Moon Hoax

3 THE LIE

The hallway was dimly lit as Peter and Rob were quickly escorted by two Chinese soldiers, one in front and the other behind, at the Jiuquan Launch Center. Jiuquan was located a thousand miles west of Beijing in an isolated desert in the northwest Gansu province in China and was where all CNSA’s manned missions were launched. Peter and Rob had made it to Jiuquan in record time. What normally was a day trip from England to the remote location was cut to seven straight hours thanks to China providing a private plane and helicopter. Peter was still perplexed about what the rush was to get him and Rob to Jiuquan, especially since China was right in the middle of their historical moon mission. He surmised the laser was somehow involved in this mission, which was not a total surprise since the commander was Tang Liwei, who had attended past meetings. Though Peter did not know Tang’s exact position at CNSA during those meetings, he was always impressed with his questions. But how was the laser being used?

Though it was an early spring afternoon in Jiuquan, the outside temperature was a chilly 10 F. The coldness from the outside seemed to be creeping into the hallway Peter and Rob walked. Peter pulled his coat around tighter as he hurried to stay with the soldier in front. The cold didn’t seem to bother Rob, who was struggling to keep up while hauling his heavy briefcase. The Chinese soldiers walked at a brisk and steady pace, in a unison march, staring straight ahead and saying nothing. The pounding of their boots echoed in the empty hallways. Peter was surprised to see the hallways bare of workers, considering a mission was currently going on. He assumed it was probably because the launch was five days earlier and all communications had been transferred to the Beijing Command Center. This was the first time while visiting Jiuquan that Peter was being escorted by soldiers. He could not help but notice the gun in the holster on the soldier’s side. He and Rob looked at each other; Rob with a look of concern. Trying to put his friend at ease Peter just gave him a wink, knowing Brits weren’t allowed guns and the sight of one was probably making Rob nervous.

Upon arriving at Jiuquan, Peter and Rob had been put through a tight security check where Rob’s briefcase was emptied and searched, and both had to walk through a metal detector and a full body soft x-ray scan. They were then warned by CNSA security to do exactly as they were told while at the launch center. Under no circumstance were they to go anywhere unescorted. Even if one of them had to use the restroom, they were to be escorted by one of the soldiers, who would stand behind as he did his business. Peter’s previous visits never required such tight security. Today’s escort and pat-down was probably due to the current mission. This was obviously a visit they had not planned on or prepared for, and what was going on around him was apparently top secret stuff. This was the perfect opportunity to gather intelligence on China’s current and future plans for space.

The soldier Peter trailed came to a door at the end of the hallway, and knocked. A pretty Chinese lady opened the door. The soldier stepped aside and motioned for Peter and Rob to enter. They bowed slightly to both soldiers before turning to enter the room. The soldiers took position outside the doorway, one on each side. Upon entering, Peter’s lungs were overwhelmed by the cigarette smoke blanketing the room, and he struggled not to cough, which might be perceived as rude. It seemed like every man smoked in China.

The lady bowed, and again, Peter and Rob bowed back. She offered to take their coats. Peter had been coached both by the CIA and by Byington Corporation on proper etiquette for business meetings in China. He understood the importance of tradition and showing respect. This being Rob’s first visit to China, Peter gave the engineer some pointers on the plane, but basically told him to follow his lead and remember, he was the senior member of the team and it was expected he would do most of the talking. Peter handed the girl his coat, Rob doing the same.

This was the first time Peter had been to this conference room, and he did a quick scan. The large room was surprisingly bright and fortunately much warmer than the hallway, which Peter assumed was due to all the lit cigarettes. The room had no windows, but on the back and side walls were beautiful murals of rockets. The front wall had an impressive six-foot CNSA emblem made of stained metal. In the front corner of the room was the prototype of the MK laser on a stand with wheels. In the center of the room was a large conference table with probably twenty-five chairs around it. He had been to some meetings where they sat on the floor, so he was happy to see chairs. He counted eight gentlemen, seated at one end of the table. Seating was by seniority, and in all his previous meetings Sie had been at the head of the table. In this meeting he was second back on one side. Since senior members sit across from each other, this meant there were at least three gentlemen who had seniority over Sie, and one of those was a military officer. This was a serious meeting.

