His skin was dry and sallow. “Distinctly improved, thank you.” He gestured toward the emergency lights. “Will you tell me what is happening?”
My gamble was to approach him as if he were not Icarus, nor directly involved. It wasn’t an unreasonable position. If he were Icarus and poisoned himself to throw us off track, then he would have made darn sure the medical lab stocked Prussian blue. Also, the class of things happening appeared to have been set up after our arrival. “Icarus has been using a satellite to interface with the lunar colony via an old procedure for the RPCM. We’re working on getting the lights back on now.”
He frowned, eyes narrowing as he followed what I was saying. That, in itself, was a good sign for his health. “I see. What do you need from me?” He nodded to the door I had shut behind us. “I presume there is some use you have for me or we would not be here.”
“There was a book in your office. The Long Tomorrow. Do you know it?”
He nodded slowly, watching me. “That was one of the items that caused the IAC’s problems with your use of codes. The others were easier to break, but harder to spot if you didn’t know. This was blatant. The newspapers had a field day with it because it couldn’t be cracked and they could suppose it was anything.”
I had, truly, expected this line of questioning to be a dead end. I had braced myself for him to not know the book was in his office. Given that it was under the table, I thought Icarus had planted it. “The code, yes. But the book … Why did you have it?”
“Oh—Vicky Hsu brought it to me.”
The room went cold. “Vicky.” At the church services. With my list of suspects. But why the hell would she put her own name in the library when she checked out the book, even if she disguised her handwriting? Or was that a double-bluff of some sort? I rubbed my forehead. “What did she say when she gave it to you?”
“She’d found the letter you’d been decoding in it and thought I should know.” He looked down his nose at me like a stork fishing. “You seem confused. Might I know why?”
“I didn’t decode it.” I chewed the inside of my lip before answering, still trying to figure out how any of this tied together. “When I went to the library, The Long Tomorrow had been checked out already. By any chance did she say where she got the book?”
He shook his head. “Just that she’d been reading it when she found the letter. I should have asked, but … my mind was a bit fuzzy, which I now realize was because I was being poisoned.” Frisch cleared his throat. “I must say … when I realized thallium was a rat poison, and it had been used on me, I had a dark period in which I wondered if that was why you never took sugar with your tea. Were you with Icarus, I wondered.”
“That seems fair. I wondered the same about you when we found the book in your office.” The case against him being Icarus was significantly stronger than the case for it. There were things he could help with, now that his mind was clearing. I would need to brief him on the Swiss Army knife and Birgit, in case he had any insight from being in a hospital room with her. “What changed your mind?”
His brows came together, turning up in distress. “My dear … your husband.”
* * *
After I finished talking to Frisch, I leaned against the wall of the hallway and stared at the ceiling while I packed my heart back into the little box I needed to keep it in. The moments when the grief hit me were unpredictable. Nineteen days. I would stop counting at some point. Blowing out a breath through pursed lips, I straightened.
Next up. Birgit or Curt. I wasn’t quite stupid enough to be alone in a room with either of them. Which meant I needed to pull Eugene away from signaling to the BusyBees.
I bounded up the stairs to the lounge to get him and it was easy to take the steps three at a time. You know those moments when you realize exactly how sick you had been? It felt so good to move that I was smiling a little when I soared over the last step into the earthlit lounge.
Outside, the silver-blue light of Earth lay over the ground like a silk blanket. Black shadows etched the rims of craters and deepened the sides of the Apennine mountains. Eugene stood in silhouette, both hands braced against the glass, leaning to rest his forehead against it.
“Eugene?”
He straightened like a marionette being yanked up by its operator, into beautiful military posture. He took a breath and turned. “Nicole.” I do not like it when people say my name in that tone. “Myrtle says they saw an explosion.”
I grasped for the one piece of comfort in that sentence. Myrtle says … So she was okay. But nothing about his body language said anything else was all right. “Where?”
