#4

Four long, slow years after the Thane Beartacare debacle, a sleek silver ship touched down on the moon, opened its rear hatch, and extended a long ramp, down which, after a moment, a squadron of Blue level Sparrows marched in their identical blue heat-shielding suits.
Sparrows have no use for or interest in ceremony. They made no speeches, did not slowly look around in awe at the deep red alien landscape stretching out in every direction. They had no audience – this landing was not being broadcast to the world. Each member of the squadron merely glanced at the controls on the wrist of its suit, acknowledged that it had not yet suddenly died from the heat, then looked up at the leader of the squadron, awaiting instructions. The leader nodded at two members of the team, who nodded back and trotted over toward Thane Beartacare’s pod and perfectly preserved, collapsed body, both of which were coated in thick layers of red dust. Mr. Beartacare’s arm was wedged under his body, still clawing at the heat that had pierced his underequipped suit and made it instantly impossible to breathe.
The body was carefully straightened out, carried back to the Sparrows’ ship and stored respectfully in the cargo hold, per instructions. Later it was returned home and buried at the foot of his memorial statue.
With Phase I of their mission complete, the Sparrows turned their attention to their next set of instructions. Large devices designed to examine the ground and atmosphere were unpacked; meters and dials and sensors were read and their readings noted down. The Sparrows worked quickly, never pausing to speak or look directly at each other, only stopping once in a while to tilt their heads at the leader and await further orders.
They, like all Sparrows everywhere, were so intent on their work that they only faintly heard the rattling, clicking noises that crept toward them from over a craggy ridge. One Sparrow was busying itself with a clumsy seismograph which it was attempting to fasten to the crumbling ground when it heard a sound that was slightly louder and more pronounced than the vague sounds before, and it paused, looked up, and turned around.
Standing on the ridge, eyeing the Sparrow curiously, was a seven foot tall dark green creature, standing upright on four thin pointy legs. It had an oval body covered in scales, and four long, thin arms that ended in sharp thorn-like things instead of hands. Its back was a domed shell; its head was just a small bulbous knob, with no discernable eyes, and two prickly pincers jutting out from the general area where there could have been a mouth.
It was making a soft rustling noise, its pincers vibrating calmly:
shimmershimmershimmershimmershimmershimmershimmer
The Sparrow tilted its head curiously.
Fierce sounds of snapping and clicking emanated from the creature’s body as over a dozen more sharp thorn-like limbs jutted out from underneath the shell, all of them much longer than its four main limbs, and most of them thrust themselves forward and sank easily through the Sparrow’s heat suit, feathers, flesh, and organs.
The Sparrow looked down with genuine surprise at the limbs carving it open, cawed once mournfully, then slumped, becoming just dead meat on skewers. The creature seemed to appreciate this, drawing the Sparrow toward it, tucking it effortlessly under one of its main arms, and disappeared back behind the ridge with a faint clicking that died away almost instantly.

#3

They took Floyd first, because he was stronger and faster – their preliminary observation had determined this.
Floyd slept nude, curled up in his bed with a thin blanket over him, twitching occasionally as he always did. Even in his sleep, Floyd could see things, sense things: his father sleeping on the other side of the apartment; transports rumbling across the desert hundreds of miles away; random Rats, total strangers, filling out paperwork on the other side of the planet.
And he sensed the Sparrows an instant before they reached his bed and an instant before he snapped his eyes open, saw their Green level wingbands in the dark, and lunged forward to bite one on the wing. Only after he and all the Sparrows heard the sickening, splintering crunch of the Sparrow’s bones under his teeth did he release his grip and allow the injured Sparrow to stumble backward, squawking suddenly in pain and surprise.
This gave the other Sparrows enough time to grab Floyd and force him onto the ground, one seizing each of his limbs. Floyd had never heard any Sparrow make any kind of noise and he only watched, fascinated, his eyes glowing through the dark, as the Sparrow chirped to itself, caressing its hurt wing with the other.
Floyd could now sense and even faintly hear his brother in the next room, shrilly whimpering in terror as another squadron of Sparrows threw him to the ground and waved shock wands in his face to force him to shut up. Floyd could feel his brother’s fear radiating out from the other room in neat concentric circles. Jules was figuratively clawing at the air, crying out in confusion, begging for mercy, searching outward for help, but a cloth had already been stuffed in his mouth to quiet him down, and the Sparrows were now vigorously zapping him with the shock wands, and Floyd could feel each helpless convulsion of his brother’s body.
“Jules!” Floyd barked angrily, and he growled and snapped as the head of the squadron cautiously approached, held out its shock wand, paused just long enough to let its dead eyes glance over Floyd’s struggling body, then brought the wand down, hard, with a crack across Floyd’s muzzle.
“Dad,” Floyd choked just before blacking out.
Mr. Mercaster had also been hit across the head, tied up, and thrown over an especially large Sparrow’s shoulder, all without him ever waking up.

When Floyd awoke, he glanced around and understood his immediate situation instantly: he was in a hard metal chair, restraints around his wrists and ankles; the fur on his temples had been shaved and electrodes had been attached. The wires led to a large machine on the other side of the small gray room; hundreds of little red lights on the machine were randomly blinking.
Jules was similarly restrained in a chair to his left, but was still asleep, his head snapping once in a while in response to some tortured dream. His eyelids fluttered.
A Rat in a long white coat with an unrecognizable crest on the breast was standing next to the blinking machine. He removed his glasses and nodded at Floyd pleasantly.
“Floyd Mercaster,” the Rat said. “If you’re feeling up to it, we’ll begin your training right away.”