Peter first walked up to the person of highest seniority, seated at the head of the table. The gentleman stood. Per local custom, Peter extended his hand and looked to the floor, a sign of respect. The gentleman shook his hand. Peter then held out his business card with both hands, with the Chinese written side showing. The gentleman did the same with the English side up. Peter slowly took the card and examined it in silence. The card read: Kuang Pin, Director of China National Space Administration. Wow, the director of CNSA! Damn, this must be an important meeting, especially with a mission going on. Peter quickly concluded the laser must be somehow involved on the mission, but how? He continued to formally meet the remaining gentlemen at the table, as Rob followed and did the same. When all introductions were complete, Peter instructed Rob to take out the wrapped gift box from his brief case, and put it at the center of the table as a traditional gift offering to the group. All bowed in appreciation. Peter and Rob took their appropriate seats.

Kuang opened the meeting thanking Peter and Rob in English for making it on such short notice. Peter thought back to the blonde he hurriedly had to leave and a sly smile crossed his face. Rob nudged him. Kuang went on, saying the meeting would be spoken in English since most everyone spoke it. Peter was amazed how good Kuang’s English was. Kuang turned to Peter and asked, “Are you the son of Tom Novak, the astronaut who walked on the moon back in the early ’70s?”

Peter was surprised Kuang knew this since Sie never mentioned it, plus it was an odd way to start the meeting. He looked at Kuang. “Yes, I am.”

Kuang turned to Sie. “Tai qiao le.”

Peter didn’t know what that meant and thought it was impolite after Kuang said the meeting would be in English. An amused look crossed Kuang’s face when he said it, like he knew something Peter didn’t. That was an odd reaction. Peter looked over at Rob to get his read on Kuang, but instead saw a dumfounded look on the Brit for hearing he was a moonwalker’s son. Peter just smiled as he looked back at Kuang, who motioned for Sie to take over the meeting. Sie paced over to the MK prototype and rolled it in front of Peter and Rob.

Sie said, “We are testing the laser at a very remote location in China. For some reason the laser stopped working, and we have to fix it immediately. As director of engineering, Mr. Novak, you need to know the facts.”

“What is the emergency?”

The room became totally silent. All the Chinese gentlemen began looking at each other, like Peter had done the unthinkable. Sie looked at Kuang as if to question if he should answer. Kuang nodded. Sie turned back and explained. “The laser is in an area so remote we cannot get earth-moving equipment there. The laser had been firing at boulders to break them up. One of the boulders broke and collapsed on a group of workers who are now trapped. The location is on a side of a hill where we cannot get dynamite or equipment up soon enough. We have been in radio contact with one of the trapped men and apparently there is very little air, and they are slowly dying. We need to get the laser working as soon as possible and break up the boulder before they die.”

Though he was surprised they admitted to increasing the laser’s intensity to a destructive level, he still knew he wasn’t being told the truth. The laser’s design was to move space junk, not break apart boulders. “Why is CNSA involved, especially with a mission going on?”

Sie again looked to Kuang; Peter could tell there was another story coming his way. He had every right to ask such questions since China had signed documents confirming the laser would not be used as a firearm. Sie knew Peter would not help them unless he was given a plausible explanation and shown the laser was not being used as a weapon. He knew Peter had an obligation to his company. Again a long silence, Sie again looked at Kuang, again the “nod.” Sie then turned to Peter and said, “The information I am about to pass on is considered top secret to China and CNSA, and is not to leave this room.”

Peter, thinking this could be good, smiled like Kuang had done earlier, and said, “It’ll stay in this room.”

