“A single listening post…” Eugene sat forward. “We’ve been assuming the listener is in comms on Earth … Faustino has been up often enough to have set up a post. Convert one of the emergency way stations, say.”
In the four days since we started looking for Faustino, no one had seen him. No one had worried because with the quarantine everyone was isolated. People just assumed that he was in another module.
But when Myrtle combed through the rolls that each of the isolation zones had sent in, he wasn’t in any of them. How the hell do you go missing on the Moon? I mean, besides stealing a BusyBee. But where do you go?
“He has to come back eventually,” Myrtle said.
“Does he?” I leaned forward. “The average lifespan of a ‘bird’ during the war was six months. We signed up knowing that.”
“You lived.”
God, she had no idea. “The point is, he might have come here not planning to go home.”
The silence between us might as well have been a dead phone line. Eugene whistled and shook his head. “If the explosion was related to his hidey-hole, you saying you’d figured out where it was might be what set him off.” He glanced at the door and then at his watch. “I should go make an announcement to reassure people. Would one of you…”
Helen nodded. “I’ll call Clemons to let him know the status of the lights.”
I slid back my chair and hesitated. “Eugene … would it be all right if I called Kenneth?”
“What? Sure.”
Myrtle paused in the act of standing and stared at me, mouth dropping. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. You haven’t— Honey, when was the last time you talked to him?”
There are upsides and downsides to having friends who know you well. I swallowed and awkwardly folded my agenda in half. “I haven’t been allowed to talk to him since the coded message thing.”
“Aw, hell, Nicole. I’m sorry.” Eugene put his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah. I’ll fix it with comms so it won’t be an issue.”
I drew a breath, nodding. “Thanks.”
Myrtle and I followed him into the hall, leaving Helen the “secure” booth. The silver lining to the power outage was that the people who had been in the booths had abandoned them during the blackout.
I opened the nearest booth and sat down inside. Myrtle knocked on the door. When I slid it open, she handed me a clean handkerchief, and walked away before I could say anything. I have the best friends.
I had to pick up the phone with my right hand.
“Operator.” A young woman on Lunetta answered. Was she involved with Earth First, reporting on whom I called?
“Earth, Kansas long distance, please.”
“Surely.” The ritual of talking to the operator gave me time to calm down and shed some of the adrenaline. A different woman said, “Long distance.”
“Operator…” Or was the terrestrial counterpart the more likely source? Did I have a choice? It was a Monday morning in Kansas City. Kenneth would be in his office in Topeka. My usual call time was Wednesday evening. A daytime call would make him worry. “I’d like to place a call to Topeka: Main one-five-two-five-zero.”
“Surely.”
The phone rang once, and Kenneth’s secretary picked up. “Governor Wargin’s office, how may I help you?”
I wrapped the cord around my fingers. “This is Mrs. Wargin. Is the governor in?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wargin. He’s just stepping out to a rally— Oh!”
The phone bounced and rattled. And then Kenneth was there. “Nicole? Are you all right?”
“How’s the kitten?” Don’t ask me why I opened with that. “Knocked over any flowers?”
“The flowers are fine—or wait. Missing. The kitten stole all of the flowers. There are no flowers. Which— Nicole. I … I don’t know where to start. Electrocuted? Really? I thought your mother had a lock on that.”
God damn him for having that squawk box. He couldn’t hear me, but he could hear the LGC chatter, and that would have been a very active day. “First of all, I was shocked, because electro—”
“Electrocution leaves you dead. Yes. I’ve heard your mother say that. So, let’s try this … You had enough power go through your body to wipe out the entire module.”
“Maybe? I mean, I was probably blown clear before that happened.” I held the phone closer as if I could snuggle up against him. “I’m sorry if it’s giving you problems.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? Sweetheart … I almost lost you.”
“I’m harder to lose than that.” I winced. “How bad are the headlines?”
He snorted. “WIFE OF GOVERNOR WARGIN ELECTROCUTED ON MOON. My PR people would like to know if you could arrange to rescue a small child in addition to a ward of women with polio to complete your heroic picture.”
My turn to laugh. “I try to be a supportive wife, by providing you with news sensational enough to distract from other issues.”
He laughed, one of the laughs that makes him throw his head back to the ceiling and then melt into a sigh. If I could have sat in that companionable silence forever, I would have. I sighed and rested my brow against the wall. “Speaking of … your last letter went missing for a bit. And someone else checked the book out from the library.”
Two-point-six seconds later I heard him inhale. Another moment of silence passed and then he said, “I see. The same person had both, I presume?”
“It appears so.” I wanted to ask him for details about what sort of investigation the FBI was doing. But even if Icarus wasn’t listening to this conversation, it seemed safe to assume the Feds had gotten a warrant for a wiretap of his office.
“Nathaniel had to go back into the hospital.”
“Is it…?” Poison? Or did he just stop eating again? “How bad is he?”
“Just stomach pain. They’re doing some testing to figure out why.” He sighed. “Hershel is flying back out.”
“That’ll be a help.” I wanted to go home. I miss Kenneth when I’m on the Moon, but I have never wanted to go home as badly as I did sitting in that phone booth. I just wanted to talk to my husband without having to watch my words. “So does the kitten have a name?”