“The Garden. They aren’t answering her hails.” He wiped his hand over his face. “None of the outposts are.”
I braced myself against the back of a chair, my cast scraping the hard plastic. The trouble with a small colony is that you know everyone. This wasn’t an explosion in some anonymous far-away place. This was where people I knew worked. Luther Sanchez would have been at The Garden, and Aahana. “Danika. Ruben’s wife.”
“I know.”
It would have been hard to get a full report using Morse with lights. We might be missing details. “They may just have a power outage like we do.”
“And the explosion?”
Meteors hit with enough kinetic force to cause a fireball, even on the Moon. I didn’t think we were that lucky, and the irony did not escape me. “Are the BusyBees coming in?”
He shook his head. “I sent Helen to check The Garden, but I told the rest of them to stay put until power was restored.”
“What do you want to do?”
Eugene bent his neck, staring at the floor, and twisted his head—not quite shaking it, not quite stretching, but more as if he were trying to ground himself. “We’ll lose the window for talking to Curt without the lights if we wait.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s kill the power to the SciMod so when they get the main power back on it stays dark here. That’ll buy us some—”
The lights came back on.
His head snapped up and he glared at the ceiling. “I know I was praying for this, but Your timing, Lord…” Eugene sighed and looked at the stairs and then out at the landscape, obscured behind our reflections in the glass. “How long do you need with Curt?”
“You need to go to LGC. With the power on, people will need guidance on bringing the BusyBees back in.” I needed to rethink my game plan with the lights on. “I can ask Halim to be my backup.”
“Good call. Thank you.” He started toward the stairs. “Walk with me to brief me on Frisch?”
“Sure. He got the book from Vicky, who ‘found’ the letter insi—”
Behind us, the intercom buzzed. “Eugene Lindholm, please contact LGC. Eugene Lindholm, please contact LGC immediately.”
He sprinted across the room, stopping himself with an arm against the wall to control momentum. He slapped the other against the talk button. “LGC, Lindholm. Report?”
“All of the satellites are nonresponsive.” Deana Whitney’s voice in the CAPCOM chair sounded shaken, which I’ve never heard. “And we can’t reestablish contact with Earth.”
FORTY-TWO
Artemis Base Mission Log, Acting Administrator Eugene Lindholm: May 27, 1963, 1355—Contact protocols completed. Communication with IAC not reestablished. Satellite Communications and Tracking department is troubleshooting in conjunction with Power.
Lunar Ground Control has the same focused concentration as the Mission Control Center in Kansas. On the Moon, it also functioned as air traffic control for the BusyBees and cargo rockets coming from the South Pole mines, but it always makes me feel like I’m coming home.
Today was like coming home to discover your house had been robbed.
I sat at the back of the room, going through every piece of documentation about the early installation to see if I could remember anything that wasn’t written down. I wore a headset, so I could be a resource if anyone needed the “historical perspective” t
hat someone had recognized I could provide. In a perfect world, I would find a documented error that we had accidentally triggered when removing the remote controls and the procedure to undo it.
Half of the metallic blue consoles had warning lights flashing red. But around me, people went about their business with the same level tone of voice as a normal day. Only if you listened to the words did you realize how wrong things were.
“Kansas, Artemis Base. Do you copy? Kansas, Artemis Base. Do you copy?”
“BusyBee 6, Ground Control. Have your evacuees report to the cafeteria after landing for duty assignments.”
“No response from satellite on low-gain link.”
Eugene stood at the Flight Director’s desk, resting one hand on the console. He wore a headset, listening to the call-and-response as each station worked the problem, as the BusyBees reported in, as we all kept our cool and went about our jobs.
“Artemis Base, BusyBee 2.” Myrtle’s voice made Eugene’s head come up as if he could see her. “I’ve done a flyover of where we think we saw the explosion, but it’s too dark to see anything.”
