EHP: Experimental Home Publishing
Copyright, July 14th, 2019; version 1 All Rights Reserved.
This book is not available for sale. It is, however, available for free. Licensing for this is pending and can only be considered fan fiction at this time. The author agrees to share this edition for the joy of sharing and for the fortuitous opportunity of finding volunteer editors, and or new, likeminded friends. Comments and corrections can be directed to the author for story refinement.
WARNING: This book is intended for a mature audience. Due to violence and sexual themes, some persons, especially those suffering from PTSD or childhood trauma, could possibly experience unpleasant feelings or flashbacks. If you’re a person who has abducted by UFOs, suffering from DID, or possessed, be forewarned: you could be unintentionally triggered.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. (I would like to say ‘duh,’ but apparently, there were actually people who believed the Castaways of Gilligan’s Island were actually stranded! No joke. There were people writing the US Navy asking them to please stop spending money on warfare and rescue those poor people before they starved. Tim Allen’s movie ‘Galaxy Quest’ made reference to it, but
I thought it was a joke till I saw a documentary on Gilligan’s Island. Of course, it probably doesn’t help that there is a stature in Iowa place marking the birth place of Captain Kirk. Oh, how reality and fiction love to mix. (And yes, I watched Gilligan’s Island. And if you have to know: Mary Ann, no contest.)
This book is dedicated to all of those who have suffered through my grammar and teased out something more meaningful than the visible architect. May you continue to find meaning and joy in you all your multiverses Travel Light Ion Light.
Author contact info:
214-907-4070 (text preferred,) solarchariot@hotmail.com (In order to differentiate between junk mail,
and letters, please put Ion Light in the subject line.)
Chapter 1
“American. Suit up. We’re going out, and off grid.”
Emily nearly complained. Might have, even, if the corporal had lingered. She allowed her annoyance at being called an American to give her energy to move from her work, a collection of artifacts that predated human society, and a language no one had yet deciphered. She simply dressed and was out of her ‘quarters’ and proceeding out of her work space and down the hall, past guards in sharp, dark colored uniforms and was the last to arrive in a line up. The suit she wore was not the bulky, clumsy thing one might don if they were a NASA employee. The thin
‘box’ on her back was flexible and moved with her and would provide enough oxygen for 72 hours, scrubbing the carbon she exhaled. The helmet was hardly more than a beach ball.
The Officer on Deck looked at his sleeve, clearly ‘marking’ the time that only he could see. All the clothing on the base had tech imbedded in it. Sometimes one could see it doing things, but mostly you had to be at the right angle. He didn’t address her, but he gave a look at the corporal that communicated unhappiness.
The Corporal directed the group to a transport. It was bigger than a golf cart, six wheels. There was hardly room for her with the gear. Emily was instructed to sit in back, with the cargo, her butt on the ledge. It was explained that if she fell off, they would leave her. A second buggy accompanied them, with on a driver and a guard, armed, shot gun position. She didn’t ask why she couldn’t sit with them.
The vehicles moved out, proceeding down a tunnel. They passed through several gates. The walls beyond the last gate was solid rock, not man made bricks and mortar and tiles. Though they hit no bumps, and the road was smooth, Emily had the sudden sensation of falling. Her gloved hands gripped the rail tighter. The suddenness of going ‘off grid’ nearly caused her to be sick because the sensation in her gut didn’t match her visual information. The vehicle pushed on. No one spoke. She didn’t know the names of the colleagues that were in the vehicle. She knew the Corporal’s name: Uwe Müller. His accent was hard German, clearly regional but she couldn’t pinpoint its origin. Out of all the people on the base, she had the most contact with him. He was her ‘handler’ while on the moon. She kept telling herself her attraction to him was evidence of Stockholm syndrome. He had shown absolutely zero interest in her. There were several times she had thought he was going to strike her. He had zero patience and was easily irritated. He was
also pale, as if he hadn’t seen the light of sun in ages. His face was so perfect one might imagine he was the stereotypical poster boy for a past regime.
