The Far Side of the Moon
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Though as he looked at it now, in the military shuttle's external camera feed, William realized that what he had always liked about it had less to do with the sun itself and more to do with the Earth's atmosphere. That's what scatters the colors, painting the evening sky with warm reds and oranges and golds. But out here, flying 10 miles above the lunar surface, the sun was just a cold white spotlight in the sky behind him.

And when it slipped beneath the moon's horizon, it went out as if someone flipped a switch. No colors. No transition period. Nothing. Instant darkness. William sighed. What the hell was he even doing here? Cooped up in what they'd ironically called the "guest suite"? It was really just a cramped closet with a sleeping bag on one wall and a display screen on another.

He felt more like he was trapped in an old-fashioned submarine than soaring through the heavens in a $40 billion space jet. Clutching a hand to his stomach and groaning, he left the suite, pulling himself gingerly into the hall. Zero gravity was no fun at all for the middle-aged scientist, who could get dizzy just looking at a roller coaster.

And as he floated awkwardly up the tight corridor, with its countless vents, panels, monitors, and exposed cables that left very little room to maneuver, he felt as nauseous as he did claustrophobic. He reached the door to the cockpit and pounded on it with one hand. "Hey! Any update? What's our ETA? Guys? Hello?" After a few seconds, the door beeped and slid open. "Thanks."

He glided carefully into the cockpit, which was almost as cramped as the hall. There was barely room for him to squeeze in between the two pilot seats and look at the wraparound display that showed a high-resolution holographic of the lunar landscape they were passing over. William didn't know much about the moon, but he had always found it strange how different its two hemispheres were from each other. The side tidally locked to Earth looked like an abstract painting.

with vast seas of silver and gray splayed out in splotchy patches. It's no wonder ancient peoples saw a face in it. But this side of the moon, the mysterious half that wasn't glimpsed by human eyes until 1968, it looked like one giant desert, hot marked with a billion little craters. In the holographic display, the scant settlements down there were highlighted and labeled. Research stations, mining facilities, and telescope relays

Each was colored to match its nation of origin. Blue for the US, white for the new Soviets, red for China, and green for the East African Alliance. "So which of these dots are we headed for?" William asked. Neither of the pilots answered him. "Come on, guys. You show up at the office while I'm grading papers, walk me out in front of my students like some sort of criminal, and whisk me away to the dark side of the freaking moon. The least you can do is tell me our destination."

The pilot on the left, who was pale and blonde, and so young she could be in one of William's university classes, glanced over at her co-pilot. That guy was older, with dark skin and gray hair, and a face like a wrinkly bulldog. "You want to know where we're going, Dr. Tenebricks?" asked the older pilot. "Yes, I do." "Very well. Valles Secretorum." William looked puzzled. "That would mean…"

"The secret valley? I've never heard of that." "Well damn, I wonder why." The younger pilot chuckled. William moved closer to the display, holding himself in place by the backs of the pilot's chairs. "Secretorum? I don't see that name on the map." "That's because it's not on the map, but it's down there. Selenographic coordinates. Zero degrees north, 180 degrees east. Where the equator meets the meridian."

That's our bullseye. Okay. And what exactly is in this "Vallis Secretorum"?

When no one answered him this time, William started to lose his patience. Look, I'm not an idiot. Either the military screwed up royally and kidnapped the wrong William Tenebricks, unlikely, or else you guys found something very, very unusual down there. And while I'm willing to bet my salary that whatever it is, you've completely misinterpreted its origin. The fact that I'm here at all means your commanders must think I can be useful.

The pilots exchanged a look. "But how am I supposed to be useful? If I don't even know what it is I'm doing here!" He got a little too excited, accidentally pushing off the chairs with his hands so that he floated straight up and he would have bumped his head against the ceiling. The older pilot not grabbed him and pulled him back to the floor. "Fair enough," growled the pilot. "Valus Secretorum is a mining facility." William exhaled and nodded.

"See? That wasn't so hard. So, what do they mine there?" "Mostly Helium-3. It's got the richest deposits found anywhere on the moon." "And what is Helium-3?" The young pilot coughed a laugh. "Aren't you supposed to be a scientist? Not that kind of scientist!" William sneered back, wishing the kid was in one of his classes, so that he could flunk her. "Helium-3 has many uses.

Neutron detection, quantum computing, but mostly it's used in nuclear fusion. And it works especially well in ZR missiles. Uh-huh. And I'm guessing the US hasn't exactly been forthright in alerting the other nations about this secret mind of ours. Which is a violation of 2112 Lunar Treaty. That's why you're being so twitchy. You don't want them to find out and go ballistic.

