It had been an hour since Neil’s suit had been fixed by the alien, and the air was finally warming up to tolerable, if still a bit chilly, temperatures. Neil had, by this time, also warmed up significantly and was feeling generally better.
Except in one area. He would’ve never thought it, but waiting, even on the Moon, was the same thing as it had been everywhere else since the beginning of history: boring. Mind-numbingly, incredibly, boring. The two astronauts gave occasional status reports to Charlie, infrequently checked the various gauges and meters, and awkwardly stared at Luna as the alien stared right back in turn. Two hours of such busywork and lack of activity, plus the stress of having an alien in the LM, was enough to grate on anyone’s nerves, and seasoned astronauts were no exception.
Finally, however, the air had warmed enough for Neil to feel safe unsealing his helmet. He did so with a sigh, setting the dome off to one side. Buzz followed suit, and the two grinned tiredly at one another.
“Some day, huh?” Buzz asked, and Neil nodded in agreement. “Twice as exciting as we thought it was going to be,” he continued, “And it was already incredible enough as it was. I’m surprised our hearts didn’t simply quit on us.” He grinned.
Neil shot back, “Maybe yours, old geezer, but I’m a tougher man.”
“Old man?” Buzz retorted. “I’m four years younger than you!”
“Old man in spirit, then,” Neil laughed, and Buzz chuckled. “My spirit’s still twenty-five!”
“Maybe twenty-five hundred!” Aldrin countered.
Luna had been watching this in bemusement. She said something, the smooth syllables lending the sentence unusual grace. It sounded like a question to the humans, but neither knew if that was true.
Buzz glanced at Neil and met his eyes. With a simultaneous shrug, Buzz waved hello as Neil gave a smile and offered a hand slowly.
“Shouldn’t we be reporting all of this to Mission Control?” Buzz asked out of the corner of his mouth, smile never wavering.
“In a second,” Neil replied, smile equally fixed.
Luna sighed, rolling her large eyes, her expression clearly showing exasperation more plainly than any human face. However, she took off the helmet Neil had noticed was part of her ensemble, setting it on one of the consoles, and stuck out a hand—hoof, Neil corrected internally—in imitation of Armstrong.
The two shook, awkwardly at first as Neil made sure that they were on the same page as to the gesture—you never knew, and it would be embarrassing if in this extraordinary situation the two badly misunderstood each other’s intentions and ended up smacking each other in the face.
Not to mention that Neil still wasn’t quite sure that something like that wouldn’t result in violence. There couldn’t be any taking chances here—or at least not more than necessary.
After the handshake continued a few more seconds than was comfortable, Buzz asked, “Now what? Didn’t the President say something about getting her back to Earth?”
“Yes,” Neil said, diverting his attention to Aldrin, “But if we can’t talk I’m at a loss as to how to convince her to come along. And I really don’t want to anger her because she can obviously get along just fine in vacuum, unlike us.” He rapped on the wall of the LM for emphasis.
“Right,” Buzz agreed. “Best to be careful.”
Neil turned his attention to Luna to find her a few inches away from his face. He started and jerked backwards, but in the heavy spacesuit (which he was still wearing most of), all he accomplished was to fall on his backside and look like an idiot.
Buzz gave a sarcastic thumbs up, and the winged unicorn (Neil really needed to find out what those were called) crinkled her eyes in amusement.
“You sure impressed her,” Buzz called good-naturedly.
“Oh, shut up,” Neil retorted as he got back to his feet. Again, Luna was just a bit too close for comfort, but this time he was expecting it and kept his composure.
She spoke again, another question if Neil read it right, and waited for an answer. Neil shrugged in response. She sighed, and repeated the same syllables. Neil scrunched his forehead in confusion. “I don’t understand you,” he said helplessly, bringing his arms up.
She wasn’t impressed, Neil could tell. Those eyes were incredibly expressive.
Then, her horn began to glow again, and Buzz stiffened. “Careful!” he warned, backing up a pace—which in this module, was the farthest back he could really go.
“Trying,” Neil said, remaining still as his eyes widened in anxiety.
Gently, a hoof pushed him to his seat and sat him down. Luna said something else, and then her horn flashed again. Bracing himself, Neil stopped as nothing happened. “I think it’s fine—“ he started, and then stiffened suddenly.
