by Homer Hickam
“It was the Soviet Union that did it, not Russia,” Gagarin corrected. “Russia alone would have never done it. We needed a relentless empire to go charging off into the cosmos.”
“Maybe for you but not us, buddy,” someone said, coming out of the shadows. “All we needed was a good kick in the butt from you commie goons and we showed the world what free men could do. Especially those of us in the United States Navy.”
Gagarin rolled his eyes. “John Glenn was a Marine and Neil Armstrong was a civilian,” he said. “Sit yourself down, Alan, and try to get off your high Navy horse for once.”
Out of the sun, the terminator having crossed during Crater’s nap, stepped another small man, this one dressed in a snowy white Apollo moonwalker’s suit, the red neck ring empty of its helmet. He had a sardonic, toothy grin. “Just like a commie to begin with the insults,” Alan Shepard said with a chuckle. “Well, the first free man in space and the fifth man on the moon just walked into the room. How many times did you fly out of earth orbit, Yuri? Let’s see. Oh yeah, none!”
“True, but I was first into space.”
“Aw, I’d have beat you if those crazy Germans up in Huntsville hadn’t been so nervous about their little Redstone rocket.”
“Without those crazy Germans, you’d have never gone anywhere. But even if you’d launched before me, it would have been zoop-zip, up and down, just a hop. I would have still been the first in orbit. As it was, I was both the first in space and the first in orbit. That’s something you Americans couldn’t abide. Especially you, Alan.”
Shepard lost his grin. “What you slaves to central planning couldn’t stand was that free men beat you to the only place worth going in the solar system—the moon.”
Gagarin smirked. “Yes, aboard spacecraft belonging to your federal government. You wish to talk about central planning? Without it, you’d have gone nowhere.”
“That spacecraft was built by private industry, buddy,” Shepard sniped back. “And the lowest bidder at that.”
Crater was thinking of what to say to the two pioneer spacemen to stop them from arguing when Shepard laughed and slapped Gagarin on the back. “How you doing, Yuri?”
Gagarin’s shy smile was genuine. “Fine, Alan. Pull up a boulder.”
Shepard rolled a boulder beside the Russian and sat down. They basked in the view. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Shepard said. “Wish you could have seen it when you were alive.”
“I’m glad you did, Alan,” Gagarin replied.
“Well, Crater,” Shepard said, acknowledging him for the first time, “you’ve done pretty well for yourself out here. I’m proud of your resourcefulness. Those stilts? Looks like something I would have come up with.”
“He’s a fellow pilot, you know,” Gagarin said.
“Is he now?” Shepard nodded to Crater. “Pilots are a special club. We might try to kill each other during combat but get us together, we’re all brothers of the sky.”
“And space,” Gagarin added.
“And space,” Shepard agreed. “So now that you’re nearly at Endless Dust, what are you going to do, young man?”
“I’ll see about my people, sir. Make sure they’re all right.”
“Very good,” Gagarin said. “They are doing well, by the way.”
“That they are,” Shepard added. “That little crowhopper of yours saw to that.”
“Thank you for telling me, sirs,” Crater said. “But do you mind if I ask you how it is you’re here? I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but aren’t you both dead?”
They looked at each other, shrugged, then nodded. “We have been dead for a very long time,” Gagarin said.
“Still, you knew who we were,” Shepard said.
“I read about you in history books. And I saw photographs of you.”
“How about us, Crater?” came another voice, one that Crater had never heard but knew instantly.
Four people walked out of the shadows. Two of them were his foster parents, Bill and Annie Hawkins, both killed on the scrapes of Moontown. Another he recognized from old photographs to be Paul Trueblood, his father, killed in a lander accident. The woman who’d spoken was Juliet, his mother, who had died in childbirth. His childbirth. Crater stood to behold her, a beautiful woman dressed in a white robe.
“Is it really you?” he croaked.
“Yes, my sweet boy. It’s me.”
