Was the intention to activate a pilot who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to a ship? Or was it just a side effect of trying to kill us all on landing?
And then, because I am very good at manipulating people, my brain went one better. Could I have faked that thruster failing? If I had been piloting, could I have done a controlled landing that looked like a crash? Probably. Yes. Curt was being awfully pushy for a rookie on the Moon. Did he really care about his copilot and Nav/Comp this much or was he just trying to “prove” that he was one of the good guys?
There are times when I hate my brain. But it serves me well, so I made a note to myself to keep an eye on Curt.
I held out my clipboard, which had random paper on it, to LCA Frisch. “Would now be a good time to speak with you about the Icarus program?”
His eyelids fluttered several times in rapid succession. Why were all of these men so terrible at poker faces?
“Y—yeeasss…” He swallowed, and his smile would have fooled no one. “Would you excuse us, Lieutenant Frye?”
“Of course. Sir.” Curt turned on his heel, overbalancing in the light gravity of the Moon. I reached out to catch him as he compensated badly. He shot me a strained look and nodded his thanks. Moving more cautiously, he fumbled with the plastic sheeting and left the administrator’s office.
Frisch met my gaze with a thin smile, glancing at the door. We both waited, in silence, for the sound of footsteps bounding off rubber to fade down the hall. “Forgive me, but I was unaware that you were involved in the Icarus program.”
“Director Clemons read me on before we left.” I gestured to the chair. “May I sit?”
“Of course.” He stood carefully in the tiny space. “May I offer you some tea? I have a new pressure kettle so I can get boiling water that’s hot now.”
“Thank you.” I sat on the chair and rested the clipboard in my lap. “Director Clemons sent me with a package for you, which is unfortunately still on the ship.”
“Ah. The engineers tell me that we have to wait for the propellent to sublimate off the surface before they can stabilize the spacecraft enough to unload the cargo.”
“I see.” It would take a full lunar day, which was nearly two weeks, for the sun to crawl across the surface and reach into all the shadows. “I can give you a verbal report when you’re ready.”
He turned so his beak of a nose was in profile. “Go ahead with your report.”
I told him about the Sirius IV crash. I told him about my plane. About the POGO’s hydraulic lines. The other small “accidents” that had happened around the IAC, like shorts, propellant leaks, and sticky valves. I told him about the argon tank for the slide.
When the kettle boiled, Frisch poured water into a teacup for me. “Sugar or cream?”
“No, thank you.”
“Hm…” He handed me the cup and sat down. “And you say that Major Lindholm asked you to speak with me?”
I nodded. “Independently, he suspects sabotage. I would strongly recommend reading him on.”
The LCA dropped a pair of sugar cubes into his cup and shook his head. “Not at this time. I’ll confer with Director Clemons.”
“Which brings us back around to the problem that the codebooks are still on the ship.” I pulled a sheet from under the random ones on my clipboard and held it out to him. “May I offer a possible solution for that? I’ll be expected to send a letter to Kenneth after the crash and no one will look twice at it.”
He reached across the table to take it, frowning. The ever-present fans stirred the air as he read it, and even though I’d handed it to him, I tensed a little at sharing a letter to my husband. Frisch sipped his tea, still frowning.
I finally set my cup down on the table and said, “The first letter of each sentence.” I’d worried that it was blatant, as codes went, but I wasn’t sure how else to signal to Kenneth that it was there.
“Ah!” He held the cup to the side and nodded. “Very good. I would not have spotted the code, without your hint. Do you think he’ll catch it?”
“I don’t know.” I took the page back and secured it to the clipboard until I could get to the teletype machine. “Kenneth won’t be looking for one.”
Although my question about the flowers was also code. I was hoping that if Kenneth didn’t see the first letter signal, that my reference to Nathaniel would make him take another look, but I couldn’t tell Frisch about either of those. Secrets upon secrets.
“Do you want me to adjust the message to ask about Major Lindholm?”
“Not at this time.” Frisch set his cup in its saucer. “We’ve not had problems here, so I think it can wait until we retrieve the codebooks.”
Wait? He thought it could wait? I pressed the clipboard against my knees and remembered to speak as a subordinate because LCA Frisch valued hierarchy. “I’m so sorry, sir. I think my verbal report may not have been clear … The indications are that Icarus has come to the Moon.”
“Correction. It is possible that Icarus entered your ship at some point. Whether or not he is on the Moon is another question.” He picked up his cup and smiled at me over it. “I am certain it is very exciting to be involved, but let’s not allow our imaginations to run away with us, hm?”
I have so much practice at smothering rage that I could let the wave of heat wash over me without driving the clipboard into his forehead. But only just.
13 April 1963
Dear Kenneth,
First letter home and I’m already reporting trouble.
This isn’t going to become a habit, I promise, but I am going to presume that you are already aware of the events surrounding our landing. Everyone here is talking about the fact that Eugene pulled off a miracle, although I doubt the papers back home will report his exact words, which were “Holy shit, that worked.” Love, I trust that you weren’t so concerned that you felt the need to buy me flowers. Like I could stop you.
