amen:

Heil Hitler!

PART ONE: VALHALLA

~ 1 ~

Berlin

So you think the Nazis could’ve put a man into space?, asked the unshaven man with an Australian accent.

It’s possible, I said, frowning because I knew I was going to be late for a meeting with a client. I bit into my German pastry and took a quick slurp of coffee, then added: But highly unlikely. Space technology was only in its infancy then, what?… – I made a mental calculation – …ninety years ago.

His narrow eyes glittered at me across the small table. His face was tanned, his teeth stained; he must have been in his fifties at least, or sixties. Meanwhile a group of several overweight women squeezed past us on their way to a free table, and I was momentarily distracted by their chatter and a whiff of sickly sweet perfume.

You’re saying it’s possible?, he insisted, raising his voice above the bustle of the busy pavement café. The April sun shone pleasantly down over our table, and tourists mingled with local office workers around us.

I shrugged. The V-2 rocket could fly to the edge of space. They had a plan to put a pilot on the V-2. They never did it, but if they had the pilot could’ve flown above the atmosphere. Briefly. Then Germany would’ve had the first man in space.

What about several men? What about a woman?

But you have to remember there’s no historical evidence they ever did. Yes… they had a famous woman test pilot called Hanna Reitsch. Demonstrated an early helicopter. She could’ve flown the V-2. But of course she didn’t. They weren’t interested. They had a war to win. I mean, to lose. I crammed the rest of the pastry into my mouth (delicious, packed with fruit!) and checked my watch.

Did you see the pix I sent you?

I’m sorry, Roger, it’s just been one thing after another this past week, and I didn’t get a moment… My voice trailed off as I saw him pulling an antiquated laptop out of his rucksack. Like I said, in literally fifteen minutes I have to be… – I nodded towards the street, clogged with hurrying pedestrians, hooting cream-coloured taxis and lumbering Touristenfahrt buses, and towards the broad avenue beyond, lined with austere marble-faced office blocks.

Jesus! Only take a moment. There – he turned the device around and pushed it towards me – Take a look. What d’you see?

I sighed and glanced at the screen. The first image showed an arid desert landscape under a clear blue sky with the horizon tilted at a drunken angle. Couldn’t he even hold a camera straight? There was the odd dried-up tree or thorn bush, nothing more. Wait – there were fragments of torn metal too, blending into the rust-brown scene. Debris from a scrapyard? An air crash?

Here’s a closeup of the fuselage. He reached for the keyboard and advanced the slideshow to the next image.

Is that a…? I hesitated. Faintly visible on the weathered, twisted piece of metal were traces of paint in the shape of a letter X. More traces of lines coming off the tips of the letter at right-angles. A swastika.

Where did you take this?

In the outback. Secret location! Roger grinned, displaying the gaps in his teeth, and pressed the down arrow again. What d’you make of this?

You mean, Australia? I saw the remains of a crumpled cylinder, which tapered to a rounded, rusted, badly dented nose. It could have been the front section of an aircraft fuselage, though I couldn’t see any windows or any sign of a cockpit.

From this side you get the overall shape. It’s bullet-shaped, see? Like this pepper pot – he took the small rounded object from the neighbouring table and waved it in front of me.

I restrained his hand, retrieved the pepper pot and returned it with a weary smile to the couple eating German sausage and salad beside us. They gave us a curious glance – certainly, we must have looked an odd couple, me clean-shaven, hair neatly trimmed, in my immaculate business suit and silk tie, and Roger bestubbled, wild-eyed and unkempt, wearing a shabby donkey jacket which hung open to reveal a glimpse of hairy chest. But my companion spared no thought for the critical glances we were attracting.

The innards are scattered over a mile of outback. I counted twelve seats. Some had human bones beside them.

I studied a picture of a small patch of ground with a few sun-bleached bones lying randomly among the stones. A rusted belt buckle protruded from the reddish dust. I shook my head: I’m sorry, I’m not an expert on… why don’t you consult an archaeologist?

He leaned closer to me, and I caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath: Nazis are a big problem in Oz. Big problem!

"Er… an archaeological problem?"

"Where I live, in Koala Springs, see? they’re very powerful. I know for a fact – he leaned even closer as I turned my head away from him – they’re abusing under-age girls. I personally know at least six girls – no, seven, seven girls, the youngest is thirteen, see? – and they regularly get taken away by those Nazi bastards. Often they’re missing from home all night."

Have you spoken to the police?

Some of ’em are Abos, some Chinese, some mixed race, so they think they can do whatever they want with ’em. Keep ’em doped up to stop ’em complaining. Parents are on dope, too, all of ’em. I spoke to one of ’em, big, muscular fellow, blonde-haired, I cornered him in the street, and I told him straight out, I said I know who you are, what you’re doing to those little girls, and it ain’t right, it’s disgusting, I told him. Next I knew I was on the ground with a busted leg and two busted ribs. I’m still limping now.

