by B. V. Larson
“You got a specialty of some kind?” I asked him. “Some reason they might want you along?”
“Well… back in college, I got the easiest degree I could take. That’s how I chose it, actually.”
I snorted. “You finished college, huh?”
“Yes, with a degree in ceramics.”
“Seriously? You’re, like, some kind of a pot-maker?”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“I’m sure there is…” I said frowning. “You’re sure that’s all that’s special about you? You’re not some kind of physics geek or anything?”
“Hardly. What’s your story? What are you good at?”
“Hmm… I’ve met lots of aliens. Tons of them, on many worlds.”
“Huh… some kind of diplomat, then?”
“Nah. Mostly, I shoot them all.”
“Oh… I see then.”
We shut up as we made our final approach. The lifter drifted ever lower, sinking down, down, down, into that deep crater to land.
Both Bevan and I frowned at our tappers and the shaking vehicle around us. We watched the instrument readings, many of which were in the yellow warning-zone the whole time.
When the creaky old spacecraft finally crumped down onto solid rock, we unclenched our jaws and buttholes in relief.
-3-
The sparse crowd exiting the lifter wasn’t met with much fanfare. A bored crewman waved us toward the unloading ramp, which was whining open by now.
“Better put your visor down, fool,” he told Bevan, who hastened to obey.
To our surprise, we didn’t step off the lifter into some kind of terminal. It wasn’t even a docking bay for cargo. Instead, we were treated to an amazing vista. We were outside on the surface of the Moon. The barren landscape was all harsh whites and grays, with deep shadows in every crevice that was sheltered from the sun. To me, the base looked like a bunch of egg crates flipped over and painted white.
We followed the crowd toward what appeared to be a stack of modules. I could see the modules were all interconnected with spindly white-painted metal struts and walking tubes.
We soon reached the base and walked into a dark opening, entering one of the multisided chambers. Once the big door came down behind us, the crewmen did some quick pressure-checks then immediately opened their helmets with a sigh.
With flipped-up visors, some scratched their cheeks and noses while others puffed on stims. A few poured water into their sticky eyes. One of the worst things about living in space was being enclosed in a helmet all the time, unable to touch your own face.
The spacers ignored us. They talked among themselves. Bevan tried to turn on the charm anyways. “You guys really pour water into a spacesuit? Doesn’t it pool up down around your arse, huh?”
The nearest of the men sneered and made no reply.
“Come on,” I told Bevan, and we left the sullen workmen behind. “These guys are hard-bitten spacers. They’re used to long hours and breathing their own stinks in a spacesuit for days at a time. Such men are rarely in a good mood.”
We kept walking, and we passed into the interior of the base. Still, no one greeted us, or gave us any instructions. As far as I was concerned, this suited me just fine. I didn’t like being ordered around all the time. If there wasn’t anything around that needed to be shot with my rifle, I’d just as soon be left alone.
I took the lead, hopping along as I always did when traveling on a low-gravity rock like the Moon. The gait was almost like skipping, or shuffling. Each hop sent me two meters or more down the passage.
Bevan seemed nervous, but he stayed on my six. He was stuck to my ass like he was glued there.
“Shouldn’t we find someone in charge?” he asked.
“What? No way… I’m looking for a bar.”
“A bar? Seriously? Do you think they’ll even have one up on this rock?”
I laughed. “Don’t worry, they’ve got one. The first thing all spacers build on every outpost is a bar.”
“What could they use for booze? I mean, if the quartermaster isn’t cooperative?”
“They’ll ferment their own fingers if they have to,” I told him.
“Charming…”
We soon found a ramp that led down into the wall of the crater itself. There in the darkest corner of the base, I spotted a bar. It didn’t even have walls, and the tables were just empty barrels with fiberboard planks on top.
We were in a hollowed-out area dug into the side of the crater walls. With the bare rock of the Moon visible, I could tell by the circular marks on the walls these chambers had been cut out of solid rock with energy tools. The air was bitterly cold down here, but at least there was air.
The people at the makeshift bar looked surprised to see us. I figured they were all part of the permanent crew, and they weren’t accustomed to entertaining visitors in their dusty pit.
Ignoring the unfriendly stares, I grabbed a stool and sat on it like I owned the place. Bevan reluctantly sat next to me. Our seats were nothing special, just discarded spools that had once been wound tight with cables.
“Are you sure we’re supposed to be back here, McGill?” Bevan asked me in a whisper.
“Nope, probably not. But I need a drink after traveling all day.”
Finally, a woman sauntered near and looked at us quizzically. “You boys lost?” she asked.
“You selling hooch?” I asked her.
She smiled. “The best on the Moon.”
“Then I’m in the right place. I need two drinks, pronto. Give me your worst stuff. Anything, as long as it has a kick.”
“Our special brew is like rocket fuel—but more toxic.”
I smiled. “That sounds perfect.”
She eyed us doubtfully again. “We don’t take Sector money here. You’ve got to have Hegemony credits.”
I laughed, and I touched my tapper to her wrist, giving her a hundred credit tip up front. She lightened-up after that. “Two drinks on the way.”