“Neil? Neil!” Buzz yelled, but Neil never even heard him.
Neil felt with curiosity his attention sucked inwards, to his thoughts. Then, a presence intruded on his frenzied hypotheses. His mind... was no longer his alone. His thoughts were no longer the only thing within it. He could feel the alien, at the edge of his brain, and he felt Luna was looking about curiously. There was a sense of deep fascination emanating from her. It was by far the strangest thing he had ever felt. One mind was not meant to share two people—or beings, or creatures of any kind.
Then, something even stranger happened. It felt like his memories were a book, and something had just flipped through it with blinding speed, skimming them for... something. In turn, he saw (there was no better word for it) Luna’s mind in turn. The impressions flashed by faster than he could process them, but he caught glimpses of a white castle, a great field of grass, and other quadrupeds much like her.
Then, the book slammed shut with startling finality as Luna noticed his peeking, and his mind was closed with equal suddenness. And then the experience was over, his consciousness rushing back outwards.
Neil returned to awareness with a blinding headache. “Ow,” he muttered.
“What was that?” Buzz barked. “You and the alien just froze and stared at each other for an entire minute!”
“I can’t... exactly explain it,” Neil said, cradling his aching head in his hands, “But it felt an awful lot like telepathy—like from the comics.”
“What.” Buzz’s voice was flat.
“It was looking for something,” Neil explained, “And it kind of riffled through my head like it was a book.” He hesitated. “It wasn’t exactly like that, but it’s the best I can come up with. In turn I saw a bit of her head, I suppose. There was a castle... a field... and a bunch of other aliens. That was all I caught. Then it was over.”
“Right, I’m reporting this,” Buzz said, reaching to activate his mike. “This is getting ridiculous. Aliens with telepathy; what next? Is Spock going to appear out of nowhere?” He shook his head.
“Wait a second,” Neil said. “She obviously wasn’t trying to kill me or make me a zombie or something strange like that...” He paused. “I think. Let’s see what she does next.”
They turned to Luna, only to find her wearing a wide, satisfied grin and chuckling. Buzz ventured, “Maybe whatever she found in her head is funny?” Breaking the serious mood, he cracked, “Of course, looking in your head would probably be hilarious for anyone.”
“Very funny—“ Neil stated.
“Indeed! I am most amused!” came a third voice, stopping both humans dead. “I am glad to see my translation spell worked properly.” Luna smiled, but the smile faltered as both stared mutely at her. “Or did it?” she muttered, humor fading entirely. “Can you understand me?”
For a few more seconds, neither Neil nor Buzz could say anything, flabbergasted. “Right,” Neil said surprisingly calmly. “We should probably call this in.” Then his eyes rolled up and he passed out for a moment.
Jerked out of his shock, Buzz leapt as best as he could to Neil and shook him back awake. “Neil!” he hissed. “You can’t pass out now!”
“Sorry,” Neil said weakly. “But I can’t blame my brain. Can you?”
“Well, no,” Buzz admitted. “I’ll call it in.” He turned slowly to Luna. “Well, um... now that you can apparently speak English somehow, nice to meet you.” He scratched his head, at a loss, as Neil watched him put in a strange situation for the first time today. ‘It really was his turn,’ Neil thought.
“Name’s Buzz Aldrin. I take it your name’s Luna?”
“Correct,” she stated. “I am Luna. I am sorry for that, Neil,” she said, turning to him as he looked on, “But I was quickly becoming frustrated and I remedied the situation as best as I could.”
Neil held his head in his hands. “Right,” he mumbled, in pain as the migraine stabbed at his brain, “Nice to meet you too.”
Buzz activated his microphone. “We have a development,” he reported with forced composure.
“Yes, Tranquility, what is it?” Charlie’s exhausted voice came.
“Apparently, the alien, Luna, can do some freaky superhero-style telepathy stuff. And now she, um, sorta can speak English, I guess.” His stumbling description was unprofessional; the strangeness of this whole day was finally breaking through his training. It got the point across nonetheless.
“What.” Charlie’s reply was equally as flat as Buzz’s had been just a few minutes earlier. In the background, Buzz would swear later he could hear President Nixon’s voice on the phone repeating the exact same word.
Today was just one of those days, Neil mused.