Chapter No.24.

When Carl, Margaret and Janet arrived at NASA's Houston headquarters, they went directly to George's office.

"You'll have to go to the Moon yourselves," he said the instant he saw them. "Neils and Fisher are working on a new spacecraft. I'm sure you will find a way to deactivate the alien device yourselves."

Carl looked at Margaret and Janet before turning back to him. "We will do our best, sir."

George smiled. "Great! Good luck."

As Carl and the two women were walking down a corridor on their way to the hanger where the spaceplane was being prepped, the conversation turned more agitated.

"It's obvious that NASA isn't interested in the alien message and its consequences," Janet said. "We're being thrown to the dogs of disinterest."

"I don't think Latimore cares about it anymore," Margaret said. "He's only interested in whatever serves his interests."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised." Carl said.  "However, it's in our best interests that we do something to stop that damn thing from changing our timeline."

They realized that he was right, but it still irked them that NASA didn't actually believe them.

When they arrived at the spaceplane hanger, they saw workers finishing the prep of the machine for a launch. Red Fenton, the chief engineer for the spaceplane came over to them.

"It's ready to roll," he said. "We had to make some adjustments to the main engines to bring them into safety compliance."

Carl gave him a confused expression. "What sort of adjustments?"

"The maximum thrust was set a tad too high. If you pushed the engines too far, they might have failed if the maximum temp was exceeded."

Carl nodded. "Hopefully, we wouldn't need to exceed the maximum recommenced power level."

Fenton smiled. "Well, in that case you have nothing to be concerned about."

Carl turned to Janet and Margaret. "Let's get this done."

They entered the spacecraft and went directly to the cockpit/command center. Carl waited until he received the proper signal to begin the takeoff run, which went without incident. He pulled back on the stick and increased power to fly quickly to the top of the stratosphere before firing the main rocket engines.

No one said anything until the main rocket burn was complete.

"I wonder what the two engineers are working on," Margaret mused.

"I believe they're building a spaceship in orbit that's capable of traveling to the edge of the solar system," Carl said. "The last I heard it has rotating sections that provides artificial gravity."

"That would be a welcomed feature. I hate zero gravity."

"You're not the only one," Carl said.

"Do you think we'll ever get a chance to go somewhere in it?" Janet asked.

"I think we're relegated to the trash bin of space exploration. We'll be lucky to have our jobs when we come up for review."

"Even though we saved Earth!" Janet argued.

"All we did is manage to get back to our original timeline," Carl said. "And the bad news is that they probably don't believe us."

They realized that he was probably right.

They avoided conversation on the trip. It was more because of disappointment that NASA had essentially shit canned them. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but in the long run they were probably better off.

When they arrived at the Moon, Carl managed to set the spaceplane down near the peak where the alien device was located. After getting into their spacesuits, they went to the tunnel and entered the cave where the device was located.

"It's still here," Carl said. "That's a good sign. Now comes the fun part."

Janet looked it over and then did something unexpected. She used her lamp to look at the back of the round face of the device that contained the pointers.

"Hey, there's a small lever on the back of this thing. I think it might be a switch."

"Are there any symbols that it points at?" Carl asked.

"Yes," Janet said.  She turned to Margaret. "Do you have access to the computer?"

"What do you need?"

"Come here and look at this," Janet said. "It might be on our list of letters."

Margaret used a magnifier to get an image of the two symbols that the switch could point to. She then made a comparison run through the translation list that they had compiled. After several tense minutes, she had a possible translation.

"The symbol it's pointed to now translates to 'Go'. The one it's not pointing at means 'Stop'"

Carl smiled. "You've got to be kidding!"

"That's the way I see it," Margaret said.

"See if you can turn the switch to the 'Stop' symbol," he said.

After a few minutes of applying pressure to the switch, Margaret had a report. "It's pointed to 'Stop' now. I tried to turn it back to 'Go' but it won't budge."

"That's interesting," Janet said. "I'm reading no cosmic ray readings at all. Before she switched it, I was getting a residual reading."

"I don't believe this!" Carl exclaimed. "It was this easy to turn it off all along."

"Evidently, the aliens provided this to prevent someone from using the device more than once," Janet said. "Too bad they didn't send an operating instruction manual along with the prophesy."

"The question I want to be answered is why they put this damn thing here in the first place."

"Let's face it," Margaret said. "We'll never know, and I doubt NASA will even care."

"I agree," Carl said. "Let's get the hell out of here and go back home to where we belong."

Margaret and Janet were in favor of that. When they returned to Houston, they reported what they had done. George congratulated them and told them they could have some well-deserved vacation. Other than that, the Chandra Prophecy mission was essentially over.

Janet and Margaret remained living with Carl in his mansion sized home. Their efforts to save mankind faded with time and they ended up as trainers in a NASA organization that had become more political than scientific. However, their expertise would not go to waste.

This is not what it seems to be!

Thanks for reading. A sequel is coming up. I divided this story into two parts to create a different focus, one that's more realistic. It more fully explains what's going on.