For the first time, the gray-haired man turned in his seat to look William Tenebricks in the eye, and his expression was as serious as the grave. "In case you're unaware, Doc, the current geopolitical landscape is one giant game of Jenga. Any major disturbance could trigger a total collapse. So, am I being careful? Hell yes I am. Because going ballistic might be exactly how our adversaries would respond.

"I'm trying to avert the onset of World War 4 and trying to stop the Earth from being consumed by fire." "That's why you're here in person, instead of doing all this over a video call. We can't afford any intel intercepts." William gazed down at the man for several long seconds, then hung his head. "Well that's genuinely terrifying, but if the stakes are so high, why bring me along at all? Why now?"

"Because some things are too important to put on hold." He turned back in his seat, scowling at the holographic display. William stared at the back of his wrinkly head. "You're not just the co-pilot, are you?" "No, sir. I am Fleet Admiral Horatio Slade of the United States Strategic Space Authority and High Commander of the Apollo-NOT Battalion." "No kidding? Whoa, this whole thing's getting more intriguing by the minute."

So am I supposed to salute you or something? Slade made a sound in his throat, like a growl. Why don't you head back to the guest suite and get some rest, Doc? We'll be landing in a few hours. Then we'll suit up, head down into the mine, and you will experience enough intrigue to last a lifetime. I guarantee it. She's made up her mind.

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The shuttle came in low, its engines kicking up spirals of dust as it soared just above the valley floor. The wings were of no use in the moon's thin exosphere. It headed straight toward what appeared to be a high gray cliff, reversed its engines, and lowered its landing gear. As it reached the mountainside, the spacecraft kept going, passing through the large-scale holographic projection that disguised the hangar's entrance.

Touching down on the runway hidden within the hollowed-out belly of the Lunar Mountain, the craft slowed and pulled up to the parking bay. An airlocked bridge extended and connected to the shuttle's starboard door. Then the young pilot and Fleet Admiral Slade climbed out, followed by a very shaky William Denebrix. He couldn't understand how the other two moved so easily, guiding themselves with the handrails and bounding down the bridge in long, light strides.

It took William almost a minute just to reach the other end. And when he finally did, he was disappointed by what he saw there. He was hoping the mining installation would have large, brightly illuminated rooms, maybe with artificial windows and homey touches. No such luck. The Vallis Secretorum mine was, well, like a mine. The place was dimly lit, the ceilings were low, and though this part was sealed and they could breathe without a spacesuit,

The air smelled all wrong, like burnt gunpowder, body odor, and a hint of rotten eggs. They were greeted by four soldiers, all dressed in the distinguished metallic camo uniforms of the Apollonaut Battalion. Welcome back, Admiral. Your team is standing by at Depot 4, sir. Thank you, Lieutenant. But first, I'm going to escort our guest here over to the chow hall. Understood, Admiral. William clung to a railing against the wall.

bouncing experimentally on the balls of his feet. His body couldn't seem to get used to the lunar gravity. It felt a bit like jumping on a trampoline, except that the floor was solid. Admiral Slade saluted his troops and leaving the pilot to return to the shuttle, he set off down a hallway, monitoring for William to join him. William tried to keep up. Luckily, the handrail continued around the corner and down the hall.

Lights on the floor and ceiling faded on as they approached, then faded off when they had passed. So they moved forward in a haunted little pocket of light. Out of darkness, into darkness. It made William feel disoriented almost right away. And he thought of the colossal mountain over his head didn't help. Well, he panted. At least I'll be glad to get something to eat. That liquid stuff on the shuttle did not do it for me.

Slade turned through a doorway, and William smiled in relief as he reached the door. They came to a stop just inside a big room, and when the Admiral punched a button on the wall, lights overhead flickered on, one by one, illuminating four pairs of long dining tables.

Slade walked forward into the aisle between them, but William remained in place by the door, his smile fading as he squinted at the strange, cloth-wrapped objects laid out on the tabletops, like some macabre dinner party. "Uh, sir? Are those… actually…" Admiral Slade turned to one of the tables, grabbed the edge of a sheet, and folded it back. A man's naked head and shoulders were revealed. "Oh god! What the… what the hell is this?"

Slade moved from table to table, pulling back the sheets. The faces of the dead men and women were discolored, their skin tight and swollen. Their eyes closed but bulging, and their lips were shriveled. Some of their mouths were open, some closed. Why would you show me this? Pulling back the final sheet, the Admiral stared at the dead face of a young black man, dead on the table. Why show you?

"As a cautionary tale, Dr. Denebrix. One that you would do well to take seriously." "But who are they?" "These fine men and women were the ones who made the discovery. They were all highly qualified, experienced, psychologically evaluated and monitored members of the U-triple-S-A mining division." And yet… He draped the sheet back over the young corpse and turned to William.

