The Treasure Of Purgatory Crater

By Thomas P Hopp

Something tragic has happened at Purgatory Crater on the far side of the moon. Three astronauts are dead and a fourth is trapped inside Purgatory Moon Base. Commander David Holtz, leader of the rescue and recovery mission, expects to confront the horrors of asphyxiation in the vacuum of space. But what he and his team find is worse than they could have imagined. As they piece together the chaotic puzzle, it becomes clear the survivor, George Dobson, has gone mad in his months of solo confinement. But is he really crazy? Or is he hiding a deeper, darker secret?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas P Hopp
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466063372

Thomas P Hopp

Thomas Patrick Hopp routinely imagines the unimaginable. He writes science fiction and mystery thriller novels that draw on his background as a scientist and scholar of the natural world in all its glory and terror. His stories have won multiple literary awards and garnered him a worldwide following. He is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and served for several years as President of the Northwest Chapter of MWA. Tom is also an internationally recognized molecular biologist. He discovered powerful immune-system hormones and helped found the multi-billion-dollar Seattle biotechnology company Immunex Corporation. He advised the team that created Immunex’s blockbuster arthritis drug Enbrel. He developed the first commercially successful nanotechnology device, a molecular handle for manipulating proteins at the atomic level, which is used by medical researchers around the world to study human cells and every major microbe known to science.Tom’s NORTHWEST TALES are thrillers set against backdrops of disaster, whether natural or man-made. Earthquakes, eruptions, and epidemics are grist for these gripping adventures. Tom’s mystery stories follow Dr. Peyton McKean, a super-intelligent sleuth known as “The Greatest Mind Since Sherlock Holmes.” Viruses, microbes, and evil geniuses form the core of his opposition. Tom’s DINOSAUR WARS science fiction stories read like “Star Wars meets Jurassic Park.” Featuring laser-blasting space invaders and huge beasts from the past, they follow Yellowstone Park naturalist Chase Armstrong and Montana rancher’s daughter Kit Daniels, who struggle to survive in a world where dinosaurs live again. Most of Tom’s tumultuous adventures are suitable for readers young and old.

Book preview

THE TREASURE OF PURGATORY CRATER

Thomas P. Hopp

On the moon, oxygen is the most precious commodity. Without it, death comes quickly. But there are other things of value in the vastness of Luna—and other reasons to die.

Smashwords Edition copyright © 2011, 2015, 2020 Thomas P. Hopp

CONTENTS

UNHAPPY LANDING

AIRLOCK

INTO THE DEPTHS

RUNNING OUT OF AIR

DEATH LAUNCH

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOKS BY THOMAS P. HOPP

UNHAPPY LANDING

Three astronauts moved away from the lunar lander Athena burdened with supplies. They went abreast so their helmet beams could overlap and illuminate the dark ground a little better. Outside the reach of their lights, the landscape was smothered in the inky black of the moon’s two-week-long night. Stars shining overhead in their millions offered scant help. Not one of them twinkled, there being no atmosphere to enliven their deathly cold light. The horizon, miles away across the floor of Purgatory Crater, was no more than a rim of hummocks blotting out stars with deeper blackness.

The three sets of headlamps bobbed as the crew trudged the dusty quarter mile from the landing area to Purgatory Base. Despite one-sixth gravity, they labored with the exertion of moving in bulky spacesuits while carrying duffel bags of supplies and personal gear. No one said a word, but each could hear the percussive sounds of the others’ hard breathing through communications headsets. Any exuberance they might have felt at the opportunity to walk on the moon had been sucked out of them by their dark surroundings and the somber purpose of their mission.

The newcomers moved carefully in the low gravity. True, their loads weighed less than on earth, but objects’ masses stayed the same. Booted feet trod the dusty ground less firmly than on earth, and their burdens shifted as they moved. Inertia held their loads back, then momentum carried them forward. Getting one step ahead of another without tripping was an art you couldn’t rehearse before you landed.

In the center of the trio, Commander David Holtz looked ahead with growing apprehension. More black silhouettes loomed against the stars, but their shapes were alien to this landscape. The cluster of dark forms were metallic habitation structures like those he had trained in at a twin facility on earth. Six horizontal metal cylinders, each somewhat larger than a railroad tanker car, were arranged like wheel spokes and conjoined at a seventh, central cylinder, which stood upright. The horizontal cylinders were buried under mounds of gray moon dust, with only their outer ends exposed. The upper half of the central cylinder stood above the mounds and was ringed by observation windows. These should have glowed with interior light, but no. They were just black horizontal slots, occasionally glinting with headlamp reflections. Holtz glanced left and right and spotted the shapes of two tall light poles that should have illuminated the entire base. But those were unexpectedly black as well.

It looks so…dead, Pilot Emma Jones, on Holtz’s left, puffed with a tremor in her voice. Is this giving anyone else the creeps?

Yeah, me, wheezed Pablo Ramirez, Biomedical Specialist, on Holtz’s right. Can we take a breather? He stopped and let his two duffel bags do a slow, low-g fall to the ground.

Holtz and Jones stopped too. For a moment, all three stood in silence disturbed only by puffs of heavy breathing.

Hard to believe anyone is still alive here, Ramirez said in Peruvian accented English. George Dobbs, was it?

Dobson, Jones corrected. It’s just George Dobson, and three…

Casualties, Holtz completed for her. Three dead in a lava-tube collapse, and one survivor, Dobson.

So, why does this place look so totally deserted? Ramirez wondered.

It seemed possible death had claimed Dobson as well. Although the crew had radioed him repeatedly as Athena approached and landed, the communication link from Purgatory Base had remained as broodingly silent as everything else about the place. Holtz was about to pick up his duffels and continue the trudge to the base when he spotted a dim shape off to his right. The others followed the point of his headlamps and their combined lights brought something into view that made both Jonesy and Ramirez gasp. It was a space-suited form lying face down in the gray dust.

Is that what I think it is? Jones asked in a spooked tone.

It’s a body, all right. Holtz left his gear and moved toward it.

Whose? Ramirez said edgily. Dobson’s?

That would explain why this place is silent as a tomb, Holtz said.

As they approached, they could see the body had both hands clamped to its helmet’s faceplate. They gathered around the fallen astronaut, staring in silence for a moment, each alone with private, horrific thoughts. Then Holtz leaned and pushed a shoulder with a gloved hand, almost as if trying to wake the body. It was stiff as stone. I don’t really want to see this, he murmured as he grasped the corpse’s suit by a shoulder and tugged, but our orders are to identify and recover remains.

Ramirez lent a hand, lifting a booted foot. Jones pulled at the backpack and all three struggled to tip over the awkwardly