The next morning, both Sander and Lori woke to discover the joys of being hungover… and despite the previous night’s fearless plans of immediately going on a spacewalk, both twins spent the rest of the day between the bathroom and their mattress, in an achy, nauseous fog.
But even if they hadn’t been feeling sick, there wouldn’t have been anyone around to teach them. In fact, it would end up taking a full two days for the Russians (and Barney) to sober up, before things got back on schedule aboard the Firmament... But soon enough, Quentin had gathered the Schwabs around him for their first practice session with the suits.
“All right, everyone’s here…” he exclaimed, as Barney and Evelyn joined their children around the table.
Walking over to a series of lockers near the bathroom, Quentin removed a suit and, arms sagging from the weight, dragged it back across the floor towards his students.
“So… there are a few key differences to what you guys were wearing,” he said, dumping the suit on the floor and squatting down next to it. “First off, there are two air-docks: one for when you’re close to the ship,” he pointed to a nozzle at the back of the neck, “and one for when you’re roaming.” He tapped a backpack-like device on the reverse of the suit that reminded Lori of their chest-mounted canister holsters.
And so their first lesson went. Paying close attention, the Schwabs all dutifully learned the quirks of Quentin’s spacesuits, and after a few hours of playing around to figure out the system, Sander was ready for action.
“So, can we try it out? Just next to the ship?” he asked, looking around for adult approval.
“Sorry man, I’m not heading out right now,” Barney answered, as Evelyn also declined. “And I think we need more practice anyway!”
But instead of giving up, Sander turned to Quentin for the final say.
“Then can we go out by ourselves? Please? Just Lori and me? Please!” he pleaded, stretching the last word into three syllables while Quentin cringed at him. “We won´t even go far!”
“Uh… yeah, I kind of thought you guys would train a bit more, and then maybe do it with your parents...Or at least wait for Sergei and Matt to come back…”
“No! Please, come on… we´re ready-”
“OK, OK… uh, maybe you can go meet them,” Quentin thought out loud, to quiet the teen´s pestering, “if that’s cool with you guys,” he caught himself, deferring to Barney and Evelyn.
But before his parents could answer, Sander had already grabbed Lori around the shoulders... and they didn’t have the heart to deny him.
“Yes! We got this!” he interrupted, giddy to finally be able to walk on the moon. “Dude, let’s go!”
So, after double checking all their straps and valves, the twins decided that they were as ready as they’d ever be. They sat down to wait for the Russians to return from their scavenging trip and, for the first time in weeks, Lori felt nervous butterflies flutter in her stomach, as she thought back to the last time she had worn a spacesuit…
“OK, they should be right outside… want to go out and meet them?” Quentin smiled, having checked their position in one of the cockpit monitors.
Lori just nodded stiffly and went to help her family move boxes off the entry-dock, until they´d cleared the passage.
“OK, guys. So: Helmet, chest, straps one… straps two... ” he went down the safety checklist one more time. “We´re not using the tanks yet… so you’re good to go!” He tapped on Lori’s visor and hit a nearby switch.
Suddenly, the twins sank into the floor as the hexagon began a slow, shaky descent.
“See the tubes? This makes everything easy: it´s your air and your way home. Hook them like I showed you,” he pointed, towering over them as they went lower. “This way, you stay attached to the ship!”
“You guys OK?” Evelyn asked, appearing over Quentin’s shoulder as they fumbled around in the dark shaft beneath them.
“Yeah… got it,” Lori answered, before helping her brother connect the hose as well.
“OK, when I close this part, you’ll hear me on the radio and get lowered to the surface. So watch your step, and see if you can spot Matt and Sergei… They should be riding up on us from over there.” Quentin jerked his thumb over his shoulder, as the floor closed above them.
“Good luck!” Barney smiled, feeling more nervous than he was willing to show.
The twins were swallowed by darkness, barely able to make out the few pinpricks of light from the control pad on the wall as their eyes adjusted.
“You read me?” Quentin’s voice rang out in both of their headsets.
“Yup!” Sander yelled back, impatient to finally discover the moon.
“OK, just talk normally,” Quentin corrected him, ears ringing. “So hit the flashlight icon… remember where that is?”
Lori reacted first and made a beam of light burst out from the side of her helmet. Sander followed suite and, upon confirmation that they were ready, got lowered even further… until a space appeared between the floor and the walls.
They started to exit the ship... but to Sander’s surprise, it wasn’t pale, white chalk that came to greet his boots when they took that first step, but a pitch black landscape of inky emptiness.