So what did the police say?

Yeah, I went to the police, they’re all secret Nazi paedophiles too, they told me I’m barking up the wrong fucking coolabah tree, I’d better watch my step. That was before I started getting death threats…

I gazed at the wide, bloodshot eyes staring back at me from out of his leathery face. How much of this was true and how much drug-induced fantasy was impossible to guess.

They came from outer space!, he hissed into my face as I tried to avoid the stench on his breath. Where there’s one spaceship there must be more. The others landed safely in the outback, see? and that’s how the Nazis secretly invaded Oz without any of us knowing anything about it!

I tried to regain control of the conversation: Okay, so you’ve got social problems in Australia, just like people have all over the world. But where’s the Nazi connection? And how could they have come from space ninety years ago? You’ve not found any proof of a spaceship. What you’ve shown me just looks like a bit of industrial junk, maybe an abandoned water tank. But let’s be generous and say it’s a crashed aircraft. So there’s a wrecked aircraft from the Second World War in Australia, sitting in the desert outside Koala Springs for ninety years. Some kids spray-painted a swastika on the side. Am I supposed to be…, I mean, what…?

Could be an aircraft. Bloody strange shape, can’t find any wings, but, sure, could be an aircraft. But does an aircraft have these? He forwarded the display to the next slide with the air of a chess master moving in for checkmate.

But I wasn’t looking. After gulping down the last of my coffee, I picked up my briefcase and stood up. I’m sorry, Roger, I know it’s rude of me and I know it’s my fault for being late, but as I said… – I checked my watch and saw that I was about to be late again.

Reaction control thrusters!

Yes, sure. I’m really sorry. We’ll continue this by p-mail… – I called the last words over my shoulder.

Jesus! I come all this fucking way, and…

I didn’t hear what he said after that. I hurried to the exit and made for the pedestrian crossing I’d used earlier. A crowd of people had already gathered, waiting to cross. A pretty woman’s long dark hair was streaming in the stiff breeze. Reaction control thrusters on a ninety-year-old aircraft. Not really. The old geezer was imagining things. Check the photos on the copies he’d p-mailed to me. That woman was good-looking. Executive type, smartly dressed, probably got a rich boyfriend, richer than me, anyway. Just check out the curve of that chest – oops! time to go.

We crossed the road. I forgot the woman and the strange Australian with his wobbly photos, cranky theories and narcotics-inspired fantasies, and marched briskly along a pavement leading into a broad, tree-lined avenue with expensive hotels and multinational corporate headquarters on both sides. The fresh spring breeze felt good after my claustrophobic experience in the café.

I was briefly distracted by a procession which, obstructing the traffic, was crawling in my direction. Men and women – some wearing minority ethnic costumes, the men mostly bearded – were waving placards and shouting vigorously; armed policemen in green overalls huddled in wary platoons around the periphery. I glanced at the slogans: the protest seemed to be calling down the wrath of God on the sins of some minor neo-Nazi group I hadn’t heard of before.

They say the upsurge in political and religious extremism is because of the depression. All the climate change legislation enacted back in the teens and the twenties has made life too expensive for some. The underclass is back, with angry mobs rallying around preachers of holy wrath, or around demagogues of socialist Left or fascist Right.

Although today’s anger seemed to be directed against the building I was heading for, with much shouting and pointing of accusing fingers, my way to the front entrance was clear. I slipped past a dangerous-looking posse of uniformed officers cradling black sub-machine guns in their arms, and entered the door of an imposing marble and glass edifice with a soaring company logo frosted into all its street-level windows.

I walked across a spacious concourse and up to a wide reception desk. The young woman behind the desk – blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty face – smiled, and said: Guten Morgen, Herr Axley. Welcome to Berlin!

~ 2 ~

Snyder

Craig Snyder, the plump, cheerful man in the pinstriped suit said, introducing himself. We shook hands, while I mumbled an apology for having arrived late.

Not at all, he breezed, It’s our fault for dragging you all the way out here. But these days we spend more time in Germany than in the UK.

Meeting Craig Snyder in person for the first time, my first thought was that he looked younger than I’d expected, late thirties, not much older than I am, unless his vast personal wealth had enabled him to turn the biological clock back.

Welcome to Globaleezey, he added, and turned to his companions: Meet Freddy Axley, our pilot. He’ll be our guide to all things astronautical.

There were two others in the spacious office: a statuesque woman of around forty with long blonde hair piled majestically up above her head, who I mentally christened the opera diva, and a young lad of no more than about 19, also fair-haired, looking like a cocky young stockbroker in his stylish suit and garish tie. I mentally repeated their names as our hands clasped: Greta Browning, Oscar Stonemiller.

We moved towards a semicircle of softly yielding leather armchairs round a low table as an assistant wheeled in a shiny silver trolley with a jingle of cups and saucers and a strong aroma of freshly ground coffee.