“Maggie.” He switched gears right along with me. “Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
“The Elizabeth Taylor character?”
“You should see this kitten’s eyes. And she has yet to meet a surface that she won’t try to climb. The chair back. The drapes. My leg.” Kenneth cleared his throat. “So … Marlowe has been drinking a lot of water. A little lethargic.”
“Well, he is nineteen.” My voice was light, but it was denial.
“His spirits are good, though. I just … I just want you to be prepared.”
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For not hiding it from me.” I swallowed and wiped my eyes. “You were on your way to a rally. You should get moving.”
“Hang the rally.”
“Kenneth … Go. To paraphrase a wise man. I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do for me up here, except do your job down there.”
He was silent for longer than 2.6 seconds, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “You’re a cruel woman, Nicole Wargin, to use my own words on me like that.”
“If you’re saying I’m wrong, then I’ll catch the next rocket home.” Not that we could launch anything right now, but I would find a way. “Now go to the rally and make me proud.”
He went. As he should. As I would in his place. As I have.
THIRTY-ONE
HURRICANE TIME STIRS FLORIDIANS
Weather Bureau Preparing with Help of Lunetta
By R. HART PHILLIPS
Special to The National Times
MIAMI, Fla., May 7—A strong weather disturbance last week near the French Antilles, 2,400 kilometers from Miami, brought the attention of the people of Florida once again to the operations of the United States Weather Bureau in watching for hurricanes. In conjunction with the obser
vatory on the space station Lunetta, the forecasters are able to accurately predict and monitor the behavior of this unusually early hurricane.
It would be nice if I could concentrate on just Icarus, but we still had repairs to do from the “rain day.” All of the staff trained to handle that was working to clean up the SciMod, which left mundane maintenance to those of us assigned to help care for the sick. I lay on my side on the floor of Midtown with my head and shoulders inside the wall of the shower facility. My cheek pressed against the plastic wall, I squinted at the clip I was trying to reset on the filter with my right hand.
“Nicole?” Eugene’s voice made me jump and drop the clip. Again. I hate doing things with my off hand, but any attempt to use my left was … annoying.
“Oh, for…” I sighed and fished around for it. “Yes?”
“Can I borrow you for a minute?” He crouched next to the opening, but all I could really see were his feet in their IAC-issue shoes.
“Let me just…” My fingers closed on the clip. “Almost finished.”
“Okay.” He stood and leaned against the wall.
I bit the inside of my lip and closed my eyes while I felt for the socket on the filter. “I can hear you if that’ll work?”
He crouched down again. “We have a lead on Faustino.”
I fumbled the clip and dropped it. Grabbing the edge of the opening, I pulled myself out so I could see his face. “But…?”
“Danika and Ruben du Preez.” He pursed his lips. “Might be more comfortable talking to a white woman.”
“Got it. Do you want me to have a ‘talk’ with them while I’m at it?”
He shook his head. “They fall into the category of well-meaning and in denial. And the point of having you quiz them is to make them comfortable.”
“Copy.” I stared up at the translucent ceiling of Midtown. It was noon and the sun hung in the sky, directly overhead. Even with polarized glass, it was too bright to look directly at, just like at home before the Meteor. The engineers who had designed this had given the glass a blue tint, which overlaid the velvet black of space. The shadows moved, if you stayed there long enough, but “noon” lasted for three days.
I grabbed the edge of the access panel and pulled myself back inside to look for the clip. A single task. Simple. Controllable. “Do you have any other details for me about Ruben and Danika?”
“Not much. Rumor has it that they talked to Faustino before he went missing.”
The clip bumped along until it snagged on an edge. Carefully, I eased it over and pushed until it clicked into place. I sighed with relief. Almost as good as an orgasm. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Work a little charm and…” Eugene straightened slowly. “Come back out. Something’s wrong.”
I wriggled out of the wall. Myrtle was walking toward us from the airlock, which led from Eugene’s office. Her eyes were red and puffy. There’s an expression that we wear when someone dies. It’s a face anyone in aviation knows, because we all know someone who died.
I clambered to my feet and grabbed the access panel, sliding it back into place. While we waited for her to reach us, I twisted the latches, concentrating on feeling the panel snug into place. Whatever came next, I did not want to leave a task unfinished and cause things to get worse.
“Myrtle?” Eugene caught her hands with his. “Baby? What happened?”
“There’s been an accident on the Mars Expedition.” Myrtle squeezed his hands. “Estevan Terrazas is dead.”
I sucked in a breath as if I could pull her words out of the air. Terrazas was one of the original Artemis astronauts. I’d flown with him. I’d flown here with him. The blood leached from Eugene’s cheeks. He closed his eyes like he was locking down a heat shield and slid his hands up Myrtle’s arms, pulling her in close.
I stood, frozen, next to the shower facility. Around me the activity of the lunar colony carried on as if nothing had happened. Danika was helping Birgit take limping steps on the running track. Ana Teresa was walking from the library to the gallery, talking to one of the nurses. Guillermo and Kadyn were propped on a low bench next to the bunny pen.
