“What are you talking about, Carl?” asked Judd.
“Welcome back, baldy. We were just discussing how to save our lives,” said Carl.
“By sending the boy to the moon?” asked Judd.
“Yeah, why me to the moon?” queried Juan.
Both men gave Juan a funny look.
“You haven’t told Frank Sinatra here about the moon, have you?” asked Judd.
“Told me what about the moon!?” shouted Juan. “And who’s Frank Sinatra?”
Judd stood up and walked closer to Carl.
“No, no, not yet. But there is no harm now, I mean he knows about the girl anyway,” pleaded Carl.
Judd jumped up and began shoving Carl, and with each shove he grunted a word. “I…am…so…sick…of…your…evil…conniving…selfish…ways.”
Carl stepped back with each shove, and fell over with the final push. Judd kicked dirt on him. “There has been, and there will be, so much death because of you,” accused Judd.
Judd turned around and took a step back towards Juan and the vehicles. Carl feigned standing up but really attempted to lunge at Judd. However, he came up short, falling on his fat belly and losing his glasses in the dirt. He groaned and gasped for air, groping for his glasses before rolling onto his side and saying, in a raspy voice, “This is the only way to start saving lives. Yes, mine, too. But this is how we start undoing Dr. Zell and her people’s plans.”
The desert became still again while the two men and the boy each pondered their situation and the plan that was presented. Like an oven preheating, the sun continued it’s march across the sky, raising the temperature with each passing minute.
Eventually, Carl began talking again. He filled Juan in on the moon base. He was short on details, just providing the highlights. He explained how Kris had arrived on Earth in a returning cargo vessel, and how, if they were lucky, they could put Juan on a cargo ship to the moon. But once on the moon, that’s where Juan would have to think for himself, for he’d be on his own.
Juan digested the whole story without saying anything. None of this seemed real, and he wouldn’t have believed a word of it, except he had met the girl, and she was evidence Carl’s unbelievable tale was true. But this wasn’t the biggest question weighing on him.
Judd was lying in the shade of Carl’s SXS. He hadn’t commented much on Carl’s story, but he wasn’t sleeping. Occasionally, he’d wave a big hand to dismiss a bug, or to wipe sweat from his brow.
“Right before your nap, Judd, you said I’d never see my parents again. But my Mom is dead. She died in a helicopter accident five years ago. What did you mean when you said that?”
This was the heavy question on Juan’s heart.
Judd turned his head to look Juan in the eyes. “You mom is alive, and she’s been living here on base the whole time. Five years ago she saw too much, so she was banned from ever leaving here and ever having outside contact again. She’s been a prisoner.”