“Wait… What?”
“What’s the matter?” Quentin answered tensely.
“Nothing, I… just forgot we were on the dark side,” Sander grumbled, embarrassed by his exclamations.
Turning to his sister as Quentin laughed, he saw Lori take a determined -if somewhat wobbly- first step off the platform.
“Come on…”
Lori watched her light beam slide across the Firmament´s massive shape and noticed how different it looked from the outside, especially compared to their own craft: instead of the messy collection of wires, pipes, tubes and balloons that dotted the Beginner´s Luck´s hull, this ship seemed to have just rolled off an assembly line.
Perfectly soldered, it´s smooth exterior almost reminded Lori of an oblong scarab beetle, with pairs of directional thrusters protruding like pincers from each elongated end, amid thick plates of overlapping shielding… although several sections of angular, windowless hull disrupted this largely aerodynamic design, and had extended from within the craft after landing to create extra volume.
A few more steps took her beneath an unfolded wing that she estimated to be their garden, and as she ducked down, Lori realized her new crouched position came uncomfortably close to the Firmament´s giant treads.
“Hang on…”
Sander waited for his sister to back up, trying his best to avoid her air-tube as it lolled behind her, and they doubled back to find a safer route. Soon, they´d cleared the side of the ship and spotted a pair of little lights, bobbing like fireflies in the distance as the Russians returned home.
“Enjoy guys. Maybe go see if they need help, or something,” Quentin cooed into the radio.
As Matvey and Sergei got closer to the Firmament, it became apparent that the men were riding on some form of little rover, and Sander took a few extra steps to get a better look.
The air-tube stopped him before he could get very far, but the mounted silhouettes gave the twins a little wave anyway, having noticed the pair of flashlights waiting for them.
“Hey guys! Need some help?” Sander offered, as they came to a stop next to him.
Squeezed into the passenger seat of what looked like a cross between a jet-ski and a quad, Matvey tried to answer… but remembered that his microphone was off upon seeing Sander’s confusion, and quickly switched it back on.
“Hello my friend! Sorry, we do radio-silence for long trips…” explained the large man, as he dismounted and they walked back towards Lori together.
“So? How do you like walk on moon?” Sergei merrily chimed-in, as he moved to the driver’s seat and went to park the odd little vehicle in a previously overlooked slot, on the Firmament’s underbelly.
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“What is this thing?” marveled Sander, already imagining how he’d zoom around in it...
“This is Landshark, let’s go to sister!”
Quentin’s fuzzy greetings sizzling across their radios, the closer they got to the Firmament... and Matvey lowered the volume, to hear Lori’s question.
“What is that?” she asked, watching Matvey unload a large, plastic box from the now-secured rover.
“Just tools…” Sergei replied, as they carried it closer to the ship, “… and spare parts, for new camp.”
“Ah perfect! We have main dock open!” Matvey remarked, upon realizing how the twins had exited the Firmament.
With a synchronized grunt, the men swung the mostly weightless box onto the lowered platform, just as Sander caught up with them.
“Do you need some help? Or…” he tried to ask, but Matvey was already calling to have the hatch unlocked and didn’t hear him.
“I think we’re supposed to come back with you guys,” Lori mentioned, as the Russians began to rise back up into the ship.
“Yeah, bring them in,” Quentin agreed.
“Ok…” shrugged Matvey, already halfway inside the ship.
He began to lower the platform again.
“Ah! Wait! We give you trash,” Sergei called out, as he reached into the Firmament’s guts to retrieve vacuum-packed waste containers.
Tossing them at the twins’ feet, he trudged back out and produced a collapsible shovel from the Landshark’s little garage, before pointing at a patch of ground next to the ship.
“Just bury thirty centimeters… ah, you say… like foot or two!” Sergei explained, struggling with the different measurement systems.
And just like that, their first steps upon the lunar surface turned into a garbage run.
Over the next month, and at the insistence of both twins, Quentin would reserve an hour or two a day, to teach them what he called “the advanced rules” for spacewalks, as well as the purpose of such journeys: having only stocked a bare minimum of fuel necessary to reach the moon, the Firmament´s current functionality now depended largely on the constant harvesting of hydrogen atoms from ice deposits, followed by solar-powered electrolysis.
Therefore, what first began as a basic overview of all the suits’ functions, quickly evolved into a complex series of chemical reactions and instructions to memorize, to prepare for “Water Runs” that up until now, had been handled by the Russians.
