Chapter No.9

After an uneventful cruise to the Lunar L2 Space station, the three scientists gawked at the giant space station slowly rotating in space with a bright Moon in the background. The wheel's sides were transparent except where the axle spokes attached. The spoke ends were like giant U-shaped tuning forks that met at a cylindrical hub, which contained a docking station.

After sending a signal to the station's command computer to open the docking station door, Carl had to make the spacecraft slowly rotate to match the space station's rotation so that he could enter the docking station. After an unnervingly slow process, Carl got the spacecraft into the docking station and secured it to the floor.

They had to wait several minutes while the docking station compressed with air. After exiting the spacecraft, they began a climb up, actually it's down, through a large tube that ran up in the middle of one of the axels. Slowly climbing the ladder rungs wasn't too hard at the beginning but as they got closer to the station's wheel itself, artificially created gravity made it more of a chore.

Once in the station proper, they nervously looked around. Sensors activated lights to reveal a large empty corridor. The corridor that ran all the way around the wheel was expansive and accommodated the housing and labs the scientists that worked there required.

But there was no welcoming committee, and even worse, it was eerily silent. They realized that something was wrong.

"Surely, they would have noted our approach," Margaret said. "It looks like no one's home."

"We shouldn't assume anything until we check the rest of this station," Carl said. "Let's go to the command center. Maybe we can find out what the status of this station is."

They began a long walk around the wheel past living quarters, labs and observation stations. All were silent with no signs of activity but otherwise pristine with no evidence of panic. Once in the command center, Janet activated the main computer system and began going through the records.

"There are two hundred and twenty-eight people listed as being here, sixteen of which are children. I can't find any indication that there was an incident on July 6, the day that Margaret experienced a light flash. The sensor logs didn't record anything like that. There are no records in this system after that date."

"That would suggest that all of the people on this station vanished," Carl reasoned.

"Ah, there are indications of activity after that date," Janet said.

Carl's eyes flashed with excitement. "What sort of activity?"

"Movement in the corridor near zone six."

Margaret and Carl looked at the main screen that exhibited zone six, which was where some of the living quarters were located.

"That's a child," Carl said. "If he survived the event, we need to talk to him."

"There's three more recordings of the child out in the corridor," Janet said. "It shows him entering and exiting quarters number forty-five.

"Let's go there and see if we can find him," Carl said.

They walked to the living quarters in question. Carl activated the request signal. At first, there was no response, but after two more tries, the door opened to reveal a twelve-year-old blond-haired boy. His expression was one of surprise with a touch of panic.

"We're here to help you," Carl said. "Are you alone?"

That question was obviously redundant, but it elicited a surprise response. "My sister and I are alone here. They abandoned us."

"Where's your sister?"

The boy pointed to what Carl assumed was the quarters next to the one they were standing in. He gestured to the women. "See if you can find her."

Janet and Margaret went to the adjoining quarters while Carl stayed with the boy. "Your parents didn't abandon you. Something has happened to make people vanish. We're trying to understand how that happened, and you are a key element in understanding how it happened. Did you see a light flash on July 6?"

"No, but my sister did."

Carl realized that this was a very important fact in their attempt to understand what had happened, but even if it were true, it was still going to be an uphill battle to figure out what really happened.

Janet and Margaret returned with the boy's sister. She was nine years old, blond haired like her brother, and on edge from fear and sadness.

"The boy here claims that his sister saw a light flash on July 6," Carl said. "If that's true, then what Margaret saw confirms that this event occurred after the light flash."

"Did you see a light flash?" Janet asked the girl.

"Yes . . .  It frightened me!"

Carl shook his head. "This verifies that a brilliant light flash preceded the vanishing event, but it doesn't make sense. Why didn't we vanish?"

"I think the more immediate question is what produced the light flash," Margaret said. "If it were a gamma ray burst from a close supernova, we would have seen UV damage to vegetation and a lot of dead birds and animals, and more importantly, we would have seen plenty of corpses."

"I agree," Carl said. "Since we weren't affected whatsoever by the light flash, we must conclude that a supernova was not the cause of people vanishing. As much as I hate it, we may have to consider a paranormal cause."

"Even if we did that, I don't have any idea what would cause people to vanish, and keep in mind that they vanished with their clothing."

"You're right," Carl said. "We found no evidence of discarded clothing, so we have to conclude that the vanishings were not some sort of physical evaporation or a conversion to liquid or gas."

"I also think that we can eliminate alien abduction," Margaret said. "There is no way that an alien species came to Earth and abducted billions of people."

"I agree," Carl said. "They would have had to come to this station to remove all but these two children."

"Are we going to stay here or go back to Earth?" Janet asked.

"I think we should stay here for the time being. We have several well-equipped labs to investigate various ideas about what could have happened. The least we could do is verify that it wasn't a supernova."

Neither Janet nor Margaret refuted his plan. They realized that if they did return to Earth, they would be handicapped to do any serious research into the problem.

Carl, Margaret and Janet settled in quarters near where the two children were. The rooms were well maintained with no sign of violence or mortality. It was if they were moving into new hotel rooms, rooms that were maintained by robotic devices that changed linens and did routine cleaning. It was as if nothing of note had occurred.

Author's Notes
This space station is modeled after the one in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey'