“But why? We could have security and safety here, outside, surrounded by guards.”
“That's just it. One day, the guards will slip. Or one or more of them could be killed. No, I want this to end. Out here, we also endanger our friends. In WarLand, it's just him and me.”
“And me. Don't forget who saved your ass last time,” said Celine.
“As I recall, I'm the one who shot him,” said John.
“Yes, but that was after I wore him down with a lot of fighting,” she said.
John held up his hands. “Every moment brings Garth closer. I'd like to get us under cover as soon as I can. Are you with me on this?”
“Absolutely,” said Celine. “I'll hold off my righteous anger until we're safe in a hundred and forty year temporary barracks surrounded by booby traps of dubious value and explosives that have been left out in the sun for fifty thousand days.”
John smiled. “Shall we go?”
“Where, home?” asked Celine. “Or to ask Lisa Daniels for the keys to the WarLand fence?”
“What do you think?”
###
Alexander Short's hands were sweating and cramping in a way they never did while playing Lunar Lander. “This is the most insane way to travel ever,” he muttered as he operated the controls of the Tank. It took him most of the ride out to the Moon to familiarize himself with the control board. It was similar to the modified Lunar Lander program he had practiced on while still in the Perseus, but that was playing on a screen. The real thing, though, meant more than pushing buttons on a keyboard or a hand controller. Some of the controls required him to stand, in free-fall conditions, just to reach them, then scramble back to his seat and belt back in.
“Just think, Alex, this is how every Moon trip will be done until the debris problem goes away.” Scott Acevedo was the backup pilot, watching Alex closely. Scott had no natural aptitude for piloting, but he did completely understand the Tank and what it could do.
“Yeah, but I probably won't be around that long,” he said. “Especially if those ground lasers are still running. Are you sure they're shut off? Nukes—this is crazy, you know that?”
“Yup. Here, let me hit the transponder again. See, it comes back with code 10-4. All lasers cold. T minus thirty minutes until optimal blasting.”
Alex nodded. Two nukes, spaced ten minutes apart, taking away most of the Moonward velocity, leaving just the thrust of the Mooncan engines to cut the landing speed down to something humans could survive.
“Remember, you have a third nuke if required,” said Scott. “Watch how much the first two cut the velocity. We don't want to blast too close to the Lunar surface, or we're going to activate a lot of the soil with neutrons.”
“Got it, got it!” said Alex. “I'll get you down, Scott, stop nagging me with stuff I already know.”
“Fair enough. I'll be doing velocity and height callouts, if that's OK with you.”
“Sure. You play Aldrin, I'll be Neil.” Alex's eyes never left the displays.
“When I say we're kicking up dust, it will be for real,” said Scott. “Scott—out.”
Alex sighed as the expedition leader finally stopped talking, three hundred kilometers above the Moon and closing.
###
The impact was about the same as the shove a nuclear blast gave. Duane held his breath, listening for a far-off shriek betraying a cracked seam.
Bubba whacked him on the shoulder. “Come on, git up. We've got work to do. Coffee break's over, everyone back on their heads!”
Bubba opened the locker containing the overgarment portion of his spacesuit. The members of the Lunatic Mission, as they’d christened themselves, wore skintights, boots, gloves, and helmets during the descent, just in case they did have a hull breach upon landing. Adding the overgarment would keep them alive until they could get into the Collins.
Now that they were down, they would need extra protection while on the surface of the Moon. Thus, the overgarment. Seventeen layers of fabrics, electronic skins, coolant surfaces, and other customized parts completed the Overgarment, Unisex, Lunar Conditions, Mark Twenty-Three. It took about a half hour by the checklist to put one on. Bubba wore one so often on the Lunar surface, he had the checklist memorized. People like Duane last wore one out in the Asteroid Belt, and were a little hazy with the procedure.
“How didya ever build the Perseus, if'n you can't even don a suit?” kidded Bubba as he disentangled the hoses for Duane. “There. Yer good to go. Don't forgit yer helmet.”
