All The Moonlight on Earth by Jesse Muehlbauer

Author:Jesse Muehlbauer [Muehlbauer, Jesse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allaire Publishing, LLC
Published: 2022-01-19T12:58:06+00:00

The terrestrial laboratory was still empty when Gillen and Samantha walked through the Alignment and stepped foot back on earth. Walter was nowhere to be found, and his vehicle had vanished from the parking lot, leaving them to suspect that he had taken what was left of his sanity and gone home. Following his lead, they got into Samantha’s car and traveled the few blocks back to Gillen’s residence, where a shuffle up the front steps and into the foyer left them unusually spent for a midafternoon.

“Whiskey sour, right?” Gillen asked wearily as they stood in the den.

“Yes, please.”

After fixing her drink, he poured some scotch over a pair of ice cubes and gave the tumbler a swirl. He raised his glass toward her with a mocking poise as if to punctuate the fact that there was nothing to celebrate. Samantha nodded and continued nursing her drink as she sat on the edge of the divan.

“I’m so sorry, Gillen.”

He took a step forward from the cart and sat down next to her. “I can’t imagine for what. You saved my life.”

Samantha gazed into her drink. “The day I agreed to help Walter build this thing, create a team, go to the moon, I thought about all of the challenges, frustrations, and even peril we would be up against. I knew the odds were against us but believed in the mission. I believed in the...” Drawing a blank, she took another sip from her glass and then continued, “But I never saw this coming. Not once did the possibility of something like this even cross my mind. That we were building in the wrong place, gazing back at the wrong planet... never once. If I had, none of this would have happened and Allaire would still be safe with you.”

“That kind of retrospective is pointless and you know it,” Gillen challenged. “Okay, so you didn’t think of it. Neither did Walter, Barry, Richard, Cate, or Frank in accounting.” Gillen then rested his hand on Samantha’s wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Neither did I.”

Samantha briefly smiled before returning to her drink. “We have to figure out who sent that telegram. They were on to it before we were and that might lead us to Allaire.”

Gillen shifted his gaze toward Samantha as if to scold her for not thinking through the possibilities. After a moment, he whispered, “They detonated that octagon for a reason. Unless there’s another entryway somewhere on their moon or our earth, the only other way we get to Allaire is building a rocket ship on their moon that can land on their earth. And even then, we have to figure out some way home.”

“There must be another portal. An Octagon like our Hexagon.”

“On their moon?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe here on earth.”

“One that bypasses the moons altogether and is a direct link between the two earths?” Gillen gyrated his glass anxiously and shook his head. “If they have that capability then why go through all the trouble of trapping

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