When they entered the unsealed, airless chamber that you and I are headed to next, they each chose to remove their helmet, sit on the floor, and die a very excruciating death. William stared at the Admiral, not blinking, not speaking, trying not to look at the other face as a slade went on. Do you know how you die in the vacuum of space, Doc? It's not like in the movies. It's not quick.

Your eyes don't pop out while you scream and turn to ice in a matter of seconds. "No, sir. It's not that easy." Slade took a step toward the scientist, his jowls twitching, his eyes squinted and bloodshot. "The lack of pressure causes the air in your lungs to rush out. Then the moisture in your body starts to boil, even your saliva, even the tears in your eyes. Your body begins to bloat as gases expand beneath your skin.

So I imagine it comes as a blessing when, some 15 seconds into this nightmare, you start to lose consciousness. That's from cerebral hypoxia. Your brain isn't getting oxygen and starts to power itself down. Meanwhile, frostbite sets in across the surface of your whole body. Blood is no longer circulating, so your organs cease to function.

And then, after a minute or maybe even two, full systematic failure. Finito, Tenebricks. Game over. William swallowed, and finding his voice, asked, Why am I here, Admiral? Slade stepped right up to him. His gaze was harsh and cold, and William saw the anger in his eyes and the bewilderment and the fear.

Because I need to understand what it is these people found, and why it caused them to do what they did. I need to understand. But if we go in there, what if... what if whatever happened to them? You know... Slade reached out a hand and clasped it onto William's arm. It's alright, Doc. I'll be with you. And we've gone in since that first time. Some of us more than once, without issue. That's...

"Not very reassuring. And, uh, what would happen if I just... said no?" Slade's expression softened, and he let out a little chuckle. "Well then, I guess you could go home. Though my shuttle is for military personnel only, and those assisting in our operations here. So you would have to find your own way." "Funny. Well, I guess that means I'm in."

The Admiral squeezed and released William's arm, hard enough to leave a bruise. "Now then, we are in the chow hall. Want me to make you a sandwich or something?" William shook his head, wincing as he rubbed at his sore arm. "Uh, no thanks. I'm not hungry anymore." "Well damn," said Slade, walking back to the tables to drape the sheets back over the remaining bodies. "I wonder why?" They suited up before heading down into the mine.

Strapping on the heavy-duty space suit reminded William of a scuba diving class he once attended while on vacation. Though he had been too afraid to actually get in the water, he remembered being annoyed that the instructor hadn't given him his deposit back. And now, here he was, a quarter million miles from home, about to submerge himself. Not in balmy Caribbean waters, but the pitch black bowels of the moon itself. For God only knows what insane purpose.

Once their suits were on, and they had checked the life support levels displayed on their wrist screens, the workers assisting them connected extra layers of tamper-proof locking mechanisms onto each of their helmets, ensuring that they could not be removed without specialized equipment. William couldn't tell if this made him feel better or worse.

He had the same unsure reaction to watching Admiral Slade accept a compact pulse pistol from one of the Apollo-not troopers and slide it into a custom holster in his suit. Why would anyone need a gun in a lunar mine? William did appreciate how much easier the suit made walking. The added mass and stability made his body feel more like its standard earth weight, and he had less trouble keeping up with the Admiral as they descended a ramp, entered an airlock,

and walked down into a long chamber that looked almost exactly like a metro station. Barked on a set of tracks built into the gray moonstone floor, a maglev vehicle about the size of a city bus was waiting for them.

As they climbed inside the vehicle, he saw that a pair of suited-up Apollo knots was sitting in the front, and two more individuals were already in their seats in the main cabin. Slade introduced these two as Yousef Abdullah, Chief of Mining Operations, and Dr. Fran Moody, the resident lunar geologist.

They both nodded politely to William, though neither extended a heavy gloved hand, and their expressions made it clear that they felt as unnerved about the day's mission as he did. Dr. Moody kept fingering the extra lock on her helmet, as if double checking that there was truly no way for her to force the helmet off. As soon as their seat belts were all clipped in place, the mag car shot forward.

Without air resistance or friction on the wheels, the vehicle accelerated so fast that it pinned William into a seat. Then he was lifted slightly off it, held down only by his seatbelt, as their path descended at a sharp angle. The tunnel around them was completely dark, but by the glow of the magcar's interior lights, he saw the curved wall of stone zipping by in a blue-gray blur.

"How far down do we have to go?" he asked, speaking into his helmet's microphone. Chief Abdallah turned his head, winking at William. "We gotta go down, then we gotta go up," he exclaimed, his voice coming through the helmet speakers. "Down through hell and up to, hm? What's worse than hell?" Dr. Moody rolled her eyes.