I caught her deftly as she turned toward a line of urns and spigots. “Hold on. Those two drinks are for me. You didn’t take my friend’s order yet.”
Bemused, she turned back to Bevan. “What will you have, sugar?”
“A beer—if you’ve got one.”
She nodded and left.
Bevan looked nervous, but when we finally had a few drinks in us, he relaxed a notch. “This place is weird,” he said. “Not like I expected. How can everyone be so dirty up in space? I always thought it was kind of sterile up here.”
“You thought wrong. Hot water is always rationed in space, and we humans tend to bring our biology with us wherever we go.”
After I’d finished my second drink, I was feeling pretty good. The waitress came up to us, but Bevan tried to wave her away.
“We’ve had enough. We’re on duty… technically.”
She ignored Bevan and looked at me sternly. “Are you James McGill?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Your boss-lady is, from the look of it.”
She showed me her tapper, and I saw Galina Turov’s face glaring up at me.
“McGill? Your ship arrived over an hour ago. The briefing is already over.”
“The briefing…?”
I glanced surreptitiously at my own tapper. I realized I’d put some aluminum foil over it during my trip up from Earth. That had become a habit of mine lately when I wanted to get some sleep—but I’d forgotten to unwrap it when I got to the Moon.
“Oh…” I said. “Where should I go now, Tribune?”
“Get your ass upstairs to the conference room. Now!”
“Yes sir.”
Standing up fast, it took a second to regain my low-gravity balance. Bevan was whining about something, but I didn’t pay him any attention. I paid the tab and left.
-4-
On my way back upstairs, I noticed Bevan was still following me around like a puppy dog. I thought about ditching him, but I didn’t have the hear
t.
“Say,” I said gently, “don’t you have a job to do? I mean, someone to meet up here?”
He looked kind of sly, kind of furtive.
I began to frown, becoming suspicious. “Aw, come on. Don’t tell me…?”
“Yeah,” he said at last, “I was told to follow you around. I thought you would have noticed by now.”
“I did notice, but I thought you were just pissing your pants. Is this really your first time out in space?”
“Yes—and the pants-pissing is for real.”
We studied one another for a second. Normally, when I found out I had a hog spy befriending me and tailing me, I took offense. Sometimes, such unlucky persons found themselves dead shortly thereafter. This being the Moon and all, any number of accidents might befall an inexperienced man like Bevan. He might find himself short of breath for example, or frozen solid—or both.
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the fact he seemed out of his element, but I found I didn’t have the heart to kill him. Instead, I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Bevan, you just don’t go around following a man like me under false pretenses. Many a hog has found himself being crapped out of a revival machine for less.”
“Really? Shit… Look, I didn’t ask for this. Like I say, I’m only a veteran who—”
“—who studied pottery back in school. Yeah, I heard all that. Who told you to spy on me?”
“It’s not spying. Not at all. Think of me as more of a friendly escort.”
“An escort? I pay for those, and they’re never as ugly as you are.”
He chuckled nervously.
“It was Turov who hired you, right?” I asked him.
“I can’t say.”
Annoyed, I grabbed the nearest uniform I saw drifting by. The spacer inside it scowled at me, and he levered back his arm to punch me—but the blow never landed. Seeing that my fingers were as thick around as flashlights, the spacer thought the better of taking a swing at me.
“What do you want, dirt-sider?”
“Some directions,” I said. “Where does the brass sleep on this rock?”
“You mean the officers?”
“What do you think?”
Scowling, he pointed up a ramp. I let go of him, and we climbed up the ramp into the upper levels of the base. Soon, we found the officers’ level, and the place looked nicer. I got past the sentry robot because I was a centurion. I vouched for Bevan, and he kept tailing me.
“Uh… McGill? If you’re reporting to Turov, I don’t really have to be—”
“Shut up. You wanted to tag along. Don’t go chicken on me now.”
He shut up and followed me sullenly. We soon found Turov’s quarters, which doubled as her office. I hammered on the thin door, and it felt as if it might dent under my fist like a cheap tram’s hood.
“What the hell?” Turov demanded, snatching open her flimsy door. “Oh… there you are. About time you reported in. Why did it take so long?”
“We made a few necessary stops,” I explained.
Turov’s eyes slid to Bevan, then back to me. “Come in, I’ll give you a briefing.”
I jerked a thumb toward Bevan. “You sure we still need your sheepdog? He got me here safe and sound.”
“You knew he was under my orders?”
“Of course.”
She pursed her lips, looking surprised. “In that case, I’m shocked he’s still alive—but yes, bring him in here. He’s part of this.”
We both followed her into her tight office. When we encircled her computer desk, our knees bumped together underneath it. There wasn’t much free space inside Moon bases, it seemed. I guess just keeping these modules warm and full of breathable air was a struggle.
“I suppose you’re both wondering why you’re here,” she began. “I’ve only recently been assigned to this mission myself. The real reason we’re all here is below us—and it’s something of a mystery.”
“What kind of mystery?” I asked.
