Ears

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. This is why I wasn't trying to be very polite when I lost a screwdriver doing an EVA. Losing my tools meant wasting the next 5 minutes navigating back to the hatch and grabbing the cable they were attached to. I was screaming obscenities despite working hand to hand with Sam whom I rather liked, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear a thing. This was when I noticed a subtle pulsating light from the direction of the moon which we were orbiting. That's weird. I turned the walkie-talkie on.

"Hey Sam, did you see anything weird?"

"Yea, did you lose your instruments again? When will you learn to spend the effort to reattach them to your suit when getting out of the ship?"

"Yea yea, one day"

I hung up.

Double weird.

"Weeeird!" I shouted into the darkness. And there it was again -- a tiny spec of purple light coming from a particular spot of the dark side of the moon we were facing at the moment. It was so subtle that I wouldn’t be able to see it if I didn’t know where to look.

Ok. Am I hallucinating now? I should be getting more sleep.

I pulled on the cable attaching me to the ship and started getting back to the hatch. So, think. What can emit purple light on the surface of the moon? No idea to be honest. The only human-constructed base was on the other side of the moon and none of the rover expeditions went this far. Ok, but why did no one ever notice it before? Is it somehow connected with swearing? I tried to shout more obscenities and here it was, more bright than ever before! But that doesn't make any sense -- a light that is triggered by swearing? "aaaAAAaaa" I screamed, varying the volume and the light responded immediately with brightness following the volume of my voice. I was clearly going mad. Could this be a prank? It wouldn't be that hard to plant a bug in my EVA suit to hear what I say and activate the light source remotely. But I know for certain that there had been no landings anywhere near the light source, ever. Who and how could have planted the light? And it has to be either ridiculously powerful or be directed extremely accurately at me so that I see it from orbit with the naked eye.

I would need some tools for this.

I called Sam again.

“I don’t feel that well, do you mind covering for me this one time please?”

“Sure, I hope you’re OK Steve, get rest. You owe me one though!” she replied.

I entered my room, pulled up the spectrograph screen on the computer, and zoomed in on the moon's surface.

“aaaaaa”

Nothing happened.

I tried to scream louder, being painfully aware that my neighbours could hear me well.

“AAAAAAAA”

Still nothing.

Then it hit me: when I saw the light before I was facing the moon, and now I was facing away from it. Granted, there is no way the light can “see” me any better through the walls of the ship if I face it, but none of this made sense in the first place anyway, so why not?

Not being sure about the exact direction of the moon, I started screaming and turning my head in all directions. After finishing a few wild swings I turned back to the screen, and there it was – flashes of light in the purple spectrum coming from one of the bigger craters of the moon.