The diva poured me a cup, not that I wanted one after my half hour’s entertainment with the Australian, but the situation was all about making a good impression. How was your journey to Berlin, Freddy?, she asked, and sat down next to me. Her accent was home-counties English, like a duchess.

I had a pleasant flight, thank you.

I sipped my coffee, while the assistant with the trolley glided out of the room and the door closed silently behind him.

The boy with the gaudy tie piped up: Hope you didn’t get hassled by the demo in the street?

I smiled at the combination of his equally posh accent with his colloquial choice of words, and said: Not at all. I think the police had them well under control.

Well you’re wrong! Those are the same bastards who put a bomb under the Bundestag last year. They should obey German law or else be deported back where they came from!

Really? I didn’t see what exactly their grievance was.

Snyder enlightened me: The German government is about to impose a quota on the number of mosques, synagogues and other places of alien religious worship in Germany. The quota will of course be set lower than the number of places that currently exist.

That’s not very fair! This is the 21st century, after all. Mutual tolerance, you know.

The young lad spoke up again: We need to do the same in the UK. But only the Anglo Nationalist Party’s got the guts to say so.

The Anglo Nats? Surely they’re only a fringe party, more noise than substance?

Stonemiller gave me an intense teenager’s stare: Within six months the resurgence of Anglo-Germanic culture will have started. We’ll be fighting back against these alien religions, forcing the crazy preachers to leave, throwing out their fanatical followers, cleansing the whole of Europe from this pestilence!

Snyder put a calming hand on the boy’s shoulder, and turned to me: You see, Freddy, mutual tolerance hasn’t worked. Religious and ethnic extremism is tearing Europe apart. Therefore the immigrant cultures have to be removed.

I smiled again, weakly: I would prefer to show them how much we all depend on each other, how we’re all citizens of the same small planet, Mr Snyder.

There was a moment’s awkward silence before Snyder laughed. You’ve had the privilege of seeing Earth in a way very few people have, Freddy, but soon we’ll share your cosmic vision – he glanced at the others – Right? He laughed again, devoured a biscuit and sat down. Let’s get down to business.

Snyder’s right hand started tracing invisible menus and functions in the air. The room dimmed, and on the wall in front of us there appeared a view of part of the Moon as seen through a medium telescope.

Now, Freddy, what do you see there?

It was an area perfectly familiar to any backyard astronomer. Mare Vaporum to the north, Sinus Medii to the south. That solitary large crater in the middle is Triesnecker, named after a Jesuit astronomer, director of the Vienna Observatory in the nineteenth century. Near the centre of the disk as we see it from Earth.

The three of them murmured approval: Nicht ohne. – Very good.

Snyder’s hand moved again, and a cursor arrow flew over the monochrome landscape. It stopped over a small crater to the south-east of Triesnecker, centered in a small bay where the smooth lunar sea met the tumbled highlands.

And how about this one?

I’ve no idea what that one’s called. If it even has a separate name.

It doesn’t look so interesting, does it? It’s named after the larger crater to the south, and it’s called Rhaeticus A. It’s just 11 kilometres wide.

I nodded, wondering where this lunar geography lesson was leading.

Georg Joachim von Lauchen, also known as Rheticus, was a sixteenth-century Austrian mathematician and astronomer. His crater’s very eroded, not nearly as impressive as clean-cut Triesnecker. And this little satellite crater I pointed to – he circled it with the cursor arrow – Rhaeticus A, well, if you were looking at the Moon you’d hardly notice it.

I smiled indulgently and waited.

Even so, this is the part of the Moon we would like to explore.

They looked at me expectantly. My bafflement showed in my face. I understood we were going… I mean, private explorers usually like to visit…

Miss Browning put her hand on my arm. We’re very impressed by the virtual tour of your Moon village Selenopolis. Your company’s created a wonderful centre to enjoy the lunar experience. But we want to get off the beaten track. We want to explore a part of the Moon where no human being has yet walked.

For no apparent reason, Stonemiller made a snorting noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

But…, I burbled on, we have a gymnasium, a sauna, Earth observatory, the lunar ballet, excursions by bus to local beauty spots…

Snyder took charge again: Freddy, all these amusements are praiseworthy, but our interests are more inclined towards lunar geology. Perhaps you’ve heard of occasional outbreaks of volcanic activity on the Moon?

I stared at him. Had three global financiers with a trillion dollars of risk capital to manage suddenly turned into PhD geologists? Well, why not? – a fellow has to have a hobby, doesn’t he? Look at my own profession – Alan Bean and Alexei Leonov painted, Ed Mitchell was into extra-sensory perception and stuff. Who would’ve guessed I run the fan club for a jazz fusion band called Broken Dreams?