Clearly, you are going to be distressed because my arm is broken. Luckily, it is only a hairline fracture. Even so, the medical staff here are—if you’ll forgive me—over the Moon to have an actual break to study. My first break, too, which is surprising given that there are plenty of skinned knees and sprains in my past. One surprising side effect is that I will apparently make it into the history books as the first broken arm on the Moon. Needless to say, I find this a dubious honor. Still, I am strangely thrilled to have a cast for people to sign.
Perhaps less thrilling is Ana Teresa’s prescription for daily centrifuge chamber treatments. A weekly X-ray study to monitor how I heal is also in order. Centrifuges will be necessary for our long-term survival on the Moon, but they are evil. Kinetically, it’s quite interesting. As I have just learned, for a break to heal properly you need to put stress on the bone. Gravity should help more here than in a microgravity environment like the early space station, before they added the centrifugal ring. Everyone is going on and on about how all they’ve had thus far have been rodent studies to the point that you would think they are happy I’m injured.
Luckily, our team is settling in nicely and I should be able to continue with their training without interruption. Oh—may I ask you to do me a small favor? Someone here mentioned Kipling’s Just So Stories and it is bothering all of us that we can’t remember the name of the story with the armadillo. The library here doesn’t have a copy, so could you look at home or ask Nathaniel, since I know he has one.
Love,
Nicole
SEVENTEEN
IAC AIDE BRIEFED ON MARS EXPEDITION DEATH
Secret Report to Be Given to UN Leaders in the Capital
KANSAS CITY, April 14, 1963—A top International Aerospace Coalition official received today the first preliminary but secret report on results of the investigation into the tragic accident this past November, just one month into the three-year First Mars Expedition. Norman Clemons, director of the space agency, spent all day with a nine-man board of inquiry and then shared the details of that report wi
th the diplomats representing the eight member nations of the IAC. Director Clemons declined to make any statements before or after the meeting.
When I was little, Easter Sunday involved a new dress and a bonnet. Bright white gloves. My nanny polished my shoes to a mirror gloss. After church, the extended family would gather on the sweeping front lawn of Cousin Walter’s house for an Easter egg hunt. As a teen, I dyed eggs and hid them for my younger cousins, imagining the day when my child would toddle after them.
When I got married people kept asking when we would have children. And then … we stopped going.
There are no children on the Moon to hide eggs for. Hell, we got our first chickens in the last six months and their eggs had only just made it into the food rotation. I couldn’t imagine convincing the IAC to let us dye them for fun.
I did not have a new dress—or any dress, for that matter. Bonnets and hats were beyond silly up here. I had a delicate pomona green silk scarf to tie around my neck and a white linen blouse, which I’d brought up to celebrate the lunar colony’s move to a “shirtsleeve” environment after years of wearing flight suits and carrying a safety helmet. With that I gussied myself up as best I could and went to church.
Not because it was Easter, but because Eugene and Myrtle were my friends and this was important to them. We didn’t have ministers or rabbis or imams—not formally—but we did have members of all of those faiths who found ways to have worship services. There was no church. No mosque. No sacred space, unless you counted Lunar Ground Control.
“Church,” in this instance, met in the restaurant in Midtown.
Le Restaurant, because the Moon has only one and it is run by a French couple who are beautiful cooks and not terribly original with names. I stepped through the airlock from the “Baker Street” gerbil tube into Midtown and had to resist the urge to latch it shut behind me. The lunar colony now had electromagnetic latches that would let the doors swing shut in case of a breach.
My chest expanded a little as I crossed into the large, open dome of Midtown. The light is always the first thing that catches me. Even with filters to make the dome translucent, Midtown is flooded with vivid white light during lunar day. It caught on the edges of the cubicles and silvered the rubber walls. Midtown used to be our only habitat, with everything crammed into it. Now, the upper floor functioned primarily as a recreation space with a running track circling the living quarters that lined the walls.
Even on Sunday, people loped along the track, getting in their hour of IAC-mandated exercise. Guitar music floated through the “streets” formed of storage containers. In the middle of it all was Central Park. Coming from Earth, the pathetic patch of green was unworthy of the word “park.” Six raised beds grew a collection of weeds.
But I still had my Earth lenses on. By next week, this would seem to be a paradise of living matter. The weeds made sense in nutrition-poor soil. I had enjoyed more than one delicious meal involving dandelion greens or roasted prickly pear.
“Nicole!” Myrtle stood with Helen near the dandelion bed.
“You can settle an argument for us.” Helen beamed at the flowers as if we hadn’t just left the lushness of Brazil. “Does communion wine need to be grapes or would dandelion wine work?”
I held up my hands. “You are asking the wrong person. I nearly stayed in bed this morning.”
“I was going to say…” Helen wore a smart salmon-pink linen top with a deep turquoise rhinestone peacock that was probably the only peacock in space. “I don’t think I have ever seen you in church.”
“Eugene invited her yesterday.” Myrtle laughed. “This might be our Easter miracle.”
I tried not to stare at the empty space where Eugene should be. “I suspect the miracle is that you convinced your husband to stay put.”