Sie hesitated a moment, contemplating Peter’s expression before glancing back at Kuang. Kuang signaled for Sie to continue. Sie said, “CNSA is the organization responsible for testing the MK Laser. This is currently happening at the remote location in China I mentioned earlier. CNSA was chosen by China officials because the ultimate purpose of the laser is for mining on the moon. We hope to use the laser once we start landing on the moon to help with mining Helium 3. We feel Helium 3 could be the new energy source of the future, and we want to get the first jump on bringing it back to Earth to use in China’s power stations. Of course this is years away.” Then Sie surprised Peter by saying, “Two of the workers currently trapped… are taikonauts.”

Of the many meetings Peter had with CNSA over the last year, this was the first time he heard China say the laser was going to be used on the moon. He still felt Sie was full of crap, but the explanation did show they were trying to come up with a believable story. Peter still suspected the laser was going to be used as a weapon system in Earth orbit, and still assumed it was involved on the current mission. He assumed the laser was being tested somehow around the moon, even though all the CNSA officials in the room were trying to convince him otherwise. He was impressed with this lie of trapped taikonauts, especially with the short time they had to come up with it. This false story would explain the need to get both him and Rob out there so quickly, especially if taikonauts were slowly suffocating, and why high CNSA officials would be sitting in the meeting with a mission going on. The Chinese were loyal to their own. They probably felt such a story would be enough to satisfy Peter and the folks at Byington. Being a CIA agent with the intelligence the agency had, he wasn’t buying it. However, as just a director of engineering of a corporation, he would not have any reason to question Sie’s lie. So he nodded in acceptance of the reason and said, “How can we help?”

Sie laid out the laser’s engineering drawings on the conference table. Rob stood up to get a better view of the drawings as Sie motioned for him to review them. Rob slowly started to sift through the diagrams, studying each closely. Even though the captions were all in Chinese, as the design engineer, Rob only needed to see the mechanical and electrical layouts to understand what he was looking at. As he reviewed the drawings he would occasionally ask one of the CNSA engineers what a certain word meant. While Rob continued to review the drawings, Sie walked Peter over to the prototype. He explained the modifications they had done to the laser and asked if Peter might have some ideas on what could be causing the problem. Peter suggested a handful of possibilities but each one had already been considered by Sie and his team.

Soon everyone, including Sie and Peter, had gathered around Rob as he continued to review the drawings and ask questions. After about an hour, he had come to the wiring diagram, which baffled him. Something seemed wrong. The circuits drawn seemed to show the opposite of what they should be. He pointed this out to the engineers, and they began to discuss it in more detail. The engineers said the circuits were drawn as explained in the laser’s operation manual. Rob pulled out his copy written for CNSA from his briefcase. Sie put their copy of the same manual in front of Rob, this edition written in Chinese. Rob turned to the electrical section in his manual which addressed the circuits. With the wiring diagram next to him, he read his manual regarding the switches that would turn the laser on, and the text correctly read “run the circuits in the closed position.” But looking at the drawing, the circuits were shown in the “open” position, meaning the switches were off. He pointed this out and said the switches were in the “off” position. Sie looked at their manual to compare what was written versus Rob’s version. As he read, he smacked his forehead apparently realizing their mistake. In Mandarin Chinese, the words for “off” and “close” are the same, which is guan. When translating the manual, their version ended up saying “run the circuit in the off position,” instead of the “closed position.” Somewhere down the line, someone must have seen the confusion of using guan and assumed it meant “off,” so replaced guan with another word meaning “off”, bi. The switches were all opposite of what they should have been when the computer was sending the transmission to “arm.”

Rob turned to the start-up instructions in his manual and showed what steps would need to be taken opposite to what was stated in the manual to turn the laser on.

Sie carefully took notes. “I want to relay this information right away to the job site to see if in fact, this is the problem. Please make yourselves comfortable in the conference room and we will be back shortly.”

The next thing Peter knew, all were gone from the room except him and Rob. Peter knew China’s story didn’t fit now. According to them, the laser did work when they were blasting the boulders, and now it didn’t. If Rob’s fix was correct, then the laser would have never worked. He kept this to himself.