"The location actually isn't deep at all, just 10 meters down from the surface," she told him, still fiddling with her helmet lock. "It was discovered while tunneling an exhaust port up from the main shaft, and actually, we think its exact coordinates are the precise epicenter of the far side. In other words, it's as far away from Earth as you can possibly get, and still beyond the moon."

The magcar jolted and leveled out, and the walls outside the windows vanished. William peered out, into the void. "So are we now in the main shaft? It's big." "Yes it is," said the admiral, who was leaned back in his seat. His gloved hands crossed on his lap, his eyes closed.

William puffed up his cheeks and groaned. Something about the scale of the darkness outside, the immensity of the nothingness all around them. It made his stomach clench. "What happens if I vomit in my helmet?" he asked. "Then you'll have a bunch of vomit in your helmet," said Admiral Slade. And behind her faceplate, Dr. Moody released a nervous laugh.

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After a few minutes in the main shaft, then a final ascent, the mag car pulled to a stop. All six passengers rose to their feet and moved out onto the dim platform. The Apollo Nut troops, William saw, both carried electro-mag-coil heavy machine guns. The sight of those HMGs did nothing to calm his nerves as they walked in silence. The soldiers leading the way up a sloped corridor.

The only lights here were those on their suits, and the dust floating in their beams made William feel like they were underwater. They reached an intersection with another passage, this one circular and roughly hewn. The curved walls bore a chiseled, spiral pattern. It was clearly just an exhaust tunnel, carved by a huge drill, and proved difficult to walk in. The team turned left, heading down the tunnel into darkness, but William paused, staring to his right instead.

He took a few steps in that direction, breathing deep, and approached the source of a cool white light ahead, which came from where the tunnel ended, high up on a mountain ridge at the edge of the Valles Secretorum. Looking out through the circular opening, William stared down across the starlit lunar landscape. All that blue-gray dusty stone, those rugged mountains, those ancient blasted craters, the view was truly beautiful but joyless.

It didn't seem right somehow, standing here, seeing this alien place with his earthling eyes. It almost felt as if, as if there might've been a reason behind the tidal locking of the moon to the earth, a reason to hide this vista from the prying eyes of his species, locking it away forever in the realm of mystery. "Oi, Gravejigger, keep up," barked Chief Abdullah, making William jump and snap back to the moment.

Brave digger, he mumbled to himself. He'd been called nicknames before, but that was a new one. He stumbled back down the tunnel toward the others, who were gathered at the mouth of an adjacent passage. It looked as if the drill had cracked the mountain at this spot as it barreled through, splitting open a fissure that extended in a jagged hallway to their right. Into this opening, they advanced, one at a time. No one spoke. Soon, the passage widened.

and there were battery-powered work lights set up to illuminate the path. They came to a stop as the passage ended in a sheer wall, and peering around the others, William saw a low, square opening, like a short entryway in the wall. "'Everyone's helmet secured?' asked Slade, and when none of them indicated otherwise, the Admiral nodded to his Apollonauts. "'You know the drill. Weapons away.'

With some reluctance, the troopers stood their HMGs up against the wall beside the doorway. The Admiral, William noted, did not remove his own sidearm. "Right then, number one rule: No touching anything." The Apollonauts entered first, crouching and ducking through the entrance. Admiral Slade followed, then Dr. Moody, then Chief Abdullah.

William tried not to think about what he was doing or what he might be about to see as he crouched and came in behind them. Straightening up, he blinked and the glare of the many work lights spread out around the spacious chamber on the other side. The lights illuminated the row of heavy stone pillars on each side of the long room and the stone shelves between them and the hundreds of objects on those shelves, all coated in a fine layer of moon dust that glittered like a trillion tiny diamonds.

"I don't believe it." He turned slowly in place, his gaze drifting over the impossible sight of the underground chamber, which looked very much like many of the ancient earthly ruins he had stood in countless times before. "This has got to be some kind of prank, right?" Admiral Slade's voice sounded in his helmet speaker. "That would be a very expensive prank to play on you, Doc."

"No, no, I mean, maybe the new Russians found out about your mine or something and they decided to, to..." "It's real, Dr. Tenenbricks," said Dr. Moody. "And it's ancient." William shook his head. "That would mean this has to be, my God, aliens, right? So why did you bring me here? You need someone in SETI research." "Nope," said Admiral Slade, walking back across the dusty floor toward William.

"What we need here is a paleoanthropologist. We need you," he motioned with a hand. "Come on, you have to come to the back of this temple to see them." "The bodies," Slade called out, turning and walking deeper into the temple. William felt a chill go up the back of his neck. "No thanks. I really think I've seen enough bodies for today, Admiral." "Not like that, Doc. I'm talking about the ones."