Their passage ceased being smooth. It was clear they were now proceeding through an
‘engineering’ project. There was evidence for a diamond tunneler, and other mining equipment. No miners. The tunnel became jagged broken, volcanic like glass. The tunnel ended abruptly and they came out into a cavern. She sought the ceiling and realized it wasn’t a cavern. It was a crater. A domed crater! Starlight filtered through the glass, sparking rainbows through the broken pieces. This was likely glass made from moon sand. Moon glass had a purity and strength no earth glass could equal.
“You just discovered this? It can’t be found from above?” Emily asked, breaking the code.
Müller looked back at her. To her surprise, he answered: “Camouflage tech. We don’t understand how it works.”
The crater held a portable, nuclear generator to which a dozen or so work lights were plugged in. The scene could have easily have been mistaken for a set on 2001: A Space Odyssey. They made a circle and came back to park by other buggies, all of which faced the tunnel they had emerged from. There were armed men. No one had yet explained why they needed an armed presence on the moon. Emily wondered if the builders of the artifact were still present.
“Welcome to Hall of Statues, or the Gorgon’s retreat,” Müller said. “You may explore the cavern. Do what you do best.”
Emily excitedly hopped down, forgetting she was 1/8th her Earth weight. She fell. Her bubble helmet came into contact with a statue, the extend claw of the creature was perfect enough that it puncture her suit. She heard the suit rev up to keep the helmet inflated. Guards were on her faster than she could think. A patch was administered even as she was being man handled back onto her feet. Her eyes were wide. Müller’s face was suddenly in her face. “You realize, if you die, your family will not have closure,” Müller said. “We will throw your body into a crater with all the other careless, stupid people we brought up here. Your resume said you were the best. We paid money for you. I will take it out of your hide if you injure yourself or put my group at risk. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” Emily said. Her hair was in her eyes and couldn’t shake it.
“Cut your hair, or I will shave it off,” Müller said.
There was evidence he may have already shave two females bald. No one was looking at her; none but Müller and the guards that had saved her life. Her suit had quieted down. Her heart hadn’t. She could feel her heart in her fingertips. Her hands were shaking.
“Get to work,” Müller said, and went with one of the guards, complaining about the stupidity of women, particularly brunettes, and Americans.”
Again, Emily nearly corrected him. The creature that had puncture her suit was looking at her. It was stone. It wasn’t marble. She couldn’t identify the material. It was exquisite, and the cuts were so perfect it was if this was a representation of a true beast. A six legged bear with a raccoon face, rearing up so that four arms were extended, four sets of claws ready to give a lethal bear hug. The hair on its back was bristled as if confronting an enemy. She couldn’t discern if the hair was really ‘bristled hair,’ or porcupine like spikes. It occurred to her that it didn’t matter; had she fell into that, her suit would have been beyond repair. She wondered if the crater with human remains was real or just the story people gave to scare people in line.
There were dozens of creatures that were beyond her abilities of taxonomy. She found one on an exposed pedestal. She discovered they were all on pedestals, simply buried. On purpose or by the dust of ages, or both. She found debris that reminded her of the splintered, broken glass of a windshield. Tiny diamonds. Directly above her find there was a star that shone through unfiltered. She wondered how any satellite could miss that hole. She wondered how the astronauts who orbited the moon missed that. Cameras and people aren’t perfect was one explanation, but a dozen conspiracies were spinning, some she had heard and dismissed and some she was creating.
She came upon a marker, with writing. She hovered over it, wiping the dust free from the indentured patterns. Not hieroglyphics, but some of the ‘marks’ were similar. Her suit, through flimsy plastic, recorded whatever she faced. She could spend hours thinking about it later, but only a few moments to study it in person. Only a second to devote to touch. She had to move on.
There was too much to see.