“Well that was bloody easy,” said Rob.

“Yeah, good job figuring out the problem,” Peter said, thinking of his next move.

Rob asked, “So your dad walked on the moon, fancy that?”

Peter, thinking of something else, said, “Yeah, no big deal. Hey, I need to go to the restroom, do you?”

“I’m fine,” answered Rob. As Peter opened the door Rob sarcastically blurted out, “Don’t forget to take one of your buddies to the loo with you.”

Peter looked back and smiled at Rob before poking his head out the door. “I need to go to the restroom,” he said to the guards with a slight grin. The soldier on the right motioned for Peter to follow him. As they walked down the cold, dimly lit corridor, they came upon a hallway on their left. Peter looked down it as they passed and briefly saw the launch control room at the end with Sie and the engineers hovered around a control panel, speaking to someone on speaker. He assumed they were communicating with one of the taikonauts in space, passing on the instructions. From the modifications Sie pointed out to him, Peter concluded they must be test firing the laser in space, and probably firing it at targets on the moon.

The soldier arrived at the men’s room, and opened the door for Peter. Peter walked in, and sure enough the soldier followed him in. Peter turned to him. “Oh, you have to go too?” The soldier showed no expression, which made Peter chuckle. Fortunately the launch center had western toilets; Peter hated dealing with “squat” toilets. Peter walked up to the first urinal and the soldier followed, standing only a few feet behind. As Peter did his business he couldn’t help himself and started whistling the tune from the movie, The Great Escape. Smiling, he wondered if the soldier had any idea what the tune was from. Peter finished up and was escorted back. As they passed the same hallway where he had seen the control room, he looked again. Sie and the others were no longer there.

Peter reentered the conference room, and found most of the gentlemen were back, standing around Rob. Sie turned to Peter and said the new instructions had been passed on to the workers, and they should know in about an hour if the outcome was successful. Peter figured it had already been ten minutes since they told the taikonauts. He wondered why they were not able to get feedback sooner if the laser worked; arming it shouldn’t take more than five minutes. If Sie was able to communicate with the taikonauts then they should have been able to test it soon after getting the instructions.

China must be testing the laser behind the moon, and Sie had to wait for the spacecraft to come around the back side before learning if the fix solved their problem. This made sense, since China probably wanted to insure they were not observed firing the laser. Peter questioned if the world even had the capability of seeing laser blasts from such a far distance, but maybe China just wanted to play it safe. Still, he needed them to think he believed their story, so he asked, “Why an hour?”

Sie bowed furtively. “Because of the remote location where the laser is, we do not have direct radio contact and the information has to be relayed manually. We will be contacted letting us know if they had success breaking up the boulder trapping the taikonauts.”

Peter simply nodded in acceptance.

Sie excused himself saying he would continue to monitor the situation and would return once he knew the outcome. Peter passed the time talking with some of the engineers, hoping to learn more about their operation.

When Sie returned to the room he had a broad smile on his face. “The laser worked and all the taikonauts are alive and safe.”

So the laser was now working and they were test firing it on the back side of the moon. The remaining engineers in the room gave out a loud cheer while Peter and Rob slightly clapped.

Sie walked up to Rob. “Thank you for figuring out the problem. I am embarrassed it was such a silly mistake, but we would have never figured it out without your help.”

Rob shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

Sie bowed and smiled at each. “You will now be escorted back to the helicopter to return home.”

As Rob and Peter followed the guards down the hallway, Peter chewed on what he had learned. China was using the laser on their current mission, probably testing it on the back side, firing at targets on the moon. He had to assume it was still going to be used in a “Star Wars” type of weapon in Earth orbit. He needed to communicate this information immediately to SID. He figured when he got back to Britain he would write up a report and forward it via the embassy.

As they continued to walk, Rob turned and interrupted Peter’s train of thought. “Wow, a moonwalker’s son?”

Without turning Peter answered, “Yeah… no big deal.”