None of these people knew Terrazas. Oh, they may have met him in passing, but the Mars Expedition had left Earth last October and some of the new hires probably only overlapped with them by six months. They would know that he looked like a Spanish movie star. They would have heard his resonant voice on the first mission around the Moon.
They wouldn’t know about his love for radio theater. They wouldn’t know how he laughed with his whole body. They wouldn’t know that his little sister was the light of his life. They wouldn’t get to hear him tell the story about how he’d punched Stetson Parker on the day they met. They would never taste his paella. They would never hear the giant goofball sit in the CAPCOM seat and announce your mission like you were Flash Gordon. They would never dance with him in microgravity. They would never hang in silence as they orbited the Moon with him, worshiping at the same altar.
Eugene turned his head and held out his arm. He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug with them. I wrapped my arms around them and clung.
Overhead, the relentless noon blazed down, ignoring our grief. I wanted to hang in the shadow that we created from our bodies. But Eugene tightened his hands on us. In the dark, he murmured, “I need to go get briefed and make a statement to the colony.”
“Yeah, baby.” Myrtle nodded. “Comms brought the news straight to your office. They have instructions not to tell anyone until you do, but … it’ll get around.”
“Helen.” I lifted my head. She had been training to go to Mars with Terrazas before they’d rotated Elma on. “I’ll find Helen.”
* * *
Someone, I don’t remember who, told me Helen was in the library, playing chess with one of the boys. I walked past Central Park and I could feel people looking at me. I tried to school my expression, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about my eyes. On Earth, I’d throw on sunglasses and no one would blink.
Maybe I could bring the style to the lunar colony for noon-shine days.
From the bench where he was propped with Kadyn, Guillermo reached out a hand as I passed. “Hey. You okay?”
I compressed my lips and shook my head. “Bad day.”
He winced and looked toward the gallery. “I’m sorry.”
Shit. He thought Frisch had died, which given that he was in seriously bad shape was not surprising. Or maybe Guillermo had poisoned him. “He’s—” Not fine. “It’s not him. Eugene will be making an announcement soon.”
Kadyn pushed himself farther up, looking now to Le Restaurant, where the women were housed. “Who…?”
“No one here.” They were doing the same panicked thing we all do, which was to run through the names of people who might have died. The way that every time I heard about something amorphously bad, I worried it was Kenneth. With polio on the Moon, they were running through a list of close friends and colleagues who were right here. “Eugene is going to make an announcement.”
I needed to get to Helen, because she should not find out that way. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked, head down, as fast as I could toward the library.
Inside, the tables had been cleared out. The shelves of books had been covered with plastic sheeting to keep them clean. Ana Teresa had added a bed when Lance Woolen from operations had come down with a fever and weakness in his left arm. He lay on one side, staring at the wall. The men in the other beds were reading or sleeping. In one corner, the radio played “Chattanooga Choo Choo” while one man concentrated on moving his foot in time to the music. One foot. The other lay at an awkward angle on the blanket.
Helen sat at Curt’s bed with a packing crate to hold the game and her back to the door. Pillows propped him up so he could reach the board, where it looked like she was trouncing him.
He was laughing as she studied the board, clearly trying to distract her with a funny story. “—so the watch officer looks at me
and says, ‘But not without the milk,’ and I say…” His voice trailed away as he saw me and he rested his hand on Helen’s arm. Of course, the pilot would know what my face meant. “Helen.”
She looked up at him. Her spine straightened as if she were bracing herself. Helen turned and saw me. I watched the recognition go over her face, pulling it into a neutral mask. She reached back and knocked her king over, forfeiting the game.
Curt watched her with worry in the pinch around his eyes, as she stood and walked to me. Helen stopped, looking up at me with steel in her spine. “Outside?”
The men had lowered their books. Even Lance had rolled over to look at us. I nodded and led her out and then … where was I going to find a private space for her?
Helen saw me looking around and put her hand on my arm. “Just tell me.”
Wetting my lips, I nodded. “There was an accident on the First Mars Expedition. Estevan—”
Her eyes closed, pinching shut so they were nothing but creases of grief. Helen raised her hands to cover her mouth. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her slight form. Helen leaned against me, unbreathing. I ran my hand down her back, feeling the tension in every muscle.
Her chest shuddered as she drew in a breath. Against my collarbone, I felt as much as heard, “How?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Getting words past the broken glass in my throat hurt. “Eugene was finding out.”
Helen nodded and slid her arms around me. We waited for the announcement and I could not tell you if she was holding me, or I her. We stood under the unmoving sun and waited to find out how a friend had died on the way to Mars.
And I braced myself for it to have been sabotage.
THIRTY-TWO
ESTEVAN TERRAZAS, 1924–1963
KANSAS CITY, May 7, 1963—The second casualty on the Mars mission comes a little over a month after the crew has passed the midway point. Critics are pointing to the death of Estevan Terrazas as a sign of incompetence on the part of the IAC. An anonymous source, high within the organization, says that Colonel Stetson Parker had objected to sending Terrazas out, saying that he lacked the experience, but was overruled by Director Clemons.
The Relentless Moon Page 29