Myrtle rolled her eyes. “He’s already in there.”
“Ah…” I glanced at Le Restaurant, which was a cubicle facing onto Central Park. “Didn’t want people to see how shaky he was?”
“Remind me why I married a pilot?” She wore a navy blouse, nipped in at the waist with a broad white patent leather belt, over a pair of matching navy “moon” trousers. The ankles were snugged tight beneath the soft drape with matching navy buttons. Somehow, she’d brought a beautiful navy toque up with her. On her, the hat wasn’t silly; its veil and flower details were glorious and made me reconsider my wardrobe choices. “That man … Lord help me, I love him, but he’s going to be the death of me.”
As we walked toward Le Restaurant, I lowered my voice. “How is he?”
“Better. But I’m not sure how much of that is just gravity.”
“He is definitely better than he was in the CM.” Worry pinched Helen’s brows. “I thought we were going to run out of emesis bags.”
The trouble with zero-g is that there’s nothing to hold food down in the stomach. So if you have gas, it doesn’t rise above the solid matter, it pushes it out. Burping is likely to lead to some form of upchuck. So intestinal distress? It gets messy, fast. Even 1/6 g was enough to let gas rise and help food stay down.
I held the door for Myrtle and Helen. It looked like the Arnauds had painted Le Restaurant since the last time I was up. The plastic floor had a wood-grain pattern, scuffed in places to reveal battleship gray. Blue-and-white braided pads, made from uniform discards, somehow made the ubiquitous gray chairs look like garden furniture.
At the front of the room, Eugene was looking better, but then scrubbing vomit out of your hair will do that. He sat, talking with a couple of people and nodding earnestly. For all the world, he reminded me of Kenneth talking to constituents.
“We should talk about husbands sometime.”
“Why? What did yours do?” Myrtle stepped into the tiny six-table restaurant and oriented immediately to Eugene the way a solar panel aligns to the sun.
I opened my mouth to brush her off, but all of my fear crowded my throat. I had to swallow before I spoke. “Noth—”
“Don’t nothing me.” She held up a hand. “If it’s none of my business, say so. But don’t lie. Not on Easter.”
Biting the inside of my lip, I sighed. Fixing my gaze on the faux wood floor, I gave a small shrug. “He had a … health issue while I was gone last time. And did not tell me.”
“Oh, for the love of—” Myrtle pinched the space between her brows. “Men are … How do they survive to adulthood?”
“It is one of the great mysteries of the universe.” Helen clucked her tongue. “Reynard had never understood that one must sweep under the bed. I will not describe to you the horrors…”
I laughed with the women, although to be honest, I hadn’t known that either. I’d grown up with a maid and a housekeeper. I hung my own clothes up, and some of my society friends thought I was progressive for doing that.
More of the small congregation was filling the space. “I’m going to grab a chair before they’re all gone.”
Myrtle gestured to the front of the room. “Come sit with us. He’ll be up in a minute and you can have his seat.”
“I’m more comfortable in the back, if you don’t mind.” I winked. “Besides. Just in case … I don’t want to be in the spatter zone.”
She snorted. “I tried telling him…”
Squeezing my arm, Helen turned to walk to the front of the little room with Myrtle. I settled in a chair in the back corner, where I could see the door and count who came and went. Whoever had written the Manifesto was Christian.
And this was Easter Sunday.
* * *
When Deana Whitney started to sing the communion hymn, I’ll admit that my mouth dropped open. She had a clear, high soprano that seemed to float as if free of gravity’s lightest touch. I’d trained with her and had no idea she had a voice like that.
There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains;
One by one, the small rows of congregants stood to f
ile to the front. Aldrin had used part of his personal allotment to bring wafers and wine to the Moon.
I sat in the back corner and made notes of everyone who attended. Those who stood and those who, like me, stayed seated. I’m not sure how many lunar citizens were Christian, but fifty-three came to the church service.
Eleven people from our rocket attended, not counting the Lindholms, Helen, and me. It was more than I expected, honestly, but I suppose a near-death experience coupled with a major religious holiday would instill piety in the most doubting of souls.
The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away;
From that list of eleven, I set aside the people Clemons had rotated onto our team. Ana Teresa, Ingram, Tierra, and Faustino. My reasoning was that they had gone through additional screening and had all been on the Moon more than once. If they wanted to cause trouble, they had prior opportunity.
Unless, of course, they were a recent recruit or this was all timed to coincide with activity on Earth.
That left me with a list of eight.
Kadyn Murphy
Imelda Corona
Vicky Hsu
Ruben du Preez
Danika du Preez
Curtis Frye
Luther Sanchez
Catalina Suarez Gallego
“Not going up?” Faustino sidled into the row in front of me.
At my husband’s church, I would have taken communion because to not do so would have invited questions. Here … It felt disrespectful. I shook my head. “Thank you, no.”
“I know he’s not a real priest, but I promise you won’t burst into flames.” Faustino cocked his head. “Wait. I forgot who I was talking to.”
“I’m kicking your chair through the rest of the service.”
The Relentless Moon Page 16