His hand reached for the comm unit but clenched into a fist, pulling back. He looked to the Ground Controller and bit his lips as if that were the only way to stop himself from stepping into the line of communication.
GC replied, as was appropriate. “Copy, BusyBee 2.”
“Request permission to return to base and offload evacuees?”
“Confirmed. You are Go to return to base.”
Eugene unclenched his hand and rested it back on the edge of the console. With a deliberate ease, he lowered his head and kept working.
* * *
There’s a big clock on the wall in LGC. Whenever a rocket is traveling between the Moon and the Earth, the clock counts mission elapsed time. Eugene had them set it to track how long we’d been without contact from Earth. Five hours and fifty-one minutes.
The thing that kept eating at the back of my mind was that Icarus and Earth First had changed strategies. They had been trying to stop the program by making it look bad through subtle sabotage. They had shifted to active attacks.
We had wanted to make them panic. Wondering if our pushing had caused … this filled a pit of acid in my stomach. Would Kenneth be alive if I had kept my head down? Oh, I know survivor’s guilt when I see it—we all saw it often enough after the war. After the Meteor.
But still.
* * *
Eugene stopped behind my desk. “Nicole. Take a break.”
I looked up over the edge of my reading glasses, blinking. Elapsed time seven hours and twenty-four minutes. Of course, that was not counting the intense day and a half before we lost contact. Eugene’s posture was perfect. The only real tell that he was struggling was that his right hand kept clenching into a fist and then opening as if he were forcing it to relax.
Gesturing to the rest of the room, he said, “Second shift is coming on.”
That was a sensible time to take a break. They would need to be brought up to speed by the prime team. Some of those staff would stick around, of course, but I probably wouldn’t be needed for a few minutes. Neither of us would.
I pulled my glasses off. “When was the last time you ate?”
He squinted at me. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
“Myrtle has me well trained. They’ve got a sandwich station set up in Midtown.” I was not even remotely hungry, but I had a log to fill out and knowing that made me realize I had missed lunch. Standing, I stretched and my back let out an artillery barrage. “You can do morale for the Midtown team as we walk through…”
He sighed and stepped over to the Flight Director. “Poppy, I’ll be back in fifteen. Sandwich?”
“Egg salad, if they’ve got it.” As if this were an ordinary day, these men and women just worked.
Eugene followed me to the airlock, which we were keeping shut, just in case.
I waited until we were inside, with walls of metal between us and the rest of the team. “When do we float the idea that the explosion Myrtle saw was a satellite deorbiting?”
“Deorbit” is the nice way of saying crashing into the lunar surface.
“The frightening thing is I’ve been praying for that.” He grabbed the rachet handle and worked it to open the door. “Because otherwise, that was The Garden.”
“Nothing from Helen yet?”
He shook his head as he pulled the door open. “I’m figuring another hour before she’s back in range.”
Without the satellites, we were limited to line-of-sight communication. On Earth, you could bounce signals off the upper atmosphere, but that wasn’t an option on the Moon. Back in the old days, when we had a command module orbiting and a lander on the surface, we used to have to send the signal from the lander all the way back to Mission Control in Kansas and have them bounce it back to the CM. And every time the CM went around the far side of the Moon, the pilot had no signal at all. Elma always said that she found that period incredibly peaceful.
There is a distinct difference between scheduled loss of signal and what we were experiencing.
Upstairs, the engineers had taken over Midtown, setting up conference tables and whiteboards to try to work the laundry list of problems. Eugene started toward the first table and I caught his arm.
“From experience … sandwich first. Otherwise, you’ll get caught up and forget.”
I could have done without the wave of pity that passed across his face, but he didn’t actually say anything about it, just gave me a simple nod. “Thanks.”
It was still a gauntlet to get to the sandwich station at Le Restaurant. He had to shake hands, clap people on the shoulder, and nod seriously when someone asked him if things were going okay. And he managed to keep moving. He was good. Things like this were why Kenneth had been pushing Eugene to go into politics since we met. He would have been so proud.