Duane growled good-naturedly at Bubba, but dogged down his helmet and followed the Southerner to the aft airlock, cycled through, and stood on the Lunar surface.
“Go ahead, get 'er over with,” said Bubba.
“That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” intoned Duane. He lifted his boot and stared at the print left on the surface. He triggered the image processor built into his helmet, taking a picture of his first step on the Moon, like hundreds of astronauts before him.
“Very nice,” said Bubba, his voice curiously thick. “Never gets old. But we've got work to do, and it's not exactly healthy around here.”
“That, I believe,” said Duane. A brilliant white flash lit up the sky. “The hell?”
“Scott musta turned on them lasers again. They just nailed a chunk of debris. There's the A-frame over there. Let's go git it.”
Several hours later, the Tank rested atop the launch platform, Bubba and Duane were back inside, and the platform was slowly returning to the original launch position in Nifty, the new Flinger that Bubba and the rest of the Collins crew built.
“Why so slow?” asked Duane.
Bubba just looked at him.
“You're doing that McCrary schtick,” growled Duane. “OK, either caution or power. But we've been crawling for an hour without a bump, so it can't be caution. Must be power. The lasers are firing, so Thor must be running.”
“It isn't. We shut it down properly before we left,” said Bubba.
“Then the whole base runs on batteries. Hmmm, that's got to be it. Not enough power to do it all.”
“Right. Tank has to get back to the launch pad somehow. Might as well be now, save us a ten kay walk at full sun. Not healthy on the dosimeters.” Bubba looked at an outside monitor. “So we ride, at a pace just faster than a stroll. And some of the lasers aren't firing cuz we're taking their power. Git this done, and git undercover afore a rock thumps us. Git Mighty Thor up and running—and you writing down all the steps in the meantime—then we've got power to burn. That's what we'll do, burn out the debris fields around the Moon. Then we kin go fly out to the Procellarum and git us some KREEP and maybe a load of asteroid too.”
“I don't want to know how.”
“Relax. You and Thor are gonna be spending a whole lot of time together.”
###
Lois “SuperGirl” McClain looked at the line on her commpad and frowned.
“Now, what would Lisa D. want with me?” she mused out loud.
Kiki Mfume looked up from his task. “Talkin’ to me?” he asked.
“No, Bolts. Just wondering why Lisa D. wants me to report to her. Gotta clue?”
Kiki, who had been Lois's friend since their days on the Chaffee together, slapped at the pockets of his coverall. “Fresh out, Super.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “Well, wish me luck. It's for damn sure not a medal, so it's got to be a hum-dinger of an assignment.”
###
“I'm sure you've seen the fence, ma'am,” she said ten minutes later. “Five languages, including lots of icons showing deadly things. 'Stay Out.' I think I'll believe them.”
Lisa shrugged. “I said it was a volunteer assignment. I take it you're not volunteering. That's all right, this isn't going to be on any official record. John? You out there? Come on in.”
John and Celine entered the office of Lisa Daniels, commander of the entire kaserne and de-facto head of what was left of the United Nations Space
Operations Command. “No volunteers.”
John nodded his head. “Just as well, Commander. I don't want anyone other than Celine and myself endangered anyway.”
“Wait,” said Lois. “What's going on here?”
“I'm sure you read the news. Heard the rumors.” Lisa looked at Celine. “Celine's getting an unwelcome visitor.”
Lois's eyes bugged out. “That, oh, what's his name? That guy's in jail in the States! Or, he used to be.” She frowned.
Celine looked at Lois calmly. “My ex-husband, Garth Wakeman, is in Europe, probably no more than three days travel from here, and is coming to kidnap or kill me. He is definitely going to kill John for the crime of loving me.”
“Damn, most of the kaserne is guilty of that!” said Lois hotly. She coughed a second later. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”
“No, Lois, I do know that, and I appreciate it. I know I wasn't the easiest to live with on the Chaffee. I blame that all on Garth.”
