Chapter 2

Meera walked a step behind Rajeev. She was trying her best to keep up with him. She also held the hand of the boy who had opened the hatch of the pressure chambers. Rajeev walked into a pressure chamber. He waited for a while before the door opened to a room. All three walked into the room.

“They destroyed the outpost and the instrumentation deck below it. We will have to replace it. This is Meera. She is a Malayali. The boy is the one who opened the electronic hatches.” 

There was silence. Rajeev’s superior looked at Meera and then at the boy. His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out where the boy was from. 

“Where is the boy from?”

“I am also a Malayali. I am Chintu. My mother calls me that. I don’t know my real name.”

Chintu switched between Malayalam and English when he spoke. Rajeev’s superior knew that this meant the boy knew multiple languages. He was not a native Malayalam speaker. Probably his father or mother was a Malayali. Rajeev’s superior looked at Meera.

“Why did you people destroy the outpost? You may have knocked?”

“I don’t know. I only followed instructions that came on my lunafone.”

“You tell me what I need to know, I can let you live. I may even send you to any lunar base of your choice.” 

Rajeev’s superior waited for Meera to answer. She remained silent. He shifted his attention to Chintu.

“Gafoor at the UAE base got the explosives. Ali from the Chinese base destroyed your outpost and instrumentation deck. He also gave me the electronic equipment to open the hatches.”

Meera looked at Chintu with horror. He had revealed all the information that the intruders had learned.

“That is all we were told.”

"I think they fed the intruders false information so that we will retaliate. I don’t think Gafoor and Ali are their real names.”

Meera and Chintu both kept quiet. Rajeev looked at them. Rajeev’s superior asked Chintu to hand over the electronic equipment. Chintu did this promptly. Again, Meera was amazed at how fast Chintu complied with Rajeev’s superior’s requests. 

Rajeev looked at the equipment. He examined it carefully and then handed it to his superior. The superior threw the equipment to a side. 

“The equipment is Chinese.”

“There is no strict control on the movement of goods on the Moon. Anyone could have got it anywhere.”

Rajeev’s superior agreed with him. He asked Meera and Chintu to wait outside the room in the pressure chamber. A few moments Rajeev walked out of the room. He gestured for them to follow him. 

They walked out. They took the staircase two levels below. 

“Do you want different rooms?”

Meera nodded yes. Chintu nodded no. Rajeev led them to different rooms. 

“These are isolation rooms. People from the surface are kept here for three days. If the medical team finds nothing in their lab reports, I will get you out earlier.” 

Meera did not understand why they were treating them so well. The intruders had destroyed the outpost and some very costly instrumentation. Getting it replaced would be difficult. She had expected to be thrown out of the base on being discovered. She had then hoped to share the plans of the pressure chambers to improve on the next attempt with the rebels. But, now she was stuck in isolation rooms.