Tears of Selene

by Bill Patterson

  Lima put down his screwdriver and looked up at Alex. “I remember when I was your age. I knew, just flat out knew, exactly what was wrong and how to fix everything. If only they'd let me at it. I actually didn't know anything. It took very patient teachers who molded me to be the useful guy I am today. Reminds me—I better look up a few when we get back home. All my mentors are downstairs.

  “I taught McCrary how to work a lathe when he first came up.”

  “Sorry,” said Alex. “It's just…” the young man ran down and looked off in the distance, unsure quite what he meant to say.

  “Yeah, I know. Still, it's not going to get the ore got, nor the sand and stuff loaded. Two days until the dark, and Disco's got to be ready to go as soon as the sun sets over Procellarum, another three days. Then you're gonna be flying your ass off, son, and make no mistake, we mean off!”

  “Don't I know. The production schedule has no slack in it at all,” said Alex.

  “Got that control panel cleaned up?

  “Good, let's start with number one engine and I'll show you how to dismount one. Get that LOX can and let's drain the tank.”

  ###

  McCrary looked at the work area inside the Perseus, finally cleared of all debris. It looked huge, but McCrary was used to huge things. He knew it was just barely possible to do what needed to be done.

  “All right, folks. Commander Lee is here to lay down the keel. Everyone ready?” A general shout greeted his words. The inner airlock door opened, and a twenty meter piece of aluminum floated precisely along the central axis of rotation. It cleared the inner door and the crew seized it with a clamp attached firmly to the rear wall of the fore chamber. Another crew hooked the front end of the beam to a block and tackle mounted on a jib boom also secured on the rear wall. Precisely geared winches lowered the beam to within a meter of the Perseus's inner surface.

  “What's with the fancy gearbox?” asked one of the biologists. “Me, I'd run it down on a couple of pulleys. Faster, for sure.”

  “More deadly,” said McCrary. He spoke into the microphone for the benefit of the rest of the work crew. “Question was why were we being so elaborate moving the beam instead of putting it on a couple of pulleys and winching it down. Jeff Gaston warned me against that. Said when some of the structures down here were being lowered, back in the early days when there were just twelve of you awake, Coriolis force set in so that at the end, the walls were travelling pretty darned fast relative to the ground and almost wiped out what was already built.

  “So, we're being careful here. The best solution would be with a form of elevator cabling, where we have a double winch on each end, but we just don't have the cable for that. We might build a chain, but it might be more trouble than it's worth.”

  The beam was nearly at the ground level, so the crew swapped out the wall clamp with a second block and tackle. It swayed gently from residual oscillation.

  McCrary handed the remote winch controller to Commander Lee, who worked the joystick on it. The beam slowly slid a meter above the floor as it moved forward from the aft wall. At a predetermined point, the brakes on the winches applied pressure, and the beam slowed to a halt. Some engineers tugged on guide ropes, dampening movement from a five hundred meter swing.

  “Now begins the last chapter of our long odyssey,” intoned Lee. “We must build our own lifeboats in which we return to the land of our birth. I ask the assembled to call upon the Almighty, in whichever religion you believe, or none, to assist us with this great endeavor. With this grounding of the keel of our first escape craft, I hereby commence Project Lifeboat, and hand control over to Montgomery Scott McCrary.”

  Commander Lee touched the joystick once again, and the beam drifted closer to the ground until it thudded into the surface and the cables holding it went slack. The group around it cheered for a minute, then dissolved into dozens of work parties. Already, the next beam poked out of the inner airlock doorway, seemingly anxious to join its brother on the ground below.

  ###

  Subby was sitting around the cinderblock stove, the flames of the burning sticks completely hidden except for whatever light rebounded off the metal pan holding their dinner.

  “Ingenious,” he said. “The draft enhances the fire so there's little smoke. All you have to do is keep adding sticks once in a while.”

  “I'd prefer another ninety degree bend in the flue,” groused Garth. “Too much firelight for me. Enjoy the flames. As soon as dinner is cooked, I'm putting it out.”

  Subby knew that from other encampments with Garth, but he sighed anyway.