Of course, I agreed, but not in this region. Astronomers have spotted occasional bursts of gas coming from places like Aristarchus and Alphonsus, and there are volcanic domes in the Mons Rümker area and the Marius Hills – those are way over to the west. Of course, if you come to Selenopolis you can visit the Heppenheimer Rill, one of the Moon’s most spectacular natural features – that probably has a volcanic origin.

Speaking of volcanic domes, Snyder said, moving his hand slightly, let’s see what you can see here.

The image changed and, frame by frame, zoomed in on the 11-kilometre crater Rhaeticus A. The view was now clearly taken from a spacecraft in low orbit, and the walls of even that small crater slid off the edges of the screen as we closed in.

What do you see here, Freddy? The cursor jumped about, indicated a small smudge of light and shade, then another one. I supposed they could have been volcanic domes, though they were tiny. I said so.

The cursor hovered for a moment over an elongated object, broad at one end, tapering to a rounded nose at the other. A pepper pot. I could almost see my Australian walking round it and poking the soil for bleached human bones. Thinking of lightening the atmosphere with a little joke, I said: That one looks like a crashed spaceship from the Nazi period!

Now I’d spoken it out loud, my joke suddenly felt pretty stupid. But Snyder burst out laughing. The others joined in, and I did so, too. The laughter seemed forced. Maybe they thought I was a bit weird. Maybe they’d ask the company to find them another pilot. Maybe I’d be hauled up before Josh Heppenheimer, our public image obsessed MD, for one of his little talks.

I’m sorry, I tried to explain, feeling my cheeks flush, I met someone recently who had some really strange theories about the Nazis…

Who was that? Craig and his associates were serious again. I told them about Roger and his photos of pieces of wreckage in the Australian outback, feeling like an idiot under their suddenly intense gaze.

The three of them exchanged glances, clearly querying between themselves my sanity, but eventually decided to let me off the hook.

Well… you keep your strange theories, Snyder reassured me, and I’ll stick to my point of view that it’s a volcanic dome. And we’ll see who’s right when we go and explore. Right?

What could I say? They were paying for the trip. If they wanted to spend their time on the Moon communing with the domes (or whatever) of Rhaeticus A, and if my employer could provide the wherewithal to do that, including my services as pilot (i.e. the guy who checks the computers are switched on and shows the client how to use the zero-gravity toilet), then that is exactly what they would spend their time doing.

I relaxed and smiled. I’m sure we can arrange your trip, Mr Snyder. There’ll be a small surcharge on the insurance, no more than an extra quarter of a million euros or so, but otherwise I can’t see any problem. I’ll pass your choice of landing-site on to the office, and they’ll be in touch with you in a few days with a detailed itinerary.

Call me Craig, he said.

Wow! – I’m on first-name terms with one of the world’s richest. Well don’t get excited, we’re not going to spend a week together in a cramped spacecraft cabin calling each other Mr Snyder – Mr Axley. It’s just business, really.

I wondered whether he introduced his business associates to his young female friends in Hollywood?

We shook hands again.

~ 3 ~

MoonTours

I flew back to London the same evening, and at ten o’clock the next day, which was a Saturday, I called in at the office to see Angela.

We have a shop window on the street with our name, MoonTours, over it and some pretty pictures of the Moon and a model spacecraft. There’s a video playing, showing the seas and craters zipping by as you come in to land, a clip from Swan Lake performed in one-sixth gravity, excursionists getting into space suits and climbing some lunar mountain or other, a view of Earth. Pointless, really – thanks to the depression there’s probably not one in ten thousand people walking past or popping into the newsagents on the ground floor who can afford even a week on a space hotel in low Earth orbit, let alone the long haul 380,000 kilometres out to the Moon and back that barnstormers like us specialise in. The fat cats and film stars who fly with us check us out on the internet. But Josh says it’s for our public image. We’re like Concorde 2 or the QE3: the average punter in the street may not have a hope in hell of travelling with us, but he or she still likes to know we’re there. And there’s always the Lottery…

Angela schedules things. She tells me when I have to catch my plane to Berlin, and why I don’t have time to do any sightseeing before I come back. I like Angela. She looks after us. She’s got sparkling blue eyes, and shiny red hair (this month), and always wears her blouse with the top two buttons undone and a glimpse of frilly, nicely filled bra showing.

Sometimes I ask her whether she’s truly happy, hoping she’ll say that her hubby comes home drunk every night and beats her mercilessly with a leather strap, and she’d leave him if she could only find a single friend in the world, before melting into my arms. But no, she’s happy. Jonathan bought her a new kitchen for her birthday. Jonathan’s taking her to Paris for a romantic weekend. I don’t much like Jonathan, but they’ve been married for a few years, so it looks like it’ll last for a while. It’s pointless really, my staring at her cleavage – but still, it’s nice to know it’s there. And there’s always pornography…

Hi, Freddy, she said. Got a date for you to go to Kuala Lumpur. Just about to send you the details.