The Hawkins couple stood back and let the Truebloods gather him in. “We are proud of you, son,” his father said. “Especially how you took our invention for making water from dust from concept to reality.”
“The Colonel is trying to steal it from me,” Crater replied.
“Yes, we know,” his mother said. “But the main thing is you’re perfecting it and after you do, people will be able to live on the moon and have water for themselves and their families.”
Crater was so afraid his mother would disappear. “I’m sorry you died,” he said.
“We’re sorry too, son,” all four of his parents said. “But we were never far from you.”
Crater discovered he was crying, the tears flowing liberally but slowly down his cheek due to the low gravity of the moon. “I sometimes get mad at all of you,” he confessed. “For dying on me and leaving me alone.”
“The crowhoppers say death is life and life is death,” Bill Hawkins said. “And they’re right.”
“Look at it this way,” Juliet Hawkins said. “When we were alive but working on the scrapes, you couldn’t see us, could you? You were home but where were we? Out of sight. But you could imagine us. When you were tempted to get into the candy box, you knew I wouldn’t like it so you didn’t do it. Well, how many times in your life, without seeing any of the four of us, did you stop before you did something to think whether we would approve?”
“A lot,” Crater admitted. “You all taught me in your own way how to figure out the right thing, then do it.”
“So we died,” his father said.
“But we were not dead,” his mother said.
“Death is life,” Bill said.
“Life is death,” Juliet added.
“Well,” Shepard said, standing, “this is all getting a little metaphysical for me. Yuri? You coming with me?”
“Sure thing, Alan. What are we flying today?”
“How about you landing the LEM—that would be the Lunar Excursion Module for you non-Apollo punks—on the moon? Let’s see how much of a real pilot you are! Are you up to landing backward in a little rocket with paper-thin walls and a computer with the memory of the first handheld calculator?”
“If you Americans can do it, this Soviet citizen can, I assure you!”
They started walking off, then both turned back. “Good luck to you, Crater,” Gagarin said.
“Do good, boy,” Shepard said. “Remember, it’s not the smartest pilot who’s best, it’s the one who pays the most attention.”
“Yes, sir,” Crater said. “I’ll remember that. Thank you for coming by.”
Crater watched the two old astronauts walk away until they entered the black shadow of a huge boulder, then he turned back to his parents, only to find them gone too. “Mom?” he called out. “Dad?”
He heard his birth mother’s voice. “We’ve not left you, dear. We never will.”
Another tear started to slowly travel from Crater’s eye to his cheek. “But I want you where I can see you.”
“Then just look,” she answered, then said no more.
Crater heard a noise in his do4u and it scared him. It sounded like he imagined a frightened animal might sound. He turned and saw Maria curled up in a ball and shaking as if she were freezing. Crater worried that her space burn had returned. He knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms “Maria, what’s wrong?”
Her shaking stopped and her eyes opened. “Crater, did you see her?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Her. She was—” She stopped, her mouth open. Then she closed it and her eyes blinked as
if she’d traveled somewhere else. Finally, she said, “Nobody. Did you sleep okay?”
Crater considered telling Maria about his visitation but decided against it. There would be another time. “Yes. Do you think you can make it to Endless Dust?”
Maria picked up the stilts. “Will we need these?”
“I think we’re close enough now to walk in.”
“Then I’m ready.”
Crater stood on the edge of the hill and shielded his eyes against the new sun. “Let’s go,” he said and down the hill they walked through the endless dust to the town of the same name.
::: FORTY-FIVE
At Endless Dust, Crater and Maria saw evidence that the Apps had arrived. Scrap and other garbage was raked and shoveled into piles. The window on the only observation tower was clean, not a speck of dust on it. Parked near a dustlock was a truck and an empty trailer, a chuckwagon, and a fastbug. Crater switched his do4u to Crescent’s private channel. “Crescent, it’s Crater and Maria. We’re here.” When there was no response, Crater tried again with the same lack of result.
