Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

116 ∞ the eagle has landed

Day Twenty-one ∞ Thursday late afternoon (PST)

(30 August, 1979 - 1st quarter moon)

—WAKE UP.

Jagg grunted in response and stretched the sleep out of his spine and limbs, yawning. Immediately he registered his reduced bodyweight and snapped his eyes open.

Damn... It hadn't been a dream after all. He was inside an alien spacecraft. A human alien spacecraft. His tiger was that alien, but she was nowhere in sight. He pushed himself up by the elbows, his gaze drawn to the window.

"Damn!" Earth's almost small enough to play ball with!

He stared at the view with the same giddy awe he had when he first stepped into mid-space yesterday. A feeling he hadn't experienced for more than a decade and a half ago, the only time his mom ever took him and his little brother to the zoo. He'd pretended to be the know-it-all, reading the signs to wide-eyed Junior, and filling in with his own details—after all, at eight he was the man of the house. Couldn't let little bro know big bro was just as taken. But when they'd reached the aquarium exhibits, he'd been all but dumbstruck at the ethereal, bioluminescent creatures of the deep.

Inadvertently, thinking about Junior threw Jagg back to the lowest point of his life. Orphaned and having to take on the adult role years too soon, he'd ever blame himself for not catching his brother in time. For not stopping him from drawing that second dose... For not saving him...

Clenching his jaw, Jagg shoved the memory and guilt back into the past and swung his feet to the floor.

∞

"Join us," Lora said without turning her head.

She gestured toward the seat that grew out of the floor a couple of feet behind her right side as Jagg approached in his helmetless spacesuit. He nodded at Tillman and Atlas in passing who were likewise dressed, and sat down, eyes glued to the fore.

One side of the view was jet black, with a gradual band lightening to a mottled gray expanse, then harsh shadows outlining the nearside against the bright opposite-facing sides of several crater rims and hills. They were traveling along the day-night border of the quarter moon.

Damn... It was like Earth and the moon had exchanged places. The pitted alien landscape took predominance, filling most of the view, slowly gliding past them. And it wasn't all gray. Here and there, it shifted into shades of tan.

A rustle of unfolding paper interrupted the silence, paused, then Tillman spoke, "That looks like..." He folded a third of the map to focus on an area. "With this vector... we're heading south, aren't we? South Pole?"

"In that direction, yes," Lora replied.

"That makes sense. Either North or South Pole—we could have longer access to daylight, depending on exactly where. Still trying to spot a landmark... The Apollo 16 landing site should be almost at our seven... That means Apollo 11 is at around our eight by over five, maybe seven hundred miles at least."

"No kidding. I gotta go there. I want to see the flag for myself." Jagg looked over his shoulder. "That's a moon map you got there?"

Tillman nodded. "Maybe we can get to do a tour. If there's time."

"A tour of the whole moon. That'd be something."

Atlas grunted.

"What?" Jagg looked at him. "You can't tell me you don't want to go on a tour."