Free Project U.L.F. by Stuart Clark Page A

her as a memento of this trip. That would go into storage along with her rucksack to wait for her return.
    She checked her watch. It was time to start moving; she was supposed to be meeting him outside the control dome in a quarter of an hour.
     
    *    *    *    *    *
     
    Wyatt was brought around by a gentle shaking of his arm. The hostess’ face slowly came into focus in front of him.
    “Breakfast, Mister Dorren.”
    “Wha…? Really? What time is it?”
    “Nine o’clock standard earth time. We’ve made good time and should be arriving at the moon-base twenty minutes earlier than originally expected.”
    “Oh…good,” Wyatt said. It was the only response that seemed appropriate.
     
    *    *    *    *    *
     
    Alan was already waiting for Kate when she arrived.
    “Am I late?” she asked.
    “No, I’m early,” he smirked. “Bad habit of mine. Are you ready to go in?”
    “Yeah, sure”
    “I have to ask that you touch nothing and disturb no one. The jobs these people do here require a lot of concentration. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t distract them from their work.
    “That’s fine, I understand.”
    Alan turned and punched in an access code on the keypad on the wall. The door slid away.
    The first thing Kate saw was the stars. The cosmic panorama was breathtaking. Complete and uninterrupted. There was no cloud, just inky blackness in which the stars shone brilliantly, winking gleefully. She caught her breath in her throat.
    Alan stepped through the door and beckoned her to follow him. As she stepped through into the control dome she could see all the personnel that were hidden from her previous vantage point. There were hundreds of them, some rushing around frantically, others sitting in front of monitors watching arms swing lazily around scopes. All of them occupying a place in one of dozens of rows arranged in tiers. Each totally focused on their individual task. The whole room was covered by a hemisphere of some transparent material through which the stars and the lunar landscape could be viewed.
    Alan began to descend the nearest flight of stairs, which cut down along the left side of room. Kate followed. About a third of the way down, a man located in the center of the nearest row motioned for them to join him. They made their way across to the stranger, behind numerous computer screens, some displaying lines and lines of computer code, others intermittently flashing data, none of which Kate could comprehend.
    “Hello, Alan,” said the other man, “You’ve timed this just right, we have a shuttle coming in early.” He turned to Kate, “You must be Miss Frere,” he said, offering his hand.
    “That’s right,”
    “Hi, I’m David Winsford and this is my office,” he opened his arms wide to indicate the whole room and smiled at his own humor. “We deal mainly with the smaller craft in this control room, that’s why this dome looks out over the surface of the moon. It means we can watch their approach as well as monitor them on computer.”
    “It doesn’t look that busy to warrant all these people,” Kate said.
    David snorted in amusement of her ignorance. “We monitor all incoming and outgoing craft to a range of two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers.” He looked down at his display, a kaleidoscope of colored flashing lights. “We’re currently tracking one hundred and sixty-four craft. Some are just passing within our range but many of them will land or have taken off from here.”
    “Oh, I didn’t realize…”
    “No…well. Anyway, we have a shuttle coming in right now. Keep an eye out and you might spot it, it’s coming in from over there,” he said, indicating the general direction.
    All three of them stood in silence for a few minutes, looking for the shuttle.
    “Ah, there it is,” David pointed it out to the others. It appeared tiny, a small gray form speeding across the black backdrop and then it turned and dropped below the lunar horizon,