  “I know, you're always cold. If you didn't like being cold, you should have stayed in India.” Garth held up his hand, listening intently. “Thought I heard a drone. Keep quiet for a bit, will ya?”

  Back in the kaserne, Senior Drone Operator Frank Snelling chuckled. Garth had heard a drone, just not the kind he was thinking of. Drones came in all shapes and sizes now, and the platform Snelling was piloting was special—a hydrogen gasbag with Stirling pusher props for propulsion and biodegradable stickyropes for temporary tethering. This allowed the drone to drift silently to a stop just below the canopy to the side of the targets’ encampment. With infrared optics and a telescopic boom mike, Snelling might as well have pulled up a rock and joined the conversation.

  “So, how are you going to get your two?” asked Subby after about ten minutes spent staring into the caged flames.

  “Too chatty,” said Garth disgustedly. “I'll find them, don't you worry. I'll get you to the kaserne, then you're on your own.” He might be on his own in a two by one meter hole before the day is out.

  He's not going to tell me anything, thought Subby. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I can get to the bitch who ruined me, that's all I ask,” he said.

  “You do talk too much, don't you,” growled Garth. “All right, let's go over it one more time so you can at least shut up and go to sleep.”

  Snelling hit the Transcribe button, and sent a message to his Chief.

  ###

  “You know, this seems like a real pain in the ass,” said Freddy Howlett, one of the Mars Expedition sleepers who was thinking of staying on. “There's this huge chamber, open to space, right beyond that airlock. Tank brought all this raw material in and stashed it up there, including a small auto-furnace. Some of us get into spacesuits, go up there, make all these structural shapes out of ingots. They winch them down here, we assemble them, then what? Clearly, they have to get winched back up and somehow get through that airlock door back out into space. Why not just do the whole thing in vacuum?”

  David McLeod, another sleeper, was standing by, ready to grab the guide rope on the descending load when it got close enough. “Safety, you nimrod.”

  “Yeah, that's what they all say. I call BS. I did a turn on the miniforge, pounding out plates. Scared crapless about getting holed by some chunk of Moon debris flying in the back end. You know what? None of us got hit. None of the previous ten shifts got hit, either. Before that, it gets a little hazy, but do you know of anyone getting rushed down the elevator? Me neither.”

  David glanced up once again. “Tricky judging distance in here. It's like the biggest dome ever.” He looked down and rubbed his neck. “Lots of ways to die in vacuum, Freddy, and you know it. Not just debris. Rip the suit on a beam edge. Drop of molten metal on your faceshield. Get a hose snagged on something, and momentum just pulls it right out of your enviro unit. Come on, man, you know this as well as I do.”

  Freddy looked up at the load, then back. “OK, fine. We assemble inside for safety reasons alone. Riddle me this, Mr. Wizard, we're going to build big freaking fuselage sections in here, then winch them up to go back outside. How do we get them outside? The airlock is too damned small around. And the airlock chamber is a little short of twenty meters, isn't it? Especially when the doors swing inward.”

  David snickered as he finally grabbed the rope and took up some slack. “You should go up there sometime.”


  “Hey!” said Horst Nygaard, shift leader and McCrary's second in command on the Moon. “Cut out the jaw-jacking and listen up. Bellman's been calling your name twice already.”

  David's face got a little redder than normal. He worked the guide rope until the bundle of rings, each one over twelve meters across, touched down precisely where it was needed.

  “Thanks for getting me in trouble,” he growled at Freddy. “Now watch, they're gonna ride us for the rest of the shift.”

  Horst knew better. David and Freddy were more attentive than usual. Construction proceeded.

  ###

  Lisa read the report from Security and shook her head. She looked at the UNSOC psychologist and Interpol criminal profiler. The three of them were in her ready room, and this meeting was definitely private.

  “What drives men like this?” she asked aloud. “It's crazy, it's nuts!”

  Sir Rodney Blankenfield, the profiler, looked up from his fingertips, precisely touching its corresponding one on the other hand, as his hands rested on the small conference room table. “The criminal mindset often seems that way to those who were around civilized people their entire lives.”