She came upon a pedestal that seemed to lack an object. There was evidence that there had once been something here. The pedestal was clean. She came upon a naked female. A human naked female. Her legs were together, leaving a tiny heart shaped thigh gap. Two snakes encircled her, pressing breasts flat and together. Her hands were free below the entwining snakes. She did not seem upset. The snake heads came to either ear, as if advising her. One snake was black, the other white. The meaning of this seemed obvious to her, so much so she had to resist pushing her own interpretation. The woman seemed blissful, eyes closed and meditating. Her palms faced down, as if she were Iron Man in flight, her bosom thrust forwards unapologetically. Ayn Rand herself couldn’t have crafted a better description of the perfect human in flight. The woman captured in stone was fearless, peaceful. She had the angle that suggested she was flying or was on her toes on the edge of a diving board leaning over into the wind as far as she could intending to fall, only the elements held her suspended in rapture. The face, the contours of her body, even partially obscured by tight fitting snake coils, everything about her, the lips, the suggestion of flight itself, aroused Emily. She touched the female’s hard lips, her finger lingering over the philtrum. Her lips resembled a squashed heart. No matter how many times she looked at the female form, she always found hearts. The hair cut of the woman was heart shaped when viewed with the angles of the face to the point of the chin. Her butt leading to gently squeezed thighs was heart shaped, or an upside down heart with the point in the small of the back. The snakes at the ears going back to body, heart shape. The breasts yearning to burst free of snakes were the wave crests of heart leading the eyes downward to an incredibly small waist. The artists ‘y’ where inner thighs met combined with hips, heart shape. If she could spread the legs, she would likely find a heart shape box as well. The exposed navel framed by black and white snake described a heart. The headband she wore, a thin line buried in hair, with an almost heart shaped artifact on the forehead, reminded her of Wonder Woman’s ‘W.’ For a moment, the daydream construction of all this coming together had Emily standing on an Oasis, surrounded by lush greens, and distant gold sparkling sands, and tranquil blue waters and this was emerging before her. It occurred to her that this was the lady of the lake, bring Arthur a sword: this was ‘Almighty Isis’ and nearly said as much out loud.
“Are you horny?”
The voice was in her right ear, jarring her back to her present. It was control. The world around her was dark, even though there was light. Air made the world seem brighter. She was now very aware that she had become wet, and only now just remembering that there were people assigned to watch the workers. The watchers had access to everything, getting telemetry from the suits, bras and panties; all clothing was interwoven with tech. Her heart rate was up again. There was no hiding her reaction. She might as well have been a man with an erection, as the suits shared all secrets. The wetness went away as fast as a man’s erection who had been caught by a parent. She had a sudden, new compassion for men; anything could result in an erection. She was reminded of her humanness. She felt shame. That was the controller’s intent. She felt shame that she felt shame about a normal body reaction. A reaction that could wax and wane throughout the day and was more involuntary than people wanted to admit. She imagined laughter in the control room and men betting on bedding her. Men she had never seen and likely wouldn’t given the level of controls and paranoia. Or, perhaps would. There were also rumors that people either earned their living through their trade, or through trade. There were no ugly women on the moon.
It wasn’t like she could just walk away from this assignment. Though Emily had evidence they had made moon travel as easy and cheap as going from London to Australia, they had made it seem like the cost of hauling her weight off the moon was beyond her ability to pay back. The inwards facing camera no doubt caught her blushing. If she peed in her suit, they would know the temperature and the volume and even if they didn’t know her diet, they would likely be able to gauge that, too.
Emily moved on through the collection, finding ‘words’ that she couldn’t phantom. There were more species represented here than fiction could have rendered in a thousand series. Her world paradigm had been on the verge of breaking prior to being brought to the moon. Now she was Alice, lost and searching. Nothing made sense. She came upon a man, simply dressed in trousers and loose fitting shirt, with a poncho over the latter. His hands were together in a
‘Namaste’ greeting. He seemed humble. She went to her knees and exposed the pedestal he was on. She took a tool from her belt to move the dirt from the indentured writing. Air burst and light. There was something that looked like a Swastika and she had to take moment to sort her emotions about that. It didn’t mean what her culture had given her. There was a time before the symbol was appropriated and it was known for peace and love, not hate. She ran her gloved fingers along the side, wanting to feel the writing with her fingers. She was certain there was a brail component. A flash of light startled her and she fell on her butt.
The statue came to life! Before her eyes the man’s chest heaved, struggling for air that wasn’t there. He fell to his knees, unseeing, in pain. The soldiers were upon her and past her. They took the man down hard, putting him on his back. Someone poured a bucket of slime over him. Now she understood the slime! It coated him, covering every inch of him. A tube was thrust into the liquid near his mouth and air was blown in. The slime ballooned away from him, pulling free from his skin. The man was carried away.
Müller got down on his knees. “Tell me what you did!”