Page 12 of Alien on the Moon

Though they were working on the atmosphere, it was still unstable, meaning they had to wear oxygen masks. When Elena stepped outside, she paused for a second at the threshold.

“What is it?” he asked, turning back.

“Only a handful of people from my world have set foot on our moon. It’s easy to forget where we are when inside the base, but I guess it just hit me.” She laughed. “I’m the first human to walk on an alien moon.”

She stepped onto the soil. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

He tilted his head in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“It’s what the first man to visit our moon said. It was originally supposed to be ‘one small step foraman, one giant leap for mankind’ but he got excited and forgot that first A.” She jogged to close the distance between them, and they walked to the place where the soil first started to fail.

“What was the name of this spacefarer?”

“Neil Armstrong. He walked on our moon with Buzz Aldrin while a third man, Michael Collins, stayed back on the ship.” She paused to do some math in her head. “This was about sixty Earth years ago.”

Rylan’s eyes widened. “That’s not very long at all.”

“Like I said, we’re not very technologically advanced.” She shrugged. “We’re in the infant stages of spaceflight and haven’t even figured out how to travel faster than light.”

“How did you get here then?” He knew Earth was lightyears away. If humanity hadn’t figured out faster than light travel, it should have been impossible for her or her sisters to be on Thryal. Ordinarily, he would have assumed the prince had brought them, but from what he remembered, the prince returned from Earth alone, and the humans arrived later.

“Arccoo was rescued after getting out a distress call, but he left his damaged ship behind. We found the part he needed and fixed it up. Then we flew it to Thryal.”

She smiled at the memory. “I’ll never forget when we first broke free of Earth’s atmosphere and got a good look at our home planet. As far as humanity knows, it’s all we have, and it’s so small compared to the rest of the universe. We’re so small.” She laughed. “Which means that every time we fuck up, it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Right?”

“Right.” He was stunned. This woman and her sisters from a planet run by primitive technology had figured out how to repair and fly a royal cruiser and brought it right to the king’s door.

“This is the spot,” he said, stopping. They pulled out some flasks and got to work digging in the unyielding earth.

“Well, that’s part of the problem,” she said through gritted teeth. “This soil is packed absurdly tight. Makes things pretty hard to grow.”

“We’ve tried to break it up, but nothing seems to be working. It always seems to become hard-packed and dead again after about a week.” He closed the lid on the last flask.

She finished, too, and got to her feet. “So, the soil needs something that will continuously keep it churning to break it up.”

He sighed and was unable to keep the bitter frustration out of his voice. “We’ve tried automated machine tilling, but that requires too much energy and resources. It wasn’t viable.”

She hummed, not looking at him. Instead, she studied holes they’d made in the ground. “Before terraforming, was anything else living on this moon?”

“Nothing outside of some microbes and single-celled organisms. Why?”

Lifting her samples to the sunlight, she studied her specimens. “It’s just a theory that’s percolating in the back of my mind. I’m not ready to voice anything yet.”

He nodded, knowing how the scientific mind worked. Trying to put words to a half-baked theory only ever led to confusion and embarrassment. He could be patient and wait for her to tell him when she was ready.

“So, when you’re not in the lab, what do you like to do?” she asked.

“It’s difficult to do here, but I enjoy hiking and working out. It helps to clear my head and gives me the chance to take a mental break. I’ve found that my best ideas all seem to come after I’ve stepped away from my work and gotten my blood pumping.”

“Same.” Her blue eyes sparkled. “It’s been scientifically proven that breaks help the mind to refocus itself. While you’re thinking about something else, your subconscious is still trying to solve the problem, and usually it comes to a solution that your conscious mind would not have thought of.”

She grinned mischievously. “Do you want to hear a funny Earth story about that?”

Her smile was infectious, so Rylan nodded, a grin also spreading across his face. “I would love to.”

“Well, there was this ancient Earth mathematician named Archimedes. The king came to him with a problem. He suspected that the pure gold crown he had commissioned was actually part silver, and he wanted Archimedes to prove it. The mathematician spent days puzzling over it but got nowhere.”

“He couldn’t do a chemical analysis?” Rylan asked.

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