FAR SIDE OF THE MOON

I knew they wanted me dead now. Champs's chances were growing thinner. The only option left to me was confronting Rike about Dr. Drago's whereabouts. But, up to now, Lt. Adam Rike and I had only ill feelings towards one another. Suddenly, I needed him to help me. I wasn't good at begging but maybe it was a good time to swallow my pride.

After jumping into my hovercraft, I sped towards the security building and Rike. I pushed the accelerator to the floor as tears began to stream down my cheeks. Tears without
emotion I cried. They were like the tears that come from a life far too hard. They were tears of painful endurance, cold tears from a cold baby.

Along the way, I called Rike on the visi-phone and told him what had taken place. He seemed surprisingly compassionate and even offered to help. I thought about that as the red cryogenics' light began blinking. It indicated a loss of super-cooled liquid nitrogen which produced the magnetic field-cushion that levitated the craft enabling high speed travel in the reduced gravity of Mars.

I knew I was in a lot of trouble when I found the de-accelerator sabotaged. My mind raced for a solution as the visi-phone buzzed on. The face of Dr. Drago appeared.

"By know you've discovered you are about to die. So I don't mind telling you what has taken place," said the demented doctor. "As you have only moments to live, I can say to you that your boy is alive and well with me on the Martian moon of Phoebes. Along with us is the child from Pompei. I had him brought here. Rike and you are both fools. The irradiation which both of you thought was causing your demise was in fact the start of something wonderful. It was the first phenomena confirming the existence of extra-terrestrial life. An event that was a prelude to our universe's transfiguration form one
space-time continuum to another."

"Doctor, what the hell are you talking about? When I get out of here I'll kill you with my own teeth and taste you die."

"None of that matters anymore. You see, the space surrounding Mars moons is being warped in preparation for the portal that will allow an emissary of our race to travel into
and through the barrier which lies outside our galaxy. The edict of the orbs was translated incorrectly. God has not left you, you are leaving Him. The remaining denizens of this solar system's space-time will be phased into a self-contained universe apart
from all others, isolated for the rest of eternity. Another dimension, if you will. That is the sentence all of you shall pay for my glorious ascent into the galactic community."

"But they couldn't have known what's happened here," I said as I struggled to steer my racing craft.

"You don't understand. They aren't corporeal creatures. The boy you rescued died five years ago and his grave is still outside to colony's ruins. The image you rescued wasn't one of us, it was one of them using the boy as a link, a beacon for transmitting coordinates. But, he needed someone like the form he'd taken on, another special child like your Champ, to complete the transmission. Ah, it is time. Goodbye."

At that moment the hovercraft crashed through the Plexiglas bubble of Alpha's outer perimeter and into the ancient crater wall of Mars' Alpha Prime meteor depression.
I was thrown violently onto the unprotected Martian surface, my visor and protective pressure suit severely damaged.

It felt like my arm was badly broken as I lay awaiting horrific death from internal bleeding, shock and de-pressurization. I lay there, staring over the red sands of Mars, into the cold and distant sun. I remembered the words of Clarissa Dalloway again as life began to leave me. FEAR NO MORE THE HEAT OF THE SUN.