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Fiction, © Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
This room was clean, very clean. But there was the smell of prey, mites, tiny red mites. The wolf spider who called himself Fang cautiously entered the room. There was a human wearing white in this room, easy to avoid. Fang thought, "I will just clean up this infestation of mites, and then be out of here. Don't bother to thank me." He explored the room, which was really an Apollo spacecraft on top of a huge rocket. He kept two or three eyes upon the man who was sitting in one of the three chairs, testing switches. And there they were, mites, lots of them. "What could mites possibly find to eat in this clean room?" He carefully stalked a mite, and killed, and ate it.
Things went well for two days. Humans entered and left. The lights went on and went off. And the number of mites decreased. But there were still eggs, lots of eggs.
Then three men in space suits entered and sat in the three chairs. The hatch closed, and things got tense. The humans were flicking switches, and talking inside their helmets. Fang watched the humans. He momentarily forgot the remaining mites and their eggs. Something important was going on here. Then the room started to vibrate. The vibration continued, but changed now and then. The pull of gravity changed, becoming stronger, and then very weak, then stronger again. And then the air pressure became much less. Fang was worried, he would die without air. But the air continued to be breathable, even though the pressure was much less. "Hm, must be the pure oxygen atmosphere that the humans were talking about." And then Fang was weightless. He hung on to an electrical wire. But the mites were flying away. "How do I catch them now? Patience, a spider has patience." That is what his mother had told him.
The spacecraft was in orbit around the Earth. After just a few minutes, after another countdown, the second stage fired again. They were on their way to the Moon. The second stage engine shut off, and they were weightless again. The humans and Fang were in the command module. They docked nose to nose with the lunar lander, extracted it from the second stage, and performed an evasive maneuver to avoid running into the second stage rocket. They opened the hatches between the two spacecraft, and examined the interior of the lunar lander. And then they had time for some fun. The humans floated around and threw things to and at each other.
Fang learned to hunt in zero gravity. He was not a spider who builds webs. But he did often trail a thin strand of silk behind him. He learned to use this silk thread to limit his flight through the air. It was difficult to learn this new skill. But he found a mite hanging on to a piece of Velcro, and killed it and ate it. The mites seemed to be having even more difficulties with weightlessness. They just clung to whatever they could grab, and just stayed there. They were easy pickings.
After a couple of days, Fang noticed that the Moon was getting very large in the window. As far as he knew, no spider had ever been this close to the Moon. One of the humans flicked a switch that was supposed to stir the oxygen in one of the tanks. Then there was a "bang." Fang heard it, and felt it. The humans became serious and excited, and were talking all at once. Something bad had happened. "Houston, we have a problem." "Say again?" "Uh Houston, we have a problem." And the human went on to give clues to what had happened. There had been an explosion. Power was going down fast. They were venting gasses into space. Oxygen, they were losing oxygen. This was serious. They might not survive this.
The humans powered down the command module, and powered up the lunar lander. The lunar lander would be their home for the rest of the flight. While they were doing this, Fang moved into the lunar lander, where the air was better. "No food in here. Oh well, I can always go back and get some eggs." And then the humans shut the hatch. "No food."
They soon went around the moon. Fang stared at the moon. It was huge. It had craters and mountains. Then he saw that one of the humans was looking at him. "Beautiful, isn't it?" And Fang thought, "Yes, it is beautiful."
It got very cold. Fang curled up into a tiny ball. He nearly froze solid. The humans were almost freezing, too. And they had other problems, and they solved them. Fang did not notice. He was asleep.
Then Fang woke up. The humans had left. They were back in the command module. "Must move. Must get through that hatch." It was still cold. Fang struggled to make his eight legs work together. "The hatch, must get through the hatch." He made it, just before one of the humans closed the hatch. Maybe the human had waited for Fang to get through the hatch. Fang curled up into a corner, while the humans undocked from the lunar lander. They waved good bye to it. The humans undocked from the service module, and looked at the damage from the explosion. They were amazed that they hadn't been killed by it. There was a big blackened hole in the side of the service module. Fang tried to stay awake, but it was just too cold. They re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, bright lights went by the window, then the parachutes deployed. Then they were upside down in the ocean. Then it got warmer. Sea air, Fang could smell sea air. Soon the spacecraft turned rightside up. Then the hatch opened, and there was a human in a rubber skin diving outfit.
One of the humans held out his hand. "Come on, we're leaving." Fang jumped into the hand. They were lifted by a cable into a helicopter, and then flown to an aircraft carrier. Once on board, Fang left his human friend. "Food, I smell food. And a female spider." An aircraft carrier was a whole new world to explore.