I shoved my hand in my pocket and walked to Le Restaurant. I’d get sandwiches for him and Poppy while Eugene did his thing. The doors stood wide open and all the chairs were still shoved against the walls from when it had doubled as the women’s sickbay. Had it only been last week when they were moved back to the SciMod?
Jeanette Arnaud looked up at me and smiled. “Bonjour! How goes it downstairs?”
I switched to French, partly because I like the language, but mostly because I needed to stretch some part of my brain that wasn’t involved in remembering acronyms. “Progress. We have removed some possibilities; they are therefore sure to discover a solution.”
“Good.” She gave a nod and looked down at the sandwiches. “You need nothing special, is that so?”
Special? I froze, panicked. Special as in food that would not trigger my gag reflex? I thought people would have kept the anorexia a secret for me. I use the word, yes. But I also know what it will do to Kenneth’s career if people find—I closed my eyes. Goddammit. I was so tired of crying. It didn’t matter if everyone knew.
“Nothing halal, or kosher?” She slid a tray toward me. “Ham and cheese all right?”
I swallowed all of that unnecessary fear and the salty snot that filled the back of my throat. “That would be charming, thank you.” I looked down to keep my watering eyes from being quite so obvious. “Two and an egg salad, if it does not bother you.”
A sheet of paper, covered with numbers, was under the chairs and I knelt to grab it, grateful to have some pretext so I could wipe my eyes without everyone seeing me weep. Again. And frankly, I did not want anyone to lose their calculations if it would help with anything related to restoring communications.
“Here you are, madame.” She handed over the sandwiches, wrapped in foil. “A pleasure seeing you, as always.”
I juggled the things, finally cradling two of the sandwiches between my cast and my body, tucking Poppy Northcutt’s egg salad into a thigh pocket in my flight suit. I found Eugene talking to an engineer, head bent over a schematic. He nodded when I came up, taking the foil p
ackage when I held it out. He eyed me and then my sandwich, while listening to the engineer. I rolled my eyes at him, and peeled the foil off. Food is fuel … Making eye contact with Eugene, I took a healthy bite of the sandwich.
He smirked at me, bending back to look at the schematic on the table. If he’d still been looking, I would have stuck my tongue out at him. But he’d been right that getting out of that room for a few minutes was helpful. I wished I could get Eugene to take an actual break, but I knew from experience that politicians could only do that behind closed doors.
Across Midtown, the port airlock hissed open and then closed with the distinctive ripple-bang of fifteen catches activating. We used to always keep the airlocks between modules closed, but I’d adapted to having the doors open and the sound made me turn.
A cluster of engineers walked around the curve of the “street” from the port. At their rear, Myrtle Lindholm strode with her CPK bag over her shoulder. She saw Eugene, who was still leaning over the schematic, and pushed forward through her passengers.
I opened my mouth to tell him she was here, but Eugene’s head lifted as if he felt her presence. He slapped the sandwich into my midriff and sprinted toward her. She dropped her bag and ran. They met in the clear space next to Central Park, Eugene’s momentum and mass sweeping Myrtle back a few steps before their bodies in motion came to rest in an embrace.
His head was bent, buried in the side of her neck. Her hands clenched the material of his flight suit. Eugene’s shoulders convulsed once, tensed, and the breath shuddered out of him. He stepped back, hands on her shoulders. Myrtle’s head tilted up to meet his gaze, and her cheeks were wet as she smiled at him. She said something that I was too far away to hear. Still smiling, she reached up to wipe his cheek.
Turning his head, Eugene kissed her hand and I could just see the curve of a smile on his cheek. He gave a sudden headshake and shrug. The man pulled her in again, one hand behind her neck, and dipped her in one of the most passionate kisses I have ever seen. Myrtle’s knee came up and her toes curled down.
The Relentless Moon Page 39