Why can’t we get this sort of stuff done in the UK?

Cos it’s being done in Malaysia. They’ve got a new cockpit for you to try out.

Nothing wrong with the one we’ve got now, I grumbled, and transferred a dozen pieces of junk mail from my pigeonhole to the recycling bin (paper only).

A crudely printed leaflet grabbed my attention. What the hell’s this?

Oh, sorry, thought I’d cleared all that rubbish out. Missed that one.

The piece of paper in my hands read: MoonTours makes a bisness of unsustanable overconsumtion. MoonTours is distroying the invironment. MoonTours is opressing the pore and promoting the raceist agenda of global capitalism. MoonTours is trafiking in illegal geneticly modified human feetus’s. MoonTours has been juged by a peoples jury of the Global Anti-Nazi Demmocratic Initiative, and is herebye ordered to…

I didn’t bother to turn the page. The crumpled ball of paper hit the bin with a resounding thud.

Anyway, Angela went on, Thought you liked travelling. You’re in the wrong job if you don’t.

Not on this planet. The time zones drive you potty. Don’t have that problem on the Moon.

I heard the sound of angry shouting outside, and went to the window – we’re on the second floor, so you get a good view of the street below. It was clogged with a procession of people. What’s going on down there?

Usual Saturday demo. The police sent us a warning. All the demos going to Trafalgar Square seem to come down our street.

Don’t they have jobs to go to? Who is it this time?

GANDI.

Something to do with India?

The Global Anti-Nazi Democratic Initiative.

If they’re all global democrats, why don’t they have the initiative to demonstrate their democracy in some other part of the globe on a Saturday afternoon?

By now I could see some of their banners: STOP PLAYING GOD WITH OUR CHILDREN – NO NAZI G.M. BABIES – STOP THEM CREATING A MASTER RACE – MACFARLANE RESIGN! – MACFARLANE = FRANKENSTEIN.

While I was observing them, Lisa, our accountant, came into the office with an empty plastic cup. Hi, Mr Moon-Man, she said, and added, to Angela: Is Josh here yet?

Not yet. Probably caught up in that mess outside.

Lisa refilled her cup from the water cooler, and glanced out of the window. Her ebony profile made a striking dark silhouette against the sunlit buildings opposite.

I don’t normally go for black women but in Lisa’s case I’m prepared to make an exception: tall, graceful, elegant, athletic, prominent cheekbones and full lips, though of course she’s not bosomy like Angela… I sometimes wonder whether I can pluck up courage to take her out to watch a movie – maybe I will one day.

She caught me looking at her, and said: They do have a point, you know.

I didn’t say a word!, I protested.

I can see you thinking. She glanced outside again. When MacFarlane was Minister of Ethical Reproduction, he passed laws against it.

Against what?

"Where have you been? On the Moon? Haven’t you heard?"

I’ve been working.

Ha, ha. I thought you were on one endless holiday.

Angela explained: MacFarlane’s admitted his daughter’s given birth to a gene baby.

Well, I shrugged. Good for him.

Bad for him. We can’t have a prime minister who violates his own laws.

I was thinking of the baby.

It’s a girl, Lisa corrected me. She came away from the window and took a sip of cooled water. "At least, you may call it a girl. They call it an unnatural laboratory monster. Not even human." She returned to her own, separate office with an air of superiority.

Don’t they know we’re living in the 21st century?, I muttered, shrugged again, and turned back to Angela, Anyway, how’s it going with Craig Snyder?

Right, she said, and opened a document on screen. As usual, the top two buttons of her blouse were undone, and from this angle I caught a glimpse of soft, plumptious breast, smooth and pink and kissable. Stop it, Freddy.

Are these addresses correct?, the owner of the plumptiousness asked. They say they’re British, but the addresses are all in Germany.

They’re correct. Yes, they’re English, but Germanophiles. At least, they seem to be great admirers of a period in German history most real Germans would rather forget.

I see. Maybe that explains why your Mr Snyder’s being a complete pain. He wants to bring his trip forward two months to August, and on top of that he wants a lunar bus available at the landing site.

A bus? Where are we going to get that from?

Assuming we can’t borrow one from Virgin Galactic, we’ve got two options. We can drive one of ours over from Selenops. Or we can order a new one, land it in Sinus Medii, run Snyder and co wherever they want to go for a week, and then drive it from there to Selenops to join the rest of the fleet. She looked at me. What do you think?

I hesitated. Virgin have had problems with theirs. And we can’t really take one away from Selenops. And a brand new one’ll take a few months to be delivered.

Three months, Angela corrected me firmly. Just needs the right financing package – Lisa!

I nodded sagely. If he wants it that badly, Snyder’ll pay for it. Then adding a fourth bus to the fleet will improve safety, we could argue. Somebody could drive it from Sinus Medii over to Selenops in about a week…

Angie?, Lisa asked, coming back into the main office.