“I think our do4u batteries are nearly fried,” Crater said. “Ask your gillie to call.”
Maria coaxed the little gillie out of her coveralls pocket. “Call Crescent,” she said.
Gillie doesn’t know who Crescent is, it said. In fact, I’m not sure who you are.
“Your gillie is defective.”
“It’s young, that’s all,” Maria defended.
Crater’s backpack was nearly exhausted and so was Maria’s. They needed to go inside. The hatch was a standard one. When Crater opened it, Maria said, “I’ve got to get out of this suit!” and pushed past him and climbed inside.
Crater followed, pulled the hatch shut, pressurized the airlock, opened the inner hatch, and switched on the lights. In the next chamber, showers beckoned. “Yes!” Maria cried and sat down on a bench and pulled off her boots. When she saw Crater hesitating, she said, “Look, Crater, you’re a boy, I’m a girl, and all that. But I need a shower and you do too. You don’t look at me and I won’t look at you. Deal?”
Crater nodded, and within minutes, they were both under the showers, their biolastic sheaths being scrubbed in conditioning units, their coveralls in the dustlock laundry, their do4u batteries in recharge. The showers were hot and, most importantly, wet, and they scrubbed off all the nastiness that the biolastic suits, as marvelous as they were, had left behind.
Stepping from the shower, Crater rummaged around and found a cabinet with clean coveralls. Maria held out her arm from behind the door of the cabinet and Crater handed her a pair. She dressed while Crater did the same on the other side of the door. “Are there any boots or shoes?” she asked.
Crater found slippers and handed over a small pair to Maria.
The final hatch opened into a well-lit tubeway. Crater and Maria padded down its glistening mooncrete deck and inspected the various tubes. All were empty of life.
“Where is everybody?” Maria asked.
Crater held a finger to his lips. Having lived underground all his life in mooncrete tubes, he knew what to listen for. “They’re this way,” he said and led Maria through a hatch marked LIVING QUARTERS 1.
They were greeted by the warm, lustrous aroma of baking bread. Clarence and Eliza looked up from the table on which they were kneading dough. “Crater and Maria! Thank God you made it through.” Wiping their hands on their aprons, they hurried around the table and greeted them with hugs.
“You’re all right?” Crater asked.
“We are wonderful,” Eliza said. “Endless Dust is a great place.”
“A little elbow grease will put it to rights,” Clarence said, “and it already feels like home. We can’t wait to send for the other Apps.”
“Where are Jake and Trudelle?” Maria asked.
“On the scrapes with Crescent and Ike,” Eliza answered. “We take turns. Sometimes they’re out there while we work on the interior. Then we swap.”
“Did you find a crusher?”
“Yes, and a loader and a shuttle car,” Clarence said. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving,” Maria said.
In minutes, Eliza pushed across two plates of warm bread painted with biovat butter. She also had mugs of what smelled like real coffee. Both Maria and Crater set upon the food and drink. Afterward, Maria smiled, patted her stomach, and said, “I think I may have died and gone to heaven.”
“Is my gillie still in the chuckwagon refrigerator?” Crater asked.
“We brought it inside,” Eliza said. She opened a big lunasteel refrigerator and plucked out the gillie.
Crater held the gillie in his hand and it looked at him without eyes. Do you have a question for me?
“Yes. Are you well?”
Gillie is healthy. Gillie is ready to serve. Why is there another gillie in this room? I hate it.
Maria dug her little gillie out of her coveralls pocket and held it on her palm. It said, Why is there another gillie in this room? I hate it.
“Gillie,” Crater said, “this gillie came from you. You divided and produced it.”
That is not possible, both gillies said in unison. I hate this gillie.
“You can’t hate each other,” Crater said.
I hate it, Maria’s gillie said.
I hate it, Crater’s gillie said. I will kill it.
“You can’t kill it,” Crater admonished.
Yes, I can. I can smite it with many weapons. I am stronger than it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Crater said.