#2

The first being to set foot on the moon was a Rat, Mr. Thane Beartacare, hand-picked by a discerning team of elite Ferret businesslords. Mr. Beartacare was the highest ranked student in his class and the son of a prominent middle-managing Slab Rat. He excelled during his two years of astroneering training in a secluded facility in the Hunted Lands, followed orders to the letter, and asked few questions. The day of his launch was a world-wide holiday and watched by every known sentient being for whom there are clear and accurate records.
Upon his landing, Mr. Beartacare stepped out of his shielded silver landing pod, smiled broadly at a camera mounted on its roof, and was about to deliver his carefully crafted Ferret-approved speech – outlining the Ferrets’ extensive plans for the moon and its intricate network of largely inaccessible caverns – but when he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a thin, painful wheeze. He grabbed at his throat and coughed violently. Even through his sculpted helmet dome, the billions of viewers could tell something had gone wrong – could tell he was in sickening pain – could gaze deeply into his frightened, confused eyes.
Mr. Beartacare slumped to his knees next to the pod, ruffling up a cloud of red moon dust that settled on his upper back, shoulders, and arms. The robot camera followed him as he fell, and focused on the top of his dome.
Mr. Beartacare coughed some more, reached weakly behind him for the pod he could now not reach, and then fell over onto his side, twitched once, and died.
A noticeably heavy silence fell over the planet as they watched this happen. No one moved or spoke for many minutes and when they finally did, it was to blankly ask the person next to them, “Did you see that?”
Hours later a hastily assembled press conference packed to the ceiling with important Ferrets explained to the media markets of the world, and their pantingly confused constituents, that every recording and reading they had taken of the moon since the dawn of the Outer World program decades before had been wrong – the moon was hot, it turned out. It was desperately, uninhabitably hot, enough to kill a poor heroic Rat instantly. Those responsible for not determining this were no longer with the Outer World project, except for a few that still were, and all of those people would be fired or arrested. The citizens of the world were assured that no such tragedies would ever befall the brave astroneers of the future, who would be equipped with yet-to-be-designed heat-shielding suits, and furthermore would all be Sparrows.
A massive statue of Mr. Thane Beartacare was built and placed in the barren wastelands surrounding his home city. A giant plaque bore the legend:

YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN
THE MOON SHALL BE OURS
THE DREAM SHALL BE LIVED

Top secret records state that the Guided Moon project was begun on the same day as the statue’s dedication.
Even more top secret records reveal that the Guided Moon project is housed within the statue’s lead-lined pedestal.

#1

“I need to talk to one of my sons,” said the Dog.
“Sir,” said the Rat cautiously.
“You don’t understand—”
“I do understand,” said the Rat, falling back, with some relief, onto the soft, sweet cushiony pillow-like form of his extensive six weeks of personnel training. “I understand because I am your friend. You are confused – you are hurting – and you miss your sons.”
“Listen to me,” said the Dog. “Don’t give me your speeches. I’ve heard them all a hundred times. I am sick to death of it. You can’t do this to me! You can’t keep me here and you can’t keep me away from my boys!”
“Sir,” said the Rat, recalling the dark difficult days of week three of his training, when he learned to intensify his words, to sound just a little more forceful, to bare just a sliver of his teeth. “I am your friend. Would a friend lie to you?”
The Dog had buried his muzzle in his paws. His ears were flattened along his head. His voice came through his paws muffled, but still clearly a growl. “You are not my friend. You are a Slab lackey, trained to lie to me. Next you will ask me to go back to my room, to read my magazines, to wait patiently for my dinner of eggs. I am tired of it. Take me to my boys!” he suddenly barked.
The Rat, feeling suddenly self-conscious of his egg-stained teeth and his eyes, bloodshot from eating too many eggs, cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead uncomfortably. “Sir. I know you miss your boys. But you must understand that they are gone. Forever.”
“That is a lie,” the Dog whispered.
“They are gone,” the Rat repeated forcefully. “Forever. You have been given a room here, you are fed regularly, and our team of counselors is here to help you through your loss. But it begins, first, with you accepting that they are gone.”
“To hell with you,” replied the Dog, stomping past the Rat’s desk. Claxons and sirens went off as the sensors in the floor read the Dog’s footsteps and aerial DNA scanners read and processed the Dog’s identity, sending it to every security terminal throughout the building. Within seconds a Green level squadron of helmeted Sparrows clutching shock wands in their wings and golden panic whistles in their beaks emerged from hidden metal doors along the lobby walls, which suddenly opened with a simultaneous echoing “shoosh”.
The Rat squeezed his eyes shut in disappointment and fear. The Ferret had already appeared next to the Rat’s desk. The Ferret’s striped waistcoat was spotless and he was eyeing his gleaming pocketwatch.
“Mr. Venables,” said the Ferret in his most distracted, business-like voice, somehow booming over the sudden flurry of buzzing, snapping shock wands and the shrill tones of the whistles.
“Yes, Mr. Tallaree,” replied the Rat.
“Is there something wrong with Mr. Mercaster?”
Mr. Venables turned to look. Mr. Mercaster was crumbled in a sobbing, quivering heap, surrounded by the Sparrows, who were already dispersing, except for two or three stragglers who gave Mr. Mercaster a few final shocks, tilting their heads curiously at each of his twitches and moans.
“He’ll make it,” Mr. Venables said. “We’ll have him back to his room in another few minutes.” The Green level squadron disappeared and two Yellow level Sparrows appeared, picking Mr. Mercaster up and carting him back down the hallway.
“That’s good to hear,” Mr. Tallaree replied. “The Mercaster twins are our most prized acquisitions. The Guided Moon project might very well fail without them. To have their father influencing them or disturbing their work would be unacceptable. I want Mr. Mercaster’s room guarded at all times, I want his movement and behavior monitored, and I want all further outbursts from him to be reported to me immediately, do you understand?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Excellent,” said Mr. Tallaree, already sounding bored, and he wandered away toward the cubicles.