Can you convince Josh to sign a contract for a new lunar bus?

Lisa smiled, baring her white teeth. Josh signs whatever I put in front of him to sign.

Good. Let’s have one with real leather seats and a mahogany dashboard. Clients enjoy the retro feel.

I was still contemplating the options opened up by our new toy: Wouldn’t even need a driver on board, if we just left it running on autonomous nav, but it’d be so much more fun to… I’ve never driven on such a long surface trip, don’t know whether anyone has… They’re making an awful lot of fuss down there.

The shouting in the street had increased in intensity. Suddenly there was a loud crash, and the sound of cheering. Police sirens wailed frantically in the distance. There was a crunching as of shattering glass.

Lisa looked worried. That sounded like our shop window going.

Bastards, I said, only mechanically, like an automatic reflex, as half my mind was still contemplating the surface route from Sinus Medii to our settlement of Selenopolis on the western shore of Mare Foecunditatis, near the right-hand edge of the Moon when you glance up at a pretty crescent shining in a dark blue sky of a lazy British spring evening.

Angela brought me back down to Earth with a bump: I’m worried about the tenants on the ground floor. If anything happens…

I noticed that both women were looking at me expectantly. Ah, yes. I’d better see what’s going on. I went out into the corridor with the vague idea of inviting people up to the safety of the MoonTours office until the police arrived.

I nipped down a flight of stairs. The first floor’s occupied by a company that gathers statistics for someone or other; I glanced in and saw everybody milling around confusedly and looking out of the windows. A plump woman called Lizzy or Leslie, who sometimes complains to me about the state of the building or the staff or the weather, caught my eye and shrugged; I echoed her gesture. I turned back to the staircase. As I descended to the ground floor, the sounds of shouting and breaking glass grew louder.

Mr Patel!, I called.

Mr Patel, our ground floor tenant, sells newspapers, magazines, sandwiches and souvenirs. He has an impressive stock of T-shirts saying Mind the gap and tea-pots shaped like Big Ben. But on this occasion neither he nor his laconic assistant were behind the counter. On the other hand, the shop was full of wild-looking people, who were busy helping themselves to whatever they liked and either trampling it on the floor, or running back out into the street with it.

I stared for a moment, shocked, unable to comprehend what was going on. Had Mr Patel run off to join GANDI? Then who were these people? Suddenly a man wearing a black balaclava over his head was standing in front of me.

Destroy MoonTours!, he yelled. Give the master race a taste of their own medicine!

What are you doing?, I shouted back, rather unnecessarily, but one has to say something.

Here’s one of them! – he grabbed my jacket – Don’t let them get away!

I tried to push him off. He clung on. We were locked in a scuffle, for no apparent reason and with no apparent purpose.

Then somebody else shouted: Everyone out of the shop! My assailant vanished, and I found myself lying on the floor, alone in a heap of debris. I got up, shaking all over, and found I’d acquired a painful bruise on one shin. I nursed it for a few moments, but suddenly heard a rushing, roaring sound. I took a few steps towards the street door, and was confronted by a wall of flames.

Bastards!, I said out loud, and this time truly meant it.

The heat and smoke drove me back to the stairwell. This had happened too quickly. Had that been a whiff of petrol in the air? No time to think. I rushed back up to the first floor.

The people in the statistics office were already filing out towards the fire escape at the rear. Lizzie or Leslie (one day I’ll get her name right) was speaking into her mobile and distractedly pulling at her hair with her free hand. Our eyes met and she nodded meaningfully. Okay, so the fire brigade’s on its way, and the only thing left to do is abandon ship. I dashed back upstairs to MoonTours.

Angela!, I called. Lisa! We’re on fire! We’ll have to…

I entered our office, and skidded to a halt.

Angela and Lisa were standing stock-still, white-faced (of course, Lisa’s of negro ancestry, but on this occasion she made a pretty good job of looking white-faced). I must have presented the same rabbit caught in headlights appearance when I saw, facing them, another man in a black balaclava. Or maybe it was the same man. Or just the same balaclava. What was undeniably different this time was the black object in his right hand. An object whose existence ought really to be confined to VR games and movies. The sort where people get shot. And killed.

He pointed the thing at me. Get in the corner with the women!, he rasped, No noise!

I froze in shock and stared stupidly at him. He was standing behind Angela’s desk, apparently in the middle of doing something on her computer, taking advantage of the fact that Angela’s machine would have been logged in when he entered.

Move it!, he added in a threatening tone, gesturing with his weapon.

My training as an astronaut has covered many life-threatening situations, including loss of cabin pressure, anomalous navigation readings and a blockage in the zero gravity toilet. Unfortunately, dealing with an armed intruder had been left off the course, and none of the other emergency situations seemed applicable in the present case. I obeyed, or at least I followed the first of his orders, if not the second.

Do you have a licence for that firearm?, I asked in as friendly a tone as I could muster.