For several long minutes, Dr. William Tenebricks stood in place. His arms crossed, his eyes fixed upon the strangest, the greatest, the most impossible, and most beautifully surreal thing he had ever seen. He said nothing.

all around him, on the shelves between each pair of columns in the buried lunar temple. Fantastical objects glinted in the work lights, primeval tools of stone and bone and colored crystal, spheres of polished metals and gems, archaic weapons of bizarre design, and puzzling little contraptions of interconnected gears. All of these items would be of great interest to any paleoanthropologist, but first, William had to wrap his head around the throne.

The ancient chair was tall and broad, carved from the blue-gray lunar rock and inlaid with symbols he did not recognize. And, most shocking of all, the chair was occupied. "You know," William finally said, breaking the heavy silence that had filled the chamber.

I remember reading about this astronomer quack. This was back at the turn of the 20th century. His name was Percival something. Lowell, I think. He wrote a best-selling book claiming that Mars was covered in a massive irrigation system with thousands of interconnected canals.

He presented it as proof that an advanced alien species had once lived on the Red Planet. Of course, Lowell was way off. In fact, a lot of people now think he was using a damaged or dirty telescope, and that the canals were really just scratches on the lens. Pretty funny. A few feet away, Fleet Admiral Horatio Slade tapped the toe of his right boot impatiently. What's your point, Doc?

William uncrossed his arms and instinctively brought up his right hand to stroke his chin, which resulted in him smacking the helmet of his spacesuit. Clearing his throat, he put his hands on his hips instead. - Well, when you guys showed up at my university and said you had something to show me, I thought it would be like that, like Percy Lowell's Martian canals, some natural feature of the moon that sort of looked manmade. But this? I never could have imagined this.

"It changes everything," Chief of Mining Operations Yusef Abdallah, who stood leaning against the nearest pillar, exhaled in annoyance. "Why? Why do you think it is?" "Because to me, it just looks like some crazy two-headed alien. Wrong on all points," said William. Moving closer to the occupants of the Grey Throne, "They are most definitely human, but look at its faces," complained Abdallah. "They're all wrong."

William repeated. Asked Slade.

William shook his head. "Can't be Neanderthalensis. The brows are too low, the limbs are too long, and they look too tall. So then, what are they?" asked Dr. Fran Moody, the lunar geologist. "I can't be sure yet, but have I had to guess? Homo heidelbergensis, pioneers of early humanity. They were the first to build shelters, to migrate to many new environments, to hunt in large organized groups, even to bury their dead.

"And to what? Fly to the moon and bury a damn temple?" sneered Abdullah. "That's ridiculous. And besides, the thing has two heads."

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William grinned. Nonsense! Look! He moved closer, pointing at the pair of bare feet sticking out from under a tattered, metallic robe. The feet were shriveled, skeletal, with tight leathery skin stretched across protruding bones. Two legs and one waist. But...

Then the torso widens and divides. There's two separate spines, I think, and probably two hearts. Then there's one arm on each side and the two separate heads. He nodded, staring from one emaciated face to the other. Both had opened mouths and empty eye sockets.

The head on the left was leaned back against the throne, and its face was wide and brutish, with a beard of wiry gray hair. The head on the right was flopped down onto the shoulder. The back of that head had long, coarse silver hair. "'They're twins. Dicephalic parapages conjoined twins. A brother and a sister by the look of it. Which is strange. I thought conjoined twins had to be identical.' "'That's what's strange?' barked Abdullah."

"How long ago did they live, Doc?" asked Admiral Slade. William shrugged. "Hydroborgensis existed from about 700,000 years ago, all the way to about 200,000 years ago. That's half a million years of possibilities. To get a better estimate, I'd have to take samples and-" "No touching!" boomed the Admiral, marching a step forward and bringing his right hand down to hover by the pistol in his holster.

"Okay, okay," said William, backing off. "God, I wasn't even going to look at the scepters." "Uh, huh?" William stared at the admiral's livid face, then turned back to the figures on the throne. The brother, whom Slade had called "the priest," had the skeletal fingers of his hand hooked around the rod of a short staff, which was topped with a piece of red, glassy mineral.

probably quartz. Was it a scepter? Or a short spear? It definitely looked ceremonial. The bony hand of the sister, the priestess, was empty. But at her feet in the dust, there lay a second rod, this one bearing a violent gemstone at its tip. Interesting, mused William. Is it your theory then, Admiral, that when your people first encountered these remains, one of them, tampered with that scepter, knocked it from her hand,

And that's what caused them to, you know, remove their helmets? Yes, whispered Slade, his eyes fixed on the purple stone on the sister's scepter. Oh, goodness gracious, grumbled Dr. Moody, crossing her arms. Really, Horatio? The discovery of this place is certainly odd. But as a scientist, I have to object. I mean, a cursed scepter?

