Ana

CH 11

It wasn't long before Tom realized that without the map, he would be lost as the corridor twisted and turned with smaller paths branching off in different directions. Not only were the pathways not straight but nothing was exactly level here. The floor seemed to undulate slightly the way the passages of an ant colony did.

Eventually, the pathway led him on a steep assent before the limited lighting finally showed the hallway opening up into what must be the Command Center. The large room lit up as he neared the opening and revealed a large empty room with the same grayish glowing ceiling and walls as the corridors. Then he noticed a few pieces of common household furniture off to one side that seemed were placed here to defy logic and test ones belief that this was really on the moon.  The only other feature was a large circular platform about two feet high and twenty feet across but he couldn't even guess its function.       

"See, you found your way here easy enough," Ana's voice said.

Tom turned to see where it came from but of course she wasn't there. "So Ana, your alien friends like to shop at human furniture stores I see."

"The furnishings, like the environment, were remade to be more suitable for you."

Tom looked around thinking that he must be missing something. Where were all the control stations? How did they run the base from this empty room? Maybe it would help if he knew more about the previous residents of this base.

"What did the aliens that worked here look like?" Tom asked.

An image of a slimy blob with four arm-like appendages formed nearby startling him.

"Very funny Ana. It's good to see you still have your weird sense of humor," Tom said with a chuckle.

"Tom, that is an actual hologram of one of them," Ana said.

"Are you serious?" Tom looked more closely at the image. It reminded him of a large snail without the shell.

"Yes." The picture changed to a slightly different version of the slimy alien and then continued to change in slideshow fashion. "These are pictures of my former counterparts," Ana said.

"Slugs? Slugs came here to study mankind?" Maybe if he saw them working he would get a better idea of what they were like. "Can you show me a video of them so I can get a better idea of what they were like?"

The view changed to a video of several of the slug like aliens wading through shallow liquid in about a room similar in size to this one but it looked vastly different. It resembled a swamp with strange plants reaching out of a dark colored liquid that covered the floor.

"How did this room get reconstructed to look like it does now if the aliens are all dead?"  Tom looked around half expecting some big slugs to come out and grab him with slimy tentacles.

"All construction on the base is done with nanofactories on mobile platforms."

Tom walked over to what seemed to be a common sofa upholstered with a cream colored fabric. He didn't see anything unusual about it. "Ana, I'm not calling you a liar but this looks like a normal chair you could get from any furniture store in Texas."

"Would you like a demonstration?" she asked.

"Sure. Show me how it works."

Movement on the nearby table caught his eye and he could see something round was coming out of the table. On closer examination he realized it was a cup being formed from the bottom up. In a few seconds it was done and began to fill with a clear fluid.

When it was full, Ana said, "Pick it up and try it."

Tom was amazed. He picked it up tentatively and then held it under his nose but the liquid had no odor.