Shut it!

I had defied him, and I was still alive. This looked promising. As he glanced aside at the display screen again, I said in an unnaturally calm voice: You do realise we make a charge for releasing company data?

Angela didn’t like this line: Freddy, don’t make him angry, can’t you see he’s…

Unexpectedly, Lisa came to my support: No, Freddy’s quite right, we’ve got to tell the customer where he stands–

Shut it!, hissed the masked man again, raised his gun and fired in our direction. The three of us flinched in unison. There was a whizzing sound and a piece of plaster flew out of the wall behind our heads. We froze.

He came out from behind the desk and advanced a step towards us. Freddy… You’re Freddy Axley, aren’t you?

Yes. And you are…?

Very funny… You’re just the man I want to talk to. I’ve got a little quiz game to play with you. I’m gonna ask you this question, and you’ve got just ten seconds to reply. If you don’t reply, or if I think you’re lying, I shoot one of the women. Got it?

Er… what if I don’t know the answer?

You know it. You’ve been to the Moon. You know it all right. So here’s the question. You’ve heard there was a lab in South America producing genetically modified human eggs for implantation into mothers who wanted superhuman offspring? Mothers of an approved Aryan racial type?

I nodded, and added carefully: But it was closed down, wasn’t it?

It was banned by international treaty, the balaclava with the glittering eyes confirmed, swivelling his pistol to cover first my belly, then Angela’s, then Lisa’s. But it wasn’t closed. As you know very well, it was transferred to the Moon, beyond the reach of the global police. Your company carries human sperm and eggs out to it, and later brings the fertilised eggs back to Earth!

I boggled at him and swallowed nervously. What does one say to a lunatic and conspiracy fantasist when he’s holding a gun on you?

The gun came to a standstill, trained steadily at poor Angela. Again that grim voice, slightly muffled under the layer of black cloth.

All right, Freddy Axley, here’s the question: where on the Moon is that secret lab located?

I licked my lips, which had gone dry. Angela whimpered and clutched at my arm.

No reply? Three more seconds…

Yes, I said, trying to think quickly, but all that came into my head was an image of Berlin and Craig Snyder. It’s in Sinus Medii, near the centre of the Moon as seen from Earth.

He raised his voice angrily: You’re lying! There’s no Moonbase there!

Not an official one, no. Obviously you can’t put a secret lab in a settlement where all sorts of people are coming and going all the time. Scientists, tourists, anybody who can afford it. It has to be tucked out of the way. So we put it on the southern shore of the Sinus Medii, near the crater Rhaeticus A.

Seen-uss Meddy, Reeti-cuss A…?

There was a flicker of movement in the doorway, visible to me, with my back to the wall, but not to the intruder. I studiously kept my gaze focused on his eyes, and burbled more loudly: No spacecraft has ever landed there. So it looks like there’s nothing there. But we deliver the goods to Selenopolis, and from there they go by surface rover out to Sinus Medii and back. You see, it’s completely impossible to track the movements of the rover from Earth, so–

Distracted by a sound behind him, our intruder twisted round. Before he could get his gun to bear on the newcomer, a muscular arm was already gripping his neck.

Our boss, Josh Heppenheimer, is a large man, physically fit for his age (he plays squash to county championship level) and very safety-conscious. He also doesn’t take kindly to conspiracy nuts with a grudge against his company. The sound of his approach had been masked by the roaring of the fire downstairs, and luckily the intruder’s angry shout had tipped him off about our little office drama while he was still stepping off the top of the fire escape. He wrestled the masked man like a she-bear defending her cubs.

I froze in shock from the sudden violence, and before I could recover and decide how best I could help, Lisa had already sprung into action. Her head may be full of figures at work, but in the evenings she takes martial arts classes. Before the intruder knew what was happening, his gun was on the floor and out of reach. He fought back with the fury of a zealot straight out of terrorist training camp, but the three of us together were a match for him. Lisa pummelled his head and groin. Angela tore away the balaclava, and we glimpsed a closely trimmed black beard, a head of curly black hair and a pair of small, wolfish eyes. Then with a flail of punches, in which my major contribution consisted of a clumsy tumble to the floor, the intruder tore himself free and bolted.

Lisa dashed out in pursuit as I staggered to my feet. Josh and I panted, nursed bruises and scratches and stared at each other. My boss finally growled: What the hell did you let that maniac in here for? Didn’t you see he was armed?

I opened my mouth and mutely spread my hands, unable to think of a reply.

Angela meanwhile slowly stepped forward and gave him a weepy hug, then did the same to me, pressing her priceless cleavage briefly against my own heaving chest.

Grab everything you can, said Josh, and let’s get out of here. Already there was an incendiary flickering in the corridor, and the air was thickening by the second. Emergency sirens wailed outside.

We picked up what we could and left by the rear fire escape.