In between their usual chores, Sander and Lori had subsequently begun repeating what Quentin called the “fire drills”: simulating oxygen leaks, practicing First Aid and even learning sign-language to save batteries, all in the hopes of receiving his blessings to go on their first long-distance missions (and use the Landshark, Sander’s new obsession).
This idea, of course, had not yet been formally run by either of their parents, but both siblings had come to the agreement that it was better to put Barney and Evelyn before a “fait accompli”, rather than to risk asking for such a favor... and have it be indefinitely forbidden!
All this to say that, before they even knew it, the day had come where Quentin had run out of pop-quizzes, homework and simulations for them practice.
“OK well, you’re ready. What do you want me to say…” he mumbled, annoyed by their incessant requests.
“Tell our parents?” Lori smiled, trying to be as charming as possible.
But Quentin wasn’t biting.
“Nope, that’s on you… And tell your dad it’s his shift tonight. He forgot to write it.”
As Quentin returned to his cockpit, the harsh reality of their parents’ possible refusal, settled upon the twins. Indeed, the permission they needed wouldn’t come easily, and could only be asked for at the perfect time... so they waited.
A day passed, then another… but finally, the moment came: After discovering the Firmament’s engine room during a little geek-date organized by Evelyn, both of their parents returned above deck in a better mood than usual... and Lori and Sander knew it was time to take their shot.
“Hey, mom...?” Lori began hesitantly, before glancing at her brother for support.
“What?” Evelyn replied, putting her glass of water down and noticing her son’s strange look.
“Well, I’ve- ” started Lori.
“Can we go far away from the ship? Like, for our shifts and stuff? We’ve been practicing nonstop, you’ve seen it!” Sander gushed, interrupting his sister. “‘Cuz if you guys say it’s OK, Quentin said he’d show us how to use the Landsha- er… you know, the rover… And we could switch duties!”
“Oh... wow!” Evelyn stammered back, weary of letting her children stray so far from her supervision. “I- Sander, you know… I know you guys have been working hard-”
But this time it was Lori’s turn to interrupt, knowing all too well where her mother was heading.
“Just think about it: we need to be able to do this! If God-forbid something ever happens… Like, breakdowns and accidents and… we need to be able to move around without you guys.”
Before Evelyn could answer, Barney appeared from the bathroom and noticed the three of them staring back.
“What?”
Another deluge of explanations rained down on their father, as the twins did their best to convince him… and in spite of his misgivings, Barney ran their words over in his head, toying with the idea.
“Think of it like getting a license… I know it’s dangerous and… scary. But this is our life now,” Lori continued.
“And I’ll take all your shifts!” Sander added, trying to prey upon his father’s laziness.
“Sander, that’s not the point. Look… It’s a stress, OK? Every time you go out, I get a pit in my stomach.” Barney looked to his son and sighed. “And going out any longer than necessary, I... I just don’t like it,” his father explained.
Fearing that the conversation had ended, Sander just hung his head and leaned back in his chair…
“But you guys are right, you need to be prepared for anything. We all do,” Barney concluded, meeting his wife’s surprised gaze, as he came to a decision.
The twins both snapped their heads back to their dad.
“We should all go, ask him how to drive this thing and… just get it done with.”
“Oh… like- Wait, right now?”
“Why not? I’m going out now...” Barney shrugged, pointing to his name on the recently amended schedule.
Sander sprung to his feet, enthused by the prospect of a family spacewalk.
“Yeah, come on! That would be awesome!”
But his excitement wasn’t shared by everyone…
“I’m not going out right now,” Evelyn said, obviously put off by her husband’s unilateral decision. “And we’re about to have dinner.”
“Oh, yeah... I mean, we have a little time,” Barney answered, realizing too late that he had upset his wife.
“Man, you just really don’t like walking on the moon, huh!” Sander chided mockingly.
“I respect the risk involved Sander, something adolescent brains still have trouble doing.”
“I just figured, if I’m going out anyway... we have almost two hours...” Barney started, trying to salvage his wife’s mood and save what had been -up until then- quite a pleasant afternoon. “Do y- I mean, the kids can cover my shift if...”
But the damage was already done.
“Do whatever, I’m going to take a shower” she said curtly and started going to the room.
Barney watched his wife walk away... and after a few steps, followed her to explain his reasoning. The twins swapped giddy looks as he left, all too happy to let their parents argue between themselves rather than impede their plans, and went to find Quentin with the good news.