  Lisa looked at him—in his bespoke gray flannel suit, regimental tie precisely knotted around his throat, and elaborately folded handkerchief peeking a laser-even centimeter beyond the suit's front pocket—and raised her left eyebrow.

  “Oh, don't let the costume fool you,” laughed Blankenfield. “Before I was Sir Rodney, I was Corporal Rodney of The Royal Wessex Yeomanry. I was part of the normalization of Southern Africa.” He shuddered ever so slightly. “It was rather uncivilized in the war zone, ma'am.”

  “I can imagine, Sir Rodney,” she said, watching Blankenship shake his head slowly.

  “Pardon my impertinence, ma'am, but I don't think you can. But that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say, I have been around some rather unpleasant fellows, and this Garth Wakeman could learn a thing or two about obsession and stalking from them.”

  “We know he's obsessed with Ms. Greenfield,” said Lisa. “What can we do to get him to leave her alone?”

  “Nothing,” the UNSOC psychologist said flatly. “Sir Rodney and I have talked about it, and we both agree that Garth will stop at nothing short of the grave to capture and quite possibly kill Ms. Greenfield, and anyone associated with her. All of her close associates are in danger, particularly her companion Mr. Hodges. The likelihood that he will be targeted is high.”

  “Certain,” said Blankenship. “He's lain with her, therefore he must be punished. Wakeman will go to great lengths to kill him, I believe, and in the presence of Ms. Greenfield too, before he kidnaps her to some safe house for whatever end he has in mind for her.”

  Lisa felt her breath catch when she thought of it. Celine, forced to watch John die, then captured and terrorized by this madman.

  “What can we do? Should we evacuate them?”

  “That is, at best, a temporary solution, ma'am,” said the psychologist, whose name she had failed to catch at the beginning of the briefing. “Here, we can surround them with layers of security, whereas on the outside, only anonymity and perhaps an agent or two are all we could do to offer them assistance.”

  “What about the second man?” asked Lisa. “Any idea who he is?”

  “None. It's most puzzling,” said Sir Rodney. “Stalkers almost by definition work alone. Remember that we had audio and low-resolution infrared—and there was no accent or other clue to the second man’s identity.”

  “John wants this to end,” Lisa said darkly. “I cannot officially condone cold-blooded killing, but I certainly understand his impulse. What say you two?”

  The two outsiders looked at each other, shrugged, and Sir Rodney turned back to Lisa.

  “Let him. I can offer some pointers from the war, but there's some indication that Mr. Wakeman has had some kind of experience in such matters as well. Don't forget, he's going to come at you sideways.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Where is he most likely to try to enter the kaserne?”

  Lisa shrugged. “I'm no security person. I would guess the west side. He's coming from Bremerhaven, and the west side is closest.”

  Sir Rodney smiled. “Allow me.” He reached across to the transcript from the drone dirigible, glanced at a top line of numbers, then tapped them into his commpad. He spun it around and set it in front of the Commander.

  “Here's where we are. Here's where the conversation was intercepted. North is straight up. Notice anything?”

  “They're almost exactly east of us!”

  “Yes. We've backwalked his trail a bit. Garth went from the port to a spot almost one hundred and fifty kilometers east of you before he started his run. Why? Because he assumed everyone would concentrate on the west wall.”

  “You're saying we should reinforce the east side?”

  “That's not what I am saying at all. I am saying that he's already shown you that your instincts cannot be trusted in this.”

  “Then how do we fight him and protect our people?”

  Sir Rodney rocked back in his chair, his laugh incongruous in such a somber setting. “You have to think sideways, too.”

  ###

  “Holy crap, it's dark,” said Alex as they carefully wheeled the carrier holding the Lunar Disco out of the garage. “Where's this Earthshine I keep hearing about?”

  “Hang on, let me close the garage doors.” Lima worked the control pad on the exterior wall of the garage. “Always keep a couple of doors between you and the BreathSucker.”

  “Heh heh,” laughed Alex.

  “Not really that funny,” said Lima.