She sighed. “We’ve found an object below the base that shouldn’t be there. I was tasked with forming a team. I don’t know much else, other than the fact Central has been calling up all kinds of people to examine it. They’re excavating the bottom of this crater deeply.”
“I know that the Aitken crater is deep,” I said. “We’ve got to be at the lowest spot on the Moon already. I suppose that if you wanted to dig deeply enough to find something interesting, this would be the place to start.”
“Yes…” she said, eyeing me oddly. “What would you expect to find, McGill?”
I shrugged. “Maybe ice from a comet. Probably from the one that smashed into the Moon and made this big dent.”
“A good guess, and that was what we found at first. Some of the initial excavation was done to provide water for this base.”
“There you go.”
She shook her head. “No, there we don’t go. We’ve found something else… a hard surface underneath all the layers of dust, rock and ice.”
“What is it?” Bevan asked, speaking up for the first time.
“We’re not sure what it is. It’s very dense material. Very hard. Possibly… artificial.”
She had our attention now. Bevan and I looked at each other, and my face split into a wide grin.
“Spaceship!” I shouted. “An honest-to-God alien spaceship? Buried on the Moon all this time? That is sooo cool!”
Galina shushed me.
Bevan looked alarmed. “Is McGill right? Is that what we’ve found—a spaceship?”
“No one knows. Not yet. That’s why we brought in a hard-materials expert.”
“Hard materials?” I asked, glancing at Bevan. “Clay pots, more like. They break easy.”
“Don’t play the fool, McGill. If you figured out Veteran Bevan was working for me, you must have checked up on his record.”
“Uh…” I said, certain I’d done no such thing.
“The first thing you must have discovered is his intense study of puff-crete. He’s an expert in the field, actually.”
I glanced at Bevan. He shrugged. I knew then he’d been less than honest with me all along. He was no dummy seeking a beer and working as a noncom hog. He was more of an engineer.
“How come you’re only a veteran, then?” I asked.
Bevan scowled. “Making new kinds of puff-crete is interesting, but technically it’s not legal to produce the stuff. When I got out of school, I found no one wanted to hire me. Just the stink of it was too much. Hegemony, private companies—no one wanted any part of working with a man who’d spent years stealing another planet’s monopoly. I didn’t know it going in, but everyone fears an angry lawsuit. They didn’t even want me on their payroll, in case it looked like they were trying to break Galactic Law.”
“Huh… okay. So you joined the hogs?”
“Yeah. They wouldn’t take me as an officer, but I was trying to get into the officer ranks eventually. My degree would actually help me then. They don’t care what it’s in, just that you have one.”
I turned back to Turov. “Let’s get this straight. You guys found a hard surface deep inside the Moon, so you called in an expert on making hard surfaces. I get that—but why am I here?”
Galina looked evasive. “Well… if we can get inside, you see, we’ll need someone to explore… right?”
My mouth sagged. I finally got it. I’d been volunteered to investigate a buried alien spacecraft.
After the initial shock wore off, I found myself beginning to grin widely. “Sounds like fun!”
Galina smiled in relief. “I knew we’d contacted the right man.”
-5-
After a few hours of watching a pack of nerds operate a drilling machine, I found myself getting bored.
The worst part was wearing our bulky spacesuits. They were the kind of suits that could heat and cool themselves as well as provide oxygen. This meant two things: you couldn’t just lie down and a take a nap with that big back
pack-thing behind you, and two, you could hardly tell the women from the men.
With nothing to look at, eat, or do, I forced myself to listen to the nerd conversation. Bevan was right in there with the rest of them, talking technical stuff and generally boring me to death like the others.
“This is remarkable,” he said for about the tenth time, scraping at something in the bottom of a dusty hole. “I can’t even scratch it. A diamond-tipped drill bit should be able to mark anything—even puff-crete.”
“So, this material is denser than puff-crete?” Galina asked him.
“It’s harder, certainly. We’ll have to get a sample to measure the density.”
“How can we get a sample if we can’t cut it?”
Bevan shrugged and began working a chemical kit full of smoky acids. Fumes rose from the hole, and I got the feeling it was a good thing we were all wearing breathing equipment.
This kind of thing went on and on as they scratched and scraped a big area of moon rock away from the crater floor. As they labored, they created a trench line that went for a hundred meters or more across the bottom of the pit. At that point, it ran into the two far walls.
“It’s still going,” Bevan marveled. “The same surface, a hundred meters of it. So smooth and flat… If it’s a ship, it must be a big one.”
“I’m starting to think this isn’t a lost ship at all,” Galina said. “I think it’s a base. That would make more sense—a buried base on the Moon.”
“Who could have built it?” Bevan asked. “There was a time when the Asian Block and the Americas were racing to occupy the Moon…”
“Yes, yes, but it can’t be their work. They didn’t have materials like this.”
Bevan nodded. “You’re right. Earth had nothing like this until we imported it from other worlds. We’ve only recently learned to duplicate puff-crete in labs.”
“Due to your dangerous work?”
Bevan shrugged.
Galina narrowed her eyes at him. “I can see why no one would hire you. You’re a loose cannon. If the Nairbs audit Earth someday, you could be construed as evidence of willful patent theft.”