John cleared his throat. “I hate to break up this love fest, but I think we're running low on minutes. Lois, Celine and I are going to live in a building in WarLand, and thereby spare the rest of the kaserne any collateral damage from our inevitable confrontation with Garth. The Commander offered us some assistance in clearing out any unknown dangers before we emplace some known dangers of our own.”
“Ah!” Lois looked at Lisa. “Why didn't you say so in the first place? I owe these people so much—of course I'll help them!”
“Thank you, Lois,” said Lisa. “She's all yours.”
“We thank you,” said Celine, her eyes turning moist. Her hands grasped Lois's in friendship, only Celine's were cold as ice and very, very lightly shaking in abject fear.
###
In many ways, Subby was quite like Garth. They both knew how to keep secrets, their own and others, so there was little to say. Hours passed with little more than a grunt or a few words passing between the two of them.
They both knew where the kaserne was. There was no hurry, really. Their quarry wasn’t going anywhere in the near future. Their only danger was in discovery by busybodies among the population. Subby was uneasily aware of the price on his head from a public still outraged by his final acts in New York. In every national-level newscast, the latest impact and casualty figures were announced, followed immediately by the latest sightings of Mr. Venderchanergee. It created an equivalence in the mind of the public, that Subramen was somehow responsible for the continuing rain of stone from the Moon.
Subby realized that killing Lisa wasn’t going to turn off the manhunt, but intensify it. When he was finally cornered, he resolved to kill himself, unless this criminal beside him managed to do him in first.
Garth, for his part, was carefully assessing the country they were walking through. After he killed the black man and rescued his love, he was going to have to dispose of the Indian and boost a car. So many things to do—maybe it would be good to have a few things done first. Like boosting a car. It was going to be hard enough to do that with Celine draped over his shoulder, unconscious. It was something to consider when they got closer to their target. He resolved to keep his eyes open for opportunities.
Germans, Garth had come to realize, were serious about not working on a Sunday. Whole families were out, traipsing around the countryside. Carrying a woman was conspicuous. Better to have her trussed and in the trunk. He needed a car. Garth considered the details of his escape from Germany. The kilometers drifted past, one after the other. Garth was subconsciously increasing the pace as he continued to elaborate his plan. He realized this when he noticed a band of sweat forming on his forehead. He looked over at Subby. The man was practically jogging and looked like he was going to collapse any moment.
Garth spotted a small restaurant off the path. “Break time,” he said quietly, and slackened the pace. His forehead should be dry by the time they arrived. Subby would have to look after himself. “You can wait,” he said. Previous stops along the way showed the wisdom of two single men showing up at different times. There were fewer questions than if they arrived together.
He looked down at his smartphone, a cheap burner phone he had picked up three towns previously. The kaserne was no more than fifty kilometers to the west. Already, he could feel his hands around that black throat, choking the life out of the rapist of his wife.
Danger In The Air
Moonbase Collins, June 4 2087, 0843 GMT
Alex was not thrilled when he looked over the remains of the Lunar Disco.
“What a mess,” he said into his microphone.
“Yeah,” said Lima. “But it's all we have to work from.”
“Tell me again why you didn't put a pogo harness on a Mooncan rocket and use that.”
Lima snorted. “You first. Go ahead. Hug that rocket as it fires. Look at number fifteen while you think about that.”
Alex counted off the rockets from the dead forward position. “Looks fine to me.”
“You counted in the wrong direction. Clockwise this time.”
Fifteen clearly showed the peeled-open results of a clogged exhaust port.
“All right, you got me there,” said Alex. “You say Travis piloted this?”
“I didn't, but that's what Bubba said, and he ought to know. Every damned flight, he said, and some of them were quite entertaining.”
“I don't believe it,” said Alex, examining the craft a little closer. “That guy's a complete wuss on Lunar Lander—I don't see him doing anything but crashing this thing.”