  “Oh, I wasn't laughing at you. You just reminded me of a story. Remember when UNSOC had us all at Mojave, getting ready to fly us up to Chaffee? Well, I snuck into the pilot lounge there at the spaceport. There was this OTV pilot up there. Damn, I can't remember his name. Real hippie. UNSOC uniform on, but a Hawaiian print t-shirt underneath. Hair just over regulation length, but you'd still hesitate to call him on it. Moustache that he really shouldn't have until he grew more whiskers.”

  “I am familiar with the type,” said Lima as he brought the carrier to a careful halt on the old OTV landing pad.

  Alex gave him a hand as he continued the story. “He was talking about ferrying McCrary out to the Moon in his Orbital Transfer Vehicle. Belinda or Bertha. Barb? I forget the name of it.”

  “Betsy,” said Lima, working the boom on the carrier. “Climb up there and hook the center eye, would you? Thanks. Go on.”

  “Oh, you know the guy?”

  “Yeah. Eddie Zanger. Hell of a pilot. One of the two that got the Chaffee folks home.”

  “That's the guy. Anyway, he knew how to spin out a story.”

  “I can see it rubs off,” said Lima.

  “Hey, I'd have been done long ago if you didn't interrupt me all the time.” A short grunt followed. “Disco's hooked, and I'm free. Try it.”

  Lima punched a button, and in absolute silence, the aluminum disk with twenty-four rockers arrayed around it stirred and lifted off the carrier. “OK, let's get this down safely, then you can talk my ear off.”

  They worked the load carefully to the ground. As the Disco paused at the limit of the boom's travel, the front end of the carrier stirred.

  “Quick, Alex, go climb on the front bumper.”

  Alex leapt to the bumper and the carrier settled slowly to the surface once more.

  A short puff of dust signaled the landing of the Disco on the pad. “OK, climb back on the Disco and get that hook off,” said Lima. “Then you can complete your story. So, Zanger's talking everyone's ear off, and pausing at times until someone buys him a beer.”

  “Yeaaah,” drawled Alex. “Sounds like he got you for a few, just like he played me.”

  “Yup. Make it march.”

  “Lots of talk about McCrary, about how silent he is, or ripping Eddie during the flight, but always politely. Like a
supersharp knife, you don't know he got you until you wonder where all the blood is coming from. Best story is when they landed. You've been here before, right?”

  “Nope. This is my first time on the Moon. Plenty of flights up to Chaffee, but never to Collins.”

  “Really? Well, anyway, Eddie shuts down the engines and locks the board. Nothing else to do until the MoonBus gets out to link up to you or the padrats drag a tube out to link up. Eddie starts undogging his helmet and tells McCrary it's safe to do the same.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Lima.

  “Yeah. Well, we know because we've been living with him. Eddie didn't have any warning. McCrary didn't chew him out or anything. Just mentioned a pilot he knew once who used to do what Eddie did—undog his helmet. In his story, McCrary's out with the padrats, helping them safe the craft. About a minute later, one of the OTV's windows pops out of its frame, and the spacecraft explosively decompresses. McCrary said something like 'the pilot landed at his feet. His helmet was still in the cabin. Wasn't pretty.' Eddie rushed to lock down his helmet again. Said he never knew whether McCrary was pulling his leg or not.”

  “OK. Doesn't sound all that funny, though.”

  “No. It was funny when Eddie claimed that he researched every fatality upstairs. Nobody died because a window popped out. He's trying to dun McCrary for a case of beer for pulling his leg.”

  “All right, mildly funny.”

  “Then I remembered one of the comms we got up here in Perseus. It was anonymous, but someone posted it on the board anyway. It said, 'Tell McCrary he still owes me a case of beer for that dead-pilot story.'“

  Lima finally laughed. “Zanger has a perfect memory for two things, alcohol and women. If I were him, I'd upgrade the request for a case of Scotch.”

  “Why?” Alex climbed on the Disco while Lima rode the slow-moving carrier back to the garage.

  “McCrary lives in Scotland. He's coming back a hero. They're going to give him all the Scotch he ever wants, and then some. It would be the perfect joke for McCrary to pay off a made-up debt with something he gets for free, especially to Zanger.”