After convincing him that their parents had said “yes” (and that it was better not to disturb them to confirm their claim, lest he get into the middle of a fight), they were soon back outside the Firmament, all suited up and ready for action.
Despite a few fruitless first attempts at starting the rover due to a depleted power cell, it was only a matter of days before the twins had mastered the Landshark... and a matter of weeks before they had gained enough of their parents’ trust to venture beyond the length of their oxygen cords.
By the time their birthday month passed, Lori and Sander were free to come and go as they pleased, as long as they logged when the suits would be gone, and for how long. This meant that the stifling, claustrophobic vibes aboard the Firmament soon became a thing of the past, only to be replaced by a different, odd sensation: namely that of being half-weightless in almost full obscurity, and sometimes in total silence for hours at a time.
It was like trading the confines of a submarine for the limitless expanses of the ocean floor, yet realizing that the feeling of seclusion barely differs… and never totally fades away. The similarities between their situation and deep-sea diving were not lost on Sander, who had made it a running joke to creep his sister out with spooky stories, whenever they would leave the ship.
“Sander! I’m serious, stop!” Lori snapped, as they looped the Landshark’s battery pack into the ship’s flank.
“It’s not me, it’s the tentacles! They reach… and they rip… and they tear!” Sander laughed, poking his sister as if he was the jellyfish-monster that he’d been describing for the last ten minutes.
Ignoring him as best she could, Lori detached the rover from the hull and quickly sat down.
“No. Dude, I’m driving!” Sander argued, trying to sit on his sister’s lap, but she just slid him off and drove a few feet forward.
“On the way back, let’s go!”
Sander took a step and started to protest, but Lori again drove out of his reach. Already tired of the game, Sander soon gave up and plopped himself down behind her.
“You’re such a bitch” he muttered, raising the volume on his mic to make sure she heard him.
Sander felt his weight shift, as his sister hit the gas faster than anticipated and zoomed off.
“What’s the hurry?”
“Best part of my day…” she grumbled back, aggravated by his constant teasing.
Confused by her answer, Sander turned slightly to look at her as they glided ahead, picking up speed.
“What’s that supposed to mean, huh? Lori?”
But Lori wasn’t about to reply… and in a few seconds, she wouldn’t have to.
A little light went off in both of their helmets as soon as they were five hundred meters from the Firmament, and that meant total radio silence. Flipping the switch, she turned off her radio and enjoyed the peace and quiet as the pale, crusty soil slipped beneath her high beams. The trip was relaxing -if short lived- and she soon stepped off the gas, letting the Landshark’s inertia bring them to a stop near the blinking marker on her dashboard.
Hopping off once the craft slowed down, Lori went to take their tools from the trunk. Her brother shimmied off his perch to meet her... and just as expected, had quite a few rebuttals pent up.
But instead of beginning yet another sign-language argument, Lori simply swiveled her headlamp away, grabbed their crate and turned her back on Sander’s frantic gestures, preferring to go enjoy the most recent pleasure that their moon-trips had started providing: Indeed, after having recently scouted the Firmament’s surrounding areas for a new ice-quarry location, the twins had discovered a view like no other, beyond the horizon of the moon.
Two adjacent meteor craters had created a raised ridge in the darkness, with enough concavity for water crystals to form... and as she hiked up to a thick, dark patch of ice ahead of her, Lori looked over her shoulder towards the shining sliver of Earth in the distance, rising atop the valleys at her feet.
She knelt down just as Sander caught up with her and began striking the dusty ice with a mallet from her waistband.
“It always feels so weird…” Sander said, eyes riveted to their home-planet as it hovered far above them. “Like it’s pulling me.”
Then, remembering that his sister couldn’t hear him, Sander shook the strange sensation from his mind, crouched down next to her and finished dislodging the ice.
Once they had a full crate, the twins made their way back down the hill to the Landshark and sped home. While Sander parked the rover, Lori radioed the Firmament to say that they had returned… but in lieu of hearing their usual confirmation, nobody answered.
“Hey! Guys… we’re back. Open up.” Lori tried again, turning to help her brother unstrap the ice-crate.
Just as Sander was about to break one of Quentin’s cardinal rules and climb through the service shaft out of pure frustration, Barney answered.
“Yeah, sorry guys.”
The platform began to descend and, after dropping the ice though a slot in the Firmament’s undercarriage, the twins reappeared inside the ship. But as the dock sealed itself behind them, they immediately could tell that something unusual had happened.