"Seriously? We're standing in an archaeological find, not some fairy tale. Even the terminology you're using: temple, priest, priestess, scepter. We don't know what this place was. And it won't help to speculate about-" "Fuck your science, Fran," growled Slade. "Can your science tell us why my men and women are dead?" "No, sir, but-" "Can it tell us why my son is dead?" William bit his tongue to keep from gasping.

remembering the young man dead on the table. The face Admiral Slade had spent so long staring at. "Oh God." He looked from the Admiral to the geologist. Tears came in Dr. Moody's eyes. "No, sir. I'm sorry, sir." Admiral Slade made another growling sound in his throat, then closed his eyes and began to swoon. Both his Apollonauts hurried over to take their officer by the elbows. Gently, they lowered him to sit on the tiled floor.

The old man put his helmet in his gloved hands and went very still. "I think he's right," said William. And when Dr. Moody started to object, he added, "About not touching anything, I mean. Not yet. Not until we understand more. You said it yourself. We don't know what this place is. I'm gonna look around, see what I can figure out."

leaving the others gathered around the throne. William began to pace slowly past the temple columns, examining the dusty surface of the chiseled stonework, then the objects of the shelves along both walls. Some of the items looked like the sort of things he had excavated at many sites back on Earth. Shell beads, a bone flute, a clay figure of a jungle cat, a knife of black obsidian.

But other objects were stranger, harder to identify. Stones that seemed to glow, ever so slightly. And on one shelf, a sort of… toy marble? Like a pyramidal Rubik's cube, but made of what looked like pieces of petrified wood.

So wonderfully weird, he mumbled. Then he jumped as Dr. Moody's voice sounded in his helmet speakers. See, it's all primitive. There's no higher level technology here, much less anything supernatural. William squinted and rocked his head side to side. I don't know. I actually think the Admiral might have a point. Oh, come on now, you two. William looked back at the throne. Slade was still on the ground, his troops kneeling beside him.

Chief Abdallah was watching him and Dr. Moody from the corner, looking positively miserable. "I'm not saying this place is cursed or anything," William said to the geologist. "But it is different. Different from anything known to archaeology. And its existence means we have to reconsider everything we thought was true about natural history. Well, everything." He turned and resumed his pacing with Dr. Moody at his side.

Everything here seems to be made by human hands and built to human scale. I see no evidence of any involvement of extraterrestrials. What's more, the evolutionary record is clear and remains unaffected. Humans, like all other life on Earth, evolved right at home. But the hominid siblings in that ancient chair? They prove that we are missing some very big pieces of our own history. He waved at the shelves.

"These objects, they don't look like higher-level technology, but I think they must be, but of a sort totally unlike our own." Dr. Moody cocked an eyebrow. "Stone tools? And crystal scepters?" William shrugged. "Why not?"

If they operate in ways we don't yet understand, it might be like... like quantum mechanics versus Newtonian physics. Both are undeniable features of the natural universe, but it's difficult for our minds to grasp the quantum world." The geologist didn't look convinced. "If that's true, where's the evidence back on Earth? Of their quantum crystal technology civilization?" William smiled. "A good question."

He started walking toward the second biggest object in the temple, after the throne, which was a stone sphere several feet in diameter, balanced on a square stand. Maybe they developed this technology without ever building a large-scale society. Or maybe, maybe theirs was a culture whose highest ideal was a belief that one must leave no trace of their existence.

They could have a religious practice that discouraged them from building permanent settlements, for example, or only pass on knowledge through oral traditions. And yet somehow, to the moon? Right. William knelt beside the sphere, which proved to be an accurate representation of planet Earth. I thought so. It's a globe. The world it depicted was more or less the same as today, though the edges of some land masses looked slightly extended.

That would make sense if the sea levels were lower. There were many highlighted features too. Certain added bumps and ridges, lines and symbols. Some of them seemed to align with major mountain ranges or geological features. Others seemed random, such as a crescent moon shape in the center of Antarctica. Moving closer, he saw that the stone globe wasn't actually solid. The surface was cracked, intentionally, all along the edges of major landmasses.

Shifting side to side so that the lights on his suit shined inside the tiny gaps, he beamed. "I think it's hollow, maybe even some kind of puzzle. I wonder if it can... Hey!" called Chief Abdullah from the back of the temple. "You nerds figure it all out. Can we leave yet?" Doctors Tenebrix and Moody stood and walked back to the throne.