“Use whatcha got,” said Lima. “He was the best they had. They say he brought her down here after Disco got whacked by a chunk of debris. All that shiny stuff? Liquid aluminum from the debris hit. Passengers pissed themselves and passed out. Travis had his entire enviro unit splashed with molten aluminum, stayed at his post, and nursed it down close enough that we could come out and get them. He got inside, and they told him he was down to the last layer on his oxygen hose. Nerves of steel, that guy.”
“Huh,” said Alex. “I better stop snarking on him.”
“I agree,” said Lima. “OK, got the basic layout of the Disco? Let's see if we can get her up on this transport and back to the garage. She needs a lot of work and we don’t have much time to do it.”
###
The startup of Mighty Thor took exactly as long as Bubba thought it would: three days. He was constantly on the radio, encrypted of course, with the Perseus, who relayed selected excerpts down to UNSOC. Although everyone knew Lisa Daniels and trusted her implicitly, they had no faith at all in any ground-based UNSOC staffer.
This was rational, since both expeditions had been written off by UNSOC—Collins when the shock wave from The Event hit them and they were all presumed dead, and the Mars Expedition when UNESCO's Director-General, Mrs. vanDeHoog, ordered JPL to cease communications when they strayed from a mission plan that would have stranded or killed them.
Bubba and Duane knew the real deal: anyone who had been upstairs, or even close to upstairs, could be implicitly trusted. Groundpounders were worthless, unless they were padrats or worked on the hardware. One of the endless time wasters on board the Perseus were the betting pools that tried to figure out when and where Subby and Mrs. vanDeHoog were going to be captured.
Mighty Thor was easily pouring power into the lasers, batteries, and other power hogs throughout the station. Scott didn't bother to activate everything, since they planned to be there only about six weeks. This had its advantages and disadvantages.
“Chow bars. Gahh!” said Bubba. “We had to live on these for about a year until we could get the farm up and running,” he commented to Duane, who was sniffing the brick-like compressed food ration dubiously.
“What are you supposed to do? Bite off a chunk?”
“Better not. McCrary didn't send a dentist along. Me, I dip mine in hot water for about two minutes. Gives me the illusion of it softening up.”
Duane worked off a corner of the ration and popped it in his mo
uth. “Tastes like wood with a covering of musty flavor,” he said. Peering at the wrapper, he laughed. “No word on what the flavor is supposed to be though. Whatever it is, it tastes like it's been left in a damp basement for a little too long. Not moldy, precisely, but musty, the flavor equivalent to the air in an old woman's apartment.”
Bubba nodded. “Soul of a poet, my man. Now, look-a-here. See this spike in the power curve? This is what's happening, and what ya gotta do to cure it.”
###
“Thank heavens for Lunar dust,” said Alex as he pried at a corner of the frozen splash of aluminum that covered the control panel and carefully levered it up. “Look, the whole splash lifts off. The dust formed a layer between the glass and the metal. I was afraid we'd have to replace the glass.”
“With what?” asked Lima. “Nothing to replace it with, unless we fire up The Works, and you know we're not going to do that. The only thing we're doing is running the ore concentrator and collecting the results.”
“Yes,” said Alex testily. “And barrels of silicon dioxide for thermal tiles and find some more carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, and I remember the whole list. Tank's going to be a mobile dump truck by the time this is through, and we're going to be riding on top of the pile.”
“That's the whole idea. In fact, they're relocating all of the crash couches to the control room right now. Rather have me after you, or Scott?”
“No, I'm just fine working here,” said Alex, carefully tapping scraps of aluminum off the control panel with a flat-bladed screwdriver. “It must be pure hell, Scott hounding you to get a chair loosened from the deck.”
“You can bet that he's down on the deck with the rest of them, trying to beat the fastest ones. McCrary hated people who bossed but couldn't do the job. He recommended Scott to the Expedition before he came upstairs. Betcha didn't know that.”
Alex stopped and looked across the aluminum plate at the machinist. “No. I had no idea.”
Tears of Selene Page 7