~ 4 ~

Tranquility Base

The foil-insulated silver-gold hull of the spaceship from Earth shone brilliantly against a fathomless black sky in the needle-sharp rays of the rising sun.

Across the stone-strewn desert an ethereal voice crackled: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed, followed 2.5 seconds later by a distant reply: Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot."

Inside the cramped cabin of the lunar module Eagle, two white-suited astronauts removed their helmets and slowly turned to face each other with widening grins. As the enormity of what they had achieved struck home, they suddenly laughed and slapped each other’s backs. But then their training kicked in again, and it was back to business.

Armstrong peered out of the triangular window in front of him and began to describe what he could see: Out of the window is a plain cratered with a fairly large number of craters of five- to fifty-foot radius, and ridges twenty, thirty feet high I would guess…

His voice was broadcast over the heads of the two dozen flight controllers at their duty consoles in the big Mission Operations Control Room at Houston. Their off-duty colleagues, too, were clustered in groups around the sides of the room, grinning and allowing themselves the luxury of sharing an excited whisper. Some were still wearing their jackets despite the July warmth, but others were in shirt-sleeves, having transferred their ID photo-badges to their shirt breast pockets.

With no television signal yet, all eyes that were not concentrating on their computer consoles were drawn to the commanding figure of Flight Director Gene Kranz, perched high up at the back of the room.

Kranz leaned back in his chair, smiled with quiet satisfaction and relief and turned to the Apollo Program Director at his side: You know, Rocco, if you’d asked me ten years ago what I thought our astronauts would find on the Moon, you know what I’d have said?

Goddam Soviet border guards!

He nodded. Customs post with a picture of Lenin!

But we made it, Gene!, the Apollo Program Director grinned back at him. We beat the bastards to the Moon!

Above their heads, the distant voice continued: …We see some angular blocks out several hundred feet in front of us that are probably two feet in size and have angular edges. There is a hill in view, north of our ground track, rounded on top and brighter than the surrounding terrain…

Meanwhile the Public Affairs Officer to the left of the Flight Director was speaking into a microphone: This is Apollo control at 103 hours, 44 minutes. We have some updated information on the landing point, about four nautical miles downrange from the targeted location. At this point all LM systems look very good.

A light blinked on the Flight Director’s console, and he adjusted his headset: What is it, capcom?

"The crew of Eagle want to talk with you privately", the capcom’s young voice buzzed in his ear.

Kranz looked up and noticed that the commentary from Tranquility base had come to an end. His colleague caught a more focused look in Kranz’s eyes: What’s up, Gene?

Crew seem to have some sort of issue… Kranz stood up and, followed after a moment’s hesitation by the other man, strode over to a console in the middle of the centre row of control stations.

Another man was already waiting by the capcom’s side: Do the crew need medical support?

Kranz plugged his headset into the capcom’s desk, sharing a private communications link that would not be broadcast to the outside world. Neil, Buzz, this is Gene Kranz. We’re off the record – just you, me and Charlie – he nodded towards the trainee astronaut who was serving as capcom. Now what’s bugging you guys on the Moon?

In Eagle’s narrow cabin, Armstrong spoke slowly into his microphone: Gene, you can call me crazy if you like, but there’s something moving out there.

What sort of something?

Hard to say. It’s about a couple of miles distant to the north-west of the LM, and apparently artificial.

What, on the lunar surface?! Kranz glanced around at the capcom, the Chief Medical Officer and the Apollo Program Director, but quickly refocused his attention as Buzz Aldrin’s voice cut in: Neil and I can both see it. It’s in the configuration of a domed metallic vehicle of some sort, with a symmetrical outline, strongly reflecting the sunlight.

How do you know it’s a vehicle?, Kranz asked, and glanced around again with the realisation that although the Chief Medic and the Apollo Director could not hear the crackling voices from the Moon, they would immediately guess from his own words the nature of the contingency.

Armstrong’s voice again: Because it moved while we were watching it!

Kranz stood up and took stock of the situation in the Mission Control Centre.

Okay guys, pay attention! The crew report seeing a… an unexpected object on the lunar surface close to the LM. They think it looks artificial.

A murmur ran through the assembled mission controllers.

Quiet, please! It may be the Soviet Luna 15 probe, but until we know for sure I’m not taking any chances. I want all public communications with the outside world suspended until we know what we’re dealing with. Nobody leaves this room, no live communications go to the networks or the press room.

The Public Affairs Officer met Kranz’s commanding gaze: So what do I tell the networks?

You tell them the crew’ve begun their scheduled rest period, all LM systems are normal.

Yes, sir!

The Apollo Director spoke up: Gene, what about the moonwalk?

Kranz looked at him, then spoke into his microphone: Tranquility base, we recommend you bring forward your EVA starting about an hour from now and investigate the unknown object close up.

The voice from the Moon hissed back at him: What about the TV?

"Do your first step on the Moon