"Well, so far, I am pretty sure," said William, trying not to sound too excited, considering the plight of the Admiral on the floor. "That I'm gonna win a Nobel Prize. So there's that." He looked back at the throne, the scepters, and the ancient, shriveled bodies. "We're gonna need to establish a base camp. I'll make a list of the equipment. And obviously, we need a much bigger crew, but we'll be cautious. We can send in unmanned drones to do the scanning and cataloging.

and then the drones can collect the samples and... No! Admiral Slade's scream made all of them jump. I was wrong, bringing him here, bringing any of us here. He sat up, looking up at the scientists. His face was sickly, dripping with sweat, and his eyes were dark. This fucking place, it should have stayed buried. He started to rise, and the Apollonauts offered assistance, but he swatted their hands away and got drunkenly to his feet.

"'Oh, wicked! It's bewitched, yes. We were never meant to find it.' "'But we did find it, sir,' said Dr. Moody. "'And, Horatio, listen to yourself. Bewitched? That doesn't sound like you now, does it? You're in the throes of grief, sir. You're not thinking clearly.' "'I don't have to think,' he growled, spit spraying from his lips and misting the inside of his helmet. "'I feel it, like a fire in my heart.'

I felt it then, when they came in here, the first wretched time. I was 200,000 miles away, Fran. I was on Hawking Station, and I felt it. The power, that ancient power consuming my boy's mind, seizing control. "'Admiral!' declared Dr. Moody. "'That is all in your head. It's not real!'

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"Don't," screamed Slade, as Dr. Moody's gloved fingers touched down lightly upon the red crystal on the brother's scepter. For a moment, the tiniest of moments, nothing happened. And then, William gasped, backing up against a pillar as Dr. Moody spasmed and shrieked and fell to her knees, her arms straight and trembling, her gloved fist locked around the crystal.

Chief Abdallah ran for the exit, tripping over his boots and hitting the ground with a thud. Admiral Slade drew his sidearm and raised it in a two-handed grip. By the throne, still clutching the scepter, the geologist's body stopped spasming. Raising her head, she exhaled fog against the inside of her faceplate, and then, closing her eyes, she spoke, in her own voice, and the voice of another. "Go! Ro! Kai! Lock!" she chanted.

William's eyes bulged. Oh my god. Boon! Die! Fran! Oh! Zuck! The floor beneath them quaked, and dust rained from the ceiling above. Fuck this shit! grunted Abdullah, scrambling back to his feet. He sprinted from the room. William remained frozen in place, the pillar at his back vibrating ominously. On the other side of the throne, the Admiral aimed his pulse pistol at the geologist. What is it? Fran? What do you see?

Dr. Moody opened her eyes and rose to her feet, pulling the scepter from the priest's dead hand and clutching it like a prize. She began to turn in place, looking around the temple, and William saw the sly grin on her lips and the red glow in the depths of her eyes. At last, the reassembly may begin!

She raised the sceptre above her head, and the ground gave another great shudder. Objects fell from the shelves, shattering into dusty pieces, and William held out his hands to keep his balance.

"The undergates are open! Liquid iron flows through the spillways once more! The foundation gears are turning! In the earth and her sister, the cores realign! The great Makoniton!" She pumped the scepter in victory, and its gemstones shone like crimson fire. "Shall make the worlds anew!" There was a crackling sound behind them, and turning, William looked at the stone globe.

It was changing. Cracks spread across its surface, and pieces of the spherical map popped out, twisting on metallic rods, and began to rearrange themselves as mechanisms within whirled and clanged. "What the hell is happening?" he moaned. "Stop this," commanded Admiral Slade, taking a step toward the raving woman.

At his sides, the Apollonauts looked tense and conflicted. Then one of them ran for the exit. Their weapons were in the tunnel outside. "Drop the scepter, Fran, or I will have to open fire!" Dr. Fran Moody, or at least the body that had been the lunar geologist, turned to face the old fleet admiral and cocked her head playfully to one side. The ground lurched, knocking all of them over and spilling the remaining contents of the shelves.

Slade's pistol clattered to the floor. William collapsed to his hands and knees, blinded by gray-blue dust, his heart pounding in his ears, almost as loud as the moonquake beneath them. Looking up through the chaos, he saw Admiral Slade crawling on the tiles, left and right, searching for his gun. Then the Admiral straightened up, holding out a weapon. But it was not the pistol. He was holding the other scepter, the scepter of the priestess, and its gemstone tip blazed with violet light.

The rumbling faded, the ground ceased to tremble, and the dust began to clear. William backed away across the floor, breathing hard as the two space-suited figures each aimed their glowing scepters at each other. Slade opened his mouth to speak, and his words came out in an eerie harmony of voices. "What have you done, my brother?"

Dr. Moody cackled proudly. "Haha! You thought you had beaten me, didn't you? By strangling my mind with your gift and trapping our bodies here in this distant prison cell? Oh no, sister, you failed! My plan is, at last, in motion!" Slade's eyes widened and his hands shook. "You mustn't! It will destroy everything! It will remake everything!