I can produce lightning. The gillie shot an electrical crackle of energy that briefly turned the kitchen blue.
“Bad gillie!” Crater admonished. “Get up on my shoulder and start paying attention.”
The gillie, looking ashamed, although it could look no way at all, wriggled onto Crater’s shoulder. Maria, tsking, put hers in her coveralls pocket. “Let’s go outside,” Crater said.
“Once more into the dust.” Maria sighed.
In the dustlock, Crater and Maria pulled on their refurbished and replenished suits and boots, pulled on fresh backpacks, donned their helmets, then entered the airlock. As it was depressurized, Maria said, “My mother visited me out there.”
The airlock pressure numbers reached zero. Crater put his hand on the hatch lever. “I’m listening,” he said.
“She told me to be kind to my father. He can’t help the way he is.”
Maria had never told him about her father. “What way is he?”
“He’s never liked me. He can be cruel.”
“I didn’t know that. Would you like to tell me more?”
“Maybe later.”
“I had visitors too,” Crater said. “Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard plus my parents, both sets.”
“You dreamed them,” Maria said. “While I was talking to my mother, you never woke.”
“I was awake,” Crater insisted, unwilling to let the visit be so casually dismissed as a simple dream. “It was you who slept.”
They looked at one another. Maria said, “I’m about to show a great deal of courage, Crater. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Crater replied.
“What happens now?”
“I guess we go outside and help my clients.”
“We should kiss first.”
“Once again I have to point out we’re wearing space helmets.”
“Ever the practical engineer.” Maria sighed, then followed Crater onto the dust.
::: FORTY-SIX
While Maria took up patrol in the streets, Crater headed for the scrape by following boot prints. There, he spotted Jake, Trudelle, and Crescent beside an old crusher. Crescent saw him first. “I am happy to see your face,” she said. “We need help with this machine.”
“I’m happy to see your face too,” Crater said. “What’s wrong with the crusher?”
Jake and Trudelle hugged him. “What happened to you? Is Maria all right?”
�
�We were captured by crowhoppers but escaped. We’re both fine.” He inspected the crusher. “We had one like this on the Moontown scrapes. It is a Doubleturn 4752 model. None better, although parts might be hard to find.”
“There are parts in the maintenance shed. Ike is making an inventory.”
Crater checked the tension on the crusher’s gears and chains. He opened its electronics and its fuel cell boxes. All seemed to be in order. Then he traced the wiring harness and found a break in one of the cables. “There’s your problem,” he said. “Likely a rock was thrown up and worked around until it cut this line. It happens.”
“We didn’t know to look there,” Jake said. “You’re a wonder, Crater.”
“I like tinkering on machines,” Crater answered.
A call to Ike soon had him trotting up with a replacement line. “Is this a help?” he asked.
“Yes, Ike, it is a help,” Crater said. “Thank you.”
After Crater replaced the line, the crusher rumbled to life. Trudelle shoveled in rock. From the other end came gravel. “There’s Thorium there,” Jake said. “I just know it.”
At dinner that night the discussion turned to ghosts. Crater looked up sharply. “Did you say ghosts?”
Jake nodded sheepishly. “Since we arrived, each of us has been visited by dead people.”
“My mother,” Clarence said.
“Both my parents,” Eliza said.
“A man I was cruel to,” Jake said, “and died before I could say I was sorry.”
“My first-grade teacher,” Trudelle said.
Crater turned to Crescent. “Have you seen dead people?”
“No,” Crescent said.
“How about you, Ike?”
Ike blinked. “If it would help, I will say I have seen them but I haven’t.”
Crater’s gillie interrupted. The skies are filled with them, it said.
“With ghosts?” Crater asked.
No, it said. Warpods.
Maria picked up her rifle. “Let’s go.”
Outside, Crater and Maria looked up and saw a fleet of warpods and a host of silvery torpedo-shaped craft. Streaks of light indicating missiles lit up the sky.
