Michael Collins shook off his surprise after a handful of seconds. “Anyway, ma’am, welcome aboard the Columbia, the command module for Apollo 11.” He floated back and allowed Luna to see the cramped interior. “As you can see, it’s going to be a bit tight with an extra body aboard, but we’ll make it work.”
As the three exited the LM and entered the CM, Luna gazed at the strange controls and fascinating equipment contained within.
Michael cleared his throat. “After you get situated, Mission Control has sent me a list of some questions they’d like you to answer. Is that fine?”
Luna nodded. “Of course! ‘Tis the least they could ask for allowing me aboard.” Carefully, she attempted to sit. While there was no gravity, her magically-imbued shoes allowed her to stick to the floor if she wished.
The astronauts watched her walk around with a little envy, she could tell; it didn’t seem like they had any such devices, so they simply floated around in the microgravity environment.
Once she had settled down on one of the few empty floor spaces, she looked up at the three floating humans and nodded, “You may ask any questions you wish, Mr. Collins, on one condition; I get to ask a question for every question you do.”
“That’s fine.” He cleared his throat, before referring to a small piece of paper with hasty scribbles scrawled on it. “One: What is your full name?”
Luna had to think for a moment—it had been so long since she had been referred to as anything but Luna or Princess Luna—she was either family or royalty to those she knew, neither of which lent itself to bandying last names around. It had been decades since her full name had been spoken.
“Luna Nightbringer,” she said after a second.
Michael scribbled something down, ostensibly her name. “Got it.”
“You call yourselves humans, but also homo sapiens. Why is that?” Luna asked.
Michael seemed surprised, but Neil squinted at her for a moment then said, “Mike, it’s just some mind trick she did—I’m fairly certain she knows everything I know about English, but not necessarily the context or reasoning behind it.”
Mike just sighed. “Mind trick. Why am I not surprised?” Returning to her question, he responded, “Human is the name we call ourselves, but in the classification of animals on our planet, we are genus Homo species sapiens. It’s a scientific name based off of similatities between organisms.” He paused. “Or at least, that’s what I got from high school science. For all I know, I’m totally wrong.”
Luna said thoughtfully, “A classification system like you said would be most helpful, I can see that.”
Mike smiled. “I never saw the logic behind it, but I’m not a biologist, so I’ll take your word for it. Right, next question...” he consulted the sheet again. “Do you know where your world is located from here?”
“No,” Luna sighed mournfully. “I’m afraid my being here was completely by accident. I was supposed to go to our own moon, but something interrupted the process and I ended up here. I have no inkling as to where my own planet may be.”
“Interrupted? How can that be—“
Luna tsked. “My turn!” she chided playfully. She thought for a moment, thinking of pertinent questions her newfound knowledge couldn’t answer. “Who is in charge of your planet’s weather?” she asked. “I know of many leaders of nations, but not of officials tasked with global concerns.”
“Weather?” Buzz said in surprise. “Nobody is in charge of weather. It just happens. We can predict it some of the time, but we couldn’t even start to control it.”
“Really?” Luna was surprised. To think they had made it to their moon... without first controlling their own world.
“Yep,” he affirmed.
Collins made a noise to get Buzz’s attention. “Roughly how long have you been on our moon?” he asked.
Luna had to think for a moment. She had spent the first few years figuring out times—years and days and other pertinent measurements of time. Now that she had a frame of reference to compare them... “Almost exactly twenty-four years, give or take a few days,” she said.
Mike nodded, but stopped dead. “Almost exactly—hm. Neil? What happened nearly exactly twenty-four years ago?”
“Well, there was the Japanese surrender,” Neil said.
“And before that?” Mike pressed.
“The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—oh.” He, too, halted, deep in thought.
Hiroshima... Luna riffled back through her new information. Japanese city, destroyed just before the end of WWII by—that was bad. Very, very bad. Luna couldn’t even begin to describe how bad that was.
“YOU FOOLS!” she thundered. “DOST THOU KNOW WHAT THOU HAST DONE?”
The three humans flinched away. “Does this have to do with the bombs?” Neil asked.
“YES! THE SHEER FOALISHNESS OF PLAYING WITH SUCH FORCES—“ She took a deep breath and lowered her tone. “You humans are extremely lucky,” she said, “To still be alive. If that bomb had interacted with nearby magical fields in any way but the right one, you could have destroyed your entire planet!”
“Hold up, wait, stop,” Mike said, holding up a hand. “Magical fields? You’re joking, right?”
“JOKING? I AM NOT JESTING WITH THEE—No!” Luna replied angrily. “You must be jesting with me—there is no way thine species has made it to thine moon without a detailed knowledge of magic!”
“Ma’am, magic doesn’t exist,” Buzz said flatly. “I can only assume you’re talking about something we just don’t have a word for yet and that’s the nearest word we have. But ‘abracadabra,’ pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat, saw-someone-in-half magic is just illusions and tricks. Magic doesn’t exist. It’s been proven. And as for ‘a detailed knowledge of magic,’ this is all 100% technology and American know-how. Not a single bit of magic involved.” He rapped the side of the ship.
“Wh—wh—wh—“ Luna stammered. No magic? No magic at all? How had they gotten this far, then? How? It was impossible...
“Luna?” Neil asked in concern. “Luna?” He waved a hand in front of her face as she continued sputtering and staring off into the middle distance.