The second Apollonaut re-entered, now holding up their Electro Mag Coil HMG, aiming first at Dr. Moody, then hesitating, and aiming for the Admiral instead. Back and forth, desperate and confused,

William got to his feet, scooting to stand beside the armed soldier, watching, listening as this, this ancient sibling rivalry unfolded, impossibly, before his eyes. "You're too late, sister," crooned the possessed Dr. Moody. "The engine is awake! Even now, the energy fields converge! The Great Reassembly cannot be reversed!"

As I told you so long ago, you can haunt the minds of all who might assist me. You can wipe any trace of our grand empire from the earth. You can even turn the moon herself. But you cannot stop the sacred plan. No! Dr. Moody raised the brother's crystal high. Nothing can! The ground quaked again, fiercer, louder. The ceiling cracked and one great pillar fell with a boom.

Admiral Slade lunged through the raining dust, driving the sister's scepter forward in a violet blur, and stabbing its crystal tip through Dr. Moody's faceplate in a burst of broken glass and splattered blood. As their bodies tumbled backward, the Apollonaut beside William opened fire, spraying white-hot bullets wildly at supersonic speed, slicing through the bodies of Slade, Moody, and the other soldier, punching holes in the rock walls and shattering the throne into gravel bits.

William threw his arms up, stumbling backward as the temple shook, and dust and blood and fragments of pulverized spacesuit flew everywhere. He caught a fleeting glance of the red crystal spinning through the turmoil, broken free from its scepter. Then it hit the floor with a crack and exploded in a sphere of crimson light and energy.

William was knocked off his feet. He flew backward, hit the floor, bounced, and was sent spinning through the air. Then his body slammed against stone, his head smacked the inside of his helmet, and the world went dark. The paleoanthropologist awoke. His head was throbbing. His whole body was throbbing. Actually, it was the whole world around him. Rumbling, grumbling, groaning with an endless roar of shifting stone and turbulent magma.

Everything was dark, and for a moment, William thought he was blinded, and then he raised an aching arm to his helmet and wiped thick dust off his faceplate. As the dust cleared, he saw… he saw starlight, glinting softly on the ridges of chiseled stone. He was on his back, lying on the floor of that circular tunnel, whose drilling had led to the temple's discovery in the first place. He must have been blasted clear down the last passage.

He tried to raise his head, but his body felt incredibly heavy, like gravity was on overdrive. With an enormous effort, he shifted onto his side, wheezing. He saw the jagged passage to the temple, but the ceiling there had caved in, filling it with debris. And… That's strange. The passage was in the wrong place. It was too high, almost on the ceiling. What was happening?

He blinked, swallowed painfully and tried to focus. His head was still spinning. Oh, was that just the moon beneath him? Turning his neck with a groan, he saw the end of the tunnel, mere meters away, where little lights were moving. Were they? Yes, those were the stars! The stars outside were drifting, downward and to the side, in a steady stream.

Flipping onto his stomach, William clawed at the chiseled moonstone, pulling himself, inch by inch, up to the tunnel's end, where one could gaze down upon that cold and beautiful moonscape stretched out beyond the mountain. But as that vista came into view, William saw that it looked… crooked. As if… as if the whole of the moon was hurtling through space at a new and unnatural angle, pinning him against the tunnel wall, shifting up and down, crushing the very stone of the celestial body.

And the landscape itself, it was all changed. The surface of the moon was split open in branching cracks, spewing up debris and slow-motion geysers that curled against the shifting stars. The sides of nearby mountains had crumbled away, revealing stepped pyramids within. Was this some sort of ancient city then?

His suit's speaker beeped in his ear. He didn't know what to make of that. Then he noticed a flashing light on his wrist display, and wiping at the dust there, he saw the warning. His oxygen level. It was down to 2%. "Yeah, that seems about right." The light around him began to change, ever so slightly. The cold white mingled with cool blue and fiery red, and looking back out to the horizon, William saw why.

The earth was rising, and so close, so large, so magnificent and terrible to behold, framed by the sparkling heavens.

He watched as his home planet's colored edge appeared and grew, watched as oceans and landmasses came into view. But the Earth, it was coming apart at the seams, glowing orange lines stretching like cracks across the surface. Several large chunks were already breaking away, revealing the red-hot interior and the astonishing movement within that swirling ocean of magma, as if the workings of some gargantuan mechanism were at play.

Dr. William Tenebricks lay, peering out from the mouth of the tunnel, bearing witness as his world ended. And a new world was constructed before his very eyes, the fulfillment of an ancient plan of the ancient world, rewriting the future in dust and fire.

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